Philo of Alexandria: The Complete Works
The Plainspoken Classics - Scriptorium Press (First Edition, 2026)
An original AI translation made directly from the source language.
https://openscriptorium.com


======== On the Creation ========

Of the other lawgivers, some laid down as just whatever their people believed to be so, without ornament or covering, while others, wrapping their ideas in a great deal of padding, befuddled the masses, hiding the truth beneath mythical fictions.
Moses, however, passed beyond both of these approaches—the one as thoughtless, careless, and unphilosophical, the other as false and full of trickery—and made a most beautiful and solemn beginning for his laws, neither stating outright what must be done or its opposite, nor, though it was necessary to first shape the minds of those who would live under the laws, fabricating myths of his own or endorsing those composed by others.
The beginning, as I said, is a most wondrous one: it contains an account of the creation of the world, on the principle that the world is in harmony with the law and the law with the world, and that the man who observes the law is thereby already a citizen of the world, directing his actions toward the will of nature, by which the whole world itself is governed.
As for the beauty of the ideas in this account of creation, no poet and no prose-writer could ever praise it worthily; for it surpasses speech and hearing, being too great and solemn to be fitted to the instruments of any mortal.
Yet one must not therefore fall silent, but for the sake of what is dear to God one must venture to speak beyond one's power—offering nothing of one's own, but a little in place of much, reaching for what the human mind, possessed by love and longing for wisdom, may plausibly attain.
For just as the smallest engraved seal can receive the impressions of colossal magnitudes, so too, perhaps, the surpassing beauties of the creation-account recorded in the laws—beauties that overshadow the souls of those who encounter them with their brilliance—will be indicated by rather modest characters, once that point has first been made known which ought not to be passed over in silence.
Some, admiring the world more than the maker of the world, have declared it uncreated and eternal, and have impiously and falsely charged God with great inactivity—when instead they ought, on the contrary, to have been struck with awe at his powers as maker and father, and not to have glorified the world beyond due measure.
But Moses, who had reached the very summit of philosophy and had been taught the most essential things of nature by oracles, knew that among the things that exist there must necessarily be an active cause and a passive object, and that the active cause is the mind of the universe, utterly pure and unmixed, superior to virtue, superior to knowledge, superior even to the good itself and the beautiful itself,
while the passive object is in itself soulless and motionless, but when set in motion, shaped, and ensouled by the mind, it was transformed into that most perfect work, this world. Those who claim it is uncreated fail to notice that they are thereby cutting away the most beneficial and necessary support of piety—namely, providence.
For reason dictates that the father and maker cares for what has come into being; a father is concerned for his offspring and a craftsman for what he has crafted, and each aims at its preservation, warding off by every device whatever is harmful and injurious, and eager to provide in every way whatever is beneficial and advantageous.
But toward what has not come into being there is no such kinship for one who has not made it. It is an indefensible and useless doctrine that, like establishing anarchy in a city, leaves this world without an overseer, umpire, or judge, though it is by such a one that all things ought rightly to be administered and governed.
But the great Moses, holding that what is uncreated is utterly alien to the visible—for everything perceptible by sense is in a state of coming-to-be and change, never remaining the same—assigned eternity to the invisible and intelligible as its kin and relative, while to the perceptible he gave the fitting name of ‘becoming.’ Since, then, this world is visible and perceptible, it must necessarily also be a thing that has come into being; hence it was not beside the point, but with the utmost solemnity, that he set down its creation as an act of theology.
He says the world was made in six days, not because the maker had need of a length of time—for it is likely that God does everything at once, not merely commanding but also thinking—but because the things coming into being needed order. Number is proper to order, and among numbers, by the laws of nature, six is the most generative; for it is the first perfect number after the unit, equal to its own parts and completed out of them—half of it being three, a third of it two, a sixth of it one—and it is, so to speak, by nature both male and female, and is fitted together out of the power of each: for among numbers the odd is male, the even female; three is the origin of odd numbers, two of even, and the power of both together is six.
For it was fitting that the world, being the most perfect of things that have come into being, should be established according to the perfect number six, while itself containing, in anticipation of the generations to come through pairing, the shape of the first mixed number, even-odd, comprising both the form of the sowing male and that of the female who receives the seed.
To each of the days he assigned some of the portions of the whole, except the first, which he does not even call ‘first,’ so that it should not be counted together with the others, but names it by a name that hits the mark exactly, discerning and applying to it the nature and title proper to the unit. One must say what can be said of what it contains, since to say everything is impossible; for it contains, distinctly, the intelligible world, as the account concerning it shows.
For God, knowing in advance—since he is God—that a beautiful copy could never come to be apart from a beautiful model, and that nothing perceptible by sense could be free of fault unless it were modeled on an archetypal and intelligible form, when he willed to fashion this visible world, first shaped the intelligible world, so that, using an incorporeal and most godlike model, he might produce the corporeal world, a younger likeness of an older one, destined to contain as many perceptible kinds as there are intelligible kinds in that other.
But to say or even to suppose that the world composed of the forms exists in some place is not permissible; how it is composed, we shall know if we follow the guidance of some image drawn from our own experience. Whenever a city is founded through the great ambition of a king or some ruler laying claim to sole authority, and one whose mind, being splendid, further adorns his good fortune, sometimes a man trained in architecture comes forward, and having observed the favorable climate and advantageous position of the site, first sketches out in himself nearly all the parts of the city that is to be completed—temples, gymnasiums, town halls, marketplaces, harbors, shipyards, streets, the construction of walls, the foundations of houses and of other public buildings;
then, having received the impressions of each of these in his own soul as though in wax, he carries about the image of an intelligible city, and, stirring up its images by his innate memory and stamping its features on himself yet more deeply, like a good craftsman he begins, with his eye fixed on the model, to construct the city of stone and wood, making the corporeal substances resemble each of the incorporeal forms.
One must think something similar about God: when he resolved to found the great city, he first conceived its forms, out of which he composed the intelligible world, and then, using that as a model, completed the perceptible world as well.
Just as, then, the city sketched out beforehand in the mind of the architect had no place outside him but was stamped upon the soul of the craftsman, in the same way the world composed of the forms could have no other place than the divine Word that ordered these things; for what other place could there be for his powers, one adequate to receive and contain—I do not say all of them—but even a single one of them in its unmixed purity?
And the power that makes the world has as its source the good, understood in its true sense. For if one wished to search out the cause for the sake of which this universe was made, I think one would not miss the mark in saying, as one of the ancients also said, that the father and maker is good; and it was on this account that, owing to his own most excellent nature, he did not begrudge a share of it to substance, which of itself possessed nothing good, but was capable of becoming all things.
For of itself it was without order, without quality, without soul, without likeness, full of discord and dissonance; but it was capable of receiving a turn and a change toward the opposite and the best—order, quality, ensoulment, likeness, sameness, harmony, concord, everything belonging to the superior form.
Having no helper—for who else was there?—but using himself alone, God knew that he must do good to a nature that, without a divine gift, could of itself obtain no good thing, bestowing upon it unstinting and abundant favors. Yet he does his good not in proportion to the greatness of his own graces—for these are boundless and without limit—but in proportion to the capacities of those who receive the benefit; for it is not the case that, as God is naturally disposed to do good, so what comes to be is disposed to receive that good well, since his powers surpass measure, while the recipient, being too weak to receive their greatness, would have failed altogether, had he not measured out and weighed what falls fittingly to each.
If one wished to use more unadorned language, one would say nothing other than that the intelligible world is the Word of God already engaged in making the world; for the intelligible city, too, is nothing other than the architect's reasoning, already engaged in resolving to found the city.
This doctrine is Moses's, not mine; for when he records the creation of man later on, he expressly acknowledges that man was formed according to the image of God (Gen. 1:27). And if the part is an image of an image, then clearly the whole form as well—this entire perceptible world, since it is greater than the human one—is a copy of the divine image; and it is clear that the archetypal seal, which we say is the intelligible world, would itself be the Word of God.
He says that ‘in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,’ taking ‘beginning’ not, as some suppose, in a temporal sense; for there was no time before the cosmos, but time came into being either together with it or after it. Since time is an interval measured by the motion of the cosmos, and motion cannot exist prior to the thing moved, but must necessarily arise either after it or together with it, it follows that time too must be either of the same age as the cosmos or younger than it; to venture to declare it older is unphilosophical.
But if ‘beginning’ is not here taken in the temporal sense, it is likely that what is meant is numerical, so that ‘in the beginning he made’ is equivalent to ‘he made the heaven first’; for it is reasonable that the heaven, being in truth the finest of the things that have come to be, and formed from the purest substance, should have come into existence first, because it was destined to be a most holy dwelling place for gods visible and perceptible to the senses.
For even if the Maker made all things at once, the things that came to be beautifully nonetheless possessed order; for nothing beautiful exists in disorder. Order is a sequence and connection of things that come before and after — if not in their finished products, then at least in the conceptions of their designer; for only in this way were they destined to be made precise, unwandering, and unconfused.
First, then, the Maker made heaven incorporeal, and earth invisible, and the form of air and of void; of these he named the one darkness, since air is black by nature, and the other the deep, for the void is exceedingly deep and gaping; then the incorporeal substance of water and of breath, and above all of a seventh thing, light, which again was incorporeal and the intelligible model of the sun and of all the light-bearing stars that were to take shape throughout the heaven.
Breath and light were held worthy of a special privilege: the one he named ‘of God,’ because breath is most full of life, and God is the cause of life; the other he calls light because it is exceedingly beautiful (Gen. 1:4); for the intelligible light is as much brighter and more radiant than the visible as, I suppose, the sun is than darkness, day than night, and mind — the eye of the whole soul — than the eyes of the body.
That invisible and intelligible light came to be as the image of the divine Logos who made its coming-into-being known; and it is a supracelestial star, the source of the stars perceived by the senses — one would not be wrong to call it universal radiance — from which sun and moon and the other planets and fixed stars draw, each according to its own capacity, the light that suits it, once that unmixed and pure radiance begins to dim as it changes from the intelligible to the sensible.
for nothing among the things perceived by sense is pure and unmixed. And it is well said too that ‘darkness was over the deep’ (Gen. 1:2); for in a sense air lies above the void, since, spreading over the whole gaping, desolate, and empty region, it has filled it, as far as it reaches down to us from the regions beneath the moon.
After the intelligible light shone forth — which came into being before the sun — the opposing darkness withdrew, as God, who well knew the contrarieties and the natural strife between them, walled them off and set them apart from one another. So that they might not forever clash and contend, with war instead of peace bringing disorder into the cosmos, he not only separated light and darkness, but set boundaries in the spaces between them, by which he held back each of the extremes; for had they bordered one another, they would have produced confusion, girding themselves for a struggle over supremacy in unceasing and manifold rivalry, unless boundaries fixed between them had parted and dissolved their mutual assault.
These boundaries are evening and morning: of these, the one heralds in advance the sun that is about to rise, gently holding back the darkness; the other follows upon the sun once it has set, mildly receiving the sudden onrush of darkness. And these — I mean morning and evening — must be reckoned among the incorporeal and intelligible things; for nothing perceptible to sense belongs among them at all, but all are forms and measures and patterns and seals, incorporeal things for the generation of other, corporeal things.
Since light had come to be, and darkness had withdrawn and given way, and boundaries had been fixed in the intervening spaces — evening and morning — the necessary measure of time was straightway completed, which the Maker called day; and not the first day, but ‘one,’ a name given because of the singularity of the intelligible cosmos, which has a nature that is one alone.
The incorporeal cosmos, then, already had its limit, established in the divine Logos; and the sensible cosmos was brought to completion after its pattern. And first among its parts — the one that is also the finest of all — the Craftsman made the heaven, which he fittingly named the firmament, since it is corporeal; for body is by nature solid, being extended in three dimensions — and what other notion is there of a solid body than that which is extended in every direction? Rightly, then, setting the sensible and bodily in contrast to the intelligible and incorporeal, he called this one the firmament.
Then straightaway he called it heaven, aptly and quite precisely, either because it is the boundary of all things, or because it was the first of visible things to come into being. And he names the day that follows its creation the second day, assigning the whole span and measure of a day to heaven, because of the honor and dignity it holds among perceptible things.
After this, since the whole mass of water had been poured out over the entire earth and had penetrated all its parts — like a sponge that has soaked up moisture — so that there were marshes and deep mud, both elements having been mingled and fused together into one indistinct and formless mass, God ordained that the water — as much of it as was salty and would be a cause of barrenness for crops and trees — should be gathered together, flowing in from the porous places of the whole earth, and that dry land should appear, with the sweet moisture left behind to sustain it (for the sweet moisture, in due measure, is a kind of glue holding apart things together), so that the earth, once dried, should not become altogether barren and sterile, and so that, like a mother, it might provide its offspring not only with one kind of nourishment, food, but with both food and drink; for this reason he made it overflow with veins like breasts, which, once opened, were to pour forth rivers and springs.
No less did he extend the hidden, moist channels throughout the whole fertile and deep-soiled land, for the most abundant yield of fruits. Having arranged these things, he gave them names, calling the dry land ‘earth,’
and the water that had been separated out ‘sea.’ Then he begins to set the earth in order; for he commands it to put forth green growth and to bear grain, sending up every kind of plant, and well-grassed plains, and everything that was to be fodder for cattle and food for human beings. Moreover he made every kind of tree spring up as well, leaving out none of the wild or so-called cultivated timber. And all were laden with fruit at once, from their very first generation, in a manner the opposite of the one now established.
For now, the things that come to be come to be in succession, over different periods of time, not all at once in a single moment; for who does not know that first there is sowing and planting, and second the growth of what has been sown and planted — its roots stretching downward, like foundations, and its stalks shooting upward toward height? Then buds and the sprouting of leaves, and after all this the bearing of fruit; and again the fruit is not perfect at once, but undergoes all manner of change, both in the quantity of its size and in the qualities of its manifold forms; for the fruit is born resembling indivisible specks, scarcely visible because of their smallness — which one would not be wrong to call the first things perceptible to sense; then afterward, little by little, from the nourishment channeled in to water the tree, and from the good temper of the winds, which are kindled and nursed by breezes both cool and gentle, it grows together toward its fullest bulk; and along with its size it changes its qualities too, as though adorned with different colors by the art of painting.
But at the first generation of all things, as I said, God brought forth from the earth the whole substance of plants, complete, bearing fruit not immature but ripe, for the most immediate and unhesitating use and enjoyment of the animals that were about to come into being.
He then commands the earth to bring these forth; and the earth, as though she had long been pregnant and in labor, brings forth all the kinds of crops, all the kinds of trees, and countless forms of fruit besides. But the fruits were not only food for animals; they were also provisions for the perpetual generation of their own kind, containing seminal substances in which the principles of all things are hidden and unseen, becoming visible and manifest in the cycles of the seasons.
For God wished nature to run a long course, making the various kinds immortal and giving them a share in eternity; for this reason he led beginning toward end and hastened it there, and made end curve back toward beginning; for fruit comes from plants, as end from beginning, and from the fruit — which contains within itself the seed — comes the plant again, as beginning from end.
On the fourth day, after the earth, he adorned and set the heaven in order — not because he ranked it after the earth in time, giving the lesser nature priority and deeming the greater and more divine worthy only of second place, but for the clearest demonstration of the power of his rule. For, foreseeing what the minds of human beings not yet born would be like — conjecturers of what seems likely and plausible, among whom there is much that is reasonable but not the unadulterated truth — and that they would trust what appears to the senses more than they trust God, admiring sophistry above wisdom, and that, observing in turn the cycles of the sun and moon, through which come summers and winters and the turnings of spring and autumn, they would suppose that the courses of the stars in heaven were the causes of everything that grows and comes to be on the earth each year — so that none should dare, out of shameless audacity or excessive ignorance, to attribute the primary causes to anything created — let them run back, he says,
in their thoughts to the first generation of all things, when, before sun and moon existed, the earth bore plants of every kind and fruits of every kind; and having beheld this in their minds, let them hope that it will bear again in the same way at the Father's command, whenever it pleases him, without needing the offspring of heaven, to which he gave powers, but not powers of their own authority; for like a charioteer holding the reins, or a helmsman gripping the rudder, he guides all things wherever he wishes, according to law and justice, needing the help of nothing else; for all things are possible to God.
This is the reason why the earth put forth its green growth and bore crops earlier. Heaven, in turn, was set in order on the fourth day, in the perfect number, the tetrad, which one would not be wrong to call the source and spring of the decad, the number of complete perfection; for what the decad is in actuality, the tetrad is, as it seems, in potential. At any rate, if the numbers from one to four are added together in sequence, they generate the decad, which is the boundary of the infinity of numbers, around which, as around a turning-post, they wheel and curve back.
The tetrad also contains the ratios of the musical concords — the fourth, the fifth, the octave, and further the double octave — from which the most perfect system is produced; the ratio of the fourth is 4:3, of the fifth 3:2, of the octave 2:1, and of the double octave 4:1. The tetrad embraces all of these: the ratio of 4:3 in the relation of four to three, that of 3:2 in three to two, that of 2:1 in two to one or four to two, and that of 4:1 in four to
one. There is also another power of the tetrad, most wonderful to speak of and to conceive: it is the first number to display the nature of the solid, the numbers before it being assigned to incorporeal things; for according to the unit is arranged what in geometry is called the point, and according to the two, the line, since by the flowing of a unit comes the dyad, and by the flowing of a point the line is formed; and the line is length without breadth; but once breadth is added, there comes into being the surface, which is assigned to the triad; and for the surface to attain the nature of the solid it lacks only depth, which, added to the triad, becomes the tetrad. Hence this number has turned out to be a great matter, for it has led us from incorporeal and intelligible substance to the conception of a body extended in three dimensions, the body that is by nature the first object of sense.
One who does not grasp what is meant will understand it from a very familiar game. Those who play at knucklebones are accustomed, having first set out three nuts on a flat surface, to place one more on top, producing a pyramid-shaped figure: the triangle set out flat stands at three, but the one placed on top produces four in number, and in shape a pyramid — now already a solid body.
In addition to this, one must not fail to notice that four is the first number that is square, equal multiplied by equal, the measure of justice and equality, and that it alone among numbers is naturally generated from the same terms both by addition and by multiplication: by addition from two and two, and by multiplication again from twice two — displaying a most beautiful kind of concord that belongs to no other number. Six, for instance, though composed by addition of two threes, is no longer produced when those threes are multiplied together, but a different number results, nine.
The four employs many other powers as well, which must be shown more precisely in a separate treatise devoted to it. But it is enough to add this: that it also became the starting point for the coming-to-be of the whole heaven and cosmos. For the four elements out of which this universe was fashioned flowed, as it were, from the fountain of the four found among numbers; and further, the four seasons of the year, the causes of the generation of animals and plants, arise as the year is divided fourfold into winter, spring, summer, and autumn.
Since the number just mentioned was deemed worthy of so great a privilege in nature, it was necessary that the Maker should adorn the heaven with a most beautiful and most godlike order of four — the light-bearing stars. And knowing that of all things that exist, light is the best, he made it the instrument of the best of the senses, sight. For what mind is in the soul, that the eye is in the body: each sees, the one intelligible things, the other perceptible things; and mind needs knowledge in order to recognize incorporeal things, while the eye needs light in order to apprehend bodies — light, which has become the cause of many other goods for human beings, and above all of the greatest good, philosophy.
For sight, escorted upward by light, and beholding the nature of the stars and their harmonious motion, and the well-ordered revolutions of the fixed stars and the planets — some traveling round in the same way and to the same effect, others moving unlike one another and in contrary directions through their double courses — and the concordant dances of them all, arranged according to the laws of perfect music, afforded the soul an inexpressible delight and pleasure. And the soul, feasting on sights that followed one upon another — for from some came others — had an insatiable hunger for contemplation. Then, as it is wont to do, it inquired further: what is the essence of these visible things, and are they by nature ungenerated, or did they take a beginning of generation, and what is the manner of their motion, and what are the causes by which each thing is governed? And out of this inquiry arose the family of philosophy, than which no more perfect good has come into human life.
Looking, then, toward that idea of intelligible light which has been spoken of as belonging to the incorporeal cosmos, he fashioned the perceptible stars, divine and most beautiful images, and set them, as in a most pure sanctuary of bodily substance, in the heaven, for many purposes: one, to give light; another, to serve as signs; then, to mark the seasons of the year; and above all, to measure days, months, and years — which indeed became measures of time and gave rise to the nature of number.
What use and benefit each of the things mentioned provides is evident from plain observation; but for a more precise grasp it is perhaps not out of place to track down the truth by reasoning as well. Since the whole of time is divided into two portions, day and night, the Father gave dominion over the day to the sun, as to a great king, and dominion over the night to the moon and the multitude of the other stars.
The magnitude of the sun's power and sovereignty has its clearest proof in what has just been said: being one and alone, by itself, it has been allotted half of the whole of time, the day, while all the others, together with the moon, share the other half, called night. And when the sun rises, the appearances of all those many stars are not merely dimmed but altogether vanish in the outpouring of its radiance, whereas when it sets, they begin all together to display their own distinct qualities.
They came into being, as he himself said, not only to send forth light upon the earth, but also to show forth in advance signs of things to come; for by their risings or their settings, their eclipses, their reappearances, their disappearances, or the other variations in their motions, human beings conjecture what is going to happen — abundance or scarcity of crops, the births and deaths of animals, clear skies and cloud, calm and violent winds, floods and low water of rivers, stillness and turbulence of the sea, and changes of the seasons of the year, whether summer turns wintry, or winter blazes like summer, or spring turns autumnal, or autumn turns spring-like.
Indeed, some have already foretold, by conjecture drawn from the motions in the heaven, convulsions and earthquakes of the earth, and countless other unusual events, so that it is most truly said that the stars "came to be for signs," and further also "for seasons" (Gen. 1:14). By "seasons" he understood the seasons of the year, and quite reasonably; for what notion could there be of a fitting season other than a time of successful accomplishment? And the seasons, bringing all things to fulfillment, accomplish them successfully — sowings and plantings of crops, and the births and growth of animals.
They came into being also for the measuring of times; for by the fixed periods of the sun, the moon, and the other stars, days and months and years were constituted. And at once the most useful thing, the nature of number, was displayed, time having brought it to light: for from a single day comes the number one, from two days the number two, from three the number three, from a month the number thirty, from a year the number equal to the days made up of twelve months, and from infinite time the infinite number.
To so many, and such necessary, benefits do the natures and motions of the heavenly bodies extend. And to how many others, I would say, of which we are unaware — for not everything is known to the race of mortals — but which contribute to the preservation of the whole, benefits that come to pass, by the fixed ordinances and laws which God has established as immovable throughout the universe, altogether and in every way.
Now that earth and heaven had been adorned with their fitting arrangements — the earth with the number three, the heaven, as was said, with the number four — he set about shaping the mortal kinds of living beings, beginning with the creatures of the water on the fifth day, since he considered nothing so akin to one thing as the number five is to living creatures. For ensouled beings differ from soulless things in nothing so much as in sensation; and sensation is divided fivefold: into sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. To each of these the Maker assigned its own proper materials and its own criterion, by which it would judge whatever fell under it: colors to sight, sounds to hearing, flavors to taste, scents to smell, and softness and hardness, heat and cold, smoothness and roughness to touch.
So he commanded that every kind of fish and sea-creature come into being, differing from place to place both in size and in qualities; for different creatures belong to different seas, though sometimes the same creatures occur in more than one. Yet not everything was formed everywhere, and this too was surely fitting: for some creatures delight in shallow water that is not very deep, others in coves and harbors, being unable either to crawl onto land or to swim far from it, while others live in the middle of the open, deep sea and avoid projecting headlands, islands, or rocks; and some thrive in calm and stillness, others in surf and heavy waves — for, exercised by continual buffeting and forcing their way against violence, they grow stronger and more vigorous. At once, too, he fashioned the kinds of winged creatures as siblings, so to speak, of the creatures of the water — for both swim — leaving no form of the creatures of the air incomplete.
Now that the fitting kinds of living creatures had received water and air as their proper portion, so to speak, he called upon the earth again for the generation of the part still remaining — for after the plants, the land animals still remained — and he says: "Let the earth bring forth cattle and wild beasts and creeping things according to each kind" (Gen. 1:24). And the earth at once brought forth what was commanded, creatures differing in structure, in strength, and in their inherent powers to harm or to benefit.
After all these, he made man; in what manner I shall say a little later, but first I must point out this: that he employed a most beautiful sequence of order in the manner in which one would describe the generation of living things. For of soul, the most sluggish and least fully formed kind has been allotted to the family of fish, while the most exact and in every way best kind belongs to the family of human beings, and the kind that lies between the two belongs to the family of land animals and birds; for this kind has more sensation than that of fish, but less vividness than that of human beings.
For this reason he generated fish first among ensouled beings, since they partake more of bodily than of psychic substance, being in a certain sense living and not living, moving yet soulless, with the soul-like element sown into them only for the bare preservation of their bodies — just as they say salt is sprinkled on meat, so that it may not easily decay. After the fish came the winged and land creatures, for these already have more sensation and, by their very structure, display more clearly the distinctive marks of ensoulment. And after all these, as has been said, came man, to whom he granted a mind set apart, a soul of the soul, as it were, like the pupil within the eye; for indeed those who investigate the natures of things most precisely say that the pupil is the eye of the eye.
At that time, then, all things came into being together. And though they all came into being at once, an order was necessarily traced out in the account, because of the generation that would afterward proceed from one thing to another. And in the case of things that come to be individually, this is the order: nature begins from what is most inferior and ends at what is best of all. What this is must now be shown. The seed of animals happens to be the beginning of their generation; and this, as it is, is seen to be most inferior, resembling foam. But when it is deposited in the womb and takes hold, it at once receives motion and turns into nature; and nature is better than seed, since among things generated, motion is better than rest. And nature, like a craftsman, or, to speak more properly, like an unimpeachable art, molds the living creature, distributing the moist substance to the limbs and parts of the body, and the pneumatic substance to the powers of the soul, the nutritive and the perceptive; for the power of reasoning must for now be set aside, on account of those who claim that it enters from outside, being divine and eternal.
Nature, then, began from a lowly seed and ended at what is most precious — the formation of a living creature, and of man. This very same thing occurred also in the generation of the universe; for when the Maker resolved to fashion living creatures, those that came first in order were in a way more inferior — the fish; those that came last were the best — human beings; and the rest were between the two extremes, better than the former but inferior to the latter — land animals and birds.
After all the rest, then, as has been said, he says that man came to be "according to the image of God and according to likeness" (Gen. 1:26); for nothing born of the earth is more like God than man. Let no one imagine the likeness according to the form of the body; for God is not human in shape, nor is the human body godlike. Rather, the "image" is spoken of with reference to the mind, the ruling faculty of the soul; for the mind in each individual has been modeled after that one mind of the universe as an archetype, being in a certain sense a god to the one who carries and bears it as an image within. For the relation the great Ruler has to the whole cosmos, this, it seems, the human mind has within the human being; for it is itself invisible while seeing all things, and its own essence is undisclosed even as it apprehends the essence of other things; and by arts and sciences it cuts many-branched roads and travels every highway through land and sea, searching out what belongs to each nature.
And again, taking wing and surveying the air and its affections, it is borne higher still, toward the aether and the revolutions of heaven, whirled around together with the dances of the planets and the fixed stars according to the laws of perfect music, following the guidance of the love of wisdom; and having risen above the whole of perceptible substance, it there reaches out for the intelligible.
And having seen there the patterns and forms of the perceptible things it had beheld here, surpassing in beauty, it is seized — possessed by a sober intoxication, like those who rave in Corybantic frenzy — filled with another longing, a nobler desire, by which, escorted to the very summit of the intelligible realm, it seems to be journeying to the great King himself. And as it strains to see him, pure and unmixed rays of concentrated light pour forth like a torrent, so that the eye of the understanding, dazzled by the flashing brightness, grows dizzy. But since not every image is like its archetype pattern — many being unlike — he added a further mark by saying, alongside "according to image," also "according to likeness," to show plainly the distinct impression of an exact stamp.
One might reasonably raise the question why it is that he attributes the generation of man alone not to a single Maker, as with everything else, but, as it were, to several; for he introduces the Father of the universe saying these words: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." Could he, I might ask, have need of anyone at all, he to whom all things are subject? Or is it that when he made heaven and earth and sea he needed no one to assist him, yet when it came to man, so small and so perishable a creature, he was unable by himself alone, without the cooperation of others, to fashion him? The truest cause it is necessary that God alone should know; but the one that seems, by reasonable conjecture, plausible and probable, must not be concealed. It is this.
Of the things that exist, some share neither in virtue nor in vice — as plants and irrational animals: the former because they are soulless and governed by a nature without imagination, the latter because they have been cut off from mind and reason; for vice and virtue require, as their dwelling place, mind and reason, in which they are naturally suited to reside. Others, again, partake only of virtue, being wholly without any share in vice — as the stars; for these are said to be living beings, and living beings possessed of mind, or rather, each one is mind itself, wholly and entirely excellent through and through, and incapable of receiving any evil. Others, in turn, are of a mixed nature, as is man, who admits of opposites — wisdom and folly, temperance and license, courage and cowardice, justice and injustice, and, to put it briefly, both goods and evils, both what is noble and what is base, both virtue and vice.
For God, the Father of all, it was most fitting to produce what is excellent by himself alone, on account of his kinship with it; and what is indifferent was not foreign to him either, since these things too have no share in the vice that is hostile to him; but what is mixed was in one respect his own and in another not his own — his own because of the better element mingled within it, not his own because of the contrary and inferior element.
For this reason, it is only in the case of the generation of man that he says God said, "Let us make," which implies the taking on of others as, so to speak, fellow workers, so that when man succeeds through blameless counsels and deeds, God, the Ruler of all, may be credited with it, but when he fails, others among his subordinates may bear the blame; for it was necessary that the Father should be blameless of evil in the case of his offspring — and evil is vice, and the activities that follow vice.
Having spoken so aptly of the class "man," Moses then distinguished its forms, saying that male and female were fashioned, though the individuals had not yet taken their particular shapes, since the forms nearest to it are contained within the class, and appear there as in a mirror to those with the power to see keenly.
One might ask the reason why man is last in the creation of the world. Those who have studied the laws more deeply, and who examine every point in them with the utmost precision, say that God, having given man a share of his own kinship through reason—the best of gifts—did not begrudge him the rest either, but prepared beforehand everything in the world for him as for the creature most closely akin and dearest to him, wishing that when he came into being he should lack nothing needed for living, and for living well. Of these needs, the one is supplied by the abundant provision of things for enjoyment, the other by the contemplation of the heavens, from which the mind, once struck, conceived love and longing for the knowledge of these things; from this the family of philosophy sprang up, through which man, mortal though he is, is made immortal.
Just as hosts do not summon guests to dinner until everything for the feast has been made ready, and those who stage athletic contests and theatrical performances, before gathering the spectators into the theaters and stadiums, prepare a wealth of competitors, spectacles, and things to hear—in the same way the ruler of all things, like some judge of games and host, being about to summon man to a banquet and a spectacle, made ready beforehand everything belonging to each kind, so that on entering the world he might at once find both a banquet and a most sacred theater: the one full of everything that earth and rivers and sea and air produce for use and enjoyment, the other full of every kind of spectacle, whose substances are most astonishing, whose qualities are most astonishing, and whose motions and dances, arranged in fitting order, numerical proportion, and harmony of cycles, are most wonderful of all. In all of these one would not be wrong to say there is the archetypal, true, and paradigmatic music, from which men afterward, copying the images in their own arts, handed down to life the most necessary and beneficial of skills.
This, then, is the first reason why man appears to have come into being after everything else; a second must also be mentioned, one not beside the point. At the very moment of his first birth man found ready all the provisions for living, as a lesson for those who would come after—nature all but crying aloud that, by imitating the founder of the race, they would live free from toil and hardship, in abundance of necessities. And this will come to pass, provided the irrational pleasures of the soul do not gain mastery by fortifying gluttony and lust, provided the desires for reputation or money or power do not seize the mastery of life, provided griefs do not contract and bend the mind, provided fear, that evil counselor, does not check the impulses toward noble deeds, and provided folly and cowardice and injustice and the countless multitude of other vices do not attack.
As it is, now that all these have gained the upper hand, and men have poured themselves out recklessly into their passions and into desires so uncontrolled and culpable that it is not even lawful to name them, a fitting justice comes upon them, avenger of impious practices; and this justice is the difficulty of obtaining necessities. For men scarcely, by cutting open the plain, channeling the streams of springs and rivers, sowing and planting, and receiving without end, day and night, the toil of farmers, gather in throughout the year the things needed for life—and even these are sometimes meager and not at all sufficient, damaged by many causes: either successive downpours have swept them away, or the weight of hail falling all at once has broken them down, or snow has frozen them through, or the violence of winds has torn them up by the very roots.
For water and air often work revolution against the fruitfulness of crops. But if, through self-control, the immoderate impulses of the passions were eased, and through justice the eager rivalries directed toward wrongdoing, and—to put it concisely—if the vices and their endless activities gave way to the virtues and the activities that accord with virtue, then, the war within the soul abolished—which is in truth the most grievous and heaviest of all wars—and peace prevailing, quietly and gently establishing good order among the powers within us, there would be hope that God, being a lover of virtue and of nobility, and moreover a lover of humankind, would furnish good things of his own accord, ready at hand, to the race. For it is clear that it is easier to lavish, without the art of farming, the produce that comes from things already existing than to bring into being things that do not exist.
Let this, then, be said as the second reason; the third is as follows. God, intending to fit together a beginning and an end for the things that had come to be, as things necessary and most dear to him, made heaven the beginning and man the end—the one the most perfect of imperishable things perceptible to sense, the other the best of things earthborn and perishable: man being, if the truth must be told, a small heaven, bearing within himself, like images set up in a temple, many star-like natures, in the arts and sciences and the celebrated doctrines belonging to each virtue. For since the perishable and the imperishable are by nature opposites, he assigned to beginning and to end the most beautiful thing of each kind: to the beginning, heaven, as has been said, and to the end, man.
In addition to all this, the following too is said, to give a necessary reason. It was needful that man, of all things that had come to be, should be born last, so that, appearing last and suddenly before the other living creatures, he might strike them with astonishment. For it was destined that they, upon seeing him, would at once be awestruck and do him reverence as one who was by nature their ruler and master. And so, once they had seen him, all of them in every case grew tame, and creatures whose natures were most savage at the very first sight became most gentle, displaying their untamed fury against one another but growing tame toward man alone.
For this reason, the Father, having begotten him a creature by nature fit to rule, established him as king of all things under the moon—of creatures of land, water, and air—not by deed only but also by the appointment conferred through reason. For all the mortal creatures in the three elements, earth, water, and air, he subjected to him, excepting only the things in heaven, which had received a more divine portion. The clearest proof of this rule is what we observe: countless multitudes of livestock are sometimes led by a single ordinary man, who bears no weapon and carries neither iron nor any instrument of defense, but has only a leather garment for covering and a staff, to signal with and to lean on if he grows weary on his journeys.
Thus the shepherd, the goatherd, and the cowherd lead the teeming flocks of sheep, goats, and cattle—men who are not even physically strong or vigorous, not such as to strike those who see them with amazement at their bodily condition. And these creatures, with all their might and strength—well-armed as they are, for they possess the natural equipment with which they defend themselves—cower before him like slaves before a master, and do what they are commanded. Bulls are yoked to the plow and cut deep furrows through the earth all day, and sometimes through the night as well, drawing out a long course under the oversight of some farmer. Rams, heavy with thick fleeces, thickly wooled, stand quietly when bidden by the shepherd in the season of spring, or lie down calmly, and allow themselves to be shorn of their wool, accustomed, like cities paying their yearly tribute, to render it to the king appointed by nature.
And indeed the most spirited of creatures, the horse, is easily led once bridled, so that it does not rear up and run wild; and it hollows its back well to receive its rider comfortably, and lifting him aloft runs at the utmost speed, eager to arrive wherever that man is bent on going, and to carry him there—while the rider, seated at ease, without toil, in great quiet, completes the course by another's body and
feet. One could mention many other examples, if one wished to prolong the demonstration that nothing has been exempted from man's rule as a free agent; but for the sake of illustration what has been said suffices. Yet it must not be overlooked that man has not been diminished in rank because he came into being last in the order of creation.
Charioteers and pilots are witnesses to this. Charioteers, though positioned behind the draft animals and found stationed at their rear, drive them wherever they wish, holding the reins, now giving them free rein for a swift run, now checking them back if they should run with more speed than is needed. Pilots, in turn, having taken up the farthest position on the ship, the stern, are, so to speak, the best of all who sail in it, since they hold in their hands the safety of the ship and all aboard. It was as a kind of charioteer and pilot over all things that the Maker fashioned man, that he might drive and steer the creatures and plants of the earth, taking charge of them as a kind of viceroy of the great first King.
Once the whole world had been brought to completion in accordance with the nature of the number six, a perfect number, the Father hallowed the following day, the seventh, praising it and calling it holy. For it is a festival not of one city or country but of the universe, and it alone deserves, properly speaking, to be called the festival common to all, and the world's birthday.
As for the nature of the number seven, I do not know whether anyone could praise it adequately, since it surpasses every account. Yet the fact that it is more wonderful than what is said of it is no reason for silence; rather, one must make the attempt, even if it is not possible to set forth everything, or the most essential things, at least to make clear what lies within the reach of our understanding.
Seven is spoken of in two senses: one within the decad, which is measured seven times by the unit alone, consisting of seven units; the other outside the decad, a number whose starting point is invariably the unit, reckoned according to numbers in double or triple or generally proportional ratio, as with sixty-four and seven hundred twenty-nine, the one increased according to the double ratio from the unit, the other according to the triple.
Each kind deserves careful examination, not to be passed over lightly. The second kind has the more evident distinction: for the seventh number in a sequence built from the unit by doubling, tripling, or any proportional ratio, is always both a cube and a square, containing both forms of being, the incorporeal and the corporeal—the incorporeal according to the plane figure that squares produce, the corporeal according to the solid figure that cubes produce. The numbers just mentioned are the clearest proof of this.
For instance, the seventh number increased from the unit in double ratio, sixty-four, is a square, being the product of eight multiplied by eight, and a cube, being four multiplied four times by four; and again, the seventh number increased from the unit in triple ratio, seven hundred twenty-nine, is a square, being the product of twenty-seven multiplied by itself, and a cube, being nine multiplied nine times by itself.
And always, if one takes the seventh number as a new starting point in place of the unit, and continues increasing it by the same proportion up to a seventh term, one will find without fail that the resulting number is both a cube and a square. Thus, from sixty-four, the number compounded in double ratio will produce as its seventh term four thousand ninety-six, at once a square and a cube: a square having sixty-four as its side, a cube having sixteen as its side.
We must now pass to the other kind of seven, the one contained within the decad, which displays a nature no less wonderful than the former. To begin with, the number seven is composed of one, two, and four, numbers that stand in two most harmonious ratios, the double and the quadruple—the one producing the concord of the octave, the other, the quadruple, producing the concord of the double octave. Seven also contains other divisions, formed in a sense in pairs: it is divided first into one and six, then into two and five, and finally into three and four.
The proportion of these numbers, too, is most musical. Six stands to one in a sixfold ratio, and this sixfold ratio produces the greatest interval among existing things, that by which the highest pitch is separated from the lowest, as we shall demonstrate when we pass from numbers to the ratio found in musical harmonies. Five to two displays the greatest power in harmony, all but rivaling the octave, as is most clearly shown in the theory of the canon. Four to three produces the first harmony, the fourth, which is called the sesquitertian.
Seven displays yet another beauty, one that may be understood as most sacred. Being composed of three and four, it furnishes to existing things that which is by nature unswerving and upright. In what way, must be explained. The right triangle, which is the origin of qualities, is composed of the numbers three, four, and five; and three and four, which are the substance of seven, produce the right angle. For the obtuse and the acute angle display irregularity, disorder, and inequality—one angle becoming more obtuse or more acute than another—but the right angle admits of no comparison, nor does one right angle become more right than another; it remains ever the same, never changing its own nature. If, then, the right triangle is the origin of figures and qualities, and the substance of seven, three together with four, furnishes its most necessary element, the right angle, this substance might reasonably be considered the source of every figure and every quality.
Besides what has been said, this too may fittingly be added: that three is the number of a plane figure—since the point is ranked according to the unit, the line according to two, the plane according to three—while four is the number of a solid figure, by the addition of one more, depth being added to the plane. From this it is clear that the substance of seven is the origin of geometry and of solid geometry, and, to put it concisely, of both incorporeal and corporeal things.
So great is the sacred character naturally belonging to seven that it holds an exceptional place beside all the other numbers within the decad. Of these, some beget without being begotten, others are begotten but do not beget, and others do both—both beget and are begotten; seven alone is found in none of these categories. This claim must be confirmed by proof. The number one begets all the numbers that follow, being begotten by none whatsoever. Eight is begotten by twice four, but begets none of the numbers within the decad. Four, in turn, holds the rank of both parent and offspring: for, doubled, it begets eight, but it is itself begotten by twice two.
Seven alone, as I have said, is by nature neither begetting nor begotten. For this reason the other philosophers liken this number to the motherless Victory and Virgin, who is said to have appeared from the head of Zeus, while the Pythagoreans liken it to the Ruler of all things. For that which neither begets nor is begotten remains unmoved; for generation involves motion, since both what begets and what is begotten cannot exist apart from motion, the one in order to beget, the other in order to be begotten. But that which alone neither moves nor is moved is the elder Ruler and Governor, of whom seven might fittingly be called an image. Philolaus too bears witness to my account, in these words: "For God," he says, "is the ruler and governor of all things, forever existing, one, stable, unmoved, himself like himself, different from all others."
Among the intelligible realities, then, seven displays its unmoved and unaffected character; among the perceptible realities it displays a great and most cohesive power … by which all earthly things are naturally improved, and also through the cycles of the moon. In what manner, we must examine. The number seven, when added successively to one, generates twenty-eight, a perfect number equal to the sum of its own parts; and the number thus generated governs the moon's cycle of return, from the shape at which it visibly began to increase, back to that same shape by decrease. For it waxes from its first crescent-like glimmer to the half-moon in seven days, then in as many more days becomes full, and again turns back and runs the same course in reverse — from full to half in seven days again, then from that to the crescent in an equal number — and from these the number just mentioned is completed.
Now the number seven is called, by those accustomed to use names in their proper sense, also "bringer to completion," since by it all things are brought to their completion. One may find evidence of this in the fact that every solid body possesses three dimensions — length, breadth, and depth — and four boundaries — point, line, surface, and solid — which together, when added, make up seven. Now it would have been impossible for bodies to be measured by seven, according to this composition of three dimensions and four boundaries, had it not happened that the forms of the first numbers — one, two, three, and four, on which the number ten is founded — contain within themselves the nature of seven; for the numbers named have four terms — the first, the second, the third, the fourth — and three intervals: the first interval is from one to two, the second from two to three, the third from three to four.
Apart from what has been said, nothing demonstrates more clearly the completing power of seven than the ages of human life from infancy to old age, which are measured by it. In the first seven years, the teeth erupt; in the second, the time comes when one is able to emit generative seed; in the third, the beard grows; in the fourth, there is an increase in strength; in the fifth, in turn, comes the season for marriage; in the sixth, the peak of understanding; in the seventh, the improvement and joint growth of both mind and reason; in the eighth, the perfecting of each of these; in the ninth, gentleness and mildness, as the passions grow ever tamer; in the tenth, the desired end of life comes, while the organs of the body are still intact — for lengthy old age tends to trip up and take away each of them.
These ages were also recorded by Solon, the lawgiver of the Athenians, who composed the following elegiac verses: "A boy, while still a child and beardless, grows his first set of teeth and sheds them within seven years. When God brings to completion another seven years, he shows the signs of approaching adolescence. In the third period of seven, as his limbs still grow, his chin grows downy, and the bloom of his complexion changes. In the fourth, every man is at the height of the strength which men reckon a sign of manly excellence. In the fifth, it is time for a man to remember marriage and seek offspring to succeed him. In the sixth, a man's mind is trained in all things, and he no longer wishes to do reckless deeds. In the seventh period of seven, and in the eighth — fourteen years together — he is at his very best in mind and speech. In the ninth he is still capable, but his speech and wisdom are somewhat weaker for great excellence. And if one should complete the tenth in due measure and arrive there, he would not meet his portion of death untimely."
Solon, then, reckons a human life by ten such periods of seven. But the physician Hippocrates says there are seven ages: infant, child, boy, youth, man, elder, old man — and that these are measured by sevens, though not by successive ones. He speaks as follows: "In man's nature there are seven seasons, which men call ages: infant, child, boy, youth, man, elder, old man. He is an infant until the shedding of teeth, up to seven years; a child until the emission of seed, up to twice seven; a boy until the beard grows downy, up to three times seven; a youth until the growth of the whole body is complete, up to four times seven; a man until forty-nine, up to seven times seven; an elder until fifty-six, up to seven times eight; and from that point on, an old man." It is also said, in support of seven's claim to a wonderful ordering in nature, that it is composed of three and four:
the third number from one, if doubled, one finds is a square; the fourth is a cube; and the seventh, arising from both, is at once a cube and a square. For the third number from one, in the ratio of doubling — that is, four — is a square; the fourth, eight, is a cube; the seventh, sixty-four, is both a cube and a square together. Thus the number seven is truly "bringer to completion," proclaiming both kinds of equality — the plane equality through the square, by its kinship with three, and the solid equality through the cube, by its affinity with four; for seven arises from three and four.
It is not only a bringer to completion but also, one might say, the most harmonious of numbers, and in a sense the source of that most beautiful diagram which contains all the harmonies — the fourth, the fifth, the octave — and all the proportions — the arithmetic, the geometric, and also the harmonic. The little square is composed of these numbers: six, eight, nine, twelve. Eight stands to six in the ratio of four to three, which is the ratio of the fourth; nine stands to six in the ratio of three to two, which is the ratio of the fifth; twelve stands to six in the ratio of two to one, which is the ratio of the octave.
And, as I said, it contains all the proportions as well: the arithmetic, from six, nine, and twelve — for by the same amount that the middle term exceeds the first, by that same amount it is exceeded by the last, namely three; the geometric, from four of the terms — for the ratio eight has to six is the same ratio twelve has to nine, namely four to three; and the harmonic, from three of them — six, eight, and twelve.
There are two ways of judging harmonic proportion. One is when the last term stands to the first in the same ratio as the amount by which the last exceeds the middle stands to the amount by which the first is exceeded by the middle. One may take the clearest proof of this from the numbers before us, six, eight, and twelve: the last is double the first, and the excess is likewise double — for twelve exceeds eight by four, and eight exceeds six by two, and four is double two. There is another test of harmonic
proportion: when the middle term exceeds one extreme, and is exceeded by the other, by an equal fraction of each. Eight, being the middle term, exceeds the first, six, by a third part of it — for when six is subtracted, the remainder, two, is a third of six; and it is exceeded by the last term, twelve, by an equal fraction — for if eight is subtracted from twelve, the remainder, four, is a third of the last term, twelve.
This much, then, needed to be said about the dignity possessed by this diagram, or little square, or whatever one ought to call it. Seven displays this many forms, and still more, among things incorporeal and intelligible. And its nature extends also over the whole visible substance, reaching to heaven and earth, the boundaries of the universe. For what part of the cosmos is not a lover of seven, subdued by love and longing for it?
Take heaven first: it is said to be girdled by seven circles, whose names are these — arctic, antarctic, the summer tropic, the winter tropic, the equinoctial, the zodiacal, and in addition the galactic. The horizon, indeed, is a matter of our own perception, varying with the sharpness or dullness of one's eyesight, as sense-perception marks off now a smaller, now a larger circuit.
The planets, moreover — the counterbalancing host to the fixed stars — are arranged in seven ranks, and display the greatest sympathy toward air and earth. They turn the year into what are called its seasons and change it, bringing about in each season countless transformations — calms, clear skies, cloud-cover, extraordinary violence of winds. Again they cause rivers to flood and to shrink, they turn plains into marshes and, conversely, dry them out; and they bring about the ebb and flow of the seas, whether receding or returning in their tides. For sometimes broad gulfs of sea, as the water withdraws in the ebb, suddenly become a deep shoreline, and a little later, when the water pours back in, become the deepest of seas, sailed not by small craft but by ships carrying countless cargoes. And indeed they cause all things on earth — living creatures as well as fruit-bearing plants — to grow and come to their completion, bringing it about that each thing's own nature runs its full course, so that new things bloom and flourish alongside the old,
furnishing an unstinting supply to those in need. The Bear, indeed, said to be the guide of sailors, is made up of seven stars; gazing upon it, helmsmen have charted the countless pathways of the sea, an incredible feat, undertaking something beyond the ordinary scope of human nature. For by fixing their reckoning on the stars just named, they discovered lands previously unknown — islands, for those who dwell on the mainland, and continents, for islanders. For it was fitting that, under the guidance of heaven, purest in substance, the hidden recesses of both land and sea should be revealed to the human race, the creature most beloved by God.
In addition to what has been said, the chorus of stars called the Pleiades is also completed in seven, whose risings and settings are the cause of great blessings for all. For when they set, furrows are cut open for sowing; and when they are about to rise, they announce good news of the harvest, and upon rising they rouse rejoicing farmers to gather in their necessities; and these, gladly, store away their provisions for daily use.
The sun, too, the great governor of the day, completing two equinoxes each year, in spring and in autumn — the spring equinox in Aries, the autumn equinox in Libra — provides the clearest proof of the god-befitting character of the seventh; for each of the two equinoxes falls in the seventh month, and it is on these occasions that the law has ordained the greatest and most public festivals to be celebrated, since it is at both of these seasons that the produce of the earth is brought to completion — in spring the crop of grain and of the other sown plants, and in autumn that of the vine and of most of the other tree-fruits.
Since earthly things depend upon the heavenly by a certain natural sympathy, the principle of the number seven, beginning above, has descended and reached even to us, visiting the race of mortal creatures. Consider first that the part of our soul apart from the ruling faculty is divided sevenfold: into the five senses, the organ of speech, and, in addition to all these, the generative faculty. All of these, like puppets pulled by strings in a marionette show, are worked by the ruling faculty, and are now at rest, now in motion, each according to its own appropriate states and movements.
Likewise, if one were to examine the body, both its outer and inner parts, one will find seven in each category. The visible parts are these: the head, the chest, the belly, the two hands, the two feet. The parts called the inner organs are: the gullet, the heart, the lung, the spleen, the liver, and the two kidneys.
Again, the head, the most governing part of a living creature, employs seven organs of greatest necessity: two eyes, two equal organs of hearing, two nostril-passages, and a seventh, the mouth, through which occurs, as Plato said, the entrance of mortal things and the exit of imperishable ones. For into it come food and drink, perishable nourishment for a perishable body, while out of it go words, the immortal
laws of an immortal soul, by which the life of reason is governed. Now the objects distinguished by the finest of the senses, sight, also share in this number by kind: for the things that are seen are seven — body, extension, shape, size, color, motion, and rest — and beyond these there is nothing else.
It also happens that all the modulations of the voice are seven: the acute, the grave, the circumflex, and a fourth, the rough breathing, a fifth, the smooth breathing, a sixth, the long sound, and a seventh, the short.
Moreover, it also happens that there are seven kinds of motion: upward, downward, to the right, to the left, forward, backward, and circular — which those who perform the art of dancing display most clearly of all.
They also say that the discharges of the body have been made to conform to this number: through the eyes tears pour forth; through the nostrils, the purgings from the head; through the mouth, the spittle that is spat out. There are also two receptacles for the discharge of waste, one in front and one behind; a sixth is the outpouring of sweat over the whole body; and a seventh is the most natural emission of seed through the generative organs.
Hippocrates, too, who understood nature well, says that it is in the seventh month that both the solidifying of the seed and the shaping of the flesh are strengthened. Again, in women, the flow of the monthly courses is supplied, at its most, for seven days. And children in the womb are naturally brought to completion, most paradoxically, in seven months — for seven-month children are born viable, while eight-month children are, for the most part, unable to survive.
And severe illnesses of the body — especially when, from an imbalance of the powers within us, continuous fevers take hold — are resolved most often on the seventh day; for that day judges the contest concerning life, voting for some their preservation, and for others their death.
Its power extends not only to the things already mentioned but also to the finest sciences, grammar and music. The seven-stringed lyre, corresponding to the choral dance of the planets, produces the celebrated harmonies, and is, one might almost say, the leader of the whole art of instrument-making. And among the elements of grammar, the ones called vowels are, fittingly, seven in number, since they alone can be sounded by themselves and, when combined with the others, produce articulate speech: for the semivowels they complete by filling what is lacking, making the sounds whole, while the mutes they alter and transform by breathing into them something of their own power, so that what cannot be spoken becomes speakable.
For this reason it seems to me that those who from the beginning assigned names to things, being wise, called the number seven "hepta" from the reverence surrounding it and the dignity that attaches to it; and the Romans, adding the letter S that the Greeks had omitted, make the emphasis still clearer, calling it, more truly to its origin, "septem", from what is solemn, as has been said, and revered.
These things, and still more, are said and philosophized about the number seven, on account of which it has received the highest honors in nature, and is honored also among the most respected of Greeks and non-Greeks who labor at the mathematical sciences. It has been honored too by Moses, lover of virtue, who inscribed its beauty on the most sacred tablets of the Law, and engraved it in the minds of all who were under him, when he commanded that after six days a seventh be kept holy, refraining from the other tasks that pertain to the pursuit and acquisition of a livelihood, and devoting themselves to the one occupation of philosophizing, for the improvement of character and the scrutiny of conscience, which, seated in the soul like a judge who cannot be intimidated when it rebukes, employs at times the sterner threats, at other times the gentler admonitions — threats for what one seems to have done wrong deliberately, admonitions for what was done unintentionally through lack of foresight, so that one may not slip again in the same way.
Summing up the making of the cosmos in a brief formula, he says: "This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when it came to be, on the day that God made heaven and earth, and every green plant of the field before it came to be upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up" (Gen. 2:4–5). Does he not here plainly set forth the incorporeal and intelligible forms, which turn out to be the seals of the objects perceived by sense? For before the earth turned green, this very thing — greenness — already existed, he says, in the nature of things; and before grass sprang up in the field, there was grass not yet visible.
And it is to be supposed that in the case of everything else that the senses judge, the older forms and measures, by which the things that come to be are given their form and measured, existed beforehand. For even though he has not gone through all of them one by one but all together — being as careful as anyone of brevity — nonetheless the few examples given are samples of the nature of the whole, which accomplishes nothing among the objects of sense without an incorporeal model.
Continuing the sequence and keeping the connection of what follows with what precedes, he says next: "And a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth" (Gen. 2:6). Other philosophers say that water in its entirety is one of the four elements out of which the world was fashioned. But Moses, with keener eyes, accustomed to observe and grasp even distant things very well, considers the great sea to be the element — a fourth part of the whole — which those who came after him, calling it Ocean, suppose the navigable seas among us to possess in the magnitude of their harbors; and he distinguished the sweet, drinkable water from the sea-water, assigning it instead to the earth and taking it to be a part of the earth rather than of the sea, for the reason stated earlier, so that the earth might be held together as by a bond, its sweet quality uniting it in the manner of glue. For left dry, without moisture seeping through its many crevices and spreading everywhere, it would have fallen apart; but things are held together and persist, some by the power of a unifying breath, others because moisture does not allow them, as they dry out, to crumble into fragments small and large.
This is one cause; but another must also be mentioned, one that aims, as it were, at the same target of truth: nothing born of the earth is naturally composed without moist substance. This is shown by the scattering of seeds, which are either themselves moist, as in the case of animals, or do not germinate without moisture, as is the case with plants. From this it is clear that the moist substance spoken of must be a part of the earth, which gives birth to all things, just as with women the flow of the monthly courses is said by natural philosophers to be the bodily substance of infants.
What is about to be said is not out of tune with what has been said. To every mother nature has given breasts flowing with milk, as the most necessary part, having prepared beforehand nourishment for the one about to be born; and the earth too, it seems, is a mother, which is why the ancients thought fit to call her Demeter, joining together the names of mother and earth. For it is not, as Plato said, that earth imitates woman, but woman imitates earth — earth which the race of poets fittingly calls "mother of all," "fruit-bearing," and "all-giving," since she is the cause of the coming-to-be and continuance of all animals and plants alike. Fittingly, then, to earth, the oldest and most fertile of mothers, nature has given the streams of rivers and springs as breasts, so that the plants might be watered and all animals have drink in abundance.
After this he says that God fashioned man, taking dust from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life (Gen. 2:7). Through this too he shows most clearly that there is an enormous difference between the man now fashioned and the one who came into being earlier after the image of God. For the one molded is now a being of sense, already partaking of quality, composed of body and soul, man or woman, mortal by nature; but the one made after the image is a certain form or type or seal, perceptible only to mind, incorporeal, neither male nor female, imperishable by nature.
Of the man of sense perception, the particular man, he says that his constitution is composite, made of earthy substance and divine breath: for the body came to be when the craftsman took dust and shaped from it a human form, while the soul came from nothing created at all, but from the Father and Ruler of all things. For what he breathed in was nothing other than divine breath, sent out as a colony from that blessed and happy nature for the benefit of our race, so that even if it is mortal in its visible part, it might be made immortal in its invisible part. For this reason one might properly say that man is a borderland between mortal and immortal nature, sharing in each so far as is necessary, and has come to be mortal and immortal at once — mortal in respect of the body, but immortal in respect of the mind.
That first man, the earth-born one, the founder of our whole race, seems to me to have come to be supreme in both soul and body, and to have far surpassed those who came after him, in the excellences of both; for he was in truth beautiful and good in the fullest sense. One might establish the beauty of his body from three considerations, of which this is the first: since the earth had only just appeared, newly formed after the separation of the great mass of water that was called sea, the matter of things that came to be was still unmixed, unadulterated, and pure, and moreover pliable and easy to work — so that what was produced from it was, naturally, faultless.
Second, it does not seem that God, in taking dust to fashion this man-shaped statue, took it from any chance part of the earth, but with the utmost care selected the best from the whole — the purest and most thoroughly refined portion of pure matter, which was most suited to the construction. For a kind of house or sacred shrine was being built for the rational soul, which he intended it to carry as a statue-bearer carries the most god-like of statues.
Third — and this admits of no comparison with what has been said — the craftsman was good in every respect, and especially in his knowledge, so that each part of the body had, individually and in itself, its proper measures, and was precisely fitted for harmonious participation in the whole; and along with symmetry he further molded good flesh and painted a fine complexion, wanting
as far as possible, the first man to appear most beautiful. That he was also supreme in soul is plain: for he seems to have used no other model among created things for its construction, but only, as I said, his own Reason. This is why he says that man came to be an image and likeness of this, having been breathed into on the face, where the seat of the senses is; through these the craftsman ensouled the body, and having established reason as king within the ruling faculty, gave it a bodyguard to receive the impressions of colors, sounds, flavors, and odors, and the like, which without sense-perception it could not by itself alone apprehend. Now it is necessary that the likeness of a wholly beautiful model be wholly beautiful. But the Reason of God is superior even to his own beauty — the beauty found in nature — for it is not adorned with beauty, but is itself the ornament, if the truth be told, more comely than any beauty.
Such, then, was the first man, in body and in soul, as it seems to me, surpassing all who now exist and all who existed before us; for our origin is from human beings, but he was fashioned directly by God. And to the extent the maker is superior, to that extent is the thing made superior; for just as that which is in its prime is always better than what has passed its prime — whether animal, plant, fruit, or anything else in nature — so it seems that the first man, when he was formed, was the very peak of our whole race, while those who came after did not reach the same peak, each successive generation always receiving dimmer forms and powers.
This is a thing I have observed happening in sculpture and painting: copies fall short of their originals, and what is drawn or modeled from the copies falls short still more, being that much further removed from the source. The magnet stone shows a similar effect: of the iron rings, the one that touches it is held most powerfully, the one attached to that one less so, and a third hangs from the second, a fourth from the third, a fifth from the fourth, and so on down a long chain, all held together by a single attractive power, though not in the same degree — for those hanging farthest from the source are always looser, because the pull, growing weaker, can no longer grip as tightly. Something similar seems to have happened to the human race, each generation receiving dimmer powers and qualities of body and soul.
We shall speak with perfect truth if we call that founder not only the first man but also the only citizen of the world. For the world was his house and his city, since no structure had yet been made by hand out of stones and timber; in it, as in a homeland, he dwelt in complete security, free from fear, since he had been deemed worthy of dominion over all things on earth, and all mortal creatures cowered before him and had been taught, or compelled, to obey him as their master, living in the enjoyments
that come with a peace unmarred by war, blamelessly. And since every well-governed city has a constitution, it necessarily followed that this citizen of the world made use of the same constitution as the whole world itself; and this is the right reason of nature, which by a more authoritative name is called ordinance — being a divine law, according to which what is fitting and proper has been assigned to each thing. Of this city and constitution there had to be citizens who existed even before man, and who might justly be called citizens of the great city, having received as their portion to dwell in the greatest enclosure and having been enrolled in the greatest and most perfect commonwealth.
And who could these be but rational and divine natures, some incorporeal and intelligible, others not without bodies, such as the stars turn out to be? Associating and living together with these, he naturally passed his time in unmixed happiness; and being kin to and closely related to the Ruler, since much of the divine breath had flowed into him, he was eager in everything he said and did to please his Father and King, following in his footsteps along the highways that the virtues cut open, since only to souls that regard likeness to the God who begot them as their goal is it lawful to draw near.
Of the first man, then, as he came to be, the beauty of both soul and body — even if far less than the truth of it — has been described, so far as lay within our power. As for his descendants, who share in his form, it is necessary that they preserve, however dim, the marks of their kinship with their forefather.
And what is this kinship? Every man, in respect of his mind, is akin to the divine Reason, having come into being as a copy, or fragment, or ray of that blessed nature; but in respect of the constitution of his body he is akin to the whole world, for he is blended out of the same elements — earth, water, air, and fire — each of the elements contributing its appropriate portion toward the completion of a wholly sufficient material, which the craftsman needed to take up in order to fashion this visible image.
And beyond all that has been said, he dwells in all these realms as being most his own and most closely related, changing his abode and visiting now one, now another, so that one might most properly say that man is everything — a creature of land, water, air, and sky. For insofar as he lives and walks upon the earth, he is a land creature; insofar as he dives, swims, and often sails, he is a water creature — merchants, ship-owners, purple-fishers, and all who pursue the hunt for shellfish and fish are the clearest proof of this; and insofar as his body is raised aloft, lifted upward from the earth, he might rightly be called a creature of the air, and further, of the heavens, since through sight, the most sovereign of the senses, he draws near to sun and moon and each of the other stars, wandering and fixed alike.
Most beautifully, too, did he attach to the first man the assigning of names (Gen. 2:19); for this is the work of wisdom and of kingship, and that man was wise, self-taught, having come to be by divine hands, and moreover a king. It is fitting for a ruler to name each of his subjects. And, as one would expect, an exceeding power of rule attended that first man, whom God, having fashioned him with care, judged worthy of second place, setting him as his own viceroy and as ruler over all else — since even those born so many generations later, when the race, over the long courses of time, has already grown faint, nonetheless still rule over the irrational animals, guarding, like a torch of rule and dominion passed down from the first man, what has come down to them.
He says, then, that God brought all the animals to Adam, wishing to see what names he would give to each — not that he was in doubt, for nothing is unknown to God — but because he knew that he had constituted rational nature in a mortal being as self-moving, so that he himself might have no share in its wrongdoing. He was making trial of him, like a teacher testing a pupil, stirring up the disposition within him and calling him forth to display his own works, so that the namings might come forth spontaneously, neither unfitting nor discordant, but expressing very well the particular natures of the things named.
For since the rational nature was still unmixed in the soul, and no weakness or sickness or passion had yet arisen, he received the impressions of bodies and things in their purest form, and made names that hit their mark, aiming very accurately at what was signified, so that the naming and the understanding of their natures occurred together. Thus he excelled in all noble things, arriving at the very furthest limit of human happiness.
But since nothing in the realm of becoming is stable, and mortal things necessarily undergo change and alteration, the first man too had to taste some misfortune. The beginning of his culpable life came to be a woman. For as long as he was alone, he was like the world and like God in his solitude, and the characters of each nature were stamped upon his soul — not all of them, but as many as a mortal constitution could contain. But when the woman too had been fashioned, he saw a form akin to his own and a kindred shape, and he was delighted at the sight and came near and embraced her.
And she, seeing no living creature more like herself than he, rejoiced and answered him with modesty. Then love arose and, as if gathering into one the two divided parts of a single living creature, joined them together, implanting in each a longing for partnership with the other toward the generation of their like. And this longing also gave birth to bodily pleasure, which is the beginning of wrongdoing and transgression, on account of which men exchange their immortal and blessed life for a mortal one, full of misfortune.
While the man was still living a solitary life, before the woman had been formed, there is an account that a garden was planted by God, unlike anything among us (Gen. 2:8ff.). For our gardens are of lifeless matter, filled with all kinds of trees — some evergreen, for the eye's uninterrupted delight, others coming to bloom and putting forth shoots in the seasons of spring; and some bear cultivated fruit for men, not only for the necessary use of food but also for the superfluous enjoyment of a luxurious life, while others bear fruit not of that kind, which is of necessity allotted to wild beasts. But in the divine garden it happens that all the plants are ensouled and rational, bearing as their fruit the virtues, and besides these an incorruptible understanding and quickness of mind, by which the noble and the shameful are discerned, and a life free of disease, and incorruptibility, and whatever else is of the same kind.
These things, it seems to me, are philosophized symbolically rather than literally. For trees bearing life or understanding have never yet appeared on earth, nor is it likely that they will appear hereafter. Rather, as it seems, by the garden he hints at the ruling faculty of the soul, which is filled, as it were, with countless plant-like opinions; by the tree of life, at piety, the greatest of the virtues, through which the soul is made immortal; and by the tree that discerns good and evil, at the intermediate practical wisdom, by which opposites in nature are distinguished.
Having set these boundaries in the soul, he watched, like a judge, to see toward which it would incline. And when he saw it leaning toward wickedness, and neglecting piety and holiness, from which immortal life results, he cast it out, as was fitting, and banished it from the garden, giving to the transgressing soul no hope of return thereafter, its faults being incurable and beyond healing — since the pretext for the deception was itself not a little culpable, and it is not right to pass over it in silence.
It is said that in ancient times the venomous, earth-born creeping thing — the serpent — used to utter speech, and that it once approached the wife of the first-formed man and reproached her for her slowness and excessive caution, because she was hesitating and delaying to pick a fruit that was altogether beautiful to see and most sweet to enjoy, and moreover most useful, since by it she would be able to know both good and evil things. And she, without examination, assenting from an unsteady and unsettled judgment, ate of the fruit and gave some to her husband as well — and this at once changed them both, from innocence and good character, into wickedness. On this account their father — for the deed deserved wrath, since they had passed by the plant of immortal life, the perfection of virtue, by which they could have enjoyed a long and blessed life, and had chosen instead of that life a mere span of time, ephemeral and mortal, full of misfortune — determined against them the fitting penalties.
Now these things are not fictions of myth, in which the tribe of poets and sophists delights, but rather patterns of figures inviting allegorical interpretation, according to the renderings suggested by their underlying meanings. Following a reasonable conjecture, one will say fittingly that the serpent spoken of is a symbol of pleasure: first, because it is a footless creature, fallen prone upon its belly; second, because it feeds on clods of earth; and third, because it carries venom in its teeth, by which it is its nature to kill those it bites.
And the lover of pleasure lacks none of these traits. He can scarcely lift his head, weighed down and dragged low, his neck twisted and his feet tripped by lack of self-control. He does not feed on the heavenly food which wisdom offers, through words and doctrines, to those who love contemplation, but on the food that springs up from the earth according to the yearly seasons, from which come drunkenness and gluttony for delicacies and greediness, which tear open and fan into flame the appetites of the belly and increase them, together with the frenzies below the belly, into ravenous gluttony. He hungers after the labor of bakers and cooks, and, turning his head about to catch the savor of seasoned dishes, longs to partake of their loathsome allure; and whenever he sees a lavishly spread table, he throws himself bodily upon what has been prepared and pours himself out over it, eager to gorge on everything all at once, making his goal not satisfaction but leaving nothing whatever of what was prepared.
For this reason he carries no less venom in his teeth than the serpent does. For his teeth are the servants and ministers of insatiable greed, cutting and grinding everything meant for eating, delivering it first to the tongue, which judges flavors for approval, and then to the throat. And an unmeasured quantity of food is by nature deadly and venomous, since such quantities cannot be digested, owing to the mass of what keeps entering before what came before has been absorbed.
The serpent is said to utter a human voice because pleasure has countless champions and advocates who have taken up its care and defense, and who are bold enough to teach that mastery over all things is bound up — of things small
and great alike, with nothing whatsoever excepted. Rather, the first unions of male and female have pleasure for their guide; through it procreation and birth come about; and the newborn are by nature drawn first to nothing so much as to pleasure, delighting in it and shrinking from its opposite, pain. This is why the newborn infant wails, suffering pain, as is natural, from the chill; for having come from the very warm and fiery place in the womb, in which it dwelt for a long time, it suddenly emerges into the air, a cold and unfamiliar region, and is struck, and its cries provide the clearest evidence of its pain and distress.
Every living creature, they say, hastens toward pleasure as its most necessary and most binding end, and man especially so. For the other animals seek it only through taste and the organs of generation, but man pursues it also through the other senses, whatever spectacles or sounds are able to afford delight to ears and eyes.
A great many other things besides are said in praise of this passion, and of how it is most proper and most akin to living creatures; but what has now been said suffices as a sample, on account of which the serpent was thought to utter a human voice.
For this reason it seems to me that, in the particular laws too, where he wrote what creatures ought to be eaten and what not, he especially praised the one called the 'serpent-fighter' (Lev. 11:22) — a creeping thing that has legs above its feet, by which it is able to leap from the ground and rise into the air, like the locust tribe. For the serpent-fighter, it seems to me, is nothing else than self-mastery, symbolically expressed, waging an unrelenting battle and an implacable war against lack of self-control and pleasure. For self-mastery embraces frugality, contentment with little, and whatever is necessary, holding these especially dear for a modest and dignified life, while the other embraces excess and extravagance, which become causes of softness and dissipation for both soul and body, through which a culpable life, harder than death, comes about for those who are of sound mind.
As for its sorceries and deceptions, pleasure does not dare to bring them to the man directly, but to the woman, and through her to him — very fittingly and aptly. For within us the mind holds the place of the man, and sense-perception that of the woman. And pleasure meets and consorts first with the senses, through which it also beguiles the ruling mind. For whenever each of the senses is led captive by its charms, delighting in what is offered — sight in the variety of colors and shapes, hearing in melodious sounds, taste in the sweetness of flavors, smell in the fragrance of rising vapors — having received these gifts, they bring them, like handmaids, to reason their master, bringing persuasion along as an advocate, urging that nothing whatsoever be rejected. And reason, at once enticed, becomes a subject instead of a ruler, a slave instead of a master, an exile instead of a citizen, and mortal instead of immortal.
For, in general, one must not fail to recognize that pleasure, being like a courtesan or a wanton woman, longs to find a lover, and seeks out procurers through whom she may hook him. And the senses act as her procurers and matchmakers for the one who loves her; having easily seduced and won over the mind, they carry inward what appeared outside and report and display it to him, stamping in him the impressions of each thing and producing in him a like affection. For he, resembling wax, receives the impressions conveyed through the senses, by which he apprehends bodies, being unable to do so by himself, as I have already said.
The wages of pleasure were discovered at once by those who first became slaves to this harsh and hard-to-cure passion. The woman received violent distresses — the pains of childbirth, and the griefs that follow one upon another throughout the rest of life, especially those concerning children, both in their being born and being raised, in sickness and in health, in good fortune and in bad; and after that, the loss of freedom and subjection to the man who lives with her, whose commands she must of necessity obey. The man, for his part, received toils and hardships and continual sweat in providing life's necessities, and deprivation of the spontaneous goods which the earth had been taught to bear without the skill of farming, and instead a share of unending labors in seeking a livelihood and food, so as not to perish of hunger.
For I think that, just as the sun and moon, having once been bidden at the very first creation of the universe to give light forever, keep the divine command for no other reason than that wickedness has been banished far from the bounds of heaven, in the same way the deep and fruitful earth too, without the art and cooperation of farming men, would bear great abundance according to the yearly seasons. But as it is, the ever-flowing springs of God's graces have been checked, since wickedness began to outstrip virtue, so that they might not be bestowed on the unworthy.
The human race, then, ought to have been utterly destroyed, if it was to undergo the fitting penalty for its ingratitude toward God its benefactor and savior. But he, being by nature merciful, took pity and moderated the punishment, allowing the race to continue, yet no longer supplying its food as readily as before, so that men, indulging in the two evils of idleness and satiety, might not transgress and grow insolent.
Such, then, is the life of those who at first practiced innocence and simplicity, but afterward preferred wickedness to virtue — a life from which one ought to keep away. Through the account of the creation of the world just given he teaches us many other things besides, but five that are the finest and best of all. First, that the divine exists and has being — this against the atheists, of whom some wavered, remaining uncertain about its existence, while others, more audacious still, grew bold enough to declare that it does not exist at all, but is merely spoken of, since men have overshadowed the truth with mythical fictions.
Second, that God is one — this against those who introduce the doctrine of many gods, who are not ashamed to transplant from earth to heaven the worst of bad forms of government, mob rule. Third, as has already been said, that the world came into being — this against those who suppose it to be uncreated and eternal, who thereby ascribe nothing more to God. Fourth, that the world too is one, since its maker is also one, who made his work resemble himself in its being unique, and who used up all matter for the generation of the whole; for it would not be a whole unless it had been compacted and composed of the whole of the parts. For there are those who suppose that there are several worlds, and some even that there are infinitely many — infinite and unknowing themselves with regard to the truth, of which it would be good to have knowledge. Fifth, that God also exercises providence over the world; for it is necessary that what has made a thing should always care for what has come into being, according to the laws and ordinances of nature, by which parents too take forethought for their children.
He who has learned these things beforehand — not merely by hearsay but by understanding — and has stamped upon his own soul these wondrous and precious forms: that God is and has being; that he who truly is, is one; that he has made the world, and has made it one, as has been said, having made it resemble himself in its being unique; and that he always exercises providence over what has come into being — such a man will live a blessed and happy life, marked with the doctrines of piety and holiness.

======== Allegorical Interpretation I ========

"And the heaven and the earth and all their world were completed" (Gen. 2:1). Having earlier spoken of the coming-to-be of mind and of sense-perception, he now sets forth the completion of both together. He says that neither the individual mind nor the particular instance of sense-perception has reached its limit, but rather their forms — the form of mind and the form of sense-perception. For mind he calls, in a symbolic sense, heaven, since intelligible natures exist in heaven; and sense-perception he calls earth, since sense-perception has been allotted a bodily and more earthy constitution. And the "world" of mind consists of all things bodiless and intelligible, while the "world" of sense-perception consists of things bodily and, generally, all things perceptible.
"And God completed on the sixth day his works which he had made" (Gen. 2:2). It is entirely foolish to suppose that the world came into being in six days, or in any span of time whatsoever. Why? Because every span of time is a composite of days and nights, and these are necessarily produced by the motion of the sun as it travels above the earth and beneath it; and the sun is itself a part of heaven, so that time must be acknowledged to be younger than the world. It would be correct to say, then, that the world did not come into being in time, but that time was constituted through the world; for it is the motion of heaven that first revealed the nature of time.
When, therefore, he says that God completed his works on the sixth day, we must understand that he is not referring to a quantity of days, but to six as a perfect number, since it is the first number equal to the sum of its own parts — its half, its third, and its sixth — and is also composed from an oblong number, twice three. Now the dyad and the triad have advanced beyond the unit's bodilessness, since the dyad is an image of matter, being divided and cut just as matter is, while the triad is an image of a solid body, because a solid is divisible in three dimensions.
Moreover, six is akin to the motions of jointed living creatures; for the jointed body is by nature able to move in six ways — forward and backward, up and down, right and left. He therefore wishes to show that both the mortal kinds and, in turn, the imperishable kinds have been constituted according to their proper numbers, measuring the mortal kinds, as I said, by the six, and the blessed and happy kinds by the seven.
First, then, having brought the constitution of mortal things to rest on the seventh day, he begins the shaping of other, more divine things. For God never ceases to act; rather, just as it is proper to fire to burn and to snow to chill, so it is proper to God to act — and all the more so, inasmuch as he is the source of action for all other things as well.
It is well said, too, that he "caused to rest," not that he "ceased." For he causes to rest the things that seem to act though they do not truly act on their own, but he himself never ceases to act. Hence the text adds that he caused to rest the things which he had begun. For whatever is fashioned by our human arts, once completed, stands still and remains; but whatever is wrought by God's knowledge, once brought to its limit, is set in motion again. For the ends of such things are the beginnings of others — just as the end of day is the beginning of night, and the completions of a month or a year now beginning are surely to be understood as the limits of months and years that have run their course; and again, the coming-to-be of some things that perish is brought about by the perishing of others that come to be.
So it is true, as the saying goes, that nothing that comes to be truly dies, but each thing, being separated one from another, displays a different form.
Nature delights in the seven. There have come to be seven planets, moving in a direction opposite to the motion that proceeds always in the same way and in the same manner; and the Bear is completed by seven stars, being the cause not merely of the intermingling of human beings but of their fellowship and union; and the moon's turnings occur in periods of seven, since it is the star most sympathetic to earthly things, and the changes it works in the air it accomplishes chiefly through configurations arranged by sevens.
The mortal creatures, too, having drawn a divine origin from heaven, move safely according to the seven. For who does not know that of infants, those born at seven months are viable, while those that take on more time — remaining in the womb, say, eight months — are for the most part not viable?
They say that a human being becomes rational within the first period of seven years, when he is already capable of interpreting familiar names and words, having acquired the rational condition; and that within the second period of seven years he reaches the height of maturity, maturity being the power to sow one's like — for around the age of fourteen we become able to beget our like. The third period of seven years, again, marks the limit of growth; for a human being continues to increase in stature up to the age of twenty-one, and this time of life is called by many its prime.
Indeed, the irrational part of the soul is sevenfold: the five senses, the organ of speech, and that which extends to the generative organs, which is the reproductive part.
Again, the body has seven motions — six of them the jointed motions, and the seventh the circular. The internal organs, too, are seven: the stomach, the heart, the spleen, the liver, the lung, and the two kidneys. The parts of the body are likewise equal in number: head, neck, chest, hands, belly, groin, and feet. And the face, the most governing part of the living creature, is pierced in seven places — two eyes, two ears, two nostrils alike, and a seventh, the mouth.
The discharges of the body are also seven: tears, mucus, saliva, seed, the two channels of waste, and, throughout the whole body, sweat. In illnesses, too, the seventh day is the most decisive; and in women the menstrual purifications
extend up to seven days. And the power of the seven has passed even into the most useful of the arts. In grammar, for instance, the best of the letters, those possessing the greatest power, are seven in number — the vowels. In music the seven-stringed lyre is nearly the best of all instruments, because the enharmonic genus — the most solemn of the melodic genera — is observed chiefly through it; and the pitches of sounds happen to be seven: acute, grave, circumflexed, aspirated, unaspirated, long, and short.
Further, seven is the first number after the perfect number six, and is in a certain sense identical with the unit. The numbers within the decad either beget or are begotten by other numbers within the decad, or beget the decad itself; but the seven neither begets any of the numbers within the decad nor is begotten by any of them. For this reason the Pythagoreans, in their mythic manner, liken it to the ever-virgin one who has no mother, since it was neither born from another nor will it give birth.
"So he caused to rest on the seventh day from all his works which he had made" (Gen. 2:2). This means the following: God ceases to fashion the mortal kinds when he begins to make the divine things proper by nature to the seven. And the application to character is this: when the holy word that belongs to the seven comes upon the soul, the six is checked, along with all the mortal things it seems to produce.
"And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy" (Gen. 2:3). The dispositions that are moved by the truly divine light belonging to the seventh, God blesses, and at once declares holy; for the well-reasoned and the holy are most closely akin to one another. This is why, of one who has made the great vow, he says that if a sudden turning falls upon him and defiles the mind, he shall no longer be holy (cf. Num. 6), but "the former days shall be without reckoning" (ib. 6:12); for the disposition that is not holy is the disposition without reckoning, so that the well-reasoned disposition is the holy one.
Rightly, then, he said that God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, "because on it he caused to rest from all his works which God had begun to make" (Gen. 2:3). The reason he became well-reasoned and holy, the one who guides himself by the seventh and perfect light, is that in this nature the constitution of mortal things comes to rest. And so it is: when the most radiant and truly divine gleam of virtue rises, the coming-to-be of its opposite is checked. And we have shown that God, in causing to rest, does not cease acting, but begins the coming-to-be of other things, since he is not only a craftsman but also a father of the things that come to be.
"This is the book of the coming-to-be of heaven and earth, when it came to be" (Gen. 2:4). This perfect word, which moves according to the seven, is the origin of the coming-to-be both of mind as arranged according to the forms and — if one may put it this way — of intelligible sense-perception as arranged according to the forms. He has called the word of God a book, since it is upon this word that the constitutions of all other things come to be inscribed and engraved.
And so that you should not suppose that the divine acts within fixed periods of time, but should know that the things wrought by God are unclear, untraceable, and incomprehensible to the mortal race, he adds "when it came to be," not marking the "when" by any definite boundary. For the things brought about by the Cause come to be without such boundary. Thus the notion that the universe came to be in six days is set aside.
"In the day that God made heaven and earth and every green plant of the field before it came to be upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up; for God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth" (Gen. 2:4-5). This "day," he called above a "book," since in both cases he is describing the coming-to-be of heaven and earth; for it is by his most manifest and far-shining word that God makes both — the form of mind, which he has symbolically called heaven, and the form of sense-perception, which he has designated, through a token, earth.
By two "fields" he likens the form of mind and the form of sense-perception; for mind bears as its fruit the things involved in thinking, and sense-perception the things involved in perceiving. What he means is this: just as, prior to the particular and individual mind, there pre-exists a certain form, as it were an archetype and pattern of it, and likewise, prior to particular sense-perception, a certain form of sense-perception functioning as a seal that stamps out shapes — so, before the particular intelligible things came to be, this same generic intelligible thing existed, of which the others are named by participation; and before the particular perceptible things came to be, this same generic perceptible thing existed, of which the other perceptible things have come to be by sharing in it.
By the "green plant of the field," then, he has meant the intelligible object belonging to mind; for just as green things sprout and flower in a field, so the intelligible is the sprouting growth of mind. Before the particular intelligible thing came to be, then, this same intelligible thing constitutes the generic, which he has fittingly called "every"; for the particular intelligible thing, being incomplete, is not the whole, while the generic is the whole, since it is full.
"And all," he says, "the grass of the field before it sprang up" — that is, before the particular perceptible things sprang up, the generic perceptible thing existed by the forethought of its maker, and this again he has called "all." And fittingly he has likened the perceptible to grass; for as grass is food for the irrational creature, so the perceptible has been allotted to the irrational part of the soul. For why, having first said "green plant of the field," does he add "and all the grass," as though green grass did not come to be at all? Rather, the "green plant of the field" is the intelligible, a sprout of mind, while "the grass" is the perceptible, itself likewise a sprout of the irrational part of the soul.
"For God had not rained upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth." Most naturally so; for unless God rains down upon the senses the apprehensions of their underlying objects, mind too will not work or busy itself at all with sense-perception; for mind, of itself, is powerless to act, unless, as it were by a shower and a drizzling rain, it comes to see colors by sight, sounds by hearing, flavors by taste, and, by the other senses, whatever properly belongs to each, from the Cause.
"When God had not yet made it rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the earth" (Gen. 2:5). This is entirely in keeping with nature: if God does not rain down upon the senses their apprehensions of the objects that underlie them, the mind will not work, nor will it transact any business through the senses; for of itself it is inactive, and unless God, as it were, rains and sprinkles it, it will not see colors by sight, nor hear sounds by hearing, nor taste flavors by taste, nor perceive through the other senses what is proper to each.
But when God begins to water sense-perception with objects of sense, then mind too is found to be a worker, as it were, of rich soil. Now the Form of sense-perception needs no nourishment; but the nourishment of sense-perception, which he has called "rain" by way of symbol, consists of the particular sensible things, which are bodies; and the Form is alien to bodies. Before, then, the particular composite things came to be, God did not rain upon the Form of sense-perception, which he has called "earth" — that is, he supplied it with no nourishment, since it had no need whatsoever of anything sensible.
As for the words "and there was no man to work the earth," the meaning is this: the Form of mind did not work the Form of sense-perception. For my mind and yours works sense-perception by means of sensible things, but the Form of mind, since there exists no particular body proper to it, does not work the Form of sense-perception; for if it did work it, it would work through sensible things, and among the Forms there is nothing sensible.
"And a spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth" (Gen. 2:6). He has called the mind the spring of the earth, and the senses its face, because nature, which provides for all things, has assigned to them, out of the whole body, the place best suited for their own activities; and the mind waters the senses after the manner of a spring, sending forth to each the streams appropriate to it. Observe, then, how the faculties of the living creature hold together like a chain: of the three — mind, sense-perception, and the sensible object — sense-perception is the middle term, while mind and the sensible object are the two extremes.
But the mind is not able to work, that is, to act by way of sense-perception, unless God rains and sends moisture upon the sensible object; nor, again, once the sensible object has been moistened, is there any benefit unless the mind, stretching itself out after the manner of a spring as far as sense-perception, sets it in motion while it lies at rest and leads it to apprehend the object underlying it. So mind and the sensible object are always engaged in a kind of exchange: the one lying ready beforehand for sense-perception as matter, the other, moving sense-perception toward the external object, as craftsman — so that an impulse may come to be.
For a living creature has the advantage over a non-living thing in two respects: representation and impulse. Representation comes about when the external object approaches and imprints the mind through sense-perception, while impulse, the sibling of representation, comes about through the tensile power of the mind, which, having stretched itself through sense-perception, takes hold of the underlying object and moves toward it, longing to reach and grasp it.
"And God formed man, taking dust from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7). There are two kinds of men: the one is the heavenly man, the other the earthly. The heavenly man, since he has come into being after the image of God, has no share in corruptible and altogether earthlike substance; but the earthly man was compacted from scattered matter, which he has called dust. For this reason he says that the heavenly man was not molded, but stamped after the image of God, whereas the earthly man is a molded work, but not offspring, of the craftsman.
The man formed from the earth must be understood as the mind that is being introduced into the body, though not yet fully introduced into it. This mind is in truth earthlike and corruptible, unless God should breathe into it a power of true life; for then it comes to be — no longer being molded — a soul, not an idle and unformed one, but one intelligent and truly alive. For he says, "and man became a living soul."
One might ask why God at all thought the earth-born and body-loving mind worthy of the divine breath, rather than the mind that had come into being according to his own idea and image; second, what "he breathed in" means; third, why he breathes it into the face; and fourth, why, though he knew the word "spirit" — as when he says "and the spirit of God was borne above the water" (Gen. 1:2) — he now speaks not of spirit but of breath.
To the first point, then, one thing must be said: that God, being generous, bestows good things on all, even on the imperfect, calling them to a share in and zeal for virtue, and at the same time displaying his own abundant wealth, in that it suffices even for those who will not be greatly benefited by it. This he makes plain most vividly also in other things. For when he rains upon the sea, and pours forth springs in the most desolate places, and waters the thin, rocky, and barren soil by sending rivers overflowing in flood, what else does he thereby show but the superabundance of his own wealth and goodness? This is the reason he has made no soul barren of good, even though some are unable to make use of it.
Another point must also be made: he wishes to introduce what is just by convention. The man who has not been breathed with true life, but is inexperienced in virtue, when punished for his wrongdoing might say that he is being punished unjustly, since it is through inexperience of the good that he goes astray concerning it, and the one responsible is he who breathed into him no notion of it at all; indeed he might say that he does not sin at all, if — as some maintain — involuntary acts done in ignorance do not even count as wrongdoing.
As for "he breathed in," it is equivalent to "he inspired" or "he ensouled things without soul"; let us not be filled with such absurdity as to suppose that God makes use of instruments of mouth or nostrils for the act of breathing in; for God is without quality, and not merely without human form. But the expression indicates something more in keeping with nature.
For there must be three things: that which breathes in, that which receives, and that which is breathed in. That which breathes in is God; that which receives is the mind; that which is breathed in is the spirit. What, then, is gathered from this? A union comes about of the three, as God extends his own power from himself, through the intermediary spirit, as far as the underlying subject — and for what purpose, if not that we might gain a notion of him?
For how could the soul have conceived of God, had he not breathed into it and touched it according to his power? For the human mind would never have dared to ascend so high as to lay hold of the nature of God, had not God himself drawn it up to himself, so far as it was possible for a human mind to be drawn up, and stamped it according to the powers it was capable of comprehending.
He breathes into the face both in accordance with nature and in accordance with moral significance. In accordance with nature, because it was in the face that he fashioned the senses; for this is the part of the body most especially ensouled and inbreathed. In accordance with moral significance, in this way: as the face is the ruling part of the body, so mind is the ruling part of the soul; into this alone does God breathe, whereas he does not think the other parts worthy of it — neither the senses, nor speech, nor the generative faculty; for these are secondary in power.
By whom, then, were these also breathed into? By the mind, evidently; for whatever the mind has received a share of from God, of this it imparts a portion to the irrational part of the soul, so that the mind is ensouled by God, and the irrational part by the mind; for the mind is, as it were, a god to the irrational part, which is why even Moses did not hesitate to say, "a god to Pharaoh" (Exod. 7:1).
Of the things that come to be, some come to be both by God and through him, while others come to be by God, but not through him. The best things, then, have come to be both by God and through him; further on, indeed, he will say that "God planted a paradise" (Gen. 2:8); and the mind belongs among such things. But the irrational part came to be by God, yet not through God, but through the rational part, which rules and reigns in the soul. He has said "breath," not "spirit," as though there were a distinction: spirit is conceived in terms of strength, vigor, and power, whereas breath is like a light breeze, a calm and gentle exhalation.
The mind, then, that has come into being after the image and idea might be said to have partaken of spirit — for its reasoning has strength — while the mind that comes from light and still lighter matter partakes of breath, as of a kind of exhalation, such as arises from spices; for even when these are kept and not burned, a certain fragrance nonetheless arises from them.
"And God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the east, and there he placed the man whom he had formed" (Gen. 2:8). He has here made plain the exalted and heavenly wisdom, which goes by many names; for indeed he has called it beginning, and image, and vision of God. Of this wisdom, as of an archetype, he now presents the earthly wisdom as an imitation, through the planting of the paradise. May such impiety never take hold of human reasoning as to suppose that God tills the ground and plants paradises, since we would immediately be at a loss as to the purpose — for it is certainly not in order to procure for himself pleasant retreats and pleasures; may such mythmaking never even enter our minds.
For not even the whole cosmos would be a fitting place and dwelling for God, since God is his own place, and is full of himself, and is sufficient unto himself, filling and encompassing all other things, which are deficient, desolate, and empty, while he himself is encompassed by nothing else, being one and being himself the all.
God, then, sows and plants earthly virtue for the mortal race, an imitation and likeness of the heavenly virtue; for having pity on our race and seeing that it is made up of evils abundant and rich, he rooted earthly virtue as a helper and ally against the diseases of the soul, an imitation, as I said, of the heavenly and archetypal virtue, which he calls by many names. Paradise, then, is virtue, spoken of figuratively; and the place proper to paradise is Eden, which means delight; and fitting to virtue are peace, well-being, and joy, in which true delight consists.
Moreover, the planting of the paradise is toward the east; for the right reason never sets nor is extinguished, but is ever rising by nature; and just as, I think, the sun when it rises fills the gloom of the air with light, so too virtue, rising in the soul, illumines its mist and scatters its dense darkness.
"And there," he says, "he placed the man whom he had formed." For God, being good and cultivating our race toward virtue as its most fitting work, sets the mind in virtue, so that, evidently, it should tend and care for nothing else than this, as a good farmer tends his field.
One might ask why, though it is a holy thing to imitate the works of God, I am forbidden to plant a grove beside the altar, while God plants the paradise. For he says: "You shall not plant for yourself a grove; you shall not make for yourself any tree beside the altar of the Lord your God" (Deut. 16:21). What, then, must be said? That it is fitting for God to plant and build up the virtues in the soul.
But the mind that is self-loving and godless, thinking itself equal to God and imagining that it acts when in fact, on examination, it is only acted upon, while it is God who sows and plants the good things in the soul — such a mind, when it says "I plant," commits impiety. You shall not plant, then, when God is doing the planting; but if you do cast plants into the soul, O understanding, plant only fruit-bearing ones, and not a grove; for in a grove there are trees both of wild and of cultivated timber. To plant barren evil in the soul together with cultivated, fruit-bearing virtue belongs to the leprosy that is of two natures, mixed and hybrid.
If, then, you transgress any of these commands, O soul, you injure yourself, not God. That is why he says, "You shall not plant for yourself": for no one labors for God, least of all in base things. And he adds again, "You shall not make for yourself." And he says elsewhere too, "You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, and gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves" (Exodus 20:23). For whoever supposes either that he possesses God, or that God is not one, or not ungenerated and imperishable, or not unchangeable, wrongs himself, not God. "For yourselves," he says, "you shall not make": for one must think of him as without quality, as one, as imperishable, and as unchangeable. But whoever does not think this way fills his own soul with false and godless opinion.
Do you not see that even when he leads us into virtue, and once led in we plant nothing unfruitful, since "every tree edible for food" is planted, he still commands us to "circumcise its impurity" (Leviticus 19:23)? This is what it means merely to seem to plant: it means to cut away self-conceit,
for self-conceit promises fruit but is by nature impure. Now the man he says he formed, he places in paradise only at this point — so who then is the man of whom he says later that "the Lord God took the man he had made and placed him in paradise, to work it and guard it" (Genesis 2:15)? Surely this must be a different man, the one made according to the image and the idea, so that two men are introduced into paradise: the one molded, and the one made according to the image.
The one made according to the idea, then, is found not only engaged in the planting of the virtues, but is also their worker and their guardian — that is, one mindful of what he has heard and practiced — whereas the molded man neither works the virtues nor guards them, but is merely introduced into their doctrines by God's generosity, being destined soon to become a fugitive from virtue.
For this reason the one whom he merely places in paradise he calls molded, while the one whom he shows to be both worker and guardian he calls not molded but "whom he made" — and this one he takes, while the other he casts out. The one he takes he judges worthy on three counts, out of which good natural endowment is composed: quickness of apprehension, perseverance, and memory. Quickness of apprehension is the placing in paradise; perseverance is the doing of noble deeds [the working of noble things]; and memory is the guarding and preserving of the sacred doctrines. But the molded mind neither remembers noble things nor works them, but is only quick of apprehension — which is why, though placed in paradise, it runs off shortly afterward and is cast out.
"And God made to spring up out of the earth every tree beautiful to look at and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:9). He is now describing the trees of virtue that God plants in the soul. These are the particular virtues, the activities that accord with them, right actions, and what the philosophers call the appropriate duties — these are the plants of paradise.
He characterizes them, moreover, by showing that the good is most beautiful both to look upon and to enjoy. For some of the arts are contemplative but not practical — geometry, astronomy — while others are practical but not contemplative — carpentry, metalworking, and all those called the mechanical crafts. But virtue is both contemplative and practical: it has contemplation, insofar as the path toward it is philosophy through its three parts — the logical, the ethical, and the natural — and it also has actions, for virtue is the art of the whole of life, in which all actions together are comprised.
But although it has both contemplation and action, it again surpasses in each according to what is best: for the contemplation of virtue is altogether beautiful, and its practice and use are things worth fighting for. This is why he says that it is both "beautiful to look at," which was the symbol of the contemplative, and "good for food," which is the sign of the useful and the practical.
The tree of life is the most generic virtue, which some call goodness, from which the particular virtues are constituted. For this reason it is set in the very middle of paradise, holding the most commanding position, so that it may be attended, like a king, by the virtues on either side. Some say the heart is called the tree of life, since it is the cause of life and has been allotted the middle place of the body, being, as they hold, the ruling part. But let these people be aware that they are setting forth a medical opinion rather than a natural-philosophical one, whereas we, as was said before, say that it is the most generic virtue that is called the tree of life.
This tree, then, he expressly says is in the middle of paradise; but the other tree, that of knowing good and evil, he has not made clear whether it is within or outside paradise. Rather, having said only "and the tree of knowing the knowledge of good and evil," he fell silent at once without indicating where it happens to be, so that one uninitiated in the study of nature might not marvel at the tree of knowledge as though it actually existed somewhere. What then must we say? That this tree is both in paradise and outside it — in essence within it, but in potentiality outside it. How so?
Our ruling faculty is all-receptive and resembles wax, receiving all impressions, both beautiful and shameful; whence even Jacob the supplanter confesses, saying, "All these things have come upon me" (Genesis 42:36). For upon the soul, though it is one, are brought to bear the countless impressions of everything in the universe. Whenever, then, it receives the character of perfect virtue, it has become the tree of life; whenever it receives that of vice, it has become the tree of knowing good and evil. But vice has been banished from the divine chorus; therefore the ruling faculty that has received vice is in paradise as regards its essence — for the character of virtue too is within it, being proper to paradise — but again, in potentiality, it is not within it, because the imprint of vice is alien to the divine risings of light.
What I mean, one may also grasp in this way. Right now my ruling faculty is in my body as regards its essence, but in potentiality it is in Italy or Sicily, whenever it reasons about those regions, and in heaven, whenever it contemplates heaven. That is why people often, while in profane places, are as regards essence in the most sacred of places, forming images of virtue, and conversely others, while present in the innermost sanctuaries, are in their thinking profane, because their mind takes on turns for the worse and base impressions. So vice is neither in paradise nor not in it: for it can be there as regards essence, but it cannot be there in potentiality.
"And a river goes out from Eden to water paradise; and from there it is divided into four sources. The name of the one is Pishon: this is the river that encircles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; and there is carbuncle there, and the green stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: it encircles the whole land of Ethiopia. And the third river is the Tigris: this is the one that flows opposite the Assyrians. And the fourth river is the Euphrates" (Genesis 2:10–14). Through these he means to describe the particular virtues, which are four in number: practical wisdom, self-control, courage, and justice. The greatest river, from which the four streams arise, is the generic virtue, which we have named goodness; the four streams are the virtues equal to it in number.
The generic virtue, then, takes its origins from Eden, which is God's wisdom, who rejoices and delights and takes her pleasure, exulting and glorying in her father God alone; while the four particular virtues take theirs from the generic virtue, which, like a river, waters the right actions of each with a great flood of noble deeds.
Let us examine the words themselves. "A river," he says, "goes out from Eden to water paradise." The river is the generic virtue, goodness; it goes out from Eden, God's wisdom, which is the Word of God — for it is according to this that the generic virtue has been made. And the generic virtue waters paradise, that is, it irrigates the particular virtues. "Sources" he takes not in a topographical sense, but in the sense of ruling principles; for each of the virtues is truly a ruler and a queen. And "is divided" is equivalent to "is bounded by limits": practical wisdom setting limits concerning what is to be done, courage concerning what is to be endured, self-control concerning what is to be chosen,
and justice concerning what is to be apportioned. "The name of the one is Pishon: this is the river that encircles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; and there is carbuncle there, and the green stone." Of the four virtues, one kind is practical wisdom, which he has named Pishon from "sparing" (pheidesthai) — because it spares and guards the soul from wrongdoing. It dances in a circle and goes around the land of Havilah, that is, it tends the gracious, gentle, and propitious condition of the soul. And just as, of molten substances, gold is the finest and most approved, so too, of the soul, the most approved virtue has proved to be practical wisdom.
"Where there is gold" does not designate a place in the sense of "the place where gold is," but rather "the place of which the possession is" gold-gleaming, refined, and precious practical wisdom; for this has been acknowledged to be the most beautiful possession of God. And with respect to the domain of practical wisdom there are two kinds of persons: the one who is prudent, and the one who merely aims at being prudent,
which he has compared to carbuncle and the green stone. "And the name of the second river is Gihon: this encircles the whole land" of Ethiopia — symbolically this river is courage; for Gihon, when interpreted, means "breast" or "one who butts with horns," and each of these signifies courage. For courage dwells about the breast, where the heart also is, and stands ready for defense; for it is the knowledge of what is to be endured, what is not to be endured, and what is neither. And it encircles and besieges, waging war against Ethiopia, whose name, interpreted, means "humiliation"; and cowardice is a humbling thing, while courage is the enemy of humiliation and cowardice.
"And the third river is the Tigris: this is the one that flows opposite the Assyrians." The third virtue is self-control, standing opposed to pleasure, which seems to guide human weakness aright — for the Assyrians are called, when their name is straightened into the Greek tongue, "those who direct." And he has likened desire to the tiger, the most untamable of animals, the very thing with which self-control concerns itself.
It is worth pausing, however, to ask why courage is named second, self-control third, and practical wisdom first, without indicating any other order of the virtues. One must understand, then, that our soul is threefold, having one part rational, one part spirited, and one part appetitive. And it happens that the seat and dwelling place of the rational part is the head, of the spirited part the chest, and of the appetitive part the belly; and a virtue proper to each of these parts has been fitted to it: to the rational part, practical wisdom, for it belongs to reason to have knowledge of what one must do and what one must not; to the spirited part, courage; and to the appetitive part, self-control, for by self-control we heal and cure the desires.
Just as, then, the head is the first and uppermost part of the living creature, the chest second, and the belly third, and again of the soul the rational is first, the spirited second, and the appetitive third, so too, of the virtues, first is the one concerned with the first part of the soul, which is the rational, and which dwells in the head of the body — practical wisdom; second is courage, because it lodges about the second part of the soul, the spirited, and of the body, the chest; and third is self-control, because it is occupied about the belly, which is the third part of the body, and about the appetitive part, which has been allotted the third place in the soul,
with which it concerns itself. "And the fourth river," he says, "is the Euphrates." Euphrates is called "fruitfulness"; and symbolically it is the fourth virtue, justice, which is truly fruit-bearing and gladdens the mind. When, then, does it come about? Whenever the three parts of the soul are in harmony; and their harmony is the rule of the better part — as when the two, the spirited and the appetitive, are reined in like horses by the rational, then justice comes about. For it is just that the better should always and everywhere rule, and the worse be ruled; and the better is the rational, the worse the appetitive and the spirited.
But whenever, on the contrary, spirit and desire grow unruly and rear up, and drag off and yoke by force of impulse even the charioteer — I mean the reasoning faculty — and each passion seizes the reins, then injustice prevails; for of necessity, through the charioteer's inexperience and vice, the team is carried over cliffs and chasms, just as,
through his experience and virtue, it is brought to safety. Let us also consider the matter before us in this further way. Pishon is interpreted as "a change of mouth," and Havilah as "one in travail"; and through these practical wisdom is signified. For most people think the man clever at inventing sophistic arguments and skilled at expressing his thought is prudent, but Moses knows him only as a lover of words, and not at all as prudent. For it is in the change of the mouth — that is, of interpretive speech — that practical wisdom is contemplated; but this meant that to be prudent lies not in speech but is to be observed in deed and in earnest actions.
And practical wisdom sets a circle, and as it were a wall, around Havilah who is in travail with folly, for the sake of besieging and destroying her; for "one in travail" is folly's proper name, because the foolish mind, ever loving what is unattainable, is always in the pangs of travail — when it desires wealth, it is in travail; when it desires glory, when it desires pleasure, when it desires anything else.
But though it is always in labor, it never gives birth; for nothing in the soul of the base person is naturally able to bring anything to full term. Whatever it does seem to produce turns out to be a miscarriage or an abortion, consuming half its own flesh — the equivalent of death for the soul. This is why the sacred word asks Aaron, the brother of the God-loving Moses, to heal the affliction of Miriam, so that the soul may not remain in the birth-pangs of evils; hence it says, ‘Let her not become like one dead, like a stillborn child that comes out of its mother’s womb with half its flesh consumed’ (Num. 12:12).
‘There,’ then, it says, ‘is the gold’ (Gen. 2:11). It does not say that the gold merely exists there, but that it exists there where it is. For prudence, which he compared to gold — a nature unadulterated, pure, refined by fire, tested, and precious — is there, in the wisdom of God; and being there, it is not a possession of wisdom, but rather wisdom itself is there, where God, the maker and possessor, also is.
‘And the gold of that land is good’ (Gen. 2:12). Is there, then, another gold that is not good? Certainly. For prudence is of two kinds, one universal, the other particular. The prudence in me, being particular, is not good, since when I perish it perishes along with me; but the universal prudence, which dwells in the wisdom of God and in his house, is good, for it remains incorruptible in an incorruptible house.
‘And there is the carbuncle and the emerald’ (ibid.) — the two qualities, the prudent man and the one who exercises prudence: the one constituted according to prudence, the other exercising prudence according to the act of being prudent. For it was for the sake of these qualities that God sowed prudence and virtue in the earth-born man; for what would it amount to, if there did not exist reasoning faculties to receive it and to have its forms impressed upon them? So it is fitting that there, where prudence is, are also the prudent man and the one who exercises prudence — the two stones.
Perhaps, too, this is Judah and Issachar. For the one who trains himself in the prudence of God confesses with thanksgiving to him who has generously bestowed the good, while the other performs what is fine and earnest. Judah, then, is the symbol of the one who confesses — at whose birth Leah stood still (Gen. 29:35) — while Issachar is the symbol of the one who performs what is fine, ‘for he bowed his shoulder to labor and became a farmer’ (Gen. 49:15), concerning whom Moses says, once he has been sown and planted in the soul, ‘there is a reward’ (Gen. 30:18) — meaning that his toil was not left incomplete but was crowned by God and rewarded.
That he does keep these in mind, he shows elsewhere, when he speaks of the breastplate: ‘and you shall weave into it a four-rowed stone; there shall be a row of stones, sardius, topaz, emerald — this is the first row’ — Reuben, Simeon, Levi — ‘and the second row,’ he says, ‘is carbuncle and sapphire’ (Exod. 28:17–18) — the sapphire is an emerald-green stone. Engraved on the carbuncle is Judah, since he is fourth, and on the sapphire, Issachar.
Why, then, has he not called it a carbuncle-stone in the same way that he called the other an emerald stone? Because the way of Judah, the way of confession, is immaterial and incorporeal; indeed the very name ‘confession’ points to an acknowledgment made outside oneself. For whenever the mind goes out of itself and refers itself to God — as the laughter of Isaac did — then it makes its confession to the One who truly is; but so long as it supposes itself to be the cause of anything, it stands far off from yielding place to God and confessing to him. For this very act of confessing must be understood to be a work not of the soul, but of the one who shines upon it —
of God — his graciousness. Judah, then, who confesses, is immaterial. But Issachar, who has advanced by way of toil, needs bodily matter as well; for how will the one in training read without eyes? How will he hear the words of exhortation without hearing? How will he reach for food and drink apart from a stomach and its marvelous workings? For this reason he was likened to a stone.
Their colors, moreover, differ: proper to the one who confesses is the hue of the carbuncle, for he has been set aflame in gratitude to God and is intoxicated with a sober intoxication; but proper to the one still toiling is the hue of the emerald-green stone, for those in training are pale, both from the toil that wears them down and from fear that they may perhaps not attain the end they pray for.
It is worth pausing to ask why the two rivers, the Pheison and the Gehon, encircle regions — the one Havilah, the other Ethiopia — while neither of the remaining two does so, but the Tigris is said to lie opposite the Assyrians and the Euphrates opposite no one; and yet in point of fact the Euphrates too flows around certain regions and lies opposite many. But the discourse is not about the river, but about the correction of character.
We must say, then, that prudence and courage are able to throw a circle and a wall around the opposing vices, folly and cowardice, and to capture them; for both are weak and easily taken, since the fool is easily caught by the prudent man and the coward falls beneath the courageous man. But self-control is unable to encircle desire and pleasure, for these are difficult adversaries, hard to overthrow. Do you not see that even the most self-controlled are compelled by mortal necessity to come to food and drink, from which the pleasures of the stomach are constituted? It is enough, then, to stand against and do battle with the class of desire. This is why the river Tigris lies opposite the Assyrians — self-control opposite pleasure.
But justice, in accordance with which the river Euphrates is constituted, neither besieges nor walls anyone in, nor takes up a stand against anyone. Why? Because justice is the distributor of what is due to each according to merit, and is arrayed neither on the side of the accuser nor of the defendant, but on the side of the judge. Just as the judge does not choose beforehand to defeat some or to make war and stand opposed to others, but by pronouncing his judgment awards what is just, so justice, being no one’s adversary, distributes to each thing what is due according to its worth.
‘And the Lord God took the man he had made and placed him in paradise, to work it and to guard it’ (Gen. 2:15). The man whom God made differs, as I have said, from the man who was molded; for the molded mind is more earthly, while the made mind is more immaterial, having no share in perishable matter, having obtained a purer and more unmixed constitution.
This pure mind, then, God takes, not allowing it to walk outside itself, and having taken it he places it among the virtues that are rooted and sprouting, so that it may work them and guard them. For many who became practitioners of virtue changed their course at the very end; but to the one to whom God grants firm knowledge, he gives both things: to work the virtues and never to depart from them, but always to store up and guard each one. ‘To work,’ then, stands for practicing them, and ‘to guard’ for remembering them.
‘And the Lord God commanded Adam, saying: You may eat for food from every tree in paradise, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; on the day you eat from it, you shall die by death’ (Gen. 2:16–17). We must ask which Adam he commands, and who this is; for he has not mentioned him before, and only now names him for the first time. Perhaps, then, he wishes to set before you the name of the molded man. ‘Call him earth,’ he says, for this is what Adam means — so that whenever you hear ‘Adam,’ you should understand an earthly and perishable mind is meant; for the one made after the image is not earthly but heavenly.
We must also ask why, though he assigns names to all other things, he has not assigned one to himself. What, then, must we say? The mind within each of us is able to grasp other things, but is unable to know itself; for just as the eye sees other things but does not see itself, so too the mind understands other things but does not grasp itself. Let it say, then, what it is and of what sort — spirit, blood, fire, air, or some other body — or even simply whether it is a body or, again, incorporeal. Are those, then, not foolish who inquire into the essence of God, when they do not even know the essence of their own soul? How could they attain accuracy about the soul of the universe? For the soul of the universe is, by the very notion of it, God.
Fittingly, then, Adam — that is, the mind — while naming and grasping other things, assigns no name to himself, because he does not know himself or his own nature. And it is to this mind that the command is given, not to the one who came to be after the image and pattern; for that one possesses virtue by self-taught nature even without exhortation, whereas this one would not attain prudence without teaching.
These three differ: command, prohibition, and injunction together with exhortation. For prohibition concerns sins and is directed at the base person; command concerns right actions; and exhortation is directed at the person in between, who is neither base nor virtuous — for he neither sins, so as to require prohibition, nor acts rightly according to the command of right reason, but has need of exhortation, which teaches him to hold back from base things and turns him instead toward desiring what is noble.
To the perfect person, then, the one made after the image, there is no need to command, prohibit, or exhort, for the perfect person needs none of these things; but the earth-born person has need of command and prohibition, and the infant has need of exhortation and teaching — just as the perfect grammarian or musician needs no instruction in matters of the art, while the one who errs in its principles needs commands and prohibitions, as it were, of certain laws, and the one who is just beginning to learn needs teaching.
Fittingly, then, to the earthly mind, which is neither base nor virtuous but in between, he now gives both command and exhortation. And he exhorts. The exhortation comes through both titles, both ‘Lord’ and ‘God’; for ‘the Lord God commanded’ — so that if the mind obeys the exhortations, it may be deemed worthy of benefits from God, but if it rebels, it will be cast off by the Lord, as by a master who has authority.
This is why, when the mind is also cast out of paradise, it receives the same titles; for it says: ‘And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of delight, to work the earth from which he was taken’ (Gen. 3:23) — so that, since it was as master that the Lord commanded and as benefactor that God commanded, it might likewise, being both, punish the one who disobeyed; for by the very powers through which he had exhorted, through these he sends away the one who would not obey.
What he exhorts is this: ‘You may eat for food from every tree in paradise’ (Gen. 2:16). He urges the human soul to derive benefit not from one tree, nor from a single virtue, but from all the virtues; for eating is a symbol of the soul’s nourishment, and the soul is nourished by taking in what is noble and by the practice of right actions.
He says not merely ‘eat,’ ‘you shall eat,’ but also ‘for food,’ having ground it fine in the manner not of an amateur but of an athlete, so as to secure strength and power; for trainers instruct athletes not to gulp their food but to chew it at leisure, so that they may grow in strength — for I and the athlete are nourished differently: I eat merely in order to live, but the athlete eats also in order to be fattened and strengthened, and grinding one’s food fine is one of the practices of training. Such is the meaning of ‘eating for food.’ Let us set this out yet more precisely.
Honoring one’s parents is edible and nourishing; but the good and the base honor them differently — the base out of habit, and these do not eat ‘for food’ but merely eat. When, then, do they also eat ‘for food’? When, having unfolded the matter and searched out the reasons, they judge willingly that this is good; and the reasons are these: they gave us birth, nourished us, educated us, and have become the cause of every good thing for us. Again, honoring the One who truly is is edible; but it becomes ‘for food’ when it is accompanied by the unfolding of the main point and the rendering of reasons.
‘But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’ (Gen. 2:17). This tree, then, does not exist in paradise; for if he commands eating from everything in paradise, but not eating from this one, it is clear that it is not in paradise — and rightly so by nature. For it exists, as I said, in substance, but does not exist potentially. For just as in wax all the seal-impressions exist potentially, but only the one actually stamped exists in actuality, so too in the soul, which is wax-like, all the impressions are contained potentially, not in actuality, but the one stamped upon it prevails, until it is erased by another that has stamped upon it more clearly and distinctly.
Next we must raise this problem too: when he exhorts eating from every tree of paradise, he is urging one person, but when he forbids the use of the tree that is cause of evil and good, he is addressing several. For there he says "you shall eat from every tree" — singular — but here "you shall not eat" and "on whatever day you eat" — plural, not singular — and "you shall die" — plural, not singular.
So this must be said: first, the good is scarce, but evil is abundant. Because of this, it is possible to find only a single wise man at work, but the multitude of the base is countless. It is fitting, then, that he directs one person to be nourished in the virtues, but forbids many from the practice of villainy, since countless people engage in it.
Second, for the taking up and use of virtue, reason alone is needed; the body does not cooperate toward this but actually hinders it, for it is nearly wisdom's task to become estranged from the body and its desires. But for the enjoyment of vice, the mind alone need not be disposed in a certain way — sensation and speech and the body must be as well.
For the base person needs all of these for the fulfillment of his own vice. How will he divulge secrets without an organ of speech? And how will he enjoy the pleasures of the belly if deprived of his senses? Fittingly, then, he converses with reason alone about the acquisition of virtue, since only reason, as I said, is needed for its acquisition — but about vice he speaks to several: soul, speech, senses, and body, for it is displayed through all of these.
Yet he says: "On whatever day you eat of it, you shall die by death" (Gen. 2:17). And when they eat, not only do they not die, but they even beget children and become causes of life for others. What, then, must we say? That death is twofold: one belonging to the human being, the other belonging properly to the soul. The death of the human being is the separation of the soul from the body; but the death of the soul is the destruction of virtue and the taking up of vice.
And that is why he says it does not simply die, but "dies by death," signifying not the common death but the particular and preeminent one, which is the death of a soul entombed in passions and every vice. And this death is, in a sense, the opposite of the other; for that one is the separation of the two things joined together, body and soul, whereas this one is, on the contrary, a union of both, with the worse thing, the body, gaining mastery, and the better thing, the soul, being overpowered.
Wherever he says "die by death," observe that he means the death inflicted as punishment, not the one that comes by nature. The one that comes by nature is that by which the soul is separated from the body; but the one inflicted as punishment occurs whenever the soul dies to the life of virtue but lives the life of vice
alone. And Heraclitus spoke well on this point, following the doctrine of Moses, for he says: "We live their death, and we have died their life," meaning that now, while we live, the soul is dead and, as it were, entombed in the body as in a tomb, but if we should die, the soul would live its own life, freed from the evil and corpse-like bond that is the body.

======== Allegorical Interpretation II ========

"And the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a helper corresponding to him" (Gen. 2:18). Why, prophet, is it not good for the man to be alone? Because, he says, it is good for the Alone to be alone. God alone, being one by himself, is unique; nothing is like God. So since it is good for the One who truly is to be alone -- for the good belongs to him alone -- it would not be good for the man to be alone.
That God alone exists can also be understood in this way: nothing existed with God before the creation, and once the world came to be, nothing is ranked alongside him; for he needs absolutely nothing. But this understanding is better: God alone is one, not a composite, a simple nature, whereas each of us, and everything else that has come into being, is many things. I, for instance, am many things -- soul and body, and within the soul the irrational and the rational, and again within the body hot and cold, heavy and light, dry and moist. But God is not a composite, nor made up of many elements, but unmixed with anything else. For whatever is joined to
God is either greater than he, or less, or equal to him. But nothing is equal to God or greater than God, and certainly nothing is judged inferior to him either -- for if it were, he himself would be diminished thereby, and if that were so, he would be subject to decay, which is not even permissible to conceive. God, then, is ranked according to the One and the Monad -- or rather, the Monad is ranked according to the one God. For every number is younger than the world, just as
time is, whereas God is older than the world, and is its Maker. No human being, however, is good to be alone. For there are two kinds of human beings: the one made according to the image, and the one molded out of earth. For the man made according to the image it is not good to be alone -- for he reaches out toward the image; the image of God is the archetype of all things, and every likeness longs for that of which it is a likeness, and is ranked together with it. And it is far less good for the molded man to be alone -- indeed it is impossible, for sensations and passions and vices and countless other things are yoked and joined to this mind.
For the second man a helper is formed, one who is, first of all, generated -- for it says, "let us make a helper for him" -- and who is younger than the one being helped. For God first molded the mind, and only afterward was about to mold its helper. But this too is a natural allegory: sensation and the passions of the soul are helpers younger than the soul. How they help, we shall see; that they are younger, let us now observe.
Just as, according to the best physicians and natural philosophers, the heart seems to be formed first of the whole body, in the manner of a foundation, or as the keel in a ship, on which the rest of the body is built -- which is why they say it still twitches even after death, since it is both the first to come into being and the last to perish -- so too the ruling part of the soul is older than the whole, while the irrational part is younger, whose origin Scripture has not yet described but is about to. The irrational is sense-perception and the passions that are its offspring, especially insofar as they are not our own judgments. Reasonably, then, this helper of the mind is younger, and rightly generated.
Let us look at what was postponed, namely how it helps. How does our mind grasp that this is white or black, except by employing sight as a helper? How does it grasp that the lyre-singer's voice is sweet, or on the contrary discordant, except by employing hearing as a helper? How does it grasp that vapors are fragrant or foul, except by employing smell as an ally? How does it assess flavors, except through the helper of taste? And how, again, does it distinguish soft from rough, except through touch?
There is, then, another kind of helper, as I said, namely the passions. For pleasure helps toward the continuance of our race, as does desire; and grief and fear too, by biting the soul, turn it to disregard nothing; and anger, a weapon of defense, has greatly benefited many, and so with the rest. That is why Scripture aptly said the helper is "corresponding to him" -- for this helper is truly proper to the mind, as a brother of the same blood; sense-perception and the passions are parts and offspring of one and the same soul.
The helper is of two kinds, one among the passions, the other in sense-perception. For now only the former kind will be generated, for it says: "And God still further molded out of the earth all the wild animals of the field and all the birds of the sky, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called it, a living soul, that was its name" (Gen. 2:19). You see who our helpers are: the wild animals are the passions of the soul. For having said "let us make a helper corresponding to him," Scripture goes on to say "he molded the wild animals," as though the wild animals were our helpers.
These, however, are called helpers not in the proper sense but by an abuse of language, since in truth they turn out to be enemies -- just as sometimes allies prove traitors and deserters, and among friends, flatterers turn out to be enemies rather than companions. Scripture has called the mind, allegorically, by the synonymous names "sky" and "field": for the mind, like a field, has countless risings and shoots, and like the sky, again, has bright, divine, and blessed natures.
Scripture likens the passions to wild beasts and birds, because they savage the mind, being untamed and unruly, and because, like birds, they fly up into the understanding; for their impulse is sharp and unrestrainable. It is not by chance that the word "still further" is added to "molded." Why? Because it says that the wild animals had already been molded before the creation of man, as it also shows in these words concerning the sixth day: "And he said, let the earth bring forth a living soul according to kind: four-footed creatures and reptiles and wild beasts" (Gen. 1:24).
What, then, has happened to him, that he now molds other wild animals, not content with the earlier ones? This must be said in the moral sense: the class of vice is rich within the created realm, so that the basest things are continually being generated in it. And in the natural sense: earlier, in the six days, he was producing the classes and forms of the passions, but now he is molding further particular species.
That is why it says "he still further molded." That the classes had been made long before is clear from the words "let the earth bring forth a living soul" -- not "species," but "according to kind." And this is found to be his method in every case: he completes the classes before the species, just as with man; for having first sketched the generic man, in whom he says the male and the female class exist, he later fashions the particular form, Adam.
This, then, is the account he has given of one kind of helper; the other, that of sense-perception, he postpones until he undertakes to mold the woman. Having set that aside, he expounds the theory of the giving of names. Both the figurative and the literal account here deserve our wonder. The literal account is this: the lawgiver assigned the giving of names to the first man to come into being.
For the philosophers among the Greeks too said that those who first assigned names to things were wise men. But Moses did better, for he assigned this task, first, not to some earlier people but to the first man to come into being, so that just as he himself was molded to be the origin of generation for the others, so too he might be reckoned the origin of speech -- for if there were no names, there would be no language either. And second, because if many people were assigning names, they would inevitably turn out discordant and incompatible, one person naming things one way and another another way, whereas it was necessary that the assignment of one person should fit the thing, and that this should be a symbol, the same for all, of the
object referred to, or of what is signified. The moral account is this: we often put "what" in place of "why" -- for instance, "what do you walk for," "what do you converse for," all these standing for "why." So when it says "to see what he would call them," understand this as equivalent to: why will the mind call, summon, and welcome each of these things? Is it only for the sake of necessity, since the mortal being is necessarily yoked to passions and vices, or also for the sake of excess and superfluity? And is it for the needs of the earthborn creature, or because it judges these things to be best and most admirable?
For example, one must make use of pleasure as something that has come to be; but the base person will use it as a complete good, while the person of worth will use it only as a necessity -- for nothing among mortal-born things comes about apart from pleasure. Again, the base person judges the acquisition of wealth to be the most complete good, while the person of worth judges it too to be merely necessary. God, then, reasonably wishes to see and learn how the mind summons and welcomes each of these things -- whether as goods, or as indifferent things, or as things that are bad, yet in another sense useful.
That is why, whatever the mind summoned and welcomed as a living soul, judging it worthy of equal honor with a soul, the name that resulted belonged not only to the thing summoned but also to the one who summoned it. For instance, if it welcomed pleasure, it was called a lover of pleasure; if desire, a man of desire; if licentiousness, licentious; if cowardice, cowardly; and so with the rest. For just as, from the virtues, the person qualified by them is called prudent, or temperate, or just, or courageous, so too, from the vices, he is called unjust and foolish and unmanly, whenever he has summoned and welcomed these states.
"And God cast a trance upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs" and so on (Gen. 2:21). The literal statement here is mythical. For how could anyone accept that a woman, or indeed a human being at all, came to be from a man's rib? What would have prevented the same cause that fashioned the man out of earth from likewise fashioning the woman? The maker was the same, and the matter was practically limitless, out of which every quality was constructed.
Why, then, when so many parts were available, did he not form the woman from some other part, but from a rib? And which rib did he take -- so that we might say only two are indicated, since Scripture did not even reveal their number -- the left, perhaps, or the right? And if he filled up the one with flesh again, was not the remaining one presumably not fleshly? And yet all our ribs are akin and related in every part, and made of the same flesh. What, then, must be said? This must be said:
ordinary usage calls the powers "ribs": we say a person "has ribs" as equivalent to "has powers," and that an athlete is "well-ribbed" instead of "strong," and that a singer to the lyre "has ribs" instead of "has vigorous power in singing."
Having said this beforehand, this too must be said: that the mind naked and unbound to a body -- for the discussion concerns the mind not yet bound -- has many powers: cohesion, growth, soul, reason, understanding, and countless others besides, both specific and generic. Cohesion is common even to lifeless things, stones and wood, and our bones, which resemble stones, share in it. Growth extends also to plants; and in us there are things that resemble plants, namely nails and hair. Growth is cohesion already set in motion.
Soul is a nature that has additionally acquired impression and impulse; this is common also to irrational creatures, and our mind too has something analogous to an irrational soul. Again, the power of understanding is peculiar to the mind, while the power of reason is common, perhaps, even to more divine natures, but peculiar, among mortals, to man; and this is twofold -- one kind, by which we are rational insofar as we partake of mind, and another, by which we converse.
There is, then, yet another power in the soul, a sister of these, the perceptive power, which is the subject of this discussion. For the text here is describing nothing other than the coming-to-be of sense-perception in actuality; and reasonably so, for immediately after mind it was necessary that sense-perception be formed as its helper and ally. Having brought the first creation to completion, God molds the second, both in order and in power -- sense-perception in actuality -- for the completion of the whole soul and for the apprehension of the things that underlie it. How, then, is it generated?
As he himself says again, it is when the mind falls asleep. For indeed, when the mind sleeps, sense-perception comes to be, and conversely, when the mind is awake, it is extinguished. Here is the proof: whenever we wish to think something with precision, we flee into solitude, close our eyes, stop up our ears, and take leave of the senses. Thus, when the mind rises and makes use of wakefulness, sense-perception perishes.
Let us look also at the other case: how mind makes use of sleep. When sensation has risen up and been kindled to life, and sight looks with pleasure on the well-crafted works of painters or sculptors, is mind not idle, contemplating nothing intelligible? And when hearing attends to the melody of a voice, can mind reason about anything of its own concerns? By no means. And mind becomes far more idle still when taste rises up and greedily gorges itself on the pleasures of the belly.
This is why Moses, fearing that mind might not merely fall asleep but actually die outright, says elsewhere: “And you shall have a peg on your belt, and when you squat down you shall dig with it, and having covered it over you shall cover your shame” (Deut. 23:13), calling the peg, in symbolic terms, the reason that digs out things hidden.
He commands the man to wear it upon the passion, which must be kept girded up and never allowed to hang slack and loose. And this must be done whenever mind, having abandoned its tension toward things intelligible, gives way to the passions, and squats down, yielding and being led by bodily necessity.
And so it is: whenever, in luxurious company, mind forgets itself, overpowered by the things that lead to pleasure, we are enslaved and make use of uncovered impurity; but if reason has the strength to purify the passion, then we are neither drunk from what we drink nor run riot from what we eat through excess, but, without idle chatter, take our food soberly.
So then, the waking of the senses is a sleep of mind, and the waking of mind is an inactivity of the senses — just as, when the sun rises, the brightness of the other stars becomes invisible, but when it sets, they become plainly visible. In the manner of the sun, then, mind, when awake, overshadows the senses, but when it has fallen asleep, it lets them shine forth.
Having said this, we must apply it to the words. “God cast a trance upon” the one “he had put to sleep” (Gen. 2:21) — rightly; for the trance and turning of mind is its sleep. It is put in a trance whenever it is not occupied with the intelligible things incumbent upon it; and when it is not engaged in these activities, it sleeps. And it is well said that it “was put in a trance” — that is, was turned — not by itself, but by God, who casts, brings on, and sends the turning upon it.
For indeed this is how it is: if turning depended on me, I would make use of it whenever I wished, and whenever I did not so choose, I would remain unturned. But as things stand, the turning even contends against me, and often, though I wish to think of something fitting, I am flooded by influxes contrary to what is fitting; and conversely, when I have conceived some shameful notion, I have washed it away with wholesome thoughts, God, by his own grace, pouring a sweet stream into the soul instead of a brackish one.
Now everything that has come into being must necessarily be subject to turning — for this is its own property, just as being unturning is God’s property. But of those who have been turned, some have remained so until utter corruption, while others, only so far as was necessary for a mortal being to suffer, were straightway restored.
This is why Moses also says that God “will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike” (Exod. 12:23): for he allows the destroyer — and destruction is the turning — to enter the soul, so as to display what is proper to the created being; but God will not permit the offspring of him who sees, Israel, to be so turned as to be struck down by the turning, but will force him to run back up and lift his head, as if out of the deep, and be restored.
“He took one of his ribs” (Gen. 2:21). Of the many powers of mind he took one, the perceptive power. And “he took” is not to be understood as “listened to,” but as “counted, examined” — as elsewhere, “take the total of the plunder taken captive” (Num. 31:26).
What, then, does he wish to establish? Sensation is spoken of in two senses: one according to a settled state, which belongs to us even while we sleep, and one according to actuality. From the former, the one according to a settled state, there is no benefit, for through it we do not apprehend the things that underlie it; but through the second, the one according to actuality, we do make our apprehensions of sensible things.
Having generated, then, the former sensation, the one according to a settled state, at the very time he generated mind — for he equipped mind together with many powers lying at rest — he now wishes to bring to completion the sensation according to actuality. And this is completed whenever the settled-state sensation, once set in motion, is stretched out as far as the flesh and the organs of perception. For just as nature is completed when seed is set in motion, so too is activity completed when a settled state is set in motion.
“And he filled up the flesh in its place” (Gen. 2:21) — that is, he completed the settled-state sensation by bringing it into actuality and stretching it out as far as the flesh and the whole surface of the body. This is why he adds that God “built it into a woman” (Gen. 2:22), showing thereby that “woman” is the most fitting and most exactly apt name for sensation. For just as the man is contemplated in acting, and the woman in being acted upon, so mind is examined in acting, and sensation, after the manner of a woman, in being acted upon.
This is easy to learn from plain evidence. Sight is acted upon by the visible things that move it — white, black, and the rest; hearing, in turn, is affected by sounds, and taste is disposed by flavors, smell by vapors, touch by the rough and the smooth. And all the senses remain at rest until whatever is to move each of them from outside approaches it.
“And he brought her to Adam; and Adam said, this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:22–23). God brings the sensation according to actuality to mind, knowing that its motion and apprehension must bend back toward mind. And he, having beheld the power he formerly possessed, at rest according to its settled state, now become a completed result and set in motion as an actuality, marvels and cries out, declaring that it is not something alien to him but altogether his own; “this,”
he says, “is bone of my bones” — that is, a power from my powers, for “bone” is here used to mean power and strength — “and a passion of my passions”; “and flesh,” he says, “of my flesh” — for everything that sensation undergoes, it endures not without mind, since mind is the source
and the foundation on which it rests. It is worth considering why “now” was added; for he says, “this now is bone of my bones.” Sensation by nature exists only “now,” subsisting only in present time. Mind, on the other hand, lays hold of all three times, for it both thinks the things present, and remembers the things past, and anticipates the things to come;
but sensation neither apprehends things future, nor experiences anything analogous to expectation or hope, nor remembers things past, but is by nature made to be affected only by what is already acting on it and present — as, for instance, the eye is whitened now by the white that is present, but is not affected at all by what is not present. Mind, however, is moved even by what is not present — by what is past, through memory, and by what is to come, through hoping and anticipating.
“And she shall be called woman for this” (Gen. 2:23) — that is, for this reason sensation will be called “woman,” “because she was taken from the man” who moves her, “this one,” he says. Why, then, is “this one” added? Because there is another sensation, not taken from mind but come into being together with it; for, as I have already said, there are two sensations, the one according to a settled state, the other according to actuality.
The one according to a settled state, then, is not taken from the man — that is, from mind — but grows up together with him; for mind, as I have shown, when it was generated, was generated together with many powers and settled states — rational, psychic, vegetative, and so also perceptive. But the sensation according to actuality comes from mind; for it was stretched out from the settled-state sensation already existing in mind, so as to become actual, so that this second sensation, the one according to motion, has come to be from mind itself.
Foolish is he who thinks, in the eyes of true reason, that anything at all is generated from mind, or from itself. Do you not see that even to sensation — which sits enthroned upon idols, in the person of Rachel, thinking that its movements come from mind — the one who sees rebukes it? For she says, “Give me children; otherwise I shall die” (Gen. 30:1); but he answers, O you who hold a false opinion, mind is the cause of nothing, but the God who is before mind is. This is why he adds, “Am I in the place of God, who has deprived you of the fruit of the womb?” (ibid. 2).
That it is God who generates, he will attest in the case of Leah, when he says, “And the Lord, seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb, but Rachel was barren” (Gen. 29:31). Now to open a womb is the property of a man. And by nature virtue is hated among the mortal race; this is why God has honored her, and grants the birthright to the one who is hated.
And he says elsewhere: “If a man has two wives, one of them loved and one of them hated, and they bear him children, and the firstborn son is the son of the hated wife … he shall not be able to give the birthright to the son of the loved wife, disregarding the son of the hated wife, the firstborn” (Deut. 21:15). For the offspring of hated virtue are the very first and most perfect, while those of beloved pleasure are the last.
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). For the sake of sensation, mind, whenever it is enslaved to it, leaves both the father of all things, God, and the mother of all things, virtue and the wisdom of God, and clings to and is united with its equal, and dissolves into sensation, so that the two become one flesh and one passion.
Observe, however, that it is not the woman who clings to the man, but rather, conversely, the man who clings to the woman — mind to sensation. For whenever the better, mind, is united to the worse, sensation, it dissolves into the worse, the race of flesh, sensation being the cause of the passions; but whenever the worse, sensation, follows the better, mind, it will no longer be flesh, but both will be mind. Such, then, is this man, who prefers the love of passion to the love of God.
Observe that it is not the woman who cleaves to the man, but on the contrary the man to the woman - mind to sense-perception. For whenever the better, the mind, is united with the worse, sense-perception, it dissolves into the worse, the race of flesh, which is the cause of the passions, sense-perception; but whenever the worse, sense-perception, follows the better, the mind, it will no longer be flesh, but both will be mind. Such, then, is this man, who prefers the passion-loving life to the God-loving life.
But there is another, of the opposite choice, Levi, who "says to his father and mother, I have not seen you, and does not acknowledge his brothers, and disowns his sons" (Deut. 33:9). This man abandons father and mother - mind and the matter of the body - in order to have as his portion the one God, "for the Lord himself is his portion" (Deut. 10:9).
So the portion of the passion-loving man is passion, while the portion of Levi, the God-loving man, is God. Do you not see that on the tenth day of the seventh month he commands two goats to be brought forward, one lot for the Lord and one lot for the scapegoat (Lev. 16:8)? For the true portion of the passion-loving man is the passion that is sent away.
"And the two were naked, Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the beasts on the earth that the Lord God had made" (Gen. 2:25-3:1). The mind is naked when it is clothed neither with vice nor with virtue, but is truly stripped of both, just as the soul of an infant child, having no part in either good or evil, has cast off its coverings and is stripped bare. For these are the garments of the soul, by which it is covered and concealed - the good, in the case of the serious soul, the evil, in the case of the base one.
The soul is stripped bare in three ways. Once, when it remains unchanging and has been emptied of all its vices, and has cast off and rejected all its passions. This is why "Moses pitches his own tent outside the camp, far from the camp, and it was called the tent of testimony" (Exod. 33:7). This is what it means.
The God-loving soul, stripping off the body and the things dear to it, and fleeing far outside from these, receives fixity and stability and settlement in the perfect doctrines of virtue. This is why it is testified to by God, that it loves what is beautiful - for it says, "it was called the tent of testimony" - and it kept silent about who does the calling, so that the soul, being stirred to inquiry, might consider who it is that bears witness to minds that love virtue.
For this reason the high priest will not enter into the holy of holies wearing the full-length robe (cf. Lev. 16:1ff.), but stripping off the tunic of the soul's opinion and outward show, and leaving it to those who love external things and have honored opinion above truth, he will enter naked, without colors and sounds, to pour out the blood of the soul as a libation and to burn the whole mind as incense to God the savior and benefactor.
And indeed Nadab and Abihu (cf. Lev. 10:1), who drew near to God and abandoned mortal life while receiving a share of the immortal, are seen naked of empty and mortal opinion. For those who carried them out would not have carried them in their tunics (Lev. 10:5), had they not been stripped bare, having burst every bond of passion and bodily necessity, so that their nakedness and incorporeality should not be counterfeited by an intrusion of godless reasonings. For not everyone should be permitted to look upon the secret things of God, but only those who are able to keep and guard them.
This is why the men of Mishael do not carry them off in their own tunics, but in those of Nadab and Abihu, who had been consumed by fire and taken up. For having stripped off everything that covered them, they offered their nakedness to God, and left the tunics to the men of Mishael - and the tunics are the parts of the irrational soul, which the rational part had overshadowed.
And Abraham too is made naked when he hears, "Go out from your land and from your kindred" (Gen. 12:1). And Isaac is not made naked, but is always naked and incorporeal; for a command has been given to him not to go down into Egypt (Gen. 26:2), that is, into the body. And Jacob loves nakedness of soul - for his smoothness is a kind of nakedness - for Esau, it says, was a hairy man, but Jacob was a smooth man (Gen. 27:11); which is also why he is the husband of Leah.
This is the one best kind of nakedness; the other is its opposite, a stripping away of virtue that comes through a turning aside, when the soul grows foolish and loses its mind. Noah makes use of this kind of nakedness when he becomes naked from drinking wine. But thanks be to God, that the turning and the nakedness of the mind, which came through the removal of virtue, did not pour out to external things, but remained within the house; for it says, "he was made naked within his house" (Gen. 9:21). For even if the wise man sins, he does not run aground as the base man does; for the vice of the one pours out, while that of the other is held in check. Hence he sobers up again - that is, he repents, and recovers as if from an illness.
Let us look more closely at how the nakedness comes to be within the house. When the soul has only conceived, through a turning aside, some improper thought, and does not go further to carry it out in deed, the wrongdoing has occurred within the region and house of the soul. But if, in addition to reasoning something base, the soul also brings it to completion, so as to work it out, the wrongdoing has poured out into external things as well. This is why he also curses Canaan.
Because he reported outside the turning aside of the soul, that is, he extended it also to external things and worked it out fully, adding to the evil intention the evil result achieved through deeds. But Shem and Japheth are praised for not seizing upon the soul's condition, but rather covering over its turning aside.
This is why vows and the determinations of the soul are released when they occur within the house of a father or a husband (Num. 30:4ff.), if the reasonings do not remain quiet nor seize upon the turning aside, but rather remove the wrongdoing altogether; for then the master of all things "will cleanse her" too. But he allows the vow of a widow and of a divorced woman to remain irrevocable; for it says, "whatever she has vowed against her own soul shall remain binding on her" (Num. 30:10) - and reasonably so. For if, having been cast out, she has gone forward as far as external things, so as not merely to turn aside but also to sin through the results of her actions, she remains uncured, having no share in the reasoning of a husband and being deprived of the comfort of a father.
The third kind of nakedness is the middle one, according to which the mind is irrational, having a share neither in virtue nor yet in vice. It is of this kind that our discourse speaks, in which the infant too has a share, so that the statement "the two were naked, Adam and his wife," means this: neither did the mind understand nor did sense-perception perceive, but the one was empty and bare of understanding, and the other of perceiving.
Let us look again at the phrase "they were not ashamed." There are three states with respect to this matter: shamelessness, a sense of shame, and the state of being neither shameless nor ashamed. Shamelessness is characteristic of the base man, a sense of shame of the serious man, but being neither ashamed nor shameless belongs to the one who has not yet formed any comprehension or assent, which is the one our discourse now concerns. For the one who has not yet grasped good or evil can neither be shameless nor ashamed.
Now examples of shamelessness are all forms of indecency, whenever the mind uncovers shameful things that ought to be kept hidden, and takes pride and glories in them. This is also said of Miriam, when she spoke against Moses: "If her father had spit in her face, would she not be ashamed for seven days?" (Num. 12:14).
For sense-perception is truly shameless and bold - she who, though scorned by God the father in favor of the faithful man throughout his whole household (ibid. 7), the man to whom God himself joined the Ethiopian woman, the unchanging and thoroughgoing judgment, still dares to speak against Moses and accuse him for that very thing for which he ought to have been praised (ibid. 1). For this is his greatest achievement, that he took the Ethiopian woman, the unturning, fire-tested, and proven nature. For just as in the eye the part that sees is black, so the seeing faculty of the soul is called the Ethiopian woman.
Why then, when there are many deeds of vice, does he mention only the one concerning shame, saying "they were not ashamed," and not "they did not act unjustly" or "they did not sin" or "they did not offend"? The reason lies close at hand. By the one true God, I hold nothing so shameful as supposing that I myself am the cause of understanding or of perceiving. Is my mind the cause of understanding? How so?
For does it know itself - what it is, or how it came to be? And is sense-perception the cause of perceiving? How could this be said, when it is known neither by itself nor by the mind? Do you not see that the mind which seems to understand is often found to be mindless - in states of satiety, of drunkenness, of derangement? Where then is its understanding in these states? And does sense-perception not often lose its power of perceiving? There are times when, though seeing, we do not see, and though hearing, we do not hear, whenever the mind is drawn aside, even a little, toward some other object of thought, its attention elsewhere.
So then, so long as they are naked - the mind of understanding, sense-perception of perceiving - they have nothing shameful. But whenever they begin to lay claim to comprehension, they fall into shame and outrage; for they will often be found employing foolishness and folly rather than sound knowledge, not only in states of satiety, melancholy, and derangement, but also in the rest of life. For whenever sense-perception rules, the mind is enslaved, attending to nothing intelligible; and whenever the mind rules, sense-perception is seen to be inactive, having no grasp of anything perceptible.
"Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the beasts on the earth that the Lord God had made" (Gen. 3:1). Since mind and sense-perception had already come into being, and these existed naked in the manner described, there must necessarily be a third thing, pleasure, which brings the two together for the apprehension of intelligible and perceptible things. For the mind could not, apart from sense-perception, apprehend an animal or a plant or a stone or a piece of wood or a body generally, nor could sense-perception, apart from the mind, secure its perceiving.
Since, then, both of these had to come together for the apprehension of the underlying objects, what brought them together but a third bond, that of desire and appetite, of ruling and mastering pleasure, which he named symbolically the serpent?
The creator of living things, God, ordered this arrangement most excellently: mind first, the man, for it is the eldest thing in a human being; then sense-perception, the woman; then, next, third, pleasure. In power these are conceived as differing in age only in thought, but in time they are of equal age; for the soul brings everything with it at once, though some things in actuality, others only in potentiality, even if it has not yet attained its completion.
Pleasure was likened to a serpent for the following reason: the motion of a serpent is manifold and twisting, and so too is that of pleasure. It coils first in five ways, for pleasures arise through sight, through hearing, through taste, through smell, and through touch; and the most violent and intense of these are the intimacies with women, through which the generation of one's like is by nature brought to completion.
What need is there to teach about the pleasures of the belly? For there are, roughly speaking, as many pleasures as there are pleasant differences among the underlying flavors that stir the sense of taste. Is it not fitting, then, that pleasure, being of many kinds, is likened for this reason to a creature of many kinds, the serpent — and likewise to the part in us that is like a crowd, a rabble,
whenever it longs for the houses in Egypt — that is, for the bulk of the body — it falls into pleasures that bring death: not the separation of soul from body, but the corruption of the soul by vice. For it says: ‘And the Lord sent among the people serpents that brought death, and they bit the people, and many of the sons of Israel died’ (Num. 21:6). For truly the immoderation of pleasures brings death upon the soul.
What dies is not the ruling part in us, but the ruled part, the part like a rabble; and it will accept death only until, resorting to repentance, it confesses its turning aside. For they came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray therefore to the Lord, and let him take the serpents away from us’ (Num. 21:7). It is well said — not ‘because we were bound about we sinned,’ but ‘because we sinned, we spoke against’; for whenever the mind sins and is cut off from virtue, it lays the blame for its own turning aside upon the divine,
attaching it to God. How, then, does the healing of this passion come about? When another serpent is fashioned, the opposite of Eve’s — the reasoned principle of self-control. For self-control is opposite to pleasure, manifold virtue to manifold passion, warding off pleasure as an enemy. God therefore commands Moses to fashion the serpent of self-control, saying, ‘Make yourself a serpent and set it upon a standard’ (Num. 21:8). You see that Moses fashions this serpent for no one but himself, for God commands, ‘Make for yourself,’ so that you may know that self-control is not a possession belonging to everyone, but to the God-loving alone.
We must consider why Moses fashions the serpent of bronze, though he was given no instruction about its material. Perhaps for these reasons: first, the graces of God are without matter and without quality, while those of mortal beings are perceived together with matter; second, Moses is in love with bodiless virtues, but our souls, unable to strip off their bodies, desire a virtue that is bodily.
The principle of self-control, being vigorous and unbroken, is likened to the strong and solid substance of bronze — perhaps also because self-control in the man beloved of God is most precious and resembles gold, while it takes second place in the one who has attained wisdom only through progress. ‘Whomever, then, the serpent bites, everyone who looks upon it shall live’ (Num. 21:8) — most truly so; for if the mind, bitten by pleasure, the serpent’s bite, has the strength to behold with the soul the beauty of self-control, the serpent of Moses, and through it God himself, it shall live. Only let it look and understand.
Do you not see that Sarah too, ruling wisdom, says: ‘Whoever hears will rejoice with me’ (Gen. 21:6)? Suppose someone has the strength to hear that virtue has borne Isaac, happiness — at once he will sing a hymn of shared rejoicing. As, then, rejoicing belongs to the one who has heard, so not dying belongs to the one who has seen self-control and God with a pure gaze.
Many souls that have fallen in love with endurance and self-control, and have been emptied of the passions, have nevertheless undergone the mastery of God and suffered a turning for the worse, as the Master demonstrates both himself and the nature of created things — himself, that he stands always unswerving; created nature, that it sways in the balance and tips now to one side, now to its opposite. For it says:
‘Who led you through that great and fearsome wilderness, where there was the biting serpent and scorpion and thirst, where there was no water; who brought forth for you a spring of water from the flinty rock; who fed you with manna in the wilderness, which your fathers did not know’ (Deut. 8:15–16). You see that the soul falls prey to the serpents not only when it longs for the passions of Egypt, but also that, even while in the wilderness, it is bitten by pleasure, the manifold and serpentine passion. And the work of pleasure has received the most fitting name, for it is called a ‘bite.’
But it is not only those in the wilderness who are bitten by pleasure; those who are scattered are bitten too. For I myself have often left behind my kinsfolk, friends, and homeland, and gone into solitude in order to contemplate something worthy of sight, and gained nothing by it — instead my mind, scattered or bitten by passion, withdrew into the opposite state. Yet there are times when, even in a crowd of countless people, my thought remains at peace, God having dispersed the rabble within the soul and taught me that it is not differences of place that produce good and bad, but the God who moves and drives the chariot of the soul wherever he chooses.
Yet it falls prey to the scorpion, which is scattering, in the wilderness, and thirst — the thirst of the passions — overtakes it, until God sends forth the stream of his own flinty wisdom and gives the turned soul drink unto unchangeable health. For the flinty rock is the wisdom of God, which he cut off, foremost and first, from his own powers, and from it he waters the souls that love God. Having drunk, the soul is also filled with manna, the most generic thing — for manna is called ‘something,’ which is the genus of all things — and the most generic is God, and second is the Logos of God, while all other things exist only in word, and in their actual working are, in some cases, equal to that which does not exist at all.
See now the difference between the one turned aside in the wilderness and the one turned aside in Egypt: the latter deals with serpents that bring death, that is, with insatiable pleasures that carry death with them; the man in training, however, is only bitten by pleasure and scattered, not put to death. And that man is healed by self-control, the bronze serpent fashioned by wise Moses, while this man is given to drink by God himself the fairest drink, wisdom, from the spring that God brought forth out of his own wisdom.
Not even the most God-beloved Moses is spared by serpentine pleasure. It is told thus: ‘If then they will not believe me or listen to my voice — for they will say, God has not appeared to you — what shall I say to them? And the Lord said to Moses, What is that in your hand? And he said, A rod. And he said, Throw it on the ground. And he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. And the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand and take hold of its tail. So he stretched out his hand and took hold of its tail, and it became a rod in his hand — so that they may believe you’ (Exod. 4:1ff.).
How, then, might one believe God? If one learns that all other things are subject to change, and he alone is unchanging. God, then, inquires of the wise man what there is in the practical life of his soul; for the hand is a symbol of action. And he answers, education — which he calls a ‘rod.’ Hence Jacob too, the supplanter of the passions, says, ‘For with my rod I crossed this Jordan’ (Gen. 32:10); and Jordan is interpreted as ‘descent’; and to the lower, earthly, and perishable nature belong the things of vice and passion. The mind in training crosses these by means of education; for it is a lowly thing merely to wait and expect,
that he crossed the river simply by holding a staff. Well, then, does the God-beloved Moses answer; for truly the actions of the man of worth are propped up by education as by a rod, steadying the tossing and tumult of the soul. This rod, when thrown down, becomes a serpent — fittingly so; for if the soul throws away education, it has become a lover of pleasure instead of a lover of virtue. Hence Moses too flees from it; for the lover of virtue runs away from passion and pleasure.
Yet God does not approve of this flight. For you, O understanding, not yet made perfect, it is fitting to practice flight and escape from the passions; but for Moses, the perfect one, it is fitting to remain in the war against them, to stand against them and fight them to the end. Otherwise, gaining boldness and license, they will climb up to the very citadel of the soul, and like a tyrant will besiege and plunder the whole soul.
Hence God also commands, ‘take hold of the tail’ — that is, do not let the contentious and untamed part of pleasure frighten you, but rather take hold of this very thing, grasp it, and master it completely; for once again, in place of the serpent, there will be a rod — that is, in place of pleasure, education will come to be in your hand.
It will come to be in the hand, in the action of the wise man, and this is indeed true. But it is impossible to take hold of pleasure and master it unless the hand is first stretched out — that is, unless the soul acknowledges that all its actions and advances belong to God, and attributes nothing to itself. The one who truly sees has resolved to flee from this serpent, but fashions another, the serpent of self-control, that bronze one, so that whoever is bitten by pleasure may look upon self-control and live the true life.
Jacob prays that Dan may become such a serpent, and speaks thus: ‘Dan shall judge his own people, as one tribe of Israel, and let Dan become a serpent on the road, lying in wait on the path, biting the heel of the horse, so that its rider falls backward, awaiting the salvation of the Lord’ (Gen. 49:16–18). Issachar is the fifth true-born son of Jacob by Leah, or seventh when the two sons by Zilpah are counted together; but Dan is the fifth son of Jacob by Bilhah, the maidservant of Rachel. We shall discover the reason for this elsewhere, in its proper place. Now we must consider Dan further.
The soul carries two kinds of offspring, the one divine, the other perishable. The better kind she has already brought to birth, and she stands still upon it; for once the soul had the strength to make confession to God and to yield up all things to him, she no longer had any better possession to gain. For this reason she ceased bearing children after bringing forth Judah, the disposition of confession. But she now begins to shape the mortal kind.
The mortal kind rests upon swallowing; for taste, which is the cause of the persistence of living creatures, is like its foundation. Now Bilhah is interpreted as ‘swallowing’; from her, then, is born Dan, who is interpreted as ‘judgment’; for this kind judges and separates the immortal from the mortal. Jacob therefore prays that Dan may become a lover of self-control, but he does not pray this for Judah, since Judah already possesses confession and the pleasing of God. ‘Let Dan,’ he therefore says, ‘become a serpent on the road.’
Our road is the soul. For just as on roads one can see a variety of things — lifeless and living, irrational and rational, worthy and worthless, slave and free, younger and older, male and female, foreign and native, sick and healthy, maimed and whole — so too in the soul there are movements that are lifeless, imperfect, diseased, slavish, feminine, and countless others besides, full of blemish; and, on the contrary, movements that are truly living, whole, masculine, free, healthy, mature, worthy, legitimate, and native.
Let the principle of self-control, then, become a serpent upon the soul as it journeys through all the affairs of life, and let it lie in wait upon the path. What does this mean? The region of virtue is untrodden, for few walk it, but that of vice is well-worn. He urges the serpent to sit in wait, to lie in ambush, upon the well-worn road — that is, upon passion and vice, in which
the reasonings that are fugitives from virtue wear away their lives. ‘Biting the heel of the horse.’ Fittingly, the disposition that shakes the footing of the created and perishable is a ‘heel-supplanter.’ The passions are likened to a horse; for passion too, like a horse, has four legs, is impulsive, full of self-will, and skittish by nature. The principle of self-control loves to bite, wound, and destroy passion; and when passion has been tripped at the heel and has stumbled, ‘the rider shall fall backward.’ The rider must be understood as the one mounted upon the passions, who falls off the passions when he has reasoned them through and tripped them at the heel.
It is well said that the soul does not fall forward; for let it not go ahead of the passions, but lag behind them, and it will be brought to self-control. What is said here also carries a doctrine: for if the mind, having set out to do wrong, lags behind and falls backward, it will not commit the wrong; but if, moved toward an irrational passion, it does not run out ahead but stays behind, it will reap that finest fruit, freedom from passion.
That is why, after accepting this fall backward among the vices, he adds: "waiting for the salvation of the Lord." For the one who falls away from the passions and lags behind their activity is truly saved by God. May my soul fall with such a fall, and never rise up again to that horse-like and skittish passion, so that by waiting for God's salvation it may find true happiness.
This is also why Moses, in the Song, hymns God because "he threw horse and rider into the sea" (Exod. 15:1) — the four passions, and the wretched mind that is carried on them, into the destruction of material things and the bottomless depth. And this, more or less, is the sum of the whole Song, to which everything else is referred, and it runs like this: if freedom from passion takes hold of the soul, it will attain complete happiness.
We must ask why Jacob says that "the rider will fall backward" (Gen. 49:17), while Moses sings that the horse and its rider were sunk in the sea. We must answer that the one sunk in the sea is the Egyptian disposition, which, even when it flees, flees under the water — that is, under the current of the passions — whereas the rider who falls backward does not belong to the lovers of passion. The proof is that the one is called a horseman, the other a rider.
For it is the horseman's task to master the horse and to bridle it when it grows unruly, but the rider's task is simply to be carried wherever the animal leads. And at sea it is the helmsman's task to steer the vessel, to keep it straight and upright, while the passenger's task is only to suffer whatever the ship undergoes. This is why the horseman who masters the passions is not sunk, but dismounts from them and waits for the salvation of his master.
The sacred word, indeed, in Leviticus advises us to eat "of the creeping things that go on four legs, which have legs above their feet, so that they can leap with them" (Lev. 11:21) — among which are the locust-grub, the wingless locust, the ordinary locust, and fourth, the snake-fighter. And rightly so. For if serpentine pleasure is a thing that gives no nourishment and does harm, then the nature that fights against pleasure would be most nourishing and salutary of all; and this nature is self-mastery.
Fight, then, you too, O mind, against every passion, and above all against pleasure. For indeed "the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild beasts on the earth that the Lord God had made" (Gen. 3:1); for pleasure is more cunning than all things. Why?
Because all things are slaves of pleasure, and the life of worthless people is mastered by pleasure. At any rate, the things that produce it are discovered through every kind of cunning: gold, silver, glory, honors, offices, the matter of sense-perceptible things, the vulgar crafts, and all the other very varied contrivances of pleasure. And we do wrong for the sake of pleasure, and wrongdoing never comes without the utmost cunning.
Set the snake-fighting resolve, then, in opposition, and fight through this most noble contest, and strive to be crowned, in victory over the pleasure that conquers all others, with a beautiful and glorious crown — one that no human festival has ever bestowed.

======== Allegorical Interpretation III ========

"And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the tree of the garden" (Gen. 3:8). This introduces a doctrine that teaches that the worthless person is a fugitive. For if virtue is the native city of the wise, then whoever cannot share in it has been banished from the city the worthless person is unable to share in; the worthless person alone, then, has been banished and exiled. And the one who is a fugitive from virtue is at once hidden from God; for if the wise are visible to God, since they are his friends, it is clear that all the worthless hide and submerge themselves, as being enemies and hostile to right reason.
That the worthless person is without a city and without a home is attested in the case of Esau, whose vice is shaggy and versatile, when it says: "Esau was skilled in hunting, a man of the field" (Gen. 25:27). For the predatory vice of the passions is not suited to dwell in the city of virtue, pursuing rusticity and lack of education along with great insensibility. But Jacob, full of wisdom, is both a citizen and dwells in a house, virtue; at any rate it says of him: "But Jacob was an unfeigned man, dwelling in a house" (ibid.).
That is why also "the midwives, because they feared God, made houses for themselves" (Exod. 1:21); for those who search out the hidden mysteries of God, which is "to keep the males alive," build up the works of virtue, in which they have chosen also to dwell. Through these passages, then, it has been shown how the worthless person is without city and without home, being a fugitive from virtue, while the person of worth has been allotted wisdom as both city and house to possess.
Let us next see how someone is also said to hide from God. Unless one allegorizes, it is impossible to accept the passage before us; for God has filled all things and has passed through all things, and has left nothing empty or void of himself. What place, then, will someone occupy in which God is not? This too is attested elsewhere, where it says: "God is in heaven above and on earth below, and there is none besides him" (Deut. 4:39). And again: "Here I stand before you" (Exod. 17:6); for God exists before everything that has come into being, and he is found everywhere, so that no one could possibly hide from him.
And why do we marvel at this? Even the most cohesive of the things that have come into being we could not escape or hide from, even if we tried: let someone flee earth, or water, or air, or heaven, or the whole universe — it is necessary that we be contained within these, for no one will be able to flee outside the universe.
Then, if one who cannot hide from the parts of the universe, nor from the universe itself, could such a person have the power to escape God's notice? By no means. What then does "they hid themselves" mean? The worthless person imagines that God exists in a place, not as containing but as being contained; and this is why he thinks he can hide, as though the cause were not present in that part where he has resolved to lurk.
But it should be understood this way: in the worthless person the true opinion about God has been overshadowed and hidden, for he is full of darkness, having no divine radiance by which he might survey the things that exist. Such a person has been banished from the divine choir, like the leper and the man with a discharge: the one bringing God and becoming — opposite natures represented by two colors — together as if they were both causes, when there is only one cause, the one who acts; the other, the man with the discharge, tracing all things from the universe and back to the universe, thinking that nothing has come to be by God, a companion of Heraclitus's opinion, introducing satiety and want, and "the one is all," and "all things in exchange" —
— that is why the divine word also says: "Let them send out of the holy soul every leper and every man with a discharge and everyone unclean in soul, male or female" (Num. 5:2), and the emasculated and those cut off in the generative parts of the soul, and the fornicators who flee from the rule of the One — for these it is expressly forbidden to come into the assembly of God (Deut. 23:2).
But the reasonings of the wise are not hidden — quite the contrary, they long to be visible. Do you not see that Abraham "was still standing before the Lord, and drawing near he said, 'Will you destroy the righteous with the impious?'" (Gen. 18:22-23) — he who is visible and known to you, standing beside the one who flees and hides from you? For the latter is impious, but righteous is the one who stands facing you and does not flee; for it is right, Master, that you alone be honored.
But just as an impious person is found, so also is a pious one found — though it is only something to be grateful for, if he is righteous, on account of which it says: "Will you destroy the righteous with the impious?" For no one honors God worthily, but only justly; since it is not even possible to repay parents with equal favors — for one cannot beget them in return — how is it not impossible to repay or praise as he deserves God, who established the whole of things out of what did not exist? For he supplied every virtue.
Be visible to God always, then, O soul, at the three seasons — that is, throughout the whole threefold division of time — not dragging along the female, perceptible passion, but offering up as incense the masculine reasoning, trained in endurance; for the sacred word commands that every male be seen before the Lord God of Israel at three seasons of the year (Deut. 16:16).
That is why Moses too, when he becomes visible to God, flees the dissolute character of Pharaoh, who boasts that he does not know the Lord: "Moses withdrew," it says, "from the face of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian" (Exod. 2:15) — that is, in the judgment of the things of nature — "and sat down by the well," waiting to see what good, drinkable thing God would rain down for the thirsting and longing soul.
He withdraws, then, from Pharaoh, the godless opinion that rules over the passions, and he withdraws into Midian, that is, judgment, weighing whether he ought to remain quiet or again render judgment against the worthless person for his destruction; he considers whether, by attacking, he will have the strength to win the victory. This is why he is held back and waits, as I said, to see whether God will supply, for the deep and not shallow reasoning, a spring sufficient to overwhelm the onrush of the king of the Egyptians — that is, his passions.
Yet he is deemed worthy of grace; for having taken up the campaign on behalf of virtue, he does not cease from warring, until he sees the pleasures thrown down flat on their faces and rendered powerless. That is why Moses does not flee from Pharaoh — for then he would have run away without ever turning back — but he withdraws, that is, he makes a truce in the war, in the manner of an athlete who takes a breather and gathers his strength, until, having roused the alliance of prudence and the rest of virtue by means of divine words, he attacks with the most vigorous force.
But Jacob — for he is "the supplanter" — acquiring virtue by devices and skills, not without a struggle (for he had not yet been renamed Israel), flees from the affairs concerning Laban, that is, from colors and shapes and, in general, bodies, which by nature wound the mind through the senses; for since he was unable, by staying, to defeat them completely, he flees, fearing defeat at their hands; and he is greatly worthy of praise for this: for Moses says, "You shall make the sons of the seer cautious" (Lev. 15:31), not bold and
loving these things on their own account. "And Jacob hid it from Laban the Syrian, so as not to tell him that he was fleeing. And he fled, he and all that was his, and crossed the river and set out for Mount Gilead" (Gen. 31:20-21).
It is altogether natural to hide the fact that one is fleeing, and not to announce it to Laban, the reasoning that is tied to the objects of sense — as for instance, if you have seen some beauty and been captivated by it, and are about to stumble over it, flee unnoticed from its appearance and no longer report it to the mind, that is, do not reconsider it again or dwell on it; for repeated recollections engrave sharp impressions that damage the understanding and often overturn it against its will. The same reasoning applies to all things that draw us by way of any sense whatever; for in these cases secret flight is what saves, while being reminded and reporting and dwelling on the memory overpowers and violently enslaves the reasoning. Never, then, O understanding, if you are about to be captured by it, report to yourself the perceptible object that has appeared, nor dwell on it, so that you not be overpowered and made wretched; but, setting out unrestrained, flee, preferring an untamed freedom to a docile slavery.
Why, then, does it now speak as though Jacob did not know that Laban was a Syrian, saying, "Jacob hid it from Laban the Syrian"? This too has a meaning that is not beside the point; for Syria is interpreted as "lofty things." So the mind Jacob, the one in training, when he sees the passion lowly, waits, reckoning that he will defeat it by force; but when it is lofty and stiff-necked and swollen, then the mind in training flees first, and then all the parts of his training as well — his readings, his exercises, his practices, his remembrance of noble things, his self-control, his performance of duties — and he crosses the river of sense-perception that floods and submerges the soul with the onrush of the passions, and having crossed, he sets out for the lofty and elevated — the reasoning of perfect virtue.
"For he set out for Mount Gilead" — which is interpreted "migration of testimony," God having made the soul migrate from the passions represented by Leah, and having testified to it that the migration is profitable and advantageous, and leading it up from the evils that render the soul lowly and grovelling to the height and greatness of virtue.
That is why Laban, the friend of the senses, acting according to them and not according to the mind, is indignant and pursues, and says: "Why did you flee secretly?" (Gen. 31:26) — "Why did you not remain to enjoy the body, and the doctrine that judges both the goods within and the goods without? But even in fleeing from this opinion you have robbed me of my very intelligence, both Leah and Rachel; for these, so long as they remained with the soul, produced good sense in it, but once they had migrated away, they left it ignorance and lack of education." That is why it adds: "You have stolen from me" (ibid.) — that is, you have stolen good sense.
What, then, was this "good sense"? It will explain; for it adds: "And you have led away my daughters like captives; and if you had told me, I would have sent you away" (ibid.). You would not have sent away things that fight against each other; for if you had truly sent the soul away and set it free, you would have stripped from it all the bodily and sense-perceptible clamor; for this is how the understanding is redeemed from vices and passions. But as it is, you say that you send it away free, while by your actions you admit that you would have detained it in prison; for if you had sent it forth "with music and tambourines and lyre" and the pleasures belonging to each sense, you would not truly have sent it away.
For it is not only you, Laban, companion of bodies and colors, that we flee, but all that is yours as well, among which are also the voices of the senses that resound together with the activities of the passions; for we have practiced — if indeed we are trainees in virtue — the necessary practice that Jacob too practiced, of destroying and doing away with the gods foreign to the soul, the molten gods, which Moses has forbidden anyone to fashion (Lev. 19:4); for these are the dissolution of virtue and well-being, but the constitution and solidifying of vice and the passions —
for what has been poured out, once dissolved, congeals again. It speaks thus: "And they gave Jacob the foreign gods that were in their hands, and the earrings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth that is in Shechem" (Gen. 35:4). These are the gods of the worthless. And Jacob is not said to take them, but to hide and destroy them — with complete precision; for the person of true worth will take nothing for his own gain from the things that come from vice, but will hide and secretly make them disappear.
Just as Abraham too, when the king of Sodom devised to make an exchange of the irrational nature for the rational — a horse for men — said he would take nothing that belonged to that man, but would "stretch out" — his word, by way of symbol, for "hand" — his soul's action "to God Most High" (Gen. 14) — for he would take nothing "from a thread to a sandal strap" from all that belonged to that man, so that he might not say he had made rich the one who beholds — giving in exchange, instead, the poverty of a rich virtue.
The passions are always hidden and kept in check at Shechem — which is interpreted "shoulder," for the one who labors over pleasures is one who keeps guard over pleasures — but they are destroyed and done away with in the case of the wise, not for some short time, but "until this very day" — that is, forever; for the whole of eternity is measured by "today," since the measure of all time is the daily cycle.
This is why Jacob gives Shechem to Joseph as a special portion (Gen. 48:22) — Shechem, the bodily and sense-perceptible things, to the one who labors over them — while to Judah, who confesses, he gives not gifts but praise and hymns and songs worthy of God from his brothers (Gen. 49:8). Jacob takes Shechem not from God but "by sword and bow" (Gen. 48:22) — by arguments that cut and defend; for the wise man subjects even the second-rank things to himself, by force of reasoning.
But having subdued them, he does not keep them for himself; he gives them freely to the one whose nature fits them. Do you not see that even when he seemed to be receiving the gods, he did not in fact receive them, but hid them away and made them disappear and destroyed them for all time thereafter? To whom, then, was it given to hide and make vanish vice, except to the soul to whom God has been made manifest, and whom he has judged worthy even of the unspeakable mysteries? For he says: Shall I hide from Abraham my servant what I am doing? (Gen. 18:17). Well done, Savior, that you display your own works to the soul that longs for what is good, and hide none of your works from it. Because of this it has the strength to flee vice and to hide it and cover it in shadow and destroy forever that harmful passion.
We have shown, then, in what way the base person is a fugitive and hides from God; let us now consider where he hides. "In the middle," it says, "of the tree of the garden" (Gen. 3:8) — that is, in the middle of the mind, which is itself situated in the middle, as it were the garden of the whole soul. For the one who runs away from God takes refuge in himself.
For there being two minds — that of the universe, which is God, and one's own — the man who flees from his own mind takes refuge in the mind of all things (for the one who abandons his own private mind confesses that nothing belonging to the human mind truly exists, and attributes everything to God), while the one who runs away from God, conversely, says that God is the cause of nothing, but that he himself is the cause of everything that comes to be.
It is said, indeed, by many, that all things in the world move of their own accord, without a guide, and that it is the human mind alone that has established arts, pursuits, laws, customs, and rules of justice, both political and private, common to men and to irrational creatures alike.
But you see, O soul, how these opinions differ. The one soul, abandoning the particular, generated, and mortal, ascribes true being to the universal, ungenerated, and imperishable; the other, in turn, rejecting the God who is not even able to help himself...
...draws to itself the mind as an ally, wrongly. This is why Moses too says: "If the thief is found breaking in, and is struck and dies, there is no bloodguilt for him; but if the sun has risen upon him, he is guilty, and shall be put to death in turn" (Exod. 22:1–2). For if anyone cuts through and divides the argument that stands firm, sound, and upright — the argument that testifies that God alone can do all things — and is found breaking in, that is, in what is pierced through and divided, since he knows only his own mind at work and not God, he is a thief, taking for himself what belongs to another.
For all things are the possessions of God, so that whoever assigns anything to himself is embezzling what belongs to another, and bears a wound most grievous and hard to heal — self-conceit, a thing akin to ignorance and lack of education. But the text leaves the one who strikes him at rest, for he is no different from the one struck; rather, just as the one who rubs himself is himself rubbed, and the one who stretches himself is himself stretched — for he receives in himself both the power of the agent and the passion of the one who undergoes it — so too the one who steals the things of God and inscribes them to himself is tormented by his own godlessness and self-conceit.
Would that, however, being struck, he might die — that is, might remain forever inactive; for then he would seem to sin less. For vice is contemplated in one aspect as a settled state, in another as a motion; and the vice that consists in motion tends toward the fulfillment and completion of its effects, and is for this reason worse than the vice that is merely a state.
If, then, the reasoning faculty dies — the faculty that regards itself, rather than God, as the cause of what comes to be, that is, if it grows still and contracts — there is no bloodguilt for it; it has not utterly destroyed the living doctrine that ascribes all powers to God. But if the sun rises — that is, if the mind that shines brightly within us rises, and seems to see through all things and adjudicate all things and think that nothing escapes it — it is guilty, and shall be put to death in turn, for the living doctrine it destroyed, according to which God alone is the cause; and it will be found itself inactive and truly dead, having become the introducer of a soulless, mortal, and discordant...
...doctrine. This is why the sacred word curses the one who sets up in secret a carved or molten image, the work of a craftsman's hands (Deut. 27:15). For why do you store up and treasure within yourself, O reasoning faculty, these base opinions — that God has qualities, as the carved image has none; that he is perishable, like the molten image, when he is in fact imperishable — instead of bringing them out into the open, so that you may be taught what is needful by those who train themselves in truth? For you think yourself skilled, because you have practiced tasteless plausibilities against the truth, but you will be found unskilled, having discovered instead a grievous disease of the soul — ignorance that refuses to be healed.
That the base person sinks down into his own scattered mind in fleeing from him who truly is, Moses will bear witness — Moses, who "struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand" (Exod. 2:12). What this meant was that he reasoned against the one who claims to be master of the body and reckons the soul its slave, and who takes pleasures to be the end of life.
For having observed the toil that the king of Egypt — vice, the ruler of the passions — imposes upon the one who sees God, the mind sees the Egyptian man, the human and perishable passion, striking and abusing the one who sees; and having looked all around the whole soul, this way and that, and having seen nothing standing firm except him who truly is, but all else shaken and tossed about, it strikes down the pleasure-loving passion and, having reasoned it through, hides it in the scattered and dispersed mind, which has been deprived of kinship and union with the good.
This one, then, has hidden himself away within himself; but the one opposite to him flees from himself, and takes refuge in the God of all that is. This is why it says: "He brought him outside and said, Look up to heaven and count the stars" (Gen. 15:5) — stars which we would wish to encompass and survey in full, being insatiable in our love of virtue, yet we are unable to measure the wealth of God.
But nevertheless, thanks be to the giver of gifts, that he says he has sown in the soul such seeds, far-shining and bright and wholly intellectual, like the stars in heaven. And it is not by accident that "outside" is added to "he brought him"; for who is brought out from within? But perhaps what is meant is this: he brought him out into the outermost region, not into something external that can be encompassed by others. For just as in houses the men's quarters are outside the bedchamber, but inside the courtyard, and the outer gate is outside the courtyard but inside the entrance-passage, so too in the soul it is possible for what is outside one thing to be inside another.
This, then, is how it must be understood: he brought the mind out into... For what benefit would there be in leaving the body behind, only to take refuge in sense-perception? What benefit in casting off sense-perception, but shrinking back before articulate reason? For the mind that is about to be brought out and set free in liberty must escape from everything — bodily necessities, the organs of sense-perception, sophistic arguments, plausibilities, and last of all...
...even from itself. This is why elsewhere he boasts, saying: "The Lord, God of heaven and God of earth, who took me from the house of my father" (Gen. 24:7). For it is not possible for one who dwells in a mortal body, as such, to keep company with God, but only for the one who has flowed forth out of it.
For this reason too the joy of the soul, Isaac, whenever he converses alone with God in solitude, goes out, leaving behind himself and his own mind: "Isaac went out," it says, "to converse alone in the field toward evening" (Gen. 24:63). And Moses too, the prophetic word, says: "When I go out from the city" — the soul, for the soul too is a city, giving laws and customs to the living creature — "I will spread out my hands" (Exod. 9:29), and I will open wide and lay out flat all my actions, calling God as witness and overseer of each one — God, from whom vice cannot by nature hide itself, but must be spread open and seen in plain sight.
Whenever, indeed, the soul is spread open through all its words and deeds and is made divine, the voices of the senses fall silent, along with all the troublesome and ill-named sounds. For the visible thing calls out and summons sight to itself, sound calls hearing, vapor calls smell, and in general the sense-object summons sense-perception to itself; but all these cease, once the reasoning faculty, going out from the city of the soul...
...consecrates its own actions and thoughts to God. For indeed, "the hands of Moses are heavy" (Exod. 17:12); since the deeds of the base person are windy and light, the deeds of the wise would be heavy, unmoving, and not easily shaken. They are steadied by Aaron, who is speech, and Hur, who is light; for nothing among these things is trivial to the truth. Through these symbols, then, it means to show you that the deeds of the wise are steadied by the most necessary things, speech and truth. This is why, when Aaron dies — that is, when he is perfected — he ascends to Hur, who is light (Num. 20:25); for the end of speech is truth, which shines more brightly than light, and it is to this that speech is eager to come.
Do you not see that when he received the tent from God (Exod. 33:7) — that is, wisdom, in which the wise man dwells and makes his home — he pitched it and made it firm and set it fast, not within the body, but outside it? For he likens the body to a camp, an army-camp full of wars and all the evils that war produces, having no share of peace. "And it was called the tent of witness" — wisdom, witnessed to by God; for indeed "everyone who sought the Lord would go out" — most beautifully said.
For if you seek God, O reasoning faculty, go out from yourself and seek him; but if you remain within bodily masses or within the mind's own conceits, you have no part in seeking the divine, even if you pretend that you are seeking it. Whether, in seeking, you will find God, is uncertain; for to many he has not made himself manifest, but their zeal has remained incomplete to the end. Yet even the bare act of seeking, by itself, is enough for a share in good things; for impulses toward what is good, even if they fail of their end, bring joy beforehand to those who feel them.
Thus the base person, fleeing virtue and hiding from God, takes refuge in a weak helper, his own mind; but the good person, on the contrary, runs away from himself and turns back toward the knowledge of the One — winning thereby a noble race and the best contest of all.
"And the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9). Why is Adam alone called, when the woman too is hidden along with him? It must first be said that the mind is called back to where it was, whenever it receives conviction and a check upon its turning aside; and it is not only the mind itself that is called, but all its powers as well, for without its powers the mind by itself is found naked and scarcely even existing. And one of these powers is sense-perception, which is the woman.
The woman, sense-perception, is therefore called along with Adam, the mind; but she is not called by herself. Why? Because, being irrational, she cannot receive conviction from herself; for neither sight nor hearing nor any of the other senses can be taught, so that none of them is able to grasp things by comprehension. For the one who fashioned sense-perception made it capable only of distinguishing bodies; but the mind is the part that can be taught, and it is for this reason that it...
But it was not perception that he summoned. Now "where are you" can be understood in several ways. In one sense it is not a question but a statement, equivalent to "you are in a place" — reading "where are you" with the accent thrown back. For since you supposed that God walks in the garden and is contained by it, learn that you have not thought well of this, and hear from God a most true saying: that God is not anywhere — for he is not contained, but contains the universe — whereas that which has come into being is necessarily in a place, since it must be contained and cannot contain.
The second sense of what is said is equivalent to this: Where have you come to, O soul? For what goods have you chosen such evils? When God called you to share in virtue, you pursue vice instead, and though he offered for your enjoyment the tree of life — that is, the wisdom by which you might live — you have gorged yourself on ignorance and corruption, preferring the misery that is the soul's death to the happiness of true life.
The third sense is a genuine question, to which two answers might be given. One, to the questioner "where are you," is "nowhere" — for the soul of that sort has no place on which it might set foot or on which it might be established; and for this reason the base person is said to be "out of place," for what is out of place is an evil hard to set right. Such is the person who is not of noble character: forever tossed and shaken, carried about like an unsteady wind, companion to no firm judgment whatsoever.
There might be another answer of this kind, the one Adam himself uses: hear where I am — where those are who are unable to see God, where those are who do not listen to God, where those are who hide the Cause, where those are who flee virtue, where those are who are naked of wisdom, where those are who fear and tremble from cowardice and faintheartedness of soul. For when he says, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself" (Gen. 3:10), he sets forth all these confinements, as we have also shown at greater length earlier.
And yet Adam is not naked now; it was said a little earlier that "they made themselves loincloths." But through this too he wishes to teach you that he does not mean the nakedness of the body, but that state in which the mind is found stripped and bare of virtue.
"The woman," he says, "whom you gave to be with me — she gave me from the tree, and I ate" (Gen. 3:12). It is well said not "the woman whom you gave to me" but "with me": for you did not give perception to me as a possession, but let it go free and unrestrained, in a certain way not submitting to the commands of my own understanding. At any rate, if the mind should wish to command sight not to see, sight will nonetheless see what lies before it; and hearing, when a sound falls upon it, will certainly take hold of it, even if the mind, in its stubbornness, orders it not to hear; and smell, too, will smell the vapors that reach it, even if the mind forbids it to perceive them.
For this reason God did not give perception to the living being, but with the living being. And this is what it means: perception recognizes everything together with our mind, and at the same time as it. For instance, sight fastens on the visible object at the same moment as the mind: the eye sees the body, and at once the mind grasps what has been seen — that it is black or white or yellow or red, triangular or square or round, or has some other color or shape. Again, hearing is struck by a sound, and the mind along with it; and the proof is that it judges the sound at once — whether it is faint or has volume, whether it is melodious and well-measured, or again whether it is discordant and unharmonious.
And the same thing is found in the case of the other senses as well. It is very finely put, too, that he adds "she gave me from the tree": for no one gives the mind the wooden and perceptible mass except perception. For who gave the understanding the means to recognize the body, or its whiteness? Was it not sight? And who gave it the sound? Was it not hearing? And who the vapor? Was it not smell? And who the flavor? Was it not taste? And who the rough and the soft? Was it not touch? Rightly, then, and very truly has it been said by the mind: that perception alone gives me the apprehensions of bodies.
"And God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' And 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate'" (Gen. 3:13). God inquires about one thing from perception, but she answers about another: for he inquires about something concerning the man, while she speaks not about him but about herself, saying "I ate," not "I gave."
Perhaps, then, by reading allegorically we shall resolve the difficulty and show that the woman answers the question directly. For it is necessary that, once she has eaten, the man too should eat; for whenever perception, fastening upon the perceptible object, is filled with the impression of it, at once the mind too has grasped it, taken hold of it, and in a certain way been filled with nourishment from it. This, then, is what she means: I gave to the man unknowingly; for when I laid hold of the object before me, he, being quick to move,
...received the impression and was imprinted by it. Observe that the man says the woman gave, while the woman says not that the serpent gave, but that it deceived: for it is proper to perception to give, but to pleasure — the manifold and serpentine kind — to deceive and lead astray. For instance, nature's white and black, hot and cold, are given by perception to the mind not by way of deception but truthfully; for the underlying things are such as the impression that strikes from them also is, according to most of those who study nature without proper insight. But pleasure does not present the underlying thing to the understanding as it actually is; rather it falsifies it by artifice, bringing what is harmful into the rank of the beneficial.
Just as one can see hideous courtesans painting themselves and lining their eyes, so as to conceal the ugliness about them, so too the man without self-control, bent toward the pleasure of the belly: he welcomes strong wine in quantity and lavish preparation of food as a good, while being harmed in both body and soul by them.
Again, one can often see lovers utterly infatuated with the ugliest of women, pleasure deceiving them and all but proclaiming that beauty of form, fine complexion, good flesh, and proportion of parts belong to women who possess exactly the opposite of these; at any rate they overlook women who possess a beauty genuinely beyond reproach, and melt with longing for those I have described.
All deception, then, belongs most properly to pleasure, and all giving to perception. For pleasure devises and leads the mind astray, showing not what the underlying things actually are but what they are not; whereas perception gives bodies purely as they are by nature, without fabrication or artifice.
"And the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and above all the wild beasts of the earth. On your breast and belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall watch your head, and you shall watch his heel'" (Gen. 3:14-15). For what reason does he curse the serpent without a defense, though elsewhere he bids it as fitting that "the two between whom there is a dispute should stand" (Deut. 19:17), and that one should not simply believe one party in advance?
And indeed you see that in the case of Adam he did not believe in advance against the woman, but gave her an opportunity for defense when he asked, "What is this you have done?" (Gen. 3:13); and she confesses her fault, laid low by the deception of the serpentine and manifold pleasure. What, then, prevented him, once the woman had said "the serpent deceived me," from questioning the serpent as to whether it had indeed deceived her, rather than cursing it without judgment and without a defense?
We must say, then, that perception belongs neither to the base nor to the excellent, but is something intermediate and common to both the wise and the foolish; and coming to be in a fool it becomes base, but in a person of good character it becomes excellent. Reasonably so, since it does not have a wicked nature of its own, but, being poised between the two, inclines toward either the better or the worse; and so it is not condemned before it has confessed that it has followed the worse.
But the serpent — pleasure — is wicked in itself; for this reason it is not found at all in the person of good character, and only the base person enjoys it. In keeping with what is proper to it, then, God curses it without granting it a defense, since it has no seed of virtue, but is always and everywhere culpable and defiled.
For this reason too God, without any evident cause, knows Er to be wicked (Gen. 38:7) and puts him to death: for he is not ignorant that our body, this leathern mass — for Er is translated "leathern" — is wicked and a plotter against the soul, and dead and always in a state of death. For you must think of each of us as doing nothing other than carrying a corpse, the soul raising the dead body from within itself and bearing it without weariness. Consider, if you will, the soul's own vigor.
The most powerful athlete would not have the strength to carry even a statue of himself for a short time, yet the soul, sometimes for as much as a hundred years, carries the statue that is a human being, lightly and without growing weary; for it is not now that it kills the body, but from the beginning it made the body a corpse.
It is wicked by nature, then, as I have said, and a plotter against the soul, but it does not appear so to everyone — only to God, and to whoever is a friend of God. For it says, "Er was wicked before the Lord." For whenever the mind soars aloft and is initiated into the mysteries of the Lord, it judges the body wicked and hostile; but whenever it withdraws from the search for divine things, it regards the body as a friend, kin, and brother to itself, and takes refuge, in fact, in the things that are dear to it.
For this reason the soul of the athlete differs from that of the philosopher: the athlete refers everything to the good condition of the body, and being a lover of the body, would give up the soul itself on its behalf; but the philosopher, being a lover of the beauty that lives within himself, cares for the soul, and disregards the truly dead body, aiming only that it should not
...be discordant, bound to an evil and dead companion, and so mar the soul, which is the best part of us. You see that it is not the Lord who kills Er, but God: for it is not insofar as he rules and governs, exercising the authority of sovereign power, that he destroys the body, but insofar as he exercises goodness and kindness — for "God" is the name of the Cause in its goodness — so that you may know that even lifeless things he has made not by sheer authority but by goodness, just as he made living things also; for it was necessary, for the demonstration of the better things, that the coming-into-being of the worse things too should be brought about by the power of that same goodness of the Cause, which is God.
When, then, O soul, will you suppose yourself to be carrying a corpse in the fullest sense? Is it not when you have been made perfect and judged worthy of prizes and crowns? For then you will be a lover of God, not a lover of the body; and you will attain the prizes, if the bride of Judah, Tamar, becomes your wife — she whose name is translated "palm tree," a symbol of victory. And here is the proof: when Er took her, he was at once found to be wicked and was put to death. For it says, "Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar" (Gen. 38:6), and immediately adds, "and Er was wicked before the Lord, and God killed him" (ibid. 7). For whenever the mind has carried off the prizes of victory, it condemns the dead body to death.
You see that he curses the serpent too without a defense, for it is pleasure; and he kills Er without any evident cause, for it is body. And if you consider it, noble friend, you will find that God has made natures that are in themselves culpable and blameworthy in the soul, and others in all respects excellent and praiseworthy, just as is also the case among plants and animals.
Don't you see that the Craftsman made some plants tame, beneficial, and life-preserving, but others wild, harmful, and the cause of disease and destruction — and animals in the same way? Take the serpent, for instance, which is now our subject: it is by its very nature a destructive and death-dealing creature. What the serpent does to a man, pleasure does to the soul, and that is why the serpent has been made a likeness of pleasure.
Just as God has hated pleasure and the body without stating his reasons, so too he has advanced certain refined natures without any evident cause, acknowledging no prior deed of theirs as grounds for the praise. For if someone should ask why he says that Noah “found favor before the Lord God” (Gen. 6:8) even though, as far as we can tell, Noah had done nothing distinguished beforehand, we will answer, rightly, that this attests the excellence of his constitution and origin. Noah is interpreted as “rest” or “just,” and one who has ceased from wrongdoing and sin, resting in what is good and living together with justice, must necessarily find favor with God.
“To find favor” is not, as some suppose, simply equivalent to “to be well-pleasing”; it is something more. The just man, in searching out the nature of things, discovers this as the single best discovery: that the universe, in its entirety, is a favor of God, and that no part of coming-into-being is a gift bestowed on its own account — since it is not even a possession in its own right, but everything belongs to God as his possession. That is why favor belongs to him alone. So to those who ask what is the source of coming-into-being, the most correct answer would be: the goodness and favor of God, which he bestowed on the race that came after him. For everything in the cosmos, and the cosmos itself,
is a gift, a benefaction, and a favor of God. And God made Melchizedek, king of peace — for that is what “Salem” means — his own priest (Gen. 14:18), without having outlined beforehand any deed of his, but rather having made him such a king from the start: a lover of peace and worthy of his own priesthood. For he is called a just king, and a king is the enemy of a tyrant, since the one is a champion of laws, the other of lawlessness.
The tyrant-mind, then, issues commands to soul and body that are violent, harmful, and productive of intense pains — I mean the deeds done in accordance with vice and the enjoyments of the passions. The king, by contrast, does not so much command as persuade, and the commands he gives are of a kind that let the living creature, like a ship, enjoy fair sailing through life, steered by the good pilot and craftsman, who is right reason.
Let the tyrant, then, be called the leader of war, and the king the leader of peace, Salem, and let him bring to the soul food full of gladness and joy — for he brings bread and wine, which the Ammonites and the Moabites refused to offer to the one who sees, for which reason they are barred from the assembly and the divine congregation. For the Ammonites are those born of sense-perception, our mother, and the Moabites those born of mind, our father — two characters who suppose that mind and sense-perception are what hold reality together, without grasping any conception of God. “They shall not enter,” says Moses, “into the assembly of the Lord… because they did not meet us with bread and water” (Deut. 23:3–4), as we came out from the passions of Egypt.
But let Melchizedek offer wine instead of water, and give the souls to drink, and make them drunk, that they may be possessed by a divine intoxication more sober than sobriety itself. For he is a priest, the Logos, who has Being as his portion, and who reasons about him in lofty, exalted, and magnificent terms. For he is priest of the Most High (Gen. 14:18) — not that there is some other god who is not Most High, for God, being one, “is above in heaven and below on earth, and there is none besides him” (Deut. 4:39) — but rather because to think of God not in a lowly and groveling way, but in terms immeasurably great, immaterial, and lofty, evokes the sense of “Most High.”
What good deed, then, had Abram already accomplished, that God commands him to leave his homeland and this kindred and to dwell in a land that God himself will give him (Gen. 12:1)? It is a good city, great and altogether blessed — for the gifts of God are great and precious — and by this method too God has begotten a pattern worthy of study. For Abram is interpreted as “exalted father,” and by both names he is praiseworthy. For the mind, whenever it does not command
the soul in the manner of a despot, but rules as a father — not granting it what is pleasant, but bestowing what is beneficial even against its will — and altogether withdraws from lowly things that lead toward the mortal, and roams the heights instead, spending its time on contemplations concerning the cosmos and its parts, and rising even further, searches out the divine and its nature through an unspeakable love of knowledge, then it cannot remain fixed on its original opinions but seeks migration, always bettering itself toward what is better.
Some, moreover, God shapes and disposes well even before their birth, and has chosen for them the best portion in advance. Don't you see what he says to Abraham about Isaac — when Abraham had not hoped that he would become the father of such offspring, but had even laughed at the promise and said, “Shall a child be born to one who is a hundred years old, and shall Sarah, who is ninety, bear a child?” (Gen. 17:17) — God affirms and assents, saying, “Yes, behold, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac, and I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant” (ib. 19).
What, then, is it that made this child, too, be praised before his birth? Some good things benefit us once they have come to be and are present — health, for instance, keenness of perception, wealth (should it come our way), reputation, though these are called “goods” only in a loose sense. But others benefit us not only once they have come to be, but even when merely foretold that they will come to be — as with joy, which is a good disposition of the soul. For joy delights us not only when it is present and actively at work, but even when it is merely hoped for, it gladdens us in advance. And this too is a distinctive feature it has: other goods each operate in their own private sphere, but joy is both a private and a common good. For it comes upon everything: we rejoice at health, at freedom, at honor, and at all the rest — so that, properly speaking, nothing can be called good if joy is not attached to it.
But we do not rejoice only over other goods that have already come to be and are present; we rejoice also over things that are yet to come and are anticipated — as when we hope to grow wealthy, or to hold office, or to be praised, or to find release from sickness, or to share in vigor and strength, or to become knowledgeable in place of ignorant — we are glad beyond measure. Since, then, joy, whether present or merely hoped for, floods and gladdens the soul, it was fitting that God should deem Isaac worthy of a name and a great gift even before his birth. For “laughter of the soul,” “joy,” and “gladness” is what
this name means. Again, of Jacob and Esau, while they were still in the womb, God declares that the one will be ruler, leader, and master, and the other, Esau, subject and slave. For God, the molder of living things, knows well his own creations even before he has fully chiseled them into shape — the powers they will later exercise, and, in short, their deeds and passions. For when the soul of patient endurance, Rebecca, went to inquire of God, he answered her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be separated from your body; and one people shall be stronger than the other, and the greater shall serve the lesser” (Gen. 25:23).
For in God's sight what is base and irrational is by nature a slave, while what is refined, rational, and better is fit to lead and is free — and this holds not only once each has come to full completion in the soul, but even while it is still uncertain. For in general, even the slightest breath of virtue reveals the beginning of leadership, not merely of freedom, and conversely, the mere onset of vice enslaves the reasoning power, even before its offspring has fully emerged.
And what did this same Jacob do when Joseph brought forward his two sons, the elder Manasseh and the younger Ephraim? He crossed his hands and laid his right hand on the younger, Ephraim, and his left on the elder, Manasseh; and when Joseph took this as a serious matter and thought his father had unwittingly erred in the placing of his hands, Jacob said: I did not err, but “I know, child, I know; this one too shall become a people, and this one too shall be exalted, but his younger brother shall be greater than he” (Gen. 48:19).
What then must we say except this: that two natures, utterly necessary, were fashioned by God in the soul — memory and recollection? Memory is the better, recollection the inferior. For memory holds its perceptions fresh and vivid, so that it cannot even go astray through ignorance, whereas recollection is invariably preceded by forgetfulness, a maimed and blind condition.
Recollection, the inferior faculty, turns out to be older than memory, the better one … continuous and unbroken. For those who are first introduced to the arts are at once unable to master the theorems belonging to them; so, being at first subject to forgetting, we recollect again and again, until, through much forgetting and much recollecting, memory becomes at last secure and prevails — which is why recollection, though later-born, is in fact the younger sibling of memory.
Symbolically, then, Ephraim is called memory — for the name is interpreted as “fruitfulness” — since the soul that loves learning has brought forth its own proper fruit, whenever it has memory to make its perceptions secure. Manasseh, by contrast, is recollection, for by translation he is said to be “out of forgetfulness,” and one who escapes forgetfulness must always be recollecting. Most fittingly, then, Jacob, the supplanter of the passions and practitioner of virtue, favors with his right hand Ephraim, fruit-bearing memory, and grants second place to Manasseh, recollection.
Moses, too, of those who sacrifice the Passover, praises most highly those who sacrifice it the first time, because they persisted in the crossing away from the passions of Egypt and did not rush back toward them again; but those who sacrifice it the second time he judges worthy only of second place (Num. 9:6ff.), since, having turned aside, they ran back into their turning, and, as if forgetting what needed to be done, rushed again to do it, whereas the former group remained unturning to the end. It seems, then, that Manasseh, “out of forgetfulness,” resembles those who sacrifice the Passover the second time,
while fruit-bearing Ephraim resembles those who sacrifice it the first time. This is why God calls Bezalel by name and says he will grant him wisdom and knowledge, and will show him to be the craftsman and master-builder of all the works of the tabernacle — that is, of the works of the soul (Exod. 31:2ff.) — without having shown beforehand any deed of his that one might praise. We must say, then, that God has stamped this pattern too upon the soul, the way one stamps a genuine coin. What, then, is this character? We shall know, if we first work out precisely the meaning of the name.
Bezalel, then, is interpreted “in the shadow of God”; and the shadow of God is his Logos, which he used as an instrument when he was making the cosmos. And this shadow, this image as it were, is itself the archetype of other things. For just as God is the model for the image, which he has here called a shadow, so the image becomes the model for other things, as Moses showed at the very beginning of the Law-giving when he said, “And God made man according to the image of God” (Gen. 1:27) — meaning that the image was modeled after God, while man
received the power of a model by taking on the image. Let us then consider what character results. The first inquirers asked how we come to conceive of the divine, and those who seemed to philosophize best said that we form our apprehension of the Cause from the cosmos and its parts and the powers residing within them.
For just as, if someone were to see a house carefully built with gatehouses, colonnades, men's quarters, women's quarters, and other structures, he would form a notion of the craftsman — for he would not suppose the house had been completed without art and a craftsman — and in the same way with a city, a temple, and every construction, smaller or greater,
so too, when someone enters, as it were, this vast house or city that is the cosmos, and observes the heaven revolving in a circle and encompassing everything within it, the planets and fixed stars moving in the same unchanging and harmonious way, beneficial to the whole, and the earth allotted the middle region, with masses of water and air arranged in between, and further, living creatures both mortal and immortal, and varieties of plants and fruits, he will reckon, surely, that these things have not come to be without complete artistry, but that the craftsman of this universe both was and is God. Those who reason in this way apprehend God through a shadow, coming to understand the craftsman through his works.
But there is a more perfect and more purified mind, initiated into the great mysteries, who does not come to know the Cause from the things that have come to be, as one would infer a permanent object from its shadow, but who rises above the created realm and receives a clear impression of the uncreated, so as to apprehend him from himself, and his shadow along with him — which was the Logos and this cosmos.
This is Moses, who says, "Show yourself to me, that I may know you clearly" (Exod. 33:13) -- that is: do not show yourself to me through heaven or earth or air or anything at all that belongs to the realm of becoming, and let me not glimpse your form mirrored in anything else, but only in you, God yourself. For the reflections found in things that have come to be dissolve, while those found in the unbegotten remain fixed, secure, and everlasting. It is for this reason that God has called Moses apart and spoken with him.
God has also called Bezalel, but not in the same way: the one receives the impression of God directly from the cause itself, while the other, like someone reasoning from a shadow, comes to understand the craftsman only by inference from the things that have come to be. This is why you will find that the tabernacle and all its furnishings are constructed first by Moses and afterward by Bezalel. Moses fashions the archetypes; Bezalel fashions their copies. Moses works under God's own direction, as it says, "According to the pattern shown to you on the mountain, so shall you make everything" (Exod. 25:40); Bezalel works under Moses' direction -- and rightly so.
For indeed, when Aaron -- reason -- and Miriam -- sense-perception -- rose up against him, they are told plainly, "If there is a prophet of the Lord, he will be made known to him in a vision," and God will appear to him in shadow, not clearly; but to Moses, who is "faithful in all his house," God "will speak mouth to mouth, in visible form and not through riddles" (Num. 12:6-8).
Since, then, we have found two natures that have come to be, shaped and finely wrought by God -- the one harmful in itself, culpable, and accursed, the other beneficial and praiseworthy, the one bearing a counterfeit stamp, the other a genuine one -- let us pray the fitting and fine prayer that Moses himself prayed: that God may open for us his own treasury (Deut. 28:12) -- the lofty reason, pregnant with divine lights, which he has called heaven -- and seal shut the treasuries of evils.
For with God there are treasuries of evils just as there are of good things, as he says in the great song: "Are not these things stored up with me, and sealed among my treasuries, for the day of vengeance, when their foot shall slip?" (Deut. 32:34-35). You see, then, that there are treasuries of evils. And the treasury of good things is one -- since God is one, the treasury of good things is also one -- but the treasuries of evils are many, since evils too are unlimited in number. But observe the goodness of the One Who Is even in this: he opens the treasury of good things, but seals shut the treasuries of evils. For it belongs to God's nature to offer good things freely and even to anticipate the giving of them, but not readily to bring on evils.
Moses, intensifying still further this generosity and graciousness of God, says not merely that the treasuries of evils are sealed for the ordinary run of time, but even when the soul stumbles from the footing of right reason, at the very moment when it would deserve to be brought to justice. For, he says, it is on the day of vengeance that the treasuries of evils are sealed -- the sacred word thereby showing that God does not proceed at once against those who sin, but grants time for repentance, for the healing of the fault, and for its correction.
"And the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Cursed are you above all cattle and above all wild beasts of the earth'" (Gen. 3:14). Just as joy, being a good state of feeling, is worthy of prayer, so pleasure -- the passion -- deserves a curse, since it shifts the boundaries of the soul and remakes it, turning it from a lover of virtue into a lover of passion. Moses says among the curses that the one who moves the boundary markers of his neighbor is accursed (Deut. 27:17); for God set virtue as a boundary marker and law for the soul, the tree of life, but the one who shifts it fixes in its place another boundary marker, vice, which is the boundary of death.
"Cursed too is the one who leads the blind astray on the road" (Deut. 27:18), "and the one who strikes his neighbor in secret" (ib. 24). These too are the work of that most godless thing, pleasure. For sense-perception is blind by nature, being irrational, since it is reason that gives sight; by reason alone do we truly grasp things, no longer by sense-perception, for through sense-perception we form images only of bodies.
It has deceived maimed sense-perception in its grasp of things -- since, though able to turn toward mind and be guided by it, pleasure has prevented this, leading it instead toward the external object of sense and making it greedy for the very thing that ought to have been its own product -- so that sense-perception, being maimed, follows the blind object of sense as its guide, while the mind, guided by two things that cannot see, is thrown headlong and loses mastery of itself.
For if there were any natural order to be followed, the maimed part ought to follow the seeing reason, since that would lighten the harm done; but as it is, pleasure has set up so great a contrivance against the soul that it has forced it to use blind guides, deceiving and persuading it to exchange virtue for evils and to give up innocence in return for wickedness. The sacred word forbids just such an exchange, when it says, "You shall not exchange the good for the bad" (Lev. 27:33). For these reasons, then, pleasure is accursed.
Let us see how fitting are the things it is cursed for. It is said to be cursed "above all cattle" (Gen. 3:14). Now the irrational and sentient is cattle-like, and each sense-perception curses pleasure as its bitterest and most hostile enemy -- and indeed it truly is hostile to sense-perception. The proof: whenever we have been glutted with immoderate pleasure, we can no longer see, hear, smell, taste, or touch with clear perception, but our contact with these objects becomes dim and feeble. So much for that point.
Whenever we restrain the use of a sense, we suffer for it; but when we are wholly given over to the enjoyments of pleasure, we lose the capacity to perceive through the cooperating senses, so that we seem to have been maimed. How, then, would it not be fitting
for sense-perception to lay curses on the pleasure that maims it? Pleasure is cursed too above all the wild beasts -- I mean the passions of the soul -- for by these the mind is wounded and destroyed. Why, then, does pleasure seem worse than the other passions? Because it lies beneath nearly all of them, like a foundation and starting point. For desire arises from longing for pleasure, grief arises from the loss of it, and fear in turn is born from apprehension of its absence; so it is clear that all the passions are launched from pleasure, and probably none of them could ever have come into being at all if the capacity to bear them, pleasure, had not first been laid down.
"On your breast and belly you shall go" (Gen. 3:14). For it is around these parts, the breast and the belly, that passion lurks: around the belly and what follows it, when pleasure has the means and materials to hand; around the breast, where anger dwells, when pleasure is lacking. For lovers of pleasure, when deprived of their pleasures, grow angry and embittered.
Let us look still more precisely at what is being shown here. Our soul, it turns out, is threefold: one part is the rational, a second the spirited, and a third the desiring. Now some philosophers have distinguished these parts from one another only in power, others by location as well; and they have assigned to the rational part the region around the head, saying that where the king is, there too are his bodyguards -- and the bodyguards are the senses of the mind, stationed around the head, so that the king too would be there, having settled, as it were, on the citadel of a city. To the spirited part they assign the breast, which is why nature has fortified this part with the density and strength of closely packed bones, arming it like a good soldier with breastplate and shield for defense against opponents. To the desiring part they assign the region of the lower belly and stomach, for there desire dwells, irrational appetite.
If, then, you ever ask, my mind, what region has been allotted to pleasure, do not look for it in the region around the head, where the rational part is -- you will not find it there, since reason is at war with passion and the two cannot remain in the same place: when reason prevails, pleasure vanishes, and when pleasure conquers, reason flees. Look instead in the breast and belly, where anger and desire are, the parts of the irrational; for it is there that our judgment and our passions are both to be found.
Nothing, then, prevents the mind, once it has stepped outside the objects of thought and its own proper concerns, from being handed over to the worse part; and this happens whenever war gets the upper hand within the soul, for the reasoning within us, if it is not warlike but peaceable, is bound to be taken captive.
The sacred word, knowing full well how powerful is the impulse of each of these two passions, anger and desire, curbs each of them, setting reason over them as charioteer and helmsman. And first, concerning anger -- treating and healing it -- it speaks as follows: "And you shall put upon the oracle of judgments the Manifestation and the Truth, and it shall be on the breast of Aaron whenever he goes into the sanctuary before the Lord" (Exod. 28:26).
The "oracle," then, is within us the organ of speech, which is uttered reason; and this is either ill-considered and unapproved, or well-judged and approved. It leads us to conceive of reason as a thing of discrimination: for it says the oracle is not the undiscriminating or counterfeit kind, but the kind that belongs to judgments -- equivalent, that is, to the discriminated and tested.
Of this approved reason he says there are two supreme virtues, clarity and truthfulness, and quite rightly. For reason's first task is to make things clear and evident to one's neighbor, since we are unable to display to others, or set before them as it truly is, the passion that has arisen within the soul; hence we have been forced to resort to the symbols conveyed by voice, nouns and verbs, which must be entirely familiar to all, so that our neighbor may grasp our meaning clearly and plainly. Its second task is to report these things truthfully.
For what good is it to make an interpretation vivid and clear, but false? In that case the hearer is bound to be deceived and to reap the greatest misfortune -- ignorance compounded with lack of instruction. What use is it, for instance, if I tell a child, showing him vividly and clearly, that the letter alpha is gamma, or that eta is omega? Or if a music teacher tells a beginner that the enharmonic genus is the chromatic, or the chromatic the diatonic, or that the hypate is the mese, or the conjunct tetrachord the disjunct, or the hyperbolaion the proslambanomenos?
He will perhaps speak vividly and clearly, but not truthfully, and in this way he will produce a defect in his account. But whenever he achieves both clarity and truthfulness together, he will make his account useful to the learner, employing its two virtues, which together are almost the only virtues
it happens to have. He says, then, that the well-judged reason, possessing its own proper virtues, is stationed on the breast -- clearly meaning Aaron's breast, that is, on anger -- so that anger may first be guided by reason and not be harmed by its own irrationality, and then by clarity, for anger is not by nature a friend of clarity: in those who are angry, not only the thought but even the words are full of confusion and disorder. It was fitting, then, that the obscurity of anger be corrected by clarity,
and after that, by truthfulness; for besides its other traits, anger has this one of its own: falsehood. Of those, at least, who indulge this passion, hardly anyone speaks the truth, mastered as he is by a drunkenness not of the body but of the soul. These are the remedies for the spirited part: reason, the clarity of reason, and its truth -- for the three are in effect one thing, reason together with the virtues of truthfulness and clarity, healing the grievous sickness
of the soul that is anger. To whom, then, does it belong to bear these things? Not to my understanding, nor to that of just anyone, but to the consecrated understanding, that of Aaron -- and not even to his at every moment, for it often turns aside, but only when it proceeds without turning, when it enters the sanctuary, when reasoning enters together with holy resolves and does not run away from them.
But often the mind enters with holy and pure and cleansed judgments into sacred and hallowed opinions—but these are merely human ones, such as those concerning what is fitting, those concerning right actions, those concerning what is lawful by convention, those concerning human virtue. Not even one so disposed is fit to bear the oracle upon his breast along with the virtues, but only the one who goes in before the Lord—that is, the one who does everything for God's sake and holds nothing that comes after God in the highest honor, but who, while granting to these lesser things what is due to them, does not stop at them, but presses on to the knowledge and understanding and honor of the One.
For to one so disposed, spirited anger will be reined in both by reason that has been purified, which strips away its irrational element, and by clarity, which heals what is unclear and confused, and by truthfulness, which cuts away falsehood.
Aaron, then—for he is second to Moses in excising the breast, which is spirited anger—does not allow it to be carried off by unjudged impulses, fearing lest, once let loose, it rear up like a horse and trample the whole soul; instead he tends and bridles it, first by reason, so that, using an excellent charioteer, it may not run wildly out of control, and then by the virtues of reason, clarity and truth. For if anger is so trained that it yields to reason and to clarity and practices freedom from falsehood, it will free itself from much of its boiling and will render the whole soul more settled.
But this man, as I have said, having the passion, tries to heal it with the saving remedies I have mentioned, whereas Moses thinks it necessary to cut out and remove anger from the soul entirely, cherishing not moderation of passion but complete freedom from passion altogether.
The most sacred oracle bears witness to my argument: 'Moses,' it says, 'took the breast and set it aside as a portion before the Lord, from the ram of consecration, and it became Moses' share' (Lev. 8:29). Very well said—for it was the work of one who loves virtue and is loved by God, having beheld the whole soul, to take hold of the breast, which is spirited anger, and remove and cut it away, so that, once the warlike part is excised, the rest may live in peace. And he takes it not from just any animal, but from the ram of consecration, even though a calf too had been sacrificed; but passing over that, he came to the ram, because the ram is by nature a butting, spirited, and impulsive creature—for which reason engineers construct most of their siege engines as rams.
The ram-like, impulsive, and unjudging element in us, then, is the contentious kind; and strife is the mother of anger—which is why the more quarrelsome are quickest to grow angry, both in disputes and in other conversations. From the contentious and quarrelsome soul, then, he fittingly cuts out anger, its faulty offspring, so that, once made barren, it may cease bearing harmful things, and there may come to be a portion fitting for the lover of virtue—not the breast, nor the anger, but the removal of them. For God has allotted to the wise the noblest of portions: the ability to cut out the passions. Do you see how the perfect man is always practicing perfect freedom from passion?
But he who is only advancing, being second to Aaron, practices moderation of passion, as I said, for he is not yet able to cut out the breast and the anger; instead he brings to bear upon it, as charioteer, reason together with its inborn virtues—the oracle, in which lies clarity
and truth. He will make the difference still clearer through this as well: 'For I have taken the breast of the portion and the shoulder of the offering from the sons of Israel, from the sacrifices of your deliverance, and I have given them to Aaron and his sons' (Lev. 7:34).
You see that these men are not able to take the breast alone, but only together with the shoulder, whereas Moses takes it without the shoulder. Why? Because the perfect man thinks nothing small or lowly, nor does he wish merely to moderate the passions, but out of his abundance he has cut off the passions entirely and completely; whereas the others set out against the war of the passions only in a small and modest way, and instead come to terms and make a truce with them, offering reconciling reason as a mediator, so that, like a charioteer, it may check their excessive rush.
The shoulder is also a symbol of toil and hardship; and such is the attendant and minister of holy things, one who makes use of practice and toil. But free of toil is the one to whom God grants, out of great abundance, goods that are already perfect; and one who acquires virtue through toil is found to be lesser and less complete than one who, like Moses, receives it from God without toil and with ease. For just as toiling itself is a lesser and smaller thing than freedom from toil, so too the incomplete is less than the complete, and the one who is learning is less than the one who is taught by himself. For this reason Aaron takes the breast together with the shoulder, but Moses takes it without the shoulder.
He calls the breast a 'portion' for this reason: reason must lie upon anger and be seated firmly over it, like a charioteer guiding a stiff-necked and unruly horse; but he no longer calls the shoulder a 'portion' but an 'offering,' for this reason: the soul must not draw to itself the toil expended for virtue, but must remove it from itself and refer it up to God, confessing that it was not her own strength or power that secured the good, but the one who granted even the love of it as a gift.
Neither the breast nor the shoulder is taken except from the sacrifice of deliverance—and reasonably so; for the soul is delivered only when anger, too, is reined in by reason, and toil does not build up self-conceit but instead yields the credit to God the benefactor.
That pleasure travels not only upon its breast but also upon its belly, we have already said, showing that the belly is the region most proper to pleasure; for it is, in effect, the vessel that holds nearly all pleasures. For when the belly is filled, the appetites for the other pleasures too grow intense; but when it is emptied, they grow calm and more settled.
That is also why he says elsewhere: 'Everyone that goes upon its belly, and everyone that goes always upon four feet, and has many feet, is unclean' (Lev. 11:42). Such is the lover of pleasure, always making his way toward the belly and the pleasures that follow it. And he has joined the creature that crawls on its belly with the one that walks on four feet—reasonably so; for there are four passions belonging to pleasure, as a particular account, taken separately, records. Unclean, then, is both the one who indulges the single pleasure
and the one who rushes after all four. Having said this, observe again the difference between the perfect man and the one who is advancing. Just as before we found that the perfect man cuts out the whole of the anger belonging to the contentious soul, making it tame and manageable and peaceable and gentle toward everyone in both deed and word, while the one who is advancing, unable to remove the passion entirely—for he still bears the breast—trains it instead by judged reason, possessing the two virtues of clarity and truth: so now too we will find that the wise and perfect man, Moses, wipes away and shakes off pleasures altogether, while the one who is advancing does not reject every pleasure, but admits the necessary and simple kind while refusing the elaborate and excessive kind found in fancy side dishes.
For of Moses it says: 'And he washed the belly and the feet with the water of the whole burnt offering' (Lev. 9:14). Very fittingly—for since the whole soul is worthy to be brought before God, having neither voluntary nor involuntary blemish, the wise man consecrates it entirely; and being so disposed, he washes and cleanses and scours away the entire belly and the pleasures belonging to it and following after it—not merely a part—but has come to hold it in such contempt that he does not even take the necessary food or drink, being nourished instead by the contemplation of divine things.
That is why it is also attested of him elsewhere: 'For forty days he ate no bread and drank no water' (Exod. 34:28), when he was on the divine mountain listening to God's oracles as he legislated. But he not only renounces the whole belly, but also has its feet scoured away together with it—that is, the paths of approach to pleasure.
The paths of approach to pleasure are the things that produce it. For the one who is advancing is said to wash the inward parts and the feet (Lev. 1:9), but not the whole belly; he is not capable of driving off every pleasure, but it is enough if he washes its inward parts, that is, its rich side dishes, which lovers of pleasure call refinements upon the basic pleasures, produced through the elaborate skill of relish-makers
and fastidious bakers. And he further intensifies the moderation of the one who is advancing by this: that the one man renounces the whole pleasure of the belly without any command, while the one who is advancing does so only under command. For of the wise man it is said thus: 'he washed the belly and the feet with water' (Lev. 9:14)—unprompted, by his own voluntary judgment; but of the priests it says: 'the inward parts and the feet'—not 'they washed,' but 'they shall wash' (Lev. 1:9)—very precisely observed, for the perfect man must be moved to actions of virtue from himself, while the one still in training needs the guidance of reason to instruct him in what must be done.
and it is good for him to obey when it commands. One must not fail to notice that Moses, in renouncing the whole belly—that is, the filling of the stomach—thereby renounces almost all the other passions as well, since the lawgiver, by dealing with one single part, is clearly setting forth the whole, and through the most all-embracing thing is describing by implication the others too, concerning which he kept silent. For the filling of the belly is the most all-embracing thing, and, as it were, a foundation of the other passions; for none of them can be established at all except by resting upon the belly, upon which nature has grounded everything.
For this reason, once the goods of the soul born of Leah had first come into being and had come to rest upon the confession of Judah (Gen. 29:35), God, being about to fashion also the advances of the body, prepares Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, to bear children even before her mistress. Bilhah means 'swallowing down'; for he knew that nothing bodily can come into being without swallowing and the belly, but that the belly rules and governs the whole body and the bare mass that belongs to mere living.
Observe every fine point, for you will find nothing said carelessly. Moses removes the breast, but does not remove the belly—he washes it instead (Lev. 8:29; 9:14). Why? Because the perfect man has the strength to renounce and cut off anger entirely, rising up against wrath, but he is unable to cut out the belly; for nature compels even the man who needs least and holds the necessities in contempt, and who practices abstaining even from them, to make use of necessary food and drink. Let him wash it, then, and cleanse it of superfluous and unclean preparations; for even this is a sufficient gift from God to the lover of virtue.
That is why, concerning the soul suspected of having been corrupted (Num. 5:27), he says that if she is found to have abandoned right reason—which is a lawful husband—and to have gone over to the passion that defiles the soul, 'her belly will swell'—which is to say, she will have the pleasures and appetites of the belly unfillable and insatiable, and, through lack of discipline, she will never cease being greedy, but as countless things flow in upon her she will have the passion forever.
I know, indeed, many who stumble so badly over the appetite of the belly that, after resorting to vomiting, they rush again toward strong wine and everything else; for the desire of a soul without self-mastery is not proportioned to the bulk of the body. Bodies, being vessels of a measured capacity, admit nothing beyond measure, but expel what is superfluous; whereas desire is never filled, but remains forever in want and athirst.
That is why the consequence added to the swelling of the belly is the falling away of the thigh; for at that time there also falls away from the soul the upright reason that is generative and productive of noble things. 'If,' it says, 'she has not been defiled and is pure, she shall be free and shall bear seed' (Num. 5:28)—meaning that if she has not been defiled by passion but remains pure toward her lawful husband, the sound and guiding reason, she will have a soul fruitful and bearing fruit, carrying offspring of prudence and righteousness.
And consistent with this, the swelling of the belly is followed by "the thigh falling away": for then the seed-bearing and generative right reason of noble things falls away in the soul. At any rate, he says, "if she has not been defiled, and is pure, she shall be free of guilt, and shall bear seed" (Num 5:28)—meaning, if the soul has not been defiled by passion but keeps herself pure for her lawful husband, the sound and ruling reason, she will have a soul fertile and fruitful, bearing offspring of prudence and justice
and of virtue entire. Is it possible, then, for us who are bound to a body, not to make use of the body's necessities? How could it be? But observe: the hierophant lays down the manner in which the one led by bodily need is to make use of only what is necessary. First he says, "Let there be a place for you outside the camp" (Deut 23:12), calling virtue the camp in which the soul has taken up its station; for prudence and the enjoyment of bodily necessity cannot hold the same ground.
Then he says, "you shall go out" there, outside. Why? Because the soul, while it remains with prudence and abides in the house of wisdom, cannot make use of any of the body's friends; for then it is nourished on more divine food, in the sciences, on whose account it also neglects the flesh. But whenever it goes out of the sacred houses of virtue, then it turns to the matters that offend and oppress the body.
How then shall I make use of them? "Let there be a peg for you upon your girdle," he says, "and you shall dig with it" (Deut 23:13)—that is, let reason dig into the passion and hold it back and strip it bare; for the passions want us girded up, not worn loose and slack.
This is why, at the crossing over that is called Passover, he commands that "the loins be girded" (Exod 12:11)—that is, that the desires be drawn in. Let the peg, that is, reason, then follow upon the passion, preventing it from being let loose; for so we shall make use
of necessities alone, and abstain from what is superfluous. And even when we are at gatherings and about to come to the enjoyment and use of what has been prepared, if we come armed with reason as with a defensive weapon, we shall neither gorge ourselves on food beyond measure, gull-like, nor, once glutted with unmixed wine beyond measure, give ourselves over to the drunkenness that compels folly; for reason will muzzle and bridle the rush and onset of passion.
I know this from having suffered it myself many times: for when I have come to an unruly gathering and lavish dinners, whenever I did not arrive together with reason, I became a slave of what had been prepared, led about by untamed masters—spectacles and sounds and whatever produces pleasures through the nostrils and the taste. But whenever I came with reason as my guide, I became master instead of slave, and won by main force a noble victory of endurance and self-control, resisting and contending against all that unleashes uncontrolled desires.
"You shall dig," he says, "with the peg" (Deut 23:13)—that is, whatever nature each of these things has, eating, drinking, using what comes after the belly, you shall lay bare and distinguish with reason, so that by discerning you may know the truth; for then you will know that the good lies in none of these things, but only the necessary and useful.
"And having covered it over, you shall conceal your shame" (ibid.). Very well said: for bring reason to bear, O soul, upon everything, by which all the shamefulness of flesh and passion is covered, overshadowed, and hidden away; for all that is without reason is shameful, just as all that is with reason is decorous.
Accordingly, the lover of pleasure walks upon his belly, while the perfect man washes out the belly entirely; the one making progress deals with what is in the belly, while the one just beginning to be trained goes forth outside, whenever he is about to bring reason to bear upon the necessities of the belly, to muzzle the passion which is symbolically called the peg.
And it is well said further, "you shall go upon your breast and belly" (Gen 3:14); for pleasure belongs not to what stands still but to what is in motion and full of turmoil: for as flame is in motion, so passion, moving in the soul after the manner of a blaze, does not allow it to be at rest. Hence it does not agree with those who say pleasure is a settled state; for stillness belongs to stone and wood and everything soulless, but is foreign to pleasure, which craves titillation and spasm, and in some cases has need not of stillness but of intense and violent motion.
"And you shall eat earth all the days of your life" (Gen 3:14)—this is fittingly said; for the pleasures of bodily nourishment are earthly. And perhaps rightly so: for we are composed of two things, mind and body. The body has been fashioned out of earth, but the soul is of ether, a divine fragment; for "God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen 2:7). Reasonably, then, the body, molded from earth, has kindred nourishment which the earth yields up, while the soul, being a portion of ethereal nature, has in turn ethereal and divine nourishment; for it is fed on sciences, not on food
or drink, of which the body has need. And that the soul's nourishments are not earthly but heavenly, the sacred word will testify at greater length: "Behold, I shall rain down for you loaves from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather each day's portion for that day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not" (Exod 16:4). You see that the soul is nourished not on earthly and perishable things, but on whatever words God rains down out of that lofty and pure nature which he has called heaven.
Let the people, then—the whole constitution of the soul—go out and gather, and begin upon knowledge, not all at once, but "each day's portion for that day"; for first, taken all at once, it will not be able to contain the great wealth of God's graces, but will be flooded like a torrent's onrush; and further, it is better, having received sufficient and measured goods, to think God the steward of the rest.
But the one who pursues everything all at once acquires despair and disbelief along with great folly: he becomes despairing if he hopes that God will rain down good things now only and not again; disbelieving, if he has not believed that God's graces are bestowed ungrudgingly on the worthy both now and always; and senseless, if he thinks himself able to be a sufficient guardian of what has been gathered without God's will; for a small tilt is enough to render null and insecure, through his own vainglory, everything of which the mind that fastens security and certainty upon itself supposed it was guardian.
Gather then, O soul, what is sufficient and fitting, neither more than enough so as to overreach, nor again less so as to fall short, that using just measures you may do no wrong. For indeed the soul that is practicing the crossing over from the passions and sacrificing the Passover—the progress that is the sheep—must take it without excess; for "each one," he says, "shall be counted for the sheep according to what suffices him" (Exod 12:4).
So too with the manna, and with every gift that God gives to our race, it is good to take the measured and numbered amount, not more than falls to us; for that would be greed. Let the soul, then, gather "each day's portion for that day" (Exod 16:4), so that it may show not itself but the gift-loving God to be the guardian of good things.
And for this reason, I think, the passage before us is stated as it is: day is a symbol of light, and the light of the soul is education. Many, then, have acquired the lights within the soul unto night and darkness, not unto day and light—such as all the preliminary studies, the so-called general education, and philosophy itself, pursued for luxury's sake or for advancement with rulers. But the man of worth acquires the day for the day's sake, and the light for the light's sake, and the noble for the sake of the noble alone, not for the sake of anything else. Hence he adds, "that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not" (Exod 16:4); for this is a divine law, that virtue for its own sake—right reason tests its practitioners like a coin,
to see whether they are debased, referring the soul's good to something external, or whether, as approved coin, they keep it distinct, guarding it in the understanding alone. It falls to such as these to be nourished not on earthly but on heavenly sciences.
He makes this clear also through other words, when he says: "It came to pass in the morning, as the dew ceased round about the camp, that behold, upon the face of the wilderness there was a fine thing like coriander seed, white like frost upon the ground. And when they saw it, they said to one another, 'What is this?' for they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'This is the bread which the Lord has given us to eat. This is the word which the Lord has ordained'" (Exod 16:13ff). You see what the soul's food is like: the continuous word of God, resembling dew, encompassing everything round about and leaving no part without a share in itself.
This word, however, does not appear everywhere, but in the wilderness of the passions and vices; and it is fine to think and to be thought, and exceedingly translucent and pure to behold, and it is like coriander seed. Farmers say that the seed of coriander, divided into countless pieces and cut, sprouts in each of its parts and sections just as the whole was able to do; such too is the word of God, beneficial through the whole and through every part, even the smallest.
Perhaps too it resembles the pupil of the eye: for as this, though the smallest part, sees the whole zones of existing things, the boundless sea, the vastness of the air, and all of heaven that the rising and setting sun marks out, so too the word of God is most keen-sighted, able to oversee all things... by which those things worthy of contemplation will be beheld; wherefore it is also white: for what could be brighter or more far-shining than the divine word, by participation in which other things too drive off mist and gloom, longing to share in the light of the soul?
A peculiar effect attends this word: for whenever it calls the soul to itself, it rouses a firmness against everything earthy, bodily, and given to sense-perception; hence it is said to be "like frost upon the ground" (Exod 16:14); for indeed, when the one who sees God practices flight from the passions, the waves are frozen fast—that is, their onrush and swelling and vaunting are stilled; for "the waves were congealed in the midst of the sea" (Exod 15:8), so that the one who beholds Being might cross over the passion.
So the souls that have already experienced the word, but are not yet able to say "what it is" (Exod 16:15), inquire of one another; for indeed, when sweetened, we are often ignorant of what stirred the taste, and smelling sweet fragrances we do not know what they are; so too the soul, often gladdened, cannot say what it is that has gladdened it. But it is taught by the hierophant and prophet Moses, who will say, "This is the bread" (ibid.)—the food which God has given the soul—to partake of his own word and his own reason; for this is the bread which he has given us to eat, "this word."
And he says also in Deuteronomy: "and he afflicted you, and made you hunger, and fed you with the manna, which your fathers did not know, that he might announce to you that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes forth through the mouth of God" (Deut 8:3). This affliction is a propitiation; for indeed on the tenth day he propitiates our souls for our evils (Lev 16:30); for whenever we are stripped bare, we suppose we are being afflicted, but in truth this is to have God gracious toward us.
Let God, then, announce to the soul: "Man shall not live by bread alone," but "by every word that proceeds through the mouth of God" — that is, the soul will be nourished both by the whole of the Word and by a part of it. For the mouth is a symbol of the Word, and the utterance a part of it. The more perfect souls are nourished by the whole Word; but we ourselves would be content
if we were nourished even by a part of it. Yet these pray to be nourished by God's Word. Jacob, however, rises even above the Word itself, and says that he is nourished by God directly, speaking thus: "God, in whose sight my fathers Abraham and Isaac were well-pleasing, the God who has nourished me from my youth until this day, the angel who rescues me from all evils, may he bless these children." This is a beautiful way of putting it: he regards God, not the Word, as his nourisher, but the angel — who is the Word — as a physician of evils. This is entirely fitting, for it pleases him that the primary goods should be given by Being itself, in its own person, but the secondary goods through his angels and words; and secondary are all those that consist in deliverance from evils.
For this reason, I think, plain health, which is not preceded by disease in our bodies, God grants through himself alone, while the recovery that comes by escape from disease he grants also through art and medicine, crediting both the science and the physician with the appearance of healing, while in truth he himself heals both through these means and without them. The same holds also for the soul: the goods, the nourishments, he grants through himself alone, but whatever consists in deliverance from evils, through angels and words.
Jacob offered this prayer while finding fault with the statesman Joseph, who had dared to say, "I will nourish you there." For he says, "Hasten and go up to my father, and say to him, Thus says..." and so forth, and then, "Come down to me and do not remain; for I will nourish you there in every respect, for there are five years of famine left." So, at once reproaching and instructing the man who fancied himself wise, Jacob says: know, sir, that the nourishments of the soul are the sciences, which not sense-perceptible speech but God bestows — he who nourishes me from youth and earliest prime, and who himself will fill me to the end.
Joseph, then, suffered the same thing as his mother Rachel. For she too thought that something created could accomplish this, and so she says, "Give me children." But the Supplanter, rebuking her, will say: you have wandered into great error, for I am not in the place of God, who alone is able to open the wombs of souls and sow virtues in them and make them pregnant and bring forth what is good. Consider, indeed, your sister Leah, and you will find that she receives her seed and offspring from no created thing, but from God himself: "For the Lord, seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb; but Rachel was barren."
But observe again the fine workmanship in this passage: it is virtue's womb that God opens, sowing in it good actions; and the womb, having received virtue from God, does not bear children for God — for he who is has need of nothing — but for me, Jacob: for it was for my sake, it seems, that God sowed in virtue, not for his own. So then, one man turns out to be the husband of Leah, who lies quietly by, and another the father of Leah's children: the husband is the one who opens the womb, but the father is the one to whom the children are said to be born.
"And I will put enmity between you and between the woman." Pleasure truly is an enemy to sense-perception, although to some it seems to be its closest friend. But just as no one would call a flatterer a companion — for flattery is a disease of friendship — nor call a courtesan well-disposed toward her lover, since her affection attaches to the gifts given, not to the man himself, so too, if you examine pleasure, you will find it assuming a counterfeit intimacy with sense-perception.
At any rate, whenever we are sated with pleasure, our sense-organs collapse from their proper tension. Do you not observe that those who are drunk with wine or with love, though seeing, do not see, and though hearing, do not hear, and are deprived of the precise operation of their other senses as well? And sometimes, too, through an immoderate quantity of food, all the tensions of the senses are relaxed as sleep takes hold — a state which indeed took its very name from this relaxation. For then the sense-organ goes slack, whereas in waking it is drawn taut, no longer receiving the impacts from without as muffled, but as loud and vivid, transmitting their reverberation all the way to the mind; for the mind must, once struck, recognize the external thing and receive a clear impression of it.
Notice, too, that he did not say, "I will put enmity between you and the woman," but "between you and between the woman." Why is this? Because the war between these two takes place around the middle ground, as it were lying on the boundary between pleasure and sense-perception. And the middle ground common to both is the drinkable, the edible, whatever is fitted for such purposes — each of which is both perceptible by sense and productive of pleasure. So whenever pleasure gorges itself insatiably on these things, it at once inflicts harm on sense-perception.
And the phrase "between your seed and her seed" is likewise spoken with an eye to nature: for every seed is a beginning of generation; and the beginning of pleasure is not passion but irrational impulse, while the beginning of sense-perception is the mind. For from the mind, as from a kind of spring, the perceptive faculties are extended — especially according to the most sacred Moses, who says that woman was fashioned out of Adam, that is, sense-perception out of mind. So then, what pleasure is to sense-perception, passion is to mind, so that,
since the former pair are enemies, these too would be at war. And the war between them is quite plain to see: whenever the mind gains the upper hand — when it turns to the intelligible and incorporeal realities — passion is put to flight; and conversely, whenever passion wins an evil victory, the mind yields, being prevented from attending to itself and to all its own works. Elsewhere, indeed, Moses says that whenever Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed, but whenever he let them down, Amalek prevailed — showing by this that whenever the mind lifts itself above mortal things and is raised on high, that which sees God — which is Israel — grows strong; but whenever it relaxes its own tensions and grows weak, passion at once grows strong, that is, Amalek, whose name is translated "a people that licks up": for it truly devours the whole soul and licks it clean, leaving in it no seed or spark of virtue.
For this reason it is also said, "the beginning of the nations is Amalek," because over the mixed, motley, and confused rabble, passion rules and holds sway without deliberation. Through this the entire war of the soul is kindled. To those minds, then, to whom God grants peace, he promises that he will blot out the memorial of Amalek from under heaven.
The phrase "he will watch your head, and you will watch his heel" is, in its wording, a solecism, but in its meaning, correct. For it is said to the serpent concerning the woman, yet the woman is not "he" but "she." What, then, must we say? The statement has passed from the discourse about the woman to her seed and its origin; and the origin of sense-perception was the mind. This is masculine, and of it one must properly say "he" and "his" and the like. Rightly, then, it is said to pleasure that your mind will watch its chief and governing doctrine, and you will watch his — the mind's — footholds and settlings-in of what pleases it, to which the heels have fittingly been compared.
The word "will watch" indicates two things: one, as it were, to guard and preserve; the other, equivalent to "will keep watch" with a view to destruction. Now the mind must be either base or excellent. The foolish mind would become pleasure's guardian and steward, for it delights in it; but the excellent mind is its enemy, watching for the moment when, by attacking, it will have strength to overthrow it utterly. And conversely, pleasure preserves its foothold in the foolish man, but in the wise man it strives to undo and destroy his resistance, considering that the wise man is practicing its own dissolution, while the foolish man is practicing, by every means, its own preservation.
But nevertheless, though it seems to supplant and deceive the man of worth, pleasure itself will be supplanted by Jacob, who has been trained in wrestling — not a wrestling of the body, but that in which the soul wrestles against its adversary dispositions, fighting against passions and vices. And it will not release the heel of its adversary, passion, until it has forced it to renounce itself and confess that it has been supplanted and defeated twice: both in the matter of the birthright and in the matter of the blessing.
"Justly," he says, "was his name called Jacob, for he has now supplanted me a second time: the first time he took my birthright, and now he has taken my blessing." The base man regards the things of the body as senior, but the man of worth regards the things of the soul as senior — and these are, in truth, senior and genuinely first, not in time but in power and worth, just as a ruler is senior in a city; and the soul is the guiding element
of the composite being. So the one who is first in virtue has taken the first things, which indeed belonged to him by right: for he has taken good judgment too, together with perfect prayers. But foolish and self-conceited is the one who says, "He has taken my blessings and my birthright": for it is not your things, sir, that he takes, but their opposites: for yours are fit for slavery, but his have been deemed worthy of mastery.
And if you are willing to become a slave of the wise man, you will share in admonition and correction, casting off ignorance and lack of discipline, the banes of the soul; for the father, in his prayer, says to you, "You will serve your brother" — but not now, for he will not tolerate you while you are unruly — but "when you loosen the yoke from your neck," once you have cast off the arrogance and swagger which you acquired by yoking yourself to the chariot of the passions, with folly as your charioteer.
At present you are a slave to harsh and unbearable masters within yourself, whose law it is to allow nothing free. But if you take flight and abandon them, a master fond of slaves will receive you, with good hopes of freedom, and will no longer hand you back to your former masters, having learned from Moses a necessary teaching and doctrine: "not to hand over to his master a servant who has been added to him by his master; for he shall dwell with him in
every place that pleases him." But so long as you have not fled, and are still bridled by the reins of those former masters, you are unworthy to serve the wise man; you give the greatest proof of an illiberal and slavish character whenever you say, "my birthright" and "my blessings": for these are the words of one who has gone off into boundless ignorance, since it befits God alone to say "mine," for all things are truly his possessions alone.
And to this he will himself bear witness, whenever he says, "my gifts, my presents, my offerings you shall keep," for gift differs from present: the one signifies the magnitude of perfect goods, which God bestows on the perfect, while the other is directed toward what is very small, in which the well-natured, striving beginners who are just glimpsing the goal have a share.
For this reason Abraham too, in following the will of God, keeps the possessions that were his from God, but sends back the horses of the king of Sodom, as well as the possessions belonging to the concubines. Moses, moreover, deems it right that the greatest matters be judged by himself, even in the greatest cases, while he entrusts the small matters of judgment to those of secondary rank to consider.
But whoever dares to say that something is his own will be enrolled a slave for all eternity, like the one who says, "I have loved my master and my wife and my children; I will not go away free." Well said, to confess his own slavery to himself! For how could the one who says "the Lord is not my slave" fail to see that mind is lord of itself and self-ruling; that sense-perception too is mine, a self-sufficient judge of bodies; and that the offspring of these are mine as well — of mind, the intelligibles, and of sense-perception, the perceptibles; for thinking and perceiving are within my own power.
But let him not merely testify against himself, but, condemned also by God, let him endure a slavery eternal and most sure, God commanding that his ear be pierced, so that he may not admit the words of virtue, and that he serve mind and sense-perception forever — evil and pitiless masters.
"And to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your griefs and your groaning." Grief is a passion peculiar to the woman, who was sense-perception; for that in which pleasure occurs is the very thing in which pain occurs as well. We feel pleasure through the senses, so that of necessity we feel pain through them too. But the excellent and purified mind feels the least pain, for the senses assail it least of all; whereas in the fool passion abounds without measure, since he has no antidote in his soul with which to ward off the plagues that come from the senses and sense-objects.
For the athlete and the slave are struck in different ways: the slave submits under compulsion and yields to the blows, while the athlete resists and holds his ground; and the shearer shears a man and a sheep in different ways, for the sheep is examined only in what it undergoes, whereas the man reacts and, so to speak, does something in return, adapting himself to being shorn.
So too the irrational person, like a slave, submits to another and falls beneath his pains as though they were unbearable mistresses, unable even to look them in the face, since he cannot muster manly and free reasoning; and this is why an endless mass of grief is poured over him through the senses. But the person of understanding, in the manner of an athlete, stands against every pain with strength and stubborn vigor and breathes back against it, so as not to be wounded by it but to treat each pain with indifference. And I think that, in his young man's spirit, he might cry out to pain the words of the tragedian: "Burn, char my flesh, glut yourself drinking my dark blood; sooner shall the stars go down beneath the earth, and earth rise up into the heavens, than you shall hear from me a flattering word."
And just as God has increased and multiplied all painful things for sense-perception, so he has given an unstinting abundance of good things to the virtuous soul. He says, for instance, of the perfect Abraham in these words: "By myself I have sworn, says the Lord; because you have done this thing and have not spared your beloved son for my sake, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore" (Genesis 22:16-17). It is fitting that he confirmed the promise with an oath, and with an oath worthy of God; for you see that God does not swear by another, since nothing is greater than he, but by himself, who is best of all.
Some have said that it was improper for God to swear an oath, since an oath is taken for the sake of establishing trust, and only God is trustworthy, and whoever is a friend of God, as Moses is said to have become "faithful in all his house" (Numbers 12:7). Besides, the words of God are oaths, and the laws of God are the most sacred of ordinances; and proof of his strength is that whatever he says comes to pass, which is the very thing most proper to an oath. So it would follow to say that all the words of God
are oaths, confirmed by the accomplishment of deeds. Yet they say an oath is God's testimony concerning a disputed matter; if then God swears, he testifies on his own behalf, which is absurd, for the one who gives testimony must be different from the one on whose behalf it is given. What then must we say? First, that it is not blameworthy for God to testify on his own behalf, for who else could be a sufficient witness for him? Second, he himself is, for himself, all that is most precious — kinsman, intimate, friend, virtue, happiness, blessedness, knowledge, understanding, beginning, end, whole, all, judge, judgment, counsel, law, action, sovereignty.
Moreover, if we take "by myself I have sworn" in the way we ought, we shall stop being over-clever sophists about it. Perhaps it means this: nothing capable of giving assurance can give firm assurance about God, for he has shown his nature to no one, but has made it invisible to the whole created order. Who could have the strength to declare firmly whether the cause of all things is bodiless or a body, of a certain quality or without quality, or in general to pronounce with certainty about his substance, quality, relation, or motion? But about himself alone he can affirm with strength, since he alone has known his own nature accurately and without falsehood.
God, then, is the strongest guarantor first of himself, and then, alone, of his own works; so it was fitting that he swore by himself, giving assurance of himself, which no one else could do. For this reason those who claim to swear by God might rightly be thought impious; for no one can rightly swear by him, since no one can know his nature with certainty. Instead we should be content if we are able to swear by his name, that is, by the interpretive word; for this would be our God, we who are imperfect, while for the wise and perfect it is the first and highest God.
And indeed Moses, marveling at the surpassing greatness of the Uncreated, says: "and you shall swear by his name" (Deuteronomy 6:13), not by him himself; for it is enough for a created being to be given assurance and testimony by the divine word, but let God be his own trust and his own most certain testimony.
"Because of which you did this thing" (Genesis 22:16) is a symbol of piety; for to do everything for God's sake alone is piety. This is why we do not spare even our beloved child, virtue, or its happiness, but yield it to the Creator, judging the offspring worthy to be reckoned the possession of God rather than of any created being.
It is well said, "blessing I will bless" (ibid.); for many people do many praiseworthy things, but not out of a settled disposition to bless, since even a base person sometimes does what is fitting, not from a fitting disposition; and one who is drunk or mad may at times speak and act soberly, but not from a sober mind; and even quite small children, not yet from a rational disposition — for nature has not yet trained them to be rational — do and say many things that rational people do. But the lawgiver wants the wise person to seem praiseworthy not by circumstance, easily, or as if by chance, but from a settled habit and disposition of being praiseworthy.
It was not enough, then, for ill-fated sense-perception to indulge richly in griefs, but also in "groaning"; groaning is intense and heightened grief, for often we feel pain without groaning, but when we groan we handle our griefs with distress and with a veritable downpour. Groaning is of two kinds: one occurs in those who desire and reach after wrongdoing and do not attain it, and this is base; the other occurs in those who repent and are troubled at their former turning, saying, "Wretched are we, for how long a time we lay unaware, sick with the sickness of folly and mindlessness and unjust practices."
But this does not happen unless the king of Egypt — the godless and pleasure-loving disposition — comes to an end and dies out of the soul; for "after those many days the king of Egypt died." Then immediately, once vice has died, the one who sees God groans also over his own turning: "for the sons of Israel groaned because of their bodily and Egyptian labors" (Exodus 2:23); since while the pleasure-loving disposition still lives in us, it persuades the soul to rejoice in the wrongs it commits, but when it dies, the soul groans.
This is why the soul also cries out, imploring the Master that it may no longer turn back nor receive an incomplete perfecting; for God has not permitted many souls, though they wished to make use of repentance, but they were carried back again, as though by a returning tide, in the manner of Lot's wife (Genesis 19:26), who was turned to stone because she loved Sodom and the natures overturned by God
But now, in fact, it says that "their cry went up to God" (Exodus 2:23), bearing witness to the grace of the Existent One; for had he not powerfully called the suppliant reason to himself, it would not have gone up — that is, it would not have been raised and grown and begun to soar aloft, fleeing the lowliness of earthly things. This is why, further on, he says: "behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to me" (Exodus 3:9).
It is a fine thing that supplication reaches all the way to God; but it would not have reached him had not the one who calls been good. To some souls he comes to meet even beforehand: "I will come to you and I will bless you" (Exodus 20:24). You see how great is the grace of the Cause, who outruns our slowness to act and comes to meet the soul beforehand for its complete benefit. And what is said here is a doctrinal oracle; for if the concept of God enters the mind, at once the mind becomes sound in judgment and all its sicknesses are healed.
Sense-perception, however, is always in grief and groans, and gives birth to the act of perceiving amid pain and incurable distress, as it itself says: "in pain you shall bear children" (Genesis 3:16); sight gives birth to seeing, hearing to hearing, taste to tasting, and sense-perception in general to perceiving; but for the fool none of these is done without harsh distress, for he sees, hears, tastes, smells, and perceives in general, all with grief.
But virtue, by contrast, you will find bearing its child with surpassing joy, and the virtuous person begetting it with laughter and good cheer, and the offspring of both being laughter itself. That the wise man begets in joy and not in grief, the divine word itself will testify, saying: God said to Abraham, "Sarah your wife shall no longer be called Sarah, but Sarrah shall be her name; I will bless her and give you a child from her" (Genesis 17:15-16); and then it adds: "Abraham fell upon his face and said, Shall a child be born to a man a hundred years old, and shall Sarrah, being ninety years old, bear a child?" (ibid. 17).
This man, it seems, was glad and laughing, because he was about to beget happiness, that is, Isaac; and virtue, Sarrah, also laughs, as the same text will testify, saying: "It had ceased to be with Sarrah after the manner of women, and she laughed within her mind and said, Has not happiness come to me even until now? But my lord" — the divine word — "is old" (Genesis 18:11-12), to whom this quality must belong of necessity, and it is good to trust one who promises what is good. And the offspring is laughter and joy; for this is what Isaac means when translated.
Let sense-perception, then, grieve, but let virtue always rejoice; for indeed, once happiness has been born, she says with solemn pride: "the Lord has made laughter for me; for whoever hears will rejoice with me" (Genesis 21:6). Open your ears wide, then, initiates, and receive these most sacred mysteries: laughter is joy, and "made" is equivalent to "begot," so that what is being said is this: the Lord begot Isaac; for he himself is the father of the perfect nature, sowing happiness in souls and begetting it.
"And your turning shall be toward your husband" (Genesis 3:16). There are two husbands of sense-perception, the lawful one and the seducer; for in the manner of a husband, the visible object moves sight, sound moves hearing, and flavor moves taste, and so with each of the other senses. These things turn irrational sense-perception toward themselves, calling it, and overpower and rule it; for beauty has enslaved sight, sweet flavor has enslaved taste, and likewise each of the other sensible objects enslaves the sense-perception proper to it.
Consider the glutton, how he is enslaved to whatever elaborate preparations cooks and bakers can contrive by their craft, and the person swept away by melody, how he is mastered by the lyre or the flute or by anyone skilled in singing. But for the sense-perception that has turned back toward its lawful husband, the mind, the benefit is very great.
Let us next consider, then, what is said about the mind itself when it is moved contrary to right reason. "To Adam God said: Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, from it you have eaten, cursed is the earth in your labors" (Genesis 3:17). It is most unprofitable to hear of a mind belonging to sense-perception rather than a sense-perception belonging to the mind; for the better must always rule and the worse be ruled, and the mind is better than sense-perception.
Just as, when a charioteer is in control and drives the animals with the reins where he wishes, the chariot is carried along well, but when those animals have thrown off restraint and gained the upper hand, the charioteer is often dragged along, and the animals themselves are sometimes carried by the impetus of their rush into a pit, and everything proceeds in disorder; and a ship sails a straight course when the pilot takes the helm and steers it accordingly, but capsizes when a contrary wind blows over the sea and the swell takes hold of it,
so too, whenever the mind, the charioteer or pilot of the soul, governs the whole living being like the ruler of a city, life is guided rightly; but whenever irrational sense-perception carries off the first place, terrible confusion takes hold, as when slaves have set themselves over their masters; for then, to tell the truth, the mind is set ablaze and burns, since the senses stir up the flame by presenting sensible objects as fuel.
And indeed Moses points to this sort of conflagration, which comes about through the senses, of the mind, when he says: "and the women further kindled a fire in Moab" — for this name is translated "from a father," and our father is the mind — "then," he says, "the riddle-makers will say, Come to Heshbon, that the city of Sihon may be built and prepared."
"For fire went out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon, and it consumed as far as Moab and swallowed up the pillars of the Arnon. Woe to you, Moab; you have perished, people of Chemosh. Their sons were given up to be saved, and their daughters were captives to the king of the Amorites, Sihon, and their seed shall perish, from Heshbon as far as Dibon, and the women kindled a further fire against Moab" (Num. 21:27–30). Heshbon is translated "reckonings"; these are riddles full of obscurity. The physician's reckoning pours down like rain: I will purge the sick man, I will nourish him, I will heal him with drugs and with diet, I will cut, I will cauterize — but often nature, even without these, has healed, and with these has destroyed, so that all the physician's calculations are found to be dreams, full of obscurity and riddles.
Again the farmer says: I will cast seeds, I will plant, the plants will grow, they will bear fruits which will be useful not only for the necessary enjoyment but will also suffice for abundance; then suddenly a blaze or a storm or continuous downpours destroy everything; and sometimes the crops are brought to completion, but the one who reckoned on them gains no benefit, but dies beforehand, and vainly prophesies enjoyment from the fruits of his labors.
It is best, then, to have put one's trust in God and not in obscure reckonings and unstable conjectures. "Abraham indeed trusted God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6); and Moses at the outset is attested to be "faithful in the whole house" (Num. 12:7). But if we distrust God and put our trust instead in our own reckonings, we shall construct and build the city of the mind that corrupts truth; for Sihon is translated "one who corrupts."
Wherefore also he who arose — he in whom the dreams were — found that all the motions and stretchings of the fool are dreams having no share in truth (for the mind itself was found to be a dream), because it is a true doctrine to trust in God, but a falsehood to trust in empty reckonings. And an irrational impulse goes out and ranges abroad from both — from the reckonings and from the mind that corrupts truth; wherefore he also says, "fire went out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon" (Num. 21:28); for it is equally irrational to trust either in plausible reckonings or in
that which corrupts the truth. It "consumes even as far as Moab," that is, as far as the mind; for whom else does false opinion deceive but the wretched mind? It consumes and devours, and indeed also swallows down the pillars within it — that is, the particular notions, which have been stamped and engraved as on a pillar. And the pillars belong to the Arnon, which is translated "their light," since each of these matters is made clear by reasoning.
He begins, then, to lament the self-willed and self-loving mind thus: "Woe to you, Moab, you have perished"; for if you attend to riddles that follow the impulse of plausibilities, you have destroyed the truth. "The people of Chemosh" — that is, your people and your power — is found maimed and blinded; for Chemosh is translated "a groping," and this is properly the work of one who does not see.
Of these, the sons are the particular reckonings, fugitives, while the daughters, who possess the capacity that belongs to them, are captives to the king of the Amorites — that is, to the sophist of those who speak; for the Amorites are translated "speakers," being a symbol of uttered speech. And their leader is the sophist, clever at hunting out the arts of words, by whom those who transgress the boundary of truth are outwitted.
Sihon, then, is the one who corrupts the sound rule of truth, and his seed shall perish, and Heshbon — the sophistic riddles — as far as Dibon, which is called "judgment"; very fittingly, for plausibilities and probabilities have no knowledge of truth, but lawsuit and dispute and contentious rivalry and love of strife and all such things.
But it was not enough for the mind to have its own intelligible destructive powers; the women too kindled a further fire, the senses adding a great conflagration upon it. See indeed what is meant. Often at night, when none of the senses is active, we conceive absurd notions about many different things, since the soul is ever in motion and admits countless changes. What she herself generated from herself was, then, already sufficient for her own corruption.
But now the crowd of the senses has also brought in upon her, as an added scene, a countless multitude of destructive powers — some from things seen, some from sounds, and then from tastes and from the vapors of smell; and the flame that arises from these disposes the soul more harshly than the flame that arises from the soul itself alone, without the added participation of the organs of sense.
One of these women is the wife of Potiphar, Pharaoh's chief cook (Gen. 39:1). How it is that, being a eunuch, he has a wife, must be examined; for those who deal with the words of the law before turning to allegory will meet with what seems to be a difficulty. For the eunuch and chief cook is in reality the mind that makes use not only of simple but also of superfluous pleasures, and is called a eunuch, barren of wisdom — a eunuch of none other than Pharaoh, the scatterer of noble things. Since indeed, on another argument, it would be best to become a eunuch, if our soul, having escaped vice, could unlearn passion.
Wherefore also Joseph, the temperate disposition, when pleasure says to him, "Lie with me" (Gen. 39:7) — "and, being a man, feel as a man feels, and enjoy the pleasant things of life" — opposes her, saying: "I shall sin against God, the lover of virtue, if I should become a lover of pleasure; for this is a wicked deed."
And at first she skirmishes at long range, but presently she also fights strenuously, whenever the soul enters her own house and, running back to her own proper powers, renounces the things of the body and performs her own works as works of the soul: "neither into the house of Joseph nor of Potiphar, but into the house" — and it does not add whose, so that you may allegorize with due caution — "to do his works" (Gen. 39:11).
The house, then, is the soul, into which he runs back, leaving behind external things, so that, as the saying goes, he may come to be within himself; and the works of the temperate man are, perhaps, done by the will of God, for indeed no reasoning alien to those accustomed to dwell within the soul was present there. Yet pleasure does not withdraw but continues the struggle, and taking hold of his garments says, "Lie with me." And just as garments are coverings of the body, so food and drink are coverings of the living creature.
This, then, is what she says: why do you refuse pleasure, without which you cannot live? See, I take hold of the things that produce her, and I say that you could not endure unless you made use of one of the things that produce her. What, then, does the temperate man say? If I am to be enslaved to passion because of the matter that produces it, he says, then I will go forth outside the passion; for leaving the garments in her hands
he fled and went outside" (Gen. 39:12). But who, one might ask, goes outside from within? Are there not many such? Or have not some, fleeing from committing sacrilege, instead stolen from a private house, and, though not strikers of their own fathers, done outrage to another's property? Such men go out from one sin, but enter into others; but the man who is perfectly temperate must flee all sins, both the greater and the lesser, and be tested in none of them whatsoever.
But Joseph — for he is young, and was not strong enough, in an Egyptian body, to contend against and conquer pleasure — flees. But Phinehas the priest, who was zealous with zeal on behalf of God, did not procure his own safety by flight, but, taking the "javelin" (that is, the zealous word), did not draw back until he had "pierced the Midianite woman" — the nature chosen out from the divine company — "through her womb" (Num. 25:7–8), so that never again might a plant or seed of vice be able to spring up. Wherefore, folly having been cut away, the soul receives a double prize and portion: peace and priesthood (ibid. 12–13), virtues akin and sisterly to one another.
To such a woman, then, one must not listen — I mean depraved sense-perception — since indeed "God dealt well with the midwives" (Exod. 1:20), because they disregarded the commands of Pharaoh the scatterer, "keeping alive the males" of the soul, which he wished to destroy, being a lover of the female matter, and ignorant of the cause, saying, "I do not know him" (Exod. 5:2).
But one must obey another woman, such as Sarah proved to be, ruling virtue. And the wise Abraham indeed obeys her when she counsels what is needful; for earlier, when he had not yet become perfect, but while, before his name was changed, he still philosophized about things on high, she — knowing that he could not beget from a fuller virtue — advises him to have children from the handmaid, that is, from encyclical education, Hagar (Gen. 16:2ff.), whose name means "sojourning"; for the one who practices dwelling in perfect virtue, before being enrolled as a citizen of her city, sojourns among the encyclical branches of learning, so that through these he may set out unhindered toward perfect virtue.
Then, when she sees him made perfect and now able to sow ... and if he, being grateful toward the branches of learning through which he was established in virtue, thinks it hard to dismiss them, he will be soothed by the oracle of God, who commands: "Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice" (Gen. 21:12). Let it be a law for each of us, what seems good to virtue; for if we are willing to listen to everything virtue advises, we shall be happy.
The words "and you ate from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat, this alone," are equivalent to "you consented to vice, which you ought to have resisted with all your strength"; for this reason it is not "you" who are cursed, but "the earth, in your works" (Gen. 3:17). What, then, is the cause of these things? It was the serpent, pleasure, the irrational uplifting of the soul; this is accursed of itself, and comes upon the base man alone, upon none who is good. Adam is the intermediate mind, which is examined now as better, now as worse; for insofar as it is mind, it is by nature neither base nor good, but is accustomed to change toward the better or the worse through virtue and through vice.
Reasonably, then, he himself is not cursed of himself, as being neither vice nor an action in accordance with vice, but the earth is cursed "in his works"; for the actions performed through the whole soul, which he has called earth, are censurable and blameworthy according to the wickedness of each one who performs them. Wherefore he adds also that "you shall eat it in grief," which is equivalent to "you shall enjoy your soul with grief"; for the base man passes his whole life painfully in the use of his own soul, having nothing that is a cause of joy, which justice and prudence and the virtues enthroned alongside these are by nature apt to produce.
"Thorns, then, and thistles it shall bring forth for you" (Gen. 3:18). But what grows and sprouts in the soul of the fool, except the passions that prick and wound it? These he has called, by way of symbol, thorns, which the irrational impulse, after the manner of fire, first encounters, and, once kindled with these, burns up and destroys all that belongs to it. For he speaks thus: "If fire goes out and finds thorns, and sets fire also to a threshing floor or standing grain or a field, he who kindled the fire shall make restitution" (Exod. 22:6).
You see that the fire that goes out, the irrational impulse, does not set the thorns on fire, but finds them; for being in search of the passions, it finds what it desired to seize; and when it finds them, it burns up these three things: perfect virtue, progress, and a good natural disposition. Perfect virtue, then, he has compared to the threshing floor, for just as the crop is gathered there, so too in the soul of the wise man the noble things are gathered together; progress he compares to standing grain, since each of these is incomplete, still reaching toward its end; and good natural disposition to a field, because it is well suited to receive the seeds of virtue.
Each of the passions he has called "thistles," since it is threefold — the passion itself, that which produces it, and the result that comes from these — for instance: pleasure, the pleasant, to feel pleasure; desire, the desirable, to desire; grief, the grievous, to grieve; fear, the fearful, to fear.
And you shall eat the grass of the field; in the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread (Gen. 3:18-19). He calls grass and bread by the same name, as though they were one and the same thing. Grass is food for an irrational creature; and the base person is irrational, having cut himself off from right reason -- and the senses too are irrational, being a part of the soul. When the mind reaches for objects of sense-perception through the irrational senses, it does not reach for them without toil and sweat; for the life of the fool is exceedingly painful and burdensome as he pursues and licks after the things that produce pleasures, and all that vice loves to bring about. And for how long?
Until, he says, you return to the earth from which you were taken (Gen. 3:19). For is he not now examined among earthly and unstable things, having abandoned heavenly wisdom? In what way, then, does he still turn back -- this must be considered. But perhaps what is meant is this: the foolish mind has always turned away from right reason, and has been taken not from the aetherial nature but from the more earthly matter; and whether it stays still or moves, it remains the same, reaching for the same things.
This is why he adds, for you are earth, and to earth you shall return (ibid.), which amounts to the same as what was said before. And this too it shows: your beginning and your end are one and the same; for you began from the perishable bodies of earth, and you will end again in those same things, having worn down the road of life between -- not a highway, but a rough path, full of briers and thorns that are apt to prick and wound.

======== On the Cherubim ========

"And he cast Adam out, and settled him opposite the garden of delight, and stationed the Cherubim and the fiery sword that turns every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24). Now he says "cast out," but earlier he said "sent forth" (3:23) — not choosing his words carelessly, but knowing exactly which affairs each of them properly and precisely fits.
The one who is sent forth is not barred from finding his way back; but the one cast out by God endures exile forever. For to the person not yet firmly gripped by vice it is granted, once he repents, to come back down to virtue as to his native land, the land from which he fell. But the one who has been crushed and laid low by a violent and incurable disease must of necessity bear these terrors, undying, for the whole of time, flung out to the place of the impious, so that he may endure an unmixed and unbroken wretchedness.
For we see that even the middle education — the one that moves in the circle of general studies, Hagar — twice departs from Sarah, who rules as virtue, and once returns by the road she first took: on that occasion, having run away rather than been driven out, she is brought back by an angel who meets her, who is the divine Word, into her master's house (Genesis 16:6ff.); but the second time she is cast out with no possibility of return at all (Genesis 21:14).
We must state the causes both of the earlier flight and of the later, permanent exile. Up to the time when they had not yet had their names changed — which was the same as having the character-marks of their souls re-stamped for the better — Abram was still "father up on high," pursuing the philosophy that soars aloft concerning the things that occur in the air and the things that exist in the heavens, of which mathematics has been carved off as the finest branch of natural science; and Sara was a symbol of "my rule" — for she is called "my rule" —
for generic virtue had not yet come to be transformed — for every genus is imperishable — but was being tested in its particular, specific forms; and it was the very same thing that was prudence in me, and temperance, and courage, and justice, in like manner; but these were perishable, because the place that received them, I myself, was perishable — Hagar, the middle and general education —
and even if it strives to run away from the austere and severe life of those who love virtue, it turns back again to the same condition, being not yet able to hold the generic and imperishable heights, but still laying hold of things in their particular, specific forms, among which, before the extremes, the middle things are to be chosen.
But when Abram, instead of being a natural philosopher, becomes wise and a lover of God, his name changed to Abraham, which is translated "chosen father of sound" — for spoken reason resounds, and the father of this is the mind that has laid hold of what is excellent — and Sara, instead of being "my rule," becomes Sarah, whose title is "ruling" absolutely, which was equivalent to becoming, instead of a specific and perishable virtue, a generic and imperishable one, and when the race of happiness, Isaac, has also come to shine forth —
when the things of woman have failed and the passions have died away, and instead joy and gladness and play have come — not the play of children, but the divine play, pursued not without earnest effort — then the preparatory studies named for Hagar will be cast out, and cast out too
will be their sophist son, surnamed Ishmael. They will put on exile forever, God confirming their expulsion, when he commands the wise man to obey what Sarah says; for he says outright, "cast out the slave-girl and her son" (Genesis 21:10). And it is a good thing to be persuaded by virtue, especially when she teaches such a doctrine as this: that the most perfect natures stand at a vast distance from the middling states, and that wisdom is a stranger to sophistry. For sophistry has labored to produce plausibilities in order to build up false opinion, which corrupts the soul, whereas wisdom, through the practice of truths, has procured the great benefit of the understanding — knowledge of right reason.
Why then do we marvel that God has cast Adam's mind out entirely from the place of the virtues, once it had contracted folly, an incurable disease, and has not allowed it to come back down again — seeing that he drives out and puts to flight from wisdom and the wise man every sophist, and the mother of sophists too, the teaching of the preparatory studies, whose names he calls Abraham and Sarah?
Then too the fiery sword and the Cherubim take up their dwelling opposite the garden. Now "opposite" is used in one sense of what stands against something as an enemy; in another, of what suits those brought up for judgment, as the one on trial stands opposite the judge; and in another, as a friend stands opposite a friend, for the sake of being understood and becoming more closely attached through a more exact view of one another — as archetype pictures and statues stand opposite the painters and sculptors who work from them.
Of the kind ranged in opposition as against an enemy, the example is what is said of Cain, that "he went out from the presence of God and settled in the land of Nod, opposite Eden" (Genesis 4:16). Now Nod is translated "tossing," and Eden "delight" — the one a symbol of vice that convulses the soul, the other of virtue, which procures for it a good state of feeling and delight, not the softening brought by irrational pleasure and passion, but the effortless joy, free of hardship, that comes with great ease.
And it is inevitable that, when the mind departs from the vision of God — to which it was good and profitable for it to stay fastened — it is at once tossed this way and that, like a ship at sea when violent winds set against it, having drawn for its native land and home a portion of tossing and turmoil, which are the very opposite of the soul's proper state, the joy whose other name is Eden.
Of the kind opposed as for judgment, the example is that of the woman suspected of adultery through jealousy. "The priest," it says, "shall set the woman opposite the Lord and shall uncover her head" (Numbers 5:18). Let us inquire what this is meant to represent. What is required is often not carried out as required, and what is not fitting is sometimes done in a fitting way. For instance, the return of a deposit, when it is not done from a sound intention but for the injury of the recipient, or as a snare to deny some greater trust — this is a fitting act carried out unfittingly;
and when a doctor, having decided that a patient must be purged, or cut, or cauterized for his benefit, does not tell him the truth, so that the patient will not seize on the terrors beforehand and flee treatment, or lose heart and refuse it; or when a wise man lies to the enemy for the safety of his country, fearing that if he tells the truth he will strengthen the enemy's cause — this is an unfitting act carried out fittingly. For this reason Moses too says, "pursue what is just, justly" (Deuteronomy 16:20), implying that it is possible to pursue it unjustly as well, whenever the judge who attends to it does not do so from a sound intention.
Since, then, what is said or done is plainly known to all, but the intention from which the things said are said and the things done are done is not known — it being unclear whether it is healthy and pure or diseased and stained with many corruptions, and no created being being capable of discerning the thought hidden in an unseen intention, only God — for this reason Moses too says, "the hidden things belong to the Lord God, but the manifest things are known to created beings"
(Deuteronomy 29:29). It has been ordained for the priest and prophet — the Word — to "set the soul opposite God" with her head uncovered (Numbers 5:18); that is, having her chief doctrine stripped bare and the intention she employs unclothed, so that, judged by the most exact eyes of the incorruptible God, she may either be exposed as harboring a smoldering irony, a counterfeit coin, or, being free of all wickedness, may wash away the slanders against herself, calling as witness the only one able to see the soul
naked. Such, then, is the kind opposed as for judgment. As for the kind opposed as belonging to kinship, it is what is said of the all-wise Abraham: "he was still standing opposite the Lord" (Genesis 18:22); and the token of this kinship is what is added, that "he drew near and said" (18:23); for it belongs to one who has become estranged to withdraw and be separated, but to one who is akin to draw near.
And to stand, and to have acquired an unturning intention, is close to walking alongside the power of God, since the divine is unturning, while what has come into being is by nature subject to change. If, then, someone, through love of knowledge, has curbed the natural motion proper to what has come into being and, by force, made it stand still, let him not fail to notice that he is close to divine blessedness.
To the Cherubim and the fiery sword he fittingly assigns the city opposite the garden — not as though to enemies about to stand against it and do battle, but as to closest kin and dearest friends, so that from being seen together and continually gazed upon, the powers might come to feel longing for one another, the God who loves to give breathing into them a winged and heavenly love.
What it is that he darkly hints at through the Cherubim and the fiery sword that turns every way, we must now examine. Perhaps, then, he introduces, through veiled meanings, the motion of the whole heaven; for the spheres in heaven have been allotted motions opposite to one another, the one, the fixed sphere, moving in the same direction, to the right, the other, the wandering sphere, in the opposite direction, to the left.
The outermost sphere, then, that of the so-called fixed stars, is one, and it revolves in the same circuit from east to west; but the seven spheres within it, those of the planets, have both a voluntary and a compelled motion, holding at once two motions running counter to each other. And of these the involuntary motion is like that of the fixed stars, for they appear each day to move from east to west; but their own proper motion runs from west to east, and it is according to this motion that the circuits of the seven stars have also taken on lengths of time — those of equal course taking equal lengths, namely the sun, the morning star, and the one called the shining one (for these three of the planets move at equal speed), while those of unequal course take unequal lengths, though bearing a proportion both to one another and to those three.
One of the Cherubim, then, becomes the outermost vault, the farthest reach of the whole heaven, in which the fixed stars dance their truly divine dance, holding the same and unvarying order, never abandoning the arrangement in which the Father who begot them stationed them in the cosmos; the other Cherub is the sphere contained within, which he split into six parts, producing seven circles proportionate to one another, fitting each of the planets into them;
and just as one who sets a rider upon a mount, he set each star, mounted, in its own circle, but entrusted the reins to none of those he had mounted, fearing a disordered command, and instead hung them all from himself, believing that in this way the order of their motion would be most attuned to harmony; for whatever is done with God is altogether praiseworthy,
while what is done without God is blameworthy. The Cherubim, then, are allegorized in this one way; and one must suppose that the fiery, turning sword refers to their motion and to the eternal revolution of the whole heaven. But perhaps, on another interpretation, the Cherubim signify each of the two hemispheres; for he says that they face one another, inclining their wings toward the mercy-seat (Exodus 25:19), since these too are opposite one another, but incline down toward the earth, the midpoint of the universe, by which they are also divided;
The one part of the cosmos that stands permanently fixed the ancients rightly named Hestia (Hearth), so that the most harmonious revolution of each of the two hemispheres might occur around something firmly established. The fiery, whirling sword is a symbol of the sun; for being a condensation of much flame, it has become the swiftest-moving of all beings, so that it revolves around the whole cosmos in a single day.
But I once heard a weightier account as well, from my soul, which is accustomed to be possessed by God often and to prophesy about things it does not know; and this account, if I am able, I will recall and speak. It told me that, corresponding to the one God who truly is, there are two supreme and primary powers: goodness and authority. By goodness he begot the universe, and by authority he rules what has been begotten; and a third power stands between the two and brings them together—reason, the Logos—for it is by reason that God is both ruler and good.
The cherubim, then, are symbols of the two powers, rule and goodness, while the fiery sword is a symbol of reason, the Logos; for reason is most swift-moving and hot, above all the reason of the First Cause, since it outstrips everything, overtaking all things, being conceived before all things and appearing last of all.
Receive, then, mind, an unadulterated impression of each of the two cherubim, so that, clearly instructed about the rule and the goodness of the First Cause, you may reap a fortunate inheritance; for you will immediately understand also the union and blending of these unmixed powers, in which God is good even while the dignity of his rule shines through, and is ruler even while his goodness shines through—so that you may acquire the virtues born from these, benevolence and reverence toward God: neither exalting yourself in speech when you fare well, because of the greatness of the King's dominion, nor despairing of better hopes when you endure some unwished-for thing, because of the mildness of the great and generous God.
And the sword is fiery, because these two powers must be accompanied by reason, standing between them, hot and fiery, which never ceases moving with all eagerness toward the choice of what is good and the flight from what is contrary to it.
Do you not see that Abraham the wise, when he began to measure all things by God and to leave nothing to the created, took up an imitation of the fiery sword—‘fire and a knife’ (Gen 22:6)—longing to divide and burn away the mortal part from himself, so that with his mind stripped bare he might fly aloft to God?
Balaam, on the other hand, though he was a vain people armed for war, Moses presents as an unenlisted deserter, since he knew the sort of war it is fitting for a soul to wage over knowledge; for Balaam says to the donkey—the irrational choice of life on which every fool rides—‘If I had a sword, I would already have run you through’ (Num 22:29). And great thanks are owed to the Craftsman, that knowing the frenzy of folly, he did not put into its hands, as into the hands of a madman, a sword—the power of words—lest it work great and unjust destruction on all who encountered it.
What Balaam did, everyone who is unpurified and forever given to vanity somehow does too, whether he has pursued a life of trade or farming or some other money-making occupation: as long as things turn out favorably from each pursuit, he mounts it gladly and rides upon it, and having gripped hold of it, refuses outright to let it go; and toward those who tell him to withdraw and to set limits on his desires, because the future is unknowable, he levels charges of malice and envy, claiming that they propose this not out of goodwill—
—but when some unwished-for misfortune occurs, he then welcomes them as good prophets, most capable of guarding against what is to come, while he lays the blame entirely on things that are the cause of no evil at all—farming, trade, the other
occupations which he saw fit to use for making money; and these, though they lack organs of speech, will break forth in a voice through the very facts themselves, a voice clearer than that of the tongue, saying: ‘Tell me, you slanderer, are we not the very ones on whom you rode, haughty-necked, as upon beasts of burden? Surely we have not out of arrogance worked you some misfortune of our own accord’ (cf. Num 22:30). Look instead at the Word of God, armed and standing opposed to you as an adversary angel (ib. 31), through whom both good fortune and its opposite come to their completion—
—do you not see? Why, then, do you now blame us, when before, when your affairs went sweetly for you, you found no fault? For we remain the same, not having changed our own nature by even a moment's degree; but you, using unsound criteria, thrash about senselessly. For if from the start you had learned that it is not whatever you pursue that is the cause of your share in good or evil things, but rather the divine Word, the overseer and pilot of the universe, you would bear what befalls you more easily, once you had stopped slandering us and charging us with things we are not capable of.
If, then, that Word again puts down the war and scatters the anxieties and gloom attending it, and proclaims peace of life, you will joyfully and gladly clasp our hand, though we remain just as we were; but we are neither puffed up by your goodwill nor disturbed if you are ill-disposed, for we know ourselves to be the cause neither of good things nor of evil, even if you form such opinions about us—unless one must also blame the sea for a fair voyage or for the shipwrecks that occur, rather than the differing winds that blow upon it, sometimes gently, sometimes with the most violent onrush.
For since all water by nature possesses stillness of itself, whenever a favoring wind arises astern, with every rope shaken taut, ships run under full sail all the way to harbor; but whenever a wind suddenly rushes down against the prow from the opposite direction, it raises great surging and turmoil and capsizes them. And the sea, which is the cause of nothing that happens, bears the blame for it, though it is plainly the slackening or the violence of the winds that makes it either calm or heave with waves.
Through all these examples, then, I think it has been sufficiently shown that nature, having fashioned reason as the most powerful ally for humankind, has made the one who can rightly use it truly fortunate and rational, and the one who cannot, irrational and unfortunate.
‘And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and she said, “I have acquired a man through God.” And she went on to bear his brother Abel’ (Gen 4:1-2). Now those to whom the lawgiver has borne witness of virtue—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and whoever else rivals them—he never presents as ‘knowing’ their wives.
For since we say that ‘woman,’ figuratively, stands for sense-perception, and knowledge is constituted by an estrangement from sense-perception and the body, he will show the lovers of wisdom rejecting sense-perception rather than choosing it. And this is surely reasonable; for the women who live with these men are, in name, wives, but in reality, virtues: Sarah is ruler and leader; Rebecca is perseverance in noble things; Leah is she who has turned her face away and grows weary in the continuance of her discipline, a discipline that every fool turns his face from and rejects, refusing it; and Zipporah, Moses' wife, is she who runs up from earth to heaven and contemplates the divine and blessed natures there—and she is called 'little bird.'
But so that we may speak of the conceiving and travail of the virtues, let the superstitious stop up their ears or else remove themselves; for we are teaching divine mysteries to initiates worthy of the most sacred rites, and these are they who practice the true and genuinely unadorned piety without vain pretension. To those possessed by an incurable disease—pretension over words, a fastidiousness over names, and the trickery of customs—we will not reveal our sacred rites, nor by any other
—standard for what is sacred and holy do they measure it. Let the rite, then, begin here. A man comes together with a woman, following nature, to bring about the intercourse that leads to the begetting of children—a male human being with a female human being. But for the virtues, who bear many perfect offspring, it is not lawful to obtain a mortal man as husband; yet unless they receive seed from some other source, they will never conceive from themselves alone.
Who, then, is it that sows what is good in them, except the Father of all beings, the unbegotten God who begets the universe? He sows, then, but the offspring he has sown, being his own, he gives away as a gift; for God begets nothing for himself, since he is in need of nothing, but he begets everything for the one who needs to receive.
I will offer as an adequate guarantor of what I say the most sacred Moses himself; for he presents Sarah as conceiving at the very moment when God visits her in her solitary state (Gen 21:1), yet she bears the child no longer to the one who made the visitation, but to the one who longs to attain wisdom—and this one is named Abraham.
He teaches this more clearly still in the case of Leah, saying that God opened her womb (Gen 29:31)—for to open a womb is a man's own function—yet once she had conceived, she bore the child not to God (for he alone is sufficient and wholly self-sufficient to himself), but to Jacob, who takes upon himself toil for the sake of what is noble; so that virtue receives the divine seeds from the First Cause, but bears the child to one of her own lovers, whichever is judged superior among all her suitors.
Again, when Isaac the all-wise entreated God, Rebecca, who is perseverance, becomes pregnant by the one entreated (Gen 25:21). And without any entreaty or supplication, Moses, having taken Zipporah, the winged and soaring virtue, as his wife, finds her pregnant, though by no mortal whatsoever (Exod 2:22).
You initiates whose ears have been purified, receive these things into your own souls as truly sacred mysteries, and reveal them to none of the uninitiated; but store them away and guard them within yourselves as a treasure—not one in which gold and silver, perishable substances, are laid up, but the finest of all existing possessions: the knowledge concerning the First Cause, and virtue, and the offspring that is third, born of the two. And if you meet anyone who has been initiated, press close and hold fast to him earnestly, in case he happens to know some newer rite and is keeping it hidden, until you have been clearly instructed in it as well.
For I too, though initiated by Moses, beloved of God, into the great mysteries, nevertheless, when I later saw the prophet Jeremiah and recognized that he was not only an initiate but also a hierophant of ability, did not hesitate to attend upon him. And he, being frequently possessed by inspiration, uttered an oracle from the very person of God, speaking these words to virtue, most peaceful of all: ‘Have you not called me your house, and father, and the husband of your virginity?’ (Jer 3:4). By this he most vividly shows that God is both a house—the incorporeal place of incorporeal Forms—and the father of all things, since he has begotten them, and a husband of wisdom, casting seed of blessedness into the good and virgin earth for the mortal race.
For it is fitting that God should converse with a nature that is unstained, untouched, and pure—truly virgin—but the opposite is true for us; for among human beings, intercourse for the begetting of children turns virgin women into wives. But when God begins to keep company with a soul, though it was formerly a wife, he makes it a virgin once again, since he removes far away the base and unmanly desires by which it was made effeminate, and brings in their place its native and undefiled virtues. Sarah, at any rate, God will not converse with until all the ways of women have ceased in her (Gen 18:11), and she has run back up into the state of a purely chaste virgin—
But perhaps it is possible for even a virgin soul, defiled by unrestrained passions, to be put to shame. That is why the oracle guards its language and speaks not of a virgin — for a virgin is subject to change and death — but of God's "virginity" (Jer. 3:4), the form that always remains the same and in the same state. For while the qualities that admit of coming-to-be and passing-away belong to particular things by nature, the powers that stamp them have received an incorruptible portion as their lot.
It would not be fitting for the ungenerated and unchangeable God to sow the forms of immortal, virgin virtues into a virginity that ever changes into the shape of a woman. What then, O soul? Though it is your duty to remain a virgin in the house of God and to hold fast to knowledge, you desert these and embrace instead sense-perception, which unmans and defiles you. And so you will bear a mongrel and utterly ruinous offspring, the brother-murdering and accursed Cain — "possession," a possession not worth possessing; for Cain means "possession."
One might marvel at the manner of interpretation which the lawgiver often employs in many places, departing from ordinary usage. For after those born from the earth, when he begins to speak of the first person born from human beings — concerning whom he has said nothing at all up to this point, as though he had already stated his name many times over rather than now introducing it for the first time in his discourse — he says that she bore Cain. What sort of craftsman are you, to speak of one whom you have never before revealed in even the smallest or greatest particular?
And yet you are not ignorant of the proper placing of names; further on, in fact, describing the same person, you say that "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore a son and named him Seth" (Gen. 4:25). So it was far more necessary, in the case of the firstborn — who was the beginning of the generation of human beings from one another — first to declare the nature of the one born, that it was male, and only then to give the proper name, Cain, say.
Since, then, it is clear that it was not from any lack of the ways in which names ought to be given that he set aside customary usage in the matter of Cain, we must consider for what reason he named those descended from the first pair by using the pattern of narration rather than of naming. The reason, as it appears to me on reflection, is this.
All the rest of humankind gives names to things that differ from the things themselves, so that the things that exist are one thing, and the names given to them are another; but in Moses the placing of names is the clearest possible manifestation of the things themselves, so that the thing itself is necessarily, from the start, identical with the name, and the name differs in no way from that to which it is given. You may learn this more clearly from the passage set before us.
When the mind within us — let it be called Adam — encounters sense-perception, by which living creatures seem to live — called Eve — and, desiring union with her as an equal, draws near to her, and she conceives, as it were, catching and hunting by nature the sensible object outside: color through the eyes, sound through the ears, scent through the nostrils, flavor through the organs of taste, and through touch the whole body — having conceived, she becomes pregnant, and at once is in labor and gives birth to the greatest evil of the soul, self-conceit. For it conceived that all things it saw, heard, tasted, smelled, and touched were its own possessions, and supposed itself to be the discoverer and craftsman
of them all. And this it suffered not without reason; for there was once a time when the mind held no converse with sense-perception, nor possessed sense-perception at all, being set far apart from creatures that live in herds and flocks, resembling instead the solitary and unsocial animals. At that time, examined by itself alone, it had no contact with body, possessing no single instrument gathered about itself with which to hunt what lay outside; rather it was blind and powerless — not in the sense the many mean when they behold one whose eyes are maimed, for such a person, deprived of one sense, retains great abundance of the rest;
but that mind, cut off from all the powers of perception, was truly powerless, half of a complete soul, lacking the faculty by which bodies are naturally apprehended, a fragment cut off by itself from what naturally belongs with it — no fortunate state — without even the staffs, so to speak, of the perceptive organs, on which it might have leaned securely while trembling. For this reason a deep darkness was poured out over all bodies, none able to appear; for the sense by which it was to be known did not exist.
God, then, wishing to grant it apprehension not only of incorporeal things but also of solid bodies, filled out the whole soul, weaving together with the part already fashioned the other part, which he called, in common speech, woman, but by proper name Eve, thereby hinting at sense-perception.
She, as soon as she came to be, poured a sudden light into the mind through each of her parts as though through openings, and, scattering the mist, prepared it to see, brilliantly and with utter clarity, the natures of bodies, as though gazing on them as its master.
And the mind, as though lit up by sunlight flashing forth after night, or roused from a deep sleep, or like one blind suddenly given sight, encountered all at once everything that has come into being — heaven, earth, water, air, plants, animals, their conditions, qualities, powers, states, dispositions, movements, activities, actions, changes, and destructions; and some things it saw, some it heard, some it tasted, some it smelled, some it touched; and toward those to which it was inclined it produced pleasures, while from those it turned away it produced pains.
Looking about, then, this way and that, and surveying both itself and its powers, it dared to boast the very same boast as Alexander, king of the Macedonians. For they say that he too, when he thought he had fastened his grip upon Europe and Asia, standing in a commanding spot and surveying everything around him, said, "All this here and all this there are mine" — displaying the levity of a truly childish, infantile, and altogether common soul, not a royal one.
The mind, being first to kindle the perceptive faculty and, through it, to hunt down every form of body, became puffed up, filled with irrational conceit, so as to suppose that all things were its own possessions and that nothing whatever belonged to anyone else.
This is the character which Moses, giving it its distinctive stamp, named within us Cain, which is interpreted "possession" — a character full of folly, or rather of impiety; for instead of considering all things possessions of God, it supposed them its own, though it cannot even hold itself securely, nor does it know at all what its own being is. Yet if it has trusted the senses as sufficient to hunt down the object of perception outside, let it say how it will still be able to avoid erring, whether by seeing wrongly, hearing wrongly, or through some other sense.
And indeed these slips must necessarily befall each one of us continually, however precisely we happen to use our instruments; for it is difficult, or rather impossible, ever to strip off entirely the natural afflictions and the involuntary wandering, since countless things productive of false opinion exist within us, around us, and outside us in every mortal kind. It is not, then, sound reasoning to suppose all things one's own possessions, even while one struts about with head held high.
Laban, the one bound to qualities, seems to me to provide broad laughter for Jacob, who before all this beheld the qualityless nature, when Laban dared to say to him, "the daughters are my daughters, and the sons are my sons, and the cattle are my cattle, and all that you see is mine and my daughters'" (Gen. 31:43) — for at every point he adds "mine," speaking of himself and never ceasing his solemn boasting.
The daughters, tell me — they are the arts and sciences of the soul — do you call them your own daughters? In what way? Did you not first receive them from the mind that taught them to you? And are you not also apt to lose them, as you might lose other things — either forgetting them because of the weight of other concerns, or through grave and incurable bodily illnesses, or through the disease that old age brings upon the elderly and that admits no cure, or through countless other causes whose number is impossible to find? And what of this?
In calling the sons — the sons are the particular reasonings of the soul — your own, are you in your right mind, or mad to hold such opinions? For your fits of melancholy, your derangements, your states of mental ecstasy, your unstable conjectures, your false imaginings of things, your empty notions resembling dreams, your compulsions and convulsions arising from these, and forgetfulness, the disease that lives always with the soul, and much more besides all that has been said, strip you of the security of your mastery and show that these are the possessions of someone else, not yours.
And how do you dare to call the cattle — the cattle are the senses, for sense-perception is irrational and beastlike — your own? Tell me, do you not blush, you who are forever seeing wrongly and hearing wrongly, sometimes taking sweet flavors for salty and, conversely, bitter for sweet, and who are accustomed, in every sense, to err more often than to judge rightly — yet you exult and are puffed up as though you employed all the powers and activities of the soul without a single misstep?
But if you change and gain a share of the understanding you need, you will say that all things are possessions of God, not of yourself — your thoughts, your sciences, your arts, your theories, your particular reasonings, your senses, and the activities of the soul that come through them and apart from them. But if you leave yourself forever untrained and untaught, you will be a slave for all time to harsh mistresses: conceit, desire, pleasure, injustice, folly, and false opinions.
"For," it says, "if the servant should answer and say, I have loved my master and my wife and my children, I will not go out free" — when brought to the judgment seat of God and having obtained him as judge, he will have secure possession of what he asked, once his ear has first been pierced with an awl (Exod. 21:5-6), so that he may not receive the divine hearing for the sake of the soul's freedom.
For it belongs to a reasoning that is truly a mere infant, one rejected and disqualified as though from a sacred contest, to make solemn boast that it has loved the mind and considers the mind its own master and benefactor, and that it holds sense-perception in high affection and regards it as its own possession and the greatest of goods, along with the children of these two: of the one, thinking, reasoning, reflecting, deliberating, conjecturing; of the other, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching — in a word, perceiving.
Yet it is necessary that one who has made these his own should not even dream of freedom; for it is only by fleeing and estranging ourselves from them that we lay claim to security. And another, adding to self-love a display of madness, says that even if someone should take from me what is mine, I shall struggle for it as for my own and carry off the victory: "I will pursue," he says, "I will overtake, I will divide the spoils, I will fill my soul; I will destroy with my sword, my hand will have mastery" (Exod. 15:9).
To him I would say: it has escaped you, fool, that everyone who seems to be pursuing in the realm of coming-to-be is himself being pursued; for sicknesses and old age and death, together with the whole multitude of other evils, voluntary and involuntary, drive, whirl, and pursue each one of us, and the one who thinks he is overtaking or gaining mastery is himself overtaken and mastered; and one who hoped to carry off plunder and was already apportioning shares of spoil has been defeated and become the captive of enemies who have gained the mastery over him, receiving emptiness instead of fullness and slavery instead of dominion for his own soul, and being destroyed instead of destroying, suffering with full force all that he had devised to do to others.
For this man was truly an enemy of right reason and of nature itself, claiming for himself everything involved in acting, while no longer remembering anything of what belongs to being acted upon—as if he had wholly stripped off the fates that attend each mortal thing.
“For,” it says, “the enemy said, ‘I will pursue and overtake’” (Exod. 15:9). Who, then, could become a more hostile foe to the soul than the one who, out of vainglory, claims for himself what belongs to God alone? For it is God’s own to act, which it is unlawful to ascribe to anything created; and it is the created thing’s own to be acted upon.
Whoever has grasped beforehand that this is proper and necessary to him will easily bear whatever befalls him, even if it is very heavy; but whoever supposes it foreign to him, crushed by an endless weight, will undergo a punishment like that of Sisyphus, unable even to lift up his head, but laid low beneath everything that rushes upon him and grips him by the throat, yielding and giving way to each blow—the passions of an ignoble and unmanly soul. For one ought to endure, and to stand and press back against it, fortifying one’s judgment and barricading it with one’s own endurance and steadfastness, the mightiest of virtues.
For just as being shorn is twofold—one kind by way of resistance, in which one pushes back, the other by way of submission, in which one simply yields (a sheep, or its fleece, or what is called the wool, does nothing on its own but merely undergoes the shearing at another's hands, whereas a man cooperates, arranging and positioning himself and making himself fit for it, blending acting together with being acted upon)—so too is being struck.
One kind is what befalls a household slave, or a free man, who deserves blows for wrongdoing, or one stretched upon the wheel for some misdeed, or any lifeless thing—for stones and timber and gold and silver are struck, and whatever materials are hammered or cut apart in a bronze-smith's workshop; the other is what befalls an athlete contending in boxing or the pankration for victory and the crown.
This athlete shakes off the blows aimed at him with either hand, and by turning his neck this way and that guards himself from being struck; often, too, rising on the very tips of his toes and lifting himself up, or crouching down and drawing himself together again, he forces his opponent to strike into empty air, doing something rather like shadow-boxing. But the slave, or the bronze, offering no resistance in return, is simply thrown open to suffer whatever the one dealing the blows intends to do.
This passive kind of suffering, then, let us never accept, either for the body and still less for the soul; but that other kind, the one of resistance—since what is mortal must suffer—let us accept, so that we may not, like womanish men who are broken and slack and collapse in advance, grow weak through the enervation of the soul's powers, but rather, being strong with the tensions of the mind, may have the strength to lighten and ease the weight of the terrors that hang over us.
Since, then, no mortal has ever shown himself the firm and secure master of anything, and those who are called “lords” are named so only in opinion, not in truth, and since it is necessary that, as there is a subject and a slave, so there be a ruler and lord over the universe, the one who is in reality ruler and leader would be God alone, of whom it would be fitting to say that all things
are his possessions. And how magnificently and how befittingly of God he sets this forth, let us consider: “All are mine,” he says. And “all” are what he calls “gifts and offerings and fruit-offerings, which you shall keep and bring to me at my feasts” (Num. 28:2), making it very clearly plain that, of existing things, some have been deemed worthy of an intermediate grace, which is called a gift; others of a better grace, whose proper name is a bestowal; and others still have come to be such that they are able not merely to bear the fruits of virtue, but already to have grown, through and through, into edible fruit itself, by which alone the soul of the lover of contemplation is nourished.
Whoever has been taught these things, and is able to keep and guard them in his mind, will bring to God, in feasts not of mortals, an unblemished and most beautiful offering: fidelity. For God has reserved the feasts for himself, laying down a doctrine most necessary for the initiates of philosophy.
And the doctrine is this: God alone keeps festival without falsehood. For he alone truly rejoices, he alone is glad, he alone delights, and he alone enjoys a peace wholly unmixed with war. He is free of grief and free of fear, untouched by evils, unyielding, without pain, in his prime, filled with unmixed happiness. His nature is utterly complete—or rather, he himself is the summit and end and boundary of happiness, God, sharing in nothing outside himself for his own betterment, but imparting his own goodness to all the particular things that draw from the fountain of beauty that is himself. For the beautiful things in the world could never have come to be such as they are, had they not been modeled after an archetype—the truly beautiful, the unbegotten, blessed, and incorruptible.
And for this reason Moses says, in many places throughout the Law, that the “Sabbath”—which is translated “rest”—belongs to God (Exod. 20:10 and elsewhere), not to human beings, touching here on a necessary point of natural philosophy: for the one thing among beings that truly rests, if the truth must be told, is God alone. And he does not call “rest” inactivity, since the cause of all things is by nature active and never ceases doing the most beautiful things; rather he calls it an activity free of all hardship, carried out with the greatest ease and without toil.
For as to the sun and moon and the whole heaven and the world, since they are not self-governing but are continually moved and carried along, it is proper to say that they labor; and the clearest evidence of their toil is the yearly seasons. For the most all-encompassing bodies in heaven alternate their motions, at one time making their revolutions toward the north, at another toward the south, at another in yet other directions; and the air, growing warm and growing cold and undergoing every kind of change, is proved by its own experiences to be laboring, since the most all-encompassing cause of change is toil.
It would be foolish to speak at length about creatures of the land or of the water, tracing out in full their changes both general and particular; for these, it is likely, admit far more weakness than the heavenly bodies do, since they partake most fully of the lowest, earthy substance.
Since, then, things subject to change are by nature such as to alter through toil, and God is unchanging and unalterable, he must by nature be in his prime; and being without any share in weakness, even though he does all things, resting through eternity, he will never cease. So resting belongs most properly to God alone. And it has also been shown that keeping festival applies to him; therefore the sabbaths and the feasts belong to the Cause alone, and to no human being whatsoever.
Come, then, if you wish, and examine together with me our own celebrated festal gatherings. All those that have arisen among barbarian and Greek nations alike out of mythic fabrications, differing from people to people and ending in nothing but empty vanity, let us set aside; for not even the whole life of mankind would suffice to detail precisely the absurdities inherent in each of them. But what one might say, in place of many things, choosing a few points that fit the occasion and apply to them all, must be said.
Of every feast and festal gathering among such people, these are the marvelous and eagerly contested achievements: license, laxity, truce from restraint, drunkenness, drunken violence, revelry, luxury, softness, all-night carousing outdoors, all-night vigils, indecent pleasures, daytime weddings, the most violent acts of outrage, exercises in intemperance, studies in folly, pursuits of shameful things—utter corruption of the good, nighttime risings for insatiable desires, sleep in the daytime when it is time to be awake, a complete reversal of nature's proper works.
At such times virtue is laughed at as harmful, and vice is seized upon as beneficial; at such times the things one ought to do are held in dishonor, and the things one ought not to do are held in honor; at such times music and philosophy and all education—the truly divine images of the divine soul—fall silent, while the arts that pimp for and procure pleasures for the belly, and for what lies below the belly, hold forth in speeches.
Such are the festivals of those called happy. And so long as they misbehave in profane houses or fields, they seem to me to sin less; but when, like the flood of a winter torrent spreading everywhere, it presses even against the holiest of sacred things and overwhelms them, it at once casts out everything pure within them, so as to produce sacrifices that are unholy, victims that are unconsecrated, prayers that fail of their purpose, initiations without true initiates, rites without true mysteries, a spurious piety, a counterfeit holiness, an unclean purity, a falsified truth, a scurrilous service of God.
And besides this, they wash their bodies clean with baths and lustrations, but the passions of the soul, by which life is defiled, they neither wish nor care to wash away; and they are eager to walk into the sacred places clothed in white, wearing spotless garments, while they feel no shame at bringing a mind stained with defilement even into the innermost sanctuary.
And if any one of the animals reared for sacrifice is found not entirely whole and sound, it is driven away outside the sprinkling-basins, not permitted to be brought near the altars—even though it has suffered all its bodily blemishes involuntarily. But men whose souls are wounded through with grievous sicknesses, which the resourceless power of vice has inflicted on them—or rather, who have had cut away from them the most beautiful things, prudence, endurance, justice, piety, and all the other virtues that the human race is by nature capable of possessing—and who have taken on these injuries by their own deliberate choice, nevertheless dare to perform sacred rites, supposing that the eye of God, aided by the sun's light, sees only what is outward, and does not, before the things that are manifest, look upon the things that are hidden, using a light that is its own.
For the eye of the Existing One has no need of another light in order to perceive; being itself the archetypal radiance, it sends forth countless rays, none of which is perceptible by sense, but all by mind alone. That is why God, who is perceived by mind alone, uses them alone, and no one who has a share in becoming does so; for what has come into being is perceptible by sense, while the
nature perceived by mind cannot be grasped by sense. Since, then, this region of the soul enters unseen, let us prepare that place, as best we can, in the most beautiful way, that it may become a worthy dwelling for God to inhabit; otherwise, unnoticed, he will move away to another house, whichever seems to him to have been better built.
For if, when we are about to receive kings, we make our own houses more splendid, sparing nothing that contributes to their adornment but using everything without fear or grudging, aiming that their lodging be both most pleasant and befitting their dignity—then for the King of kings and Ruler of all things, God, who out of his gentleness and love for mankind has deigned to visit what has come into being, and has come down from the ends of heaven to the furthest bounds of earth for the benefit of our race, what sort of house must we prepare?
Of stones, or of timber? Away with the thought—it is not even lawful to say so. For not even if the whole earth were suddenly to be transformed into gold, or into something more precious than gold, and were then to be spent by the craftsmen's arts in building colonnades and gateways and men's chambers and forecourts and shrines, would it become
But a fitting and adequate house is the soul. Speaking rightly, then, and in accordance with the Law, we shall say that the invisible soul is an earthly house of the invisible God. And so that the house may be secure and most beautiful, let natural aptitude and instruction be laid down as its foundations; let virtues, together with good actions, be built up upon it; and let its adornments be the acquisition of the general branches of preliminary education.
For from natural aptitude spring quickness of perception, persistence, and memory; from instruction spring aptness to learn and attentiveness — like the roots of a tree destined to bear cultivated fruit, without which it is impossible for the understanding to be brought to completion.
And from the virtues, and from the actions that accord with them, comes the firmness and stability of a secure foundation, sufficient to prevent a soul that has come to know the good from being uprooted, put to flight, or driven into exile, however strong the force brought against so great a strength.
From the study of the general branches of preliminary education comes what pertains to the adornment of the soul, as it were of a household. For just as plasterwork, paintings, wall-panels, and arrangements of costly stones — with which people decorate not only walls but floors as well — and all such things as these, which contribute nothing to strength but only provide pleasure to the inhabitants,
so too the knowledge of the general studies furnishes and adorns the whole household of the soul: grammar, by investigating poetry and pursuing the history of ancient deeds; geometry, by securing proportional equality; music, by curing what is unrhythmical, unmeasured, and discordant within us through rhythm, measure, and melody by means of a refined art; and rhetoric, by examining the particular skills required in each case and fitting to everything its proper expression, providing intensity and pathos and, conversely, relaxation and pleasures, together with fluency and the proper functioning of the tongue and the organs of speech.
Once such a house has been built among mortal kind, all things on earth will be filled with good hopes, expecting the descent of the powers of God. And these powers, bringing laws and ordinances from heaven for the sake of consecration and sanctification, will arrive at the command of their Father. Then, becoming fellow-dwellers and fellow-diners with souls that love virtue, they sow in them a happy offspring — just as they granted to the wise Abraham, as the most perfect favor for his hospitality, the gift of Isaac.
And there is nothing in which the purified mind rejoices more than in acknowledging the Ruler of all as its Master. For to be a slave of God is the greatest boast, more honorable than freedom itself, and than wealth, and rule, and everything else that mortal kind embraces.
The oracle is a true witness to the sovereignty of the One who Is, speaking as follows: 'And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for all the land is mine, because you are strangers and sojourners before me' (Lev. 25:23). Does this not most clearly establish that all things belong to God in ownership, but to created being only in use?
'For nothing among the things that have come into being,' he says, 'shall be sold to anyone in perpetuity,' since there is one alone to whom the ownership of all things truly and securely belongs. For God has lent all created things to one another, having made no single part complete in itself, so that each, of necessity needing something else, might of necessity draw near to whatever is able to supply it — that thing to this one, and both to each other.
For in this way, exchanging and mingling with one another like a lyre tuned from dissimilar notes into partnership and harmony, they were destined to sound together, all things enduring a kind of mutual giving and receiving through one another, toward the fulfillment of the whole cosmos.
In this way lifeless things are akin to living things, irrational to rational, trees to men and men to plants; tame things to wild and wild to tame; male to female and female to male; and, to put it concisely, land creatures to water creatures, water creatures to air-borne ones, and winged creatures to all the aforementioned; further, heaven belongs to earth and earth to heaven, air to water and water to breath; and again, the intermediate natures desire one another and the extremes, and the extremes desire the intermediate ones.
Winter indeed needs summer and summer needs winter, and spring needs both, and autumn needs spring, and each needs each; and, so to speak, all things are in need of and require all things, so that the whole of which these are parts — this cosmos — might be a work complete and worthy of its Maker.
Having thus composed these things, God attached mastery over all of them to himself, but distributed their use and enjoyment to his subjects, both toward themselves and toward one another — for we too have use both of ourselves and of whatever pertains to us. I, at any rate, composed of soul and body, and seeming to possess mind, reason, and sense-perception, find none of these to be my own.
For where was my body before it came into being? And to what place will it depart when it has passed away? And where are the differences of the ages of life, which seem to subsist? Where is the infant, where the child, where the boy just before youth, where the one just reaching puberty, where the young man with his first beard, where the youth, where the mature man? And from where did the soul come, and to what place will it depart, and for how long will it remain our fellow-dweller? Can we say what its essence is? And when did we acquire it? Before our birth? But we did not yet exist. After death? But we shall no longer be composite beings of a certain quality together with bodies — rather, being composite beings of a certain quality together with things bodiless, we shall set out toward a new birth.
But now, while we live, we are ruled rather than ruling, and known rather than knowing. For the soul, though not known by us, knows us, and issues commands which we are compelled to obey as servants obey a mistress. And whenever she wishes to depart to her ruler, having settled her accounts, she will migrate, leaving our house empty of life; and even if we try to force her to remain, she will dissolve — for her nature is so fine that she affords the body no handhold.
Is the mind, then, my own dwelling-place — the mind that fashions falsehoods, that wanders, that imagines, that goes astray, that is found mindless in ecstasy, in melancholy, and in extreme old age? But is reason my possession — or the organs of speech? Has not a slight pretext of illness paralyzed the tongue, sewn shut the mouth even of the most eloquent? Has not the mere expectation of some terror struck countless people speechless?
And indeed I do not find myself the master even of my own composure, but rather perhaps a slave following wherever it leads me — toward colors, toward shapes, toward sounds, toward smells, toward tastes, toward other bodies. Through all this, I think it has been shown that we make use of possessions belonging to another, and that we possess as our own neither reputation, nor wealth, nor honors, nor offices, nor anything proper to body or soul — no, not even life itself.
Having the use of things, if we recognize this, we shall take care of them as possessions of God, having first grasped that it is the law of the Master to reclaim his own whenever he wishes; for in this way we shall lighten the grief that comes with their removal. But as it is, most people, thinking that everything is their own possession, are immediately overwhelmed with passion at the absence or lack of any of it.
It is therefore not only true, but among the things most conducive to consolation, that the cosmos and the works within the cosmos are both the works and the possessions of the One who begot them. And what he possesses as his own work, the Possessor has given as a gift, because he has no need of it; but the one who uses it does not thereby own it, since there is one Lord and Master of all things, who will most rightly say: 'All the land is mine' — equivalent to saying, 'everything that has come into being is mine' — 'and you are strangers and sojourners before me' (Lev. 25:23).
For in relation to one another, all who have come into being have the standing of natives and of noble birth, all enjoying equal honor and equal rights; but in relation to God, they have the standing of newcomers and sojourners. For each of us has arrived at this cosmos as at a foreign city, in which he had no share before his birth, and having arrived, he sojourns in it until he has drained the portion of life allotted to him.
At the same time, this also introduces a most wise teaching: that God alone is, in the proper sense, a citizen, and that everything that has come into being is a sojourner and a newcomer, and that those who are called citizens are so named rather by an abuse of the term than in truth. It is a gift sufficient for wise men, when measured against God, the only true citizen, to be granted the rank of newcomers and sojourners — since for the foolish, no one becomes even so much as a newcomer or sojourner in the city of God, but is found altogether an exile — as the oracle also declared most authoritatively when it added: 'It shall not be sold,' he says, 'the land, in perpetuity' — yet by whom it was left unstated, so that from what is left unspoken one not uninitiated in the study of nature might gain understanding.
You will find, then, if you examine the matter, that all who are said to give favors are rather selling them than giving them, and that those we suppose to be receiving favors are in truth buying them. For those who give, hunting after a return of praise or honor, seeking a repayment of favor, are, under the fair-sounding name of a gift, properly engaged in a sale — since it is also customary for sellers to receive something in return for what they provide; while those who accept the gifts, intending to repay and repaying at the right time, do what buyers do, for they too know both how to receive and how to repay.
But God is no trader, cheapening his own possessions, but a giver of all things, pouring forth ever-flowing springs of favor, seeking no return; for neither is he himself in need, nor is any created being capable of repaying him in kind for his gift.
Since, then, all things are agreed to be possessions of God, both by true accounts and by testimonies which it is not lawful to convict of false witness — for the oracles which Moses recorded in the sacred books are the witnesses — the mind must be rejected which, in its union with sense-perception, supposed the offspring born to be its own possession, and called him Cain, saying, 'I have gotten a man through God,' and in this it went astray.
Why is this? Because God is a cause, not an instrument; and what comes to be through an instrument comes to be, in every case, under a cause. For the coming-into-being of anything requires the concurrence of many things: that by which, that from which, that through which, and that on account of which. And the cause is that by which; the matter is that from which; the instrument is that through which; and the purpose is that on account of which.
Consider: if someone were to ask what must converge for a house, or any city at all, to be constructed, would it not be a builder, and stones and timber, and tools? What, then, is the builder but the cause by which? What are the stones and timber but the matter from which the construction is made? What are the tools but the things through which? And for what purpose — for nothing but shelter and safety, this being that on account of which the thing exists.
Passing on, then, from particular constructions, look at the greatest house or city, this world: for you will find that its cause is God, by whom it came to be; its matter, the four elements, from which it was blended together; its instrument, the Word of God, through which it was constructed; and the reason for its construction, the goodness of the Craftsman. This is the discernment of those who love truth and reach after knowledge that is genuine and sound; but those who say that they have acquired something 'through God' suppose the cause — the Craftsman — to be an instrument, and the instrument — the human mind — to be a cause.
Right reason would find fault also with Joseph for saying that the clarification of the dreams would be found 'through God' (Gen 40:8) — for he ought to have said that the unfolding and precise disclosure of hidden things would properly come to be 'by him,' as cause. For we are instruments, through which the several activities occur, being drawn tight and let loose, while the craftsman is the one who brings about the striking of the powers of both body and soul, the one by whom all things are moved.
Those, then, who are unable to distinguish the differences between things must be taught, as being ignorant; those who, out of love of strife, interchange the proper ranking of what these terms signify must be avoided, as contentious; but those who, after a careful search into what is involved, assign to each of their findings its own proper place must be praised, as pursuing a philosophy that holds to no falsehood.
Moses, at least, says to those who feared that they would be destroyed while the wicked man pursued them with his whole army: 'Stand and see the salvation that comes from the Lord, which he will work for you' (Exod 14:13) — teaching thereby that being saved comes to pass not 'through God' but 'from him,' as cause.

======== On the Birth of Abel (Sacrifices) ========

‘And she went on to bear his brother Abel’ (Gen. 4:2). The addition of one thing is the removal of another—true of the parts in arithmetic, and of the soul’s reckonings. If, then, we are to say that Abel is added, we must suppose that Cain is removed. But so that the unfamiliarity of the names may not obscure the matter for many readers, we will try to work out as precisely as we can the philosophy hidden within them.
There happen to be two opinions, opposed and at war with one another: the one that ascribes everything to the mind as the ruling principle of our reasoning, perceiving, moving, or being still; the other that follows God, on the ground that it is his creation. The imprint of the first is Cain, called ‘possession,’ because he seems to possess everything; the imprint of the other is Abel,
—for it is interpreted ‘one who refers back to God.’ Now one soul is in labor with both opinions; but once they are born, they must necessarily be separated, since it is impossible for enemies to live together forever. So as long as the soul had not yet given birth to the God-loving doctrine, Abel, the self-loving doctrine, Cain, dwelt within it; but when it gave birth to the one, it abandoned the mind that only seems wise.
This is shown more clearly by the oracle given to Rebecca in her endurance (Gen. 25:21ff). For having conceived the two warring natures of good and evil, and having formed a vivid impression of each according to the prompting of prudence, and seeing them leaping within her and staging a kind of skirmishing prelude to the coming war, she implores God to make plain to her what her affliction is and what cure there might be for it. And he, in answer to her inquiry, says: ‘Two nations are in your womb’—this is the affliction, the coming-to-be of good and evil—‘but also two peoples shall be divided from your belly’—this is the cure: that these be divided and separated from one another and no longer inhabit the same place.
So when God added the good doctrine, Abel, to the soul, he removed from it the misguided opinion, Cain. For Abraham too, leaving mortal things behind, ‘is added to the people of God’ (Gen. 25:8), reaping incorruption, having become equal to the angels—for the angels are God’s army, bodiless and blessed souls. And the man of discipline, Jacob, is said in the same way to be added to the better part (Gen. 49:33), when he left behind the worse.
Isaac, who was deemed worthy of self-taught knowledge, likewise leaves behind whatever bodily element had been woven together with his soul, and is added and allotted no longer, as the earlier ones were, to a ‘people’ but to a ‘kindred,’ as Moses says (Gen. 35:29); for ‘kindred’ is a single thing, whereas ‘people’ is a name for a multitude.
All those, then, who have advanced and been perfected by learning and instruction are allotted to the greater number; for the number of those who have learned by hearing and guidance is not small, and these he called a ‘people.’ But those who have left behind human guidance, and have become by nature well-suited disciples of God, having received effortless knowledge, migrate into the incorruptible and most perfect kindred, having obtained a better portion than the former—the kindred of which Isaac is acknowledged to be an initiate.
Another such case makes this clear as well … an immortal mind. There are those whom, having advanced them still higher, he made ready to soar above every form and kind, and settled close beside himself—as Moses too, to whom he says, ‘But stand here with me’ (Deut. 5:31). Indeed, when this man was about to die, he was not, like the earlier ones, added by having left something behind, having undergone neither addition nor subtraction; rather he migrated ‘through a word’ of the Cause (Deut. 34:5), the very word through which the whole cosmos was also made—so that you may learn that God considers the sage of equal worth to the cosmos, working the whole universe by that same Word, and leading the perfect man up from earthly things to himself.
Nor indeed, when he had granted him for use among earthly things and allowed him to converse with them, did he attach to him some common virtue of a ruler or king, by which he would forcefully govern the passions of the soul; rather he appointed him god over the whole region concerning the body, declaring the mind that governs it, and everything subject and enslaved to it, obedient—for he says, ‘I give you as god to Pharaoh’ (Exod. 7:1). But a god does not admit of either addition or subtraction, being full and perfectly equal to himself.
This is why it is said that not even one person knows his burial place (Deut. 34:6); for who could be capable of comprehending the migration of a perfect soul to Him Who Is? Not even the soul itself, I think, undergoing this, knows its own betterment, since at that very time it is caught up in divine possession—for God does not use as an adviser the one on whom he is about to confer benefit concerning what he is going to grant, but is accustomed to pour out his benefactions ungrudgingly on one who has not anticipated them. Such is the meaning of God’s adding to the mind the coming-to-be of a perfect good; and the good is piety, whose name is Abel.
‘And Abel became a shepherd of sheep, but Cain was working the earth’ (Gen. 4:2). Why in the world, having introduced Cain as the elder relative to Abel, does he now reverse the order, so that he mentions the younger first with respect to the choice of ways of life? For it would have been reasonable for the eldest to turn first to farming, and for the younger, in turn, to the care of flocks.
But Moses does not embrace what is plausible and probable; rather he pursues unadulterated truth. Indeed, when he approaches God alone, in private, he says with candor that he is not ‘eloquent’—which is equivalent to saying he has no desire for what is merely plausible and probable—and that he has been in this condition since before yesterday and the day before, ever since God began to converse with him as with his own servant (Exod. 4:10).
For those who have entered the surge and swell of life and swim upon it must necessarily be tossed about, since they have grasped nothing secure from knowledge, but hang instead upon what is plausible and probable. But it is fitting for God’s servant to hold fast to truth, letting go, with good riddance, the conjectural and unstable myth-making of what merely sounds reasonable.
What, then, is the truth in these matters? That vice is older than virtue in time, but younger in power and worth. So when the coming-into-being of both is being narrated, let Cain run ahead first; but when a comparison of their pursuits is being examined, let Abel take precedence.
For as soon as the living creature is born, still in its swaddling clothes, until the age that renews itself into its prime quenches the boiling flame of the passions, it happens to have as foster-companions folly, self-indulgence, injustice, fear, cowardice, and the other kindred banes—each of which is nursed and made to grow by nurses and tutors, and by the introductions and prescriptions of customs and laws that drive away piety and instill superstition instead, a thing akin to impiety.
But when the prime of life has passed and the throbbing sickness of the passions relaxes, as though a calm had set in, someone begins, late and with difficulty, to enjoy a tranquility once he has been established in the steadfastness of virtue, which has soothed the relentless and continuous quaking, the heaviest evil of the soul. Thus vice will carry off the seniority of time, but virtue that of worth, honor, and good repute.
A trustworthy witness to this is the lawgiver himself; for having introduced Esau, whose name means folly, as the elder in time, he grants the seniority to Jacob, who is younger in birth but whose name signifies the practice of noble things. And Esau will not be adjudged to carry off this seniority until, as in a contest, his opponent gives up, his hands dropping from weakness, and yields the prizes and the crown to the one who has waged an unremitting and undeclared war against the passions. ‘He sold’—
—he says, ‘the birthright to Jacob’ (Gen. 25:33), openly admitting that what is truly first in power and honored according to virtue belongs to no worthless person, but only to the lover of wisdom—just as the flute, the lyre, and other
instruments of music belong only to the musician. Concerning this doctrine he also records a law, formulating it very finely and beneficially. It runs as follows: ‘If a man has two wives, one of them loved and one hated, and both the loved and the hated bear him children, and the son of the hated wife turns out to be the firstborn, then on the day he apportions his possessions to his sons as an inheritance, he will not be able to grant the right of the firstborn to the son of the loved wife, disregarding the firstborn son of the hated wife; rather he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the hated wife, and give him a double share of all that is found to belong to him, because he is the beginning of his children, and to him belongs the right of the firstborn’ (Deut. 21:15–17).
Recognize, O soul, and come to know who the hated wife is and who her son is, and at once you will perceive that the seniority belongs to no one else but him alone. For two wives dwell together in each of us, hostile and ill-disposed toward one another, filling the household of the soul with the strife of jealousy. Of these, we love the one, deeming her tame, tractable, and dearest and closest to us—she is called Pleasure; the other we hate, considering her untamed, savage, feral, and utterly hostile—her name too is Virtue. The one, then, approaches us broken in manner like a whore and a streetwalker,
her gait broken by excessive luxury and softness, rolling her two eyes with which she hooks the souls of the young, gazing with boldness and shamelessness, holding her neck aloft, drawing herself up straighter than nature intends, grinning and giggling, her hair braided with elaborate ornamentation, her face made up, her eyebrows darkened, indulging repeatedly in hot baths, her cheeks rouged, wrapped in expensive garments in the height of floral pattern, decked with armbands and necklaces and all the other wares of gold and costly stones that make up a woman’s finery, exhaling the most fragrant perfumes, treating the marketplace as her home, a strutting streetwalker, pursuing the counterfeit for lack of true beauty.
Accompanying her as her most intimate companions are villainy, recklessness, faithlessness, flattery, deception, fraud, lying, perjury, impiety, injustice, and self-indulgence. Standing in their midst like the leader of a chorus, she says this to the mind: ‘There are, my friend, treasuries of all human goods in my possession—for the divine goods are in heaven—and outside of me you will find none of them. If you are willing to live with me, I will throw open these treasuries for you and forever supply the most abundant use and enjoyment of what they contain.’
‘I want to tell you in advance the abundance of the goods stored up for you, so that if you consent, you may do so gladly and with full knowledge, and if you turn away, you may refuse without ignorance. With me there is relaxation, license, a truce from struggle, exemption from toil, a variety of colors, the most melodious modulations of the voice, extravagant foods and drinks, an unlimited range of the sweetest scents, unceasing love affairs, undisciplined amusements, unexamined couplings, unadmonished speech, unaccountable deeds, a carefree life, the softest sleep, and satiety that never fills.’
‘If, then, you are willing to spend your time with me, I will prepare from everything and grant you what suits you, taking care to consider what you might eat or drink to be gladdened, or what you might see with your eyes, hear with your ears, or smell with your nostrils to take pleasure in. And nothing you desire will ever be lacking, for you will find that what is produced always exceeds what is consumed.’
‘For in these treasuries I have described there are evergreen plants, sprouting and bearing fruit one after another in succession, so that the ripeness of the fresh and new overtakes and catches up with those already grown mellow. No war, civil or foreign, has ever cut down these plants; rather, from the moment the earth first received them, it has nursed them like a good foster-mother, casting down roots as foundations, most mighty, into the depths below, while stretching the shoot above the ground up to the height of heaven, putting forth branches that are analogous likenesses of the hands and feet found in living creatures, and causing leaves to bloom, like hair, serving both as covering and adornment—and, in addition to all this, fruits, for the sake of which those other things exist.’
The other woman, having heard this — for she had been standing concealed but within earshot — fearing lest the mind, taken captive unaware and enslaved, be led away by so many gifts and promises, and yielding further to the sight of a spectacle skillfully and variously contrived for deception (for through amulets and enchantments she used to weave spells, cast charms, and produce ticklish thrills), suddenly stepped forward and appeared, presenting herself entirely as a free and well-born woman: a steady gait, a most tranquil countenance, a color of both modesty and body unfalsified, a truthful character, an unadulterated life, an unvarying disposition, speech without deceit, the truest likeness of a sound mind, an unfeigned bearing, a movement not agitated, moderate dress, and an adornment of wisdom and virtue more precious than gold.
There accompanied her piety, holiness, truth, right, sacred observance, good faith in oaths, justice, equity, fair dealing, fellowship, self-restraint, temperance, orderliness, self-control, gentleness, frugality, contentment, modesty, freedom from meddling, courage, nobility, good counsel, forethought, practical wisdom, attentiveness, correction, cheerfulness, kindness, mildness, gentleness of temper, love of humanity, magnanimity, blessedness, goodness. The day will fail me before I finish naming the several virtues by their particular names.
These stood on either side of her and formed her bodyguard, standing about her in the middle; and she, assuming her customary bearing, began to speak somewhat as follows: "I have seen Pleasure — that fabricator of monstrous tales, that wanton, that spinner of myths — got up more theatrically than ever and constantly consorting with you in her ingratiating way; and since I am by nature a hater of what is base, I feared that you might be deceived without realizing it and, in giving your consent to the greatest evils, mistake them for the greatest goods. So I have thought it right to declare beforehand, with complete truthfulness, the properties that belong to this woman, so that you may reject nothing through ignorance of what is truly advantageous, and not fall, against your will, into misfortune.
Know, then, that the whole apparatus she employs is foreign to her: for of the things that make for genuine beauty she brings nothing of her own from herself, but she has fitted herself out with nets and snares for your capture — a spurious and counterfeit comeliness — and if you foresee these things and are wise, you will render her hunt fruitless. For when she appears she charms the eyes, and when she speaks she delights the ears, but the soul — the possession worth more than all else — she is by nature fitted to corrupt through these very means and through all her other parts besides. Of the things that attend her she has gone through those which were likely to prove agreeable to you when you heard them, but the rest — as many as had nothing pleasant about them, and they are past telling — she has maliciously suppressed and hidden, since she did not expect that anyone would readily consent to them.
But I will strip these things bare as well and expose them, and I will not imitate Pleasure's ways — displaying only what is alluring about myself while overshadowing and concealing what is disagreeable — but on the contrary I will keep silent about the things that of themselves yield delight and joy, knowing that they will make their own voice heard through their effects, while the things that are burdensome and hard to bear I will describe accurately and in their proper names, setting them out in plain view, so that the true nature of each may be evident even to those who see dimly; for among the things that seem to be Pleasure's greatest goods, those that appear to me the greatest evils will be shown, by those who experience them, to be more beautiful and precious than they thought.
Before I begin upon my own concerns, I will remind you, so far as I am able, of whatever she passed over in silence. For after speaking of the colors, sounds, scents, flavors, qualities, and powers she has stored up, relating to touch and every sense, and after charming the sense of hearing with her beguiling talk, she did not disclose her other diseases and afflictions — which of necessity you will experience once you have chosen those things — so that, lifted up by a mere breath of some advantage, you might be caught within her nets.
Know then, sir, that once you become a lover of pleasure you will become all of these things: unscrupulous, reckless, discordant, unsociable, difficult, lawless, troublesome, quick-tempered, uncontrollable, vulgar, incorrigible, unprincipled, base in craft, unmanageable, unjust, unequal, uncooperative, unable to come to terms, implacable, grasping, most disorderly, friendless, homeless, stateless, seditious, unruly, impious, unholy, unstable, orgiastic in the wrong sense, profane, accursed, buffoonish, an avenging spirit, a polluted man, servile, harsh, beastly, slavish, cowardly, licentious, disorderly, shameful in deed, shameful in suffering, colorless, immoderate, insatiable, boastful, a pretender to wisdom, self-willed, vulgar, envious, fond of accusation, quarrelsome, slanderous, empty, a deceiver, a charlatan, careless, ignorant, senseless, discordant, faithless, disobedient, unruly, a sorcerer, a dissembler, a trickster, hard to fathom, of ill repute, hard to find out, hard to reach, ruinous, malicious, disproportionate, speaking out of season, long-winded, a babbler, a spinner of airy talk, a flatterer, sluggish, thoughtless, improvident, unforeseeing, negligent, unprepared, tasteless, erring, stumbling, unmanaged, unprotected, gluttonous, easily led, dissolving away, easily yielding, most treacherous, double-minded, double-tongued, plotting, lying in wait, unscrupulous in action, incorrigible, needy, ever unstable, a wanderer, panic-stricken, easily assailed, frenzied, quickly sated, fond of his own life, fond of glory, heavy in wrath, heavy in bowels, heavy in temper, heavy in grief, hard to appease, easily frightened, given to postponement, a procrastinator, suspicious, faithless, hard to release from bonds, evil-minded, despairing, quick to tears, gloating over misfortune, raging, deranged, formless, mischievous in his devices, base in his gains, self-loving, a willing slave, a willing enemy, a demagogue, a bad manager, stiff-necked, effeminate, wasted away, dissolute, mocking, a swindler, foolish, filled to the brim with unmixed misfortune.
Such are the great mysteries of that beautiful and much-contested thing, Pleasure — mysteries which she willingly concealed, for fear that, once you knew them, you would turn away from union with her. But as for the good things stored up with me, who could adequately describe their number or their greatness? Those who have already shared in them know; and those to whom nature is gracious will come to know them too, once they are summoned to partake of a banquet — not the kind by which the pleasures of a filled belly fatten the body, but the kind by which the mind, nourished and dancing in company with the virtues,
rejoices and is glad. For this reason, and because of what was said long ago — that these things naturally give voice of themselves, even if one keeps silent about them, being truly good — I will pass over any discourse about them; for neither the sun nor the moon has need of an interpreter, since the one by rising in the day and the other by night fill the whole world with light; rather, their shining forth is a witness unattested by words, a conviction more firmly established than eyes or ears could give as evidence.
But as for what seems to be the most difficult and harsh among the things I offer, I will state it without any concealment, and with complete frankness. For this too, I suppose, appears troublesome at first glance and on a casual encounter, but with practice proves most pleasant, and on reflection, advantageous. It is toil, the enemy of ease — the first and greatest good — which wages open war against pleasure. For, to tell the truth, God has shown toil to be the beginning of every good thing and of virtue entire, and apart from it you will find nothing noble established among the mortal race.
For just as it is impossible to see without light, since neither colors nor eyes by themselves are sufficient for perception through sight — for nature has fashioned light beforehand as a bond between the two, by which the eye is drawn together and fitted to color, while in darkness the power of each is useless — in the same way the eye of the soul is unable to grasp the actions that accord with virtue unless it makes use of toil as a co-worker, like light. For toil, set in the middle between the mind and the good object toward which the mind reaches, draws the one from here and the other from there, and by each hand working friendship and harmony together, produces perfect goods.
Whatever good thing you choose, you will find that it too is won and secured through toil. Piety and holiness are goods, but we cannot attain them without service to God, and such service is yoked to zealous efforts undertaken in toil. Practical wisdom, courage, and justice are all noble and are perfect goods, yet they are not to be seized through ease; one must be content if they are won over by continual attentions. The instrument that is every soul, unable to sustain the tuned and intense harmony of devotion to God and to virtue, has often been relaxed and slackened, so as to descend from the extremes to the middle range of skills; but even in these middle ranges the labor is great.
Look at all those who practice the encyclical and so-called preparatory studies; look at farmers and all who provide their living by some pursuit — these people never, by day or by night, set aside their cares, but everywhere and always, as the saying goes, laboring with hand and foot and all their strength without ceasing, they even barter death for it,
over and over. But just as those eager to make their own soul gracious must of necessity cultivate the virtues of the soul, so too those who choose to keep the body gracious must cultivate health and its kindred powers; and indeed they cultivate them with endless, unceasing toils, as care enters into them for the powers within them, out of which they were compounded.
You see, then, that all good things spring up and grow from toil as from a single root, which you must never allow yourself to let go; for in letting it go you will unknowingly let go, along with it, a whole heap of goods at once. For the ruler of the whole heaven and universe both possesses and provides good things, to whomever he wishes, with complete ease, since he also fashioned so great a universe long ago without toil, and now and forever sustains it without ever ceasing — for tirelessness is most fitting to God — but to no mortal has nature granted the possession of good without toils, so that in this respect too
God alone among beings may be accounted blessed in his happiness. For it seems to me that toil bears the same power as nourishment. Just as nourishment has bound life to itself, having fastened to itself all the works and experiences that belong to living, so too toil has made the good things dependent on itself. Just as those who are eager for life must not neglect nourishment, so those who long for the possession of good things must take forethought for toil; for what nourishment is to living, toil is to the noble. Since it is one thing, then, never neglect it, so that you may reap all good things together.
In this way, though younger by birth, you will be reckoned older and deemed worthy of the rights of the firstborn; and if you continually advance toward improvement and reach the end, your father will grant you not only the birthright but also all the paternal inheritance — just as he did for Jacob, who tripped up the seats and footholds of passion, and who acknowledged what he had experienced, saying, "Because God has had mercy on me, and I have everything" (Gen 33:11), a statement at once doctrinal and instructive; for all things anchor in the mercy of God.
He learned this from Abraham, the grandfather of his own education, who gives all his possessions to the all-wise Isaac (Gen 25:5), leaving nothing of what truly belongs to him for the reckonings, base-born and slanted, of the concubines' offspring, but bestows small gifts on those small ones. For the true possessions — the perfect virtues — belong only to the perfect and legitimate one, while the intermediate duties are fitted also to the imperfect, those who have advanced only as far as the encyclical preparatory studies, over which Hagar and Keturah preside — Hagar meaning "sojourning," and Keturah "burning incense."
For the one who confines himself to the encyclical studies alone sojourns with wisdom, he does not dwell in her, sending to the soul, as it were, a sweet fragrance from the elegance of contemplation; but such a one needs nourishment, not scents, in order to be healthy. Smell, nature is said to have skillfully fashioned as a servant subordinate to taste, like a foretaster serving a queen; and the ruling sciences must always be tended before the subordinate ones, and the native ones before those that merely sojourn."
Having heard these things, the mind turns away from Pleasure and attunes itself to Virtue, discerning her beauty as unfeigned, genuine, and most befitting the sacred. Then it also becomes a shepherd of sheep, the charioteer and pilot of the irrational powers within the soul, not allowing them to be carried along in disorder and confusion without an overseer and guide, lest the unruly dispositions, undergoing an orphaned state without protector or guardian, perish in a desolation bereft of allies.
The one in training, then, having judged the task most closely allied to virtue, undertakes "to shepherd the sheep of Laban" (Gen 30:36) — the one devoted to colors and shapes and, in general, to lifeless bodies — and not all of them, but "those that were left behind." What is this? The irrational is naturally twofold: the one contrary to reason, as some call the foolish man irrational; the other by the excision of reason altogether, as the animals that lack reason.
The irrational impulses of his, then — I mean the powers that run contrary to right reason — the sons of Laban tend, having "departed a journey of three days" (ibid.), symbolically separated for their whole lifetime from the man of worth; for time is composed of three parts, past, present, and future. But the irrational powers of the other kind — not those that run contrary to right reason, but those that simply lack reason, which even the irrational animals share — the one in training will judge worthy of care, believing that their failures arise not from wicked cunning but from unruly ignorance.
Ignorance, then, an involuntary and light affliction, admits of a cure not hard to accomplish, namely instruction; but cunning is a voluntary sickness of the soul, and produces an aversion difficult, though not altogether incurable, to overcome. Since, then, these sons were trained under an all-wise father, even if they go down into the passion-loving body of Egypt and encounter Pharaoh, the scatterer of noble things, who is thought to be king of the composite living creature, they will not be at all overawed by his lavish provision, but will confess that "they are shepherds of sheep, not they alone, but their fathers also" (Gen 47:3).
And yet no one could ever boast so great a boast over rule and dominion as these men could over being shepherds. To those, however, capable of reasoning rightly, the task is more solemn than kingship: to be strong enough, as over a city or a country, to direct with vigor and full strength — and again with due moderation — the body and the senses and the belly and the pleasures that follow the belly and all the other passions, and the tongue, and in general the whole composite; for at one time one must slacken the reins, like a charioteer, to those yoked beneath, and at another draw them back and check them, whenever the rush and impulse toward external things, together with unruliness, grows too great.
I admire also Moses, the guardian of the law, who, considering the shepherd's task great and glorious, took it upon himself; for he oversees and directs the flocks of Jethro, a man of superfluous doctrines, leading them away from the crowded pursuits of civic life into a wilderness free from wrongdoing; "for he led the sheep beneath the wilderness" (Exod 3:1).
That is why it follows that 'every shepherd of sheep is an abomination to the Egyptians' (Gen. 46:34); for every lover of passion abominates right reason, the pilot and guide toward the good, just as the most foolish of children abominate their teachers and tutors and every word of admonition and correction. But Moses says that 'the abominations of Egypt' are to be sacrificed to God (Exod. 8:26) — the virtues, blameless and most fitting offerings, which every fool abominates. So it is fitting that Abel, who refers the best things to God, is called a shepherd, while Cain, who refers them to himself and his own mind, is a worker of the earth. What it means to 'work the earth' (Gen. 4:2) we have explained in the earlier books.
'And it came to pass after some days that Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruits of the earth' (Gen. 4:3). There are two charges against the self-lover: one, that it was 'after some days' and not immediately that he gave thanks to God; the other, that it was 'from the fruits' but not from the first fruits, for which the compound name is 'firstlings.' Let us examine each of these causes, taking first the one that comes first in order.
Those who press forward and run ahead must perform good deeds while banishing slowness and delay; for the best deed is unhesitating devotion to the primary good. That is why it has been commanded: 'If you vow a vow, do not delay to pay it' (Deut. 23:21). A vow is a request for good things from God, and the command is that, once we have obtained what we hoped for, we should crown God, not ourselves, and do so, if possible, without delay and without hesitation.
Among those who fail in this, some have gone wrong through forgetting the great possession of gratitude for benefits received; others, out of violent self-conceit, have supposed themselves the cause of the good things that came to them, rather than the true cause; and a third group commits an error lighter than the second but heavier than the first: for while crediting the ruling mind as the cause of the good things, they say it was reasonable that they obtained them, since they are prudent and courageous and temperate and just, and so worthy on this account of favor even from God.
So the sacred word, set in array against each of these, says first to the one who has destroyed memory and rekindled forgetfulness: 'Do not, having eaten and been filled, and having built fine houses and settled in them, and having seen your sheep and cattle and silver and gold and all that is yours multiplied, be exalted in your heart and forget the Lord your God' (Deut. 8:12–14). When, then, will you not forget God? When you do not forget yourself; for remembering your own nothingness in all things, you will remember also God's surpassing greatness in all things.
The one who thinks himself the cause of the good things that befall him he corrects in this way: 'Do not say,' he says, 'my strength or the might of my hand has produced all this power for me; but you shall surely remember the Lord your God, who gives you strength to produce power' (Deut. 8:17–18).
And the one who considers himself worthy of the acquisition and enjoyment of good things, let him be instructed by the oracle that says: 'It is not because of your righteousness nor because of the holiness of your heart that you go in to inherit the land, but' — first — 'because of the lawlessness of these nations,' God bringing ruin upon their wickedness, and then 'that he might establish the covenant which he swore to our fathers' (Deut. 9:5). God's covenant is, symbolically, his acts of grace; and it is not right for anything incomplete to be granted as a favor by him, so that all the gifts of the Uncreated are whole and complete; and among existing things, virtue and the actions that accord with virtue are whole.
If, then, we do away with forgetfulness and ingratitude and self-love, and the vice that begets them, conceit, we shall no longer, through delay, fall short of true service, but, outrunning and leaping over the things of creation, before we have embraced any mortal thing, we shall come into the presence of the Master, having prepared ourselves ready to do what is commanded.
For Abraham too, coming with all eagerness and speed and readiness, urges virtue, Sarah, to hurry and knead three measures of fine flour and make cakes baked in the ashes (Gen. 18:6), at the time when God, escorted by the two highest powers, sovereignty and goodness, being himself one and in the middle, produced a threefold vision in the soul that sees. Of these visions none is measured — for God is without bound, and his powers too are without bound — yet it is he who has measured all things: his goodness is the measure of good things, his sovereignty the measure of subjects, and he himself, the leader of all things both bodily and incorporeal, on whose account the powers too, having received the principle of rules and standards, gave measure to what comes after them.
It is good that these three measures be, as it were, kneaded and brought together in the soul, so that, persuaded that God is the one above all, who rises above his own powers and is seen apart from them while also appearing within them, the soul may receive the impress of his sovereignty and his beneficence, and, having become an initiate of the perfect mysteries, may not carelessly blurt out the mysteries to anyone, but, storing them up and keeping silence, guard them in secret; for it is written 'to make cakes baked in the ashes,' because the sacred word about the Uncreated and his powers must be kept hidden by the initiate, since it is not for everyone to guard a trust of divine rites.
For the stream of an incontinent soul, flowing outward through mouth and tongue, is poured out upon every ear; and of these, some, having roomy reservoirs, keep what is poured into them, while others, because of the narrowness of their channels, cannot be watered at all; but what overflows uncontrollably and is poured out is scattered everywhere, so that hidden things float and swim on the surface, and, like so much rubbish carried along at random, things worthy of all earnestness are swept away in the current.
That is why those who were initiated into these small mysteries before the great ones seem to me to have taken good counsel: 'for they baked the dough that they had brought out of Egypt into unleavened cakes baked in the ashes' (Exod. 12:39), that is, they worked upon their untamed and raw passion as though it were food ripened by reason, and they did not blurt out the manner of that ripening and improvement, which had come about through a kind of divine possession, but stored it up in hidden places, not puffed up by the rite but yielding and humbling their pride.
Let us, then, for the sake of giving thanks and honoring the All-Sovereign, always be girded and ready, refusing delay. For indeed the Passover — the crossing over from passions to the practice of virtue — has been commanded to be observed 'with loins girded' (Exod. 12:11), ready and prepared for service, and with the fleshly mass, I mean 'the sandals,' wrapped about feet standing unshaken and firm, and holding education, 'the staff,' in hand, for the unstumbling correction of all the affairs of life, and finally, to be nourished 'with haste.' For this crossing is not a mortal one, since the Passover is said to belong to the Uncreated and Imperishable; and quite fittingly so, for nothing good exists that is not of God and divine.
Seek it out swiftly, then, O soul, like the practicer Jacob, who, when his father asked, 'What is this that you found so quickly, my child?' answered in accordance with doctrine, 'What the Lord God delivered before me' (Gen. 27:20); for having become experienced in many things, he knew that what creation gives to the soul is confirmed only after a long time, as those who hand down arts and the precepts of arts to their pupils do; for they cannot at once, like those who pour into a vessel, fill the understanding of beginners. But when the fountain of wisdom, God, hands down knowledge to the mortal race, he hands it down without regard to time; and those who have become disciples of the only wise one, being of good natural gifts, swiftly obtain the discoveries
of what they sought. The first virtue of beginners is to strive to imitate, though imperfect, the teacher insofar as he is perfect. And the teacher outstrips even time itself, not needing its cooperation even when he was begetting the universe, since he himself subsisted together with the world as it came into being; for God, in speaking, was at the same time creating, putting nothing in between the two. But if we must state the truer doctrine, his Word was his deed. And nothing, even among mortal kind, moves more swiftly than word (speech); for the rush of names and verbs outstrips the very grasp of them.
Just as the ever-flowing streams poured out through channels have an unceasing course, the oncoming current always overtaking the point where the last left off, so the flood of the Word, once it begins to move, keeps pace with the swiftest-moving thing in us, the mind, which outstrips even winged creatures. Just as the Uncreated outstrips all creation, so too the Word of the Uncreated runs ahead of that which belongs to creation, even if it is carried down most swiftly upon the clouds. That is why he speaks with all boldness, saying: 'You will see, you will see whether my word will overtake you or not' (Num. 11:23), as one who has outstripped and grasped everything, the divine Word.
But if the Word has outstripped, much more has the one who speaks it, as he testifies elsewhere, saying: 'Here I stand, there, before you' (Exod. 17:6); for he shows that he subsisted before everything that came into being, and that being here he is there too, and elsewhere, and everywhere, having filled all things through all things, and leaving nothing devoid of himself.
For he does not say, 'Here I shall stand, and there,' but even now, when I am present here, I stand at the same time there too — not moving from place to place, so as to leave one place behind and take up another, but employing a motion that is stationary. Fittingly, then, imitating the nature of their father, obedient children do good deeds without delay and with all eagerness, whose finest work is the unhesitating
honoring of God. But Pharaoh, the scatterer of the good timeless powers, being unable to receive their vision, maimed in the eyes of the soul, by which alone incorporeal natures are apprehended, cannot even endure to be benefited through timeless things, but, pressed by soulless notions — I mean 'frogs' — that produce a sound and noise empty and void of substance, when Moses said, 'Appoint a time with me, that I may pray for you and your servants to remove the frogs' (Exod. 8:9), though it was fitting, in such dire straits, to say 'pray at once,' he instead defers, saying 'tomorrow,' so that in every way he might preserve the uniformity of his godlessness. This is a trait that follows nearly all who waver between two minds,
even if they do not confess it in words and phrases. For whenever something unwanted happens, since they have not put firm trust in God the savior, they first take refuge in the helps that belong to creation — physicians, herbs, compounds of drugs, a carefully regulated diet, and all the other remedies found among mortal kind; and if someone should say, 'Take refuge, you fools, in the only physician of the soul's ailments, abandoning the falsely-named benefit that comes from suffering creation,' they laugh and mock, exclaiming, 'That for tomorrow,' as though, whatever happened, they would never supplicate the divine for deliverance from present evils;
but when nothing human suffices, and everything found — even the healing remedies — proves harmful, then, out of sheer helplessness, having despaired of benefit from other sources, the wretches take refuge, unwillingly, late and with difficulty, in God the only savior. But he, knowing that in dire necessities the law is without force, does not apply the law in every case, but only where it is good and expedient to apply it. So every reasoning that considers all things its own possessions, and prefers itself to God — for 'to sacrifice after some days' suggests such a mind — let it know that it is guilty of impiety.
We have now dealt sufficiently with the first charge against Cain. The second was this: why does he bring his offering from 'the fruits' rather than from 'the first fruits'? Perhaps for this same reason: that he might give the primacy to creation, and requite the divine with second place. For just as there are some who prefer the body to the soul, the slave to the mistress, so there are those who have honored creation more than God — though the lawgiver has laid down the command that 'we should bring the first fruits of the firstlings of the earth into the house of the Lord God' (Exod. 23:19), and not ascribe them to ourselves; for it is right to acknowledge to God whatever movements of the soul are first, whether in order or in power.
Those that are first in order are of this kind, things we shared in from the very first moment of our birth: nourishment, growth, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, speech, mind — parts of soul, parts of body, their activities, and, in general, their motions and their natural states. Those that are first in worth and power are our right actions — the virtues and the deeds that accord with the virtues. It is right, then, to offer first fruits from these.
The first fruits are a word of thanksgiving sent up from a truthful understanding; and divide it according to its proper divisions, in the way the lyre and the splendid instruments of music are divided; for of the notes in these, each is tuned in itself, and is also especially fitted to harmonize with another, just as, among the elements of grammar, the so-called vowels are sounded both by themselves and, together with others, complete a whole utterance.
For nature, having fashioned in us many faculties, of sense, of reason, and of intellect, and having directed each toward one of its proper tasks, and again having fitted them all together by proportion, in a fellowship and harmony with one another, would most rightly be blessed for happiness both in each and in all together.
This is why, when it says, "If you bring an offering of the first-fruits," the sacred word divides it in this way (Lev. 2:14): first "new," then "parched," then "crushed grain," and finally "ground." It says "new" for this reason: it teaches those who cling to what is old and aged and legendary in time, but who have not perceived the swift and timeless power of God, to take to heart what is new and flourishing and forever young—so that, instead of being nourished on the old myths that the long ages have handed down for the deception of mortals and so holding false opinions, they may instead receive from the God who is ever ageless and ever new the new and fresh good things with complete abundance, and so be taught to consider nothing with him old or in any sense past, but everything as coming into being timelessly and standing firm.
For this reason he also says elsewhere, "You shall rise up before a gray head, and you shall honor the face of an elder" (Lev. 19:32), as though there were an enormous difference between the two. For "gray" is the time that accomplishes nothing, from which one must depart and flee, turning away from the notion that deceives countless people—that time by its nature does anything at all. But the "elder" is one worthy of honor and dignity and seniority, whom Moses, beloved of God, has been permitted to appoint: "for those whom you know," he says, "these are elders" (Num. 11:16)—as though God accepted no innovation, but was accustomed to love the doctrines of the elders and of those worthy of the highest honor.
It is useful, then, even if not for the acquisition of complete virtue, at least for civic life, to be nourished on old and ancient opinions and to pursue the ancient report of noble deeds, which historians and the whole race of poets have handed down in memory both to their contemporaries and to those who come after. But when, to those who have not foreseen or hoped for it, a sudden light of self-taught wisdom shines upon them, and this light opens the closed eye of the soul and makes it, instead of a hearer, a spectator of knowledge, placing in the mind the swiftest-running sight of the senses ahead of the slower hearing,
then it is vain still to exercise the ears through words. This is why it is also said: "You shall eat what is old, and old of the old, and you shall bring out the old to make room for the new" (Lev. 26:10)—meaning that one must not, in trying to deny anything to time's gray-headed learning, fail to encounter the writings of wise men, or fail to be present at the opinions and narratives of those who record ancient things, and must always be eager to inquire about earlier men and events, since to be ignorant of nothing is the sweetest thing; but when God causes the new shoots of self-taught wisdom to rise up in the soul, one must at once cut away and strip off the things that come from teaching, as they recede and flow away of themselves. For it is impossible for one who is God's disciple, or acquaintance, or pupil—or whatever name one should use to call him—still to submit to the guidance of mortals.
Let the new prime of the soul be "parched," that is, tested by a powerful reason as gold is tested by fire; and the sign that it has been tested and approved is that it has become solid. For just as the grain of the flourishing ears is parched so that it may no longer be soft, and this cannot happen without fire, so too the new advance toward the prime of virtue must be made firm and utterly steadfast by a powerful and unconquerable reason. And reason's nature is not only to make the soul's contemplations solid, preventing them from flowing away, but also vigorously to loosen the impulse of irrational passion.
Consider indeed the ascetic Jacob boiling this same grain, at the very moment when "Esau is found failing" (Gen. 25:29); for vice and passion are the foundation for the base man, and when, propped upon these, he sees them overcome and slackened by the reason that seizes hold of them, he is naturally released from the bonds of their strength.
Let reason not be a confused membrane, but be cut into its proper sections; this is what "making crushed grain" means. For in everything order is better than disorder, and most of all in that swiftest-flowing nature, reason. One must therefore divide it into its leading main points, its so-called "headings," and fit to each its proper supporting material, imitating good archers, who set up a target and try to release all their arrows at it. For the main point is like the target, and the supporting material is like the arrows.
In this way reason is woven together harmoniously, the finest of all garments. For indeed the lawgiver cuts the sheets of gold into threads, so that they might be woven in continuously with their proper materials (Exod. 36:10); in just this way reason, more precious than gold, an embroidery composed of countless forms, is brought to admirable completion when, cut down to its finest headings, it receives, as it were, harmonious proofs woven in like the weft-thread.
It is also commanded that "the whole burnt offering, once skinned, be divided into its members" (Lev. 1:6), so that, first, the soul may appear naked, without the coverings that empty and false opinions provide, and then receive its fitting divisions. For virtue, taken as a whole and in its genus, is divided into its immediate species—prudence, self-control, courage, and justice—so that, knowing the differences among each, we may undergo willing service both as a whole and in its parts.
Let us consider how we shall exercise the soul, so that it is not confusedly deceived by wholesale and unshaped impressions, but instead, making cuts and divisions among things, may look closely into each one, undertaking its inquiry with complete precision; and how reason too, which if carried along by a disorderly rush will produce obscurity, but once cut into its proper headings and the proofs belonging to each, will be fitted together like a living creature composed of complete members. But if these things are to be made firm within us, we must make continual practice and exercise of them; for to touch knowledge and not persevere in it is like being stopped, after tasting food or drink, from being nourished to the point of satisfaction.
After "crushed grain," then, it is fitting to make "ground grain," that is, after the division, to linger and spend time over what has been conceived; for continual practice makes knowledge firm, just as neglect produces ignorance. Countless people, at any rate, through reluctance to train, have let slip even the strength that nature gave them—people whom those who were nourished in soul by the divine food called manna did not imitate; for these ground it and rubbed it, making cakes baked in ashes (Num. 11:8), knowing that they must rub down and polish smooth the heavenly reason of virtue, in order to stamp the mind more firmly.
So then, whenever you acknowledge before God the "new" as the prime of the soul, the "parched" as reason made fiery and unconquerable, the "crushed grain" as the cutting and division of things, and the "ground grain" as the rubbing and practice of what has been conceived, you will bring the sacrifice of the first-fruits, of those first and best things the soul has brought forth. And even if we are slow, God himself is not slow to take to himself those fit for his service; for he says, "I will take you to myself as a people, and I will be your God" (Exod. 6:7), "and you shall be my people; I am the Lord" (Lev. 26:12).
Such, then, were the charges against Cain, who brought his sacrifice after some days. Abel, however, brought not the same things nor in the same manner, but living things instead of lifeless ones, elder and first things instead of younger and second-rate ones, and vigorous and fatter things instead of weak ones; for he says that he made his sacrifice "from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat" (Gen. 4:4), in accordance with the most sacred ordinance. And it is as follows: "And it shall be,"
he says, "when the Lord your God brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and gives it to you, you shall set apart every male that opens the womb, for the Lord; every male that opens the womb among your herds and flocks, whatever is born to you, for the Lord. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall exchange for a sheep; but if you do not exchange it, you shall redeem it" (Exod. 13:11-13). For that which opens the womb is Abel's gift, the firstborn gift; when and how it must be brought, examine for yourself.
The most fitting time is when God brings you into the land that sways, the land of the Canaanites—not in whatever manner might happen, but in the manner he himself has sworn: not that you should endure a tossing and turning and surging, carried this way and that unsteadily, but that, ceasing from the surge, you should bring about a clear sky and a calm, and, as if arriving at a roadstead or anchorage or the most sheltering harbor,
you should come to virtue and be firmly settled there. And when it says that God swears an oath, one must consider whether he declares this truly, as something fitting to him, since to countless people it has seemed unfitting; for the notion of an oath is testimony from God concerning a matter in dispute. But to God nothing is unclear or disputed, since he has clearly shown to others also the marks of truth; and indeed he needs no witness, for there is no other god equal in honor to him.
I say nothing of the fact that the one who bears witness is, to the extent that he is superior to the one for whom he testifies—for the one is in need, the other confers a benefit, and what confers a benefit is always more worthy of honor than what is in need. It is not even lawful to conceive of anything better than the Cause, since nothing is found equal to him, nor even a little inferior, but everything that comes after God is found to have fallen short by an entire order of being.
It is for the sake of being believed that men, when disbelieved, take refuge in an oath. But God is trustworthy even when merely speaking, so that his words differ in no way from oaths, as far as certainty is concerned. And it has come about that our own conviction is confirmed by an oath, while the oath itself is confirmed by God; for it is not through the oath that God is trustworthy, but through him that even the oath is made firm.
Why, then, did it seem good to the hierophant to introduce him as swearing? So that he might expose the weakness of what has come into being, and, having exposed it, at the same time console it; for we are not able continually to keep stored up in our own soul the truth worthy of the Cause, that "God is not as man" (Num. 23:19), so that we might rise above everything said of God in human terms;
but, sharing so greatly in what is mortal and unable to conceive of anything apart from ourselves, nor able to escape our own fated portions, but sinking into what is mortal like snails, and coiling around ourselves like hedgehogs curling into a ball, we hold the same opinions about the blessed and imperishable as we do about ourselves—fleeing the absurdity of the notion that the divine is in human form, while at the same time, in our actions, committing the impiety of supposing it subject to human passions.
For this reason we fashion for him hands, feet, comings and goings, enmities, aversions, estrangements, and fits of anger—parts and passions foreign to the Cause. And it is to help our weakness in these matters that the oath, too, exists.
"If, then, God gives to you, you shall set apart" (Exod. 13:11), says Moses, laying down a rule; for if he does not give, you will not have it, since all things are his possessions—both what is outside us and the body, and sense-perception, and reason, and mind, and the activities of all things, and not you alone but this whole universe as well. Whatever you cut off and set apart, you will find to be another's; for indeed you have acquired for your own neither earth nor water nor air nor sky nor stars, nor all the forms of living things and plants, whether imperishable or perishable, so that whatever of these you bring forward in the manner of a sacrificial victim, you will be bringing forward a possession of God, not
your own. Observe how very reverently it has been ordained to set apart something from what has been given, not to bring forward the whole of what has been given. For nature has bestowed countless things falling to the lot of the human race, of all of which she herself has no share, since she is unborn and has no birth, needs no food for her nourishment, remains the same in her growth, admits no subtraction or addition through the ages of time, though she has given to us a body furnished as an instrument—by which to take, by which to give, to go forward, to see, to hear, to take in food and to send back again what has been drained of its moisture, to discern the differences among vapors, to make use of articulate speech—and many other things besides that belong to necessary and at the same time beneficial services.
But these one might call indifferent things, whereas nature should be attached to what is agreed to be truly good. Come, then, let us examine, among the goods that are truly good, those most admired among us, all of which we pray to obtain at their fitting seasons, and, once we have obtained them, are considered most fortunate.
Who, then, does not know that a fair old age and a fair death are the greatest of human goods, of neither of which nature has any share, being ageless and immortal? And what is strange in this, if the unborn does not see fit to make use of the goods proper to what has been born, seeing that what has itself come into being is transformed into unlike virtues according to the differences among the species into which it is divided? Men, at any rate, would not compete with women, nor women with men, over the qualities that belong properly to the other alone; rather, mannish women, if they should aspire to the ways of men, and womanish men, if they should adopt the practices of women, will bring disgrace upon themselves.
Nature has so sharply distinguished certain virtues that they cannot even be brought into common ownership by deliberate practice. To sow and beget, as a matter of virtue, belongs to men alone; no woman could ever discover that. And conversely, fruitfulness in childbearing, though a good, is a good nature does not admit into a man. So even the phrase “like a man” (Deuteronomy 1:31), said of God, is not meant literally; it is a loose use of words that indulges our weakness. Strip away, then, O soul, everything that has come to be, that is mortal, changeable, profane, from your conception of God, who is uncreated, incorruptible, unchangeable, holy, and alone blessed.
The command that “every male that opens the womb belongs to the Lord” (Exodus 13:12) is thoroughly in accord with nature. For just as nature gave the womb to women as the part most suited to the generation of living things, so too it fixed in the soul a power directed toward the generation of things done, by which the mind conceives, labors, and brings forth many offspring.
Of the thoughts thus brought forth, some turn out male, others female, just as happens with living creatures. The female offspring of the soul is vice and passion, by which we are made effeminate in each of our pursuits; the male is right feeling and manly virtue, by which we are roused and made strong. Of these, the whole household belonging to the male we must consecrate entirely to God, while the household of the female we may keep for ourselves. Hence the command: “Every male that opens the womb belongs to the Lord.”
But he also says: “Of every firstborn that opens the womb among the herds, of whatever livestock may be born to you, the males belong to the Lord” (Exodus 13:12). Having spoken of the offspring of the ruling faculty, he begins to teach also about the offspring of the irrational part, which is the portion allotted to the senses, and which he compares to livestock.
Among reared animals, those raised in herds are tame and manageable, since they are led under the care of an overseer, the herdsman; those left free and unrestrained, lacking anyone to tame them, grow savage, whereas those with goatherds, cowherds, and shepherds as their leaders — overseers set over each kind of creature — are necessarily made gentle. So too the class of the senses is by nature untamed in one respect and manageable in another: untamed, whenever it throws off the mind as its herdsman and rushes irrationally toward external objects of sense; tame, whenever it yields obediently to reason, the leader of the compound being, and is steered and driven by it.
Whatever the senses see or hear or perceive at all under the direction of the mind is entirely male and complete, for the good attaches itself to each such act; but whatever occurs apart from a leader ruins our body, like a city without government, through anarchy. Again, then, among the motions of the senses, those that follow the mind — which are necessarily the better ones — must be acknowledged to happen in accordance with God, while those that throw off restraint must be attributed to ourselves, since we are led irrationally by the onrush of external objects of sense.
But he has commanded that the offering be taken not only from these but also from the whole lump of dough. The command runs thus: “And it shall be, when you eat of the bread of the land, you shall set apart a portion, a separated gift, for the Lord; the firstfruit of your dough, a loaf, you shall set apart as an offering; as an offering from the threshing floor, so shall you set it apart” (Numbers 15:19–20).
The lump of dough, properly speaking, if we must tell the truth, is we ourselves, compounded and blended together out of a great many substances, so that we might be brought to completion. For cold with hot and dry with moist — opposing powers — the Molder of living beings mixed and blended together, and out of all of them fashioned each of us into a single compound, from which it is also called “dough.” Of this compound, whose two highest portions have fallen as the lot of soul and body, we must consecrate the firstfruits.
The firstfruits are the holy motions in accordance with the virtue of each. That is why the comparison is made to a threshing floor: just as on threshing floors wheat and barley and the like are separated out by themselves, while chaff and straw and any other refuse is scattered elsewhere, so too among us some things are best and beneficial, providing true nourishment by which the right life is accomplished, and these must be dedicated to God, while everything else that is not divine must be left, like refuse, to our mortal kind. From these, then, the offering must be taken.
But there are powers wholly unmixed with vice through and through, which it is not right to mutilate by division; these resemble undivided sacrifices, whole burnt offerings, of which Isaac is the clear example, whom he is commanded to lead up in the manner of a victim, allotted no share of any destructive passion.
This is stated elsewhere as well: “My gifts, my offerings, my fruits you shall be careful to bring to me at my feasts” (Numbers 28:2), not withholding any part or dividing it, but bringing them full, whole, and complete. For a feast of the soul is joy in complete virtues, and complete are those unmixed with any of the defects that the human race is capable of. Only the wise person keeps such a feast; no one else does, for a soul untouched by passions or vices
is a rare thing to find. Having thus given his account of the parts of the soul, the ruling part and the subject part, and of what in each of them is male or female, he next goes on to teach what follows. For knowing clearly that it is impossible to obtain male offspring apart from toil and diligence, he continues: “Every firstborn that opens the womb of a donkey you shall exchange for a sheep” (Exodus 13:13), which is equivalent to saying: exchange every toil for progress. For the donkey is the symbol of toil — since the animal is enduring — and the sheep is the symbol of progress, as its very name also shows.
Go, then, to the study of the arts and pursuits and everything else that is taught, having prepared your mind with all care, not carelessly or lazily, to endure every labor steadfastly, and take pains not to be held fast by fruitless toil, but to find progress and improvement leading to the most glorious end; for toil is bearable for the sake of progress.
But if you, for your part, take on the labor of toiling, while your nature yields nothing toward the better, resisting the improvements that come from progress, then change course and rest; for it is hard to fight against nature. That is why he adds: “But if you do not exchange it, you shall redeem it” (Exodus 13:13), which means: if you cannot exchange toil for progress, let the toil go as well. For “to redeem” carries this sense — to free the soul from endless and fruitless anxiety.
I say this not about the virtues but about the intermediate arts and other necessary pursuits concerned with the care of the body and the provision of external goods, since toil directed at complete and perfect ends, even if it falls short of that end, is by itself capable of benefiting those who engage in it, whereas everything outside virtue, if it fails to reach its goal, is entirely useless — just as with living creatures, if you remove the head, everything else perishes. The head of any undertaking is its end, by which, when it is fitted in place, the thing lives in a sense, but dies if you choose to cut it off and mutilate it.
So too athletes who cannot win, but are always defeated, should give up; and if some merchant or seafarer meets one misfortune after another, let him change course and rest; and those who, having taken up the intermediate arts, were unable through hardness of nature to receive the instruction, deserve praise for giving up, for such pursuits are not practiced for the sake of practice itself, but for the goal to which they are referred.
If, then, nature stands in the way of our better advances, let us not resist to no purpose, but where it cooperates, let us honor the divine with firstfruits and honors, which are ransoms for our soul, freeing it from savage masters and drawing it out into liberty.
Indeed, Moses acknowledges that the Levites, who became attendants in place of the firstborn, serving the only one worthy to be served, are the ransom for all the rest: “And I,” he says, “behold, I have taken the Levites from the midst of the sons of Israel in place of every firstborn that opens the womb among the sons of Israel; they shall be their ransom, and the Levites shall be mine. For every firstborn is mine; on the day I struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated to myself every firstborn in Israel” (Numbers 3:12–13).
The word that has taken refuge in God and become his suppliant is named Levite. Taking this from the most central and most governing part of the soul — that is, adopting it and allotting it to himself — God judged it worthy of the portion of seniority. From this it becomes clear that Reuben is the firstborn of Jacob, while Levi is the firstborn of Israel: the one carries off the seniority of time, the other that of rank and power.
For of toil and progress, of which Jacob is the symbol, the beginning is a good natural endowment, in respect of which he is called Reuben; but of the contemplation belonging to the only wise one, in respect of which he is ranked as Israel, the source is a disposition toward service, and the sign of that service is Levi. Just as Jacob is found to be heir of Esau's birthright, since eagerness for vice is overcome by toil directed toward the good, so too the birthright of Reuben's good natural endowment will be carried off by Levi, who has laid hold of complete virtue. The clearest proof of that completeness is to have become a refugee to God, abandoning all preoccupation with the realm of becoming.
These, properly speaking, are the deliverances and ransoms of a soul that longs for freedom. And perhaps this also introduces a doctrine altogether necessary: that every wise person is a ransom for the base one, who would not last even a short while were it not that the wise one, exercising mercy and forethought, took thought beforehand for his preservation — like a physician set against a patient's illnesses, making them milder or removing them altogether, unless they should force their way with an uncontrollable onrush and overwhelm even the care of treatment.
For thus Sodom too was destroyed, since no good was found able, as on a scale, to outweigh the untold multitude of evils; whereas if the number fifty had been found — by which release from slavery for the soul and complete freedom are proclaimed (Leviticus 25:10) — or any of the numbers after it, down to which the wise Abraham is recorded to have fixed the reduction at the number ten of instruction, the mind would not have perished so ingloriously (Genesis 18:24 ff.).
Yet one must try to save, so far as possible, even those who are altogether doomed to be destroyed by the vice within them, imitating good physicians, who, even when they see that recovery is impossible for the sick, nevertheless gladly administer treatment, so that nothing contrary to their intention may seem to happen through their own negligence. And if even some small seed of health shows itself, this must be fanned into flame, like a spark, with every care; for there is hope that, once it is drawn out and grown, it will yield a better and more surefooted life.
For my own part, whenever I see one of the earnest men living in a household or a city, I count that household or city blessed, and I believe it will have secure enjoyment of the goods present and will find the expectation of goods still absent brought to fulfillment, since God bestows his boundless and unbounded wealth for the sake of the worthy, even upon the unworthy. And I pray that such men may live as long as possible, since freedom from old age is not granted them, believing that good things remain with people only for as long as these men are able to live.
So whenever I see or hear that one of them has died, I am deeply downcast and grieved, and I mourn no less for the living than for them. For to these men it falls, by the natural course, to meet their necessary end, having received a happy life and a glorious death; but I mourn for those left bereft of the great and powerful hand by which they were kept safe, since they will very soon feel their own troubles, unless nature, in place of the former ones, provides that new fruits sprout up again for nourishment and enjoyment of those able to use them — as a tree does, shedding fruit already ripened.
Just as good men are a city's strongest safeguard for its permanence, so too, of the city that each of us constitutes -- composed of soul and body -- the most secure foundation is furnished by those lovers of prudence and knowledge, the words of reason, which the lawgiver, using a metaphor, calls "ransoms" and "firstborn," for the reasons I have already given.
It is for this reason too that he says the cities of the Levites are "redeemers forever" (Lev. 25:32), because the one who serves God has reaped eternal freedom, receiving successive healings in accordance with the continual turnings of the ever-moving soul. For the fact that they become redeemers not once but forever, as he says, implies this thought: that the soul is always turning and always being set free -- the turning arising from its being mortal by nature, the freedom being made secure by the grace of its benefactor, whose portion it has obtained by lot.
It is worth considering, not as a side matter, why in the world he assigned the cities of the Levites to the fugitives, deeming it fitting that those who seemed unholy should dwell together with the most holy -- these being the ones who committed involuntary manslaughter. We must say, first, what follows from what was said before: that the worthy man is a ransom for the worthless, so that it is fitting that those who have gone astray should come to those who are consecrated, for the sake of being purified; and next, that the Levites admit fugitives because they themselves are, in a sense, fugitives too.
For just as those men are driven from their homelands, so these too have left behind children, parents, brothers, their nearest and dearest, in order that in place of a mortal portion they might find the immortal one. But they differ in this: for the former the flight is unwilling, caused by an involuntary deed, while for the latter the departure is voluntary, out of love for what is best; and in this too, that for the former the Levites are a refuge, while for the Levites themselves the ruler of all is the refuge, so that the former have as an incomplete law the sacred word, while these latter have as their law the very God whom they serve as priests.
Furthermore, those who committed involuntary manslaughter were allotted to dwell in the very same cities as the Levites, because they too were deemed worthy of special privilege on account of a holy killing. For when the soul, having turned aside, honored the Egyptian god, the body, as though it were gold, then all the sacred words of reason, self-summoned, rushed forth armed with weapons of defense -- the proofs that come by knowledge -- setting over themselves as leader and general the high priest, prophet, and friend of God, Moses, and waged an undeclared war on behalf of piety, and did not cease until they had utterly destroyed all the doctrines of their opponents. So it is fitting that those who performed like actions, even if not identical, should have become fellow dwellers,
having performed the same deeds. There is also a certain account told among secret teachings, which one ought to entrust to the ears of the older, having stopped the ears of the younger against it. Among the powers surrounding God, all best of their kind, one, equal in honor to the others, is the legislative power -- for God himself is lawgiver and source of laws, from whom all particular lawgivers derive -- and this power is by nature divided in two: on the one side toward beneficence for those who act rightly, on the other toward punishment for those who sin.
Of the former division, then, the Levite is the servant; for he undertakes all the ministrations that pertain to the complete priesthood, by which the mortal is brought into fellowship with and made known to God, whether through whole burnt offerings, or through offerings of preservation, or through offerings of repentance for sins. Of the latter, the punitive division, those who commit involuntary manslaughter have become servants.
And Moses bears witness to this, saying: "But he did not act willingly; rather, God delivered him into his hands" (Exod. 21:13), so that the hands of this man are taken up as instruments, while the one who acts invisibly through them, unseen, is another -- the Unseen One. Let there dwell together, then, two attendants who are servants of the twofold kind of legislative power: of the one that leads toward benefaction, the Levite; of the one that leads toward punishment, the one who kills unintentionally.
"On the day," he says, "when I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated to myself every firstborn in Israel" (Num. 3:13) -- not that we should suppose this happened only at that time when Egypt was struck with the great plague of destruction upon its firstborn, that the firstborn of Israel became holy, but rather that this is the natural course of events for the soul, both long ago and now and again and always: whenever the ruling faculties of blind passion are destroyed, then the offspring of the soul that sees God keenly become holy, elder, and honored.
For the departure of vice brings about the entrance of virtue, just as, conversely, when the good withdraws, the evil that lies in wait comes in upon it. Thus, scarcely had Jacob gone out (Gen. 27:30) when Esau at once presented himself to the all-receiving mind, ready to stamp it, if he could, with the marks of vice instead of the impressions of virtue -- yet he could not manage to accomplish this, for having been supplanted and disinherited by the wise man, he found himself outstripped before he could take his revenge for what he suffered.
He brings the first fruits not only from the firstborn but also from the fat portions, showing that all that is joyous, rich, protective, and pleasing in the soul must be surrendered to God. And I observe, in the arrangements for sacrifices, that three things are prescribed to be offered up from the victims as the choicest parts -- fat, kidneys, and the lobe of the liver (Lev. 3:3ff.), about which we shall speak separately -- but nowhere the brain or the heart, which one would have expected to be consecrated before the others, if indeed, according to the lawgiver, the ruling faculty is acknowledged to reside in one of these two.
But perhaps, in perfect holiness and after careful consideration, he did not bring them up to God's altar, because the ruling faculty, in indivisible intervals of time, undergoes many turns toward either the better or the worse, and receives ever-changing impressions -- now of pure and approved coinage, now of debased and counterfeit.
The region, then, that has received both of these contending qualities, the noble and the shameful, and is disposed toward each alike, and assigns equal honor to both, the lawgiver, judging it no less unclean than sacred, brought down from the divine altar; for the shameful is profane, and the profane is altogether unholy.
But this ruling faculty he has set apart; and if it should undergo judgment, then, once all its parts have been purified, it will be offered as a whole burnt offering, unblemished and undefiled. For this is the law of whole burnt offerings: that nothing be left over for the created being except the refuse of food and the hide -- which are marks of bodily weakness, not of vice -- while all else, whatever furnishes the soul entire in all its parts, is to be wholly burnt to God.

======== That the Worse Attacks the Better ========

"And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out into the plain. And it came to pass that while they were in the plain, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him" (Genesis 4:8). What Cain intends is this: having drawn Abel into a dispute by provocation, he means to overpower him by plausible and specious sophistries. For the plain to which he urges him to come is, we say, a sign of rivalry and contention, inferring the unseen from what is evident.
For we observe that most contests, in war as in peace, take place on plains. In peacetime, those who compete in athletic contests pursue racecourses and open plains; and in war it is not customary to wage infantry or cavalry battles on hilly ground, for the unsuitability of such terrain would only increase the harm that enemies inflict on one another.
The greatest proof of this: when the practiced student of knowledge wages war against the opposing condition, ignorance, and in some manner shepherds the irrational powers within the soul, admonishing and disciplining them, this is seen taking place on a plain. "For Jacob sent and called Leah and Rachel to the plain, where the flocks were" (Genesis 31:4), making it plain that the plain is a sign of contentiousness. And why does he call them?
"I see the face of your father," he said, "that it is not toward me as yesterday and the day before; but the God of my father was with me" (Genesis 31:5). For this reason, I would say, Laban is not favorable toward you, because God is with you. For in whatever soul the perceptible external thing is honored as the greatest good, in that soul no noble reasoning is to be found; but in the soul in which God walks, the perceptible external good is not supposed to exist — which is precisely the meaning and the name of Laban.
And all who are set in order by a portion of the reasoning that advances after the pattern of the father teach the irrational impulses of the soul otherwise, choosing the plain as the fitting place for this. For it is said to Joseph: "Are your brothers not shepherding at Shechem? Come, let me send you to them." And he said, "Here I am." And he said to him, "Go and see whether your brothers and the flocks are well, and bring me word." And he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem. And a man found him wandering in the plain; and the man asked him, "What are you seeking?" And he said, "I am seeking my brothers; tell me where they are pasturing." And the man said to him, "They have gone from here, for I heard them saying, Let us go to Dothan" (Genesis 37:13–17).
That it is on the plain that they take charge of the irrational powers within themselves is clear from what has been said. And Joseph is sent to them because he is unable to bear his father's more austere knowledge, so that he might learn from gentler instructors what is to be done and what is expedient. For he holds an opinion woven together out of disparate things, altogether varied and manifold — which is why the lawgiver says a coat of many colors was made for him (Genesis 37:3), showing that the doctrine he introduces is labyrinthine and hard to escape.
For, philosophizing more for the sake of a way of life than for the sake of truth, he brings together and links into one the three kinds of goods — external, bodily, and of the soul — things wholly different from one another in nature, insisting that each is in need of the others and all of all, and that the good which is truly whole and complete is what is compounded from the sum of them, while the parts out of which this is built up are, taken separately, merely portions or elements of goods, but not goods that are complete.
For just as neither fire nor earth nor any of the four elements out of which the universe was fashioned is itself the cosmos, but rather the coming-together and blending of the elements into one — so likewise happiness is not to be found by itself in external things alone, nor in bodily things alone, nor in things of the soul alone taken by themselves — for each of these has the character of a part or element only —
but in the aggregate composed of all of them together. It is to be instructed in this opinion, then, that he is sent to men who consider the good, in the strict sense, to be the noble alone — which belongs to the soul as soul — while regarding what is called external and bodily advantage as advantage only, not truly good. "For behold," it says, "your brothers are shepherding" and ruling every irrational part within themselves "at Shechem" (Genesis 37:13); Shechem, translated, means "shoulder," a sign of the labor of endurance; for those who love virtue bear the greatest burden — the resistance to the body and bodily pleasure, and again to external things and the delights that arise from them.
"Come, then, let me send you to them" (ibid.), that is, be summoned and approach with the mind, taking a willing impulse toward learning what is better. But up to now you only put on the appearance of one who has received true instruction; for not having yet admitted this to yourself, you say you are ready to be taught anew when you say "Here I am" — from which you seem to me to expose your own rashness and readiness rather than to declare a readiness for learning. The proof: a little later the true man will find you wandering on the road (Genesis 37:15) — which would not have happened if you had come to the practice from a sound resolve.
And indeed the father's exhortation places no compulsion on you, so that you might pursue what is better willingly and of your own accord; for he says, "Go and see" — behold and consider and examine the matter with great precision; for you must first know what you are about to labor over, and only then proceed to attend to it.
But when you have looked closely and, turning your eye about, surveyed the whole thing thoroughly, examine further those who have already set themselves to it and become its practitioners — whether, in doing this, they are "well" and not rather deranged, as pleasure-lovers think, mocking and jeering at them. And do not confirm to yourself either your view of the matter or your judgment about the practitioners being well, until you have "brought back word" and reported it to the father; for the opinions of those just beginning to learn are unstable and unsettled, while those of the advanced are firm, and it is from these that beginners must necessarily take their own steadiness.
In this manner, O mind, if you search into the words handed down as sacred oracles — words of God, yet laws given to men beloved of God — you will find yourself compelled to accept nothing base or unworthy of their greatness. For this very matter now under discussion — how could any sensible person accept it? Is it likely that Jacob, who had such abundance fit for a king, was in such want of servants or attendants that he had to send his own son into a foreign place to bring back news of his other sons — and, on top of that, of the flocks?
His grandfather, apart from the multitude of captives whom he brought back after defeating nine kings, had more than three hundred household slaves; and the household diminished not at all, but as time went on everything increased in every respect. Given such abundant service, then, he would not have thought fit to send the son he cared for most on an errand that even the meanest of servants could easily have accomplished.
But you see that he also records, with peculiar emphasis, the place from which he sends him — all but openly urging us to depart from the literal sense: "from the valley of Hebron" (Genesis 37:14). Hebron, meaning "partnership" and "companionship," is symbolically our body, since it is yoked to the soul and set in a kind of fellowship and friendship with it. And it has valleys — the organs of sense, great reservoirs of everything perceptible from outside, which pour in the vast multitude of qualities and, through those reservoirs,
flood the mind and drown it, making it a thing sunk in the depths. This is why in the law concerning leprosy, when greenish or reddish hollows appear in a house, it is directed that the stones in which they have occurred be removed and others put in their place (Leviticus 14:37ff.) — that is, when the differing qualities produced by pleasures and desires and the passions akin to them weigh down and press upon the whole soul, making it more hollow and more base than itself, the causes of this weakness are to be uprooted as reasonings, and healthy ones brought in instead through lawful training or right education.
Seeing Joseph, then, wholly sunk into the hollows of the body and the senses, he summons him to come out of his lairs and, drawing a breath of free endurance, to go to those who were once practitioners of it but are now its teachers. But he who supposed he had come forth is found instead wandering: "a man found him," it says, "wandering in the plain" (Genesis 37:15), showing that it is not labor as such, but labor joined with skill, that is good.
For just as it is fitting to practice music not unmusically, nor grammar without grammar, nor, in general, any skill without skill or with bad skill, but each skillfully — so too one must not practice prudence cunningly, nor temperance stingily and meanly, nor courage rashly, nor piety superstitiously, nor any other kind of virtuous knowledge without knowledge; for all these are, admittedly, ways off the road. And this is also why the law lays down that we are to "pursue justice justly" (Deuteronomy 16:20), so that we may pursue justice and every virtue by its own kindred works, and not by their opposites.
If, then, you observe someone abstaining from foods and vegetables out of season, or refusing baths and ointments, or neglecting the coverings of the body, or making use of sleeping on the ground and rough lodging, and then putting on the airs of self-mastery because of these things — take pity on his wandering and show him the true road of self-mastery; for what he has practiced consists of endless, unwearying toils that, through hunger and other afflictions, ruin soul and body alike.
Nor should anyone be counted among the pious who, while using sprinklings and purifications, defiles his own mind while making his body shine; nor again anyone who, out of abundance, erects a temple with the most splendid furnishings and expenditures, or offers hecatombs and never ceases from sacrificing oxen, or adorns the sanctuary with costly dedications, bringing in materials without stint and workmanship more precious than any silver or gold.
For this man too has wandered from the road toward piety, taking ritual observance for holiness, and giving gifts to the incorruptible one, who will never accept such things, and flattering the unflatterable — who welcomes genuine service (and genuine service is the soul's offering of truth alone and unadorned as its sacrifice), but turns away from the counterfeit; and counterfeit is every display made through external abundance.
As for the man who found him wandering in the plain (Genesis 37:15), some say his proper name is not disclosed — and they themselves have, in a manner, wandered, being unable to see clearly the straight road of things. For if the eye of their soul had not been blinded, they would have known that the most fitting and most exact name for the man in the true sense is this very word, "man" — the name most proper to an articulate and rational mind.
This man, dwelling in the soul of each of us, is found now as ruler and king, now as judge and umpire of the contests of life, and sometimes, taking the position of witness or accuser, secretly convicts us from within, not even allowing us to open our mouths, but taking hold of us and, with the reins of conscience, checking the self-willed and unruly running course of the tongue.
This same conviction inquired of the soul, when it saw her wandering: "What are you seeking?" (Genesis 37:15). Prudence, is it? Then why do you walk the path of cunning? Temperance? But the path leads to stinginess. Courage? Rashness attends this path. Are you in pursuit of piety?
The road of superstition. And if she claims to be seeking the words of knowledge and to long for them as her nearest kin, her brothers, let us not altogether believe her; for she would not have asked "where they are grazing" (ibid. v. 16), but "where they are shepherding." For those who merely graze provide all perceptible things as food for the irrational and insatiable creature of the senses, on whose account we become powerless over ourselves and unhappy; but those who shepherd, having the power of rulers and leaders, tame what has grown savage, restraining the magnitude of the desires.
If, then, she were really seeking those who practice virtue in truth, she would look for them among kings, not among cupbearers or bakers or cooks; for the latter prepare things for pleasures, while the former rule over pleasures.
Therefore the man who perceived the deception rightly answers, ‘They have departed from here’ (Gen. 37:17). By this he indicates the bulk of the body, showing that all those for whom the labor of acquiring virtue is contested have abandoned the region of earth and resolved to roam the heights, drawing along none of the wax weights of the body. Indeed, he says he heard them saying:
‘Let us go to Dothan’ (ibid.) — which is translated ‘sufficient failing’ — showing that they have practiced not a moderate but an utter abandonment and failing of the things that do not cooperate toward virtue, just as it is said, ‘it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women’ (Gen. 18:11); for the passions are female by nature, and their failing must be cultivated in favor of the male marks of good feeling. So it is ‘in the plain,’ that is, in a contest of arguments, that Joseph too is found — the introducer of a variegated doctrine, wandering toward what is useful for a constitution rather than toward the pattern of truth.
There are some competitors who, because of the good condition of their bodies, are crowned without a fight when their opponents withdraw, not even raising the dust themselves, having won first place through incomparable strength. Making use of such power with respect to the most divine part within us, the mind, Isaac ‘goes out into the plain’ (Gen. 24:63), intending to contend with no one, since all his rivals have cowered before the grandeur and the surpassing excellence of his nature in every respect, wishing only to be alone and to converse privately with God, his fellow traveler and guide both of the road and of the soul.
The clearest proof that no one conversing with Isaac is mortal is this: Rebecca, Endurance, will ask about the boy, seeing only one and forming an impression of only one: ‘Who is this man walking to meet us?’ (ib. v. 65). For the soul that abides in noble things is capable of apprehending self-taught wisdom, called by the name Isaac, but is not yet able to see God, the guide of wisdom.
And confirming beforehand that she cannot apprehend the invisible one who converses unseen, the servant says, ‘This is my lord’ (ibid.), pointing only to Isaac; for it is not likely, if two had appeared, that he would point to only one — rather, he did not see the one who cannot be pointed to, since he is invisible to all intermediate beings.
That the plain, then, into which Cain challenges Abel to come, is a symbol of contest and rivalry, I think has been sufficiently shown. Next we must inquire what subjects they take up for investigation once they have come forward. Clearly it is opposing and conflicting opinions: Abel refers every doctrine that loves God back to God, while Cain — for his name is translated ‘possession’ — refers a self-loving doctrine back to himself. Now the self-loving, whenever they strip and raise dust against those who honor virtue, do not stop wrestling in the all-out contest until they force them to give up or utterly destroy them.
For they move every stone, as the saying goes, asserting: Is not the body the house of the soul? Why then should we not take care of a house, so that it not fall into ruin? Are not the eyes and ears and the whole chorus of the other senses like bodyguards and friends of the soul? Should we not, then, honor allies and friends equally with ourselves? Did nature create pleasures and enjoyments and the delights that run through the whole of life for the dead, or for those who have never even come into being at all, rather than for the living? And what has come over us that we should not acquire wealth, reputation, honors, offices, and all such other things, from which not only safe but happy living results?
Life itself is witness to this: those called lovers of virtue are almost all without reputation, despised, lowly, lacking necessities, held in less honor than subjects or even slaves, filthy, pallid, wasted to skeletons, staring at starvation from lack of food, chronically ill, practicing how to die. But those who take care of themselves are famous, rich, rulers, praised, honored, healthy, well-fed, robust, living luxuriously, pampered, knowing no toil, living together with pleasures that pour in through all the senses upon the all-receiving soul
— bringing pleasant things. By stretching out some such long-distance race of argument, they seemed to defeat those unaccustomed to sophistry. But the cause of their victory was not the strength of the winners, but the weakness of their opponents in this area. For among those who practice virtue, some have stored up the good in the soul alone, becoming practitioners of praiseworthy deeds, without so much as dreaming of the trickery of arguments, while others have managed both: fortifying their thinking with good counsel and good works, and their arguments especially with the arts pertaining to them.
It is fitting, then, for these latter to meet the contentious contests of some people, since they have the means readily prepared with which to fend off their opponents; but for the former there is no safety at all. For how could the naked ever fight on equal terms against the armed, when even for the well-prepared the contest is unequal?
Abel, then, did not learn the arts of argument, but knows the good by mind alone. For this reason he ought to have declined the journey to the plain and disregarded the challenge of his ill-disposed brother; for any hesitation is better than defeat. This hesitation his enemies call cowardice, but his friends call it safety; and one must trust friends rather than enemies, since friends do not lie.
Do you not see that Moses declines the sophists in Egypt in the body, whom he calls sorcerers — for by the arts of sophistry and deceptions good character is in a manner drugged and corrupted — saying that he is not ‘eloquent’ (Exod. 4:10), which is equivalent to saying he is not naturally suited to the rhetoric that fashions plausible and persuasive speech; and then affirming next that he is not merely not eloquent but is entirely ‘without speech’ (Exod. 6:12)? He is ‘without speech’ not in the sense in which we say animals lack reason, but as one who does not think it right to make use of the audible speech produced through the vocal organ, but marks and seals with mind alone the doctrines of true wisdom, which stands opposed to false sophistry.
And he will not go into Egypt, nor come into a contest with its sophists, until spoken reason has been thoroughly trained, when God, through the ordination of Aaron, has brought forth and perfected every form of expression — Aaron, Moses’ brother, whom he habitually calls ‘mouth’ and interpreter and ‘prophet’ (Exod. 4:16; 7:1); for all these things pertain to reason (logos), which…
…is the brother of the mind. For the mind is a spring of words, and speech is its outlet, since it is through speech that all its thoughts flow forth and are poured out into the open, like streams from a spring. Speech is also the interpreter of what the mind has deliberated in its own council chamber, and moreover the prophet and oracle-giver of what it never ceases to utter as oracles from its inner sanctuary, invisible as it is.
It is useful, then, to oppose those who wrangle over doctrines in this manner; for once we are trained in the forms of argument, we will no longer collapse from inexperience in sophistic wrestling holds, but rising up and standing firm, we will easily slip free of their crafty entanglements. Those who are once found out will seem to display the strength of shadow-boxers rather than of real competitors; for such men win applause when practicing their gestures alone, but when they come to an actual contest, they lose their reputation badly.
But if someone has adorned his soul with every virtue yet has not practiced the arts of argument, by keeping quiet he will find safety as a prize free of danger; whereas if, like Abel, he steps forward into a sophistic contest before he is firmly braced, he will fall.
For just as in medicine some who know how to treat almost every affliction, disease, and infirmity are unable to give a true or plausible account of any of them, while others, on the contrary, are clever with words — excellent expositors of symptoms, causes, and treatments, the elements of which the art is composed — but are utterly incompetent at caring for the bodies of the sick, unable to provide even the least contribution toward a cure; in the same way, some who practice wisdom through deeds have often neglected words, while others who have been trained in the arts of speech have stored up no fine learning at all in the soul.
It is no surprise, then, that these people, using an unbridled tongue, are emboldened with recklessness, for they are only displaying the folly they practiced from the start; but for those others, who like physicians have learned the part that heals the diseases and afflictions of the soul, it is necessary to hold back, until God provides them too with the best interpreter, having rained down and revealed to them the springs of speech.
It would therefore have been advantageous for Abel, making use of the saving virtue of caution, to have stayed at home, disregarding the challenge to a contentious and quarrelsome contest, imitating Rebecca, Endurance, who, when Esau, the devotee of vice, threatened to kill Jacob, the practitioner of virtue, instructs the one about to be plotted against to withdraw, until that man’s cruel rage against him should subside.
For he indeed holds out some unbearable threat, saying: ‘Let the days of mourning for my father draw near, so that I may kill Jacob my brother’ (Gen. 27:41); for he is praying that Isaac, the only form that is free from passion within created being — Isaac, to whom the oracle says, ‘do not go down into Egypt’ (Gen. 26:2) — should fall under irrational passion, so that, I suppose, he might be wounded by the stings of pleasure or grief or some other passion, showing that the one who is less perfect and makes progress only through toilsome effort will suffer not merely a wound but utter destruction. But the good God will neither make the unwoundable type of being susceptible to passion, nor hand over the practice of virtue to a murderous and demon-possessed man for its ruin.
Therefore the text that follows, ‘Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him’ (Gen. 4:8), suggests, on the surface impression, that Abel was killed; but on more careful examination, that it was Cain himself who was killed, by himself. So it must be read this way: ‘Cain rose up and killed himself,’ not another.
And reasonably so, for the soul that has destroyed within itself the doctrine that loves virtue and loves God has died to the life of virtue. So Abel — most paradoxically — has both been killed and lives: he has been killed as far as the mind of the fool is concerned, but he lives the happy life in God. The oracle that was spoken bears witness to this: in it he is found clearly using ‘voice’ and ‘crying out’ (Gen. 4:10) about what he suffered at the hands of his wicked partner — for how could one no longer existing be capable of speaking?
So the wise man, who seems to have died, lives the incorruptible life, though it seems he has died the perishable one; while the base man, though living, has died to the happy life amid his wickedness. For in the case of distinct living creatures, or bodies generally, it is possible and easy for the agent to be one thing and the patient another; whenever a father strikes his son to correct him, or a teacher strikes his pupil, the one who strikes and the one who is struck are different. But in the case of things united, where acting and being acted upon are found in the same subject, they occur neither at a different time nor as different things, but at the same time and in the same thing: whenever an athlete rubs himself down for the sake of exercise, he is certainly the one being rubbed; and if someone strikes or wounds himself, he is both striking and being struck; indeed the one who maims or kills himself is both maimed and killed. Now why have I said all this?
Because the soul, belonging not to the class of distinct things but to that of things united, must necessarily suffer what it seems to do — just as, indeed, in the present case too: for having thought to destroy the most God-loving doctrine, it has destroyed itself. Witness Lamech, the offspring of Cain’s impiety, who says to his wives — two thoughtless states of mind — ‘I have killed a man to my own wound, and a young man to my own bruise’ (Gen. 4:23).
For it is clear that if someone kills the reasoning of courage, he wounds himself with the opposite disease, cowardice; and if someone destroys strength renewed through the practice of noble things, he brings on himself blows and great outrages, along with no small shame. Endurance too says that if practice and progress are destroyed, one loses not a single offspring only but the others as well
she rejects, having accepted complete childlessness (Gen. 27:45). Just as the one who harms the good man has been shown to be harming himself, so too the one who claims for himself precedence over his betters procures a good—in word for them, but in fact for himself. Nature bears witness to my argument, as do the laws enacted in accordance with her; for it is stated plainly and clearly thus: 'Honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you' (Exod. 20:12)—not, it says, with those honored, but 'with you'; for whether we hold in honor the mind as father of the composite being or sense-perception as its mother, we ourselves will fare well at their hands.
Honor for the mind consists in being served by what is advantageous rather than by what is pleasant—and everything that comes from virtue is advantageous—while honor for sense-perception consists in not being let loose to be carried along by a single impulse toward external sensible things, but in being reined in by the mind, which knows how to steer and drive the irrational powers within us.
If, then, both sense-perception and mind receive the honor I have described, the one who makes use of both must necessarily benefit me; but if he draws his reasoning far away from mind and sense-perception, and deems worthy of honor the Father who begot the cosmos and the Mother, Wisdom, through whom the universe was brought to completion, he himself will fare well; for neither the God who is full nor the utmost and complete knowledge has need of anything, so that the one who serves them benefits not those served—who lack nothing—but rather himself most of all.
Horsemanship and dog-training, being the science of caring for horses on the one hand and dogs on the other, supply the animals with what is useful to them, of which they have need; and if it fails to supply this, it would seem negligent. But piety, being the service of God, it is not right to call a supplying of things that will benefit the divine; for God is benefited by no one, since he is neither in need nor is there anything in nature superior to him capable of benefiting him; on the contrary, he benefits all things continuously and unceasingly.
So when we say that piety is the service of God, we mean a kind of ministry such as slaves render to masters, having resolved to do without hesitation what is commanded. But there will again be a difference, in that masters are in need of service, while God has no need; so that slaves render to their masters what will benefit the masters themselves, but to God they will offer nothing beyond a disposition devoted to their Master; for they will find nothing to improve, since all that belongs to the Master is from the beginning best, but they will greatly benefit themselves by taking care to be recognized by God.
I consider that enough has been said on these matters, directed against those who suppose they are doing good or harm to others; for they have been found to be doing each of these to themselves. Let us examine what follows. The question is this: 'Where is Abel your brother?' (Gen. 4:9), to which he answers, 'I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?' (ibid.). It is therefore worth raising the difficulty whether it is proper to say, in the strict sense, that God inquires; for one who asks or inquires about things he does not know asks and inquires seeking an answer, from which he will come to know what he does not know; but all things are known to God—not only present and past things but future ones as well.
What use, then, is an answer, if it is not going to give the questioner any understanding? But it must be said that such expressions are not properly spoken of the Cause; rather, just as one can utter a falsehood without being a liar, so too one can put forward a question or an inquiry without asking or inquiring. For what purpose, then, someone may perhaps say, are such things said? So that the soul that is about to give the answers may be tested by itself concerning the things it declares well or ill, using neither an accuser nor an ally other than itself.
Since indeed when he asks the wise man, 'Where is your virtue?' (Gen. 18:9)—I mean Abraham, concerning Sarah—he does not ask in ignorance, but because he thinks Abraham ought to answer, so as to set forth the praise arising from the very words of the speaker; for it says that he said, 'Behold, in the tent'—that is, in the soul. Is the answer praiseworthy? Behold, he says, I have virtue within myself like some treasure, and because of this I am at once blessed.
For blessedness lies in the use and enjoyment of virtue, not in mere possession alone; and I would not be able to use it, unless you, sending down seeds from heaven, made it pregnant, and it brought forth the offspring of blessedness, Isaac—for I understand blessedness to be the use of perfect virtue in a perfect life. For this reason too, admiring his purpose, God acknowledges that he will bring to fulfillment in due season what
he asked for. To this man, then, the answer brought praise, since he confessed that not even virtue by itself, without divine providence, is sufficient of itself to benefit; but to Cain, correspondingly, it brought blame for saying he did not know where the man he had treacherously murdered was; for he thought he would deceive the one listening, as though he did not see all things and had not already grasped the deceit he was about to employ; but lawless and outcast is everyone who supposes that the eye of God overlooks anything.
But he even plays the impudent youth, saying, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' (Gen. 4:9); for surely, I would say, he would have lived most wretchedly, if nature had appointed you guardian and keeper of so great a good. Or do you not see that the lawgiver entrusts the preservation and guarding of holy things not to random people but to the Levites, most sacred in disposition? Earth and water and air, and heaven too, and the whole cosmos, were judged an unworthy portion for them; only the Craftsman was found worthy, to whom genuine suppliants have fled for refuge, becoming his servants, displaying their devotion to their Master through continuous service and through the most unhesitating guarding of what has been entrusted to them
—displaying, that is, this guardianship. And not even all the suppliants were permitted to become guardians of holy things, but only those who attained the fiftieth number, which proclaims release and complete freedom and return to their ancient allotments. 'For this,' it says, 'is the law concerning the Levites: from twenty-five years old he shall enter to work in the tent of testimony, and from fifty years old he shall withdraw from service, and shall work no longer, but his brother shall minister; and he shall keep the watches, but he shall not perform works' (Num. 8:24-26).
Accordingly, to the half he grants the perfection—for the number fifty is a perfect number, and twenty-five is half of it—to work and perform the holy things, showing his good pleasure through works; and the beginning, as one of the ancients said, is half of the whole—while to the perfect one he no longer grants labor, but the keeping safe of whatever he acquired through practice and toil; for may I never become one who practices virtues and then fails, in turn, to guard them.
Practice, then, is a middle state, not a perfect one, for it occurs in souls not yet perfect but reaching toward the summit; but guarding is complete, the handing over to memory of the truths practiced concerning holy things—a fair deposit of knowledge to a faithful guardian, who alone pays no heed to the manifold nets of forgetfulness; so that the one who remembers soundly and accurately what he has learned is rightly called a guardian.
This man, when he was earlier in training, was a disciple of another teacher; but when he became capable of guarding, he obtained the rank and function of a teacher, appointing his brother to the services of instruction—his own uttered word. For it is said that 'his brother shall minister' (Num. 8:26); so that the mind of the good man will be the steward of the doctrines of virtue, while his brother, speech, will minister to those pursuing education, expounding the doctrines and theorems of wisdom.
For this reason too Moses, in his blessings, after foretelling many wonderful things of Levi, adds: 'He guarded your oracles and kept your covenant'; and next: 'They will make known your judgments to Jacob and your law to Israel' (Deut. 33:9-10).
It is therefore clearly established that the good man is a guardian both of God's words and of his covenant; and it has likewise been shown that he is the best interpreter and expounder of his judgments and laws, interpretation being accomplished through the kindred instrument—the organ of speech, no doubt—while guarding is examined with respect to the mind, which, fashioned by nature as a great storehouse, has readily made room for the concepts of all bodies and things. It would indeed have profited even self-loving Cain to guard Abel; for if he had preserved him, he would have shared in a judged and moderate life, and not been filled with unmixed and unadulterated wickedness.
'And God said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground' (Gen. 4:10). The words 'What have you done' express both indignation at an unholy act and mockery at the one who supposes he has committed murder. Indignation arises over his intention, that he resolved to destroy the noble; mockery, because he thought he had plotted against his better, but had plotted no more against him than against himself; for
the one who seems to have died is alive, as I said before, since he is found to be both a suppliant of God and one who uses a voice; while the one supposed to survive has died the death of the soul, having been cut off from virtue, apart from which alone it is worth living; so that 'What have you done' is equivalent to 'You have done nothing'—you have accomplished nothing.
For not even the sophist Balaam, an empty crowd of contrary and warring opinions, though he wished to lay curses and harm the good man, had the power to do so, since God turned the curses into blessing (Num. 23:8), so that he might both refute the wickedness of
the unjust man and set forth his own love of virtue. Sophists are by nature accustomed to use their own faculties as enemies against themselves—arguments of reasoning and reasonings of intention standing opposed and in no way whatsoever in harmony; at any rate they wear out our ears, declaring justice to be sociable, self-control advantageous, self-restraint noble, piety most beneficial, and every other virtue most healthful and salutary; and again declaring injustice implacable, licentiousness diseased, impiety lawless, and every other vice most harmful—
and yet, though they think the opposite of what they say, they do not stop; rather, whenever they sing the praises of prudence and self-control and justice and piety, it is then above all that they are found being most foolish, most licentious, most unjust, most impious, confounding and overturning, so to speak, all things human and divine.
To such people one might rightly say what the oracle said to Cain: What have you done? What good have you accomplished for yourselves? What benefit have your many words about virtue conferred upon your soul? What part of your life, small or great, have you set right? What then? Have you not rather gathered together, against yourselves, true accusations—that although you understand noble things and philosophize in word, you have become the best interpreters, yet are forever caught both thinking and practicing the most shameful things? Surely, then, has not the noble died in your souls, now that evils have been kindled anew?
For this reason none of you truly survives. For just as when some musician or grammarian dies, the musicianship and grammatical skill that were in the men perish along with them, yet the forms of these arts remain and in a sense live on, coeval with the cosmos, according to which both those now existing and those yet to come will become, through unending successions, musicians and grammarians in their turn—so too, if the prudent or self-controlled or courageous or just or, in sum, wise element in someone is destroyed, none the less, within the immortal nature of the universe, prudence stands immortal and virtue entire stands imperishably engraved, in accordance with which there are even now some who are good, and will again come to be.
Unless we are also going to say that the death of some individual human being works the destruction of humanity itself—which the seekers of proper names will recognize as either a genus, a form, a concept, or whatever else one ought to call it. A single seal, though it stamps its shape upon countless, indeed innumerable, substances, sometimes remains in its own nature undamaged and in place, even when all the impressions it made in those substances have faded away.
Are we then not to think that the virtues, even if all the characters they have stamped upon the souls that have come to them are effaced through a corrupt way of life or some other cause, will nonetheless keep their own pure and incorruptible nature forever? Those uninitiated in education, then, not knowing the differences between wholes and parts, or between genera and species, or the equivocations found among these, confuse and muddle everything indiscriminately.
For this reason let every self-lover, surnamed Cain, be taught that he has destroyed only the namesake of Abel—the form, the part, the imprinted copy—not the archetype, not the genus, not the idea, which he supposes, being imperishable, to have perished along with the living creature. Let someone say to him, then, in mockery and derision: “What have you done, wretched man? Does not the God-loving opinion you think you have destroyed live on with God? You have become the murderer of yourself alone, the one being you could have lived with blamelessly, whom you destroyed by ambush.”
Now the words that follow are spoken altogether beautifully, both for the elegance of their expression and for the discoveries of thought they contain: “The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). The loftiness of the phrasing is plain to all who are not strangers to words; but let us examine, as far as we are able, the thoughts contained within it, beginning with the matter of the blood.
In many places of the legislation he declares that blood is the substance of the soul, saying outright, “For the soul of all flesh is blood” (Lev. 17:11). Yet when he first fashioned man, after the creation of heaven and earth and what lies between them, the Maker of living things says that “he breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7), thereby showing again that the substance of the soul is breath.
And indeed he is accustomed to keep the original premises always in view, judging it right that what follows should agree with what came before. He would not, then, having earlier said that breath is the substance of the soul, later call blood—an entirely different substance—the same, unless he were referring it to one of the most necessary and fundamental distinctions. What, then, is to be said?
Each of us, according to the nearest division, turns out to be two in number: a living creature and a human being. To each of these a kindred power of the soul has been allotted: to the one, the vital power, by which we live; to the other, the rational power, by which we have become rational beings. Of the vital power even irrational animals partake; but of the rational power they do not partake, while God, the source of the most venerable Reason, rules over it.
The power common to us and to irrational creatures, then, was allotted blood as its substance; but the power that flows from the rational source was allotted breath—not moving air, but a certain stamp and impression of divine power, which Moses, with a fitting name, calls “image,” showing that God is the archetype of rational nature, while man is a copy and likeness—not the two-natured living creature, but the best form of the soul, which is called mind and reason.
For this reason he says that the soul of flesh is blood, knowing that the nature of flesh has no share in mind, but partakes of life just as our whole body does; while he names the soul of man breath, calling “man”—not the composite creature, as I said—but that God-shaped creation by which we reason, whose roots he stretched up to heaven and fastened to the outermost vault of what are called the fixed stars.
For man alone of the things on earth God made a heavenly plant, fixing the heads of all other creatures downward toward the ground—for all of them face downward—but leading man's head upward, so that he might have Olympian and imperishable nourishment rather than earthly and perishable. Even in the case of our body, the part most devoid of perception he rooted to the earth, keeping it as far as possible from reasoning; but the senses that serve as the mind's bodyguard, and the mind itself, he settled as far as possible from the things of earth, binding them instead to the imperishable circuits of air and heaven.
Let us no longer wonder, then, we who are disciples of Moses, how man came to conceive a notion of the invisible God; for Moses himself, having learned the cause by revelation, explained it to us. He spoke thus: the Maker made no soul competent of itself to see its Maker, but reckoning that his creation would gain greatly if it received a notion of its Creator—for this is the very definition of happiness and blessedness—he breathed into it from above a share of his own divinity. The invisible imprinted its own stamps upon the invisible soul, so that not even the region of earth should go without an image of God.
The archetype was so entirely invisible that even the image made after it is not visible to sight. Yet, having been shaped according to that pattern, it received notions no longer mortal but immortal. For how could a mortal nature be able both to remain in place and to travel abroad at once, or to look upon things here and things elsewhere, to sail over the whole sea and traverse the earth to its farthest limits, or to lay hold of laws and customs, or, in general, of affairs and bodies—or, apart from earthly things, to grasp what lies on high: air, its changes, the peculiarities of the seasons, and all that is renewed each year in accordance with custom?
Or again, to fly up from earth through the air to heaven and examine the natures found in heaven—how they exist, how they move, what limits of beginning and end their motion has, how they are fitted together with one another and with the whole by some rightful kinship; or to devise arts and sciences, those that fashion external things and those that concern themselves with body and soul, working out how each may be made better—and countless other things whose number and nature it is not easy to comprehend in speech?
For mind alone among the things within us, being the swiftest runner of all, outstrips and passes beyond even the time in which it seems to occur, touching by invisible powers, and beyond time, the whole and its parts and the causes of these. Already it has come not only to the boundaries of earth and sea but of air and heaven, and even there it did not stop, judging the world too small a limit for its continuous and unceasing course, but longing to advance still further and to grasp, if it can, the incomprehensible nature of God—insofar, at least, as the mere fact of his existence can be grasped.
How, then, is it likely that the human mind, being so small a thing, confined within small masses—the membrane of the brain or the heart—should encompass so vast a magnitude as that of heaven and the world, unless it were an undivided fragment of that divine and blessed soul? For nothing of the divine is cut off by separation; it is only extended. Hence, having received a share of the perfection found in the whole, whenever it conceives of the world it expands together with the limits of the whole, suffering no rupture; for its power is one of extension.
Let this suffice, then, as said briefly, concerning the substance of the soul. But as for the phrase “the voice of blood cries out” (Gen. 4:10), we shall explain it in what follows in this way. Of our soul, one part is voiceless, the other endowed with voice: the irrational part is voiceless, while the rational part alone has voice, and this alone has received a notion of God; for by the other parts we can grasp neither God nor anything intelligible.
Of the vital power, then, whose substance is blood, a certain portion received as its special privilege voice and reason—not the stream that flows through mouth and tongue, but the source from which the reservoirs of spoken speech are naturally filled. That source is the mind, through which we utter, partly willingly and partly unwillingly, our pleas and outcries to Him who Is.
He, being good and gracious, does not turn away suppliants, above all when they cry out, without pretense or deceit, groaning over the deeds and sufferings inflicted by the Egyptians. For then, Moses says, their words went up to God (Exod. 2:23), and He, having heard, rescued them from the evils that beset them.
And all this comes to pass, most paradoxically, when the king of Egypt dies. For one would expect that at the death of a tyrant those he tyrannized would rejoice and be glad; but instead they are said, at that very moment, to groan: “For after those many days the king of Egypt died, and the sons of Israel groaned” (ibid.).
Taken literally, then, the passage does not contain a reasonable sense; but with reference to the powers within the soul, its coherence is found. For when Pharaoh—the one within us who scatters and casts away right opinions about the good—is kindled to life and seems to be in good health, if indeed one may call any vice “healthy,” we then welcome pleasure, driving self-control beyond its proper bounds. But when he has been overpowered and, in a manner of speaking, dies—he who is the cause of a shameless and licentious life—having caught sight of the temperate life, we weep and groan over ourselves for our former way of living, because, having honored pleasure above virtue, we yoked a mortal existence to an immortal one. Then He alone who is gracious, taking pity on our continual lamentation, welcomes our suppliant souls and easily thrusts away the Egyptian thunderbolt of the passions that has been hurled against us.
But upon Cain, who does not accept repentance, He lays curses most fitting to the enormity of his fratricide. For first He says to him, “And now you are cursed from the earth” (Gen. 4:11), showing that he was accursed and defiled not first now, when he committed the murder in deed, but even earlier, when he plotted the killing—for the intention has power equal to the completed act.
So long as we merely conceive of shameful things in the bare imagining of the mind, we are not yet subject to judgment, for the soul may even turn to such things involuntarily; but once the deed is added to what was deliberated, the deliberation itself also becomes culpable, for it is above all by this that voluntary wrongdoing is distinguished.
He says that the mind will become accursed by nothing other than the earth; for among its harshest misfortunes is found the earthly cause attaching to each of us. The body, for instance, either through disease inflicts upon itself the ills of distress and anguish and so fills the mind with them, or, fattened beyond measure by the enjoyment of pleasures, blunts the mind's keenness for apprehension.
And indeed each of the senses is capable of causing harm: one man, seeing beauty, is wounded by the arrows of dread passion, love; another, hearing of the death of a kinsman, is bowed down by grief. Often taste, too, has brought a man low, tormenting him with unpleasant flavors or oppressing him with an excess of pleasant ones; and as for the frenzies driving toward intercourse, what need is there to mention them? These have destroyed whole cities and lands and vast regions of the earth—witnessed by almost the entire multitude of poets and writers.
The manner in which the mind becomes accursed from the earth he further describes, saying: “Which opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother” (Gen. 4:11). For it is a grievous thing when the mouths of the senses are opened and widened so far that, gaping wide, the torrent of sensible things pours in upon them like a river in flood, with nothing to check its violent onrush; for then the mind, swallowed up in so great a wave, is found submerged in the depths, unable even to swim up and lift its head above the surface.
But one must use each of these faculties not for what it is capable of, but for what is best. Sight is capable of seeing every color and shape, but let it look at what is worthy of light, not of darkness; and hearing too is capable of taking in every sound, but let it be deaf to some of them, for countless things said are shameful. Nor, because nature has given you a share of taste, you vain-minded man, should you gorge on everything insatiably like a gull; for many things, not only unnourishing but superfluous, have bred diseases with grievous pain.
Nor, because you have been deemed worthy of the parts ordained for begetting, for the sake of preserving the universe, should you pursue seductions and adulteries and other unholy unions, but only those that lawfully sow and plant the human race. Nor, because you have been allotted a tongue and a mouth and organs of speech, should you blurt out everything, even what must not be said; for holding one's tongue is sometimes useful, and it seems to me that those who have learned to speak have also learned to be silent, since the same capacity produces both, while those who go on about what is unfitting display not power of speech but weakness of silence.
We must therefore take pains to bind each of the openings just named with the unbreakable bonds of self-control; for "whatever is not bound with a bond," says Moses elsewhere, "is unclean" (Num 19:15) -- as though the loosening, gaping, and slackening of the soul's parts were the cause of misfortune, while their being drawn together and constricted produced an upright life and an upright reason. Rightly, then, does he curse the godless and impious Cain, because, having thrown open the burrows of his compound nature, he gaped at everything outside, praying in his insatiable greed to receive it all and make room for it, to the destruction of Abel's God-loving creed.
"He shall work the earth" (Gen 4:12) -- he shall not farm it. For every craftsman is a worker of the earth, since farming too is a craft, but many untrained people till the ground without experience, merely to supply their needs; such people do much harm in what they do, having found no one to oversee them, and whatever they happen to do well, they achieve by luck, not by reason. But the works of farmers carried out with knowledge are of necessity wholly beneficial.
For this reason the lawgiver attached the art of farming to righteous Noah (Gen 9:20), teaching that just as the good farmer, among the wild growth, cuts away whatever shoots are harmful, planted there by the passions or the vices, but leaves standing whatever, though it bears no fruit, can serve as a fence -- a most secure defense for the soul in place of a wall -- and again tends the whole of the cultivated growth by differing methods, not the same ones for all, taking away from some plants, adding to others, increasing some to greater size, cutting others down to smallness --
-- and once, seeing a vine flourishing, he stretched its shoots along the ground, having dug trenches and then heaped the soil over them again; and before long these, whole plants instead of mere parts, mothers instead of daughters, came to be, the natural mother herself even shedding her old age in the process. For once she had ceased distributing and doling out nourishment to her many offspring, since they had become able to feed themselves, for which reason, being starved, she had grown weak, she was at last barely satisfied, so that, being fattened again, she grew young once more.
I have also seen another man who, noticing an ignoble shoot among the cultivated trees, cut away the part rising above the ground but left a small stub standing just at the roots, and then, taking a healthy branch from another, well-bred tree, pared it down on one side as far as the pith, and having cut into the stub near the roots -- not to any great depth, but only enough to open a gap -- fitted the pared branch into the gap and joined it there.
From the two of these a single united nature of tree comes to be, each part returning benefit to the other: the roots nourish the grafted branch and keep it from withering, while the branch gives the roots, in return for its nourishment, the gift of good fruit. There are countless other skillful works belonging to farming, which it would be superfluous to mention now; it was only to show the difference between a mere worker of the earth and a farmer that we have dwelt on this at such length.
Now the base man never ceases working, unskillfully, upon the earthly body and the senses akin to it and all the sensible things outside it, and in doing so he harms his own thoroughly wretched soul, and harms also the very thing he thinks he benefits most, his own body. But for the man of worth -- since he is experienced in the art of farming -- all this matter is handled skillfully and with reason.
Whenever the senses run riot toward external sensible things, carried along with an uncontrollable rush, they are easily restrained by some device that art has devised; but whenever a throbbing, raw passion arises in the soul, producing itchings and ticklings from pleasure and desire, or again bitings and frights from fear and grief, it is brought to a head by a saving remedy prepared in advance; and indeed, if some spreading vice grows and lengthens -- a disease of the soul akin to the creeping sickness of the body -- it is cut away by the knife of reason working according to knowledge.
In this way, then, the growths of the wild matter are tamed. But all the plants of the tame and fruit-bearing virtues have our practices as their shoots and our noble actions as their fruit; each of these the farming art of the soul makes to grow, and, so far as lies within its own power, renders immortal through its care.
It has therefore been clearly shown that the man of worth is a farmer, while the base man is a mere worker of the earth. And would that the earthiness surrounding him, at least, added strength to the base man as he works it, rather than stripping away even the power he had; for it is said, "it will not continue to give you its strength" (Gen 4:12) -- what kind of man would one become who is always eating or drinking,
yet never filled, or one who takes the pleasures that follow the belly one after another and is still, besides, at full vigor for the appetites of intercourse? For want produces weakness, and being filled produces strength; but insatiability, amid an abundance of what is needed, joined to a dreadful lack of self-control, is itself a kind of famine. Wretched are those whose bodily bulk is full while their desires remain empty, and still thirsting.
But of the lovers of knowledge he says, in the Great Song, that God "brought them up upon the strength of the earth, and fed them with the produce of the fields" (Deut 32:13), showing that the godless man fails of his end, and so suffers all the more pain, since strength is not added to what he does but is rather taken from it, while those who pursue virtue, standing far above all that is earthly and mortal, count the power of such things as nothing, for all their abundance, since they have taken God as guide of their ascent -- God, who also offers the produce of the fields for their enjoyment and most beneficial use, likening the virtues to fields, and what the virtues bring forth to the field's produce, in keeping with how each comes to be; for from prudence comes the act of being prudent, from self-control the act of being self-controlled, from piety the act of being pious, and from
each of the other virtues its corresponding activity. These, properly speaking, are the food of a soul capable of nursing, as the lawgiver says: "honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock" (Deut 32:13), meaning by "rock" the solid and unbreakable wisdom of God, the nurse and foster-mother and rearer of children for those who long for the incorruptible way of life.
For she, being as it were the mother of all that has come to be in the cosmos, at once brought forth food from herself for her offspring; yet not all were deemed worthy of divine food, but only those of her children who were found worthy of the one who bore them. For there are many whom the famine of virtue -- more grievous than the famine of food and drink -- has destroyed.
The spring of divine wisdom flows at times with a calmer, gentler current, and at other times again with a sharper speed and a greater rush and force. When it comes down gently, it sweetens like honey; when it comes with swiftness, it becomes, all at once, like oil for the light of the soul.
This same rock, elsewhere using a different name for it, he calls manna, the most ancient of all things, the divine Word, which is named "the something" -- the most generic thing there is -- from which two cakes come to be, one of honey, the other of oil: that is, two paths altogether inseparable and worthy of earnest pursuit, which at first produce a sweetness in the teachings of knowledge, and afterward flash forth the clearest light for those who take hold of what they love, not fickly, but with strength and firmness, through unbroken and continuous perseverance. These, then, as I said, "are brought up upon the strength of the earth" (Deut 32:13).
But to the godless Cain the earth adds nothing to give him vigor, even though he busies himself with nothing beyond working it. And so, consistently, he is found "groaning and trembling upon the earth" (Gen 4:12) -- that is, given over to grief and fear. Such is the life of the base man, ill-starred, allotted the more painful of the four passions, fear and grief, the one akin to groaning, the other to trembling; for such a man must either have some evil present or expect one to come. The expectation of what is to come breeds fear, and the experience of what is present breeds grief.
But the man who pursues virtue is found amid the corresponding good states of feeling; for he has either already gained the good, or he will gain it. The having of it produces joy, the fairest of possessions; the expectation of having it produces hope, the sustenance of souls that love virtue, through which, casting off hesitation, we meet noble deeds with a readiness that commands itself.
In whatever soul righteousness has begotten a male offspring -- right reasoning -- from that soul all painful things have been banished. The birth of Noah, whose name is translated "righteous," bears witness to this; of him it is said: "This one shall give us rest from our works and from the toils of our hands and from the earth which the Lord God has cursed" (Gen 5:29).
For it is the nature of righteousness, first, to produce rest in place of toil, by making one indifferent to the borderlands of vice and virtue -- wealth and reputation and offices and honors and all their kin, with which most of humankind busies itself -- and next, to remove griefs, which arise from our own actions (for Moses does not say, as some of the impious do, that God is the cause of evils, but rather our own hands, presenting our undertakings symbolically as "hands," and the willing turnings of the mind toward the worse); and, above all, to give rest "from the earth which the Lord God has cursed."
This is the vice that is established in the souls of the foolish, from which, as from a grievous disease, the righteous man is found to turn away, having obtained righteousness as a cure for all ills. And whenever he has thrust away evils, he is filled with joy, as Sarah was; for she says, "The Lord has made laughter for me," and adds, "for whoever hears will rejoice with me" (Gen 21:6).
For God is the craftsman of the virtuous man's laughter and joy, so that Isaac must be considered not a creature of ordinary generation but a work of the Unbegotten. For if Isaac is translated "laughter," and God, according to Sarah's truthful testimony, is the maker of laughter, then God may most rightly be said to be Isaac's father. He also gives a share of his own title to the wise Abraham, to whom he has granted rejoicing, an offshoot of wisdom, having cut away grief from him. If anyone, then, is capable of hearing God's creative work, he himself necessarily rejoices, and he rejoices together with those who have already, through listening, come to share in it.
In God's creative work you will find no fabrication of myth, but all the unblemished rules of truth set up like inscribed pillars, nor anything that charms the ear through music with measures of sound and rhythms and melodies, but rather the most perfect works of nature itself, allotted their own proper harmony. And just as the mind, when it listens to God's works, rejoices, so too does reason, being in tune with the thoughts of the mind, and in a certain way attending
For the oracle given to all-wise Moses will make this clear, in which these words are contained: "Is not Aaron your brother, the Levite? I know that he will speak for you; and see, he will come out to meet you, and when he sees you he will rejoice in himself" (Exodus 4:14). For the Craftsman says he knows that spoken word, which is the brother of the mind, speaks; for he made it as an instrument giving articulate sound for our whole composite being.
This word speaks and interprets our thoughts to me, to you, and to all people, and goes out to meet what the mind has reasoned. For whenever the mind, roused toward one of its proper objects, takes an impulse, whether moved from within by itself or having received impressions of a different kind from outside, it conceives and is in labor with its thoughts; and though it wishes to give birth, it is unable, until the sound that comes through the tongue and the other vocal organs, receiving them like a midwife, brings the thoughts forth into the light.
This sound is the clearest voice of our thoughts. For just as things stored away are hidden in darkness until a shining light reveals them, in the same way our thoughts are kept in an invisible place, the mind, until speech, shining upon them like light, uncovers them all.
It is beautifully said, then, that the word goes out to meet our thoughts, and indeed runs eagerly to seize hold of them, out of longing to disclose them. For to each thing its own proper work is most longed for; and the proper work of speech is to speak, toward which it hastens by a certain natural kinship. It rejoices and delights when, as though illuminated, it sees and grasps distinctly the sense of the matter being shown; for then, having taken hold of it fully, it becomes an excellent interpreter.
Those, then, who do not fully master their thoughts in the course of speaking, we reject as babblers and ramblers, stringing together empty and long and, properly speaking, lifeless utterances. The speech of such people, behaving disgracefully, would justly groan; so that, by contrast, the speech that comes from a thorough survey of one's thoughts, arriving adequately at the disclosure of what it has seen and firmly grasped, must necessarily rejoice.
This is known to nearly everyone from daily experience. For whenever we know perfectly what we are saying, our speech, rejoicing and delighting, grows rich in the most vivid and proper words, by which, with great abundance, it presents what is meant fluently, without stumbling, and moreover clearly and effectively. But whenever our grasp of the thought wavers between two possibilities, then, harassed by dire perplexity, it wanders about lacking clear and well-aimed words and speaks improperly; and so it becomes flooded and lost in unpleasantness and distress, and instead of persuading its hearers' ears
it forces them to suffer pain. Let not every speech, however, go out to meet every thought, but only the perfect Aaron to the thoughts of the most perfect Moses; for why else did he add to "See, Aaron your brother" the words "the Levite," if not to teach that it belongs to the Levite alone, the priest and excellent word, to disclose thoughts that are the offspring of a perfect soul?
For may speech never become the interpreter of divine doctrines if it belongs to a base person—for it disgraces their beauty with its own stains—nor, conversely, may licentious and shameful things ever be disclosed through the utterance of a person who is excellent; but let the recounting of holy things always be performed by holy and sacred words.
In one of the best-governed cities, they say, there is a custom of this kind: whenever someone who has not lived rightly attempts to bring forward a proposal to the council or the assembly, he himself is forbidden to do this in person, but is compelled to refer the proposal to one of the officials, to one of the noble and good men; then that man, standing up, recounts what he has heard, the mouth of the one who taught him having been sewn shut, appearing as a pupil suddenly transformed, and displaying discoveries not his own, not even claiming for the one who conceived them the rank of a hearer or a spectator. In this way some people refuse to be benefited even by wrongdoers, considering the shame that follows to be a greater harm than the benefit that would result
would be worth. This teaching Moses, the most holy, seems in some way to have taught in advance; for such is the meaning of Aaron the Levite meeting his brother Moses and, upon seeing him, rejoicing in himself (Exodus 4:14). And rejoicing "in himself" reveals, apart from what has already been said, a doctrine more applicable to civic life as well, the lawgiver showing the genuine joy most proper to a human being.
For, properly speaking, one cannot rejoice over an abundance of money or possessions, nor over the brilliance of reputation, nor in general over anything external, being both lifeless and unstable and receiving corruption from itself; nor indeed over strength and vigor and the other advantages of the body, which are common even to the basest people and have often brought inescapable ruin upon those who possess them.
Since, then, unadulterated and unfalsified joy is found only in the goods of the soul, every wise person rejoices in himself, not in what is around him. For the things within oneself are the virtues of the mind, on which it is fitting to take pride, while the things around oneself are bodily well-being or abundance of external goods, over which one should not boast greatly.
Having shown, then, as far as was possible, through the most truthful witness Moses, that rejoicing is proper to the wise, let us in turn show that hoping is too, using no other witness. For the son of Seth, named Enosh—which is translated "man"—... hope: "This man was the first to hope to call upon the name of the Lord God" (Genesis 4:26), speaking soundly; for what could be more proper to a human being, with regard to truth, than hope and expectation of obtaining good things from God alone, the lover of giving? This is, if the truth must be told, the only genesis of human beings properly speaking, since those who do not hope in God have no share in a rational nature.
For this reason, after first saying of Enosh that "this man hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God," he expressly adds: "This is the book of the genesis of humankind" (Genesis 5:1), speaking earnestly; for it is inscribed in God's book that only the one full of good hope is a human being, so that conversely the one devoid of hope is not a human being. The definition of our composite nature, then, is a rational, mortal living being, but the definition of the human being according to Moses is a disposition of soul that hopes in the truly existing God.
Let the refined, then, who have obtained joy and hope as a happy inheritance, either possess or expect only good things; but let the base, whose companion is Cain, being in griefs and fears, reap either a share of evils or the most grievous expectation of them, groaning over the painful things at hand, trembling and shuddering over the fearful things expected (cf. Genesis 4:12).
But let this suffice on these matters; let us examine what follows. "And Cain said to the Lord," it says, "My guilt is greater than can be forgiven" (Genesis 4:13). What this means will become clear from similar cases. If a helmsman were to abandon a ship at sea, would it not be inevitable that the ship goes astray in its voyage? And what if a charioteer abandons a four-horse team in a chariot race—would it not be inevitable that the team's course becomes disorderly and faulty? And what, when a city is abandoned by its rulers or its laws—for laws, surely, are enrolled among the rulers—is it not destroyed by anarchy and lawlessness, the greatest of evils? And indeed the body naturally perishes from the absence of the soul, the soul from the absence of reason, and reason from want of virtue.
But if each of the things I have mentioned brings loss to those abandoned by them, with how great a misfortune must we recognize that those abandoned by God are afflicted, whom he has turned away from and banished like deserters from the most sacred ordinances, having judged them unworthy of his own oversight and rule? For altogether one must know that a person let go by the one who is better and beneficial falls under the gravest charges and accusations.
For when would you say a person unskilled in a craft is most harmed? Is it not when he is left utterly without expert knowledge? And when the ignorant and thoroughly uneducated person? Is it not when teaching and learning declare an abandonment of him? And when do we count the foolish most unfortunate? Is it not when prudence rejects them altogether? And the licentious or unjust? Is it not when temperance and justice vote for their perpetual exile? And the impious? Is it not when piety bars them from its own rites?
For this reason it seems to me that those who are not utterly incurable would pray to be punished rather than let go; for release will most easily overturn them, like ships without ballast and without a pilot, while punishment will set them right.
Or are not those who are rebuked by tutors for their errors better off than those without tutors, and those reproved by teachers when they fail in their arts better off than those unreproved, and are not those who are more fortunate and better off than youths left without guardians those who have been granted, above all, the natural oversight and rule that parents obtain over their children—or, failing that, at least those who have obtained secondary guides, whom pity for orphanhood is accustomed to appoint as guardians, to fulfill in every respect the office of parents
Let us then, who are convicted by conscience of our own wrongdoings, beg God to punish us rather than let us go; for one whom he lets go he no longer regards as his own gracious slave, but hands over to merciless generation, while one whom he punishes, being kind, he will correct with gentleness and mildness, sending into the mind that reproof which chastens—his own word—by which, having shamed and rebuked it for its errors, he will heal it.
For this reason the lawgiver says that "whatever a widow or a divorced woman has vowed against her own soul" shall remain binding upon her (Numbers 30:10); for we will rightly say that God, as husband and father of all, provides the sowing and the genesis of all things, while the mind is divorced and widowed of God when it either has not received divine seed, or, having received it, has of its own will miscarried again.
Therefore whatever such a mind determines, it determines against itself, and these things will remain wholly incurable; for how could it not be an evil to be shunned, for a nature so utterly unstable and unsettled to determine something and pronounce it fixed about itself, ascribing to itself the virtues of its maker? Of these virtues one is that by which each thing is determined without hesitation and without wavering.
Therefore it will not only be widowed of knowledge, but will also be cast out; and this is what it means: the soul that is widowed but not yet cast out from the beautiful can, by persevering, somehow find terms of reconciliation and agreement with right reason as its lawful husband; but the soul once separated and put away, as irreconcilable, is shot forth for the whole of time, unable to return to its ancestral home.
Let this suffice, then, concerning "my guilt is greater than can be forgiven"; let us consider what follows. "If you cast me out today from the face of the earth," he says, "I shall also be hidden from your face" (Genesis 4:14). What are you saying, my good man? If you are cast out from the whole earth, will you still be hidden? In what way? For could you even live?
Or did you not know this, that nature has given to living creatures different places, and not the same ones, for their continuance -- the sea to fish and every kind of water creature, the land to all land creatures? And man, at least by the composition of his body, is a land creature. For this reason, when each kind exchanges its proper region and comes, as it were, into a foreign land, it easily dies -- land creatures by sinking beneath the water, water creatures by swimming up onto dry land.
If then you, being a man, should be cast out from the earth, where will you turn? Will you swim beneath the water, imitating the nature of water creatures? But you will die at once, submerged. Or will you grow wings and raise yourself aloft, wishing to walk on air, changing your land-nature into that of a winged creature? But if you can, go ahead and remold and recoin the divine currency -- but you will not be able to. For the higher you raise yourself aloft, the more swiftly, from a greater height and with greater force, to your own proper place, on earth, you
will be carried. Could a man, or anything that has come to be, be able to hide from God? Where -- from him who has reached everywhere, who looks to the very ends, who has filled the universe, of whose beings not even the smallest is left destitute? And what is strange in this, if it is not possible for anything that has come into being to hide from the One who Is, when it is not even possible to escape the material first principles themselves, but whoever flees one must pass over into another?
If the One who Is, by the same art with which he made amphibious creatures, wished also to fashion anew a creature that would live everywhere, this creature -- if the heavy ones fled from earth and water, it would go over to the naturally light elements, air and fire; and conversely, if while dwelling among the things aloft it sought to migrate from them, it would change to the opposite region. For it was altogether necessary for it to appear in some one part of the world, since it was impossible to run outside the whole -- and besides, the Craftsman left nothing outside, having spent the four elements entirely, whole through whole, on the constitution of the world, so that from perfect parts he might complete the most perfect whole.
Since then it is impossible to escape the work of God as a whole, how is it not all the more impossible to flee from its Maker and Ruler? Let no one, then, adopting the ready-to-hand reading of the text, fasten his own foolishness onto the Law without examination; rather, let him look closely and discern clearly what it hints at through underlying meanings.
Perhaps, then, what is signified by 'If you cast me out today from the face of the earth, I shall be hidden from your face' is this: if you do not provide me the good things of earth, I do not accept those of heaven either; and if there is no use and enjoyment of pleasure, I renounce virtue as well; and if you do not give me a share of human goods, keep the divine ones too.
For these are, in our view, the necessary, honored, and truly genuine goods: to eat, to drink, to be clothed, to be delighted through sight by varieties of colors, to be charmed through hearing by melodies of all kinds of sounds, to be gladdened through the nostrils by fragrant exhalations of scents, to indulge to satiety in all the pleasures of the belly and those beyond the belly, not to neglect the acquisition of silver and gold -- let him wrap himself also in honors and offices and whatever else contributes to reputation. But as for prudence, or endurance, or the austere dispositions of justice that prepare a laborious life, let us leave those aside; and if indeed one must make some use of them, it should not be as of goods complete in themselves, but as of things productive of good.
So you, ridiculous man, say that once stripped of bodily and external advantages you will not come into the sight of God? But I tell you that, if you are stripped of them, you will surely come into it. For once released from the unbreakable bonds of the body and those around
the body, you will form an image of the Unbegotten. Do you see that Abraham, having 'left behind his land and kindred and his father's house' (Gen 12:1) -- that is, the body, sense-perception, and reason -- begins to encounter the powers of the One who Is? For when he has gone forth from the whole household, the Law says that 'God appeared to him' (Gen 12:7), showing that he appears clearly to the one who has stripped off mortal things and has run up into a soul incorporeal in relation to this body.
For this reason Moses too, 'taking his own tent, pitches it outside the camp' (Exod 33:7) and settles it far from the bodily encampment, hoping that only in this way would he become a perfect suppliant and servant of God. And he says this tent is called 'of testimony,' very carefully so, in order that it may belong to the One who Is, and not merely be so called. For of the virtues, that of God is truly established in accordance with being, since God alone subsists in being. For this reason it will be necessarily said of him: 'I am the One who Is' (Exod 3:14), as though those after him did not exist in accordance with being, but were thought to subsist only in appearance. But the tent of Moses, being symbolically the virtue of a man, will be deemed worthy of being called so, not of actually existing so -- being an imitation and copy of that divine one.
In keeping with this is also the fact that Moses, when he is appointed 'god of Pharaoh,' has not truly become so, but is only supposed to be so in appearance. For I know God as giver and bestower, but I cannot conceive of him as given. Yet it is said in the sacred books: 'I give you as god to Pharaoh' (Exod 7:1), the one given being acted upon, not acting; whereas that which truly Is must be active, not passive. What then is gathered from this?
That the wise man is called god of the fool, but is not truly God, just as a counterfeit four-drachma coin is not really a four-drachma coin. But when he is compared with the One who Is, he will be found to be a man of God; when compared with a foolish man, he is thought of as god in appearance and semblance, not in truth and reality.
Why then do you speak vainly, saying 'If you cast me out from the earth, I shall be hidden from you' (Gen 4:14)? On the contrary, if he drives you away from what is earthly, he will show his own image clearly. Here is the proof: you will be removed from the face of God, but once removed you will nonetheless dwell in your earthly body just the same. For it says again: 'Cain went out from the face of God and dwelt in the land' (Gen 4:16). So it is not that, cast out from the earth, you have hidden the One who Is, but that, turned away from him, you have taken refuge in the earth, the region of mortality.
And indeed it is not true that 'everyone who finds you will kill you,' as you cleverly argued (Gen 4:14). For what is found is found by one of two things, either the like or the unlike -- by the like and kindred because of the affinity and fellowship present in all things, by the unlike because of its opposing alienness. Now the like is protective of what resembles it, while the unlike is destructive of what differs from it.
Let Cain, then, and anyone else who is wicked, know that he will not be destroyed by everyone he meets, but that the reckless, who have cultivated vices akin and related to his, will become his guards and protectors, while those who have labored at prudence and every other virtue will, if they can, destroy him as an implacable enemy. For, so to speak, all bodies and all affairs are preserved by their own kin and friends, but destroyed by aliens and enemies.
For this reason the oracle also, bearing witness against the pretended simplicity of Cain, says: 'You do not think as you speak' (Gen 4:15). For you say that everyone who discovers the tricks of your art will destroy you, but you know that it is not everyone -- since countless are ranged on your side as allies -- but only the one who is a friend to virtue and an implacable enemy to you.
'But whoever kills Cain,' it says, 'shall release seven acts of vengeance' (Gen 4:15). What sense this bears in relation to the literal interpretations, I do not know. For it has not made clear what the seven are, nor how they are avenged, nor in what way they are released and discharged. So it is necessary to think that all such things must be understood more figuratively, through underlying meanings.
Perhaps, then, what it wishes to represent is something like this: the irrational part of the soul is distributed into seven divisions -- sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, speech, and the generative faculty. If, then, one should destroy the eighth, the mind that governs these -- Cain -- he will also release the seven. For by the strong vigor of the intellect all are strengthened together, but they grow weak together with its weakness, and through the corruption that vice brings they suffer complete collapse and dissolution.
These seven, in the soul of the wise man, are found undefiled and pure, and for this reason worthy of honor as well; but in the soul of the fool they are impure and polluted -- which is what is meant by 'avenged,' equivalent to 'deserving judgment and punishment.'
At any rate, when the Craftsman intended to purify the earth with water, and for the soul to receive a cleansing from its countless wrongs by washing away and rinsing off its stains in the manner of sacred purification, he counsels the man who was shown to be righteous, who was not swept away by the onrush of the flood, to bring into the ark -- which was the vessel of the soul, the body -- 'seven of the clean animals, male and female' (Gen 7:2), deeming it right that virtuous reasoning should make use of all the clean parts of the irrational.
And what the lawgiver has determined here necessarily accompanies all wise men. For they have a purified sight, and a well-tested hearing, and every sense purified; and they have, moreover, an unstained speech and impulses toward intercourse that are not lawless.
Each of the seven becomes male in one respect and female in another. For since it is either at rest or in motion -- at rest when quiet during sleep, in motion when already active in waking -- that which is according to state and quiescence, as being subject to being acted upon, is called female, while that which is according to motion and activity, as being conceived of in acting, is named male.
Thus in the wise man the seven are seen to be pure, but conversely in the base man all are, on the contrary, subject to vengeance. For how great a multitude do we suppose betrayed each day by the eyes, deserting to colors and shapes and things it is not lawful to see? How great a multitude by the ears, following after every kind of sound? How great a multitude, through the organs of smell and taste, led away by scents and other things in their boundless varieties?
I tell you further of the multitude that the unchecked stream of an unbridled tongue has destroyed, or the incurable frenzy for intercourse driven by unrestrained desire. The cities are full, and the whole earth, from end to end, is full of these evils, from which arises the continuous, unceasing, and greatest of wars -- the one waged, in the midst of peace, against the human race, both privately and in common.
For this reason it seems to me that those who are not utterly uneducated would choose rather to be blinded than to see what they should not, and to be made deaf rather than hear improper words, and to have their tongues cut out rather than utter any of the unspeakable things.
At any rate they say that some of the wise, when broken on the wheel to make them reveal secrets, have bitten off their own tongue, thereby devising against their torturers a torment more severe than the torturers'—who were unable to learn what they longed to know. It is better, too, to be castrated than to rage after lawless unions. All such acts, since they plunge the soul into irremediable disasters, would fittingly meet with the utmost justice and punishment.
Next he says, "The Lord God set a sign on Cain, so that anyone who found him would not kill him" (Gen. 4:15); and he has not made clear what this sign is, although he is accustomed to show the nature of each thing by means of a sign, as with the events in Egypt, when he changed the rod into a serpent, and Moses' hand into the form of snow, and the river into blood.
Perhaps, then, this very thing is the sign given to Cain against being murdered: that he should never be destroyed at all. For nowhere throughout the whole legislation has he disclosed Cain's death, hinting that, like the Scylla of myth, folly is an undying evil—one that does not undergo the ending that comes with dying, but instead admits every kind of dying for the whole of time. Would that the opposite were true, so that base things might be removed from our path by undergoing complete destruction! But as it is, they are forever being kindled afresh and inflict their undying disease on those who have once been caught by them.

======== On the Posterity of Cain ========

"And Cain went out from the face of God, and settled in the land of Nod, opposite Eden" (Gen. 4:16). We must now ask a question: whether we should understand certain things in the books translated by Moses in a more figurative sense, since the impression given at first sight by the words is far removed from the truth.
For if the Existent has a face, and one who wishes to abandon it can very easily move away to another place, why do we reject the impiety of Epicurus, or the atheism of the Egyptians, or the mythical fictions with which life is filled?
For a face is a part of a living creature, but God is a whole, not a part; so that it would be necessary to fashion for him the other parts as well—neck and chest and hands and feet, and again a belly and the generative organs, and the countless other multitude of parts, internal and external.
And human passions necessarily follow upon a human form, since these too are not superfluous or dispensable; rather nature fashioned all the parts that serve their owners' own needs and functions, fitting them accordingly. But the Existent needs nothing, so that if he has no need of the benefit that comes from parts, he could not have parts at all.
And from where does he go out? From the palace of the Ruler of all? But what perceptible house of God could there be except this cosmos, which it is impossible and unfeasible to leave? For the circle of heaven, embracing all things that come into being, holds them within itself. Indeed, even the elemental portions of those who have died are dissolved back into the powers of the universe out of which they were composed, the loan lent to each being repaid, at unequal appointed times, to the nature that made the loan, whenever it wishes to recover its own debts.
Moreover, one who goes out from some place leaves behind, in another place, that part of himself which remains. But it is a necessary consequence of this that some parts of the world would be left widowed of God—whereas he has left nothing empty or bereft of himself, but has filled all things through all things.
But if God has no face, inasmuch as he has transcended the particular characteristics of all created things, and does not dwell in any part, inasmuch as he contains all things and is not contained—and if it is impossible for any part of him to emigrate from the city of this world, since no part of him is left outside it—then it remains for us, reasoning in this way, to conclude that none of the things proposed is to be taken literally, and to make this our starting point for the path of allegory, dear to students of nature.
If it is difficult to depart from the face of a mortal king, how is it not utterly difficult to abandon the very appearance of God and go away, having resolved never again to come into his sight—which is the same as having the eye of one's soul, once maimed, become incapable of ever perceiving him again?
Now those who have submitted to this out of necessity, crushed under the force of an inexorable power, would deserve pity rather than hatred. But those who by voluntary choice turned themselves away from the Existent—surpassing even the very limit of wickedness (for what evil could be found equal to it?)—let them pay penalties that are not customary, but new and extraordinary. Indeed, one could not discover anything more novel or greater than the departure and flight from the Ruler of all,
the flight, that is. Now God casts Adam out, but Cain departs of his own will, Moses thereby showing us the form of each of the two manners—the voluntary and the involuntary. But the involuntary, since it is not established by our own resolve, will receive whatever cure is possible afterward: "for God will raise up another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain killed" (Gen. 4:25), for the soul
that has not turned itself away, a male offspring, Seth, "the watering." But the voluntary offense, since it comes about by deliberate purpose and forethought, will admit incurable ills forever. For just as deeds done with forethought are better than unintentional right actions, in the same way, among sins, the involuntary are lighter than the voluntary.
Cain, then, having removed himself from the face of God, will be met by avenging justice, punisher of the impious. But Moses will set before his disciples the most excellent precept: "to love God and to hearken to him and to cleave to him" (Deut. 30:20); for this, he says, is life—a life leading to prosperity and long duration. And it is with great emphasis that he calls us to the honor of the one thrice-desired and worthy of love, saying "cleave to him," thereby representing the continuous, unbroken, and uninterrupted character of that harmony and union which comes through kinship. Such, then, and of this kind, are the things he urges upon others.
But he himself so unceasingly longs to see and to be seen by him, that he beseeches him to reveal his nature clearly, hard as it is to conjecture (Exod. 33:13), so that he might at last, having received an opinion free of falsehood, exchange the most unshakable conviction for uncertain wavering. And though he presses his longing further, he will not relax it, but even knowing that he is in love with a thing hard to hunt down—rather, unattainable—he will nevertheless press on in the contest, relaxing none of his intense zeal, but employing everything within his own power toward attaining it, without excuse and without hesitation.
Indeed, he will already enter the darkness where God was (Exod. 20:21)—that is, into the innermost and formless conceptions concerning the Existent. For the Cause is not in darkness, nor in any place at all, but above both place and time; for having yoked to himself all things that have come into being, he is contained by nothing, but has mounted upon all things. And having mounted upon them, and being outside the created world, he has nonetheless filled the world with himself; for through . . . power, stretching to the very limits, he has woven each thing together with each, according to the principles of harmony.
So whenever a God-loving soul seeks to know what the Existent is in his essence, it comes to a formless and invisible search, from which it gains the greatest good: to grasp that God, in his being, is incomprehensible to everyone, and to see this very thing—that he is invisible.
It seems to me that the Hierophant, even before beginning this inquiry, had grasped its most essential point, judging by the words with which he beseeches the Existent to become the revealer and guide of his own nature. For he says: "show yourself to me" (Exod. 33:13), making it perfectly clear by this that not one of created beings is sufficient of
himself to be taught the being of God according to his existence. For this reason Abraham too, coming to the place which God had told him of, on the third day looked up and saw the place from afar (Gen. 22:3–4). What place? The one to which he came? And how could it be far off, if he had already arrived there?
But perhaps what is hinted at is something of this kind: the sage, ever eager to comprehend the Ruler of the universe, when he walks the path of knowledge and wisdom, first encounters divine words, in whose company he lodges as at a first stopping place, but having resolved to press on further, he holds back; for once the eyes of his understanding were opened, he saw more sharply that he had set out to hunt a thing hard to capture, one that ever withdraws and stands far off, outrunning its pursuers by an infinite intervening distance.
He rightly judges that all things beneath heaven, however swift they seem, would appear to stand still when compared to the motion of the sun and moon and the other stars. And yet the whole of heaven has come into being through God, and that which acts is always prior to that which comes into being; so that necessarily, not only the other faculties within us, but even the swiftest-moving of all, the mind, would fall short by an unbounded distance from grasping the Cause. But the stars, though themselves in motion, overtake the things that move; whereas God—the most paradoxical thing—though standing still, has outstripped all things.
And it is said that, being the same, he is at once nearest and farthest off: touching each thing by his creative and punitive powers, which are close to everything, yet having removed created being very far from his own nature according to existence, so that it cannot even be touched by the purest and most incorporeal reachings of the understanding.
With those who love God and seek the Existent, then, even if they never find him, we rejoice together—for the search for the beautiful is in itself sufficient to give joy beforehand, even if its end is not attained—but with self-loving Cain we grieve, who has left his own soul without any vision of the Existent, having willingly blinded the one faculty by which alone he was able to see.
It is worth considering also the region to which he is banished, once he has departed from the face of God: it is called Restlessness, the lawgiver thereby showing that the fool, given over to unstable and unsettled impulses, endures agitation and turmoil—like a heaving sea in a wintry storm of contrary winds—and has never so much as dreamed of calm or fair weather. And just as, when a ship is tossed at sea, it can neither sail on course nor ride at anchor, but drifting this way and that, tilts toward each side in turn and sways back and forth, so too the base person, possessed of a distracted and storm-tossed mind, unable to steer his own course without stumbling, is forever tossed about, rehearsing the overturning of his life.
The coherence of this sequence strikes me with no small amazement: for it happens that what draws near to that which stands still comes to desire rest, out of a longing for likeness to it. Now that which stands unswervingly is God, while that which is in motion is created being; so that he who draws near to God desires a state of rest, while he who withdraws from him, since he is drawing near to created being, which is subject to change, is carried along accordingly,
toward what is likely for it. For this reason it is written among the curses, "he will not give you rest, nor will there be any standing still for the sole of your foot," and shortly after, "your life shall hang suspended before your eyes" (Deut. 28:65–66). For it is the nature of the fool, ever moved contrary to right reason, to be hostile to stillness and rest, and to stand firmly and be grounded upon no settled conviction.
At one time, then, he holds one opinion, at another its opposite about the very same things, even when nothing new has happened concerning them—now great, now small, now enemy, now friend, and virtually every contradiction there is, all within the smallest span of time. And his whole life is, as the lawgiver said, suspended, having no unshakable foundation, but forever carried along by the pull of things dragging and counter-dragging against one another.
For this reason he says elsewhere, "Cursed by God is he who hangs on a tree" (Deut. 21:23) — because, though it was fitting to hang upon God, this man instead suspended himself from the body, which in us is a mass of wood, exchanging hope for desire, the greatest evil in place of the perfect good. For hope, being an expectation of good things from the God who loves to give, steadies the mind, whereas desire, engendering irrational cravings, comes from the body, which nature fashioned as a reservoir and territory of pleasures.
Let these men, then, hang as from the noose of desire. But Abraham the wise, since he stands firm, draws near to the God who stands firm; for he says, "he was standing before the Lord, and drawing near he said" (Gen. 18:22-23). For truly it is only for the unchanging soul that there is access to the unchanging God, and the soul so disposed stands, in the truest sense, near the divine power.
The oracle given to the all-wise Moses shows most plainly the utterly firm stability that belongs to the man of worth. The oracle is this: "But you, stand here with me" (Deut. 5:31). From this two things are established: first, that the Existing One, who moves and changes all else, is itself unmoved and unchanging; second, that it imparts a share of its own nature, of rest, to the man of worth. For just as, I think, crooked things are straightened by a true rule, so things in motion are checked and made to stand by the strength of that which stands.
In this instance, then, he commands another to stand with him. But elsewhere he says, "I will go down with you into Egypt, and I will bring you up at the end" (Gen. 46:4) — not "you with me." Why? Because rest and standing are proper to God, while change and all transitional motion belong to created being.
So then, when he calls someone to his own good, he says, "You stand with me," not "I with you"; for God will not stand, but stands forever. But when he comes toward what belongs to created being, he will most rightly say, "I will go down with you" — for the shifting of places suits you. Thus no one goes down with me — for I am not subject to change — but whatever is dear to me as rest will stand fast; yet with those who go down by way of transition — for transition is their brother and kinsman — I will go down in a manner of place, though I change no regions, I who have filled the whole with myself.
And this I do out of the pity that reasoning nature feels, so that the soul may be brought up out of the Hades of the passions to the Olympian region of virtue, with me as guide, who, having cut through the highway leading to heaven, have made it plain for all suppliant souls, so that they might not grow weary as they walk it.
Having shown, then, both the rest of the good man and the tossing of the fool, let us examine next what follows in the text. For it says that Nod, the tumult to which the soul was removed, lies opposite Eden. Symbolically, Eden is right and divine reason, and for this reason its name is translated "delight," because it takes joy and delight, before all others, in goods that are unmixed and undiluted, and moreover whole and complete, since the God who gives wealth rains down his virgin and immortal graces upon it. But by nature evil fights against good, the unjust against the just, the prudent against the foolish, and every form of virtue against every form of vice. Such is the meaning of Nod's being directly opposite Eden.
Having said this, he says next: "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he was building a city, and he named the city after the name of his son Enoch" (Gen. 4:17). Is it not reasonable to be puzzled as to what wife Cain knew? For the birth of no other single woman besides Eve, fashioned from the rib, has been recorded up to this point.
And if someone should say that Cain came together with a sister, apart from the impiety of it, he would also be speaking falsely; for the text introduces the daughters of Adam as born later. What, then, must we say? He calls, I think, the wife of impious reasoning "opinion," the opinion that a man forms about things, just as countless philosophers have done, some proposing the same doctrines to life, others different ones. What, then, is the opinion of the impious man?
That the human mind is the measure of all things; a saying which they say a certain one of the ancient sophists, Protagoras by name, made use of — offspring of the madness of Cain. I infer this from the following: once the wife was known by him, she bore Enoch; and Enoch is translated "your grace."
For if man is the measure of all things, then all things are grace and gift of the mind, so that the eye has been granted seeing as a favor, the ears hearing, each of the other senses its own perceiving, and the reasoning faculty, in respect of speech, its speaking; and if these, then surely also thinking itself, in which there are countless conceptions, deliberations, forethoughts, apprehensions, sciences, arts, dispositions, and a numberless host of other faculties.
Why, then, do you go on solemnly discoursing about piety and the honoring of God, and think you know how to speak and hear of it? — if indeed you hold within yourselves the mind opposed to God, which, having fastened upon all human goods and evils by its own power, mixes both together for some, but sends others only the unmixed portion.
And so, should someone bring against you a charge of impiety, take courage in your defense, declaring that you were schooled by a most excellent guide and teacher, Cain, who counseled honoring what is near at hand before the distant cause; to whom, for other reasons, but especially for this, attention must be paid — that by clear deeds he demonstrated the strength of his doctrine, defeating Abel, the champion of the opposite opinion, and along with him removing that opinion out of the way.
But as for me and my friends, life among the impious would be less desirable than death among the pious; for those who die in the latter way, immortal life will receive, but those who live in the former way, eternal death.
Since Cain begot Enoch, and again a descendant of Seth is likewise named Enoch (Gen. 4:17; 5:18), we must examine whether these happen to be different persons or the same. And together with this let us also investigate the differences among the other cases of shared names. For just as with Enoch, so too Methuselah and Lamech are descendants of Cain, but no less descendants of Seth as well (Gen. 4:18; 5:21, 25).
One must know, then, that each of the names mentioned, when translated, has a double meaning. Enoch, as I said, is translated "your grace"; Methuselah, "sending forth of death"; and Lamech, in turn, "humbling." Now "your grace" is spoken by some in reference to the mind within us, but is also spoken by better men in reference to the mind of the universe.
Those, then, who declare that everything within thinking, perceiving, or speaking is a gift of their own soul, introducing an impious and godless opinion, let them be assigned to the race of Cain, who, though not even master of himself, dared to say — of himself and of all other things — that he possessed them as complete property. But those who do not appropriate to themselves whatever good exists in created being, but ascribe it to divine graces, being truly nobly born not from ancient wealth but sprung from lovers of virtue, let them be ranked under Seth as their founder.
Very hard to find is this race, since they flee an entangled and toilsome and knavish life, poured out and full of passions and vices. For those whom God, once they had found favor with him, transferred and translated from perishable to immortal kinds, are no longer found among the many.
Having distinguished, then, what is signified concerning Enoch, let us pass next to Methuselah, who was "sending forth of death." Two things are established from this phrase: one, according to which death is sent upon someone; the other, according to which it is sent away from someone. The one upon whom it is sent, that person surely dies; but the one from whom it is sent away lives and survives.
For Cain, then, the one who receives death is akin — he who is always dying to the life lived toward virtue; but for Seth, most closely related is the one from whom death is sent away and dying is walled off; for the man of worth has reaped the fruit of true life.
And indeed Lamech, being "humbling," is ambiguous; for either we are humbled when the tensions of the soul slacken through the diseases and infirmities that arise from irrational passions, or we humble ourselves out of zeal for virtue, withdrawing ourselves from swelling self-conceit.
The former kind arises from weakness, being a form of the many-shaped and many-varied leprosy; for whenever the appearance seems more lowly, its even and vigorous look having been broken, the lawgiver says that the grievous disease of leprosy has occurred (Lev. 13:3).
The other kind arises from strong endurance, and is followed by atonement in accordance with the perfect number ten; for it is commanded that souls be humbled on the tenth day of the month (Lev. 23:27), which is to put away arrogance, and the putting away of this achieves the remission of wrongdoings both voluntary and involuntary. This Lamech, then, humbled in this way, is a descendant of Seth and father of the righteous Noah; but the other kind is a sprout of Cain.
Next it would be fitting to examine why this same man is introduced as founding and building a city; for a city needs a multitude of people and a size to house them, whereas for the three who existed at that time some hillside or small cave would have been the most sufficient dwelling. And I say "three," though it is likely he was alone by himself; for not even the parents of the murdered man would have endured living in the same city as the killer, who to the guilt of manslaughter had added the crime of killing his own brother.
For it is plain to everyone not only strange but even absurd that one man should build a city. How could it be done? Not even the most obscure part of a house could be built without the use of other hands. Could the same man, at the same time, quarry stone, cut timber, work iron and bronze, throw a great circuit of walls around a city, build gateways and outworks, temples and sacred precincts and colonnades and dockyards and houses and all the other public and private structures that custom requires? And besides these, could he construct channels underground, widen alleyways, and build fountains and conduits and all else a city needs?
Perhaps then, since these things are out of tune with the truth, it is better, speaking allegorically, to say that Cain has resolved to construct his own doctrine like a city.
Since, then, every city is composed of buildings, inhabitants, and laws, its buildings for him are the demonstrative arguments with which, as from behind a wall, he fights off the assaults of his opponents—the persuasive inventions of fable-makers against the truth; its inhabitants are the companions of impiety, atheism, self-love, boastfulness, and false opinion, men who seem wise to themselves without knowing true wisdom, men who have compounded ignorance, lack of education, and stupidity together with their other sister and kindred banes; and its laws are lawlessness, injustice, inequality, licentiousness, insolence, madness, arrogance, immoderate pleasures, and unspeakable desires contrary to nature.
Of such a city each of the impious is discovered to be the builder in his own utterly wretched soul, until God, having taken counsel (Gen 11:6), works a sudden and great confusion upon their sophistic arts. And this will happen whenever they build not only a city but also a tower whose head will reach to heaven (Gen 11:4)—that is, an argument constructive of each man's own reasoning, which they advance as having for its head his own private notion, symbolically called heaven; for it is necessary that the head and end of every argument be the mind it signifies, for the sake of which lengthy discourses and speeches by learned men are accustomed
to be produced. They have advanced so far in impiety that they think fit not only to raise up such cities by themselves, but also to compel the virtue-loving multitude of Israel, having appointed overseers and teachers of evil works over them. For it is said that, mistreated by the overseers of the king of the land, they build three cities: Pithom, Rameses, and On, which is the City of the Sun (Exod 1:11).
These, in a more figurative sense, signify mind, sense-perception, and speech—the things that belong to us; for Pithom is speech, since persuading belongs to it, and its name is interpreted as 'mouth that presses out,' since the speech of the base man too practices pushing out and overturning what is good.
Rameses is sense-perception... for just as by a moth the mind is gnawed and eaten away by each of the senses, being shaken and torn apart; for impressions that come in against pleasure give birth to a painful and toilsome life.
On is called 'hill,' but symbolically it is the mind; for upon it the treasures of all reasonings are stored up. The lawgiver too bears witness, having called it City of the Sun; for just as the sun, when it has risen, plainly displays what was hidden by night, so the mind, sending forth its own light, causes all bodies and all things to be apprehended in clear radiance.
For this reason one would not err in saying that our mind is the sun of our composite being, which, if it does not rise in man, the small world, and shine forth its own light, pours out a great darkness over things and lets nothing appear beforehand.
This hill the practicer Jacob calls to witness in his dealings of justice with Laban (Gen 31:46–47), showing most doctrinally that the mind is a witness for each man of what he deliberates in secret, and conscience is an incorruptible and most truthful reprover of all things… it is built before these cities.
For he says that the spies came to Hebron, and there were Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the offspring of Anak; then he adds: 'And Hebron was built seven years before Tanis of Egypt' (Num 13:22). It is most natural to distinguish things that share a name. For Hebron is interpreted 'union,' and the union of the soul is twofold: either yoked to the body or fitted to virtue.
The soul, then, that subjects itself to bodily unions has as its inhabitants those just named; Ahiman is interpreted 'my brother,' Sheshai 'outside me,' and Talmai 'one hung up'; for it is necessary for souls that love the body to consider the body a brother, and to hold external goods in special honor; and all souls disposed in this manner are suspended from lifeless things, and, like those impaled, are nailed fast even unto death to perishable matter.
But the soul yoked to what is noble has obtained as its inhabitants men outstanding in the virtues, whom the double cave (Gen 23:9) has received in pairs—Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, the virtues and those who possess them. This Hebron, guarding as treasure the memories of knowledge and wisdom, is older than Tanis and than all Egypt. For nature made the soul older than the body, that is, than Egypt, and virtue older than vice, that is, than Tanis—for Tanis is interpreted 'commandment of withdrawal'—judging the elder by dignity
rather than by length of time. For this reason too she calls Israel, though younger in time, 'firstborn son' (Exod 4:22) in dignity, showing that he who sees God, being of the most ancient origin, is honored, the very first offspring of the Unbegotten, brought forth from virtue which is hated among mortals, to whom the law grants, as to the eldest, a double portion of the birthright (Deut 21:17).
For this reason the seventh, though in order an offspring of the sixth, is in power the eldest of every number, differing in nothing from the unit. He himself will make this clear in the conclusion of the account of creation, saying: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he had made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it he rested from all his works which God began to make' (Gen 2:2–3).
Then he adds: 'This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, when it came to be, on the day that God made heaven and earth' (Gen 2:4). These things happened on the first day, so that the seventh is referred back to the first unit and beginning of all things. We have dwelt on this at length in order to show more clearly the opinion which Cain thinks he must build up like some city.
The son of Enoch is called Gaidad (Gen 4:18), which is interpreted 'flock'—most fittingly; for it was fitting that the man who attributes everything to a mind unable even to grasp its own nature should beget irrational powers, herded together into a flock; for this is not the doctrine of rational men.
Now every flock that has no shepherd set over it necessarily suffers great misfortunes, since it is unable by itself to repel what harms it and choose what will benefit it. For this reason Moses too prays, saying: 'Let the Lord, God of spirits and of all flesh, appoint over this congregation a man who will go out before them and come in before them, who will lead them out and bring them in, and let the congregation of the Lord not be like sheep that have no shepherd' (Num 27:16–17).
For whenever the leader or guardian or father, or whatever one likes to call it, of our composite being—right reason—departs and abandons the flock within us, it is left untended and perishes, and great loss comes to its master; and the irrational, unguided creature, bereft of a herdsman to admonish and instruct it, is banished far from rational and immortal life.
For this reason Gaidad is said to have a son named Mahalalel (Gen 4:18), whose name, translated, means 'from the life of God.' For since the flock is irrational, and God is the fountain of reason, the man who lives irrationally must necessarily be cut off from the life of God. Now Moses defines living according to God as consisting in loving him; for he says, 'your life is to love him who is' (Deut 30:19–20).
As a paradigm of the opposite life he sets forth the goat that falls by lot; for he says, 'he shall set it alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, so as to send it away for dismissal' (Lev 16:10)—with very careful precision.
For just as no sensible person would approve of old men who abstain from pleasures merely because old age, that long and incurable disease, has slackened and loosened the sinews of their appetites, but would rather deem worthy of praise the young, who, though desire blazes at the height of their prime, have nonetheless furnished themselves abundantly with the extinguishing instruments that come from education's reasonings, and so have relieved the great blaze and seething of their passions—so too, for those who have no disease at all, such as tends to arise from a bad regimen, lesser praise follows, because they enjoyed good fortune involuntarily, through nature's good favor; but for those against whom the disease has arisen and stands opposed, greater praise follows, if indeed, bracing themselves, they are willing and able to bring it down.
For to have the strength to bring down, by austere effort, the alluring baits of pleasure carries the praise that belongs to voluntary achievements. If, then, none of these fortunate portions has fallen to us, but the diseases and infirmities marked for banishment still live within us, let us be zealous to overturn and cast them down; for to make atonement upon them is just this: to acknowledge that, though we have them alive and thriving within the soul, we do not yield, but standing against them we fight them off with all our strength, until we banish them utterly.
And what follows for the man who does not live according to the will of God, but death of the soul? This is named Methuselah, which, translated, is 'sending forth of death.' For this reason he is son of Mahalalel (Gen 4:18), who has abandoned his own proper life, upon whom dying is sent—the death of the soul, which is its irrational change under the influence of passion.
This passion, whenever it has conceived, bears, after harsh birth-pangs, incurable diseases and infirmities, by which the soul, writhing, is humbled and bent down; for each burden it brings presses upon her without end, so that she cannot even lift up her head. All this is named Lamech; for it is interpreted 'humiliation,' so that fittingly Lamech becomes the son of Methuselah (Gen 4:18)—an infirmity humbled and yielding, born of the irrational impulse that is the passion of death for the soul.
'And Lamech took to himself two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah' (Gen 4:19). Whatever a base man takes for himself is altogether blameworthy, as being defiled by a judgment hard to purify; for, conversely, the voluntary acts of good men are all praiseworthy. Therefore, whereas here Lamech, choosing wives for himself, chooses the greatest evils, elsewhere Abraham, Jacob, and Aaron, taking wives, come together with goods that are their own.
For of Abraham it says: "And Abraham and Nahor took wives for themselves; the name of Abraham's wife was Sarah" (Gen 11:29). And of Isaac: "Rise up and flee to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father, and take yourself a wife from there, from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother" (Gen 28:2). And of Aaron: "And Aaron took Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab, sister of Nahshon, for his wife" (Exod 6:23).
Isaac and Moses, on the other hand, do take wives, but not through themselves: Isaac is said to have taken his when he entered his mother's tent (Gen 24:67), while Moses had his daughter given to him by the man with whom he lodged (Exod 2:21).
These differences are pointed out by the lawgiver not as an incidental matter. For those who are still making progress and advancing as ascetics, the willing choice of the good is credited to them, so that even their labor should not go uncrowned; but for those who have been deemed worthy of a self-taught and self-learned wisdom, it follows that they do not take by their own agency, but receive, betrothed to them by God himself, the reasoning that is wisdom's consort, its knowledge.
But Lamech, cast out from human company, low and grovelling, takes as his first wife Adah, whose name means "testimony," having himself procured this marriage for himself. For he supposes that the ready and facile movement and outworking of the mind toward whatever it happens to hit upon shrewdly, with nothing hindering its easy grasp, is the first good for a human being.
"For what," he says, "could be better than that one's conceptions, thoughts, conjectures, guesses -- in short, one's counsels -- should, as the saying goes, walk on steady feet, so as to arrive at their goal without stumbling, the mind being attested in everything it has said?" For my part, if a person applies a mind sure and quick of aim only to what is good, I set this person down as blessed, taking the law as my teacher; for the law itself said that Joseph was a man who succeeded -- not in everything, but in whatever matters God graciously granted him to prosper in (Gen 39:2); and all the gifts of God are good.
But if someone employs the sure and ready aptitude of his nature not only toward what is noble but indifferently toward its opposites as well, let him be counted wretched. At any rate it is said, in the form of a curse, concerning the place of confusion: "nothing that they set their hand to do will be beyond them" (Gen 11:6); truly it is an incurable calamity for a soul to succeed at whatever it sets its hand to, even the most shameful things.
For my part I would pray that, if ever I should think of doing wrong, I might fail at the wrongdoing; and if I should live in an unmanly way, that I might fail at the dissipation; and if I should act with rashness and villainy, that I might come up entirely short of rashness and villainy. For it is no better for those who have set their mind on stealing, or committing adultery, or murder, not to see each of these projects fall short and come to ruin.
So reject Adah, O mind -- the woman who bears testimony to base men and is herself attested in their several undertakings. For if you think fit to keep her as your partner, she will bear you the greatest evil of all, Jubal (Gen 4:20), whose name means "one who alters." For if you delight in the testimony to whatever you happen upon, you will want to turn and overturn each thing, displacing the boundaries that nature has fixed for things.
Moses too is greatly vexed at such people and pronounces a curse, saying: "Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary markers" (Deut 27:17). And by "neighbor" and "near" he means the good; for one need not fly up to heaven, he says, nor cross the sea in search of the good, since it stands near and close to each of us.
And he divides it, most naturally, into three: "for it is in your mouth," he says, "and in your heart and in your hands" (Deut 30:11-14) -- that is, in words, in counsels, in actions; for these are the parts of the good, out of which it is by nature composed, so that the lack of even one of them not only leaves the whole incomplete but utterly destroys it.
For what use is it to speak the best things while thinking and doing the most shameful? This is the way of the sophists: they spin out long speeches about prudence and endurance, wearing out the ears even of those most thirsty to listen, and yet in their counsels and in the actions of their life they are found to go badly astray.
And what use is it to think what one ought, but then to employ absurd deeds and words, harming through one's words those who hear and through one's deeds those who must bear them? Yet again, to act rightly without thought and reason is likewise blameworthy; for what occurs apart from these belongs to the class of the involuntary, and is in no way whatsoever praiseworthy.
But if someone has managed, as it were, to tune like a lyre all the notes of the good, and to render word harmonious with thought and thought with deed, such a person would rightly be considered perfect and truly well-attuned; so that the one who shifts the boundaries of the good is justly accursed, both in fact and in name.
These boundaries were not set up by our own generation, but by reasons older than us and than all that is of earth, and divine; as the law too has made clear, charging each of us not to counterfeit virtue's coinage in these words: "You shall not move your neighbor's boundary markers, which your fathers set up" (Deut 19:14), and elsewhere: "Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say to you: when the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God; and the LORD's portion became his people Jacob, Israel the measured line of his inheritance" (Deut 32:7-9).
Now if I should ask the father who begot and raised me, or those who are his contemporaries but older than I am, whether God apportioned the nations, or scattered them, or settled them, will they answer me with any certainty, as though they had themselves witnessed that division? Surely not; rather they will say that they too, in their youth, made inquiry of their parents and of those still more ancient, and learned nothing clear -- for their elders had nothing to teach them either, and they in turn, having sought to become knowledgeable from others, remained acquaintances of the unknowing.
May it not be, then, that by "father" he means right reason, father of our soul, and by "elders" its companions and friends? These were the first to fix the boundaries of virtue, and it is to them that one should resort for learning and instruction concerning what is necessary. And the necessary matters are these: when God apportioned and walled off the nations of the soul, separating and settling apart those of like speech from those of a foreign tongue, and sowed and shot forth from himself the children of earth, whom Adam named sons, then he set the boundaries of virtue's offspring equal in number to the angels; for as many as are God's reasons, so many are the nations and kinds of virtue.
What, then, are the allotted portions of his angels, and what the share reserved for the ruler and leader of all? To the servants belong the virtues in their particular forms; to the leader belongs the chosen race, Israel. For the one who sees God, drawn by the most surpassing beauty, has been allotted and apportioned to the one seen.
How, then, should Jubal not be reproved -- he who, in the Greek tongue, is called "one who alters" or "one who remakes" the natures of things? For the most god-shaped beauties of prudence, endurance, justice, and the rest of virtue he would restamp with the opposite impressions -- of folly, intemperance, injustice, and all vice -- erasing
the marks earlier impressed upon them. For second seals, once set over the first, always destroy the impressions of what came before. But the law is so far from allowing bad things to be exchanged for good that it does not even allow good things to be exchanged for base ones -- not that it takes "base" to mean what is simply worthless (since it would be foolish not to give up bad things in exchange for acquiring better ones), but rather what is toilsome and laborious, which the Athenians, accenting the first syllable, call "ponera."
The ordinance runs thus: "Everything that comes under the rod as it is counted, the tenth shall be holy to the LORD. You shall not exchange good for bad; but if you do exchange it, both it and the thing exchanged for it shall be holy" (Lev 27:32-33). And yet how could what is bad become holy? But, as I said, what is meant here is the laborious, not the base, so that the sense is this: the good in its perfection is noble, but labor, being incomplete, is merely useful. If, then, you have gained the complete good, seek no longer for what is lacking; but if you still wish to go further and toil on beyond it, know that though you will seem to be exchanging one thing for one thing, in truth you will gain both.
For though each of the two is of equal worth, neither is wholly holy in every case. A holy thing is tested by three witnesses: a middling number, discipline, and a perfect number. Hence it is said: "Everything that comes under the rod as it is counted, the tenth shall be holy." For what is deemed unworthy of being counted is profane, not holy, while what has been numbered, as already approved, is proven. Thus the law says that the grain gathered by Joseph in Egypt could not be numbered, and adds: "for there was no number" (Gen 41:49), since the things that nourish the body and the passions of the Egyptians are not worthy of being counted at all.
The rod is a symbol of discipline; for without being made to feel shame and being rebuked in some matters, it is impossible to receive admonition and correction. And the number ten is the pledge of the perfection reached through progress, from which it is right to make a first offering to the one who begot us, the one who disciplined us, the one who brought to fulfillment what we had hoped for.
Let this suffice, then, concerning the one who alters and counterfeits the ancient coinage -- whom Scripture also calls the father of those who dwell in tents, keepers of cattle (Gen 4:20). Now cattle are the irrational senses, and cattle-keepers are those who love pleasure and passion, providing them with fodder -- the external objects of sense -- while standing far removed from true shepherds. For shepherds, in the manner of rulers, punish the flock's disorderly members, whereas these men, like hosts at a banquet furnishing lavish fare, grant impunity to wrongdoing; for insolence is bound at once to be born as the daughter of insatiable appetite and satiety.
He, then, is rightly called father who restamps and remakes all the noble things belonging to those who have devoted themselves wholly to the sensible and the lifeless; for if he had pursued the incorporeal and intelligible natures instead, he would have kept the boundaries fixed by the elders, who marked out, for the sake of virtue, each of its forms with its own proper stamp.
Scripture says that Jubal is the brother of Jobel (Gen 4:21). This name too, by way of symbol, is interpreted as "one who turns aside": it denotes the spoken word, uttered aloud. For this is by nature the brother of thought. And Scripture very fittingly named the word that diverts the mind that remakes things "one who turns aside"; for it happens, in a sense, to sway to and fro like the pan of a scale, or like a ship at sea tilting now to one side, now to the other under the force of a great swell; for the fool has learned to say nothing firm or steady.
But Moses holds that one must turn aside neither to the right nor to the left, nor at all into the territories of earthly Edom, but must pass by the middle road, which he calls, most fittingly, "the royal road" (Num. 20:17). For since God is the first and only king of all things, the road that leads to him, being a king's road, has rightly been named royal. Consider this road to be philosophy -- not the philosophy pursued by the sophistic crowd of men today (for these, having practiced the arts of argument, have called cunning against the truth "wisdom," applying a divine name to a worthless enterprise), but the philosophy that the ancient company of ascetics labored at, turning away from the tame deceptions of pleasure, and pursuing the practice of the good with refinement and rigor.
This royal road, then, which we have said is true and genuine philosophy, the Law calls the word and utterance of God. For it is written: "You shall not turn aside from the word that I command you today, to the right or to the left" (Deut. 28:14); so that it has plainly been shown that God's word is the same as the royal road, since he urges that we not turn aside either from the royal road or from the word -- as though they were synonyms -- but with an upright mind walk the straight path that leads onward, both the middle way and the highway.
"This Jubal," he says, "is the father who devised the harp and the lyre" (Gen. 4:21). Most fittingly he calls uttered speech the father of music and of all musical instruments; for nature, having fashioned the vocal instrument as the first and most perfect for living creatures, at once bestowed upon it all harmonies and all the kinds of melody, so that it might serve as a pattern already prepared for the instruments that were to be crafted by art.
For just as our ear, by tracing circles within circles, smaller within larger, was fashioned round like a lathe-turned sphere, so that the sound coming toward it should not be scattered and poured out abroad, but rather, gathered and compressed by the circles, should be poured, as it were, into the reservoirs of the mind -- and this at once became the model for the theaters found in prosperous cities, for the construction of theaters imitates most closely the shape of ears -- in just the same way, nature, in fashioning living creatures, stretched the windpipe like a musical rule, and weaving together the enharmonic, chromatic, and diatonic genera according to the countless varieties of conjunct and disjunct melodies, established it as a pattern for every musical instrument.
Whatever melodies flutes and lyres and the like produce fall as far short of the music of nightingales or swans as an image and imitation falls short of an archetypal model, a perishable form short of an imperishable kind. For the music of human beings deserves to be compared to none of the others, since it possesses a privilege all its own, by which it is honored: articulate clarity.
For the others, by inflecting their voice and by successive changes of pitch, merely please the ear; but a human being, fashioned by nature for speech no less than for song, draws in both faculties, hearing and mind, at once, charming the one with melody and turning the other toward its meanings.
For just as an instrument given over to one unskilled in music is discordant, but in the hands of a musician, through the art within him, becomes well-tuned, in the very same way speech, when moved by a base mind, is found discordant, but when moved by a serious one, altogether harmonious.
A lyre, or anything like it, is silent unless struck by someone; and speech too, unless struck by the governing mind, of necessity keeps still. And just as instruments are retuned according to the countless combinations possible in melody, so speech, becoming a kind of attuned interpreter of things, undergoes innumerable changes.
For who would converse with parents in the same manner as with children, being by nature a slave to the one and by birth a master over the other? Who would speak the same way to brothers and cousins, or in general to kin near and far? Who would speak the same to intimates and to strangers, or to citizens and to foreigners, who differ no little in fortune, nature, or age? For one must converse differently with an old man than with a young one, again differently with the eminent than with the humble, with the rich than with the poor, with the ruler than with the private citizen, with the servant than with the master, with woman as against man, and with the unskilled as against the craftsman.
And why should one enumerate the countless kinds of persons toward whom speech, turning, takes on now this shape, now that? For the particular character of the matters themselves stamps it according to their own features; for great things and small, many and few, private and public, sacred and profane, ancient and new, would not be expressed in the same manner, but in the manner fitting each, according to its scale, its dignity, and its magnitude -- at one time raising itself high, at another, on the contrary, drawing itself in and contracting.
And just as circumstances and persons occasion changes in speech, so too do the causes of events and the manner in which they occur, and further still the things without which none of this happens: times and places. Most beautifully, then, has Jubal, "turning speech," been called the father of the harp and the lyre -- naming the whole art of music from a part of it, as has been shown.
The offspring of Adah, then, and who she herself is, have been made clear; let us now examine Lamech's other wife, Zillah, and what she bears. Zillah is interpreted "shadow," a symbol of the goods of the body and of external goods, which in truth differ in nothing from a shadow. Or is not beauty a shadow, which blooms for a brief time and then withers? And is not bodily strength and vigor, which any chance illness dissolves? And are not the senses, and the precision belonging to them, which a foul-smelling discharge blocks, or old age, the necessary and common disease of all, maims? And further, are not wealth, reputation, offices, honors, and all that is reckoned among external goods, likewise all shadow?
One must lead the mind, as though by a stairway, up to the first principle of the universe. Men reckoned famous have gone to Delphi and there dedicated the record of their fortunate lives. Yet like fading paintings, these have not merely dissolved with the length of time, but have vanished under the sharp reversals of circumstance, and some have been swept away and made to disappear all at once, as though by the rush of a flooding torrent.
From this shadow, and from unstable dreams, is born a grandson, whom he named Tubal (Gen. 4:22), which is interpreted "the whole." For indeed those who have acquired that compound good sung by many, wealth-and-health together, seem to have everything attached to them, small things and great, and, in a word, all things.
And if independent authority should come their way as well, puffed up and lifted on high by shallow conceit, forgetting themselves and the perishable matter from which they came, imagining that they have obtained a nature greater than the human condition, they exalt and deify themselves through their honors, out of arrogance. Indeed some have already dared to say that they do not know the true God (Exod. 5:2), forgetting their own humanity, on account of the excess of bodily and external things, each one marking himself out by it.
Then he says that "this one was a hammer-forger, a worker in bronze and iron" (Gen. 4:22). For the soul of the man who is stirred up over bodily pleasures, or over external materials, is hammered as though upon an anvil, driven by the long and unending reaches of desire. One may see those who love the body always and everywhere setting nets and snares to hunt what they crave, while those who love money and reputation send forth the frenzy and longing they feel for these things to the ends of earth and sea, drawing in from every quarter, as though with nets, by their boundless cravings -- until the violent tension, straining beyond measure, snaps, and dragging down with it those who had been pulling, casts them headlong.
And all such people are craftsmen of war, and this is why they are said to work bronze and iron, the materials by which wars are waged. For if one examines the greatest quarrels, both of individual men and of cities in common, both those long past and those now existing and those yet to come, one will find they arise on account of a woman's beauty, or money, or reputation, or honor, or rule, or possessions, or in general whatever advantages belong to the body and to external things.
But for the sake of education and virtue -- the goods belonging to the best part within us, the mind -- no war, foreign or civil, has ever been waged; for these things are by nature peaceable, and in them good order, stability, and all the fairest forms are contemplated by the sharpest eyes of the soul, not by the dim eyes of the body; for the latter see only external appearances, while the eye of the mind, advancing within and penetrating deep, discerns what lies hidden in their very depths.
Nearly all the disturbances and factions among human beings arise, in truth, over nothing else but a shadow set against truth. For the fashioner of weapons of war, of bronze and iron, he named Tubal, son of Zillah, "the shadow" -- philosophizing not through arts of speech but through an outstanding beauty of thought. For he knew that every army, naval or infantry, faces the greatest dangers for the sake of bodily pleasures or for abundance of external things, none of which is attested as firm or stable by time, which puts everything to the test.
For they resemble superficial sketches that dissolve of their own accord. He says that the sister of Tubal is Naamah (Gen. 4:22), whose name is interpreted "fatness." For it follows upon those who pursue bodily comfort and the materials I have mentioned, that when they obtain something they crave, they grow fat. Such fatness, I for my part reckon not strength but weakness; for it teaches one to fall away from the honor of God, which is the soul's first and best power.
The Law bears witness to this in the greater song, speaking as follows: "He grew fat, he grew thick, he grew broad, and he abandoned God who made him, and forgot God his savior" (Deut. 32:15). For truly, those for whom life has flourished for a season no longer remember the eternal; indeed, they consider the season itself to be god.
For this reason Moses too bears witness, urging that we fight against the opposing opinions; for he says: "The season has departed from them, but the Lord is among us" (Num. 14:9); so that those who honor the life of the soul have the divine word dwelling and walking within them, while those who honor the life of pleasures possess an ephemeral and false opportuneness. These, then, swollen and stretched beyond measure by their flowing fatness and delight, have burst; but those who are fattened by the wisdom that nourishes souls devoted to virtue possess a firm and unshakable power, of which the fat of every sacrificial victim, wholly burnt, is the model.
For Moses says: "All fat belongs to the Lord, an everlasting statute" (Lev. 3:16-17), implying that the fatness of the mind is offered up to God and made his own, and for this reason is made immortal, while the fatness of the body and of external things is offered up to the season that is opposed to God, and for this reason withers away most quickly.
Concerning the wives of Lamech and their offspring, I think enough has been shown; let us now consider the rebirth, as it were, of Abel, who was treacherously slain. "Adam," it says, "knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore a son, and she named him Seth, saying: For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain killed" (Gen. 4:25). Seth is interpreted "watering."
Just as seeds and plants on earth, when watered, grow, sprout, and bear fruit abundantly, but wither when deprived of a flowing supply, so too the soul, as is plain to see, when it is irrigated with the drinkable stream of wisdom, sprouts and advances toward what is better. Now watering is, on the one hand, the act of the one who waters, and, on the other, the experience of the one watered.
Or would one not say that each of the senses is watered from the mind as from a spring, as it widens and stretches out its powers like channels? No one in his right mind would say that the eyes see, but that the mind sees through the eyes; nor that the ears hear, but that the mind hears through the ears; nor that the nostrils smell, but that the ruling faculty smells through the nostrils.
That is why it is said in Genesis: "A spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth" (Gen. 2:6). For since nature allotted the face as a distinguished part of the whole body to the senses, the spring rising from the ruling faculty, splitting into many channels like water-courses, directs them up to the face, and through them carries its powers to each of the organs of sense. In just this way the Logos of God waters the virtues; for he is the source and spring of noble actions.
The lawgiver makes this plain when he says: "A river goes out from Eden to water the garden; from there it divides into four heads" (Gen. 2:10). For the generic virtues are four: prudence, courage, self-control, and justice. Each of these is a ruler and a queen, and whoever acquires them is at once a ruler and a king, even if he has no abundance of any material wealth.
For "it divides into four heads" indicates not a separation of these virtues but the sovereignty and mastery of the virtues. These spring up, as it were, from a single root, from the divine Logos, whom he pictures as a river because of the ceaseless and continuous flow of drinkable words and doctrines,
with which he nourishes and makes grow souls that love God. What these are he teaches little by little as he proceeds, drawing his instruction from the arts found in nature. For he introduces Hagar filling a skin with water and giving the child to drink -- Hagar being the maidservant of Sarah, that is, of perfect virtue, and standing for secondary education -- most fittingly. For when she has come down to the depth of knowledge, which he calls a well, and has drawn up into her soul, as into a vessel, the doctrines and theorems she pursues, she thinks it right to nourish the child on what has nourished her.
He calls "child" the soul that has only just begun to reach for instruction and has now, in a sense, come into being for the purpose of learning; but when the child grows to manhood he becomes a sophist, whom he calls an archer; for at whatever goal he sets before himself as a mark, he shoots
his proofs unerringly, like arrows. But Rebecca is found watering the disciple no longer for progress but for perfection. How, the Law itself will teach. "For the virgin," it says, "was very fair to look upon, a virgin whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. And the servant ran to meet her and said, Please give me a little water to drink from your jar. And she said, Drink, my lord. And she quickly let down her jar upon her arm and gave him to drink until he stopped drinking, and said, I will draw water for your camels also, until they have all had their fill. And she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw water for the camels" (Gen. 24:16-20).
Who would not marvel at the precision of the lawgiver in everything? He called Rebecca a virgin, and a very fair virgin, because the nature of virtue is unmixed, guileless, and undefiled, and alone among things that come into being is both beautiful and good; from this the Stoic doctrine sprouted, that the good alone is beautiful.
Of the virtues, some are perpetual virgins, others have changed from women into virgins, as Sarah did; for "it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women" (Gen. 18:11), when the happy race, Isaac, began to be conceived. But the perpetually virgin virtue, he says, is altogether unknown by any man; for it is not permitted to any mortal to defile, in truth, its incorruptible nature -- no, not even to know clearly what it is; and if anyone should manage to know it, he does not cease to hate it and thrust it away.
That is why he naturally introduces Leah as hated (Gen. 29:31); for those whom the charms of the pleasures that belong to Rachel, that is, sense-perception, draw along, Leah, who stands outside the passions, cannot endure, and so, being spurned, they hate her. But her estrangement from what comes into being wrought for her a kinship with God, from whom, having received the seeds of prudence, she travails and brings forth thoughts noble and worthy of the Father who begot them. If you too, O soul, imitate Leah and turn away from mortal things, you will of necessity turn toward the incorruptible One, who will pour upon you the whole springs of the beautiful.
Rebecca, it says, went down to the spring to fill her jar, and came up. For from where is it likely that the mind thirsting for prudence should be filled, except from the wisdom of God, the unfailing spring, to which the earnest disciple, going down, comes up again by a certain kinship? For those who have come down from empty conceit, the Logos that receives virtue and takes them up raises them on high through good repute. It is for this reason, I think, that God converses with Moses thus: "Go, go down, and come up" (Exod. 19:24), since everyone who measures his own lowliness becomes more exalted in the judgment of truth.
It is observed with great precision that Hagar carries a skin for drawing water, while Rebecca carries a jar, because she who dances in the circle of general education needs, as it were, certain bodily vessels of sense -- eyes, ears -- for the reception of theorems (for from seeing much and hearing much comes to lovers of learning the benefit that comes from knowledge); but she who is filled with unmixed wisdom needs no bulk of leather at all -- for she who loves the incorporeal has learned by reasoning to strip off entirely the skin, the body -- but only a jar, which is a symbol of the vessel that has room, in the manner of water, for the great volume that the ruling faculty holds. Whether this happens to be the membrane of the brain or the heart, let those skilled in such things philosophize.
Seeing her, then, who has drawn from wisdom, the divine spring, the sciences, the lover of learning runs up and, meeting her, becomes a suppliant, so that he may heal his thirst for learning. And she, having been taught the most venerable of lessons, freedom from envy and love of giving, at once holds out the stream of wisdom and urges him to drink his fill all at once, while also calling the servant "lord." This is the most doctrinal point of all: that the wise man alone is free and a ruler,
even if he has countless masters of his body. Most rightly, when he said, "Give me a little water to drink," she does not answer in the corresponding manner, "I will give you to drink," but says, "Drink"; for this showed the divine wealth, which is poured out for all who are worthy and able to use it, whereas the other would have been a promise to teach; and nothing that comes from a promise belongs properly to virtue.
With great art, indeed, he characterizes the manner of instruction of one who teaches and benefits: "she quickly," he says, "let down her jar upon her arm"; through "quickly" he shows the readiness for doing good that appears in her, which arises from a disposition from which envy has been shot far away; and through "let down upon her arm" he shows the intimate and attentive inclination of the teacher toward the learner.
For foolish are those teachers who attempt to give instruction not in proportion to the capacity of their pupils but in proportion to their own excessive attainment, not knowing how far display differs from teaching. For the one who makes a display, exploiting without restraint the abundance of his present condition, brings out into the open, like the works of painters or sculptors, what has been labored over at home for a long time, hunting after the praise of the many; whereas the one who undertakes to teach, like a good physician, looking not to the greatness of his art but to the capacity of the patient, brings forward and gives not all that his knowledge has provided -- for that is boundless -- but only so much as the ailing person needs, aiming at due measure.
That is why Moses also says elsewhere: "You shall surely lend to the one in need as much as he needs, according to what he needs" (Deut. 15:8), teaching through the second clause that not everything is to be given to everyone, but only what is appropriate to the need of those who lack; for it would be absurd to give an anchor or oars or a rudder to a farmer, or a plow and a mattock to a helmsman, or a lyre to a physician and surgical instruments to a musician -- unless we must also bring costly food to those who thirst and abundant strong wine to those who hunger, for the sake of showing off both wealth and inhumanity, making a mockery of others' misfortunes. But the measure in his gifts is taken up for the sake of due proportion, a most beneficial thing; for, says right reason, do not give as much as you are able, but as much as the one in need is able to receive. Or do you not see that God too does not
utter oracles of perfection proportioned to his own greatness, but always in proportion to the capacity of those who are to be benefited? For who could have contained the power of God's words, which surpass all hearing? This is what those who said to Moses seem to have understood most truly: "You speak to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die" (Exod. 20:19); for they knew that they had nothing in themselves worthy of God legislating in assembly.
For not even if he wished to display his own wealth could the whole earth, land and sea made dry together, contain it -- unless we suppose that the bringing of rains and the other things in the world at set seasonal periods happens not continuously because of their scarcity and shortage, but rather not for the providence of those in need, whom the continuous enjoyment of the same gifts would be likely to harm rather than help.
That is why he holds back the first gifts always, before those who have received them are sated and grow wanton, and stores them up, giving in their place others afterward, and third gifts in place of second, and always new ones in place of older ones, sometimes different gifts, sometimes the same ones again. For what has come into being is never without a share in the graces of God -- since otherwise it would have been utterly destroyed -- but it is unable to bear their full and unstinting flow. That is why, wishing us to have benefit from what he gives, he measures out his gifts in proportion to
the strength of those who receive them. Rebecca, then, is also to be praised, who, following the ordinances of her father, let down the vessel of wisdom from a higher place onto her arm, and offered to the disciple, from the jar, as much of the teaching as he was able to receive.
Along with the rest, I am also struck with amazement at her lack of stint. For though asked for only a little drink, she gives much, until she has filled the whole soul of the learner with drinkable theorems. For it says, "She gave him to drink until he stopped drinking" -- a most admirable lesson in benevolence toward humanity; for if someone is in need of more but out of shame approaches and asks for little, we should not give only what he says, but also those things, held back in silence, of which he is truly in need.
But it is not enough for the disciple, for complete enjoyment, merely to grasp whatever the teacher sets forth, unless memory is also added. That is why she, displaying her generosity, when she has filled him by giving him drink, promises also to draw water for the camels, which we say symbolically represent memories; for that animal chews the cud, grinding its food fine, and when it has knelt down and taken on the heaviest load, it rises up lightly with great vigor.
So too the soul of the lover of learning, when the weight of theorems has been laid upon it, does not become the more humbled but, rising up, rejoices; and from the rumination and, as it were, the grinding fine of the food first laid down there arises the memory of the theorems.
Seeing that the nature of the boy was receptive to virtue, she emptied out the whole jar -- that is, the whole knowledge of the teacher -- into the soul of the learner. For sophists, out of love of money and envy together, stunt the natures of their pupils, keeping silent about much that ought to be said, hoarding up the payment for themselves for later,
Seeing that the boy's nature was well disposed to receive virtue, she emptied the whole jar into the trough — that is, poured all the teacher's knowledge into the soul of the learner. For sophists, out of love of money together with envy, stunt the natures of their acquaintances, and keep quiet about much of what they ought to say, husbanding their fee-earning capital for themselves for later.
Virtue is an ungrudging and generous thing, ready, as the saying goes, to help with hand and foot and every power, never shrinking back. So whatever she knew, having poured it out as into a reservoir — the mind of her acquaintance — she comes again to the well to draw upon the ever-flowing wisdom of God, so that the old things too might be watered, through memory, together with the knowledge of newer ones; for the wealth of God's wisdom is boundless, bringing forth new shoots upon the old, so that it never ceases growing young again and flourishing.
That is why those who have supposed they could reach the limit of any branch of knowledge whatsoever are utterly foolish; for the appearance of being near is very far removed from the goal, since none of the things that have come into being is perfect in regard to any subject of learning, but falls as short as a wholly infant child, just beginning to learn, falls short of a white-haired
guide, both in age and in skill. One must inquire into the reason why he waters the boy from the spring but the camels from the well. Perhaps, then, the stream is the same [...] the one who irrigates the sciences is the sacred word, while the well is akin to memory; for what he has already made deep is drawn up, as it were from a well, by recollection.
Such people, then, must be commended for the good fortune of their nature; but there are some in training for whom the road leading to virtue, thought at first rough, steep, and difficult, God, the benefactor of all, has once more made a highway, turning the bitterness of toil into sweetness.
We will explain in what manner he changed it. When he led us out of Egypt, out of the passions of the body, and we were traveling the desert path of pleasure, we encamped at Marah, a place with no drinkable stream, but altogether bitter (Exodus 15:23); for still the delights that come through eyes and ears, and again of the belly and what comes after the belly, echoed within us and thoroughly enchanted us with their resounding.
So whenever we wished to break free of them entirely, they dragged us back, embracing and entwining us, weaving their spells and thoroughly bewitching us, so that, yielding to their continual taming, we grew estranged from toil as something very bitter and troublesome, and resolved to run back to Egypt, the refuge of a wanton and unrestrained life — had not the Savior, quickly taking pity, cast into the soul, like a sweetening piece of wood (cf. Exodus 15:25), a love of labor in place of a hatred of labor.
For he knew, being the craftsman, that none of the things that exist can be mastered unless an intense longing is added to it. Whatever pursuits people undertake, without an affinity for them, do not reach their fitting end; but once love is added, and a fusion with the thing desired, they are brought to perfection in the highest degree.
This is the nourishment of the soul in training: to take up labor as the sweetest thing in place of bitter — a nourishment it is not lawful for all to share, but only for those for whom the golden calf, the Egyptian idol that is the body, has been burned in fire, ground fine, and sown upon the water. For it is said in the sacred books: "Moses took the calf and burned it with fire and ground it fine and sowed it upon the water, and gave it to the sons of Israel to drink" (Exodus 32:20).
For the lover of virtue, set ablaze by the radiant vision of the beautiful, burns up the bodily pleasures, then cuts them small and grinds them fine, using the reasoning that proceeds by division, and teaches in this way that among bodily goods are health, or beauty, or precision of the senses, or wholeness together with mighty strength and vigor — all of which are common even to the accursed and the utterly impious, and which, if they were truly good, no worthless person would ever have had a share in.
But these men, however thoroughly wicked, are at least human beings, sharing the same nature as the good, and so have a share in these goods. But as it is, even the most untamed of wild beasts make use of these "goods" — if indeed they are truly good — more than rational beings do.
For what athlete could be made equal to the strength of a bull or the might of an elephant? What runner to the swiftness of a puppy or a young hare? The sharpest-sighted of men is quite dim-eyed compared to the vision of hawks or eagles. In hearing and in smell the irrational animals have far surpassed us, so much so that the donkey — thought to be the dullest of creatures — would, if brought in to be judged, show our hearing to be deaf, and the dog would show the human nose to be a superfluous feature, by the surpassing speed of its scent-tracking; for its scent reaches so far that it can rival the range of the eyes.
And why should one go on at length, running through each case? This has already been agreed upon among the most esteemed of the sages of old, who said that nature is a mother to irrational creatures but a stepmother to human beings, having observed the bodily weakness of the latter and the surpassing strength in all things of the former. Rightly, then, did the craftsman grind the calf fine — that is, dividing into parts the things in which the body excels — and showed that all of them stand far removed from the good in the true sense, and differ in nothing from things sown upon water.
That is why the account holds that the ground-up calf was sown upon the water — a symbol that no genuine plant of the good can ever sprout in perishable matter. For just as seed cast into the current of a river or the sea could never display its own powers — it is impossible for a shoot to spring up, even a low one if not a very tall one, or to bear fruit in its proper season, unless it takes hold with roots, as with anchors, of some firm ground, since the great and violent rush of the water outstrips all the seed's vital forces before they can take effect — in the same way, whatever advantages are said and sung of the vessel of the soul perish before they can even take root, since the substance of the body is forever flowing away.
For how would diseases and old age and utter corruption befall it, if there were not a continual draining away of streams perceptible only to reason? These, then, our hierophant deems unworthy to give as drink, by burning up the pleasures, by grinding and dissolving the whole system of bodily goods into fine and useless dust, holding that from none of them has the good in the true sense ever sprouted and flowered, just as it does not from seeds sown upon water.
Bulls and rams and goats, which Egypt holds in honor, and all the other idols fashioned of perishable matter, are considered gods only by hearsay, not being so in truth — all of them falsely named. For while the souls of the young are still tender, those who regard life as a tragedy and are lovers of vanity stamp counterfeit impressions upon them, making use of the ears as their instruments. Pouring over them a mythical nonsense and fusing it into their minds to the point of fashioning gods, they force men of such disposition never to become men, but to remain forever effeminate.
The calf, at any rate, is not fashioned from the whole of women's finery, but from the earrings alone (Exodus 32:2), the lawgiver teaching us thereby that nothing made by hand is a god, either to sight or in truth, but only by hearsay and by being reckoned so — and moreover by the hearsay of a woman, not of a man; for it is the work of a nerveless and truly effeminate soul to accept such nonsense.
But that which truly exists happens to be apprehended and known not through the ears alone, but by the eyes of the mind, from the powers at work throughout the world and from the ceaseless, unfailing procession of its unimaginable works. Hence it is said in the greater song, in the person of God: "See, see, that I am" (Deuteronomy 32:39), since he who truly exists is grasped more by direct apprehension than established by demonstration in words.
But saying that "the existent" is visible is not strictly accurate; it is a figure of speech applied to each of his powers, which is what is visible. Indeed here he does not say "see me" — for it is impossible for the one who exists as God to be comprehended at all by that which belongs to becoming — but rather, "see that I am," that is, "look upon my existence." For a man's power of reasoning suffices to advance only as far as learning that the Cause of all things is and exists; but to press further, to inquire into his essence or quality, is a folly as old as the world.
For not even to Moses, wise in all things, did God grant this, though he made countless entreaties; instead the oracle came to him: "you shall see what is behind, but you shall not see my face" (Exodus 33:23). And this meant: everything that comes after God is apprehensible to the man of worth, but God himself alone is inapprehensible — inapprehensible, that is, by a direct and straightforward approach (for through this his essential nature would have been disclosed), but apprehensible through the powers that follow and attend him; for these make known not his essence but his existence, from what is accomplished by him.
The mind, then, having begotten Seth as the beginning of a good disposition, a certain first form of virtue — the "watering" — now indulges in a noble and holy youthful exploit. For it says: "God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain killed" (Genesis 4:25). It is said with careful precision that none of the divine seeds falls to the ground, but all of them rise upward, away from the things of the earth.
For the seeds cast by mortals toward the generation of animals or plants are not all brought to completion; one may be content if those that perish are not more numerous than those that survive. But God sows nothing incomplete in souls; rather his seeds are so timely and perfect that they immediately bring with them the full abundance of their own proper fruits, each according to its kind.
In calling Seth "another seed" that had sprung up, he has not made clear other than which one. Is it other than the murdered Abel, or other than Cain the killer? But perhaps the offspring differs from each in a different way: from Cain, as an enemy — for the thirst for virtue is most hostile to a wickedness that has deserted to the other side — but from Abel, as a friend and kinsman; for it is other, yet not alien, being the thing just beginning as against the perfect, and the thing tending toward becoming as against that which is beyond becoming.
For this reason Abel, having left the mortal behind, has departed, having migrated to the better nature; whereas Seth, being the seed of human virtue, will never abandon the human race, but will receive a first increase reaching to the perfect number ten, in which righteous Noah is established; a second and better increase, from his son Shem, ending in another ten, of which the faithful Abraham bears the name; and a third and more perfect week of tens, running from him to Moses, wise in all things — for this man is the seventh from Abraham, no longer circling, like an initiate, outside the sacred ring, but
rather spending his days within the inner sanctuary itself, like a hierophant. Consider the advances toward improvement of a soul insatiable and unsated for what is good, and the boundless wealth of God, who has granted to some as a beginning what was the end for others. For the limit of the knowledge belonging to Seth became the beginning of righteous Noah; and Abraham begins to be schooled in what completes Noah's perfection; while the highest wisdom of Abraham is the very first exercise of Moses.
But the two daughters of Lot — counsel and assent — of him who has been thrown down and made to totter through weakness of soul, wish to bear children by the mind of their own father (Genesis 19:32), setting themselves against the one who says: "God has raised up for me..." For what the Existent was to him, they claim the mind is able to secure for themselves — introducing a doctrine fit for a drunken and deranged soul; for it is the work of a sober and prudent reasoning to confess God as maker and father of the universe, but the work of one fallen under drunkenness and wine-madness to consider himself the creator of each of his own human affairs.
So then, wicked resolves will not come into intercourse with the father until they have poured over him the great unmixed wine of folly and drowned whatever understanding was in him. For it is written that "they gave their father wine to drink" (Genesis 19:33); so that when they do not give him drink, they will never receive lawful seed, but when he is soaked through and reeling, they will conceive, and will make use of blameworthy birth-pangs and accursed offspring.
This is why Moses fenced off their impious and unclean offspring entirely from the divine assembly. For he says, "Ammonites and Moabites shall not enter the assembly of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 23:3). These are the descendants of the daughters of Lot, who supposed that everything is begotten from sense-perception and mind, male and female, as if from a father and a mother, and took this to be the true cause of generation.
We, however, even if we should ever accept this reversal, should also, like swimmers rising up out of a wave, take hold of repentance, a firm and saving thing, and not let go until we have made our way entirely through the surging sea, the current of that reversal.
as also Rachel, who at first had asked for the mind as the cause of her bearing children, and having heard, "Am I in the place of God?" (Genesis 30:2), took the words to heart, and having learned her lesson made a most sacred recantation. For it is written as Rachel's recantation, a prayer dear to God: "May God add to me another son" (Genesis 30:24). No fool can make this prayer, since fools hunt only their own pleasure and count everything else broad laughter and mockery.
The sponsor of this doctrine is Onan, kinsman of Er of the leather. For "this man, knowing," it says, "that the seed would not be his own, when he went in to his brother's wife, spilled it upon the ground" (Genesis 38:9), having overstepped the bounds of self-love and love of pleasure.
I would say to him, then: if you procure your own advantage, you will overturn all the best things, if you gain nothing from them—honor to parents, care for a wife, the raising of children, the blameless use of household servants, the management of a house, oversight of a city, the confirming of laws, the guarding of customs, reverence toward elders, fair speech concerning the dead, fellowship with the living, piety toward the divine in word and deed. For you overturn and pour out all these things, sowing for yourself and nursing gluttonous, unrestrained pleasure, the beginning of all
evils. Rising up against this, the priest and servant of the one and only good, Phinehas, guardian of the bodily openings and passages, so that none of them might go astray and run riot—for his name is interpreted "muzzle of the mouth"—took the spear, that is, having sought out and searched into the nature of what truly exists and found nothing more venerable than virtue, he stabbed and destroyed by reason that birth which hates virtue and loves pleasure, and the very places from which those counterfeit, deranged luxuries and dissipations had sprung.
For the law says that it was done through the woman's womb (Numbers 25:7–8). Having thus quelled the sedition within himself and turned away from his own pleasure, having emulated the zeal of God, the first and only one, he has been honored and crowned with the two greatest prizes, peace and priesthood: with the one, because it is a brother to peace, both in name and in deed.
For the mind that has been consecrated, being his minister and servant, must of necessity do all the things in which the Master delights; and he delights in the confirming of good order and stability, and in the overthrow of wars and seditions—not only those that cities wage against one another, but also those within the soul. And these are greater and harder to bear, since they maltreat the more divine element within us, reason, whereas weapons only ever reach as far as harm to bodies and possessions, and can never harm a healthy soul.
For this reason cities would do well if, before bringing arms and engines of war against one another for enslavement and utter destruction, they persuaded each of their citizens to put down the great, manifold, and continual sedition within himself. For this, if the truth must be told, is the archetype of all wars, and once it is removed, not even those wars fashioned in its imitation will any longer come into being; instead the human race will have the use and enjoyment of deep peace, taught by the law of nature to honor virtue, to honor God, and to hold fast to his service. For this is the fountain of happiness and a long life.

======== On the Giants ========

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them" (Gen. 6:1). It is worth asking, I think, why our race increases into a multitude of people only after the birth of Noah and his sons. But perhaps the reason is not hard to give: whenever what is rare appears, its opposite is always found in great abundance.
The natural excellence of one man thus reveals the natural deficiency of countless others, and the fact that skilled, learned, good, and noble things are few shows up, by contrast, the boundless throng of the unskilled, the ignorant, the unjust, and in general the base.
Do you not see that in the universe as a whole, the sun, though one, scatters the vast and deep darkness poured out over land and sea when it shines forth? So it is fitting that the birth of the righteous Noah and of his sons should, by contrast, bring into relief the many unjust men around them; for opposites by their very nature are best recognized by their opposites.
No unjust person ever sows a male offspring in the soul at all; rather, being by nature unmanly, broken, and womanish in their thinking, such people beget only female offspring. They plant no tree of virtue, whose fruits must of necessity be fair and noble, but only trees of vice and passion, whose shoots are all womanish.
This is why these men are said to have begotten daughters, but not a single son among them. For since the righteous Noah, in pursuing perfect and upright reason, which is truly male, begets male offspring, the injustice found among the many must, in every case, appear as a begetter of females; for it is impossible for the same things to be produced by opposites, rather than opposites again by opposites.
"And the angels of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, took wives for themselves from all of them, whom they chose" (Gen. 6:2). These beings other philosophers are accustomed to call demons, Moses angels; they are souls flying through the air.
And let no one suppose that what has been said is a myth. For it is necessary that the whole world through and through be ensouled, since each of the primary and elemental parts contains the living creatures proper and suited to it: the earth its land creatures, the sea and rivers their water creatures, fire the creatures born of fire (this is said to occur especially in Macedonia), and heaven its stars.
For the stars too are wholly souls through and through, pure and divine, and they move in the motion most akin to mind, moving forward and in a circle; for each of them is mind in its purest form. It is therefore necessary that the air also be filled with living beings; but these are invisible to us, just as the air itself is not visible to sense.
But it is not because sight is unable to receive an impression of the shapes of souls that souls do not exist in the air; rather, they must necessarily be apprehended by mind, so that like may be perceived by like. Since, indeed, what else shall we say?
Do not all creatures of land and water live by air and breath? What then? When the air is corrupted, do not pestilential afflictions tend to arise, as though the air were the cause of ensoulment for each creature? And what of this: when the air is unharmed and free of corruption, as tends to happen especially in the north winds, does it not, by drawing in purer breath, grant a greater and stronger endurance of life?
Is it then reasonable that the very medium through which other creatures, both water-dwelling and land-dwelling, have been ensouled, should itself be empty and devoid of souls? On the contrary: even if all other living things had been barren, the air alone ought to have brought forth living souls of its own,
having received seeds set apart for this special purpose from the Creator. Of these souls, some have descended into bodies, while others have never deigned to be united with any portion of earth. These latter, consecrated and devoted wholly to the service of the Father, the Creator is accustomed to employ as assistants and ministers for the oversight of mortal things.
But those souls that descended into the body, as though into a river, have sometimes been seized and swallowed up by the most violent pull of the current, while at other times, being able to resist the stream, they first swam up against it, and then flew back up to the place from which they had set out.
These, then, are the souls of those who have practiced philosophy without pretense, training from beginning to end to die to the life lived with the body, so that they might obtain a share in the incorporeal and imperishable life in the presence of the unbegotten and imperishable God.
But those that were drowned belong to the rest of humankind, all who disregarded wisdom and gave themselves over to unstable and chance affairs, none of which are referred to the best part within us, soul or mind, but all to our congenital corpse, the body, or to things even more soulless than the body—I mean reputation, wealth, offices, honors, and whatever else is fashioned or painted by the deceit of false opinion among those who have not beheld the things that are truly good.
If, then, you think of souls, demons, and angels as differing only in name but as one and the same thing underlying them, you will cast off a most grievous burden, superstition. For just as the many speak of good demons and bad ones, and likewise of souls, so too, in speaking of angels, you will not err in supposing that some are worthy of the name—certain envoys of men to God and of God to men, holy and inviolable because of this blameless and altogether beautiful service—while others, on the contrary, are unholy and unworthy of the name.
My argument is confirmed by what is said by the hymn-writer in this song: "He sent out against them the anger of his wrath, wrath and anger and affliction, a mission through evil angels" (Psalm 77:49). These are the wicked ones who assume the name of angels, not knowing the daughters of right reason, the sciences and the virtues, but pursuing instead the mortal pleasures, offspring of mortal men, pleasures that bring with them no genuine beauty—the kind beheld by the mind alone—but only a counterfeit comeliness, by which sense-perception is deceived.
And not all of them take all the daughters, but some take some out of the countless number, each choosing for himself: some the daughters that come through sight, others those through hearing, others again those through taste and the belly, some those that come after the belly, and many, even among things set at the greatest distance from one another, have laid hold of them, stretching their desires within themselves to the utmost. For necessarily the choices of varied pleasures are themselves varied, different men being attached to different pleasures.
Among such people, then, it is impossible for the spirit of God to remain and abide forever, as the lawgiver himself shows. For he says, "The Lord God said, My spirit shall not remain among men forever, because they are flesh" (Gen. 6:3).
For it does remain at times, but it does not remain continually among the majority of us. For who is so irrational or so soulless as never, whether willingly or unwillingly, to receive some notion of what is best? But indeed, even upon the most impious there often flies down, of a sudden, a fleeting vision of the good, though they are unable to grasp it and keep it within themselves.
For it departs at once, moving elsewhere, turning away from the inhabitants who have come to dwell there, having abandoned law and justice—people to whom it would never have come at all, except to convict those who choose shameful things instead of noble ones.
"Spirit of God" is used in one sense for the flowing air that rises from the earth, a third element carried upon water—hence he says in the account of the world's creation, "The spirit of God was borne above the water" (Gen. 1:2), since air, being light, is lifted up and carried upward, using water as its base—and in another sense for the pure knowledge in which every wise person naturally shares.
He makes this clear when speaking of the maker and craftsman of the holy works, saying that "God called back Bezalel and filled him with a divine spirit, of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge, to devise every kind of work" (Exod. 31:2–3); so that what spirit is,
in the divine sense, is described in outline through what has been said. Such, too, is the spirit of Moses, which comes upon the seventy elders so that they might differ from others and be improved by it; for these men could not truly become elders at all, without partaking of that all-wise spirit. For it is said, "I will take away from the spirit that is upon you and put it upon the seventy elders" (Num. 11:17).
But do not suppose that this taking-away happens by way of cutting off and separation; rather, it is like what happens with fire—even if one kindles countless torches from it, it remains undiminished in itself, exactly as it was. Such is also the nature of knowledge: having made its students and disciples experienced in every way, it is not diminished in any part, but often even increases toward what is better, just as they say of springs that are drawn from—for these too are said, by that very drawing, to grow the sweeter.
But do not suppose that this withdrawal happens by way of severance and separation, but rather as fire behaves when it kindles ten thousand torches from itself: it remains in no way diminished, but stays the same. Such is also the nature of knowledge: for though it renders all its students and associates experienced, it is diminished in no part, and often even grows toward the better, just as they say happens with springs that are drawn from — for these too, report has it, grow sweeter the more they are drawn upon.
For continual association with others, by producing practice and exercise, brings about complete perfection. Now if the spirit that belongs to Moses himself, or to any other created being, were bound to be distributed among so great a multitude of disciples, it would be diminished by being broken into so many portions.
But as it is, the spirit that rests upon him is the wise spirit, the divine spirit, the uncut, the undivided, the excellent, the spirit that is everywhere filled full throughout the whole — which, in benefiting, suffers no harm, nor is it lessened in understanding and knowledge and wisdom either by being shared with others or by being added to them.
This is why it is possible for the divine spirit to remain in a soul, but impossible for it to remain permanently, as we have said. And why should we be surprised? For not even in any other matter whatsoever does secure and stable possession arise, since human affairs incline now this way, now that, swaying to either side, and admit at different times different sorts of change.
The greatest cause of this lack of understanding is the flesh, and attachment to the flesh. God himself acknowledges this, saying, "because they are flesh," the divine spirit cannot remain. And indeed marriage, the raising of children, the provision of necessities, obscurity joined with lack of means, and business affairs — some private, some public — and countless other things besides, wither wisdom before it can flower.
But nothing is so great an obstacle to its growth as the nature of the flesh. For this, like some foundation of ignorance and lack of learning, is laid down first and greatest, and upon it each of the things already mentioned is built.
For souls that are without flesh and without body, spending their days in the theater of the universe, delight in divine spectacles and sounds, filled with an insatiable longing for them, and enjoy them with nothing to hinder their work. But those souls that bear the burden of the flesh, weighed down and oppressed, are unable to look up at the heavenly cycles; dragged downward, their necks are forcibly rooted to the earth like four-footed beasts.
(8.) This is why the lawgiver, knowing the lawless and illicit unions and minglings, aims to abolish them, and prefaces his law in this manner: "A man, a man, shall not approach any close relative of his flesh, to uncover shame: I am the Lord" (Lev 18:6). How could one more effectively urge contempt for the flesh and the things proper to the flesh than in this way?
And indeed he does not merely dissuade, but even firmly declares that the man devoted to truth will never willingly approach the pleasures of the body, dear and akin to it as they are, but will always practice estrangement from them. The fact that he says not once but twice, "a man, a man," is a sign that he does not mean the one composed of body and soul, but the one who lives by virtue. For this is truly the real man — the one whom, as one of the ancients said, having lit a lamp at midday, he declared he was seeking, in answer to those who asked what he was doing.
As for not approaching every close relative of the flesh — this has a necessary rationale. For some things must be approached, such as the things actually needed, by making use of which we shall be able to live without sickness and in health; but the superfluous things must be cast off, since desires, once kindled by them, burn up in a single rush everything of worth.
Let not our appetites, then, be roused toward everything dear to the flesh; for untamed pleasures, often, when they fawn upon us like dogs, turn about and bite incurably. So let us embrace frugality, the friend of virtue, ahead of what is proper to the body, and thereby dissolve the vast and endless mass of implacable enemies. And if some occasion presses us to take more than what is moderate and sufficient, let us not ourselves go along with it; for it says, "he shall not himself approach, to uncover shame."
What this means is worth unfolding. Often men who never became money-makers have possessed abundant wealth; others, who did not pursue reputation, have been deemed worthy of public praise and honors; and to others, who hoped for not even the least strength, the greatest vigor has come.
Let all such people learn, then, to approach none of these things mentioned with the judgment — that is, not to marvel at and welcome them beyond what is moderate — that each of them is not merely good, but the greatest of evils: money, reputation, bodily strength. For lovers of money have a natural inclination toward silver, lovers of reputation toward glory, lovers of athletics and exercise toward strength; for they have handed over the better part, the soul, to the worse — to soulless things — whereas those who are inward toward themselves,
make these brilliant and hotly contested advantages subject to the mind as to a ruler, welcoming them when they approach for their own improvement, but not approaching them when they stand far off, as though able to be happy even without them.
But the one who pursues them and wishes to follow in their tracks fills philosophy with shameful reputation; on account of which it is said, "to uncover the shame." For how could the reproaches not be clear and evident against those who claim to be wise but sell wisdom and offer it cheap, as they say those in the marketplace cry their wares for sale, now for a small profit, now for sweet and beguiling speech, now for an unstable hope hanging on nothing secure, and sometimes even for
promises that differ in no way from dreams? And the addition, "I am the Lord," is spoken most beautifully and most instructively. For, he says, set the good of the flesh, noble one, against the good of the soul and the good of the universe; the good of the flesh is irrational pleasure, while the good of the soul and of the universe is the mind of all things, God.
The comparison of the incomparable is a rivalry so close that one is deceived by the near resemblance — as if one were to say that ensouled things are the same as soulless ones, rational the same as irrational, harmonious the same as discordant, well-fitted the same as ill-fitted, light the same as darkness, day the same as night, and, in general, all opposites the same as their opposites, when it comes to truth.
And indeed, even if these things, by having entered into being, have some fellowship and kinship with one another, still God is not like even the best of created things, in that the one has come into being and will suffer change, while he is uncreated and always acting.
It is a fine thing not to desert the rank assigned by God, in which all who are stationed must excel, and not to go over to unmanly and broken pleasure, which harms its friends and benefits its enemies. For its nature is most strange: those to whom it wishes to impart a share of its own goods, it harms immediately, while those from whom it takes such goods away, it benefits most greatly —
for it harms when it gives, and does a favor when it takes away. If, then, O soul, some charm of pleasure calls to you, turn yourself aside, and, redirecting your gaze, look upon the genuine beauty of virtue, and remain gazing until desire melts within you and, like a lodestone,
draws you near and fastens you to the object of your longing. The phrase "I am the Lord" must be understood not only as equivalent to "I am the perfect and incorruptible and truly good," being held fast by whom a person will turn away from the imperfect, the corruptible, and what hangs upon the flesh — but also in place of "I am the ruler, the king, and the master."
For it is not safe to act unjustly either for subjects in the presence of their rulers, or for slaves in the presence of their masters; for when those who punish are near, those not naturally disposed to be corrected by their own resources are made prudent by fear.
For God, having filled all things, is near, so that, since he oversees and is close at hand, we should, out of reverence above all — but if not that, then at least out of caution before the unconquerable might of his rule and the fearful, inexorable severity of his punishments, whenever he should decide to exercise his punitive power — restrain ourselves from wrongdoing, so that the divine spirit of wisdom may not easily depart and be gone, but may remain with us a very long time, since even with the wise Moses —
for he maintains the most peaceable postures, whether standing or sitting, being by nature least given to turning and change; for it is said, "Moses and the ark did not move" (Num 14:44), either because the wise man is inseparable from virtue, or because neither virtue is movable nor the man of worth changeable, but each is established in the stability of right reason. And again, elsewhere:
"But you, stand here with me" (Deut 5:31). This is an oracle given to the prophet: a standing and an unswerving stillness beside the God who always stands unswerving.
for what is set beside it must be tested by a sound standard. This, it seems to me, is why excessive vanity, surnamed Jethro, struck with astonishment at the unwavering, most equable, and ever-consistent purpose of the wise man, protests and inquires in this manner: "Why do you sit alone?" (Exod 18:14).
For someone who has seen the war among men that goes on continually even in time of peace — not only as it is arrayed by nation and territory and city, but also by household, or rather by each single man, and the unspeakable, heavy storm in men's souls that is fanned up by the most violent onrush of the affairs of life — has good reason to marvel if anyone is able to maintain fair weather in a storm, or a calm in the surging swell of the sea.
You see that not even the high priest Word, though able to linger continually and occupy himself with the holy doctrines, has been granted leave to resort to them at every season, but only once in the year, and even then with difficulty (Lev. 16:2, 34). For what comes with spoken word is not secure, since it is a duality, whereas what is grasped without voice, by the soul alone, in contemplation of the One who is, is most secure, because it stands firm according to
the undivided unity. So then, among the many — that is, among those who have set before themselves many ends of life — the divine spirit does not remain, even if it turns among them for a little while; it comes only to one kind of man, the one who, having stripped off everything that belongs to becoming, and the innermost veil and covering of opinion, will come to God with an understanding laid bare and naked.
So too Moses, when he had pitched his own tent outside the camp and outside every bodily encampment (Exod. 33:7) — that is, when he had established his own judgment unswervingly — begins to worship God, and entering into the darkness, the invisible region, he remains there being initiated into the most sacred mysteries. And he becomes not only an initiate, but also a hierophant of mysteries and a teacher of divine things, which he will expound to those whose ears have been purified.
To this man, then, the divine spirit is always present, leading the way along every right path, whereas from the others, as I said, it is very quickly separated — men whose life he has filled out with a number of a hundred and twenty years; for he says, "Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years" (Gen. 6:3).
But Moses too, having reached the same number of years, departed from mortal life (Deut. 34:7). How then is it reasonable that men liable to blame should be of the same span of years as the all-wise prophet? For the present it will suffice to say this: that things called by the same name are not in every case alike, but are often even separated by an entire class of being, and that the tribe of the worthy man can indeed have equal numbers and equal spans of time — since even a twin is introduced — while their powers are detached and set far apart from one another.
The precise account of the hundred and twenty years we shall defer to our examination of the whole prophetic life, whenever we become capable of being initiated into it; for now let us say what comes next.
"Now the giants were upon the earth in those days" (Gen. 6:4). Perhaps someone supposes that the lawgiver is here hinting at the things fabled by the poets about the giants, though he stands as far apart as possible from myth-making, and holds it right to set foot on the very tracks of truth.
For this reason he also banished from his own commonwealth the celebrated and elegant arts of painting and sculpture, because, by falsifying the nature of what is true, they contrive deceptions and sophistries through the eyes for souls that are easily led astray.
So he introduces no myth whatsoever about giants; rather, he wishes to set this before you: that some men are of earth, some of heaven, and some of God. Those of earth are the hunters after the pleasures of the body, who make it their practice to enjoy and use them, and are procurers of whatever contributes to each; those of heaven are all who are craftsmen and men of knowledge and lovers of learning — for the heavenly element within us is the mind (and mind is what heaven is to each thing) — and it is the mind that practices the encyclical studies and all the other arts, one and all, sharpening and whetting itself, and moreover exercising and hardening itself among the objects of intellect —
while men of God are priests and prophets, who have not deigned to obtain citizenship in the world or to become citizens of the cosmos, but, having risen above the whole realm of sense-perception, have removed to the intelligible world and have taken up their dwelling there, enrolled among incorruptible and bodiless
Abraham, at any rate, so long as he was dwelling in the land and the reputation of the Chaldeans, before he was renamed, being called Abram, was a man of heaven, searching out the nature of things aloft and of the upper air, and the events that occur and their causes, and philosophizing about anything else of like kind — for which reason he also came to have a name proper to what he practiced; for Abram, when interpreted, means "exalted father," a name for the mind of the father who surveys on every side all things aloft and in the heavens, and the mind is the father of the composite being, reaching as far as the upper air and yet still further —
but when, having become better, he was about to be renamed, he becomes a man of God, in accordance with the oracle spoken to him: "I am your God; be well-pleasing before me, and be blameless" (Gen. 17:1).
And if the God of the cosmos, who alone is God, is by a special grace peculiarly his own God as well, then of necessity he too belongs to God. For he is called Abraham, which when interpreted is "chosen father of sound," that is, the reasoning of the worthy man; for it has been chosen out and purified, and is father of the voice with which we resound in harmony. And such a man has been allotted to the one God alone, and becoming his follower he steers the path of his whole life straight, making use in truth of the royal road belonging to the one king and ruler of all,
turning aside and swerving to neither side. But the children of earth, having driven the mind out of the exercise of reason and transformed it into the soulless and unmoving nature of flesh — for "the two became one flesh," as the lawgiver says (Gen. 2:24) — have adulterated the finest coinage, and have abandoned the better and proper rank, deserting to the worse and opposite one, with Nimrod as the one who began the work.
For the lawgiver says that "this one began to be a giant upon the earth" (Gen. 10:8), and Nimrod, when interpreted, means "desertion." For it was not enough for this most wretched soul to stand with neither side, but, having gone over to the enemy, it took up arms against its friends, and openly stood against them and made war. For this reason he also assigns Babylon as the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom, and Babylon means "transposition," a name akin to desertion, name to name and deed to deed; for the preludes to every desertion are a change of judgment and a transposition of it.
It would follow, then, to say that, according to the most sacred Moses, the base man, like one without house or city, without a settled place, a fugitive, is likewise a deserter, while the man of worth is a most steadfast ally. Having now said enough for the present about the giants, let us turn to what follows in the discourse. It is this:

======== On the Unchangeableness of God ========

"And after that," he says, "as the angels of God went in to the daughters of men, and had children by them" (Gen. 6:4). It is worth examining, then, what sense the phrase "after that" carries. It is, in fact, a reference pointing back with greater clarity to something already said.
What was said before concerns the divine spirit, which he said would remain, until the end of the whole age, in a soul of many divisions and many forms, one that had tied itself to a crowd of flesh as the heaviest and most unworkable burden. It is after that spirit, then, that the angels go in to the daughters of men.
For as long as pure rays of understanding shine in the soul, by which the wise man sees God and his powers, none of those bringers of ill tidings steals into the reasoning, but all are kept outside the sprinkling-basins; but when the light of the mind grows dim and is overshadowed, the companions of darkness, gaining the upper hand, unite with the passions - broken and softened, which he has called "daughters of men" - and beget children for themselves, not for God.
For virtues whole and entire are God's own offspring, while ill-matched vices are kin to the base. Learn, if you wish, O understanding, what it is not to beget for oneself, from Abraham the perfect, who leads up to God, and renders back with all cheerfulness as a necessary and fitting thank-offering, the beloved and only genuine offspring of his soul - the clearest image of self-taught wisdom, surnamed Isaac - binding, as the law says (Gen. 22:2,9), the newly-fashioned sacrificial victim; either because, once he had been inspired by God, he thought it right thereafter never to set foot on anything mortal, or because he had seen that created existence is unsettled and unstable, once he had come to know the unwavering steadfastness that belongs to Being - by which he is said to have believed (Gen. 15:6).
Of this man Hannah becomes disciple and successor - she who is the gift of God's wisdom, for her name is translated "his grace." For when she had conceived, having received a divine seed, and had made use of labor-pains brought to their fulfillment, and had borne the one appointed in God's order, whom she named Samuel - which, translated, means "appointed to God" - she took him and gave him back to the giver, judging nothing of her own to be good except what is divine grace.
For she speaks in the first book of Kingdoms in this way: "I give him to you as a given one" (1 Kgdms. 1:28) - which amounts to saying he is given, so that it means "I give the one who has been given," in accordance with that most sacred writing of Moses: "My gifts, my presents, my offerings you shall keep, to bring them to me"
(Num. 28:2). For to whom else should thanks be given but to God? And by what means, if not through the things given by him? For it is not possible to be supplied from any other source. And though he is in need of nothing, he commands that we bring to him what is his own, on account of the surpassing greatness of his benefaction toward our race; for by practicing gratitude and honor toward him we shall keep ourselves pure of wrongdoing, having washed away what defiles life in words, in thoughts, and in deeds.
For it would indeed be foolish that one should not be permitted to walk into the sanctuaries unless he has first washed and brightened his body, and yet should attempt to pray and sacrifice while his understanding is still stained and confused. And yet the sanctuaries are made of stone and wood, soulless matter, and the body itself is, in itself, soulless as well; but even so, soulless as it is, it will not touch soulless things unless it has made use of sprinklings and purifying rites of cleansing - while will anyone endure to approach God while impure, offering his own soul to the purest of beings, and that without even intending to repent?
Let the one who has resolved not only to do no further wrong but also to wash away the old stains approach with joy; but let the one who, apart from these, remains hard to purify keep his distance. For he will never escape the notice of him who sees the things in the recesses of the understanding
and walks about within its innermost shrines. A most vivid proof of a soul beloved of God is also the song that contains the words: "The barren woman has borne seven, while she who had many children has grown weak" (1 Kgdms. 2:5) - and yet the one who says this is mother of only one, Samuel.
How then does she say she has borne seven, unless she considers the unit and the number seven to be, by nature, one and the same thing - not only in numbers, but also in the harmony of the universe and in the reckoning of the virtuous soul? For Samuel, appointed to God alone and in fellowship with absolutely no one else, has been ordered according to the One and the unit, that which truly is.
This condition is that of the number seven - the soul resting in God and no longer laboring over any mortal task - arising from the abandonment of the number six, which he assigned to those unable to win first place but who, of necessity, lay claim to second.
The barren woman, then - not the infertile one, but the firm and still vigorous one, the one who through endurance, courage, and patience contends in the contests for possession of what is best - was likely to bear the unit that is equal in honor to the number seven; for nature is fruitful in good births and good offspring.
But the woman with many children he said, truly and very vividly, grows weak. For whenever a soul, though one, is in labor with many things, having fallen away from the one, it becomes, as is likely, countless, and then, weighed down and pressed by the crowd of dependent children clinging to it - and most of these are premature and miscarried - it grows weak.
For it bears desires for shapes and colors through the eyes, and it bears desires for sounds through the ears, and it is pregnant both with the desires of the belly and with those beneath it, so that, carrying the heaviest burden of its many hanging offspring, it gives way, and, letting its hands drop from weakness, gives up the struggle. This, then, is the way in which defeat comes upon all who, being themselves perishable, beget perishable things for themselves.
Some, out of self-love, have accepted not only defeat but even death. Onan, at any rate, "perceiving that the seed would not be his own" (Gen. 38:9), did not stop destroying the rational element - which is the best kind of thing that exists - until he himself had received utter destruction, and quite rightly and fittingly so.
For if some are going to do everything for their own sake, with no regard for the honor of parents, for the good order of children, for the safety of their homeland, for the keeping of laws, for the stability of customs, for the correction of matters private or public, for the sanctity of holy things, for piety toward God, they will live wretchedly.
For while some would trade even life itself, glorious as it is, for the sake of a single one of the things I have named, others say that even for all of them together, if no pleasure were likely to result, they would think nothing of them. Therefore God, who cannot be bribed, will remove utterly out of the way the wicked doctrine of a degenerate mind, surnamed Onan.
All, then, who beget for themselves must be rejected - that is, all who, hunting only their own advantage, look down on everyone else, as though they had come into being for themselves alone and not for countless others: father, mother, wife, children, homeland, the human race, and, if we must go further still, for heaven, earth, the whole universe, the sciences, the virtues, and the Father and Ruler of all things - to each of whom, according to one's ability, what is fitting must be apportioned, not counting all things as an addition to oneself, but rather oneself as belonging to all things.
Enough on this; let us weave together what follows in the argument. "The Lord God," he says, "seeing that the wickednesses of men had multiplied upon the earth, and that everyone contemplates in his heart, diligently, evil things all his days, God took it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered it. And God said: I will wipe out the man whom I made from the face of the earth" (Gen. 6:5-7).
Perhaps some of the unreflective will suspect that the lawgiver is hinting that, at the creation of human beings, the Creator changed his mind on seeing their impiety, and that for this reason he wished to destroy the whole race. But let them know that in holding such opinions they lighten and make trivial the sins of those ancient men, because of the excess of their own godlessness.
For what impiety could be greater than supposing that the Unchangeable changes? And yet some hold that not even all human beings waver in their judgments; for those who have pursued philosophy without deceit and in purity have found, as the greatest good arising from their knowledge, that they do not shift along with circumstances, but with unbending firmness and fixed steadfastness undertake everything that is fitting.
It pleases the lawgiver too that the perfect man should aim at stillness; for what was said to the wise man, in the person of God, "But you, stand here with me" (Deut. 5:31), most clearly establishes the unbending, unswerving, and altogether settled character of his judgment.
For it is truly a marvel when someone, having tuned his soul harmoniously like a lyre - not with high and low notes, but through knowledge of opposites and use of what is better - neither strains it by overstretching nor slackens it by softening the harmony of the virtues and of things naturally good, but preserves it evenly and strikes and plays it tunefully.
For this is the most perfect instrument fashioned by nature, the archetype of those made by hand; and if it is well tuned, it will produce the finest harmony of all - one whose completion lies not in the breaking and pitching of a tuneful voice, but in the agreement of one's actions throughout life.
Since, then, the soul of man—the great surge and swell that the sudden violent blast of wickedness has raised—is laid to rest by the breezes of knowledge and wisdom, and having subdued its heaving, swollen waters settles into windless calm, do you still hesitate to believe that the incorruptible and blessed one, invested with the sovereignty of the virtues, of perfection itself, and of happiness, does not resort to a change of mind, but abides by what he resolved from the beginning, altering none of it?
For men, mutability necessarily comes about either through an instability within themselves or through one outside them. For instance, we often choose friends in this way, and after spending some brief time with them, having no charge to bring against them, we turn away from them, placing them in the rank of enemies, or at least of strangers.
This behavior convicts us of a shallow fickleness, since we are unable to keep our original commitments firmly in place; but God is no fickle taster. And indeed there are times when we intend to abide by the same standards, but those who deal with us do not remain the same, so that of necessity our judgments too shift along with them.
For it is impossible for a being who is a man to foresee either the outcomes of future events or the intentions of others, but to God, as in pure light, all things are perfectly clear. For having reached even to the recesses of the soul, which are invisible to everyone else, he by nature sees them plainly, and making use of forethought and providence, virtues proper to himself, he allows nothing to run loose or step outside his comprehension, since indeed the obscurity of future things is not even compatible with him: for to God nothing is either obscure or future.
It is clear, then, that the one who planted must have knowledge of what has grown, the craftsman of what has been made, and the guardian of what is entrusted to his charge. And God is in truth the father, craftsman, and guardian of the things in heaven and in the cosmos. And yet future things are cast into shadow by the time still to come, sometimes for a short interval, sometimes for a long one.
But God is craftsman of time as well; for he is father even of time's father—and the father of time is the cosmos, since he declared the cosmos's motion to be time's origin—so that time holds the rank of a grandson in relation to God. For this cosmos is the younger son of God, since it is perceptible to the senses; for he never spoke of an elder son (though there is one—the intelligible cosmos), but, having deemed it worthy of seniority, resolved that it should remain beside himself.
This younger son, then, the sensible one, once set in motion, caused the nature of time to rise up and dawn; so that nothing is future to God, who holds even the boundaries of the ages subject to himself. For indeed his life is not time but the archetype and model of time, eternity; and in eternity nothing has passed and nothing is future, but only subsists.
Having then discussed sufficiently the point that the Existent One does not resort to a change of mind, we will next give in due order the meaning of the words: 'God took thought that he had made man on the earth, and he pondered' (Gen 6:6).
Conception and reflection—the one being thought stored up within, the other the working-out of thought—the maker of all things obtained as his surest powers, and by continually making use of them he surveys his own works. Those that do not abandon their place he commends for their obedience to order, while those that shift he pursues with the fixed penalty appointed for deserters.
Of bodies, he bound some together by cohesion, others by nature, others by soul, others by rational soul. Stones and pieces of wood, then, which have been torn away from their organic growth, cohesion forged into a most powerful bond; and this is breath turning back upon itself, for it begins by stretching from the center toward the extremities, and having touched the outermost surface it turns back again, until it arrives at the very place from which it first set out.
This continuous double course of cohesion is imperishable, and it is this that runners imitate at the four-yearly games in the common theaters of all mankind, displaying it as a great, splendid, and hotly contested feat.
...displaying it. But nature he allotted to plants, blending it out of a great many powers: nutritive, transformative, and growth-producing. For indeed they are nourished, since they have need of nourishment—and here is the proof: those not watered waste away and dry up, just as, conversely, those given drink visibly grow, for shoots that until then were low to the ground because of their smallness suddenly shoot upward and become very tall. What need is there to speak of their transformation?
At the winter solstice their leaves wither and fall to the ground, and the 'eyes,' as farmers call them, on the vine shoots close up just as in living creatures do, and all the openings toward new growth are shut tight, since nature is then gathered inward and at rest, so that, having caught its breath—like an athlete who has already competed and is gathering up his own strength—it may return afresh to its accustomed contests.
This happens in the seasons of spring and summer. For as though rising from a deep sleep, it opens its eyes and, unclosing its shut openings, widens them. And whatever it is pregnant with, it brings all to birth—leaves and shoots, tendrils, vine leaves, and fruit above all; then, once this is accomplished, it supplies nourishment, like a mother, to what has been born, through certain hidden passages that correspond to the breasts in women, and it does not cease nourishing until the fruit has been brought to completion.
The fruit is brought to completion when it has ripened fully, at which point, even if no one picks it, it hastens of itself to break away from its attachment, since it no longer needs the nourishment from the one who bore it, being now able, should it happen upon good soil, to sow and beget offspring like those who planted it.
But soul, which differs from nature in three respects, the Maker made with sensation, imagination, and impulse; for plants are without impulse, without imagination, and have no share in sensation, while each of the animals shares in all the things just named.
Sensation, then—as its very name somewhat indicates, being a kind of 'placing-in'—brings in to the mind the things that have appeared; for into the mind, since it is the greatest and all-receiving storehouse, are placed and stored away all the things introduced through sight and hearing and the other organs of sense.
Imagination is an impression stamped upon the soul; for whatever each of the senses has brought in stamps its own particular character there, as a ring or a seal would. And the mind, being like wax, receives the impression and keeps it perfectly within itself, until oblivion, memory's rival, smooths away the imprint and renders it faint, or effaces it altogether.
And that which has appeared and made its impression disposes the soul at one time in one way, at another differently. This affection of the soul is called impulse, which those who define it have said is the first motion of the soul. In these respects, then, animals surpass plants. But let us see
in what respect man has surpassed the other animals. He, then, has obtained as his special privilege understanding, which is accustomed to grasp the natures of all things, both bodies and matters alike. For just as in the body the ruling faculty is sight, and in the universe as a whole it is the nature of light, in the same way, among the things within us, it is the mind that holds the mastery.
For this is the eye of the soul, illuminated by rays of its own, through which the thick, deep darkness that ignorance of things had poured over it is scattered. This form of the soul was not fashioned from the same elements from which the other things were completed, but obtained a share of a purer and better substance, the one from which the divine natures were fashioned; and this is why understanding alone, of all the things within us, was fittingly thought to be imperishable.
For the Father who begot it deemed it alone worthy of freedom, and, loosening the bonds of necessity, left it unfettered, granting it a portion—as much as it was capable of receiving—of that most fitting possession that is properly his own, the voluntary. For the other animals, in whose souls there is no mind set apart for freedom, have been yoked and bridled and handed over to the service of men, like household slaves to their masters; but man, having obtained a will that acts of its own accord and needs no bidding, and using for the most part deliberate actions, has justly incurred blame for whatever wrongs he does by forethought, and praise for whatever he rightly accomplishes willingly.
For among plants and among animals without reason, neither their good yields are praiseworthy nor their failures blameworthy, since the motions and changes they undergo on either side are without choice and involuntary. But the soul of man alone, having received from God voluntary motion—and in this above all having been made like him—once freed as far as possible from that harsh and most oppressive mistress, Necessity, would rightly incur accusation for not honoring the one who freed it; and so it will most justly pay the inexorable penalty exacted of ungrateful freedmen.
So it is that 'God took thought and pondered'—not now for the first time, but firmly and steadfastly from of old—'that he had made man,' that is, of what sort he had fashioned him; for he fashioned him unfettered and free, one who would use voluntary and deliberate actions for this purpose: that, knowing both good things and bad, and forming a conception of the noble and the shameful, and applying himself purely to just and unjust things and, in general, to whatever proceeds from virtue and from vice, he might choose the better and avoid their opposites.
And indeed there is an oracle recorded to this effect in Deuteronomy: 'Behold, I have set before your face life and death, good and evil; choose life' (Deut 30:15, 19). Both points, then, are established by this: that men have become knowers of good things and of their opposites, and that they ought, having within themselves reason as a kind of incorruptible judge, to choose the better over the worse—reason which, when the right argument urges it, will be persuaded, but when the opposite argument urges it, will refuse to be persuaded.
Having said enough on this subject, let us look at what follows. It is this: "I will wipe out the man whom I made from the face of the earth, from man to beast, from creeping things to the birds of the sky, because I was angered that I made him" (Genesis 6:7).
Now some, on hearing these words, suppose that the One Who Is makes use of angers and rages. But no passion whatsoever can be attributed to him: for to be affected by suffering is peculiar to human weakness, and neither the irrational passions of the soul nor the parts and members of the body belong properly to God at all. Nevertheless the lawgiver speaks of such things up to a point, as an introductory measure, for the sake of admonishing those who cannot be brought to their senses in any other way.
For among the laws that consist of commands and prohibitions, which are properly called laws, two supreme headings are set forth concerning the Cause: one, that "God is not as a man" (Numbers 23:19), the other, that he is as a man.
But the former is established by the most certain truth, while the latter is introduced for the instruction of the many; wherefore it is also said of him, "as a man he will discipline his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31); so that this is said for the sake of instruction and admonition, not because he is by nature such.
For of men, some have become friends of the soul, others friends of the body. Those who are companions of the soul, being able to keep company with intelligible and bodiless natures, do not compare the One Who Is to any form among the things that have come to be; rather, having removed from him every quality — for it was one of the elements of his blessedness and supreme happiness that his existence be apprehended as bare, without any distinguishing character — they admitted only the notion that he is, without giving him any shape.
But those who have made compacts and treaties with the body, being unable to strip off the garment of flesh and to see the single, self-sufficient, and simple nature, unmixed and beyond comparison, have conceived such thoughts about the Cause of all things as they hold about themselves — not reasoning that the being composed of the union of many powers needed many parts for the service of its various needs, while God, being unbegotten and having brought all else into being, needed none of the things that belong to what has been begotten. For indeed, what shall we say?
If he makes use of organic parts, he has feet in order to go forward — but where will he walk, when he has filled all things? And toward whom, when nothing is of equal honor to him? And for what purpose? For he is not concerned for health as we are. And he has hands, to be sure, for taking and for giving; yet he takes nothing from anyone — for besides being in need of nothing, he possesses all things — but he gives, using the Logos as the minister of his gifts, by which he also fashioned the cosmos.
Eyes, indeed, he had no need of, since without perceptible light no perception through them occurs; but perceptible light is itself a thing that came to be, whereas God saw even before its creation, making use of himself as light. What need is there to speak of the organs of nourishment?
For if he has these, he is also nourished, and once filled he relieves himself, and once emptied he is in need again, and all the other things that follow from this I would rather not say; these are the myth-making of impious men, who in word make the divine in the form of man, but in effect make it subject to human passions.
For what reason, then, does Moses speak of feet, hands, comings and goings as belonging to the unbegotten one, and for what reason does he speak of arming him for defense against enemies? For he introduces him girded with a sword, and with arrows and winds and destroying fire — things which the poets, calling by other names, storm and thunderbolt, say are the weapons of the Cause — and besides these, jealousy, anger, rages, and all things like them, speaking of him in human terms throughout?
But he answers those who ask: my friends, the man who is to legislate best must set before himself a single end, to benefit all who come upon his laws. Now those who have obtained a fortunate nature and an upbringing blameless in every respect, finding thereafter the road of life to be a broad and straight highway, take Truth as their fellow traveler, and being initiated by her into the unfeigned mysteries concerning the One Who Is, add nothing of created things to him in their imagining.
For these the most fitting heading is set forth among the oracles delivered by the hierophant, that "God is not as a man" — nor indeed as heaven, nor as the cosmos; for these are particular forms that come within the range of perception, whereas he is not even apprehensible by the mind, except that he exists; for it is his existence alone that we apprehend, and of the rest, nothing.
But those who are of a duller and more sluggish nature, and who were mistreated in their upbringing as children, being unable to see clearly, need physicians in the guise of admonishers, who will devise the treatment proper to the affliction now present.
since indeed for the unruly and the senseless a fearsome master is a beneficial thing to have as household head; for fearing his threats and menaces, they are admonished unwillingly, through fear. Let all such people, then, learn falsehoods, by which they will be benefited, if they cannot be brought to their senses through truth.
For indeed, even in the case of those whose bodies are dangerously ill, the most reputable physicians do not endure to speak the truth, knowing that the patients will become more despondent as a result and their disease will not be strengthened by hope, whereas from words of comfort to the contrary they will bear their present condition more gently, and the illness will be eased.
For who among sensible men would say to the one being treated: my friend, you will be cut, you will be cauterized, you will be maimed — even if he is bound to undergo these things of necessity? No one would say it. For that man, having beforehand lost heart and having taken on a disease of the soul more grievous than the one already present in his body, would gladly give up on the treatment; whereas from expecting the opposite, through the deception of the one treating him, he will endure everything patiently, however painful the remedies that save him may be.
Having become, then, the best physician of the passions and diseases of the soul, the lawgiver set before himself one task and one end: to cut out the diseases of the mind by their very roots, so that no remnant might be left to produce a growth of hard-to-cure sickness.
In this way, then, he hoped he would be able to excise it, if he introduced the Cause as one who makes use of threats, indignations, and implacable angers, and further of defensive weapons for campaigns against wrongdoers; for only in this way is the fool admonished.
For this reason it seems to me that to the two headings already mentioned, "as a man" and "God is not as a man," two others, consequent upon them and akin to them, are woven together: fear and love. For I observe that all the exhortations to piety given through the laws are referred either to loving or to fearing the One Who Is. To those, then, who consider that neither part nor passion of a man belongs to the One Who Is, but who honor him, in a manner befitting God, for his own sake alone, love is most fitting; but fear belongs to the others.
These, then, are the things that it was fitting to establish beforehand for our inquiry. Let us return to the investigation with which we began, in which we were at a loss as to what sense is conveyed by "I was angered that I made them." Perhaps, then, it means to convey something of this sort, that the wicked have come to be through God's anger, but the good through his grace. For indeed he says next, "But Noah found grace" (Genesis 6:8).
Now anger, which properly speaking is a passion belonging to men, is aptly said, in a more figurative sense, of the One Who Is, to make clear a most necessary point: that whatever we do out of anger, or fear, or grief, or pleasure, or any other passion, is admittedly culpable and reprehensible, whereas whatever is done with rectitude of reason and knowledge is praiseworthy.
Do you see with what great caution he has used even in this expression, saying, "because I was angered, that I made them," and not in reverse order, "because I made them, I was angered"? For the latter would belong to one who repents, which the nature of God, who provides for all things, does not admit; but the former introduces a most fundamental doctrine, that anger is the source of sins, whereas right reasoning is the source of right actions.
But God, remembering his own perfect goodness in all things, even if the whole multitude of men should fall, through the excess of their own sins, away from himself, stretches out his saving right hand, raises them up, and does not allow the race to be utterly destroyed and to vanish.
Wherefore he now says that Noah found grace with him, at a time when the others, having shown themselves ungrateful, were about to pay the penalty, so that he might blend saving mercy with his judgment against sinners; just as the singer of hymns has said somewhere, "I will sing to you of mercy and judgment" (Psalm 101:1).
For if God should wish to judge the race of mortals without mercy, he would pronounce the condemning vote, since no man has run the course of his life from birth to death without stumbling of his own accord; but he deals leniently, treating some slips as involuntary and others as voluntary among those that trip us at our feet.
So, in order that the race may endure, even though many of its individual members sink to the depths, God mixes in mercy, by which he acts for the benefit even of the unworthy; and he does not merely show mercy after judging, but also judges after showing mercy, for mercy is older than justice in his sight, since he knows the one deserving punishment not after the judgment but before it.
For this reason it is said elsewhere: "A cup is in the hand of the Lord, full of unmixed wine, mixed" (Psalm 74:9). And yet what is mixed is surely not unmixed. But this has a very natural sense and follows from what was said before: for God employs his powers unmixed toward himself, but mixed toward what comes into being; for it is impossible for mortal nature to contain them unmixed.
Or do you suppose that while the unmixed flame of the sun cannot be looked at — for sight will be extinguished, dimmed by the shimmering of its rays, before it grasps it, and this though the sun too was but a single work of God, a portion of heaven, an ethereal mass — you suppose that those uncreated powers around him, which flash forth the most brilliant light, could be conceived of in their unmixed state?
Just as, then, God stretched the sun's rays from heaven to the ends of the earth, relaxing and slackening the intensity of the heat within them by mixing in cold air — for this is what he blended into them, so that the luminous element, held back from the blazing fire, might release its power of burning while retaining its power of illuminating, and, meeting the kindred and friendly element stored up in the eyes, might be welcomed by it (for it is this meeting and mutual greeting of opposites coming together that produces the perception through sight) — so too, who, being mortal, could receive undiluted the knowledge of God, and wisdom, and prudence, and justice, and each of the other virtues? Not even the whole of heaven and the cosmos could.
Knowing, then, the excess of all that is best in himself, and the natural weakness of what has come into being — however greatly it may boast — the Craftsman does not wish either to benefit or to punish as much as he is able, but looks to the capacity of those who are to share in either.
If indeed we were able to drink and enjoy the relaxed mixture of his powers, tempered to a mean, we would reap a sufficient joy, and let the human race not seek to attain one more perfect than this; for it has been shown that the unmixed, undiluted, and truly extreme powers exist only in relation to Being itself.
Similar to what has been said is also what is spoken elsewhere: "Once the Lord spoke, these two things I heard" (Psalm 61:12). For the "once" resembles the unmixed — for the unmixed is a unity, and unity is unmixed — while the "twice" resembles the mixed; for the mixed is not simple, since it admits of both combination and separation.
God, then, speaks unmixed units; for his word is not a vocal striking of the air mingled with anything else whatsoever, but is bodiless and bare, no different from a unit.
But we hear in duality; for the breath sent up from the governing faculty through the rough windpipe is shaped in the mouth as though by some craftsman, the tongue, and, carried outward and mixed with kindred air, and striking it, brings to completion the blending of the duality harmoniously; for what resounds together out of differing tones is first fitted together by a divided duality, which has a high and a low pitch.
Most beautifully, then, he set the one just man over against the multitude of unjust reckonings — fewer in number but greater in power — so that the scale, as it were, should not tip and weigh down toward the worse, but, lightened by the strength of the contrary inclination toward the better, should grow weak.
Let us now consider together what is meant by "Noah found favor before the Lord God" (Genesis 6:8). Among those who find things, some find again what they once had but then lost, while others acquire for the first time what they did not possess before. This latter act those who search out the precise meanings of the primary terms are accustomed to call "finding," and the former "re-finding."
Of the former, the clearest example is found in the regulations concerning the Great Vow (Numbers 6:2). A vow is a request for good things from God; a great vow is to consider God himself, from himself alone, the cause of good things, with no other contributing factor thought to help — not the earth as bearer of fruit, not the rains as fostering the growth of seeds and plants, not the air as sufficient to nourish, not farming as the cause of the yield, not medicine as the cause of health, not marriage as the cause of the birth of children.
For all these things receive changes and transformations by the power of God, so that they often produce the opposite of what is customary. This one, then, Moses says, is "holy," "letting the hair of his head grow long" (ibid. 5), which was nothing other than fostering the chief risings of virtue's teachings within the governing faculty, and, in a manner of speaking, growing them long like hair, and taking pride in them.
But there are times when he suddenly casts them away, when something like a typhoon crashes down upon the soul and snatches away all its beautiful things; and this typhoon is a kind of involuntary turning, defiling the mind on the spot, which he calls death (ibid. 9).
But nevertheless, having cast them away and having been purified again, he takes them up and recalls to memory what he had for a time forgotten, and finds again what he had lost, so that "the former days are reckoned as without account" because of the turning (ibid. 12) — either because a turning is an irrational thing, out of tune with right reason and having no share in prudence, or because it is not worthy to be counted among them; for "of such things," as someone said, "there is neither reckoning nor number."
And often we have come upon things which we had not so much as dreamed of before; just as, some say, a farmer, digging in a plot of ground to plant one of the cultivated trees, came upon an unexpected treasure, meeting with unhoped-for good fortune.
The practitioner, when his father asked him about the manner of his knowledge, in this way: "What is this that you found so quickly, my child?" answers and says: "What the Lord God delivered before me" (Genesis 27:20); for whenever God delivers the contemplations of eternal wisdom without labor and toil, we find these suddenly, unexpectedly, a treasure of complete happiness.
And it often happens that those who search laboriously fail to attain what they seek, while those who take no thought find, most easily, even things they never conceived of; for the more sluggish and slow of soul, like those maimed in their eyes, hold their labor toward the contemplation of any piece of knowledge incomplete, while those who by a happy endowment of nature meet, without searching, countless things, employing an accurate and well-aimed approach, seem not to have been eager to encounter these matters at all, but rather that these things themselves rushed forward with impulse to come into their sight, and hastened to produce the most exact apprehension of themselves.
To these the lawgiver says are given "great and beautiful cities, which they did not build, houses full of good things, which they did not fill, cisterns hewn out, which they did not hew, vineyards and olive groves, which they did not plant" (Deuteronomy 6:10-11).
Cities and houses, then, symbolically describe the generic and the specific virtues; for the genus resembles a city, because it too is examined within larger boundaries and is common to more people, while the species resembles a house, because it is more gathered together and has escaped commonality.
The cisterns already prepared are the prizes ready at hand for these people apart from labors, receptacles of heavenly and drinkable waters, treasuries made ready for the safekeeping of the aforesaid virtues, from which comes to the soul a perfect joy, flashing forth the light of truth. The vineyards, then, he has made a symbol of joy, and the olive groves a symbol of light.
Happy, then, are these, undergoing something like those who rise from a deep sleep and suddenly see the world without effort and without labor; but wretched are those to whom it happens, through contention — a most grievous disease — to be puffed up, striving against things for which they are not naturally suited.
For besides failing of their end, they also endure, in addition, great disgrace with no small harm, like ships sailing against contrary winds; for besides not reaching the harbors toward which they are hastening, they are often overturned along with their sailors and cargo, bringing grief to their friends but pleasure to their enemies.
The law says, then, that "some, forcing their way, went up onto the mountain, and the Amorite dwelling on that mountain came out and wounded them, as bees would do, and pursued them from Seir as far as Hormah" (Deuteronomy 1:43-44).
For it is necessary that those who are naturally unsuited for taking up the arts, if they force themselves to labor at them, not only fail of their end but also incur disgrace; and likewise those who do some other necessary thing with an unconsenting judgment, not willingly but under compulsion — failing to bring their own voluntary act to a successful conclusion — but instead are wounded and pursued by their own conscience.
You might say that those who return small deposits, in the hope of gaining larger ones, are marked by trustworthiness — yet even as they made the return, they were doing great violence to their innate dishonesty, by which they are never ceasing to be pricked.
As for those who have practiced a counterfeit service of the one who alone is wise — putting on, as if on a most sacred stage, a way of life merely to display it to the spectators gathered there, while carrying buffoonery rather than piety in their souls — these do not stretch and torture themselves as though on the rack, forcing themselves falsely to feign feelings they have not truly experienced.
So then, having been shadowed for a short time by the trappings of superstition — which is an obstacle to true holiness, and a great harm both to those who have it and to those who associate with them — they later strip off these amulets and display their hypocrisy naked; and then, like those convicted of falsely claiming citizenship, they are shown to be counterfeit in the greatest virtue of cities, having enrolled themselves though belonging to it not at all. For the forced is short-lived, as the very word itself makes clear, being derived from baion; and the ancients called the short-lived "baion,"
the ancients, I mean. We must examine what is meant by "Noah found grace before the Lord God." Is what is signified this — that he obtained grace — or that he was deemed worthy of grace? The former is not reasonable to suppose; for what more, one might say, has been granted to him than to all things — not only the composite beings, but even the simple elemental natures — all of which have been deemed worthy of divine grace?
The latter has a certain not-inharmonious sense: that the Cause judges worthy of gifts those who do not corrupt with base practices the divine coinage within themselves, the most sacred mind — yet perhaps this too is not true.
For how great must one be, to be judged by God worthy of grace? I myself think that scarcely even the whole cosmos could attain to this — and yet the cosmos is the first and greatest and most perfect of the divine works.
Perhaps, then, it would be better to understand it this way: that the excellent man, having become a seeker and a man of wide learning, found in all his inquiries this as the truest thing — that all things are the grace of God: earth, water, air, fire, sun, stars, heaven, all animals and plants together. And God has granted grace to himself in nothing — for he needs nothing — but has granted the cosmos to the cosmos, and the parts to themselves and to one another, and further still to the whole.
Judging nothing worthy of grace, he has bestowed his good gifts abundantly on the whole and on the parts, having looked instead to his own eternal goodness, and having considered that to do good belongs to his blessed and happy nature. So if someone should ask me what is the cause of the coming-to-be of the cosmos, having learned from Moses I shall answer: the goodness of the One who is — which is the oldest of ... graces, being a grace to itself.
It must be observed that he says Noah pleased the powers of the One who is, Lord and God (Gen. 6:8), but that Moses pleased the one who is attended by his powers yet is also conceived apart from them, according to bare existence alone; for it is said, in the person of God himself, "You have found grace with me" (Exod. 33:17), showing himself as the one who is without any other.
Thus he who is deems worthy of grace, through himself alone, the supreme wisdom found in Moses; but the wisdom copied from this — a secondary and more particular kind — he deems worthy through his subordinate powers, in virtue of which he is both Lord and God, both ruler and benefactor.
There is another mind, however, one that loves the body and loves passion, sold to the chief cook (Gen. 39:1) — that is, to the pleasure of our composite being — and castrated in all the male and generative parts of the soul; lacking good pursuits, unable to receive the divine hearing, and cut off from the sacred assembly (Deut. 23:1), in which discourses about virtue are always practiced. This mind is led into the prison of the passions, and finds a grace more disreputable than dishonor itself, with the chief jailer (Gen. 39:20-21).
For the truly bound are not those who, condemned in court by officials chosen by lot or by elected judges, are led away by some to the place appointed for wrongdoers; rather, they are those whose character nature herself has condemned — souls full of folly, licentiousness, cowardice, injustice, impiety, and countless evils.
The overseer, guardian, and steward of these — the warden of the prison — is a compound and a mass of vices, massed together and woven of many kinds into a single form; and to please him is the greatest harm. Yet some, not seeing this, deceived into thinking what harms them helps them, approach him with great delight and attend him, so that, judged faithful, they may become his deputies and successors in guarding both involuntary and voluntary sins.
But you, O soul, judging this mastery and rule to be more grievous than burdensome slavery, should above all use an unbound, unfettered, and free purpose of life;
but if you are hooked by passion, endure rather to become a prisoner than a jailer; for having been ill-treated and having groaned, you will find mercy — whereas if you submit yourself to ambition for office and hunger for reputation, you will take on the sweet evil, and the greatest one, of guarding the prison, by which you will be led captive for all time.
Cast off, then, with all your strength any wish to please chief jailers, and instead pursue with all diligence the wish to please the Cause. But if you are unable — for the greatness of that dignity is beyond you — go without turning back to his powers and become a suppliant of these, until they accept the constancy and genuineness of your service, and rank you in the place of those who have pleased them, just as they did Noah, of whose descendants he has made the most wonderful and most novel record;
for it says: "These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generation; Noah pleased God" (Gen. 6:9). For the offspring of composite beings are themselves by nature composite beings as well: horses beget horses, lions beget lions, cattle beget bulls, and likewise humans of necessity beget humans;
but for a good mind, such things are not its proper offspring; rather, its proper offspring are the virtues already named — being human, being righteous, being perfect, pleasing God. And because this last was the most perfect thing, and the limit of supreme happiness, it is stated last of all.
Now one kind of coming-to-be is a leading and a path from not-being into being — which plants and animals of necessity always employ — while another is the change from a better kind into a lesser form, which he recalls when he says: "These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers, being young, with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, the wives of his father" (Gen. 37:2);
for when this ascetic and learning-loving reason is brought down from more divine conceptions to human and mortal opinions, Joseph, the dancer devoted to the body and the things around it, is at once born; he is still young, and even if in length of time he grows grey, he has never at all perceived the more mature understanding or teaching which the initiates of Moses, once established as such, have found to be a possession and the most beneficial enjoyment both for themselves and for those they encounter.
For this reason it seems to me that, wishing to inscribe more clearly the type and the most precise form of his character, he introduces him shepherding with none of the legitimate brothers, but with the illegitimate ones, who, being sons of concubines, are named from the inferior line — that of the women — and not from the superior line, that of the men; for they are now called sons of the women Bilhah and Zilpah, and not of Israel their father.
One might fittingly ask why, immediately after Noah's perfection in the virtues, it is said that "the earth was corrupted before God and was filled with injustice" (Gen. 6:11). But perhaps it is not difficult for one not entirely inexperienced in education to find a solution.
We must say, then, that whenever the incorruptible form rises in the soul, the mortal is at once corrupted; for the coming-to-be of good things is the death of shameful practices, just as when light shines forth, darkness vanishes. For this reason it is stated most precisely in the law concerning leprosy: "if living flesh rises up in the leprous spot, it shall be defiled" (Lev. 13:14-15).
And tightening this very point still further, as though setting his seal upon it, he adds, "and the healthy flesh shall defile," opposing what is usual and expected; for all people consider diseased things to be the corruption of healthy ones, and dead things the corruption of living ones — not, conversely, healthy and living things to be the corruption of their opposites, but rather their salvation.
But the lawgiver, being most original in wisdom in all things, introduced this teaching too as his own, showing that healthy and living things become the cause of impurity; for the truly healthy and living color, when it appears in the soul, is a proof of exposure against it.
This, when it rises up, draws up a list of all her sins, and, reproaching, shaming, and rebuking her, scarcely stops; and she, being examined, comes to recognize each of the particular things she has done against right reason, and then perceives herself to be foolish, licentious, unjust, and full of defilements.
For this reason he also records a most paradoxical law, in which he says that the person who is leprous in part is unclean, but the person who is wholly overtaken by leprosy, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, is clean (Lev. 13:11, 13) — though one might reasonably have supposed the opposite: that leprosy confined and limited to a small part of the body would be less unclean, while leprosy so spread as to cover the whole would be more unclean.
He shows, as it seems to me, through these symbols something entirely true: that involuntary wrongdoings, even if very extensive, are blameless and pure, since they do not have the conscience as a harsh accuser; but voluntary wrongdoings, even if they do not spread very far, are judged unholy, defiled, and unclean once examined by the judge within the soul.
The leprosy, then, that is two-natured and breaks out in two colors signifies voluntary vice; for although the soul has within itself the sound, living, and right reason, it does not use it as a pilot for the safety of what is good, but instead, handing itself over to those inexperienced in seafaring, capsizes the whole vessel of life, even though it could have sailed safely in fair weather and calm.
But the leprosy that changes into a single white form represents the involuntary turning, whenever the mind, having its reasoning faculty wholly and entirely cut away, with no seed left for understanding, sees nothing of what must be done — like those in mist and deep darkness — but, like a blind man falling upon everything without foresight, endures continuous slips and repeated, involuntary falls
of this kind. Something similar holds also for the house in which leprosy sometimes occurs; for he says, "If a mark of leprosy occurs in a house, the owner shall come and report to the priest, saying: something like a mark of leprosy has appeared to me in the house." Then he adds: "And the priest shall order the house to be cleared before the priest goes in to see it, so that nothing in the house becomes unclean; and after this the priest shall go in to examine it" (Lev. 14:34–36).
Accordingly, before the priest enters, the things in the house are clean, but from the moment he enters, everything becomes unclean — though the opposite would have been reasonable to expect: that when a man who is purified and perfect, who is accustomed to offer the prayers, consecrations, and sacred rites on behalf of everyone, comes inside, the things within should be made better and what was unclean should become clean. But as it is, they do not even remain in the same state; they turn instead to the worse portion at the priest's entrance.
But whether these things agree with the plain and obvious ordinance, let those to whom this is customary and congenial consider; we, however, must say outright that nothing agrees so well with anything else as the fact that, once the priest has entered, the things in the house become defiled.
For as long as the divine word has not come into our soul as into a kind of hearth, all its works are blameless; for the guardian, or father, or teacher, or whatever one ought to call the priest, by whom alone one can be admonished and brought to soundness of mind, is far away. Pardon is given to those who sin through ignorance, from inexperience of what must be done; for such people do not even take these actions to be sins, and sometimes they think they are doing something great and right in the very matters where they stumble.
But when the priest — that is, true reproof — enters into us like some most pure ray of light, then we recognize the plans stored up within us that are not pure for the soul, and the culpable and blameworthy actions which, in ignorance of what is beneficial, we undertook. All these things, then, the consecrated reproof, having exposed as defiled, orders to be cleared out and stripped away, so that it may see the house of the soul itself clean and, if any diseases have arisen in it, may heal them.
This same thing is also imitated by the widow in the Books of Kingdoms who meets the prophet (3 Kingdoms 17:10). She is called a widow, as we say, when she has become bereft of a husband — but here it means being widowed of the passions that corrupt and ruin the mind, just as also Tamar in the account of Moses.
For she too, while widowed, is commanded to sit in the house of the father who alone is savior (Gen. 38:11) — on whose account, having forever forsaken the intercourse and company of mortal things, she has become bereft and widowed of human pleasures, but receives instead a divine seed and, filled with the seeds of virtue, conceives and travails with noble deeds; and when she has brought them forth, she carries off the prizes of victory over her rivals and is recorded as victorious, bearing as the token of her victory a palm branch — for Tamar, translated, means "palm."
Every mind that is a widow, bereft of evils and about to remain so, says to the prophet: "Man of God, have you come to me to bring my wrongdoing and my sin to remembrance?" (3 Kingdoms 17:18). For this inspired one, entering into the soul out of a heavenly love and stirred by the ungovernable stings of a god-sent madness, brings about the remembrance of ancient wrongs and sins — not so that the soul may resort to them again, but so that, having groaned greatly and wept greatly over its former turning, it may hate and turn away from the offspring of that former state, and instead follow where the interpreter of God, the word and prophet, leads.
For the ancients used to call the prophets, at one time, "men of God," and at another, "seers" (1 Kingdoms 9:9) — names that were proper and fitting to the inspiration and to the comprehensive vision of matters which they possessed.
Fittingly, then, the most sacred Moses said that the earth was being corrupted at the very time when the virtues of righteous Noah came to light: "And the earth," he says, "had been corrupted, because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth" (Gen. 6:12).
Some will think that the wording here is mistaken, and that the sentence would run more smoothly and without fault this way: "because all flesh had corrupted its own way" — for it seems inappropriate that a feminine noun, "flesh," should take a masculine possessive, "his."
But perhaps the statement does not concern flesh alone corrupting its own way — in which case the wording would indeed seem mistaken — but concerns two things: the flesh that is being corrupted, and another whose way it attempts to injure and corrupt. So it should be rendered thus: "all flesh corrupted the perfect way of the eternal and incorruptible one, the way that leads to God."
Know that this way is wisdom; for through it the mind, guided along a straight and open road, arrives at its goal; and the goal of the road is knowledge and understanding of God. This path every companion of the flesh hates, sets himself against, and attempts to destroy; for nothing is so opposed to anything as knowledge is to the pleasure of the flesh.
At any rate, against those who wish to travel this road, which is a royal road, belonging to the race of the seeing kind — which is called Israel — earthly Edom fights (for this is what the name, translated, means), threatening with all zeal and every preparation to block the road and to make it altogether untrodden and impassable.
The envoys sent, then, say this: "We will pass through your land; we will not go through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from your cistern. We will go along the royal road; we will not turn aside to the right or the left, until we have passed through your borders." But Edom answers, saying: "You shall not pass through me; otherwise I will come out against you in war." And the sons of Israel say to him: "We will pass by the mountain; but if I and my cattle drink your water, I will pay you the price — the matter is nothing, we will pass by the mountain." But he said: "You shall not pass through me" (Num. 20:17–20).
There is a story that one of the ancients, having watched a lavishly arrayed procession pass by, looked at some of his acquaintances and said, "My friends, see how much I have no need of" — through a brief remark boasting of a truly great and heavenly claim. What are you saying?
Have you been crowned victor in the Olympic contest over the whole of wealth, and have you mastered everything within it so completely that you accept nothing from it for enjoyment or use? The saying is admirable, but the resolve is far more admirable still, having advanced so far in strength that it is now able to win the contest outright, without even having to compete.
But it is not one man alone who is permitted to boast of this, once he has been taught the first-fruits of wisdom by Moses, but a whole and most populous nation as well. Here is the proof: the soul of each of his disciples has taken courage and dared to say to the king of all things that appear good — earthly Edom, for indeed all things that seem good are earthly — "I will now pass through your land."
O most extraordinary and magnificent promise! Tell me, will you truly be able to pass over, go beyond, and run past all the things that appear and are reckoned to be goods of earth? And will nothing then hold back or halt your forward drive by opposing it with force?
But will you, on seeing all the treasuries of wealth filled one after another, turn away and avert your eyes; and will you rise above the dignities of ancestry on both father's and mother's side, and the noble birth so celebrated among the many? Will you leave reputation behind you, for which all men barter everything, as though it were something utterly dishonorable? And what of this: will you pass by health of body, precision of the senses, beauty that all fight over, strength that none can rival, and all the other things with which the house — or tomb, or whatever one should call it — of the soul is adorned, so as to assign none of them a place in the portion of goods?
These are the great daring feats of a soul that is Olympian and heavenly, a soul that has left the region of the earth behind and been drawn upward to dwell among the divine natures; for once it has been filled with the sight of the genuine and incorruptible goods,
it naturally turns away from the things that are ephemeral and counterfeit. What benefit, then, is there in passing beyond all the mortal goods of mortal beings, if one does not pass beyond them with right reason, but rather, as some do, through hesitation, laziness, or inexperience of them? For not everything is prized everywhere; different things are honored among different peoples.
For this reason, wishing to establish that it is with rectitude of reason that men come to hold the things just mentioned in contempt, Moses adds to "I shall pass through" the words "through your land"; for this was the most necessary point — that although we come to be amid unstinted materials of every apparent good, we should not be caught by any of the nets each of them casts before us, but rather have the strength, like fire, to break with a single rush their successive and continuous assaults.
Through these things, then, they say they will "pass through"; but through "fields and vineyards" no longer — for it is an ancient-world simplicity to suppose that the cultivated plants of the soul, which bear cultivated fruits — fine words and praiseworthy deeds — are things to be passed by. One ought rather to remain, and gather, and take one's fill insatiably; for the finest thing is the insatiable joy found in the perfect virtues, of which the vineyards just mentioned are symbols.
But those on whom God rains and pours down from above the springs of good things — do we instead drink from a cistern, and go searching underground for meager trickles, when the nourishment of heaven, better than the nectar and ambrosia of the myths, is available to us without stint?
And further, do we, drawing off stored drink devised by human contrivance, welcome it as a refuge and a resort from despair of better things — we, for whom the Savior of the universe has opened the Olympian treasury for use and enjoyment? For Moses the hierophant prays that "the Lord may open for us his good treasury, heaven, to give rain" (Deuteronomy 28:12); and the prayers of the one who loves God are heard.
What then? The one who has judged that not even heaven, nor rain, nor a cistern, nor in general anything within creation is sufficient to nourish him, but who has risen above all these and, describing his own experience, has said, "God, who has nourished me from my youth" (Genesis 48:15) — does it not seem to you that he would not even deign to look at all the gatherings of water that lie beneath the earth?
He, then, to whom God gives unmixed draughts of intoxication — sometimes through the ministry of one of the angels whom he has appointed to pour the wine, sometimes even by himself, placing no one between the giver and the receiver — would not drink from a cistern.
Let us then, without delay, try to walk the royal road — we who have resolved to pass beyond earthly things; and the royal road is the one whose master is no private person, but the one who alone, and alone in truth, is king.
This road, as I said a little earlier, is wisdom, through which alone souls that come as suppliants find refuge with the Unbegotten; for it is likely that one who travels the royal road without hindrance will not grow weary before meeting the king.
And then those who approach come to recognize both his blessedness and their own worthlessness; for Abraham too, when he drew near to God, immediately recognized himself to be earth and ashes (Genesis 18:27).
Let them turn aside neither to the right nor to the other side of the royal road, but advance along the middle of it itself; for the deviations on either side are culpable, the one having excesses that tend to intensity, the other deficiencies that tend to laxity — for on this road the right-hand fault is no less blameworthy than the left.
Among those who live rashly, boldness counts as the right hand, cowardice as the left; among the illiberal, in the management of money, stinginess is the right hand, unrestrained spending the left; and those who are excessive in calculation judge cunning to be choiceworthy and simplicity to be avoided; and some pursue superstition as though it were the right hand, while fleeing
impiety as something to be avoided. So then, in order that we not be compelled, in turning away from these conflicting vices, to fall into their opposites, let us wish and pray to keep the middle road straight; and the mean between boldness and cowardice is courage, between dissolute idleness and illiberal stinginess is self-mastery, between cunning and folly is prudence, and indeed between superstition and impiety is piety.
These are the middle points of the deviations on either side, all of them passable and well-traveled roads, along which it is not lawful to walk continually with bodily organs, but with the movements of a soul reaching for the best.
At this, above all, the earthly Edom will take offense — for he fears the overthrow and confusion of his own doctrines — and will threaten unproclaimed war, if we should force our way through, forever cutting and mowing down the fruit of his soul, which he sowed for the ruin of prudence and never reaped; for he says: "You shall not pass through me; otherwise I shall come out against you in war."
But let us pay no heed at all to his threats, and answer instead that "we shall journey beside the mountain" — that is, being accustomed to converse with lofty and elevated powers and to consider each thing in terms of its defining limit, searching out the reasoning behind each and every thing, by which its essential nature is known, we hold in contempt all that is external and pertains to the body; for these things are lowly and altogether groveling — dear to you, but hateful to us ourselves, wherefore we shall lay hold of none of them.
For if we so much as touch this reasoning of yours with the tip of a finger, we shall grant you a prize and an honor; for you will swagger and boast, as though we too, the lovers of virtue, had been lured by the baits of pleasure.
"For if I and my cattle drink of your water," he says, "I will give you a price" — not the payment spoken of by the poets, silver or gold or the other things customarily exchanged by buyers with sellers, but he now takes the prize to mean honor.
For in truth, every licentious, unjust, or cowardly person, whenever he sees one of the more austere sort either shunning toil, or overcome by gain, or turning aside to some allurement of pleasure, rejoices and exults and thinks himself honored; and, growing bold before the crowd and gesturing broadly, he begins to philosophize about his own vices as though they were altogether necessary and useful, saying that he would not have endured it, had it not been so, that a man of good repute should indulge in the same.
Let us say, then, to every wicked person: if we drink of your water, if we touch anything of yours belonging to your undiscriminating impulse, we shall grant you honor and acceptance instead of ill repute and dishonor — for these indeed are what you deserve; for in fact the matter you have taken such pains over amounts to nothing at all.
Or do you suppose that any of mortal affairs truly exists in reality and stands firm, rather than being carried, as though on some swing of false and unsteady opinion, walking upon emptiness, no different from false dreams?
But if you do not wish to examine the fortunes of individual men, examine instead the changes for better or worse of whole countries and nations. Greece once flourished, but the Macedonians stripped away her power. Macedonia in turn blossomed, but, once divided into portions, grew weak, until it was utterly extinguished.
Before the Macedonians, the affairs of the Persians were in good fortune, but a single day brought down their vast and great empire, and now the Parthians hold sway over the Persians who were, a little while ago, their rulers, though they themselves were then subjects. Egypt too once breathed brilliant and long-lasting prosperity, but her great good fortune passed away like a cloud. And what of the Ethiopians, and Carthage, and the peoples toward Libya? What of the kings of Pontus?
What of Europe and Asia, and, to put it in a word, the whole inhabited world? Does it not, tossed and shaken up and down like a ship at sea, make use now of favorable, now of adverse winds?
For the divine word dances round in a circle - what most people call chance - and then, flowing always through cities and nations and lands, it distributes to each what belongs to others and to all what belongs to all, only ever changing over time what belongs to each, so that the whole inhabited world, like a single city, may be led to live under...
...democracy, the best of constitutions. So there is no achievement or deed at all among human pursuits, but a kind of shadow, or a breeze that runs past before it can even take shape. For it comes and departs again, just as with the tides: the surging seas at one time are carried violently along with a rushing roar and, pouring out, turn what was formerly dry land into a lake, while at another time, withdrawing, they turn a great stretch of the sea into dry land.
So too, sometimes good fortune floods over a great and populous nation, and then, turning the course of its stream elsewhere, leaves not even a small trickle behind, so that not even a trace of its former abundance remains.
Not everyone, however, draws sound and complete conclusions from these things, but only those accustomed to keep company with a right and fixed standard and reason. For the same people say both these things: that the whole matter of coming-into-being is nothing, and "we shall pass along beside the mountain."
For it is impossible for one who does not travel the high, boundary-marking roads to renounce mortal things and to turn aside and emigrate toward the imperishable. Earthly Edom, then, thinks it right to block the heavenly, royal road of virtue, while the divine Logos, in turn, blocks his road and that of his fellow zealots - among whom Balaam too must be listed; for he too is a creature of earth, not a shoot sprung from heaven.
Here is the proof: following omens and false divinations, not even when he opened the closed eye of his soul and "saw the angel of God standing against him" (Numbers 22:31) did he turn back and cease from wrongdoing; instead, giving himself over to the great flood of folly, he was overwhelmed and swallowed up.
For then, truly, the sicknesses of the soul become not merely hard to cure but altogether incurable - whenever, when reproof confronts us (and this reproof is the divine Logos, an angel who guides our steps and holds back whatever lies in our path, so that we may walk without stumbling along the highway of the road - Psalm 91:11-12), we set our own unexamined opinions ahead of the guidance he continually offers for admonition, correction, and the amendment of our whole life.
For this reason, one who is not persuaded, who does not turn back at the opposing reproof, will in turn meet "destruction along with the wounded" (Numbers 31:8), those whom the passions have pierced and wounded. And this man's calamity will become, for those not yet utterly incurable, a most sufficient lesson to try to keep the judge within them well disposed; and they will keep him so, if they never dispute the judgments he has rightly reached.

======== On Husbandry ========

"And Noah began to be a man who worked the earth, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and became drunk in his house" (Genesis 9:20–21). Most people, not knowing the natures of things, inevitably go wrong about the assignment of names as well. For things that have been thought through carefully, as if by dissection, get names that fit them exactly, while things conceived confusedly get names that are not very precise.
But Moses, out of his vast understanding of the realities involved, habitually uses names that hit the mark and carry the fullest meaning. We will find this promise borne out in many places in the Law, and not least in the chapter now before us, in which the righteous Noah is introduced as a farmer.
For to whom among the more superficial would it not seem that farming and working the earth are the same thing—though in truth they are not only not the same, but so utterly opposed as to stand against and contend with one another?
For it is possible for someone to labor at tending the earth without any expertise at all, whereas being a farmer, rather than a mere layman, is guaranteed precisely by the name, which derives from the farmer's art, after which he is named.
Beyond this one should also consider that the hired laborer of the soil, looking to a single end—his wage, since he works for pay in almost every case—has no concern at all for working well, whereas the farmer would gladly contribute much of his own and spend something from his own resources besides, both to benefit the land and to avoid any reproach from onlookers; for he wants to take in his harvest, year after year, not from some other source but from the very ground he has worked, when it enjoys good yield.
This man tames the wild trees, and helps the cultivated ones grow further through careful attention; the ones that have run wild from an excess of nourishment he restrains by pruning, while those that have become stunted and cramped he lengthens by extending their shoots; and the well-bred varieties, when they send out many branches, he trains down along the ground in trenches not too deep, while those that do not bear good fruit he will want to improve by grafting in others at the stock near the roots and joining them together as closely as possible into one growth—for the same thing happens among human beings too, in that adopted children, made one's own through virtues not their own by birth, become firmly fitted into their new family.
So too he has torn out and cast away countless plants, stock and root together, that were barren of any capacity for good fruit and did great damage to the fruitful trees by having been planted too close to them. Such, then, is the art concerned with the plants that spring up out of the earth; let us now in turn examine the farming of the soul, part by part.
In the first place, then, he practices sowing or planting nothing unfruitful, but only what is cultivated and fruit-bearing, so as to bring in yearly tribute to the human being who rules it; for nature has shown this ruler to be the one authority set over trees and all other mortal living things without exception.
And who could the human being within each of us be, except the mind, which is accustomed to reap the benefits of what has been sown and planted? Since milk is nourishment for infants, but for the mature it is the bread made from wheat, so too the nourishment of the soul in its childhood years, milk-like, consists of the preliminary studies of general education, while the nourishment that is mature and fitting for grown men consists of the teachings that come through practical wisdom, self-control, and virtue entire; for these, when sown and planted in the mind, will bear the most beneficial fruits—fine and praiseworthy actions.
Through this same farming, all the trees of the passions or the vices that have shot up and risen to a height, bearing destructive fruit, are cut back and cleared away, so that not even the smallest remnant is left behind from which fresh shoots of wrongdoing might spring up again.
And if there should be any trees that bear neither beneficial nor harmful fruit, these he will cut down, yet he will not let them be destroyed utterly; rather he will assign them to some fitting use, setting them up as stakes and palisades around a camp, or as a fence for a city, to serve in place of a wall.
For it is written: "Every tree that does not bear fruit for food you shall cut down, and you shall make a palisade against the city that makes war on you" (Deuteronomy 20:20). These trees are likened to the branches of learning concerned with bare theory of words,
among which one must class medical theorizing detached from the actual practice by which the sick are likely to be saved; and the advocate's paid form of rhetoric, which concerns itself not with discovering what is just but with persuading its hearers through deception; and further, whatever in dialectic and geometry contributes nothing to the correction of character, but only sharpens the mind, keeping it from applying a blunted edge to the problems it faces, and training it always to make cuts and distinctions, so as to separate the distinctive character of each thing from qualities held in common.
At any rate, the ancients say that they likened the threefold discourse of philosophy to a farm: its natural-philosophy part they compared to trees and plants, its ethical part to the fruits for whose sake the plants exist, and its logical part to the fence and enclosure around it.
For just as the surrounding wall protects the orchard and the plants of the farm, keeping out those who wish to sneak in to do damage, in the same way the logical part of philosophy is a most secure guard over the other two, the ethical and the natural.
For whenever it unravels double and ambiguous expressions and resolves the plausibilities produced by sophistries and the seductive deception—the greatest bait and the most ruinous thing for the soul—it does away with them through the clearest reasonings and undeniable proofs, and renders the mind, like smoothed wax, ready to receive the sound and thoroughly approved
impressions of both natural philosophy and character formation. This, then, is what the farming of the soul proclaims in advance: the trees of folly and licentiousness, of injustice and cowardice, I will cut down entirely; and I will also cut out the plants of pleasure and desire, of anger and wrath and the passions akin to these, even if they should grow tall as the sky, and I will burn them, sending the blast of the flame down to their roots at the very lowest depths of the earth, so that not even a part, not even a trace or shadow of them, is left behind at all.
These, then, I will destroy; but I will plant, for souls in the age of childhood, young shoots whose fruit will nurse them—these are the practice of writing and reading fluently, the careful study of the wise poets, geometry, training in rhetorical speech, and the whole of the music that belongs to general education—while for those who are already coming of age and growing into manhood I will plant the better and more mature things: the plant of practical wisdom, of courage, of self-control, of justice, of virtue entire.
If, however, any of what is called wild timber should bear no edible fruit, but is able to serve as a fence and guard for what is edible, this too I will lay up in store—not for its own sake, but because it is naturally suited to serve what is necessary and highly useful.
For this reason the all-wise Moses assigns to the righteous man the farming of the soul, as a fitting and appropriate art, saying, "Noah began to be a man, a farmer"; while to the unjust man he assigns the working of the earth without expertise, which brings the heaviest of burdens—concerning Cain
he says, "Cain was working the earth" (Genesis 4:2), and a little later, when he is caught having committed the pollution of fratricide, it is said to him: "Cursed are you from the earth, which opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother from your hand, by which you work the earth, and it will no longer yield you its strength" (Genesis 4:11–12).
How, then, could one show more clearly that the lawgiver regards the base person as a worker of the earth rather than a farmer, than in this way? One must not suppose that the discussion concerns a man capable of acting with hands and feet and the rest of his bodily power upon mountainous or level ground, but rather concerns the powers within each of us; for it turns out that the soul of the base person occupies itself with nothing else than the earthly body and all the pleasures of the body.
At any rate, the great mass of mankind, traveling over the regions of the earth and reaching even to its farthest limits, crossing the seas and searching out the recesses of the deep, leaving no part of the whole unexplored, is always and everywhere procuring the means by which it will increase its pleasure;
for just as fishermen sometimes let down their nets to the greatest possible extent, casting a wide circle of sea around them, so as to catch as many fish as possible, trapped within the meshes as though walled in, in the same way the greatest part of mankind, not content with a portion of the sea alone but stretching out, as the poets somewhere say, their all-capturing nets over the whole nature of water and earth and air, from every side, hooks in for itself the release and enjoyment that comes through pleasure;
for indeed they mine the earth and cross the seas and do all the other works of peace and war, procuring boundless materials as though for a queen, pleasure—men uninitiated into the farming of the soul, which by sowing and planting the virtues reaps from them the fruit of a happy life, but who instead work at and pursue by every method the things dear to the flesh and the composite clay, the molded statue, the house nearest to the soul, which from birth to death, so great a burden, it never lays down, carrying it about like a corpse, while cherishing it with the utmost diligence.
For men mine the earth and cross the seas and do all the other works of peace and war, providing boundless materials as if for a sovereign queen, pleasure - men who are uninitiated in the farming of the soul, which by sowing and planting the virtues reaps from them the happy life as its fruit, but who instead labor at and scheme after what is dear to the flesh and to the composite clay, the molded statue, the house nearest to the soul, which from birth to death - so great a burden - the soul, carrying it like a corpse, never lays down, and which they, with the utmost eagerness, make their own.
It has been said, then, how the work of farming differs from the soil, and the farmer from a mere laborer of the soil. But we must consider whether there are also certain other forms akin to those named, which, through a community in their names, conceal the differences in the things themselves; and there are, we find on inquiry, two such pairs, concerning which we shall say what is fitting, if it can be done.
To begin, then, just as we found that farmer and laborer of the soil, though thought to be no different from one another, are, when allegorized according to their inner meaning, separated by a great distance, so too are shepherd and herdsman; for the lawgiver mentions now the tending of herds, now the tending of flocks.
And those who are not overly precise will perhaps suppose these to be synonymous designations of the same pursuit, though in the renderings made through deeper meanings they are in fact designations of different things.
For even if it is customary to apply both names, of herdsmen and of shepherds, to those set over animals, this is not so for the reason to which the herding of the soul's flock has been entrusted; for when this ruler of the herd is base, he is called a herdsman, but when good and excellent, he is named a shepherd. In what manner, we shall show at once.
Our nature has begotten cattle for each of us together with ourselves, the soul, as it were, sending up two shoots from a single root: of these, the one left uncut, whole through and through, has been named mind, while the other, divided sixfold into seven natures, consists of the five senses and two further instruments, that of speech and that of generation.
This whole multitude, being irrational, is likened to cattle, and a multitude necessarily needs, by the law of nature, a ruler. Whenever, then, one who is inexperienced in rule and at the same time wealthy rises up and declares himself ruler, he becomes the cause of countless evils to the herd.
For he himself provides an unstinting abundance of what is needed, but the animals, gorging themselves without measure on the excess of food, grow wanton - for insolence is the legitimate offspring of satiety - and growing wanton, they leap and kick free of the rein and, scattering in different directions, break up the ordered mass of the herd.
And he who was for a time their leader, now abandoned by those he ruled, is shown to be a mere private person, and he runs about eagerly, hoping he might somehow catch and bring them back under control from the beginning; but when he is unable, he groans and weeps, reproaching his own carelessness and blaming himself for what has happened.
In just this way the herd of the senses, too, whenever the mind is supine and slack, gorging itself insatiably on the abundance of sensible things, throws off the yoke and leaps and is carried disorderly wherever it happens to go, and the eyes, thrown open to all visible things - even to those it is not lawful to see - run aground, and the ears, admitting every sound and never satisfied, ever thirsting for meddlesome curiosity and busybody prying, sometimes stray even into ignoble mockery.
For from what else do we suppose the theaters everywhere in the inhabited world are filled each day with countless myriads? Those who are slaves to what they hear and see, letting both ears and eyes run without rein, and cherishing lyre-players and lyre-singers and all the broken and unmanly kind of music, and further welcoming dancers and other mimic performers because they hold and move themselves in effeminate postures and motions - these people keep up the endless war of the stage, giving no thought to the correction either of their own affairs or of the common good, but ruining, unhappy as they are, their own life through eyes and ears.
There are others still more wretched and unfortunate than these, who have unbound taste as though from its fetters; and this, once set loose to every enjoyment of food and drink, seizes at once upon what is already prepared and holds an unceasing and insatiable hunger for what is not yet at hand, so that even when the stomach's receptacles are filled, the desire, ever empty, still swelling and raging, looks about and roams around to see whether some overlooked remnant has been left, so that it may lick this up too, like an all-devouring fire.
Upon gluttony, then, there naturally follows, as its attendant, the pleasure of intercourse, bringing with it an extravagant madness and an unrestrainable frenzy and a most grievous rabidity; for whenever men are weighed down by delicacies and unmixed wine and much drunkenness, they are no longer able to master themselves, but, driven on toward erotic couplings, they revel and keep watch at doors, until, having drained off the great surge of their passion, they are able to grow calm.
For this reason, it seems, nature fashioned the organs of intercourse low in the belly, having anticipated that this passion does not delight in hunger, but
follows upon satiety and rises up toward its own activities. Those, then, who allow these creatures to gorge themselves all at once on everything they crave must be called herdsmen, but shepherds, on the contrary, are all those who provide only the necessary and fitting things, cutting away and pruning off all superfluous and unprofitable abundance - which does no less harm than want and privation - and who take great care that the flock not fall ill through neglect and carelessness, and pray that the diseases that customarily attack from outside may not befall it either.
They aim no less at preventing it from being torn apart and scattered in straggling groups, holding fear over it as a chastener for those never persuaded by reason, and using continual correction - moderate against those whose disorders are curable, unbearable against those whose are incurable; for chastisement, which seems to be a thing most to be shunned, is the greatest good for the senseless, just as medicinal remedies are for those whose bodies are ailing.
These are the practices of shepherds, who prefer things beneficial though attended with unpleasantness to things harmful though attended with pleasure. So venerable and profitable, indeed, has the office of shepherd been reckoned that the race of poets is accustomed to call kings shepherds of their peoples, while the lawgiver applies the name to the wise, who alone are, in truth, kings; for he presents them as ruling, as it were, over a flock - the irrational drift of all humankind.
For this reason he also assigned the shepherd's skill to Jacob, made perfect through practice; for he tends the sheep of Laban (Gen. 30:36), the sheep of the foolish soul, which reckons as goods only the things perceived by sense and appearance, being deceived and enslaved by colors and shadows - for Laban is interpreted as "whiteness."
And to Moses, all-wise as he is, he assigns the same art; for he too is shown to be a shepherd of a mind that embraces vain pretension before truth and accepts seeming before being; for Jethro is interpreted as "superfluous," and superfluous indeed, and imported into a life that has gone astray, is the vain pretension that leads it toward deception - the same pretension by which the customs of one city differ from those of another, and the same just things are not held by all, since it introduces, instead of the common and unshakable laws of nature, customs which one who has seen even a dream has not seen. For it is said, "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, priest of Midian, his father-in-law" (Exod. 3:1).
This same man prays that the crowd and all the people of the soul not be left, like a flock without oversight, ungoverned, but that they obtain a good shepherd, one who will lead them out from the nets of folly and injustice and every vice, and lead them in to the doctrines of education and the rest of virtue; for he says, "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits and of all flesh, appoint a man over this congregation"; and then, adding a few more words, he continues: "and let the congregation of the Lord not be as sheep that have no shepherd"
(Num. 27:16-17) - for it is not right to pray that the flock akin and connatural to each of us be left without an overseer and guide, lest we be forever filled with tumults and disturbances and civil factions, given over to mob-rule, the basest of bad forms of government, which is a counterfeit of the best democracy.
Yet it is not lawlessness alone that, giving birth to mob-rule, is terrible, but also the uprising of some lawless and violent man to power; for a tyrant is by nature hostile - as a man, to cities, but as regards body and soul and the affairs proper to each, the most beastly mind is he who has fortified the citadel against each one of us.
Nor are such despotic rules alone unprofitable, but also the rule and leadership of those who are excessively lenient; for gentleness is a thing easily despised, and harmful to both parties, rulers and subjects alike - to rulers, because, through the contempt of their subjects toward them, they are able to correct nothing, whether private or public, and are sometimes even compelled to lay down their offices; to subjects, because, through their continual disregard of persuasion by their rulers, they have grown careless and, fearlessly, have acquired self-will at the cost of great evil.
The latter, then, must be thought no different from mere animals, and the former no different from herdsmen; for the one group persuades men to live in luxury amid unstinting abundance, the other, unable to bear satiety, grows wanton. But it is necessary that, like a goatherd or cowherd or shepherd, or a herdsman in general, our mind should rule, choosing what is advantageous over what is pleasant, both for itself and for its flock.
The visitation of God is, one might almost say, the first and only cause why the parts of the soul are not left ungoverned, but obtain a blameless and altogether good shepherd; and once he is established, it is impossible for the assembly of the mind to become scattered. For it will of necessity appear ranged under one and the same order, looking toward the oversight of one, since to be compelled to obey many rulers is the heaviest of burdens.
So great a good, indeed, is the office of shepherd, that it is rightly assigned not only to kings and wise men and souls perfectly purified, but also to God, the ruler over all. And the guarantor of this is no chance person but a prophet, one whom it is good to trust, he who composed the hymns; for he speaks thus: "The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing" (Psalm 23:1).
This song, then, is fitting for every lover of God to rehearse, and above all for the universe itself. For the world is a kind of flock -- earth and water and air and fire, and all the plants and animals within them, some mortal, some divine, and further the nature of heaven, the courses of sun and moon, and the turnings and harmonious dances of the other stars -- and this flock the shepherd and king, God, leads according to justice and law, setting over it his right Logos, his firstborn son, who will take up the care of this sacred flock as a viceroy of a great king. For it is said somewhere: "Behold, I am sending my angel before your face, to guard you on the way" (Exodus 23:20).
Let the whole universe, then, say this too -- the greatest and most perfect flock of God who is -- "the Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing."
And let each part of it say this same thing, not with the voice that flows from tongue and mouth and reaches only a small portion of the air, but with the voice of the understanding, which spreads wide and touches the very limits of the universe. For it is impossible that anything should lack what falls to it, when the God who oversees it is full of good things and accustomed to grant them perfectly to all that exists.
gladly to grant. And this song, once uttered, gives the finest exhortation toward holiness. For in truth the man who seems to have everything else, yet chafes at being under the guidance of the One, is incomplete and poor; but the soul that is shepherded by God, possessing the one and only thing on which everything depends, rightly needs nothing else, admiring not blind wealth but wealth that sees and sees most keenly.
All the disciples of this shepherd came to feel toward him an intense and inescapable love, and so, laughing at mere cattle-rearing, they worked hard to perfect the science of shepherding.
Here is the proof. Joseph, who is always occupied with the concern for the body and empty opinions, does not know how to rule and govern the irrational nature -- for it is customary for elders to be called to unaccountable offices, whereas Joseph is always young, even if he carries an old age that comes upon him through length of time -- but being accustomed to nourish and increase, he supposes that he will also be able to persuade the lovers of virtue to change over to his side, so that, being taken up with what is irrational and inanimate, they may no longer have leisure for the pursuits of the rational soul. For he says:
"If the king, the mind of the bodily region, should ask, 'What is your occupation?' answer: 'We are men who rear cattle'" (Genesis 46:33-34). Hearing this, they are naturally displeased, if being leaders they must agree to hold the rank of subjects.
For those who provide food for the senses through an abundance of sensible things become slaves to the very things they feed, like household servants paying a necessary tribute every day to their mistresses; whereas rulers are those who govern these things and curb the excess of their insatiable impulse.
So at first, though they hear what is said with no pleasure, they will hold their tongues, thinking it superfluous to explain the difference between cattle-rearing and shepherding to those who are not going to learn it; but afterward, when the contest over this matter arises, they will fight with all their strength, and before they have won decisively they will not relent, having shown in truth the free, noble, and ruling character of their nature. At any rate, when the king asks, "What is your occupation?" they answer, "We are shepherds, both we and our fathers" (Genesis 47:3).
Would they not then seem to take as much pride in shepherding as even the king who converses with them takes in the great power of his rule? For they bear witness to this choice of life not only for themselves but also for their fathers, as something worthy of all seriousness and care.
And yet, if the discussion were about the care of goats or sheep, they might perhaps have been ashamed to admit it, shunning the dishonor; for such things are counted disreputable and lowly among those who are wrapped in the pomp of good fortune without wisdom, and especially among kings.
But the Egyptian character is by nature and beyond measure haughty, so that when only a small breeze of prosperity blows upon it, it regards the earnest pursuits and ambitions of more common men concerning life as a mockery and a broad joke.
But since our inquiry now concerns the rational and irrational powers within the soul, those are right to take pride who are persuaded that they can master the irrational powers by using the rational ones as allies.
If, however, some envious and fault-finding person should charge and say: "How is it, then, that while working at the shepherd's craft, and professing to have care and oversight of your kindred flock, you resolved to put in at the region of the body and the passions -- Egypt -- and did not make your voyage elsewhere?" -- one must say to him with frankness, "We have come to sojourn, not to settle"
(Genesis 47:4). For in truth every soul of the wise has heaven as its fatherland and earth as a foreign land, and it counts the house of wisdom as its own, but that of the body as alien, in which it also supposes itself merely to be residing for a time.
So then, whenever the mind that leads the flock takes charge of the soul's herd and, using the law of nature as its teacher, guides it with vigor, it renders the soul approved and highly praiseworthy; but whenever it deals with the herd carelessly and slackly, through lawlessness, it renders it blameworthy. Fittingly, then, the one will assume the name of king, being called a shepherd, while the other will be styled a cattle-rearer, a kind of cook's or baker's assistant, preparing a feast and banquet for creatures accustomed to gorge themselves.
In what way a farmer differs from a laborer of the soil, and a shepherd from a cattle-rearer, I have shown with some care. There is a third distinction, too, having a certain kinship with what has been said, of which I shall now speak. For a horseman and a rider -- a man carried upon a neighing animal -- are not, one thinks, only very different from one man carried by another, but reason itself differs from reason.
The man who mounts without the art of horsemanship is rightly called a rider, but he has given himself over to an irrational and skittish creature, so that wherever it goes, he is of necessity carried there too, and, failing to foresee a chasm in the earth or some deep pit, is liable to be hurled down by the force of the running and swallowed up together with the creature carrying him.
The horseman, on the other hand, when he is about to mount, first puts on the bridle, and then, leaping up, takes hold of the mane about the neck, and, though he seems to be carried, in truth -- if one must speak the truth -- he guides the animal that bears him, in the manner of a pilot. For the pilot too, though he seems to be carried by the ship he steers, in truth guides it and brings it safely to the harbors toward which he is hastening.
So then, when the horse advances obediently, the rider strokes it, as if praising it; but when it is carried beyond due measure by too great an impulse, he forcefully and vigorously pulls it back, so as to slacken its speed; and if it persists in disobedience, he takes the bridle and pulls it hard, twisting its neck around, so that it is forced to stop.
And against its friskiness and its continual fits of unruliness there are whips and goads ready at hand, and all the other instruments of correction that horse-breakers have devised. And this is nothing to wonder at: for when the rider mounts, the art of horsemanship mounts with him, so that, being two, both carried and skilled, they will naturally prevail over the single creature that is subject to them and incapable of receiving art.
Turning, then, from neighing creatures and those who ride upon them, examine your own soul, if you wish; for you will find within its parts both horses, a charioteer, and a rider, just as among things outside.
The horses are desire and spirit, the one male, the other female. That is why the one, exulting, wishes to be unrestrained and free, and is high-necked, as befits a male; while the other is unfree and slavish, delighting in cunning, a creature fed at home and a destroyer of the household -- for it is female. But the rider and charioteer alike is the mind: whenever it mounts with prudence, it is a charioteer; whenever it mounts with folly, it is a mere rider.
Now the foolish man, through his ignorance, is unable to master the reins, and they slip from his hands and fall to the ground. And the creatures, once unrestrained, immediately make their course disorderly and irregular.
And the one mounted, holding nothing by which he might be steadied, falls, and, badly scraped on knee and hands and face, weeps loudly over his own misfortune, poor wretch; and often, too, with his feet caught fast against the chariot, he is overturned onto his back and dragged along suspended, and on the very ruts of the wheels he shatters his whole head and neck and both shoulders as he is dragged along, and then, tossed this way and that and battered against everything in his path, he suffers a most pitiable death.
Such is the end that befalls him. As for the chariot, once it is lifted and jolted violently and driven back to the ground, it very easily shatters, so that it can never again be fitted and made whole. And the animals, freed from every restraint, grow unruly and are driven wild with frenzy, and do not stop running until they trip and fall, or are carried over some deep cliff and destroyed.
In this way, it seems, the whole chariot of the soul is destroyed along with its riders, once the driving has gone wrong. It is therefore profitable for those mounted on such horses, without skill, to be thrown down, so that the qualities of virtue may be roused; for when folly falls, prudence must necessarily rise up in its place.
This is why Moses says in his exhortations: "If you go out to war against your enemies and see horse and rider and a greater people, you shall not be afraid, because the Lord your God is with you." For when anger and desire, and in short all the passions, and likewise all the other vices, are mounted like riders on the reasonings that belong to each of us, as if on horses, even if they think they wield irresistible strength, they must be reckoned as nothing against those who have the power of the great King, God, standing as their shield and fighting before them always and everywhere.
The divine army is the virtues, champions of souls that love God; and when these souls see their adversary defeated, it is fitting for them to sing a hymn, wholly beautiful and most fitting, to the God who grants victory and triumph. Two choruses will stand, one of the men's quarters and one of the women's quarters, and will sing back and forth an answering, antiphonal harmony.
The chorus of men will have as its leader Moses, the perfect mind, and the chorus of women Miriam, purified sense-perception; for it is right that hymns and songs of blessing offered to the divine should be made, without delay, both by the mind and by the senses, and that each of these instruments should be struck harmoniously, in gratitude and honor to the one and only Savior.
All the men, then, sing the song of the seashore, not with blind understanding but seeing keenly, with Moses leading the way; and the women too sing, those who are truly the best, enrolled in the commonwealth of virtue, with Miriam leading them.
The same hymn is sung by both choruses, having a most wonderful refrain, which it is good to sing repeatedly. It is this: "Let us sing to the Lord, for gloriously has he been glorified; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea."
For one could not find, on reflection, a better or more perfect victory than this: the four-footed and skittish and haughty troop, mightiest of the passions and vices—for the vices are four in kind, and the passions equal to them in number—is defeated, and along with it the rider mounted upon them, the mind that hates virtue and loves passion, falls and is gone, the mind that used to delight in pleasures and desires, in acts of injustice and cunning, and further in acts of plunder and greed and their kindred broods.
It is therefore entirely fitting that the lawgiver, in his exhortations, teaches that one should not appoint as ruler even a horse-breeder, considering that anyone who, mad about pleasures and desires and uncontrollable passions, is driven wild like an unbridled and headstrong horse, is unfit for any position of leadership. For he says this: "You shall not set over yourself a foreigner, because he is not your brother; because he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he turn the people back to Egypt."
So then, according to the most holy Moses, no horse-breeder is by nature fit for rule. And yet someone might perhaps say that cavalry is a great arm of a king's power, inferior neither to infantry nor to naval forces, and in many circumstances even more useful, especially where the occasion demands unhesitating and rapid advance, when the moment allows no delay but stands at its very peak, so that those who lag behind should be thought to have utterly failed, rather than merely to have been slow, once their enemies have raced past them like
a cloud. To such people we would say: noble sirs, the lawgiver curtails no defense force for a ruler, nor does he mutilate the assembled army by cutting off the most effective part of its strength, the cavalry; rather, he tries as far as possible to increase it, so that his allies, growing in both strength and number, might most easily overthrow their opponents.
For to whom else was it given, out of such an abundance of expertise in these matters, to organize an army into companies, to draw it up in order, to distribute it into ranks, to appoint captains of companies and of ranks and the other commanders over greater or smaller units, and to instruct correctly those who would make use of whatever tactics and strategies have been devised?
But in fact his discourse here is not about the cavalry force which it is necessary for a ruler to muster for the destruction of enemies and the preservation of friends, but about the irrational, immoderate, and disobedient impulse within the soul, which it is profitable to bridle, lest it ever turn the whole people back to Egypt, the region of the body, and make it, with all its might, a lover of pleasure and of passion rather than a lover of virtue and of God—since it is necessary that whoever acquires a multitude of horses for himself must, as he himself said, travel the road to Egypt.
For whenever, on either wall of the soul—as of a ship—that is, on the side of the mind and on the side of sense-perception, under the force of the passions and wrongdoings blowing upon it, the wave rises up as the ship pitches and leans first one way and then the other, then the mind, as one would expect, becomes waterlogged and is sunk; and the depth into which it sinks and is submerged is the body itself, which has been likened to Egypt.
Do not, then, ever be eager for this kind of horse-breeding. Those who pursue the other kind are themselves blameworthy too; how could they not be, among whom irrational animals are honored more than human beings, from whose households herds of well-fed horses are always going out, while not a single one of the men who follow them ever finds a contribution to remedy his want, nor a gift to add to his abundance?
Yet all the same, their wrongdoing is lighter; for in rearing horses as athletes, they say they adorn the sacred games and the festivals celebrated everywhere, and that this brings not only pleasure and the delight of spectacle to onlookers, but also serves the training and practice of noble things; for those who instill in the animals a longing to win the prize, using an inexpressible urging and eagerness born of love of honor and zeal for excellence, undergo sweet labors proper and fitting to themselves, and will not desist until they bring them to completion.
But while these men, in doing wrong, at least offer a plausible excuse, those who err without any defense are the ones who set up the mind as rider, mounted upon it, though it is wholly inexperienced in the art of horsemanship, at the mercy of a four-footed vice and passion.
If, however, having been taught the art of driving thoroughly, you spend more time at it and become practiced in it, and now believe yourself capable of mastering horses, then mount and keep hold of the reins; for in this way you will neither, when they rear up, fall off yourself and suffer incurable wounds, becoming a laughingstock to spectators who gloat over misfortune, nor will you be caught by enemies rushing at you from in front or from behind—outrunning by your speed those who pursue you by racing ahead of them, and disregarding those who approach, because of your
assured skill in being able to withdraw safely. Is it not, then, reasonable that Moses, while singing of the destruction of the riders, prays complete safety for the horsemen? For these are able to cast a bridle upon the irrational powers and so bridle the excess of their onrush. What, then, is the prayer? It must be told: "Let Dan become a serpent on the road," he says, "lying in wait on the path, biting the heel of the horse, so that the rider falls backward, waiting for the salvation of the Lord."
What this prayer hints at must be explained. Dan is translated "judgment." The power of the soul that examines and scrutinizes and discriminates and, in a manner of speaking, sits in judgment on each thing, he likened to a serpent—an animal whose movement is exceptionally varied and intelligent, and which is most ready for self-defense, and most capable of warding off those whose hands begin an unjust attack—not, however, to the serpent that is friend and counselor of life, whom it is customary in the ancestral tongue to call Eve, but to the one fashioned by Moses out of bronze, which those bitten by venomous serpents, though on the point of death, are said, whenever they looked upon it, to go on living
and never to die. Now these things, told in this way, resemble marvels and prodigies: a serpent uttering a human voice and playing the sophist upon the most innocent characters, deceiving a woman with persuasions easily led astray, and another serpent becoming the cause of complete salvation to those who beheld it.
But in interpretations by way of underlying meaning, the mythical element vanishes and the truth is found plainly manifest. The serpent of the woman, we say—the woman being sense-perception, and life hanging upon flesh—is pleasure: writhing and most intricately coiled, unable to raise itself up, always thrown down, creeping only after the good things of the earth, seeking out the hollows within the body, lurking in each of the senses as if in burrows or crevices, counselor of man, murderous against what is better, longing to kill with venomous and painless bites. But the serpent of Moses is the disposition opposed to pleasure: endurance. It is introduced as fashioned even before the hardest material, bronze.
So the one who has come to see fully the nature of endurance must live, even if he happens to have been bitten earlier by the love-charms of pleasure; for pleasure holds out to the soul an inexorable death, but self-mastery holds out health and safety of life. The remedy that counteracts unrestraint is temperance, the warder-off of evil.
To every wise man, the noble is dear, and this is in every way salvific. So when Moses prays that Dan become venom, or that very serpent itself—for it can be understood either way—he prays for something resembling the one fashioned by Moses, but not like the serpent of Eve.
For a prayer, it turns out, is a request for good things. The kind that belongs to endurance is good, and productive of incorruption, a perfect good; but the kind that belongs to pleasure is evil, bringing the greatest punishment, death. Therefore he says:
"Let Dan become a serpent" — and nowhere more fittingly than "on the road." For the pleasures born of incontinence and gluttony, and of all the other appetites that are boundless and insatiable, swollen as they are by the abundance of external things, do not allow the soul to walk along the broad and straight highway, but force it to fall into ravines and pits, even to the point of utterly destroying it; whereas the things that belong to endurance and self-control and to the virtue of ... keep to the road alone, since nothing slippery lies underfoot to make it stumble and be thrown down. Most fittingly, then, he said that self-control keeps to the straight road, since the opposite condition, license, travels off the road —
... happens to be the case. And "sitting on the path" suggests, as I persuade myself, some such thought: a path is the road worn down by both men and pack animals, one fit for riding and for driving carts.
They say that pleasure most resembles this road. For from birth almost to extreme old age, creatures step onto it and walk about on it and linger there at leisure and ease — not only human beings, but every other kind of living thing as well. For there is not a single one that has not been lured by pleasure and drawn along, carried into her most tangled nets, out of which it is a great labor to slip free.
But the roads of prudence and self-control and the other virtues, even if not impassable, are certainly untrodden. For those who walk them are few in number — those who have practiced philosophy without pretense and have made friendship with the good alone, having once and for all disregarded everything else.
"He lies in wait," then — and not only once — whoever is seized by zeal and concern for endurance, so that, attacking familiar pleasure from ambush, that spring of ever-flowing evils, he may block it up and tear it out from the region of the soul.
Then, as he says, following the sequence, of necessity "he will bite the horse's heel." For it is characteristic of endurance and self-control to shake and overturn the mounting-blocks of vice that rears its neck high, of passion sharpened to a keen edge, quick to move and given to leaping —
— the mounting-blocks of passion — and to overturn them. He introduces, then, the serpent of Eve as murderous against man, for he says in the curses, "He will watch your head, and you will watch his heel" (Gen. 3:15); but the serpent of Dan, of whom our discussion now speaks, he introduces as biting the heel of a horse, not of a man.
For the serpent of Eve, being a symbol of pleasure, as was shown earlier, attacks the reasoning that belongs to each one of us as a human being — for the enjoyment and use of excessive pleasure is the ruin of the mind —
whereas the serpent of Dan, being an image of the most vigorous virtue, endurance, will bite the horse, the symbol of passion and vice, because self-control practices the purging and destruction of these things. And when they have been bitten and have buckled at the knee, "the rider," he says, "will fall."
What he hints at through the riddle is something like this: he judges it a fine thing, one worth contending for, that our mind should never be mounted by anything born of passion or vice; but whenever it is forced to be mounted by one of them, it should hasten to leap down and fall off. For falls of this kind bring the most glorious victories. That is why one of the ancients, when challenged to a contest of abuse, said he would never enter such a contest, in which the winner is worse than the loser.
So you too, my friend, never enter among evils, so that you may never compete for first place in such things; rather, above all, if it is at all possible, hasten to run away. But if somewhere, forced by a stronger power, you are compelled to contend, do not hesitate to be defeated —
for then, though defeated, you will in fact have won, while the victors will in fact have been defeated. And do not allow even a herald to proclaim it, nor a judge to crown your enemy — but come forward yourself and present the prizes and the palm, and crown him, if he wishes, and bind him with the ribbons, and proclaim yourself, in a great and unbroken voice, a proclamation such as this: "In this contest set before us of desire and anger and license, and of folly and injustice, I, spectators and judges of the games, have been defeated, and this man has won — and he has won by so great a margin that not even among our rivals, who might reasonably have envied us, is there any grudge against him."
So then, yield the prizes of these unholy contests to others, and instead bind on yourself the crowns of the contests that are truly sacred. And do not think sacred the contests that cities hold every three years, having built theaters to receive many tens of thousands of people; for in these it is the man who has wrestled another down and stretched him flat on his back or on his face upon the ground, or the man capable of boxing and all-in fighting while refraining from no outrage and no injustice, who carries off
the first prize; and there are some who, having sharpened and tempered each of their hands exceedingly, most powerfully, in the manner of iron, and bound them about, gouge out the heads and faces of their opponents, and, whenever they succeed in landing their blows, shatter their other limbs as well — and then, for the sake of this pitiless savagery, they lay claim to prizes and crowns.
As for the other contests, those of runners or of pentathletes, who among sensible people would not laugh at men who have trained themselves to leap the farthest, and have their distances measured, and compete over swiftness of foot? Men whom not only a gazelle or a deer among the larger animals, but even, among the smallest, a puppy or a young hare, without straining itself, will outrun with a rush and without pausing for breath, even as they run themselves breathless.
Of these contests, in truth, not one is sacred, even if all mankind should testify to it — men who must inevitably be convicted by their own false testimony. For it is these very people, the admirers of such things, who have established laws against those who commit outrage, and penalties for assault, and who have appointed by lot judges to decide each such case.
How, then, is it reasonable that the same people should be indignant when someone commits assault in private, and should have fixed inexorable penalties against them, while for those who do so publicly, at festivals and in theaters, they legislate crowns and proclamations and other such honors?
For when two opposite things are asserted concerning one and the same body or matter, one of the two must, of necessity, be either good or bad — for both cannot hold. Which, then, would rightly be praised? Is it not that those who resort first to violence against the innocent should be punished? Then the opposite, being honored, would reasonably be blamed. But nothing that is sacred deserves blame — it is altogether glorious.
The Olympic contest, then, could rightly be called the only sacred one — not the one held by the inhabitants of Elis, but the one that concerns the acquisition of virtues that are truly divine and Olympian. For this contest all are enrolled who are weakest in body but strongest in soul; then, stripping and covering themselves with dust, they perform every deed that skill and strength can accomplish, leaving nothing undone in order to carry off the victory.
These athletes, then, prevail over their opponents, but among themselves they in turn contend for first place; for the manner of victory is not the same for all, yet all are worthy of honor, having overturned and thrown down enemies most troublesome and heavy.
Most admirable of all, even among these, is the one who excels, and he should not be begrudged for receiving the first of the prizes. But those who are judged worthy only of second or third place should not be downcast; for these too are offered for the acquisition of virtue, and for those unable to attain the heights, the acquisition of the middle ranks is beneficial — and it is said to be even more secure, since it escapes the envy that always fastens itself on those who excel.
Most instructively, then, it is said that "the rider will fall," so that if one falls away from evils, one may be raised up, supported by good things, and stand upright together with them. And it says, too, that he does not fall forward but falls behind, since it is always most advantageous to lag behind vice and passion —
for in doing good deeds one must be first, but in shameful deeds one must lag, and, conversely, be quick toward the former but slow toward the latter, and be left as far behind as possible. Whoever manages to lag behind in the errors that arise from passions remains free of disease. This, then, is why it says he "awaits salvation from God" — so that, to the degree he has fallen short in doing wrong, he may to that same degree hasten forward in doing right.
Concerning the horseman and the rider, then, and the herdsman and the shepherd, and further the man who works the land and the farmer, what was fitting has now been said, and the distinctions belonging to each pairing have been worked out as precisely as was possible.
It is now time, however, to turn to what follows. He introduces, then, the man who aims at virtue as not yet possessing the complete knowledge of the farming of the soul, but as having labored only over its beginnings; for he says, "Noah began to be a man, a farmer." And a beginning, as the saying of the ancients has it, is half of the whole, since it stands halfway to the end — and when the end is not added to it, the mere beginning has often greatly harmed many.
Indeed, some people too, of unhallowed mind, whirled about by continual changes, have grasped a conception of something good, yet gained no benefit from it; for it is possible, in those who have not reached the end, for a sudden flood of the opposite qualities to burst forth and overwhelm and destroy that good thought.
Was it not for this reason, then, that though Cain seemed to have offered blameless sacrifices, an oracle went out declaring that he should not be confident, as though he had sacrificed rightly? For he had not, in fact, offered whole and perfect victims. The oracle runs thus: "If you offer rightly but do not divide rightly" (Gen. 4:7).
Now the honoring of God is a right thing, but the failure to divide is not right. Let us see what account can be given of this too. There are some who circumscribe piety within the single claim that everything, both the good and its opposites, comes to be from God.
To these we might say: one part of your opinion is praiseworthy, the other, by contrast, blameworthy. It is praiseworthy in that you honor as valuable that alone which you admire; it is blameworthy, on the other hand, insofar as it is asserted without cutting and division. For one ought not to knead and confuse everything together and declare it the cause all at once, but rather, with due distinction, acknowledge only the good things as such.
For it is absurd to take forethought that the priests should have whole and entire bodies, and likewise that the animals to be sacrificed should have no blemish whatsoever, not even the slightest defect, and that certain men should be appointed to this very task—men some call inspectors of blemishes—so that the victims brought to the altar may be spotless and unharmed, while yet allowing opinions about God to remain confused together in the souls of each person, undistinguished by the rule of right reason.
Do you not see that the law declares the camel to be an unclean animal, since it chews the cud but does not divide the hoof (Lev. 11:4)? And yet, as regards the literal sense of the inquiry, I do not know what account can be given of the additional reason supplied; but as regards the sense conveyed through underlying meanings, it is most necessary.
For just as the animal that chews the cud brings up again the food previously swallowed and works it over smooth once more, so the soul of the lover of learning, whenever it has received certain doctrines through hearing, does not hand them over to forgetfulness, but, settling quietly by itself, turns each of them over again and again in complete stillness, and comes to a recollection of all of them.
But not every memory is good, only that which concerns good things alone, since the failure to forget bad things is most harmful. For this reason, in order to reach completeness there is need of the dividing of the hoof, so that, the faculty of memory being cut in two, speech—through the mouth, whose nature has fashioned two lips—may distinguish between the beneficial and the harmful kind of memory.
But neither does the dividing of the hoof by itself, apart from the chewing of the cud, appear to have any benefit of its own. For what use is it to dissect the natures of things, beginning from the top and proceeding down to the finest details, if in the end this process never reaches a stopping point, and the parts never cease to be further divisible—the very things which some, striking the mark exactly, call atoms and indivisibles?
These are, indeed, clear proofs of understanding and of exceptional precision sharpened to the keenest acuity, but they afford no benefit
toward moral excellence and a blameless life. Every day, everywhere, the crowd of sophists wears out the ears of those they meet, splitting hairs, unfolding double and ambiguous meanings, and distinguishing among such things as they seem to remember—and they have fixed on a good many more besides. Do not some divide the elements of articulate speech into vowels and consonants? Others divide language into the three highest categories: noun, verb, and connective?
Musicians divide their own science into rhythm, meter, and melody, and melody further into the chromatic, enharmonic, and diatonic kinds, and into the fourth, the fifth, and the octave, and into conjunct and disjunct melodic sequences.
Geometers divide into the two most general kinds of line, the straight and the curved; and other craftsmen divide, within each science, into the forms proper to it, from the first down to the last.
To this let the whole chorus of philosophers join in chant as well, rehearsing their customary distinctions: that of existing things, some are bodies and some are incorporeal; some are without soul, others possess soul; some are rational, others irrational; some are mortal, others divine; and of mortal things, some are male and some female, these being the divisions of the human being.
And again, of incorporeal things, some are complete, others incomplete; and of the complete, some are questions and inquiries, and again imprecatory and oath-formulas, and all the other differences classified by kind that are recorded in the systematic treatments of these matters, while others again are what dialecticians customarily call propositions; and of these, some are simple, others not simple; and of the not
simple, some are conjunctive, others sub-conjunctive expressing degree, and further disjunctive, and other kinds of this sort; and further, true and false and undetermined, possible and impossible, necessary and not necessary, and easy and difficult, and whatever else is akin to these; and again, of the incomplete, there are the further, adjoining divisions into what are called predicates and accidents, and whatever is lesser than these.
And even if the mind should sharpen itself yet further toward greater refinement, and, like a physician dissecting bodies, cut apart the natures of things, it will accomplish nothing more toward the acquisition of virtue. It will indeed divide the hoof, being able to distinguish and separate each thing, but it will not chew the cud, so as to make use of beneficial nourishment through acts of recollection that smooth away the roughness that has grown upon the soul from its errors, producing a truly gentle and smooth motion.
Countless so-called sophists, then, admired throughout cities and almost the whole inhabited world, and turned toward honor for the sake of their precision and their cleverness at discoveries, have grown old and worn out their lives under the utter mastery of the passions, in no way differing from the most neglected and worthless of ordinary men.
For this reason the lawgiver most aptly compares sophists who live in this way to the family of swine, creatures that partake of no clear and pure life but a turbid and muddy one, wallowing in the most disgraceful things.
For he says that the pig is unclean, because it divides the hoof but does not chew the cud (Lev. 11:7), just as the camel is unclean for the opposite reason, because it chews the cud but does not divide the hoof. But whatever animals partake of both are rightly recorded as clean, because they have escaped the absurdity attaching to each of the things mentioned. For division without memory, without practice, and without the working through of what is best... is an incomplete good, whereas the union of both
in one and the same thing, their coming together and partnership, is most complete. And it is completeness that even the enemies of the soul dread, for once these can no longer rise up against it, an unfeigned peace prevails. But those who have obtained only a half-worked wisdom, or again one only half set, are too weak to withstand the massed ranks of errors that have been gathered together over a long time and have grown strong for battle.
This is why, when a review of the army is made at the time of war, not all the young men are called up, even if they show every eagerness and unbidden readiness to defend against enemies; rather, the lawgiver commands some to go home and remain there, so that, through continual practice, they may in time acquire the fullest strength and experience needed to be able to conquer decisively.
The order is given through the scribes of the army, whenever war is already near and at the door. This is what they will proclaim: "Who is the man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man dedicate it. And who is the man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man enjoy its fruit. And who is the man who has become engaged to a woman and has not taken her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war and another man take her"
(Deut. 20:5–7). Why, I might ask, most admirable lawgiver, do you not rather see fit to enlist these men before the others, men who have acquired for themselves in great abundance wives, houses, vineyards, and all their other possessions? For the dangers they face in defense of the security of these things, however grievous they might be in every respect, they will bear most lightly; whereas those who have none of the things mentioned, having no necessary pledge at stake, will for the most part act with hesitation and indifference.
Or is it rather because they have not yet enjoyed any of the things they have acquired, and might then never be able to enjoy them afterward at all? For what benefit remains from their possessions to those who are overcome in war? But will they not be captured at all? This, at any rate, is what will happen at once in the case of those who do not go to war: for while these sit at home in comfort and luxury, it is inevitable that those who wage the war with unrelenting effort will conquer the enemy not only without bloodshed on their own part, but without even raising dust.
But will the mass of the other allies gladly take up the struggle on these men's behalf? In the first place, it is absurd to ride on the efforts or fortunes of others, especially when a danger both private and common hangs over them involving exile, enslavement, and devastation, when they themselves are able to share the burdens of war and are hindered by neither sickness, nor old age, nor any other misfortune. For such men, once they have seized their weapons in the ranks, ought to hold their shields higher than their allies', fighting with spirit and a love of danger.
In the second place, they would furnish proof not only of treachery but of great callousness, if, while others fight on the front lines, they themselves attend to their private affairs; if the former are willing to risk their lives for the others' safety while the latter will not even undertake risks on their own behalf; and if the former gladly endure hunger, sleeping on the ground, and all the other hardships of body and soul out of desire for victory, while the latter spend their time plastering their houses with ornaments and other frivolous, lifeless decoration, or gathering the autumn harvest in the fields and bringing it to the winepress, or coming for the first time to the girls long ago betrothed to them and sharing their beds, as though this were the most fitting occasion for marrying.
A fine thing indeed — to look after one's walls, collect one's revenues, feast, get drunk, retire to the bedroom, and lead brides — women grown old and, as the saying goes, decayed — to the marriage bed! These are the works of peace, yet all this is being done while war is still in the full bloom and vigor of its youth.
Do these men not have a father, a brother, someone of their own blood, someone of their kin engaged in the struggle? Or has cowardice made its nest throughout their whole household? No — surely they have countless relatives fighting. When these men, then, are risking their very lives, what savage and untamed beasts, in the excess of their cruelty, would these idle men not outdo?
But it is a hard thing for others to enjoy the fruits of our labors without toil themselves. And which is harder — for enemies, while the fighters still live, or for friends and kinsmen, once they have died, to come into the inheritance? Or is it foolish even to compare things so far apart?
And indeed it is reasonable that not only should the property of those who did not go to war become theirs, but that they themselves, once the enemy prevails, should become the enemy's possessions; whereas for those who die on behalf of the common safety, even if they enjoyed none of their property beforehand, death becomes most sweet when they consider that their possessions pass
to those whom they had prayed would be their heirs. So much, and perhaps still more, might be examined in the literal wording of the law. But so that none of those who deal in sophistries and cleverness may grow bold in disputing this, let us say, speaking allegorically, that the law believes one must labor not only to acquire good things but also to enjoy the things acquired, and holds that true happiness is achieved through the perfect use of virtue, which secures a whole and complete life. Next, the law's discourse here is not about a house, or a vineyard, or a woman betrothed by agreement — concerning how the one is to be led home as a bride, how the vinedresser is to pluck and press the grapes of the vineyard and then, having drunk his fill of unmixed wine, grow radiant, or how the builder is to dwell in the house he built — but about the powers of the soul, through which it comes to have beginnings, advances, and perfections in praiseworthy actions.
Now beginnings tend to occur in connection with the betrothed bride — for just as the suitor, when he is not yet a husband but is about to become one, is a bridegroom, in the same way the naturally gifted man hopes to lead home a noble and pure virgin, namely education, and immediately becomes her suitor. Advances occur in connection with the farmer — for just as it is the vinedresser's care that the trees grow, so it is the care of the lover of learning that the theories of wisdom take the fullest possible growth. And perfections occur in connection with the building of a house that is being completed but has not yet been firmly set.
It is fitting, then, for all these — beginners, those making progress, and the perfected — to live without contentiousness, and not to strip for battle in the sophists' war, those who forever practice a quarrelsome confusion in adulteration of the truth; since truth is a friend to peace, which is hostile to them.
For if amateurs come to this contest against men experienced in war, they will be utterly overcome — the beginner, because he is inexperienced; the one making progress, because he is not yet complete; the perfect man, because he has not yet had his virtue tested by exercise. Rather, just as plaster must be firmly set and take on solidity, so the souls of the perfected must, once strengthened, be established more firmly still by continuous practice and repeated exercises.
Those who have not attained this are said, unbeknownst to themselves, to be wise among the philosophers; for they say it is impossible for those who have only just now reached and touched the outermost boundaries of wisdom to know their own perfection. For the arrival at the goal and the awareness of having arrived do not come into being at the same moment; rather there is a borderland of ignorance — not the ignorance far removed from knowledge, but that which lies close to it, next door to it.
For the man who has grasped, who understands, and who knows his own powers to the utmost, it would be a fitting task to make war against the contentious and sophistic throng; for such a man may hope to win. But for the one over whom the darkness of ignorance still hangs, whose light of knowledge has not yet gathered strength to shine, it is safer to remain at home — that is, not to enter into a contest concerning matters he has not fully grasped, but rather to stay calm and quiet.
But the man carried away by self-conceit, not knowing the holds of his opponents, will suffer before he acts and will meet the death of knowledge, which is more grievous than the death that separates soul from body.
This is bound to happen to those deceived by sophistries; for when they cannot find the solutions to them, believing the falsehoods as though they were true, they die the life of knowledge, suffering the same fate as those cheated by flatterers; for in these men too the soul's healthy and true friendship is expelled and overturned
by a friendship that is by nature diseased. One must therefore advise both those beginning to learn — for they are without knowledge — and those making progress — because they are not yet perfect — and even those newly made perfect — because they do not yet know how far their perfection extends — not to enter into contests of this kind.
As for those who disobey, the text says, another man will dwell in the house, another will acquire the vineyard, another will lead the woman home; and this is equivalent to saying that the powers mentioned — of zeal, of improvement, of perfection — will never fail, but will visit different people at different times and pass from soul to soul... resembling seals. For these too, once they have stamped the wax,
remain unaltered in themselves, having suffered nothing from having impressed their form upon it; and if the wax that received the impression is confounded and destroyed, another will in turn be substituted. So do not think, noble friends, that these powers perish along with those who perish; for being immortal, they welcome countless others before you to the glory that comes from them — whomever they perceive not to have fled their company out of recklessness, as you have done, but to be approaching them and attending upon them with due care and security.
But if anyone is a friend of virtue, let him pray that all noble things be implanted in him and appear in his own soul, as in a finished statue or painting, in due proportion toward beauty of form, reckoning that there are countless others waiting in reserve, to whom nature will grant, in his place, all these things — aptitude for learning, advances, perfections. It is better that he shine forth before them, husbanding securely the graces given him by God, and not, by putting them on display, offer the most ready plunder to enemies who show no mercy.
There is, then, little benefit in a beginning that is not sealed by a happy end. And often, in fact, some who were made perfect were reckoned imperfect, because they seemed to have improved through their own eagerness rather than through the providence of God; and for this very reason — for seeming so, and being lifted up to the greatest heights — they were cast down from their lofty places into the deepest pit and vanished. For it says: "If"
you build a new house, you shall also make a parapet for your roof, and you shall not bring bloodguilt upon your house, if one who falls should fall from it (Deuteronomy 22:8).
For of all falls, the most grievous is to slip and fall away from the honor of God, having crowned oneself before that honor and thereby committed a kindred murder; for whoever does not honor Being kills his own soul, so that the edifice of his education becomes of no benefit to him. Education, however, has been allotted an ageless nature, and this is why the text calls its house new; for other things are destroyed by time, but education, the further it advances, the more it flourishes and comes into its prime, growing ever more radiant and renewed by continuous care in its everlasting beauty.
And indeed, among the exhortations, the law counsels those who have obtained the greatest abundance of good things not to record themselves as the cause of that abundance, but to "remember God, who gives strength to make power" (Deuteronomy 8:18).
This, then, was the end and completion of prosperity, while those other things were its beginnings; so that those who forget the end could not any longer rightly enjoy even the beginning of what they had acquired. For such men, their failures come about willingly, through self-love, since they cannot bear to declare that God, the giver of gifts and the bringer of completion, is the cause of good things.
But there are some who, having spread every sail of piety and hastened to put in at her harbors, then — when they were not far off but already about to make anchor — found a sudden wind burst upon them from the opposite direction and drove back their ship, which had been running a straight course with sails full, so as to cut away much of what had been working toward a safe voyage.
No one could still blame these men for being at sea; for their delay was involuntary, coming upon them even as they pressed forward. Who, then, may be compared to these but the one who has vowed the vow called great? For it says: "If someone should die suddenly beside him, the head of his vow shall at once be defiled, and he shall be shaved"; and then, after a few more words, it adds: "the former days shall be null, since the head of his vow was defiled" (Numbers 6:9, 12).
No one could still blame these people for being adrift at sea, since the delay that overtook them in their haste was involuntary. Who, then, is like them, if not the man who vowed the vow called the great vow? "If someone," it says, "dies suddenly beside him, the head of his vow will be defiled at once, and it shall be shaved." Then, after a few more words, it adds: "And the former days will not be reckoned, because the head of his vow was defiled" (Numbers 6:9, 12).
Through both expressions, then—"suddenly" and "at once"—the involuntary turning of the soul is set before us. For voluntary offenses need time in order to deliberate where, when, and how the act is to be done, whereas involuntary ones fall upon us in a flash, without forethought, and, if one may put it this way, outside of time altogether.
For it is hard, just as with runners who have begun the course toward piety, to keep the race unstumbling and unbroken to the end, since countless obstacles stand in the way of everyone who has come into being.
The first and only benefit, then, is not to touch any wrongdoing that is deliberate, and to have the strength to fend off the whole irresistible mass of involuntary faults; the second is not to be caught up in many involuntary faults, nor for a very long time.
He spoke beautifully in calling the days of the involuntary turning "without reckoning"—not only because sinning itself is without reason, but because for involuntary acts no account can be given. Even when people often ask the causes of things, we say we neither know them nor can state them; for we were not present as they happened, and we were even unaware of their arrival.
It is rare, then, if God grants to anyone to run the racecourse of life from beginning to end without stumbling and without slipping, but instead to fly over both kinds of wrongdoing, the voluntary and the involuntary, with the rush and sweep of the swiftest possible speed.
These things, then, have been said about beginning and end through the example of Noah the righteous, who, having acquired the first and elementary parts of the art of farming, was too weak to come all the way to its furthest limits; for it is said that "he began to be a farmer of the earth," not that he attained the boundaries of the highest expertise. But let us speak once more of what has been said concerning the tending of plants.

======== On Noah's Work as a Planter ========

In the previous book we discussed general farming, as far as the occasion allowed; in this one we will treat, as best we can, the specific art of viticulture. For Scripture presents the just man not merely as a farmer but specifically as a vine-dresser, saying: "Noah began to be a man, a farmer of the earth, and he planted a vineyard" (Genesis 9:20).
It is fitting that anyone who intends to go through the particular kinds of planting and farming should first understand the most perfect plants of the universe and the great planter and overseer of them. Now the greatest of planters, and the most perfect in his art, is the Ruler of all things, and the plant that contains within itself all the particular plants, sprouting together in countless number like shoots from a single root, is this world.
For when the Craftsman of the cosmos began to shape the substance that was in itself disordered and confused, bringing it from disorder into order and from confusion into distinction, he rooted earth and water at the center, while he drew up the trees of air and fire toward the region raised above the center, and he fortified the ethereal region in a circle around it, setting it as both boundary and guard of the things within—from which it also seems to have been named heaven. And <he made> the dry earth ride upon water, though it was in danger of being dissolved by water, and cold air by nature to be borne upon fire—a strange marvel the Wonder-worker accomplished.
For is it not a prodigy that the dissolving element should be held together by the very element it can dissolve—water beneath earth—and that the hottest, unquenchable fire should be set upon the coldest, air upon fire? These, then, were the perfect shoots of the universe, while this cosmos is the vast and most fruit-bearing sprout, of which the growths just mentioned are the offshoots.
Where, then, has it sent down its roots, and what is its base, on which it stands fixed like a statue? This we must consider. It is likely that no body was left wandering outside, since God worked and set in order the whole of matter through and through;
for it befitted the greatest of works to be fashioned as the most perfect by the greatest Craftsman, and it would not have been most perfect unless it were completed with perfect parts. And so this cosmos was composed of all earth and all water and air and fire, with nothing left outside, not even the smallest part.
It is therefore necessary that outside it there be either void or nothing. Now if it is void, how does the full and solid, the heaviest of existing things, not sink, hanging in the balance with nothing solid to support it? From this it might seem like a mere phantom, since the mind always seeks a bodily base for anything, expecting it to have one—and especially for the cosmos, since it is the greatest of bodies and has embraced within its bosom a multitude of other bodies as its own parts. If, then, one wished to escape the perplexities in these difficulties,
let him say boldly that nothing among material things is so mighty as to be strong enough to carry the weight of the cosmos, but that the eternal Word of the eternal God is the most secure and steadfast support of the universe.
This Word, stretched from the middle to the outer limits and from the extremities to the middle, runs the unconquerable course of nature, drawing together and binding tight all its parts; for the Father who begot it made it an unbreakable bond of the whole.
It is fitting, then, that the whole earth is not dissolved by all the water that its hollows have received, nor is fire quenched by air, nor conversely is air kindled into flame by fire, because the divine Word stations himself as a boundary between them, like a vowel among voiceless letters, so that the whole may resound together as in articulate speech, mediating and adjudicating the threats of the opposing elements by his persuasive power of union.
In this way, then, the most fruit-bearing plant was rooted, and once rooted, held fast; and of the particular and lesser plants, some were made to move from place to place, while others, without such movement, were made to stand fixed, as it were, in the same location.
Those, then, that make use of locomotion—which we call living creatures—were assigned to the more general divisions of the universe: land creatures to earth, swimming creatures to water, winged creatures to air, and fire-born creatures to fire (whose more conspicuous origin, tradition says, is manifest in Macedonia), and the stars to heaven—for those who have philosophized say that these too are living creatures, intelligent through and through—of which the planets seem to change their places by their own motion, while the fixed stars are carried around together with the revolution of the whole.
Those, however, that are governed by an unperceiving nature—which are specifically called plants—have no share in locomotion. Two kinds the Maker made, one in earth and one in air.
To air he assigned the winged creatures, both those perceptible to sense and other powers not apprehended by sense in any way at all—for the company of souls is bodiless, and they are arranged not all in the same ranks. Some, tradition says, are inserted into mortal bodies and, after certain fixed periods, depart again; but others, having obtained a more divine constitution, have no regard at all for any region of earth, and the purest of them are stationed highest, next to the very ether itself—these those who have philosophized among the Greeks call heroes, but Moses, using a well-aimed name, calls angels, since they serve as envoys and proclaim both the good things from the Ruler to his subjects and whatever the subjects need to the King whose subjects they are. To earth, in turn, he assigned land creatures and plants, two kinds again, wishing it to be both mother and nurse of them;
for just as for a woman, and for every female, springs of milk pour forth as she is about to give birth, so that she may water her offspring with the nourishment they need and that suits them, in the same way God assigned to earth, mother of land creatures, every kind of plant, so that her offspring might use nourishment akin to them and not foreign.
Moreover, he made the plants head-downward, fixing their heads in the deepest parts of the earth, but for the irrational animals he drew their heads up away from the earth and fitted them at the top of an elongated neck, as he had set their forelegs as a kind of platform beneath that neck.
But man was allotted an exceptional constitution: for he bent the others' faces down, which is why they incline toward the ground, but man's, on the contrary, he set upright, so that he might gaze upon heaven, being a plant not of earth but of heaven, as the ancient saying goes.
But others, calling our mind a portion of the ethereal nature, have made kinship between man and the ether. The great Moses, however, likened the form of the rational soul to nothing among created things, but said it was a genuine coin, stamped and impressed with the seal of God, whose imprint is the eternal Word, of that divine and invisible spirit: "he breathed in,"
for it says, "God breathed into his face the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7), so that it is necessary that the recipient be modeled after him who sent it forth; for this reason it is also said that man was made according to the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and not indeed according to the image of any created thing.
It followed, then, that since man's soul had been modeled after the archetypal Word of the Cause, the body too should be raised up and its gaze turned toward the purest portion of the universe, heaven, so that through what is visible the invisible might be clearly apprehended.
Since, then, it was impossible to see the mind's attraction toward Being except in those drawn to it by God himself—for what each person experiences, he alone knows in particular—God makes the parts of the body a clear image of the unseen eye, capable of inclining toward the ether.
For if eyes formed of perishable matter have advanced so far as to run up from this region of earth to heaven, so distant, and to touch its very limits, how great must we suppose the course of the soul's eyes to be in every direction? These, winged by their intense longing to behold Being in its full radiance, stretch not only to the outermost ether but, passing beyond it,
and beyond the very boundaries of the whole cosmos, press on toward the Uncreated. For this reason those in the oracles who continue insatiable for wisdom and knowledge are said to have been called up; for it is right that those inspired by the Divine should be called upward toward it.
For it would be strange indeed if, while whole trees are torn up by their roots and swept into the air by whirlwinds and hurricanes, and ships laden with countless cargo, heavy with freight, are snatched up from the midst of the seas as though the lightest of things, and lakes and rivers are borne aloft, the streams having abandoned the earth's hollows, drawn up by the mightiest and most tangled eddies of the winds—while, on the other hand, the mind, which by nature is light and is lifted by the divine spirit, all-powerful and victorious over the things below, should not be raised and carried up to the greatest height, and above all the mind of one who philosophizes genuinely.
For such a mind does not sink downward, hanging in the balance toward the things dear to body and earth, from which it has always labored to separate and estrange itself, but is borne upward, insatiably in love with the sublime, most sacred, and blessed natures.
For this reason Moses, the steward and guardian of the mysteries of the Existent One, will be "called up"; for it is said in the book of Leviticus, "He called Moses up" (Lev. 1:1). And Bezalel too, who was judged worthy of second place, will be "called up"; for God calls him too, for the construction and oversight of the sacred works (Exod. 31:2ff.).
But Bezalel will carry off the second prize of this calling, while Moses the all-wise will carry off the first; for the one shapes shadows, as painters do, who are not permitted to fashion anything ensouled - Bezalel's name is interpreted as "working in shadows" - whereas Moses was allotted the task of impressing not shadows but the archetypal natures of things themselves. And besides, the Cause is accustomed to display what belongs to it more clearly and more distinctly to some, as it were in pure sunlight, and more dimly to others, as it were in shadow.
Having then gone through the more general plants in the cosmos, let us see in what manner the all-wise God fashioned the trees that are in the human being, the small cosmos. To begin with, then, taking our body as a deep-soiled plot of land, he made for it the senses to serve as reservoirs.
And then, as a cultivated and most beneficial plant, he set each one of them in place: hearing in the ear, sight in the eyes, smell in the nostrils, and the others in their own kindred regions. And the divinely inspired man bears witness to my account, saying in the hymns: "He who plants the ear, does he not hear? He who forms the eyes, will he not look upon?" (Psalm 93:9 [94:9]).
And likewise all the faculties that extend through to the legs and hands and the other parts of the body, both those within and those without, all happen to be noble offshoots.
But the better and more perfect faculties he rooted in the middle part, the ruling faculty, which is capable, above all, of bearing fruit; these are understanding, apprehension, sound judgment, study, memories, dispositions, changes of state, the manifold forms of the arts, the firmness of the sciences, and the unforgettable grasp of the contemplation of every virtue. None of these is any mortal capable of cultivating; but the one uncreated craftsman is sufficient for all of them together, having not only made them once but continually making these plants anew in each of those who are born.
Consistent with what has been said is also the planting of paradise; for it is said: "God planted a paradise in Eden, toward the east, and placed there the man he had formed" (Gen. 2:8). To suppose, then, that vines and olive trees or apple trees or pomegranates or the like are meant... is a piece of great and incurable foolishness.
For to what end, one might ask, would this be? So that he might have pleasant places to dwell in? But the whole cosmos would rightly be considered a most sufficient dwelling for God, the ruler of all; or would it not seem inferior to countless other things, so as to be judged worthy to receive the great King? Not to mention that it would not even seem reverent to suppose that the Cause is contained within its effect, any more than that the trees bear their yearly fruits for him.
For whose enjoyment and use, then, will the paradise bear fruit? Not for any human being's; for no one at all is represented as dwelling in the paradise, since even the first man formed from earth, whose name was Adam, is said to have migrated from there.
And indeed God, like all else, has no need of food; for whoever partakes of food must first be in need of it, and then must have organs prepared, by which he will both receive what enters and expel what has been chewed and sent out again. These things are out of tune with the blessedness and happiness that surround the Cause - they belong to those who represent it as having human form, and even human passions, for the destruction of piety and holiness -
these are the most lawless discoveries of great vices. One must therefore proceed to the allegory dear to men of vision; for indeed the oracles themselves present most clearly the starting points toward it; for they say that in the paradise there are plants resembling nothing among us, but rather of life, immortality, knowledge, apprehension, understanding, and the perception of good and evil.
These could not be plants of barren ground, but must necessarily be plants of the rational soul, whose path toward virtue holds life and immortality, and whose path toward vice holds flight from these and death. One must therefore suppose that the God who loves to give plants within the soul, as it were a paradise of virtues and of the actions in accordance with them, leading it toward complete happiness.
For this reason he also assigned to the paradise the most fitting place, called Eden - which is interpreted as "delight" - a symbol of the soul that sees perfectly, that dances in the virtues and leaps up from the abundance and greatness of its joy, setting before itself one single enjoyment in place of the countless pleasures most delightful among human beings: the service of the only wise one.
One who had drunk deep of this unmixed radiance, a companion of Moses, one who was not among the neglected, cried out in his hymns to his own mind, saying, "Delight yourself in the Lord" (Psalm 36:4 [37:4]), stirred to heavenly and divine love by that utterance, having grown displeased with the endless luxuries and indulgences found among the so-called visible human goods, and having been carried off, his whole mind, by divine possession, in a frenzy and rejoicing in God alone.
And indeed the fact that the paradise is toward the east (Gen. 2:8) is a proof of what has been said; for folly is dark and setting and night-bringing, while wisdom is most radiant and most luminous and truly rising. And just as the rising sun fills the whole circle of the sky with light, in the same way the rays of virtue, once they have shone forth, render the whole region of the understanding full of pure radiance.
Now the possessions of a human being have the fiercest wild beasts as guards and watchers, for defense against those who attack and assail them; but the possessions of God have rational natures - for it says, "he placed there the man whom he had formed," which applies only to the virtues that are rational.
The exercises and uses of these, then, received this as an especial prize from God beyond other souls; wherefore it is said most significantly that he placed the man within us who is turned toward divine truth - that is, the mind - among the most sacred shoots and plants of nobility and goodness, since nothing that has no share in understanding is capable of cultivating the virtues, of which it is by nature incapable of grasping anything at all.
One need not be at a loss, then, as to why all the forms of the wild beasts were brought into the ark, which came to be built for the greatest flood, but none into the paradise; for the ark was a symbol of the body, which of necessity has made room for the untamed and savage plagues of the passions and vices, while the paradise is a symbol of the virtues; and the virtues admit nothing wild or altogether irrational.
And it is with careful precision that he says it was not the man fashioned according to the image, but the one molded from clay, who was brought into the paradise; for the man engraved with the breath after the image of God differs in nothing, as it seems to me, from the tree that bears immortal life as its fruit - for both are incorruptible and have been judged worthy of the most central and most ruling portion; for it is said that the tree of life is in the middle of the paradise (Gen. 2:9) - whereas the man of the composite and more earthy body has no share in the unmolded and simple nature, whose house the one who practices virtue alone knows how to dwell in, the house and courts of the Lord - for Jacob is represented as "an unmolded man, dwelling in a house" (Gen. 25:27) - but instead has dealings with a manifold disposition, compounded and molded out of every sort of thing.
It was fitting, then, that the middle mind, rooted in the paradise, that is, in the whole cosmos, using its faculties as forces drawing it toward opposite directions, should be called up to the discernment of these, so that, setting out toward choice or avoidance, if it should welcome the better things, it might gain the benefit of immortality and good repute, but if instead the worse things, it would find blameworthy death.
Such, then, are the trees that the only wise one rooted in rational souls. But Moses, taking pity on those who have become exiles from the paradise of the virtues, prays that the self-sufficient power of God himself, and his gracious and gentle faculties, from which the earthly mind, Adam, has been banished, might there implant the men of vision; for he says:
"Bring them in and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance, in your ready dwelling place which you prepared, O Lord, a sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have prepared; the Lord reigning forever and ever and still beyond" (Exod. 15:17-18).
It is therefore most clearly understood, if by anyone at all, that God, having laid down the seeds and roots of all things, is the cause of the sprouting up of the greatest plant, this cosmos, which even now he seems to hint at through the very song just quoted, calling it a "mountain of inheritance"; since what has come into being is most closely akin to its maker, both as possession and as inheritance.
He prays, then, that we be planted in this, not so that we might become irrational and unruly in our natures, but so that, following the governance of the most perfect one and imitating his course, which remains ever the same and in the same manner, we might live a life of sound-mindedness and steadfastness; for the ancients said that the end of happiness is to have the strength to live in accordance with the sequence of nature.
And indeed what is said afterward accords with what has been proposed: that the cosmos is a ready and prepared perceptible house of God; that it has been made and is not uncreated, as some have supposed, the "sanctuary," as it were a radiance of holy things, an imitation of an archetype, since things beautiful to perception are images of things beautiful to the understanding; that it has been prepared by the hands of God, that is, by his cosmos-making powers.
But so that no one might suppose the Maker to be in need of anything that has come into being, he will proclaim the most necessary word: ‘Reigning for the age and unto the age and still beyond’ (Exodus 15:18); for a king needs nothing, and it is right that all his subjects belong to the king.
Some have said that the good is, and is called, God's portion, and that Moses now prays that its use and enjoyment might come to us. For, he says, having led us in, like children just beginning to learn, through the doctrines and contemplations of wisdom, and not leaving us untaught in the rudiments, plant us firmly in a lofty and heavenly account.
For this portion is the most ready and most convenient house, the most fitting dwelling, which ‘you have made holy’ (Exodus 15:17); for you, Master, happen to be the maker of good and holy things, just as, conversely, the corruptible is the origin of evil and profane things. Reign, then, for the boundless age over the suppliant soul, and do not for a single instant leave her without a guide; for unbroken servitude to you and to your supreme rule
is better than freedom alone. But it might perhaps raise a question for many what sense there is in the phrase ‘into the mountain of your inheritance’ (Exodus 15:17): for it is necessary that God bestow an inheritance, but it is perhaps not reasonable that he should inherit one, since all things are already his possessions.
But surely this is said of those who are mastered by him according to a special bond of kinship, just as kings rule over all their subjects, but rule differently over their household servants, whom they are accustomed to employ for the care of the body and the rest of daily life.
Though these same kings are masters of all the possessions throughout the land, and of whatever private citizens seem to hold, they are thought to have only those possessions which they have entrusted to stewards and overseers, from which they also collect the yearly revenues; and it is to these estates that they often resort for the sake of relaxation and good cheer, setting aside there the heaviest burden of the cares that belong to statecraft and kingship. And indeed these possessions are called their royal estates.
Moreover, the silver and gold and whatever other treasures are kept safe among the subjects belong rather to the rulers than to those who hold them; yet those very things are called the kings' own treasuries, into which the officials appointed to collect taxes deposit the revenues from the land.
Do not wonder, then, if the company of wise souls is also said to be the special portion of God, the ruler of all, who has obtained mastery over everything — the company that sees most keenly, employing the blameless and unsullied eye of the intellect, an eye that never closes but is always open and gazes straight ahead.
Is it not for this reason that it is also said in the Greater Song: ‘Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say to you: when the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God,
and the Lord's portion became his people, Israel’ (Deuteronomy 32:7–9). See, here again he has called the seeing character — God's genuine servant — God's portion and lot, while the children of earth, whom Adam named his sons, were scattered and dispersed and only afterward gathered together, becoming a mere crowd, unable to take right reason as their guide. For indeed virtue truly is the cause of harmony and union, while the opposite disposition is the cause of dissolution and disunity.
A proof of what has been said is what happens every year on the day called the Day of Atonement; for it is then prescribed to ‘cast lots over two goats, one for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat’ (Leviticus 16:8) — a twofold reasoning, one assigned to God and the other to created being. The one who reveres the Cause will be allotted honor along with him, while the one who honors created being will be driven into exile, banished from the most sacred places and cast into
profane places and pits. Moses, indeed, makes use of such abundant assurance that, trusting in this very point above all, he customarily employs words and doctrines more fervent and grander than our ears can generally bear; for he claims not only that man may inherit God, but also — the most paradoxical thing of all — that God himself is the portion of others.
For a whole tribe, his fugitive and suppliant, he did not think worthy to receive a share of the land, as the other eleven tribes did, but instead to receive a special prize — the priesthood — a possession not earthly but Olympian. ‘For the tribe of Levi,’ he says, ‘shall have no share or portion among the sons of Israel, because the Lord himself is their portion’ (Deuteronomy 10:9). And indeed, in the person of God, it is sung through the oracles in this way: ‘I am your portion and your inheritance’ (Numbers 18:20).
For truly the mind that has been completely purified, and that renounces everything else, knows and recognizes one thing only — the unbegotten, to whom it has drawn near, and by whom in turn it has been taken up. For to whom is it permitted to say, ‘He alone is God to me,’ except to the one who embraces nothing that comes after him? This is the Levite character; for ‘he to me’ is so interpreted because different things are honored by different people, while to him alone belongs the highest and best of all
causes. They say that one of the ancients, having become as it were enamored of the beauty of wisdom, as though of a most splendid woman, once beheld the lavish preparations of a most costly procession and, turning to some of his companions, said: ‘See, my friends, how many things I have no need of’ — though he possessed nothing beyond the bare necessities, so that, not even being puffed up by the greatness of wealth, as has happened to countless others, he might not seem, by that remark, to boast arrogantly against God.
This is what the lawgiver teaches those to think who recognize no possession among the things that have come into being, but who renounce whatever is created, because of their kinship with the unbegotten, whom alone they have considered wealth and the boundary of the most complete happiness.
Let those who have assumed kingdoms and dominions no longer boast — some because they have subdued a single city or country or nation, others because they have acquired every region of the earth to its very ends, every Greek and barbarian nation, every river, and seas boundless in number and size.
For even if, along with all this, they had also mastered the nature on high — a thing not even reverent to say — which alone of all things the Maker fashioned unenslaved and free, they would still be reckoned mere commoners in comparison with the great kings who have obtained God as their portion; for by as much as the one who possesses a possession is better than the possession itself, and the one who made a thing is better than the thing made, by so much are those kings more truly royal.
Some have thought that those who assert everything belongs to the virtuous man are speaking paradoxes, since they look only at outward want and abundance, and consider no one wealthy who lacks money or property. But Moses regards wisdom as so admirable and so worth contending for that he considers not only the whole universe a fitting portion for her, but even the ruler of all things himself.
These doctrines belong not to men who waver, but to those held fast by a firm faith; since even now there are some who merely put on the outward form of piety, who maliciously distort the plain sense of the statement, claiming that it is neither reverent nor safe to say that God is a man's portion.
I would say to them: you have come to the contemplation of these matters not out of a genuine feeling, but out of a spurious and counterfeit one; for you have supposed that vineyards or olive groves or similar possessions of their owners are spoken of in the same sense when God is called the portion of the wise, and you have not considered that painting, too, is called the portion of the painter, and, in general, art the portion of the craftsman — not as an earthly possession, but as an Olympian achievement.
For none of these things is possessed as property; rather, it benefits those who hold it. So then, you slanderers, do not hear the statement that Being is a portion as resembling ownership of a possession, but as the cause of the greatest benefits to those who see fit to serve him.
Having said, then, what is fitting concerning the first Planter and his planting, let us proceed next to the study of the lessons and imitations that follow. At once, then, the wise Abraham is said to have ‘planted a field at the well of the oath, and to have called upon the name of the Lord, the eternal God’ (Genesis 21:33). And the kind of the plants is not made clear — only the size of the plot itself.
Those who are accustomed to investigate such matters say that everything belonging to God's possessions has been worked out with special precision — the tree, the place, and the tree's fruit alike. The tree, then, is the field itself, though not like the things that sprout from the earth, but rooted after the manner of the man beloved of God; the place is the well of the oath; and the fruit is the
taking up of the name of the Lord as the eternal God. It is necessary now to render the plausible account of each of the things proposed. The field, then, being a hundred cubits in length and the same in width, when these are multiplied together according to the nature of a square, comes to a total of ten thousand square cubits.
This is the greatest and most perfect limit of the numbers that grow from the unit, so that the unit is the beginning of numbers, and the myriad is the end of the first stage of their composition. This is why some people, not without reason, have likened the unit to the starting-post and the myriad to the turning-post, and all the numbers in between to runners in a race: for starting, as it were, from the starting-post of the unit, they run their course and come to a stop beside the myriad, their finish line.
Proceeding from these facts, as it were from symbols, some have said that God is the beginning and end of all things—a doctrine that establishes piety. This doctrine, once planted in the soul, bears the most beautiful and most nourishing fruit: holiness.
The place most fitting for this plant is the well that is called Oath, in which, the account tells us, no water was found to be there. For it says, "Isaac's servants came and reported to him about the well they had dug, and said, 'We have not found water,' and he called it Oath" (Gen. 26:32-33). Let us consider what force this has.
Those who search out the nature of things and pursue their investigations into each subject without slackness do something like those who dig wells: for they too search for springs that are hidden from sight. The longing to find something to drink is common to all, but for some it is that by which the body is nourished, for others that by which the soul is by nature nourished.
Just as some of those who dig into wells often fail to find the water they seek, so those who press further into the sciences and go deeper into them are unable to touch the goal. Indeed, they say that the very learned convict themselves of a terrible ignorance, for they perceive only how far short of the truth they fall. And there is a story of one of the ancients, admired for his wisdom, who fittingly said he was admired for this alone: that he knew that he knew nothing.
Choose, if you will, whatever art you please to consider, small or great, along with the man who has become the best and most approved practitioner of it; then observe whether the professed claims of the art are equal to the works of its craftsman. For upon examination you will find these falling short of those not by small but by great distances—since it is virtually impossible for anyone to bring any art whatsoever to perfection, an art that, like a spring, is forever renewing itself and pouring forth ideas and theorems of every kind.
For this reason the well was most fittingly named Oath, being the symbol of the most secure trust, which contains the testimony of God. For just as the one who swears calls God as witness of the matters in dispute, so there is no surer way to keep one's oath than by finding that no art brings its craftsman to a final end in any branch of knowledge.
The same account applies also to nearly all the other faculties within us. For just as they say water was not found in the well just mentioned, so neither is the visible found residing in the eyes, nor hearing in the ears, nor smelling in the nostrils, nor, in general, sense-perception in the organs of sense; and in the same way, comprehension is not found residing in the mind either.
For how could it happen that we see amiss, or hear amiss, or think amiss, if the apprehension of each of these things were fixed and secure in them, rather than it being God who sows
the assurance that came to be in them by nature? Having discussed sufficiently, then, the place in which the tree blossoms, let us finally work out the matter of the fruit. What, then, is its fruit? He himself will show us: for "he called upon the name of the Lord, the everlasting God" (Gen. 21:33).
The titles just mentioned, then, display the powers that pertain to the One who Is: for "Lord" refers to the power by which he rules, and "God" to that by which he does good. This is why, throughout the whole account of the creation of the world according to the most sacred Moses, the name "God" is used: for it was fitting that the power by which the Maker brought things into being and set them in order should be the one by which he was also called.
In so far, then, as he is ruler, he is capable of both, of doing well and of doing ill, changing along with the recompense due to the one who has acted; but in so far as he is benefactor, he wills only the one thing—to do good.
It would be the greatest good a soul could gain, no longer to be in doubt about the King's power in either direction, but without hesitation to dissolve the fear that hangs over it on account of the might of his rule, while kindling the most secure hope arising from his being, by free choice, generous with good things both to possess and to use.
"Everlasting God," then, is equivalent to saying: he who bestows favor, not at one time and not at another, but always and continuously; he who does good without interruption; he who unceasingly links together the successive procession of his gifts; he who wheels his graces round, each holding to the next, fitted together by unifying powers; he who leaves out no occasion for doing good; and yet, being Lord, is also able to harm.
This too is what Jacob the athlete of virtue asked for at the end of his most sacred prayers; for he said somewhere, "and the Lord shall be to me for God" (Gen. 28:21), which is equivalent to saying: he will no longer show me the masterful aspect of his sovereign rule, but rather the beneficent aspect of his gracious and saving power over all things—removing the fear one has toward a master, and providing the soul instead with the friendship and goodwill one has toward a benefactor.
What soul, then, could suppose this: that the Master and Ruler of the universe, changing nothing of his own nature but remaining ever the same, is continuously good and unfailingly generous? Hence he is, in the truest sense, the most perfect cause of the unstinting and ever-flowing goods enjoyed by those who are truly blessed—
blessed. And to have put one's trust in a king who is not exalted by the greatness of his rule into harming his subjects, but who chooses, out of love for humankind, to set right whatever is lacking in each, is the greatest bulwark of good cheer and security.
What we promised, then, has now been shown almost in full: that the plant which is taken as the beginning and end of all things is God; that the place that follows from this is that no perfection is found in anything that comes to be, though it may sometimes shine forth in it through the graces of the Cause; and that the fruit is that the graces of God go on forever, raining down without ceasing and never coming to an end.
In this way, then, the sage too, following the art of the first and greatest of all planters, displays the art of husbandry. But the sacred word wishes that we too, who are not yet perfected but are still being tested in the middle rank of the so-called duties, should work hard at the tasks of husbandry. For it says:
"When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you plant every tree for food, you shall trim away its uncleanness; its fruit shall be untrimmed for three years and shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a thing of praise to the Lord; and in the fifth year you shall eat the fruit, its produce being added for you. I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 19:23-25).
It is therefore impossible to plant the edible trees before entering the land given by God. For it says, "When you enter the land, you shall plant every edible tree," so that while we are dwelling outside it we could not cultivate trees of this kind—and not without reason.
For as long as the mind has not yet come onto the road of wisdom, but has turned aside and wanders far off, it tends the plants of the wild wood, which are either barren and sterile, or, if they do bear, are unfruitful of anything edible.
But when it sets foot on the road of prudence and joins in with its doctrines and runs along with all of them, it will begin to cultivate the cultivated tree, bearer of cultivated fruits, in place of that wild one—dispassion in place of the passions, knowledge in place of ignorance, and good things in place of evil ones.
Since, then, the one just being introduced stands far off from the goal, it was fitting that he, once he had planted, should be commanded to trim away the uncleanness of what was planted. Let us consider together what this is.
The middle-ranked among the duties seem to me to bear an analogy to trees: for each of the two kinds bears the most beneficial fruits, the one for bodies, the other for souls. But many harmful things sprout up and grow upon them together in their middle stage, and these would necessarily be cut away, so that the better things not be harmed.
Or should we not call the return of a deposit entrusted to it the cultivated plant of the soul? But this plant, at any rate, needs cleansing and more than ordinary care. What then is this cleansing? Having received a deposit from a sober man, you must not repay it to one who is drunk, or dissolute, or out of his mind—for the one who receives it will have no chance to profit from getting it back. Nor must you repay it to debtors or slaves while their creditors or masters lie in wait—for that is betrayal, not repayment. Nor should you keep faith in small matters merely as bait for catching greater trust.
Fishermen who cast small bait in order to hook the larger fish would not be much to blame, since they can claim to be providing for the market's abundance and securing an ample daily diet for people.
But let no one offer the repayment of a small deposit as bait for catching something greater, holding out in his hands the small possessions of one man while in his mind pilfering the countless possessions of all. If, then, you strip away from the deposit, as from a tree, its unclean growths—the harms that come from those lying in wait, the ill-timed moments, the ambushes, and all things of that kind—you will tame what would otherwise grow wild.
And in the plant of friendship, too, it is necessary to cut away and remove these very same side-growths, for the sake of guarding the better part. The side-growths are these: the seductions of courtesans toward their lovers, and the deceptions of parasites toward those they flatter.
One can see women who sell themselves for the bloom of their body clinging to their lovers as though they loved them intensely—yet they do not love those men at all, but only themselves, and they gape open-mouthed after each day's gain. And one can see flatterers who at times harbor an unspeakable hatred for the very men they attend, while loving instead delicacies and gluttony, and who by these means persuade the men who fund their measureless appetites to keep courting them.
But the tree of unadulterated friendship, once it has shaken off and let go of these things, will bear the most beneficial fruit for those who make use of it: incorruptibility. For goodwill is the wish that good things belong to one's neighbor for that neighbor's own sake. But the streetwalkers and the flatterers labor for their own sake—the one class bringing good things to their lovers, the other to those they flatter, for their own advantage, not for the other's. The pretenses and seductions, then, that cling to the plant of friendship like clinging plagues
must be cut away. Sacred rites, indeed, and the reverent practice of sacrifice are the finest of growths—but alongside it a weed has sprouted, superstition, which it is profitable to cut out before it turns green. For some have thought that slaughtering oxen constitutes piety, and from whatever they have stolen, denied owing, defaulted on, seized, or plundered, they set aside a portion for the altars—men hard to purify—believing that escaping justice for their wrongdoing can be bought.
But—someone might say—God's tribunal, you people, cannot be bought: it turns away from those whose mind is culpable even if they bring up a hundred oxen every single day, while it accepts those who are blameless even if they sacrifice nothing at all. For God delights in fireless altars, around which the virtues dance, not in altars blazing with great fire—the very fire that the unholy sacrifices of the impious kindle together, calling to mind each one's ignorance and wrongdoing. Indeed, Moses somewhere called such a sacrifice one that 'brings sin to remembrance' (Numbers 5:15).
All such things, then, since they become causes of great harm, must be removed and cut away, following the oracle in which it is prescribed to remove
the impurity of the planted, edible tree. But we, even when taught, make no progress toward ready learning; while some, relying on a nature self-taught, have stripped the good of the harms wrapped around it, as did the ascetic surnamed Jacob. For he 'peeled the rods, stripping off white peelings and pulling away the green bark' (Genesis 30:37), so that, once the mottled coloring in the middle—dark and murky everywhere—had been removed, the plain white color, its sister, not colored by artifice but produced by nature, might be revealed.
For this reason too, in the law laid down concerning leprosy, it is prescribed that a person no longer variegated with a mottled coloring, but made completely white throughout, from the very top of the head to the soles of the feet, is clean (Leviticus 13:12–13)—so that, transferring the meaning from the body, we might let go of the mottled, cunning, wavering, and double-minded passion of the intellect, and receive instead the unmottled, unhesitating, simple color of truth.
To say, then, that the tree is pruned clean makes good sense, and is confirmed by plain truth. But to say that the fruit is pruned clean is not at all confirmed by observable fact—for no farmer prunes figs or grapes, or any fruit at all.
And yet the text says, 'its fruit shall be uncleansed for three years; it shall not be eaten,' as though it were, presumably, its normal custom to be cleansed. So it must be said that this too is one of those things given over to allegorical interpretation, since the literal statement does not entirely fit the case. The wording is in fact ambiguous: for it can indicate one thing thus—'its fruit shall be for three years,' and then separately, 'uncleansed, it shall not be eaten'—or, alternatively, 'its fruit for three years is uncleansed,' and only after that, so eaten.
According to the first meaning, one might understand it this way: the three years being taken to stand for threefold time, which by nature is divided into past, present, and future—the fruit of education will exist, will endure, and will remain sound through every division of time, since it undergoes no decay throughout the age; for the nature of the good is incorruptible. And 'the uncleansed fruit shall not be eaten' insofar as words that are refined, cleansed, and sound nourish the soul and cause the mind to grow, while their opposites are not nourishing at all, but send disease and decay upon it instead.
According to the other meaning, just as 'indemonstrable' is said in two senses—the one difficult to demonstrate on account of its obscurity, and the other known directly from itself, its clarity confirmed not by another's testimony but by its own manifest evidence, in the sense dialectic customarily applies to syllogistic arguments—so too 'uncleansed fruit' can mean both the fruit that needs cleansing and has not been cleansed, and the fruit that is most radiantly clear.
Such is the fruit of education for three years—that is, for threefold time, for the whole age: utterly pure and utterly transparent, shadowed by nothing harmful, in no way whatsoever
in need of washings, sprinklings, or, in general, any other thing conducive to cleansing. 'But in the fourth year,' it says, 'all its fruit shall be holy, praised to the Lord.' The prophetic word seems to hold the number four in special honor in many places throughout the legislation, but most of all in the account of the creation of the universe.
For the perceptible and honored light—the clearest mark both of itself and of all other things—and its parents, the sun and the moon, and the most sacred chorus of the stars, which by their risings and settings marked the bounds of night and day, and further of months and years, and revealed the nature of number, on which the soul's greatest good depends—these, Scripture says, were created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14).
And here too, in a special way, Scripture has honored the number four, consecrating the fruit of the trees to God in no other year than the fourth year of their planting.
For this has a rationale that is both deeply natural and deeply ethical. The roots of the universe, from which the world is composed, happen to be four—earth, water, air, fire—and the seasons of the year are equal to them in number: winter and summer, and the two that lie between them, spring and autumn.
Again, the number four, when examined among figures with right angles, is found to be the oldest of the squares, as the geometrical figure shows; and right angles are clear evidence of right reason, while right reason is the ever-flowing spring of the virtues.
Now the sides of a square must necessarily be equal, and equality gave birth to justice, the leading and governing virtue; so that, apart from all other considerations, the number four is shown to be a symbol of equality, of justice, and of virtue as a whole.
The number four is also called 'all,' because it contains potentially all the numbers up to ten, including ten itself. That it contains the numbers before it is plain to everyone; but that it also contains those after it is easy to see by calculation, in the following way.
By adding one, two, three, and four together, we will find what we were seeking. For from one and four will come five; from two and four, six; and seven from three and four. And by a double combination, from one and three and four comes eight; and again from two and three and four comes the number nine; and ten comes from all of them together—for one and two and three and four generate ten.
For this reason Moses also said, 'in the fourth year all its fruit is holy'—for the number four has, so to speak, in outline, the meaning of being even, whole, and complete, as does the sum of all things, because ten, which four generates, stands as the first turning point of the numbers built up from unity. Both ten and four, then, are said to be 'all' among numbers—ten in actuality, four in potentiality.
He says that the fruit of education is not only holy but rightly praiseworthy as well; for each of the virtues is a holy possession, but thanksgiving surpasses them all. And it is not possible to give genuine thanks to God through the things that most people think of as furnishings, dedications, and sacrifices — for not even the whole universe could become a temple worthy of honoring him in this way — but rather through praises and hymns, not such as the audible voice will sing, but such as the invisible and purest mind will resound and chant.
An ancient account, then, is sung, discovered by wise men and, as memory is wont to do, handed down through successive generations to those who came after, and it has not escaped even our own ears, ever hungry for learning. It runs like this: when, they say, the Maker had brought the whole universe to completion, he asked one of his attendant spirits whether it longed for anything not yet made, of all that had come to be upon earth and in water, or in the upper air, or in the outermost nature of the universe, the heaven.
He answered that all things were perfect and complete throughout every part, and that one thing alone was wanting: the word that would praise them, which would not so much praise as proclaim the excellences present in all things, even in those that seem smallest and most obscure; for the narrations of God's works are themselves the most sufficient praise of those works, needing no further external adornment, but having in the unfalsified truth their most perfect encomium.
Hearing what was said, the Father of the universe approved it, and not long after there appeared the whole race devoted to music and song, sprung from a single virgin among the powers around him, Memory, whom the many, distorting the name, call Mnemosyne.
Such, then, is the ancient myth. Following it, we for our part say that it is the most proper work of God to do good, and of created being to give thanks, since it can offer nothing else in return beyond this that is greater than what it has received; for whatever it might wish to give in return will be found to belong properly to him who has made all things, not to nature which merely conveys them.
Learning, then, that only one work falls to us in what pertains to the honor of God — the giving of thanks — let us practice this always and everywhere, through speech and through elegant writings, and let us never cease composing either words of praise or poems, so that both in melody and without melody, and in each form the voice takes, whether speaking or singing, the maker of the world and the world itself may be honored — "the one", as someone said, "the best of causes, the other the most perfect of things that have come to be".
So then, whenever in the fourth year, according to the count, all the soul's fruit has been consecrated, in the fifth we ourselves shall have the enjoyment and use of it. For it says: "In the fifth year you shall eat the fruit", since it is an unimpeachable law of nature that what has come to be should in all things be examined after what has made it, so that even
if we should receive second place, we should consider it a marvel. And this indeed is why it assigns to us the fruit of the fifth year, because five is the number proper to sense-perception, and, if the truth must be told, it is sense-perception that nourishes our mind — whether by supplying, through the eyes, the qualities of colors and shapes, or through the ears the manifold peculiarities of sounds, or through the nostrils smells, or through the mouth flavors, or softnesses that yield readily and hardnesses that resist, or smoothness and roughness, and in turn heats and colds through the power that is diffused throughout the whole body
and that is customarily called touch. The clearest example of what has been said is the sons of Leah — of virtue — not all of them, but the fourth and the fifth. Of the fourth Moses says that "she ceased bearing" (Gen. 29:35), and he is called Judah, which is interpreted as "confession to the Lord." The fifth she names Issachar, which when translated means "reward." And the soul, having borne offspring in this manner, immediately declared what she had experienced: for it says, "she called his name Issachar, which is reward" (Gen. 30:18).
Judah, then, is the mind that blesses God and unceasingly practices thankful hymns to him; he himself, in truth, was the "holy and praiseworthy fruit," borne not by trees of the earth but by a rational and excellent nature. That is why the nature that bore him is said to have "ceased bearing," since she no longer had anywhere else to turn, having arrived at the boundary of perfection; for of all the good deeds ever brought to birth, the best and most perfect offspring is the hymn to the Father of the universe.
The fifth son is not unrelated to the use of what has been planted, reckoned in the fifth year; for just as the farmer's labor receives its wage, in a sense, from the trees in the fifth year, so too the soul's offspring, Issachar, was called "reward," and fittingly so, since he was born after the thankful Judah; for to the one who gives thanks, the very act of giving thanks is itself the most sufficient reward.
The fruits of trees, then, are called the offspring of those who possess the trees, but the fruit of education and understanding belongs no longer to a human being, but, as Moses says, to the Ruler of all alone; for having said "its produce," he adds: "I am the Lord your God," showing most clearly that the one whose produce and fruit of the soul it is, is God alone.
In agreement with this is a saying used by one of the prophets: "From me your fruit is found. Who is wise, and will understand these things? Understanding, and will know them?" (Hos. 14:9–10). For it is not for everyone but only for the wise to know whose fruit the fruit of the understanding is.
Concerning, then, that most ancient and most sacred husbandry which the Cause employs toward the world, the most fruit-bearing of all plants, and concerning the husbandry that follows it, which the good man practices, and concerning the fourfold series of contests it bears, and what was framed according to the commands and instructions of the laws —
we have said as much as was possible. Let us now examine the viticulture of righteous Noah, which is a form of husbandry. For it is said that "Noah began to be a man, a tiller of the soil; and he planted a vineyard, and drank of the wine, and became drunk" (Gen. 9:20–21).
The righteous man, then, cultivates the plant of drunkenness skillfully and with understanding, while fools give it their care in an unskilled and disorderly manner, so that it is necessary to say what is fitting concerning drunkenness; for at once we shall also know the power of the plant that furnishes the occasions for it. What the lawgiver has said concerning drunkenness we shall come to know precisely on another occasion; for now let us investigate what has seemed true to others as well.
The inquiry has been pursued in no small measure by many of the philosophers. It is proposed in this form: whether the wise man will get drunk. Now to "get drunk" is twofold: one sense equivalent to being filled with wine, the other equivalent to talking nonsense in wine.
Of those who have taken up the question, some have said that the wise man will neither indulge in more unmixed wine than is proper, nor will he talk nonsense; for the one is an error, the other productive of error, and each is foreign to a man who acts rightly.
Others have declared that being filled with wine is indeed fitting even for the excellent man, but talking nonsense is unfitting; for the prudence within him is sufficient to withstand those who attempt to harm it and to put down any revolution they raise against the soul; and prudence is invested with a power that extinguishes the passions, whether stirred up by the goads of inflamed desire or kindled by an abundance of hot wine, a power because of which he will stand above them — just as, among those who plunge into a deep river or the sea, the inexperienced in swimming perish while those skilled in the matter are saved most quickly. Indeed, just as a torrent of much unmixed wine, flooding the soul, at one time casts it down, weighed low, into the utter depths of ignorance, but at another time, when the soul is buoyed up and made light by saving education, has no power at all to harm it.
Others, not grasping, I think, the magnitude of the excess involved in this passion, have brought the wise man down from heaven to earth as if he were soaring aloft, like fowlers bringing down birds, so as to lead him into the same disasters, and, failing to see the height of virtue, have said that if he uses more wine than is moderate he will altogether lose mastery of himself and go astray, and will not only, like defeated athletes, let his hands fall from weakness, but will also drop his neck and head, and sink to his knees, and having his whole
body dragged down, will collapse. Knowing this beforehand, he would never willingly consent to enter a contest of heavy drinking, unless the stakes at issue were great — the safety of his country, or the honor of his parents, or the security of his children and those dearest to him in body, or, in general, the correction of matters both private and public.
For he would not administer a deadly drug either, unless the circumstances utterly compelled him, as it were, to remove himself from life as from his native land; and it happens that the drug, even if not of death, is at any rate the cause of unmixed madness. Why, indeed, should madness not be called death as well, since by it the best part within us, the mind, dies? But it seems to me that anyone would reasonably choose, without hesitation, if there were a choice, the lighter rather than the heavier of the two — that which separates and dissolves soul and body, in comparison with madness.
This, indeed, is why the first men called the inventor of the practice of wine "the maddener," and the Bacchant women possessed by it "maenads," since wine is the cause of madness and derangement for those who fill themselves with it insatiably.
Such, then, are the preliminaries, so to speak, of the inquiry; let us now bring to its conclusion the argument concerning it, which is naturally twofold: the one establishing that the wise man will get drunk, the other confirming the contrary, that he will not get drunk.
It is fitting to state first the proofs of the former position, taking our starting point from here: of things, some happen to be homonymous, others synonymous. Homonymy and synonymy are agreed to be opposites, in that homonymy is one name applied to many subjects,
It is fitting to state the proofs of the former point first, taking our starting point from this: things are of two kinds, some homonymous and some synonymous. Homonymy and synonymy are agreed to be opposites, since homonymy is one name applied to many underlying things,
whereas synonymy is many names applied to one underlying thing. The utterance "dog" is entirely homonymous, since many unlike things are brought together and signified through it: the land animal that barks is called dog, and so is the sea beast, and so is the heavenly star which the poets call "the star of late summer," because it rises just as the late-summer fruit is ripening in order that it may be brought to perfection and ripen fully, and besides these there is the philosopher who set out from the Cynic school, Aristippus and Diogenes and countless others who saw fit to pursue the same way of life.
But there are also different appellations for one and the same thing signified, as with "ios," "oistos," and "belos" — for all these words are used of whatever is shot from the bowstring's cord at a mark — and again "eiresia," "kope," and "platē," which have the same force for sailing as sails do; for whenever a ship cannot make use of sails, in a calm or against the wind, men sit at the oars, the ones charged with this task, and stretching out oars on either side like wings they force the ship to be carried along as if winged, and it, lifted up to a height, runs over the waves rather than cutting through them, and speeding along makes swift passage and comes to anchor in the most sheltered harbors.
And again, "skipōn," "baktēria," and "rhabdos" are different names for one and the same underlying thing, with which one can strike, and lean unshakenly, and press one's weight, and do many other things besides. We have said these things not at length in themselves, but for the sake
of making clearer what is being sought. The ancients called unmixed wine "oinos," and likewise "methu"; indeed in many places in poetry this word occurs, so that if synonymous terms are said of one and the same underlying thing — wine and methu — then the things derived from them will differ in nothing but the mere sounds, and "to be wine-affected" and "to be drunk" are one and the same thing.
Each of the two expressions indicates the use of a considerable quantity of wine, which the man of worth would not turn away from for many reasons. And if he is affected by wine, he will also be made drunk, having been put in no worse a condition by his drunkenness than the one affected by mere wine-taking.
One proof concerning the wise man's being made drunk has now been stated; the second is as follows. Nearly all people today, apart from a small remnant, see fit to emulate nothing that resembles the ways of those who came before, but display in both words and deeds what is out of tune and discordant.
For words that were once sound and vigorous they have led into an incurable passion and corruption, contriving, instead of a truly robust and athletic good condition, nothing but a diseased state, and having brought the swollen and bloated fullness that someone once spoke of, through excessive tension, into a morbid condition swollen contrary to nature, and puffing it up with an empty tension alone, which, for want of the strength that would hold it together, bursts precisely when it is stretched most tight.
As for deeds, with the same bombast of praise and zeal they have made effeminate even those actions that should, so to speak, be manly, working out shameful things instead of noble ones, so that there are altogether few in either respect, in deeds and in words, who love the ancient manner of emulation.
In the case of those men of old, therefore, poets and prose writers and all who were devoted to the other arts of the Muses flourished, not sweetening and enervating the ears through rhythmic sound, but rousing whatever was broken and shattered in the understanding and fitting together whatever was harmonious in it, using the instruments of nature and virtue; but among us, cooks and bakers and craftsmen skilled in the elaborate arts of dyeing and perfumery are always laying siege to the senses with some new color or shape or vapor or flavor, so as to storm and take the mind that ought to be their ruler.
Why, then, have I mentioned these things? So as to show that people today do not partake even of unmixed wine in the same manner as those of old. For nowadays they drink all at once and without pausing for breath, until body and soul are entirely relaxed, and they still gape open-mouthed and order more to be brought to those who are pouring the wine, and grow angry if there is any delay, because they are cooling down what they call the "hot drink." It was of these that I made mention, of those from the gymnastic contests who display before their companions the drinking-bout as a contest, in which they do great and "fine" things to one another, gnawing off each other's ears and noses and fingertips and whatever part of the body happens to be within reach.
These are, it would seem, the prizes of a merriment that is young and recent and only now coming into its bloom, whereas the ancient and older merriment had the opposite character. For the men of former times began every noble action from perfect and complete sacred rites, believing that in this way, above all, its outcome would turn out favorable, and before praying and sacrificing, even if circumstances pressed them hard to act, they always waited, not supposing that haste is always better than delay; for unconsidered speed is harmful, while delay accompanied by good hope is beneficial. Knowing, then, that the enjoyment and use of wine also requires great care,
they partook of unmixed wine neither to excess nor at every occasion, but in an orderly manner and at the appropriate time. For first, having prayed and offered up sacrifices and propitiated the divine, and having purified body and soul, the one by ablutions, the other by the streams of the laws and right education, radiant and rejoicing they turned to a more relaxed way of life, often not even returning home but remaining in the sanctuaries where they had sacrificed, so that, remembering the sacrifices and reverencing the place, they might conduct a truly most sacred festivity, going wrong neither in word nor in deed.
It is from this, they say, that "to be drunk" [methuein] got its name, because it was the custom of the men of old to take wine "after sacrificing" [meta to thuein]. To whom, then, would the manner just described be more proper for the use of unmixed wine than to wise men, for whom the act of sacrificing before drunkenness is also fitting?
For hardly a single one of the base performs sacrifice in truth, even if he leads up ten thousand oxen continually every day; for the most fitting victim of all has been maimed in him — the mind — and it is not lawful for maimed things to touch the altars.
This second argument has now been stated, showing that being made drunk is not foreign to the man of worth; the third depends on a differing but persuasive account of etymology. For some think that methē (drunkenness) is so called not only because it is accomplished after sacrifice, but also because it becomes a cause of the release [methesis] of the soul.
Now what is released in the foolish is their slack self-control, released into a further outpouring of errors, but what is released in the sensible is released into the enjoyment of relaxation and good cheer and gladness; for the wise man, once affected by wine, becomes more agreeable to himself than he is when sober, so that we would not go wrong even on this ground in saying that he will be made drunk. And besides these points, this too must be said:
that the form of wisdom is not sullen and stern, drawn tight with gloom and dejection, but on the contrary cheerful and calm, full of gladness and joy, under the influence of which a man is often led forward to play and jest in no unrefined way — yet a playfulness that resounds together with dignity and seriousness into the blending of a single melody, as in a well-tuned lyre with answering notes.
In the sacred writing of Moses, at any rate, the end of wisdom is play and laughter — not the sort of things all infants practice without understanding, but the sort practiced by those who have already grown grey, not only in years but in good counsels. Do you not see that the man who has drawn from knowledge by his own hearing, his own learning, and his own working, he says, does not merely partake of laughter, but is himself laughter?
This is Isaac, whose name is interpreted "laughter," with whom it is fitting to play together with endurance, whom the Hebrews call Rebecca. But the divine play of the soul is not lawful for a private person to see; it is permitted only to the king with whom wisdom has dwelt for a very long time as a neighbor, even if it has not dwelt within him for the whole of eternity. This king is called Abimelech, who, peering through the window — that is, through the opened and light-bearing eye of the understanding — saw Isaac playing with Rebecca his wife.
For what other work is fitting for a wise man than to play, and to be radiant with joy, and to rejoice together with the endurance of noble things? From all this it is clear that he will indeed be made drunk, since drunkenness forms character and produces both relaxation and benefit.
For unmixed wine seems to intensify and heighten whatever qualities are already present by nature, whether good ones or their opposites, just as many other things do as well; since wealth too is a cause of good things, but, as someone said, of evils to the evil man; and again, reputation makes the vice of the fool more conspicuous, but the virtue of the just man more renowned. So too, then, unmixed wine, once poured out, makes the man given over to the passions more subject to passion, but makes the man given to good states of feeling more benevolent and gracious.
Who indeed does not know that when one of two opposite kinds applies to a greater number, the other kind must necessarily follow as well? For instance, since white and black are opposites, if white belongs to both the refined and the base, then black too, presumably in equal measure, will belong to both alike, not to only one of the two groups. Now sobriety and drunkenness are likewise opposites, and both good men and base men partake of sobriety, as the earlier argument showed; so that drunkenness too applies to each of the two kinds. Therefore the refined man too will be made drunk, without casting away any part of his virtue.
But if, as in a court of law, one ought to make use not only of proofs based on art but also of the so-called artless proofs, of which one is that furnished through witnesses, we shall produce as witnesses many well-reputed sons of physicians and philosophers, who have signified their testimony not only in words but also in writings.
For they have left behind countless treatises entitled "On Drunkenness," in which they examine only the bare use of wine by itself, without further inquiring into those who are accustomed to babble nonsense, but passing over the whole category of drunken behavior; so that even among these it is most clearly agreed that to be drunk was the same as to be affected by wine. And to have drunk a fair quantity of wine at the appropriate time would not be a worse thing for the wise man; we shall not, then, go wrong in saying that he will be made drunk.
But since no one is recorded as winning a contest fought against himself — and if he does contend in such a way, he would rightly seem to be shadow-boxing rather — it is necessary also to state the arguments that establish the opposite case, so that the judgment reached may be most just, with neither side condemned by default.
The first and strongest argument is this: if one would not reasonably entrust a secret to a man who is drunk, but one would to a person of good character, then the person of good character is not drunk. But before stringing the other arguments together in sequence, it is better to argue against each of the propositions individually, so that we do not seem to trouble the reader further by speaking at length.
Someone opposing this will say that, according to the argument as stated, the wise man will never be melancholic, nor will he sleep, nor will he die at all; and whoever experiences none of these things is either soulless or divine, and could not be a human being at all. For imitating the pattern of the argument, one will apply this same reasoning to the melancholic person, or the sleeping person, or the dying person: no one would reasonably entrust a secret to such a person, but to the wise man one reasonably would — therefore the wise man is neither melancholic, nor asleep, nor dying.

======== On Drunkenness ========

What has been said by the other philosophers about drunkenness we recalled, as best we could, in the book before this one; now let us examine what the all-great and wise lawgiver thinks about it.
For in many places in his legislation he mentions wine and the vine, the plant that produces it; and to some he permits drinking it, to others he does not allow it, and sometimes to the very same people he prescribes the opposite — to use wine, and not to use it. These, then, are those who have made the great vow (Num. 6:2ff.), while unmixed wine is forbidden to those officiating as priests (Lev. 10:9), and countless others who partake of wine are among those most admired by him for their virtue.
But before beginning to speak of these matters, we must be precise about the points bearing on their groundwork. It is, I think, as follows:
Moses holds that unmixed wine is a symbol not of one thing but of several: of babbling and raving, of utter insensibility, of insatiable and ill-content desire, and of that gladness which embraces everything else and which appears in all the things mentioned — the nakedness which he says Noah, once drunk, displayed. These effects, then, are said to be the work of wine. But countless people, even those who have never touched unmixed wine, are caught while sober—
seized by like things: for one may see some of them acting foolishly and babbling, others gripped by utter insensibility, others never satisfied but always thirsting after unattainable things because they lack knowledge, others in turn beaming and rejoicing, and others truly stripped bare.
The cause of babbling, then, is harmful lack of education — by which I mean not ignorance of learning, but estrangement from it; the cause of insensibility is treacherous and blind ignorance; the cause of insatiability is desire, the most grievous of the soul's passions; the cause of gladness is the possession and, at the same time, the exercise of virtue; but of nakedness there are many causes: ignorance of opposites, guilelessness and simplicity of character, and truth, the power that leads to the unveiling of things kept in shadow, stripping virtue bare on the one hand and vice on the other, each in turn — for it is not possible at the same time
to strip off both, nor even to put both on; but whenever one casts off the one, of necessity he takes up and puts on the other in its place.
For just as, according to the ancient account, God joined pleasure and pain — things by nature at war — at a single summit, and produced the sensation of each not at the same time but at alternating times, decreeing that as the one departs the other should descend in its place, so too from a single root of the governing faculty the twin shoots of virtue and vice have grown up, neither budding nor bearing fruit at the same moment.
For whenever the one sheds its leaves and withers, the other begins to sprout again and put forth new green growth, so that one might suppose each shrinks back, resentful of the other's flourishing. For this reason Scripture, most naturally, presents Esau's entrance as following directly upon Jacob's exit: 'It happened,' it says, 'that as soon as Jacob went out, Esau his brother came in' —
(Gen. 27:30) — for as long as prudence lingers and walks about within the soul, every companion of folly is banished beyond its borders; but when prudence moves away, folly comes down rejoicing, since its hostile and unfriendly enemy, on whose account it was driven out and made to flee, no longer occupies the same territory.
What amount to the preliminaries of the passage, then, have been said sufficiently; we shall now supply the proofs for each point, beginning our instruction from the first. We said, then, that lack of education is the cause of babbling and erring, just as unmixed wine in quantity is the cause for countless fools.
For lack of education, to tell the truth, is the primal source of the soul's errors, the spring from which the deeds of life flow as from a fountain — a fountain that gives forth to no one any drinkable or saving stream at all, but a brackish one, the cause of sickness and ruin for those who draw from it.
So it is that the lawgiver rages against the uneducated and unruly as, perhaps, against no one else. Here is the proof: who are allies not by practice but by nature, both among human beings and among the other kinds of living creatures? Not even someone out of his mind would name any but parents; for by an untaught nature, that which has produced always cares for what has come to be, and takes thought for its
safety and its preservation into the future. So he made a point that those who exist by nature as allies should pass over into the rank of accusers, setting up as prosecutors the very ones who ought properly to be advocates, father and mother, so that a person might perish precisely at the hands of those by whom he would naturally expect to be saved. 'For if a man,' he says, 'has a disobedient and contentious son who does not heed the voice of his father and mother, and they discipline him and he does not listen to them, his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his place, and shall say to the men of their city: This son of ours is disobedient and contentious, he does not heed our voice; he squanders money on feasting and is a drunkard. And the men of the city shall stone him, and you shall remove the evil one from among you' (Deut. 21:18–21).
The charges, then, are four in number: disobedience, contentiousness, contribution to feasts, and drunkenness. The last is the greatest, having grown out of the first, disobedience; for the soul, once it begins to kick against restraint, and having advanced through strife and love of quarreling, arrives at the final boundary — drunkenness, the cause of derangement and madness. It is necessary to examine the force of each charge, beginning from the first.
It is generally agreed, then, that yielding to and obeying virtue is noble and advantageous, so that disobedience, conversely, is shameful and considerably unprofitable; but contentiousness has gone beyond every extreme of wickedness. For the disobedient person is less depraved than the quarrelsome one: the former merely disregards what is commanded, while the latter has made it his business to attempt the opposite.
Come, let us see how this stands. Suppose the law commands, for instance, that one honor one's parents: the man who fails to honor them is disobedient, but the man who dishonors them is contentious. And again, since it is right to save one's homeland, the man who hesitates to do this is disobedient, but the man who has actually resolved to betray it must be called quarrelsome and contentious.
Likewise, the man who fails to grant a favor to someone, opposing him who says one ought to do good, is disobedient; but the man who, besides not granting favors, also inflicts all manner of harm, puffed up by contentiousness, commits an incurable sin. And indeed, the man who does not perform the sacrifices and the other observances that pertain to piety disobeys the commands which the law regularly gives concerning these matters; but he who turns to the opposite, impiety, and is provoked to it, is a proponent of godlessness.
Such was the man who said, 'Who is he that I should obey?' and again, 'I do not know the Lord' (Exod. 5:2). By the first statement he asserts that the divine does not exist; by the second, that even if it does exist, it is nonetheless unknown — which follows from its not exercising providence, for if it did exercise providence, it would also be known. Now, the bringing of contributions and collections, when it is for
a share in the best possession, prudence, is praiseworthy and advantageous; but when it is for the sake of the worst of all evils, folly, it is unprofitable and blameworthy.
The contributions toward the best, then, are longing for virtue, zeal for what is noble, continual study, persistent exercise, tireless and unwearied labors; but those toward the opposite are slackness, indolence, luxury, self-indulgence, and a complete abandonment of discipline.
One may also see those who strip down for excessive drinking, training every day and contending in the contests of gluttony, bringing in their contributions as though toward something profitable, yet forfeiting everything — money, bodies, and souls. For in contributing their money they diminish their estate; through their soft living they break down and enfeeble the powers of their bodies; and they flood their souls, like a river in flood, with an immoderate excess of food, forcing them to sink into the depths.
In the same way, those who bring collections toward the destruction of education forfeit the most sovereign thing within them, the mind, cutting away its saving faculties — prudence and self-control, and courage and justice as well. This is why he himself, it seems to me, uses the compound word 'squanders money on feasting,' to make his meaning clearer: because by bringing, as it were, contributions and collections for their assaults on virtue, they wound and cut apart and hack to pieces, until complete ruin, souls that are eager to listen and eager to learn.
Souls, then. Wise Abraham, we are told, returned 'from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him' (Gen. 14:17), while Amalek, conversely, 'cut down the rear' of the man of practice (Deut. 25:18) — and this follows the natural order, for opposites are hostile to one another and are forever bent on each other's destruction.
One might accuse the man who brings such contributions above all on this ground: that he has resolved not merely to do wrong himself but to share in wrongdoing with others, thinking it fit both to propose some things himself and to listen when others propose them — so that, erring both by nature and by learning, he leaves himself no sound hope of salvation, and this even though the law has expressly forbidden joining with the many in wickedness (Exod. 23:2).
For in truth, evil is abundant and most prolific in human souls, but the good is scanty and rare. So the most beneficial exhortation is not to associate with the many, with whom lies wrongdoing, but with the few, with whom lies just action.
Fourth, then, and greatest of the charges was drunkenness — not indulged loosely, but with utter intensity. For to be a wine-guzzler is equivalent to letting the drug that causes folly, namely lack of education, smolder, kindle, and blaze up, a fire that can never be quenched, but instead is forever setting the whole soul ablaze and consuming it with flame.
It is fitting, then, that justice should follow, purging every wicked disposition of the mind. For it is said, “You shall remove the wicked” — not from a city or a country or a nation, but “from among yourselves” (Deut.); for within us, lodged and lurking, are the culpable and reprehensible reasonings, which, whenever they prove incurable, it is necessary to cut off and destroy.
The disobedient man, then, fond of strife, who furnishes plausible arguments like a kind of contribution or collection aimed at tearing down the good, who blazes with unmixed wine and is thoroughly drunk on virtue, committing outrageous acts of drunken insolence against her — it was right that he should have as accusers those who are allies to others, father and mother, and should receive utter <destruction> as a warning and chastening to those still capable of being saved.
Father and mother share a common name, but their powers differ. The one, then, who fashioned this universe we shall at once rightly call both its maker and its father, and the knowledge of the maker we shall call its mother — with whom God consorted, not as a man, and sowed generation. And she who received the seeds of God, with birth pangs bringing them to term, brought forth his only and beloved perceptible son, this world.
Accordingly, wisdom is introduced, in the words of one from the divine chorus, speaking of herself in this way: “God acquired me as the very first of his works, and founded me before the age” (Prov. 8:22); for it was necessary that all things that came into being should be younger than the mother and nurse of the universe.
So who is capable of sustaining an accusation against these parents? Not even a moderate threat or the lightest reproach. For no one is capable of containing the boundless abundance of their gifts — perhaps not even the world itself, but like a small reservoir into which a great spring of God's graces flows, it will very quickly be filled to overflowing, so that it wells up and spills over. But if we are unable to receive their benefits, how shall we bear their punitive powers when these come upon us?
The parents of the universe, then, must be set aside from the present discussion; let us now instead examine those who, as their disciples and familiars, have been allotted the care and guardianship of souls — as many souls, that is, as are not uncultivated and uneducated. We say, then, that the father is the male, perfect, and right reason, and the mother is the intermediate, cyclical round of studies and education; and it is good and advantageous for their offspring, as children to those who begot them, to obey them.
The father's command, then — right reason's — is to follow and accompany nature, pursuing truth naked and unadorned; while education's, the mother's, is to attend to what is established by convention, the customs which the first people, embracing appearance in preference to truth, established city by city, nation by nation, and country by country.
These parents have four ranks of children: one obedient to both, another attending to neither — the opposite of the first — and the other two each half-complete. For one of them, having become an ardent lover of the father, attends to him but disregards the mother and her injunctions; the other, conversely, seeming to be a lover of the mother, serves her in everything but cares least of all for the father's concerns. The first, then, will carry off the prize of victory over all; the one opposed to it will receive defeat together with destruction; and of the remaining two, one will claim the second prize, the other the third — the second going to the one obedient to the father, the third to the one obedient to the mother.
Now the lover of the mother, yielding to the opinions of the many and, in keeping with the manifold pursuits of life, changing into shapes of every kind after the manner of the Egyptian Proteus — who, because everything that by nature comes to exist in the universe took on a form whose truth was never disclosed — the clearest type of this is Jethro, a figment of vanity most fitted for a city and constitution of a promiscuous, mixed rabble of people suspended on empty opinions.
For while Moses the wise was calling the whole people's soul back to piety and the honoring of God, and teaching them the ordinances and the most sacred laws — for he says, “Whenever a dispute arises among them and they come to me, I judge each case and make known the ordinances of God and his law” (Exod. 18:16) — Jethro, who merely seemed wise, came forward; uninitiated into divine goods but thoroughly practiced in things human and perishable, he plays the demagogue and writes laws contrary to those of nature, keeping his eye on what merely seems to be, whereas those laws are referred to what truly is.
And yet, taking pity and having compassion even on this man for his great error, Moses thinks it necessary to teach him better and to persuade him to abandon his empty opinions and follow truth steadfastly.
“Having removed,” he says — that is, we, having cut away from our understanding empty vanity, are migrating to the place of knowledge, which we receive by oracles and divine covenants — “come with us, and we will treat you well” (Num. 10:29); you will cast off the most harmful semblance, and acquire the most beneficial truth.
But, bewitched by such things as these, he will disregard what has been said and will in no way whatsoever follow after knowledge, but will retreat and run back to his own empty vanity; for it is said that he replied to him: “I will not go, but to my own land and my own kindred” (Num. 10:30) — that is, to his kindred unbelief, which holds false opinion, since he had not learned the faith that speaks truth, dear to men.
that faith, that is, he had not learned. For indeed, when, wishing to make a display of piety, he says, “Now I know that the Lord is great above all gods” (Exod. 18:11), he accuses himself of impiety before men who know how to judge.
For they will say to him: Now you know, unholy man? But before, did you not know the greatness of the ruler of the universe? Was there, then, something older than God, which you had encountered before him? Or is it not true that, for offspring, the virtues of their parents are, before all else, known first of all? Is not the creator and father of the universe, then, its founder? So that if you say you have now come to know, then not even now have you come to know — since it does not date from the beginning of your own coming into being.
You stand convicted no less for your affectation, when you compare the incomparable and say that you have come to know the greatness of the One who Is above all gods; for if you truly knew the One who Is, you would never have supposed any of the others to be a self-sufficient god.
For just as the sun, once it has risen, hides the stars from our sight by pouring out its own light all at once, so too, when the pure, unmixed, and most far-shining intelligible rays of the light-bringing God shine back upon the eye of the soul, it can perceive nothing else; for the knowledge of the One who Is, once it shines forth, irradiates all things, so that it darkens even those that seem, of themselves, to be most brilliant.
No one, then, would have endured comparing the true God to falsely named gods, if he had truly known him without deception; but ignorance of the One has produced belief in the many as though they existed, though in truth they do not.
Everyone is of the same disposition who has despaired of the things of the soul, but marvels at the things concerning the body and what is external, adorned with colors and shapes to deceive an easily led perception.
The lawgiver calls such a person Laban, who, not having perceived the true laws of nature, falsely records those current among men, saying: “It is not so done in our place, to give the younger before the elder” (Gen. 29:26).
For he thinks it necessary to preserve the order in time, holding it right that the elder be brought into partnership first and the younger only afterward. But the practitioner of wisdom, knowing that natures exist outside of time, aims at both the younger before and the elder after. And he has an argument suited to character in harmony with this: for it is necessary for those in training to encounter the younger education first, so that afterward they may be able to enjoy the benefit of the more perfect education securely.
For this reason, even to this day, lovers of nobility do not arrive at the doors of the elder philosophy before encountering the younger ones — grammar, geometry, and the whole of the cyclical branches of music; for these always procure wisdom for those who seek her guilelessly and purely.
But he argues sophistically to the contrary, wishing us to be led to the elder first — not so that we may hold her securely, but so that, enticed by the charms of the younger, we may in turn relax our longing for her.
But he schemes in turn, wanting to lead us to the elder wife first, not so that we might hold her securely, but so that, once enticed by the charms of the younger, we might again dissolve our longing for her.
And this is roughly what has happened to many who have taken a roundabout path toward education. For while still, so to speak, in swaddling clothes, they have gone straight to the most perfect pursuit, philosophy, without ever having judged it right to be initiated into the general studies at all; and later they thought to take hold of these only late and with difficulty. And then, having descended from the greater and elder study to the contemplation of the lesser and younger ones, they grew old among them, so that they no longer had the strength to run back up to where they had set out from.
For this reason, I think, he says: "Complete her seven years" (Gen. 29:27) — which is equivalent to saying: let the good of the soul not be endless for you, but let it have a limit and a boundary, so that you may also encounter the younger rank of goods, which has been allotted bodily beauty, reputation, wealth, and things of that kind.
But he does not promise to "complete" it; rather he agrees to "fulfill" her (Gen. 29:28), that is, that he will never fail in his efforts toward her increase and completion, but will always and everywhere hold fast to her, even if there are countless things pulling and dragging in the opposite direction.
It seems to me that the point that habits are practiced by women rather than by men is made quite plainly through the words of Rachel, who admires only what is perceptible to sense; for she says to her own father: "Do not be angry, my lord; I cannot rise before you, because the custom of women is upon me" (Gen. 31:35).
So then, being persuaded by habit is a property of women; and indeed habit truly belongs to a weaker and more feminine soul; for it is the nature of men, and of a vigorous
and truly masculine reasoning, to follow nature. And I am struck with amazement at the truthfulness of the soul who, in her own inner dialogues, confesses that she cannot rise up against the goods that appear to the senses, but is astonished at each of them and honors it, and all but ranks it above herself.
For which of us stands opposed to wealth? Who strains after reputation? Who has despised honor or office — of those, at least, who are still wallowing in empty opinions? Not a single one, altogether.
But as long as none of these things is present, we talk loftily, as companions of frugality, praising the most self-sufficient and just life, the one fitting for the free and the well-born; but whenever hope of one of these forbidden things, or even the merest breath of hope, blows upon us, we are exposed for what we are; for we yield at once and give way, unable to resist and hold our ground, and betrayed by our own dear senses we abandon the whole alliance of the soul, and no longer deserting in secret, but now openly, we go over to the enemy.
And perhaps not unreasonably; for the habits of women still prevail over us, since we have not yet been able to wash them off and run across to the men's quarters, as the account has it of the mind that loves virtue, whose name is Sarah.
For she is introduced by the oracles as one who "had ceased to have all the ways of women" (Gen. 18:11), at the moment when the self-taught race was about to be in labor and give birth — surnamed Isaac.
And she is said also to have become motherless, allotted kinship only through her father, not through her mother, having no share in the female line. For someone said somewhere: "for truly she is my sister, by my father, but not by my mother" (Gen. 20:12); for she is not sprung from that which is perceived by sense, which is forever coming to be and being dissolved, and which the poets — those in whom the shoot of wisdom first sprang up — called mother and nurse and nourisher, but from the cause and father of all things.
She, then, having risen above the whole realm of bodily things, and made radiant by the joy that is in God, will count as laughter all human earnestness, whether it concerns the affairs of war or of peace.
But we, still overcome by the unmanly and womanish habit that concerns the senses, the passions, and things perceptible, are unable to rise up against any of them, and are dragged by everything, even the most trivial things — some of us unwillingly, others even willingly.
And even if our whole company is caught unable to serve the father's commands, it will have as ally, no less, the mother, education that stands midway, writing down the customary and apparent standards of justice city by city, and legislating different things for different peoples.
But there are some who, looking down on the things of the mother, cling with all their strength to the things of the father — men whom right reason has judged worthy of the greatest honor, the priesthood. And if we go through the deeds by which they won this prize, we shall perhaps incur mockery among many who are deceived by superficial appearances and do not perceive the hidden and shadowed powers at work.
For those who have been entrusted with prayers and sacrifices and the whole sacred service of the temple are — most paradoxical of all — men-slayers, killers of their own brothers, murderers with their own hands of the bodies most akin and dearest to them, men who ought to be pure, and from pure stock, having touched no defilement — let alone a voluntary one, but not even an involuntary one — before being ordained.
For it is said: "Kill each man his brother, and each man his neighbor, and each man his nearest kin. And the sons of Levi did as Moses had spoken, and there fell of the people on that day about three thousand men" (Exod. 32:27–28). And those who had destroyed so great a multitude he praises, saying: "You have filled your hands today for the Lord, each in his son or his brother, so that a blessing may be given upon you" (Exod. 32:29).
What, then, must be said, except that such men are caught by the common habits of humankind — of which the accuser is that political, crowd-pleasing mother, custom — while they employ as ally the one who preserves nature, right reason, the father?
For the priests do not, as some suppose, destroy human beings — rational living creatures composed of soul and body — but they cut away from their own understanding whatever is akin and dear to the flesh, judging it fitting for those who are to become worshippers of the one who alone is wise to be alienated from everything that belongs to the realm of becoming, and to treat all such things as enemies and bitterest foes.
For this reason we shall kill "the brother" — not a human being, but the body, the brother of the soul — that is, we shall separate the passion-loving and mortal from the virtue-loving and divine. We shall kill also the "neighbor" — again not a human being, but the chorus and company of the senses; for this is both kin and hostile to the soul at once, setting baits and traps for it, so that, flooded by the sense-objects that pour in upon it, it may never lift its head toward heaven nor embrace the intelligible and godlike natures. We shall kill also "the nearest of kin" — and nearest to the understanding is spoken reason, which implants false opinions by means of plausible words, images, and persuasions, to the ruin of the most precious possession, truth.
Why, then, should we not take vengeance also on this reason, since it is a sophist and a defiled thing, condemning it to the death that suits it — silence, for silence is death to reason — so that the mind, no longer dragged along by its sophistries, may be able, once wholly freed from the pleasures that belong to the "brother" body, from the enchantments that belong to the "neighboring" and adjoining senses, and from the sophistries that belong to "the nearest" reason, released free and unbound, to devote itself purely to all things intelligible?
This is the one who "says to his father and his mother," to his mortal parents, "I have not seen you" — from the moment he saw the things of God — who "does not recognize his sons," from the moment he became known to wisdom, who "disowns his brothers" (Deut. 33:9), from the moment he was not disowned by God, but was judged worthy of complete salvation.
This is the one who "took the javelin" — that is, who sought out and hunted down the things of perishable generation, in which happiness is stored up in food and drink — and "entered into the furnace," as Moses says, entering into the human life that burns and blazes with the excess of wrongdoings and can never be quenched; and then, having gained the strength also to "cut open the woman through the womb," because she seemed to be the cause of begetting by being the one who is acted upon, in truth, rather than the one who acts, and cutting off every "man" and every reasoning that follows this opinion, which fastens upon passive substances the honor that belongs to God alone, the one cause of all things that come to be (Num. 25:7–8).
Would not this man too be thought by many a murderer — by those caught in the customs and habits of women? But before God, the ruler of all and father, he will be judged worthy of countless praises and commendations and prizes that cannot be taken away; and the prizes are great and akin to each other: peace and priesthood (Num. 25:12–13).
For to be able to put an end to the campaign that is hard to overcome in the life that most people pursue in earnest, and to the civil war of the desires within the soul, and so to secure peace, is a great and splendid achievement; and likewise, to judge nothing else worthy of true service and the highest honor — not wealth, not reputation, not honor, not office, not beauty, not strength, not any bodily advantage, nor even earth or heaven or the whole universe — but only the eldest of causes, and on that basis alone to receive the rank of the priesthood, is a wonderful thing and one worth contending for.
The rewards are also related, I said, and not beside the point, for I know that no one could still become a priest in the true sense while campaigning in the human and mortal campaign in which empty opinions serve as officers, nor could a man be peaceable who does not devote himself, without pretense and simply, to the sole thing that is untouched by war
and that leads to eternal peace. Such are those who honor the father and the father's concerns, but care least for the mother and hers. But the man who has made war on both parents he brings on stage saying, "I do not know the Lord, and I will not send Israel away" (Exodus 5:2); for this man seems to oppose both those who are governed toward God by right reason and those who are established toward becoming by education, and to throw everything into confusion in every way.
And there are even now — for the human race has not yet purged itself of unmixed vice — people who have resolved to do simply nothing that tends toward piety or toward fellowship, but on the contrary are companions of impiety and godlessness, and faithless toward their fellows.
These are the greatest plagues that go wandering about the cities, managing, or rather — if the truth must be told — overturning, both private and public affairs through their meddlesomeness; men one ought to avert by prayers and sacrifices as one would some great disease, famine, plague, or other god-sent evil, for they are great corruptions to those who encounter them. This is why Moses sings of their destruction, when they were caught by their own confederacy and, as it were by triple waves,
swallowed up in their own opinions (Exodus 14:27-28). Let us speak next, then, about those who are enemies to these but have honored education and right reason, among whom were those devoted to one of the two parents, half-perfected dancers in virtue's chorus. These, then, are the best guardians of the laws that the father, right reason, established, and faithful stewards of the customs that education, their mother, introduced.
They were taught by right reason, the father, to honor the Father of all, and by education, the mother, not to disregard what is held and deemed just among all by convention.
When, for instance, the practicer Jacob, contending in the contests of virtue, was about to exchange things heard by ear for things seen by eyes, and words for deeds, and advances for perfection — since the generous God wished to give his understanding eyes, so that he might see clearly what he had before received by hearing (for sight is more trustworthy than the ears) — the oracles rang out: "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name, because you have prevailed with God and are mighty with men" (Genesis 32:28). Jacob, then, is the name of learning and advancement, powers dependent on hearing, but Israel is the name of perfection,
for the name signifies "seeing God." And what could be more perfect among the virtues than to see That Which Truly Is? The one who has beheld this good is acknowledged by both parents as held in honor, having found strength that is with God and power that is among men.
It seems to me well said also in Proverbs, "providing good things before the Lord and before men" (Proverbs 3:4), since it is through both that the possession of the good is fully realized; for having been taught to keep the laws of the father and not to reject the ordinances of the mother, you will have the confidence to say with pride, "For I too became a son obedient to my father and beloved in the sight of my mother" (Proverbs 4:3). But you were not going to be loved, I would say to him, while keeping the customs established among created things out of longing for fellowship, and also keeping the ordinances of the Uncreated out of love and zeal for piety?
For this reason Moses too, the prophet of God, will show through the construction of the sacred things pertaining to the temple the perfection found in both: for it was not without forethought that he clothed the ark inside and out with gold (Exodus 25:10), nor gave the high priest two sets of robes (Exodus 28:4), nor made two altars, the one outside for the sacrificial victims, the other within for incense-burning (Exodus 27:1, 30:1), but wished through these symbols to represent the virtues appropriate to each kind.
For the wise man must be adorned, both in the invisible things within the soul and in the things that appear outwardly, with the wisdom that is more precious than all gold; and whenever he withdraws from human pursuits to serve only That Which Is, he must put on the unvarying robe of truth, which nothing mortal can touch — for it is made of linen material, born of none of the things by nature subject to death — but whenever he goes forth into public life, he must set aside the inner robe and take up another, most richly varied and most wonderful to behold; for since life is many-shaped, it needs the most versatile wisdom of the pilot who will steer it.
This man, in relation to the visible altar, or to that life which will seem to take great forethought for hide and flesh and blood and everything to do with the body — so as not to be hateful to the countless people who judge the goods of the body to hold second rank after those of the soul — will, in relation to the inner altar, make use only of things bloodless, fleshless, bodiless, things belonging to reason alone, which are likened to frankincense and the things burned as incense; for as the latter fill the nostrils, so the former fill the entire region of the soul
with fragrance. One must not fail to notice this too: that wisdom, being the art of arts, seems to change according to its different materials, but reveals its true form as unchanging to those who see keenly and are not drawn away by the mass of material poured around it, but discern the imprint stamped upon it by the art itself.
They say that the famous sculptor Phidias, taking bronze, ivory, gold, and other different materials, produced statues, and in all of them impressed one and the same art, so that not only the knowledgeable but even the utterly untrained recognized the craftsman from the things crafted;
for just as nature, using the same pattern in the case of twins, has often stamped likenesses that differ by only a hair, in the same way perfect art too, being an imitation and image of nature, when it takes up different materials, shapes and stamps the same form upon them all, so that the things produced become in this respect closely akin, brothers, and twins.
The same, then, will the power within the wise man display; for when it is occupied with the things of That Which Is, it is called piety and holiness; when with the heavens and the things pertaining to them, natural philosophy; meteorology when with the air and whatever naturally arises from its turnings and changes, both in the great yearly seasons as wholes and in their particular cycles of months and days; ethics when concerned with the correction of human character, whose forms are the political, concerned with the city, and the domestic, concerned with the management of households, and the convivial, concerned with banquets and feasts, and further the royal, concerned with oversight of men, and the legislative, concerned with commands and prohibitions.
For all these the truly many-voiced and many-named wise man has embraced — piety, holiness, natural philosophy, meteorology, character-formation, statesmanship, household management, kingship, legislation, and countless other powers — and in all of them he will be seen to have one and the same form.
Having discussed the four ranks among the offspring, we should not overlook this point either, which would be the clearest proof of the division and cutting of the main headings: for concerning the son who was puffed up and inflated by folly, the parents made this accusation, saying, "This son of ours" (Deuteronomy 21:20), pointing him out as the disobedient and stiff-necked one.
For by the demonstrative "this" they show that they also begot others: some obedient to one parent, others to both — well-natured reasonings, of whom Reuben is the example; others fond of listening and learning, of whom Simeon is one, for this name is interpreted "hearing"; suppliants and refugees of God, the company of the Levites; those who sing the hymn of thanksgiving not so much with audible voice as with the mind, whose leader is Judah; those who because of the acquisition of virtue through labor have been deemed worthy of willing wages and gifts, like Issachar; those who have migrated from Chaldean astronomical speculation to the contemplation of the Uncreated, like Abraham; those who have acquired virtue self-taught and untaught, like Isaac; those full of resolve and strength and beloved friends of God, like Moses, the most perfect.
It is fitting, then, that the sacred word condemns to be stoned the disobedient and provocative son who brings in contributions — that is, who joins and links sin to sin, great to small, new to old, willing to unwilling — and who, as though inflamed by wine, keeps his whole life drunk with an unceasing and uncheckable intoxication, and behaves drunkenly, because he has drained deep and unmixed the draught of folly; for he abolished both the commands of right reason, the father, and the lawful instructions of education, the mother, and though he had the example of virtue's noble brothers, held in honor by their parents, he did not imitate their excellence but on the contrary saw fit to go further still, so as to fashion a god of his own body, and to fashion a god of the vanity most honored among the Egyptians, whose symbol is the making of the golden bull, around which the demented dance in choruses and sing and lead the singing — not a drunken and revelrous song, such as is sweetest at feasts and festivities, but a true dirge as for the dead, sung to themselves, as men out of their wits, having relaxed and destroyed the very tone of their soul;
for it is said that "when Joshua heard the voice of the people shouting, he said to Moses, 'There is a sound of war in the camp.' But he said, 'It is not the sound of those who lead the shout in strength, nor the sound of those who lead the shout of rout, but a sound of those leading the shout of wine I hear.' And when he drew near the camp, he saw the calf and the dances" (Exodus 32:17-19). What he hints at through these things
let us set forth, as best we are able: the things around us are at one time at rest, and at another time behave, as it were, with untimely impulses and outcries; and the stillness of these is deep peace, while their opposite is truceless war.
The most truthful witness is the one who suffered it: for hearing the voice of the people shouting, he says to the one who observes and oversees affairs, "There is a sound of war in the camp." For as long as the irrational impulses within us were not stirred and had not cried out, the mind was established more firmly; but when the passions began to summon and rouse themselves and make the region of the soul full of many voices and many echoes, they produced civil sedition.
And that the war is "in the camp" is most fitting; for where else are strifes, battles, contentions, all the works of unquenchable war, except in the life lived with the body, which he allegorically calls the camp? This the mind is accustomed to leave behind, whenever, carried by God, it comes to be beside That Which Truly Is, beholding the bodiless forms; "taking,"
he says, "Moses pitched his own tent outside the camp," and not nearby, but very far off, "far from the camp" (Exodus 33:7). By this he hints that the wise man is a sojourner and emigrant from war to peace, and from the mortal and confused camp to the warless and peaceful, divine life of rational and blessed souls.
He also says elsewhere, “When I go out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the Lord, and the voices will cease” (Exod. 9:29). Do not think that the one speaking here is a man, this weaving or plaiting or mixture of soul and body, or whatever this compound creature ought to be called, but rather the purest and most unmixed mind, which, while it is contained within the city of the body and of mortal life, is bound and confined, and, as if shut up in a prison, openly confesses that it cannot even draw a breath of free air; but when it goes out of this city, like prisoners released in their limbs, it will employ its own thoughts and reasonings with unshackled and liberated activity, so that the commands of the passions are at once restrained.
Or are not the cries of pleasure raised high, by which it is accustomed to command what pleases it; and is not the voice of desire unbreakable, uttering harsh threats against those who do not serve it; and is not the utterance of each of the other passions loud-sounding and great-voiced?
Indeed, not even if each of the passions used a thousand mouths and tongues, in that clamor spoken of by the poets, could it confound the hearing of the perfect man, who has already emigrated and resolved no longer to dwell in the same city as they.
When the one who has suffered this says that in the bodily camp all the voices happen to be voices of war, since peaceful quiet has been driven far away, the sacred word agrees; for it does not say that there is no voice of war, but not such a voice as some suppose—of those victorious or those overpowered—but such as would belong to those weighed down and oppressed by wine. For “there is no voice of those who lead off in strength”
is equivalent to “of those who have prevailed in the war”; for strength is the cause of mastery. Thus the wise Abraham, after the destruction of the nine kings—four passions and five perceptive powers that were moving contrary to nature—is introduced leading off the hymn of thanksgiving and saying this: “I will stretch out my hand to God Most High, who created heaven and earth, that I will take nothing of yours, from a thread to a sandal-strap” (Gen. 14:22–23).
This shows, as it seems to me, everything that has come into being—heaven, earth, water, air, and animals and plants alike; for each of these, the one who has directed the activities of his soul toward God and hopes for benefits from him alone would fittingly say: I will take nothing of yours—not the daylight from the sun, not the night's brightness from the moon and the other stars, not the rains from the air and the clouds, not drink and food from water and earth, not seeing from the eyes, not hearing from the ears, not smells from the nostrils, not tasting from the moisture within the mouth, not speech from the tongue, not giving and receiving from the hands, not approaching and withdrawing from the feet, not breath from the lung, not digestion from the liver, not from the other organs their several proper activities, not the yearly fruits from trees and crops—but all things from God alone, the only wise one, who extends his own gracious powers in every direction and through them confers benefit.
The one who sees Being, knowing the cause, has honored what is caused by him as second after him, acknowledging without flattery what belongs to these things. This acknowledgment is most just: from you I will take nothing, but from God, whose possessions all things are—though perhaps through you; for you have become instruments in service of his immortal graces.
But the reckless man, blinded in the understanding by which alone Being is apprehended, has in no way at all seen it, but has considered the bodies in the world, known through his own senses, to be the causes of all things that come to be.
...and having begun to fashion gods, he filled the inhabited world with statues and carved images and countless other dedications, wrought in workshops of every kind, by painters and sculptors whom the lawgiver of his own constitution drove beyond the borders—though he had voted them great prizes and excessive honors, both privately and publicly—he achieved the opposite of what he expected: impiety instead of holiness.
For polytheism produces atheism in the souls of the foolish, and those who deify mortal things dishonor the honor due to God. Not content with fashioning images of the sun and moon—and, had they wished, of the whole earth and all water—they went on to grant the honor due to the imperishable even to irrational animals and plants. The one who rebukes these was shown to be the one who leads off the hymn of victory.
And Moses too, in keeping with this, when he saw the king of Egypt—the arrogant mind—together with his six hundred chariots, harmonized to the six motions of the instrumental body, mounted by their commanders, who think it necessary to declare, of everything born by nature, that nothing stands still, treating all things as though firmly established and admitting no change—when this king had paid the penalty worthy of his impiety, and the ascetic in turn had escaped the onslaughts of his enemies and been unexpectedly saved with full force, he hymns God as the just and true umpire, leading off the songs most fitting and most proper to what had befallen him, because “he threw horse and rider into the sea” (Exod. 15:1), destroying the mind that was carried along by the irrational impulses of the four-footed and unruly passion, and became helper and defender of the seeing soul, so as to grant it complete salvation.
The same man also leads off the song at the well, no longer only over the destruction of the passions, but also over gaining, unopposed, the fairest of possessions, wisdom, which he likens to a well; for it is deep and not shallow, sending up a sweet stream of nobility of character to souls that thirst, a drink both most necessary and most pleasant.
To no untrained person is it permitted to dig this well, but to kings alone, as it says: “kings quarried it” (Num. 21:16–18, 21). For it belongs to great leaders to seek out and accomplish wisdom—not those who have subdued land and sea by arms, but those who by the powers of the soul have overcome its versatile...
...and mixed and confused rabble. The disciples and associates of these turn out to be those who say: “Your servants have taken the count of the fighting men who were with us; not one of them is missing; we have brought as a gift to the Lord, each man, what he found” (Num. 31:49–50).
For these too seem, in turn, to lead off a song, aspiring to perfect and commanding powers—for they say that the one who compiled the count received the greatest number of words of courage—men who happen to be warlike by nature, arrayed against two opposing extremes, one led by hard-to-cure cowardice, the other by war-mad recklessness; and both are without share in good judgment.
It is beautifully said that not one was missing, with reference to a whole and complete possession of courage; just as a lyre, or any musical instrument, is out of tune even if only a single note in it is discordant, but is well-tuned when, struck as one, all its notes sound together producing the same harmony—in the same way the instrument of the soul is discordant whenever it is either strained too high by excessive boldness toward the sharpest pitch, or slackened too far by cowardice, beyond due measure, toward the deepest pitch, but is harmonious when all the tones of courage and of every virtue, blended together, produce one well-attuned melody.
A great proof of this concord and harmony is the bringing of the gift to God—that is, honoring Being as is fitting, by acknowledging in the clearest terms that this whole is his gift; for it speaks in the most natural terms:
“Each man brought as a gift what he found.” Each of us, as soon as we come into being, immediately finds the great gift of God, the whole ordered world, which he has bestowed on himself and on its best parts...
There are also partial gifts, which it is fitting for God to give and for men to receive. These would be the virtues and the activities that accord with them, whose discovery, being almost instantaneous because of the surpassing speed of the giver in the things he is accustomed to give, astonishes everyone in whom it occurs, and to whom nothing else has ever seemed great.
Hence he also asks: “What is this that you found so quickly, my child?” (Gen. 27:20), marveling at the swiftness of the eager disposition. And the one who has received the benefit answers directly and to the point: “What the Lord God delivered to me.” For transmissions and instructions given through men are slow, but those given through God are swiftest, outrunning even the swiftest motion of time.
Those, then, who by strength and power lead and command the chorus that sings the hymn of victory and thanksgiving are the ones just mentioned; but different are those who, through defeat and weakness, wail the dirge over their losses—whom one ought not so much to blame as to pity, like those who by nature have frail bodies, for whom even a chance occasion of illness is a great obstacle to being saved.
Some have fallen not because they used softer tones of soul, pressed unwillingly by the stronger force of their opponents, but rather, imitating men who choose slavery, they willingly threw themselves before bitter masters though free by birth; hence, being unable to be sold, most irrationally they themselves acquired masters by purchasing them—doing the same as those who insatiably fill themselves to the point of drunkenness with wine;
for those too take unmixed wine by choice, not under compulsion, so that by choice they cut off the sober part of the soul and choose the raving part; for it says, “I hear the voice of those who lead off in wine”—that is, of those who have taken on madness not involuntarily, but
through willing derangement, as if seized by Bacchic frenzy. And everyone who draws near the camp “sees the calf and the dances” (Exod. 32:19), as he himself makes clear by this; for we encounter vanity and the dancers of vanity, all of us who, in our judgment, suppose that we stand near the bodily camp; since for those who love true sights and long to see the incorporeal—being, as they are, practitioners of freedom from vanity—the custom is to be settled as far as possible from the habit of the body.
Pray, then, to God that you may never become a leader in wine—that is, that you may never willingly go ahead on the road that leads to lack of education and folly; for involuntary wrongs are half the evil, and lighter, since they are not weighed down by the pure reproach of conscience.
But once your prayers are fulfilled, you could no longer remain a private person; you will acquire the greatest of all offices of leadership, the priesthood. For it is the work of priests and servants of God alone, virtually speaking, to offer sober sacrifices, having risen up in firmness of mind above wine and everything that causes idle babbling.
For it says: "The Lord spoke to Aaron, saying: You and your sons after you shall not drink wine or strong drink whenever you enter the tent of testimony or approach the altar, so that you do not die — an eternal statute throughout your generations, to distinguish between the holy and the profane, and between the clean and the unclean" (Leviticus 10:8-10).
Aaron is the priest, and his name is interpreted "mountainous" — reasoning that thinks lofty and elevated thoughts, not swollen with the empty puffed-up mass of vain boasting, but through the greatness of virtue, which lifts the mind's aspiration beyond heaven and allows it to reckon nothing lowly. Disposed in this way, he will never willingly admit unmixed wine or any drug of folly.
For it is necessary either that he enter the tent bearing the sacred implements to perform the invisible rites, or that he approach the altar to bring up thank offerings on behalf of both his own affairs and the community's; and these require sobriety and exceptional shrewdness.
One might reasonably marvel, then, at the literal wording of the command. For how is it not solemn that people should approach prayers and sacred rites sober and in possession of themselves, since the opposite — both body and soul slack with wine — would be ridiculous?
Or is it this: house-servants and sons and subjects, when they are about to approach their mistress, their parents, or their rulers, will take care to be sober, so that they neither err in what they say and do, nor, as though despising the other party's dignity, be punished, or at the very least incur mockery — while someone who claims a duty to serve the Ruler and Father of the universe will not take care about food and drink and sleep and all the things nature requires, but will instead incline toward soft living and emulate the life of the profligate; and, his eyes weighed down by wine, his head lolling, his neck bent sideways, belching from excess, and his whole body dissolving, will he lay a hand on the water-basin, the altars, or the sacrifices? Such a person may not even be permitted to look upon the sacred flame from a distance.
If, however, one supposes that what is meant by "tent" and "altar" are not the visible things fashioned out of lifeless and perishable matter, but rather the invisible and intelligible realities of which these visible things are sensible images, one will be all the more struck by the guidance given here.
For since in everything one thing is the model and another the copy that the maker made from it, and since of virtue the maker fashioned an archetypal seal, and stamped from it a most closely resembling impression: the archetypal seal is a bodiless idea, while the impressed image is already a body, perceptible by nature but not actually coming into perception — just as one might say that the wood lying at the very depths of the Atlantic sea is by nature suited for burning, yet will never be consumed by fire, because of the sea's flooding over it.
Let us understand, then, the tent and the altar as ideas — the one a symbol of bodiless virtue, the other a symbol of its perceptible image. The altar and what is on it are easy to see, for it has its construction outside, and is consumed by an unquenchable fire..., so that it blazes not only by day but also by night —
whereas the tent and everything in it are unseen — not only because it is set up in the innermost recess, in the sanctuary, but also because whoever touches it, or through idle curiosity looks upon it with his eyes, is punished by the inescapable penalty of death according to the command of the law — unless one is whole and entirely complete, afflicted by no passion, whether great or small, but endowed by nature with a vigor that is sound, full, and utterly perfect in every respect.
For this man alone is permitted, entering once a year, to look upon what is unseen to others, since among all people he alone is the dwelling place of the winged, heavenly love of the bodiless and incorruptible goods.
Whenever, then, someone, struck by the idea, follows the seal that stamps the particular virtues, contemplating and marveling at its most godlike beauty, or approaches some soul that has received its impression, forgetfulness of ignorance and lack of education, and remembrance of education and knowledge, immediately arise in him.
For this reason it says: "You and your sons after you shall not drink wine or strong drink whenever you enter the tent of testimony or approach the altar." In going through these words it is not so much forbidding as declaring a judgment. For it would have been proper for one forbidding to say, "Do not drink wine when you perform the sacred rites," but for one declaring a judgment, "you shall not drink." For indeed it is impossible for one who practices and dances in step with the virtues, generic and specific alike, to admit ignorance, the cause of drunkenness and wine-soaked disorder in the soul.
He often calls it the "tent of testimony," either because the truthful God is a witness to virtue, whom it is good and advantageous to heed, or because virtue instills firmness in souls, utterly cutting away wavering and double-minded reasonings, and, as in a courtroom, uncovering the truth in the case of life.
He says that the one who offers sober sacrifices will not die, on the ground that ignorance brings death, while education brings incorruptibility. For just as in our bodies disease is a cause of dissolution and health a cause of preservation, in the same way, in souls too, that which preserves is prudence — for this is a kind of health of the mind — while that which destroys is folly, inflicting an incurable disease.
He declares that this is an "eternal statute," stating it outright: for he supposes that an immortal law is engraved into the very nature of the universe, containing this: that education is a healthy and saving thing, while lack of education is a cause of disease and destruction.
And he implies something further of this kind: what is lawful in truth is at once eternal, since right reason too — which indeed is law — is not perishable; whereas, conversely, the unlawful is agreed by sound-minded people to be, of itself, short-lived and easily dissolved.
It belongs to law and education to distinguish the profane from the holy, and the unclean from the clean, since to do the opposite is to force together things that are at war, bringing lawlessness and lack of education into the same category as their opposites, mingling and confusing everything. For this reason Samuel, the greatest of kings and prophets, as the sacred word says, "shall not drink wine or strong drink until his death" (1 Samuel 1:11); for he has been stationed in the ranks of the camp, which he will never abandon, thanks to the forethought of the wise commander.
Samuel was perhaps a man by birth, but he is taken up here not as a composite living being, but as a mind that rejoices only in the service and worship of God; for his name is interpreted "appointed to God," because he judges that all actions arising from empty opinions are a grievous disorder.
His mother was Hannah, whose name, translated, is "grace"; for without divine grace it is impossible either for mortal things to desert their post or to remain forever with the incorruptible things.
Whatever soul is filled with grace at once rejoices and smiles and dances; for it has been driven into a bacchic frenzy, so that to many of those uninitiated in the rites it would seem to be drunk, disorderly, and out of its mind. That is why some young boy — not one boy in particular, but everyone who has the vigor of youth for making trouble and mocking what is noble — says to her: "How long will you be drunk? Put away your wine" (1 Samuel 1:14). For it is characteristic of those possessed by God
not only that the soul is roused and, as it were, driven into a frenzy, but also that the body itself flushes and burns, as the joy within pours out and warms it, spreading its condition to the outside — a state through which many foolish people, deceived, have suspected that the sober are drunk.
And yet those who are sober are in a sense drunk, in that they have taken in the good things all at once and received their toasts from perfect virtue, while those who are drunk with wine, never having tasted prudence, have all along kept up a continuous fasting and famine of it.
It is fitting, then, that she answers the young troublemaker who holds her solemn and austere life up to ridicule: "Marvelous man, I am a woman whose day is hard, and I have not drunk wine or strong drink, but I am pouring out my soul before the Lord" (1 Samuel 1:15) — the utmost frankness of a soul filled with the graces of God!
First, she called herself a woman of "a hard day," with an eye toward the mocking boy — for to him, and to every fool, the road leading to virtue is reckoned rough, hard to travel, and most toilsome, just as one of the ancients bore witness, saying: "Wickedness, indeed, one may take in abundance and with ease. But before virtue the immortal gods have set the sweat of toil, and long and steep is the path to her, and rough at first; but when one reaches the summit, then, though it was hard, it becomes easy."
Next, she says she has not taken wine or strong drink, boasting that she is sober continuously and throughout her whole life; and indeed it was truly a great and admirable achievement to employ a reasoning faculty that is unrestrained, free, and pure, never made drunk by any passion.
From this it follows that the mind, filled with unmixed sobriety, becomes wholly and entirely a libation, and is poured out to God. For what was meant by “I will pour out my soul before the LORD” except: “I will consecrate the whole of it,” having loosed all the bonds by which it was formerly bound tight—bonds fastened on by the empty pursuits of mortal life—and having led it forth, stretched it out, and poured it out so far that it even touches the boundaries of the universe and hastens toward the all-beautiful and celebrated vision of the Uncreated?
This chorus, then, belongs to those who are sober, who have set education before them as their guide; the former chorus belonged to those who are drunk, whose leader was lack of education.
Since being drunk signified not only talking nonsense, whose maker was lack of education, but also being completely without sense-perception—and of insensibility, the maker in the case of the body is wine, while in the case of the soul it is ignorance of those things of which it was reasonable to have gained knowledge—we must also speak briefly about ignorance, recalling only the essential points.
To what, then, among bodily conditions shall we compare the affection in the soul called ignorance, if not to the maiming of the sense organs? Those who have been damaged in eyes and ears can no longer see or hear anything; they do not know day and light, for the sake of which alone, if the truth must be told, life is worth choosing, but dwell instead with long darkness and eternal night, deafened to all things both small and great—people whom life is accustomed, quite reasonably, to call disabled.
For even if all the powers of the rest of the body should reach the very limit of strength and vigor, they are tripped up by the maiming of eyes and ears and fall in a great collapse, so that they can no longer rise; for what supports and props up a man is, in word, his feet, but in reality his hearing and sight—having these whole, a person stands upright and is raised up, but deprived of them, he sinks down and is utterly brought low.
Something similar, then, ignorance certainly produces in the soul, ruining its faculties of sight and hearing and allowing neither light nor reason to enter in—the latter, so that it may not teach, the former, so that it may not show what exists—and by pouring over it deep darkness and much irrationality, it has turned the most beautiful form, the soul, into a mute stone.
Indeed, the opposite of ignorance, knowledge, is in a way the eyes and ears of the soul; for it pays attention to what is said and contemplates what exists, and endures neither to overlook nor to mishear anything, but surveys and looks all around at everything worthy of hearing and seeing, and even if it must travel by land or sail by sea, it reaches the very ends of earth and ocean, so that it may see something more or hear something newer.
For the love of knowledge is utterly tireless, an enemy of sleep, a friend of wakefulness; rousing, waking, and continually sharpening the mind, it forces it to roam everywhere, making it greedy for hearing and instilling an unceasing thirst for learning.
Knowledge, then, secures sight and hearing, through which come right actions; for the one who has seen and heard, having recognized what is advantageous, chooses the one thing and turns away from its opposite, and so is benefited. But ignorance, bringing upon the soul a maiming worse than that of the body, becomes the cause of all wrongdoing, since it can gain no help from outside, being unable either to foresee or to hear in advance; because of its great desolation, then, left unguarded and unprotected, it is plotted against by whatever people and circumstances happen along.
Let us, then, never drink unmixed wine to such an extent that it produces inactivity in our senses, nor become so estranged from knowledge that we pour ignorance—that great and deep darkness—over our own soul.
The kind of ignorance is twofold: the one simple, complete lack of understanding; the other double, whenever someone is not only gripped by lack of knowledge, but also thinks he knows what he does not know at all, being puffed up by a false opinion of wisdom.
The former evil, then, is the lesser—being the cause of lighter and perhaps unintentional faults—while the second is the greater; for it gives birth to great wrongs, not only unintentional ones but already premeditated acts of injustice.
It seems to me that Lot, the begetter of daughters, is especially afflicted about these matters, being unable to raise up in his soul a male and perfect plant; for he had two daughters by the woman who was turned to stone—whom, using a well-aimed name, one might call Habit, a nature hostile to truth, one that, whenever someone leads it forward, lags behind and keeps looking back at what is old and familiar, remaining fixed in their midst like a lifeless pillar.
Of the daughters, the elder will be called Deliberation, and the younger, Assent; for assent follows deliberation, but no one who has assented still deliberates. So the mind, seated in its own council-chamber, begins to set its daughters in motion: with the elder, Deliberation, to examine and investigate each matter; with the younger, Assent, to nod readily at whatever comes along and to embrace hostile things as if they were friendly, provided they offer some small bait of pleasure of their own accord.
Sober reasoning does not tolerate this, but reasoning held fast by drunkenness does, being, so to speak, out of its wine; that is why it is said, “they made their father drink wine” (Gen 19:33)—complete insensibility, to think it sufficient for the mind either to deliberate on its own about what is advantageous, or to assent to whatever appears in any way at all, as though such things held the truth fixed within themselves, when human nature is in no way whatsoever capable either of finding certainty by careful examination, or of choosing some things as true and advantageous while turning away from others as false and causes of harm.
For a great darkness, lying over things that exist, over bodies and events, does not allow the nature of each to be seen; but even if someone, forced by curiosity or love of learning, wishes to peer within, like those who are maimed, stumbling over what lies at his feet, before grasping anything he falls back and is left behind—or, groping with his hands, he merely guesses at what is unclear, gaining conjecture in place of truth.
For not even if education, carrying its torch, were to escort the mind, having kindled its own light, toward the sight of what exists, could it do more good than harm; for a small light is naturally quenched by a great darkness, and once it is quenched, all sight is useless.
One who prides himself either on his ability to deliberate, or on being sufficiently capable of choosing some things and avoiding others, must be reminded of the following: if the same unvarying impressions always happened to arise from the same objects, it would perhaps be necessary to admire the two criteria naturally furnished within us, sense-perception and mind, as free from falsehood and incorruptible, and, hesitating about nothing, to trust the things that have once appeared and, on that basis, choose some and turn away from the opposite others.
But since we find ourselves moved differently by these same things, we could say nothing certain about anything, since what appears does not remain fixed but undergoes changes of many kinds and many forms; for when the impression is unstable, the judgment based upon it must necessarily be unstable too.
There are many causes of this. First, the countless differences among living creatures, not in one respect but in almost every respect: differences in their origin and constitution, in their food and ways of life, in their preferences and aversions, in their sense-activities and movements, in the peculiarities of their innumerable bodily and psychic affections. For, apart from those who judge, some also of the things judged—
such as the chameleon and the octopus: the one, they say, changes its color to match the ground over which it is accustomed to crawl, while the other matches the rocks under the sea which it happens to grasp—nature, provident for their safety, having perhaps granted them this change into many colors as a remedy averting harm to their capture.
And have you not observed the neck of the dove, in the rays of the sun, changing through countless varieties of color? Does it not take on crimson and dark blue, fiery and coal-like, and again pale and red and every kind of splendid color, whose very names it is not even easy to remember?
They also say that among the Scythians called the Geloi, a most astonishing creature occurs—rarely, but it does occur—called the tarandros, not inferior in size to an ox, and most similar to a deer in the shape of its face. It is said that this animal is always changing the color of its hair to match the regions, the trees, and simply everything near which it happens to stand, so that, because of the resemblance of color, it escapes the notice of those who encounter it, and is hard to hunt because of this rather than because of any bodily strength.
These facts, then, and others like them, are clear proofs of the impossibility of certain apprehension; and next come the varieties that occur, no longer among all living creatures generally, but among human beings individually in relation to one another, concerning everything.
These facts, then, and others like them, are clear proofs of our incapacity to grasp things. And beyond the differences among all animals, there is also the private variation of human beings among themselves about everything.
For it is not only that the same people judge the same things differently at different times, but different people judge them in opposite ways, taking pleasure and displeasure in the very same things but in reverse — what displeased some delighted others, and conversely, what some drew to themselves as friendly and welcomed as their own, others cast far away as foreign and hostile.
I have often, for instance, been present in the theater and seen how, at a single melody sung by one of the tragic or lyric performers competing on stage, some were so moved that, as though roused from sleep, they joined unwillingly in the chant of praise, while others sat so unaffected that they might be judged to differ in no way from the lifeless benches on which they were seated, and still others were so alienated that they got up and left the performance altogether, even shaking out both ears with their hands, for fear that some lingering echo might work an unpleasant reverberation upon souls so difficult and hard to please. But why do I say this?
Each single person, taken by himself — and this is the most paradoxical thing — undergoes countless changes and turns in both body and soul, at one time choosing and at another rejecting the very same things, though they have not changed at all but remain constituted by nature exactly as they were.
For the same things do not tend to affect us the same way when we are healthy and when we are sick, nor when we are awake and when we are asleep, nor in youth and in old age. And indeed a person standing still and a person in motion receives different impressions, likewise one who is confident and one who is afraid, and further one who is grieving and one who is rejoicing, one who loves and, conversely, one who hates. And why should I go on at length troubling over these things?
To put it briefly: every motion of body and soul, whether according to nature or contrary to nature, is the cause of the unstable flux in what appears to us, since conflicting and discordant impressions assail it.
And this instability in our impressions arises not least from position, from distance, and from the places in which each thing is contained.
Do we not see fish in the sea, when they swim about with their fins spread, always appearing larger than they really are? And oars, too, however perfectly straight they may be, appear bent when seen through water.
Indeed, false impressions cast upon things at the greatest distance regularly deceive the mind: lifeless things have sometimes been suspected to be living creatures, and conversely living things lifeless; things standing still have seemed to move, and things in motion to stand still; things approaching have seemed to withdraw, and things withdrawing to approach again; the longest things have seemed the shortest, and many-sided things round. And countless other falsehoods are painted by plain sight, none of which a sensible person would sign off on as certain.
And what of quantities in things that are compounded? For according to more or less, harms and benefits arise, as with countless other things and especially with the drugs used in the medical art.
For quantity in mixtures is measured by fixed limits and rules, within which it is not safe to fall short, nor beyond which to advance — for the lesser amount weakens, and the greater overstrains the potency; and each is harmful, the one unable to act through weakness, the other harming by forcing through excessive strength — and likewise with smoothness and roughness, density and compaction, and, conversely, looseness and dispersal, this clearly establishes the same test for what helps and what harms.
But surely no one is unaware of this too, that almost nothing among existing things is understood from itself and by itself alone, but is judged by being set beside its opposite — the small beside the great, the dry beside the wet, the hot beside the cold, the heavy beside the light, the black beside the white, the weak beside the strong, the few beside the many.
In just the same way, whatever pertains to virtue or to vice is recognized: the beneficial through the harmful, the noble by contrast with the shameful, the just and generally good by comparison with the unjust and the bad, and indeed all the beautiful things one might find in the world, if one considers them, take on the same pattern of judgment — for each thing by itself is beyond our grasp, but seems to be known through comparison with something else.
And whatever cannot bear witness to itself, but needs the advocacy of something else, is unstable as grounds for certainty; so that on this score too, those who readily affirm or deny anything whatsoever stand refuted.
And what wonder is there in this? For anyone who goes further into the matter and examines things more purely will come to know this, that not one single thing presents itself to us in its own simple nature, but all things display the most intricate blendings and mixtures.
Take colors, for instance — how do we perceive them? Is it not together with air and light, external things, and with the moisture in the eye itself? And how is sweetness or bitterness tested? Is it not by means of the fluids native to our own mouths, whether natural or unnatural? Surely so. And again, do the scents that come from things burned as incense not present the simple and pure natures of the bodies themselves? Or rather do they present natures blended from those bodies together with the air, and sometimes also with the fire that melts the bodies and with the faculty at work in the nostrils?
From this it follows that we perceive neither colors as such, but the blend composed from the underlying things and the light; nor scents as such, but a mixture formed from what streams off the bodies and the all-receiving air; nor flavors as such, but what arises from the thing tasted meeting the moist substance in the mouth.
Since matters stand this way, it is fitting to condemn as foolishness, rashness, or boastfulness those who readily venture to affirm or deny anything whatsoever. For if the simple potencies are out of reach, while the mixed ones, blended from several, lie open before us, and it is impossible both to see the invisible elements and, through the blended compounds, to discern individually the character of each ingredient that went into the mixture — what is left, then, but the necessity of suspending judgment?
And do not the following facts urge us not to place too much trust in things unclear — facts spread, so to speak, across nearly the whole inhabited world, common to Greeks and barbarians alike, bringing with them the slipperiness that comes from judging? What, then, are these facts? Surely the upbringings from childhood, the ancestral customs, and the ancient laws, not one of which is agreed to be the same among all peoples, but which vary by region and nation and city, or rather even by village and by each individual household — man and woman and infant child are utterly distinguished in this respect.
Things shameful among us are noble among others, and things fitting are unseemly, and things just are unjust, and things unholy are holy, while things lawful are unlawful, and further things blameworthy are praiseworthy and things liable to punishment are worthy of honor, and so with all the other things people hold in ways opposite to one another.
And why should I speak at length, drawn away as I am by other more pressing matters? Yet if someone wished, without being led off by any newer spectacle, to spend his time on the topic proposed and go through the customs, habits, and laws of each region, nation, city, place, subject peoples and rulers, famous and obscure, free and enslaved, laymen and experts — not for one day or two, nor even for a month or a year, but should wear out his whole life at it, and use the whole span of an age, he would nonetheless leave behind, no less than before, many things unexamined, unconsidered, and unspoken.
Since, then, things among different peoples differ not by a small margin only but are utterly at odds, so as to stand in opposition and conflict with one another, it is necessary that the impressions that strike us
also differ, and that judgments be at war with one another. Given this, who is so out of his mind and so deluded as to declare firmly that such-and-such a thing is just, or wise, or noble, or advantageous? For whatever this person defines, another, trained from childhood in the opposite view, will invalidate.
For my part I am not surprised that a mixed and jumbled crowd, an inglorious slave to whatever customs and laws happen to have been introduced, learning from its very swaddling clothes to obey them as masters or tyrants, its soul beaten down and unable to attain a great and youthful boldness of thought, puts its trust in what has been handed down once for all and, leaving its mind untrained, deals in unexamined and unquestioned assents and denials. But what is surprising is that even the multitude of so-called philosophers, who pretend to hunt after clarity and truth among existing things, are split into bands and companies holding discordant doctrines, often even contrary ones, not about some one chance question but about nearly everything, small and great, on which their inquiries turn.
For those who maintain that the universe is infinite are opposed by those who say it is finite; those who declare the cosmos ungenerated are opposed by those who assert it is generated; and those who kindle an irrational, self-generating motion with no overseer or guide are opposed by those who suppose there is a wondrous providence and care over the whole and its parts, exercised by a God who guides and steers it without stumbling and to its preservation — how, then, could such people arrive at the same grasp of the very same underlying realities? And do not the impressions concerning the inquiry into the good likewise compel us to suspend judgment rather than to agree, since some hold that the good is the noble alone and store it up in the soul, while others parcel it out into several kinds, extending it even to the body and to external things?
These people say that strokes of fortune are the bodyguards of the body, while health, strength, wholeness, and precision of the senses, and whatever else is of that kind, belong to the ruling soul. For since the nature of the good is arranged in three ranks, the third and outermost is a champion for the second, which yields to it, while the second has become a great bulwark and safeguard for the first.
And concerning these very matters — the difference among ways of life, the ends to which all our actions ought to be referred, and countless other things contained in logical, ethical, and physical inquiry — there have arisen innumerable speculations, not one of which has to this day been agreed upon by all the Skeptics.
It is not without reason, then, that the mind is introduced using ignorance of knowledge concerning his two daughters, Counsel and Consent, once they had been joined to him and had lain with him. For it is said, "He did not know when they lay down and when they rose" (Gen. 19:33, 35).
For he seems to grasp neither sleep nor waking, neither state nor motion, clearly and firmly; rather, precisely when he seems to have deliberated best, it is then above all that he is found to be most bereft of counsel, since the outcome of events does not match what was expected.
And whenever he thought fit to set his signature to certain things as true, he reaps the condemnation that comes from rashness, since the very things he had earlier trusted as most secure prove to be untrustworthy and unstable. So, since events tend to turn out contrary to what one has suspected, the safest course is to suspend judgment.
Having discussed these matters sufficiently, let us turn to what follows in our argument. We said that drunkenness reveals gluttony as well, which often does great harm to many, in whose devotees one can observe that even when they have filled up all the receptacles of the body, their desires still remain empty.
These people, even when they become glutted from the abundance of what they have stuffed themselves with, and, like athletes, let their bodies catch their breath for a short while, strip again for the same contests.
At any rate the king of the land of Egypt, having become angry, as it seemed, with his cupbearer, the minister of the body's drunkenness, is introduced in the sacred books not long after being reconciled with him, having been reminded of the passion that bursts open the desires, on the day of a perishable birth, not in the imperishable light of the unborn. For it is said, "It was Pharaoh's birthday" (Gen. 40:20), on which he sent for the chief cupbearer out of the prison, for a libation-feast.
For it is characteristic of the passion-lover to consider generated and perishable things splendid, because of his deep use of night and darkness in relation to the knowledge of imperishable things. For this reason he immediately narrates the drunkenness that leads off pleasure, and its minister.
There are three who serve as household stewards and attendants of the licentious and unrestrained soul: the chief baker, the chief cupbearer, and the chief cook, whom the most admirable Moses recalls in these words: "And Pharaoh was angry with his two eunuchs, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and put them in custody with the chief jailer" (Gen. 40:2-3). And the chief cook, too, is a eunuch; for it is said elsewhere, "Joseph was brought down into Egypt, and a eunuch of Pharaoh, the chief cook, acquired him" (Gen. 39:1), and again, "They sold Joseph to Pharaoh's eunuch, the chief cook" (Gen. 37:36).
Why, then, is neither a man nor a woman entrusted with any of the tasks mentioned at all? Is it not because men are by nature trained to sow seed, and women to receive it, and their union has come to be the cause of generation and of the permanence of the universe, whereas a soul that is barren and sterile — or rather, made a eunuch — by expensive foods and drinks and elaborately seasoned delicacies, rejoices in these, being unable either to sow the truly male seeds of virtue or to receive and rear what has been sown, but is by nature fit, like a poor and stony field, only for the destruction of things meant to live forever. Hence he lays down a most universal doctrine:
namely, that the artisan of pleasure is barren of wisdom, being neither male nor female, since he is capable neither of giving nor of receiving the seeds that lead to imperishability, but practices instead the most shameful practice against life — destroying imperishable things and quenching the ever-burning lamps of nature that are meant to remain.
None of such persons does Moses permit to come into the assembly of God. For he says, "He who is crushed or cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord" (Deut. 23:1). For what benefit is there to one barren of wisdom in listening to sacred words, when he has been cut off from the faculty of preserving the trust and deposit of the most life-benefiting doctrines?
There are, then, three caretakers of the human race: the chief baker, the cupbearer, and the caterer — reasonably so, since we desire the use and enjoyment of three things: solid food, delicacies, and drink. But some of us use only what is necessary, which we require by necessity in order to live healthily and without servility, while others use what is immoderate and utterly superfluous, things which tend to burst open the appetites and, by weighing down and pressing the body's receptacles with their bulk, breed great and manifold diseases.
Now those who are private individuals with respect to pleasure, desire, and passion — like the common people in cities — live an unenvied and untroubled life, since they need little; they have no need of the art of elaborate and fussy servants, but make use of a plain kind of service: cooks, cupbearers, bakers.
But those who consider living pleasantly to be lordship and kingship, and refer everything, small and great alike, to this end, think it fitting to employ chief cooks, chief cupbearers, and chief bakers as their servants — that is, men who have brought each of the arts they were trained in to its utmost perfection.
For the most accomplished bakers practice the most varied kinds of unleavened cakes, honey-cakes, and other unfermented pastries, elaborated not only in the different materials used but also in the manner of preparation and in their shapes, so as to deceive not only the sense of taste but also that of sight.
And the concerns of the chief cupbearers have to do with the examination of wine — whether it is quickly absorbed and does not cause headache, or, on the contrary, is flowery and most fragrant; whether it takes a great or a small mixture with water for a drink suited to vigorous and intense occasions, or to a gentle and relaxed one; and all such practices as belong to those who have arrived at the very end of their art.
As for fish and fowl and similar things, and however many other delicacies there are to season pleasantly, the caterers who are exceedingly skilled in this knowledge are ready at hand, devising countless things beyond what they have heard or seen, but out of continuous practice and rehearsal in matters of luxury—
and dissolute and enfeebled — clever at devising an unlivable life. But indeed all these have been shown to be eunuchs, barren of wisdom; whereas the one with whom the king of the belly, the mind, makes his reconciling libations, was the cupbearer. For the human race is by nature fond of wine, and with respect to this alone especially insatiable, since while no one is completely unsated by sleep, food, intercourse, and the like, nearly everyone is by unmixed wine, and most of all those in whom the practice is cultivated.
For having drunk, they are still thirsty, and they begin from the smaller cups, but as they proceed they order the wine to be poured from lesser jugs; and when, having become somewhat heated, they grow warm, no longer able to master themselves, they bring out the wine-ladles and the bumpers and whole mixing-bowls, and gulp down the unmixed wine all at once, until they are either overcome by deep sleep or, once their capacity is filled, what is being poured in overflows.
But even then their insatiable craving still rages within them like a ravenous hunger. "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom," says Moses, "and their branch of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster is bitterness to them; their wine is the fury of dragons, and the incurable fury of asps" (Deut. 32:32-33). Now Sodom is interpreted as barrenness and blindness, and he likens to the vine and its produce those who are enslaved to wine-drunkenness, gluttony, and the most shameful pleasures.
What he darkly signifies is this: no plant of true joy has grown in the soul of the base person, since it has not made use of healthy roots, but roots that have been burnt and reduced to ash — when, instead of water, heaven rained down the unquenchable fiery bolts of God, who justly executed judgment against the impious. And the unrestrained desire, which is barren of noble things and blind to everything worth beholding, he has likened to the vine — not the mother of cultivated fruits, but the vine that has become the bearer of bitterness, wickedness, villainy, wrath, fury, and the most irascible tempers, biting the soul like venomous vipers and asps, in ways wholly incurable.
May we pray that God, the master of all, in his mercy avert these things from us, so that he may destroy this wild vine, and vote for the eunuchs and all who are barren of virtue a most fitting exile, and in their place plant in our souls the cultivated trees of right instruction, and grant us noble and truly manly fruits and words, capable of sowing noble deeds, capable of increasing the virtues together, and sufficient to hold together and forever preserve the whole kinship of happiness.

======== On Sobriety ========

Having previously discussed what the lawgiver said about drunkenness and the nakedness that follows it, let us now begin to fit the next discourse to what has been said. The oracles continue with words like these: "And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him" (Gen. 9:24).
It is agreed that sobriety benefits not only souls but bodies as well. It wards off the diseases that arise from excessive fullness, sharpens the senses to their keenest edge, and does not allow whole bodies, weighed down, to collapse, but lifts and lightens them and calls every part back to its proper activity, breeding readiness in all of them. In short, sobriety produces as many goods as drunkenness produces evils. Since, then, even for bodies—
for which the drinking of wine is congenial—sobriety is most profitable, how much more so for souls, to which all perishable nourishment is alien? For to a sober mind, what among human things is greater? What reputation, what wealth, what power, what strength—what of all the things that are marveled at? Let only the eye of the soul gain the strength to be opened wide throughout its whole extent, with no part of it clouded over as by a flood or shut fast; for then, seeing most keenly, gazing upon understanding and prudence themselves, it will meet with the images perceived by the mind, whose vision, enchanting the soul, will no longer allow it to turn toward any object of sense. And why do we marvel,
if to the sober and most keen-sighted eye of the soul nothing among created things is of equal worth? For indeed the eyes of the body and the light perceived by sense have been valued by all of us beyond measure; certainly many who have lost their sight have willingly cast away life as well, judging death to be a lighter evil than blindness.
By as much, then, as the soul is superior to the body, by so much is the mind better than the eyes. And if the mind is unharmed and unscathed, oppressed by none of the wrongs or passions that produce the frenzy of drunkenness, it will renounce sleep, which breeds forgetfulness and reluctance toward what must be done, and will embrace wakefulness toward all things worthy of contemplation, roused by memories that rise up, and following these with the deeds that correspond to what has been recognized.
Such, then, is the character of the sober man. But when Scripture speaks of a "younger son," it does not record an age in years, but reveals a disposition of character devoted to novelty-mongering. For how else could he have forced himself either to look upon what should not be seen, contrary to law and justice, or to blurt out what ought to be kept silent, or to bring into the open what could be kept veiled at home and not overstep the boundaries proper to the soul, unless he were meddling in newfangled things, laughing at what befalls others when he ought to be grieving, and mocking what called for sober restraint and anxious foreboding of what was to come?
Indeed, in many places of the legislation, Scripture calls those advanced in years "young," and conversely names those not yet old "elders," looking not to length of years or to a brief or very long span of time, but to the powers of a soul moving well or badly.
At any rate, Ishmael, though he had already lived some twenty years—reckoned in comparison with Isaac, who was perfect in virtues—Scripture calls a "child." For it says, "He took loaves and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, and put them on her shoulder, and the child," when Abraham sent them away from his house; and again, "she cast the child under a fir tree," and "let me not see the death of the child" (Gen. 21:14–16). And yet Ishmael was circumcised at thirteen years of age, before the birth of Isaac (Gen. 17:25); but around the time of weaning, when Isaac ceased to be nourished by milk, because he brought to bear the equality of childish games, the bastard was banished together with his mother, along with the legitimate son.
But even so, though already a young man rather than a child, he is called the sophist set in opposition to the wise man; for Isaac has been allotted wisdom, and Ishmael sophistry, as we shall show when we characterize each in its own discussion. For the relation that a wholly infant child has to a full-grown man is the same relation that the sophist has to the wise man, and that the encyclical branches of learning have to the sciences concerned with the virtues.
And indeed, in the greater Song, whenever the whole people turned to novelty, Scripture calls them by the name proper to a foolish and infant age, "children": "The Lord is righteous and holy; his blameworthy children have sinned against him; a crooked and perverse generation—is this how you repay the Lord? So foolish a people, and not wise" (Deut. 32:4–6).
Scripture has therefore plainly called "children" those men who bear blemishes in their souls and who stumble repeatedly through folly and senselessness in the actions of a rightly lived life—looking not to the bodily ages proper to children, but to the irrationality of the mind, which in truth is infantile.
So too Rachel—bodily beauty—is recorded as younger than Leah, the beauty of soul; for the one is mortal, the other truly immortal, and all things prized by sense fall short of that one beauty of soul alone. In keeping with this, Joseph too is always called "young" and "youngest." For indeed, when he tends the flock together with his bastard brothers, he is called "young" (Gen. 37:2); and when his father blesses him, he says, "My son, grown great, youngest, return to me" (Gen. 49:22).
This is he who champions all the power concerned with the body, and the flatterer-free companion of the abundance of external things—he who has not yet found the good that is older and more honorable than the elder soul, though perfect. For if he had found it, he would have fled all Egypt without turning back. As it is, he prides himself above all on nourishing and nursing it; and whenever the one who sees beholds its warlike and ruling part sunk and destroyed in the sea, he sings a hymn to God.
"Young," then, is the character not yet able to shepherd together with its legitimate brothers—that is, not yet able to rule and govern the irrational nature that belongs to the soul, but still ranked among the bastard elements, which are honored in appearance, and are numbered among goods before the legitimate ones, though not truly so.
"Youngest," on the other hand, even if it makes progress and growth toward the better, is reckoned by the perfect man—who considers the noble the only good—as still merely a beginning. For this reason, exhorting it, Scripture says, "Return to me," which is equivalent to saying: reach for a more mature judgment; do not chase after every novelty; cherish virtue at last for its own sake alone; do not, like a foolish child dazzled by the brilliance of chance happenings,
let yourself be filled with deception and false opinion. It has now been shown that Scripture is accustomed often to call "young" not with an eye to bodily prime, but to the soul's love of novelty. We shall now show that it likewise names "elder" not the one worn down by old age, but the one worthy of honor and respect.
Who, then, among those acquainted with the most sacred books is unaware that the wise Abraham is introduced as almost the shortest-lived of all his ancestors? Of those, I think, who lived the longest, not one is called "elder," but he alone is recorded as "elder." At any rate the oracles say, "Abraham was elder, advanced in years, and the Lord blessed Abraham in all things" (Gen. 24:1).
This, it seems to me, is the explanation of the reason why the wise man was called "elder": for when, by the providence of God, the rational part of the soul is well disposed and reasons soundly not in one respect only but in every undertaking, then, employing a more mature judgment, it is itself, surely, more elder.
So too it is customary to call "elders" those who sit in council with the God-loving man, having attained the number of ten weeks of years; for it is said, "Gather to me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you yourself know to be elders" (Num. 11:16).
Therefore Scripture has deemed worthy of the title "elders" not those regarded as old men by the common run of people, like priests appointed by chance, but those whom the wise man alone recognizes. For those whom he, like a skilled money-changer, rejects from the currency of virtue are all counterfeit novelty-mongers in soul; but those whom he chooses to acknowledge as genuine are, by necessity, both approved and elder in understanding.
There is, moreover, one ordinance of the law that will appear, to those able to understand it, to have shown each of these things I have mentioned more clearly still: "If a man has two wives, one loved and one hated, and both the loved and the hated bear him children, and the firstborn son is the son of the hated wife, then on the day he allots his possessions to his sons, he shall not be able to give the right of the firstborn to the son of the loved wife, disregarding the firstborn son of the hated wife; but he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the hated wife, to give him a double portion of all that is found to be his, because he is the beginning of his children, and the right of the firstborn belongs to him" (Deut. 21:15–17).
You have doubtless already observed that Scripture never calls the son of the beloved wife "firstborn" or "elder," but often calls the son of the hated wife so—even though it has shown, right at the start of the ordinance, that the birth of the one came first and that of the son of the hated wife came later: "If the loved and the hated wife bear children." And yet, in the judgment of right reason, the offspring of the former, even if longer-lived, is reckoned younger, while the offspring of the latter, even if later in the order of birth, has been deemed worthy of the greater and elder portion. Why is this?
Because we say that of the two women, the loved one is a symbol of pleasure, and the hated one a symbol of prudence. For the great mass of men love the company of the former to excess, since from its very beginning she offers enticements and charms drawn from herself, from the origin of birth to the very last old age; while they hate to an extraordinary degree the austerity and solemn dignity of the latter, just as foolish children hate the most beneficial but least pleasant guidance of the parents who raise them.
Both give birth: the one to the character in the soul that loves pleasure, the other to the character that loves virtue. But the pleasure-loving character is imperfect and truly a child forever, even if it reaches the utmost span of many years; while the virtue-loving character, in the council of the elders of prudence even from its earliest years—to use the common phrase—is ranked as ageless.
For this reason Scripture has spoken with great emphasis concerning virtue, hated by the many, when it was born, saying that "this is the beginning of children"—being surely first in rank and leadership—and "the right of the firstborn belongs to him," by the law of nature, not
Following him, then, and, like an archer releasing his arrows skillfully at a target set before him, he brings in Jacob accordingly — younger than Esau in birth, since folly is our companion from our earliest age, while zeal for the good comes late — but older in power. That is why Esau relinquishes the birthright, and Jacob rightly lays claim to it.
In harmony with this is also what is said, after much careful reflection, about the sons of Joseph: when the sage, moved by inspiration, does not lay his hands directly on the heads of those standing before him in the straightforward way, but crosses them, so that his left hand touches the one who seems to be the elder, and his right hand the younger (Genesis 48:13-14).
By birth the elder is called Manasseh, the younger Ephraim; and if these names are translated into the Greek tongue, they will be found to be symbols of forgetting and remembering. For Manasseh is interpreted "out of forgetfulness" — that is, in other words, remembrance; for the one who comes to remember what he had forgotten thereby departs from forgetfulness. Ephraim, on the other hand, means "fruit-bearing," a name most fitting for memory, since the fruit most beneficial, and truly nourishing, for souls is the unforgettable held in memories without interruption.
Memories, then, keep company with those already grown to manhood and settled in character, and for this reason they were reckoned the younger, since they arise late; whereas forgetfulness and remembrance attend each of us almost side by side from our earliest age — for which reason the privileges of time are found with them, and they are ranked on the left hand by the sage who marshals them in order. But the memories of virtue will share in the privileges of seniority, since the God-loving man, welcoming them with his right hand, will judge them worthy of the better portion beside himself.
The righteous man, then, once sober and having learned all that "his younger son had done to him," pronounces the harshest curses. For indeed, whenever the mind becomes sober, it perceives at once, as a natural consequence, all that the vice which makes things new had previously been working within it — things which, while drunk, it had been powerless to grasp.
But whom exactly he curses is worth examining; for this too is one of the things deserving inquiry, since it is not the son who appears to have sinned whom he curses, but that son's own son — his own grandson — who has, at least for the present, shown no wrongdoing, whether small or great.
For the one who, out of officious curiosity, wished to see his father naked, and saw him, and laughed, and blurted out what ought to have been kept discreetly silent, was Noah's son Ham; but the one who bears the blame for another's wrongdoing and reaps the curses is Canaan. For it is said, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant, a slave of slaves, shall he be to his brothers" (Genesis 9:25). What, then, as I said, has this one done wrong?
Now those who are accustomed to hold strictly to the explicit and ready-made interpretations found in the laws have perhaps examined this question on their own terms; but let us, obedient to the right reason that guides us, expound the interpretation that necessarily belongs here, first laying down some preliminary points.
Disposition and motion differ from one another: the one is a state of rest, while motion is a kind of transference, of which there are two kinds, the one involving change of place, the other revolving about the same place. To disposition, then, corresponds a settled state; to motion corresponds active operation.
What is meant will become clearer through a familiar example. A carpenter, a painter, a farmer, a musician, and the other craftsmen, even when they are at rest and engaged in none of the activities of their crafts, are nonetheless customarily called by these very names, since they possess, deep within themselves, the experience and knowledge proper to each craft.
But whenever the carpenter takes wood as his material and works it, and the painter mixes his proper colors and sketches on his panel the forms he has in mind, and the farmer in turn cuts furrows in the earth and casts in the seed, and grafts in cuttings and saplings of trees, and at the same time waters and channels the necessary nourishment to what has been planted and undertakes all the other tasks of farming, and the musician in turn fits meters and rhythms and every form of melody to pipes and lyres and the other instruments — though he is also able, apart from instruments made by hand, to use nature's own instrument, through a voice attuned to every note — and each of the other craftsmen, if he sets his hand to work, then of necessity other names, proper to their respective skills, are added to the earlier ones: to the carpenter, "carpentering"; to the painter, "painting"; to the farmer, "farming"; and to the musician, "piping" or "playing the lyre" or "singing" or doing something similar. To whom, then, do blame and praise attach?
Is it not to those who are active and doing? For those who succeed reap praise, and those who fail reap blame instead; but those who possess knowledge alone, without doing anything, having received the riskless privilege of inactivity, remain at rest.
The same argument, then, applies also to matters of folly, and in general, to matters of virtue and vice alike. Countless people have become prudent, self-controlled, courageous, and just in soul, through a good natural endowment, guidance according to law, and unwearied and most untiring labors — yet they were unable to display openly the beauty of the images in their minds, on account of poverty, or obscurity, or bodily illness, or the other misfortunes that beset human life.
These, then, have possessed their goods as though bound and confined; but others there are who have used all of theirs as things loosed, set free, and unrestrained, having received the most abundant materials for display.
The prudent man displays it in the management of private and public affairs, in which he shows understanding and good counsel; the self-controlled man, in taking blind wealth — terrible at raising a man to profligacy and inciting him to it — and making it see; the just man, in holding an office through which he will be able, without hindrance, to render to each person what is due; and the man trained in piety, in the care of a priesthood, of sacred precincts, and of the holy rites performed within them.
Without these opportunities, virtues still exist, but they are virtues unmoved and kept at rest, like silver and gold stored away in the earth's hidden recesses, of no use at all.
Again, then, on the contrary side, one may see countless people who are cowardly, undisciplined, foolish, unjust, impious in their minds, yet unable to display the disgrace of each vice openly, for lack of opportunities to sin — but whenever a great and mighty flood of power descends upon them, they fill land and sea, to their farthest limits, with untold evils, leaving nothing, small or great, unpunished, but overturning and destroying everything in a single onrush.
For just as the power of fire lies quiet in the absence of fuel, but blazes up in its presence, so too all the powers of the soul that look toward virtue or vice are quenched by lack of opportunity, as I said, but are kindled by opportune abundance from fortune.
For what purpose, then, have I said all this, except for the sake of teaching that Noah's son Ham is the name of vice at rest, while his grandson is the name of vice already in motion? For Ham is interpreted "heat," and Canaan "tossing" or "agitation."
Heat in the body signifies fever, and in souls, vice; for just as, I think, the onset of fever is a disease not of one part but of the whole body, so vice is a sickness of the whole soul. But at times it is at rest, and at times in motion; and its motion he names "tossing" or "agitation,"
which in the Hebrew tongue is called Canaan. No lawgiver sets a penalty against wrongdoers who are at rest, but only against those who are in motion and engaged in acts of injustice, just as no reasonable man would wish to kill any venomous creature that was not about to bite; for it is the savagery of soul, which by nature rages murderously against all, that must be removed by reason.
Reasonably, then, the righteous man appears to lay his curses on his grandson Canaan; "appears," I say, because in reality it is on Ham's son that he curses him, through that grandson; for Ham himself, once moved to sin, becomes Canaan. The underlying reality is one vice, of which the one aspect is seen in a settled state, the other in motion; and the settled state is older than the motion, so that what is in motion stands in the relation of offspring to what is at rest.
That is why Canaan is set down by nature as the son of Ham — agitation as the offspring of rest — so that the saying uttered elsewhere may also hold true: "rendering the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation" (Exodus 20:5); for it is upon the results, as though they were offspring of the reasonings behind them, that punishments proceed, in accordance with those reasonings, if no punishable act intervenes, since the offenses would otherwise escape notice.
For this reason, too, in the law concerning leprosy, the all-wise Moses declares its motion and its further spreading and flow to be unclean, but its rest to be clean; for he says, "if it spreads on the skin, the priest shall pronounce it unclean; but if the bright spot remains in its place and does not spread, he shall pronounce it clean" (Leviticus 13:22-23) — as though the quiet and fixed state of vices and passions of the soul (for these are hinted at through leprosy) were not blameworthy, while its motion and spreading were properly liable to blame.
Something similar, and more clearly marked, is contained also in the oracles addressed to Cain; for it is said to him: "You there, you have sinned; be still" (Genesis 4:7) — meaning that sinning, since it consisted in being moved and active in accordance with vice, was liable to blame, while being still, since it meant being healed and at rest, was blameless and salutary.
The same thing is contained, even more suggestively, in the oracles addressed to Cain. For it is said to him: “You there, you have sinned; be still” (Gen 4:7) — sinning being liable to blame, since it consists in being moved and acting in accordance with vice, while being still is blameless and salutary, since it consists in being healed and at rest.
These points, I think, have now been adequately stated. Let us look at the curses, and the meaning they carry: “Cursed,” he says, “is Canaan; a servant-boy he shall be to his brothers”; and “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and Canaan shall be a slave to them” (Gen 9:25–26).
We said earlier that Shem is named after the good, called so not as one particular kind of name but as the name for his whole class, insofar as the good alone is nameable and worthy of fair speech and good repute, whereas evil, conversely, is nameless and of ill repute. With what blessing, then, does he deem worthy the one who has received a share of the good found in nature?
With what? A most novel and extraordinary one, which no mortal is able to bestow — a blessing from which, almost as from an ocean, the abundant and unfailing springs of noble things flow forth in flood and overflow. For he calls the Lord and God of the cosmos and of all things in it “God” in a personal sense, as a special favor to Shem.
And see what extremity this does not surpass. For having obtained this, he becomes almost equal in honor to the cosmos itself; for when the one presiding over and caring for both is the same, then the things placed under his stewardship are of necessity immediately equal in honor.
Perhaps, too, he lavishes even more upon his gifts. For through the titles “Lord” and “God” he is proclaimed master and benefactor of the sense-perceptible cosmos, but of the intelligible good he is only savior and benefactor, not master or lord; for the wise person is a friend to God rather than a slave.
For this reason he also says plainly, concerning Abraham: “Shall I hide from Abraham my friend what I am about to do?” (Gen 18:17). And whoever holds this inheritance has advanced beyond the bounds of human happiness; for he alone is truly noble, having God inscribed as his father and having become his only adopted son — not rich, but wealthy beyond all wealth, delighting always only in goods that are abundant and genuine, not aged by time but ever renewed and youthful;
not merely held in repute, but truly glorious, reaping praise not counterfeited by flattery but confirmed by truth; alone a king, receiving from the ruler of all the uncontested mastery of dominion over everything; alone free, released from the harshest of mistresses, empty glory, which — proud and towering — the liberating God cast down from its citadel on high.
For one who has been deemed worthy of goods so many, so extraordinary, and given all at once, what is fitting to do but repay the benefactor with words and songs and hymns? This, it seems, is what is hinted at through “blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem”: since for the one whose inheritance is God, it is fitting only to bless and praise him — this being the one thing he is capable of offering in return — while being utterly powerless to render anything else that is truly due.
This, then, is what he prays for Shem. But let us see what he prays for Japheth: “May God make room for Japheth,” he says, “and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan become their slave” (Gen 9:27).
For the one who considers the noble alone as the good, his end is compact and drawn together — for though the things concerning us are countless, it is yoked to the one governing faculty, the mind — whereas for the one who fits it to three kinds of goods, those of the soul, of the body, and of external things, since it is broken up into many dissimilar parts, it is spread wide.
Fittingly, then, he prays that breadth be added to this one, so that he might be able to make use both of the virtues concerning the soul — prudence, self-control, and each of the others — and of those of the body — health, keen perception, strength and vigor, and their kindred qualities — and further, of the external advantages as well, whatever leads to wealth and reputation and the enjoyment and use of the necessary pleasures.
So much, then, for breadth. But we must consider whom he prays to dwell in the tents of Shem, for he has not stated it plainly. It is possible to say that it is the ruler of all things. For what house among created things could be found more worthy of God than a soul completely purified, one that considers the noble alone to be good, and ranks everything else — all that is commonly reckoned good — in the status of bodyguards and subjects?
God is said to dwell in a house not as in a place — for he contains all things while being contained by none — but as one who exercises providence and care over that particular region in a special way; for on every master of a house, care for that house is of necessity fastened.
Let everyone, then, to whom the God-beloved good has rained down, pray to God to obtain as its inhabitant the ruler of all, who, lifting up this small structure — the mind — from earth on high, will join it to the very limits of heaven.
And indeed, the literal narrative seems to harmonize with this. For Shem has been laid down as, so to speak, the root of nobility of character, and from it the wise Abraham grew up as a tree bearing cultivated fruit, whose own offspring — the self-taught, self-instructed kind, Isaac — was the fruit; and from him, in turn, the virtues gained through toil were sown, of which the athlete is Jacob, trained in wrestling against the passions, employing angels as his trainers — that is, divine reasons.
This Jacob is the founder of the twelve tribes, which the oracles declare to be “a royal house and a priesthood of God” (Exod 19:6), in accordance with the blessing given to the first Shem, in whose tents was the prayer that God might dwell; for surely the house of a king is a royal house, truly sacred and alone inviolable.
Perhaps, however, the substance of the prayer refers also to Japheth himself, that he may make his dwelling in the tents of Shem. For it is good for one who considers the advantages of the body and of external things to be goods to pray to run back up to the good of the soul alone, and not to miss true opinion for his whole lifetime by supposing that things common even to the most accursed and worst of people — health, or great wealth, or the like — are goods, since the unfalsified portion of goods is assigned to no worthless person; for by nature the good has no fellowship with evil.
For this reason it is treasured up in the soul alone, whose beauty none of the foolish share in. This, indeed, is what the prophetic word wrote the man of worth as praying, when he says to one of his own acquaintances, “Turn back to me” (Gen 49:22) — so that, returning to his own way of thinking, embracing the noble as the sole good, he might outrun the opinions of those who think otherwise about the good. Let him, then, dwell in the tents of the soul of the one who says that the noble alone is good, merely sojourning as a resident alien among those of the others, in which the goods of the body and of external things are also held in honor.

======== On the Confusion of Tongues ========

What has been said on these matters will suffice. We must next examine, and not carelessly, what Moses philosophizes concerning the confusion of tongues. For he speaks as follows: "And the whole earth was one lip and one voice for all. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and settled there. And a man said to his neighbor, 'Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. And they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose head will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth.' And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, 'Behold, one race and one lip for all; and this they have begun to do, and now nothing they undertake to do will be beyond them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that none may understand the speech of his neighbor.' And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city and the tower. Therefore its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confused the languages of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of all the earth" (Gen. 11:1-9).
Those who are displeased with our ancestral constitution, and who constantly practice fault-finding and accusation of its laws, seize upon this passage and others like it as stepping-stones for their godless... concerning the ordinances, as though these did not contain the true canons of truth itself.
"Look," they say, "the books you call sacred contain myths too, at which you are accustomed to laugh when you hear others relating them." Yet why should one gather up the instances scattered here and there throughout the legislation, as though at leisure and taking the opportunity for slander, instead of recalling only what lies immediately at hand and ready to grasp?
One such objection resembles the story composed about the sons of Aloeus, whom Homer, the greatest and most esteemed of poets, says conceived the plan of heaping up and piling together the three loftiest mountains, hoping thereby to make the road to heaven easy for those wishing to ascend, once they had been raised to the ethereal height. The verses concerning them run thus: "They were eager to set Ossa upon Olympus, and upon Ossa Pelion with its trembling forest, that heaven might be scaled" — Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion being the names of mountains.
In place of this, the Lawgiver introduces a tower, built by the men of that time, who in their folly and vanity together wished to touch heaven. For is this not a terrible derangement of mind? Even if the parts of the whole earth were built up upon a small foundation laid down beforehand, and raised in the manner of a single column, it would still fall short of the ethereal sphere by countless intervals — especially according to those inquiring philosophers who have agreed that the earth is the center of the universe. There is another story, akin to this one, recorded by the myth-makers, concerning the common speech of animals.
For it is said that in ancient times all living creatures — those of the land, the water, and the air — had a common tongue; and just as now Greeks converse with Greeks and barbarians with barbarians who share the same language, so too in that time all creatures conversed with one another about whatever they did or suffered, so that they grieved together at misfortunes and rejoiced together whenever some advantage came their way.
For, reporting their pleasures and displeasures to one another through their shared speech, they shared joy and shared distress alike, and from this was found their likeness of character and of feeling — until, having become sated (as often happens) with the abundance of the good things present to them, they were carried away into a longing for what could not be attained, and laid claim to immortality, asking for release from old age and for the perpetual vigor of youth, declaring that among them one creature already, the serpent, had obtained this gift: for by sloughing off its old age it grows young again from the beginning. And they thought it monstrous that the better should be left behind by the worse, or that all should be outdone by one alone.
For this presumption, however, they paid the fitting penalty: they were made at once to speak in different tongues, so that from that time on they could no longer understand one another, because of the diversity into which the single common language, once shared by all, was cut.
But he who brings his account nearer to the truth separated the mute creatures from the rational ones, so that the possession of common speech should be attested of men alone. Yet this too, they say, is mythical. And indeed they say that the cutting of speech into countless forms of dialects — which he calls the confusion of tongues — came about for the healing of wrongdoing, so that men, no longer understanding one another, might not act together in injustice, but, being in a manner deaf to one another, might, through cooperation, undertake the same tasks only in separate groups.
But this does not appear to have happened for their benefit. For even so, no less, though divided among nations and not using a single dialect, both land and sea have often been filled with countless evils. For it is not the languages but the like-mindedness of souls bent toward wrongdoing — their shared zeal for injustice — that is the cause of acting unjustly together.
For indeed those who have had their tongues cut out signify by nods, by glances, and by the other postures and movements of the body no less than by the utterance of speech whatever they wish; and besides, a single nation, though sharing not only one tongue but also one set of laws and one manner of life, has often advanced to such a pitch of wickedness that it has been able to commit offenses equal to the sins of the whole of mankind.
And through the very unfamiliarity of dialects, countless persons, not foreseeing the future, have been caught unprepared by their attackers, just as, conversely, through knowledge of a common tongue, men have been able to ward off threatening fears and dangers. So that a shared community of language is more beneficial than harmful, since even now the inhabitants of each region, especially the native-born, owe their freedom from evils to nothing so much as to their common speech.
And indeed, if any man should learn several languages, he is at once held in high esteem among those who know them, as being already a friend, bringing no small token of fellowship in his familiarity with their words — from which, it seems, comes the freedom from fear of suffering anything irremediable. Why then should the possession of a common tongue, as the cause of evils, have been abolished among men, when it ought rather to have been established as most beneficial...
...of all things? Now those who compose and craft such tales will be refuted, on the particular point, by those who, without contentiousness, offer the ready answers to whatever is continually sought, drawn from the plain writing of the laws itself — not countering with sophistries from elsewhere, but following the thread of the sequence, which does not allow one to stumble, but readily removes whatever obstacle stands in the way, so that the course of the argument may proceed without a fall.
We say, then, that by the words "the whole earth was one lip and one voice," is signified the concord of countless great evils — all that cities inflict upon cities, nations upon nations, and lands upon lands, and all the impieties men commit not only against one another but against the divine as well; and yet these are the wrongdoings of multitudes. But we may also observe, in a single man, the indescribable multitude of evils, especially...
...whenever he possesses that discordant, unmelodious, and unmusical concord. Who does not know the evils of fortune — when poverty and disrepute combine with diseases or disabilities of the body, and these again are mixed together with sicknesses of a soul deranged by melancholy, or by extreme old age, or by some other grievous misfortune that has arisen...
...and blended together? For even one alone of the things named, when it stands forcibly against a man, is enough to overturn and cast down even one who is greatly exalted. But when all at once, as though by a single command, at the same time and in a single mass, everything falls upon him — the evils of body, of soul, and of external circumstance — what cruelty could surpass this? For when the bodyguards fall, the one they guard must fall as well.
Now the bodyguards of the body are wealth, good repute, and honors, which set it upright, raise it aloft, and make it appear splendid; while their opposites — dishonor, disrepute, poverty — crash down upon it like enemies.
Again, the bodyguards of the soul are hearing, sight, smell, and taste, and the whole company of the senses, and further, health, strength, power, and vigor; for standing upon these as upon well-fortified houses, firmly established, the mind walks about and dwells within them, delighting that it is hindered by nothing from exercising its own impulses, but has open before it smooth and public highways leading through all things.
But opposed to these bodyguards stand their enemies: the maiming of the sense-organs and disease, as I said, with which the understanding too has often been on the point of perishing together. And these misfortunes, though grievous and harsh in themselves, are far lighter when compared with those that come about by deliberate purpose.
What then is the concord of voluntary evils? Let us again examine this in turn. Our soul, being threefold, is said to be allotted, in one part, mind and reason; in another, spirit; and in another, desire. And each part is diseased both in itself individually and, all together, in relation to one another, whenever the mind reaps whatever folly, cowardice, licentiousness, and injustice have sown; whenever spirit brings to birth its frenzied and distracted furies and whatever other evils it labors to produce; and whenever desire sends forth in every direction those ever-fickle, childish passions which fasten themselves upon whatever bodies and objects come their way.
For then, just as in a ship, when sailors, passengers, and helmsmen conspire together in some derangement of mind for its destruction, those who plot against the vessel itself are destroyed along with it no less than the rest — so too the heaviest of evils, and almost the only incurable one, is the conspiracy of all the parts of the soul together toward wrongdoing, when none is able to remain sound, as in a public calamity, so as to heal those who suffer, but even the physicians fall sick along with the ordinary people, gripped, in a calamity that afflicts all alike, by the pestilential disease.
Of this affliction, the great flood recorded by the Lawgiver is a symbol: the cataracts from heaven pouring down in violent torrents the streams of wickedness itself, and the springs from the earth — I mean from the body — pouring up the many great streams of each passion, which, meeting and mingling together with the former, churn and whirl about, engulfing in successive eddies every region of the soul that receives them.
"And the Lord God saw," he says, "that the wickednesses of men had multiplied upon the earth, and that everyone was contriving evil in his heart carefully all his days" — and he knew man, I mean the mind, together with the creeping things and birds around him and the whole irrational multitude of untamed beasts, by which he had done irreparable wrong, and resolved to punish it (Gen. 6:5). And the punishment was the flood.
For there was an eager pursuit of sins, and a great rush toward wrongdoing, with nothing to hinder it, but all things breaking forth fearlessly into an unstinting supply for those most ready for enjoyment — and not without reason. For it was not one single part of the soul that had been corrupted, so that it might be preserved safe by the health of the rest, but no part of it remained free from disease or uncorrupted. For seeing that everyone, he says, contrives every thought, and not merely one, the incorruptible judge decreed the fitting...
These are the ones who formed an alliance with one another at the salty ravine. For the place of vices and passions is hollow, rough, and ravine-like — truly salty, and bearing bitter birth pangs — which the wise Abraham, knowing it worthy neither of oaths nor of treaties, destroys. For it is said, "All these agreed together at the salty ravine; that is, the Sea of Salt" (Genesis 14:3).
Or do you not see those barren of wisdom and blind in understanding — which by rights ought to have seen keenly — Sodomites in speech, from youth to old age, the whole people together running in a circle around the house of the soul, so that they might outrage and destroy the sacred and holy words lodged there as guests, though these words are its guards and watchmen, and so that no one at all might either resist wrongdoers or resolve to shun doing any wrong?
For it is not that some do and others do not — "all the people," as it says, "surrounded the house together, both young and old" (Genesis 19:4), conspiring against the divine and sacred words, whom it is customary to call angels.
But Moses, the spokesman of God, will meet them with great boldness as they come streaming along, and will check them — even if, having set up the boldest and most fearsome word among themselves as king, they run headlong in a single rush, swelling their own forces and overflowing like a river. For it says, "Behold, the king of Egypt comes to the water; and you shall stand and meet him at the bank of the river" (Exodus 7:15).
So the base man goes forth toward the massed onrush of wrongdoings and passions, which are likened to water; but the wise man, first of all, receives as a prize from God, who always stands, a kinship with God's own unswerving and unwavering power toward all things — for it is said, "But you, stand here with me"
(Deuteronomy 5:31), so that, stripping off wavering and doubt — the dispositions of an unstable soul — he may put on the firmest and most stable disposition, faith. Then, standing still — the most paradoxical thing of all — he goes to meet them; for it says, "You shall stand, meeting them"; and yet meeting is observed in motion, while standing still is observed in stillness.
But he speaks not of contraries, but of the things that most closely follow nature. For to whomever it is natural for the mind to be at rest and settled without wavering, it falls to him to stand opposed to all who delight in disturbance and surge, while he himself is able to bring calm
to those tossed about by a storm of their own making. And it is fitting indeed that this opposition be set up at the bank of the river; for the lips are the boundaries of the mouth, and the tongue is a kind of fence, through which the stream of speech is carried when it begins to descend.
Speech is used both by those who hate virtue and love passion, as an ally for introducing spurious doctrines, and, in turn, by the earnest, both for the refutation of these and for the unopposed mastery of better and truly good things.
But whenever, having shaken out every sail of contentious doctrines, they are overturned by the opposing rush of arguments and perish, the wise man, justly and fittingly, having formed a most sacred chorus, will sing tunefully the song of victory:
For he says, "Israel saw the Egyptians" dead not somewhere else but "at the bank of the river" (Exodus 14:30), meaning by death not the separation of soul from body, but the destruction of unholy doctrines and words, which they employed through mouth and tongue and the other organs of speech.
The death of speech is silence — not the silence which the more decent practice as a symbol of modesty (for this too is a power, sister to the power exercised in speaking, which stores up until the right moment the things that must be said), but the silence which those who have grown weak and given up, overcome by the strength of their opponents, endure unwillingly, no longer finding any hold.
For whatever they grasp flows away, and whatever they step on gives way beneath them, so that they are forced to fall before they can even stand — just as it is with the screw, the water-drawing instrument. For in its middle are certain steps, on which the farmer, whenever he wishes to water his fields, treads, but necessarily slips as he goes around; and so, to keep from continually falling, he grips with his hands some firm support nearby, and, having wound his whole body around it, hangs suspended from it — so that he uses his hands in place of his feet, and his feet in place of his hands; for he stands upon his hands, the organs of action, and performs the action with his feet, on which it is normal to stand.
Many, unable to overpower by force the persuasive inventions of the sophists, because they have not been thoroughly trained in argument, given their continual practice in deeds instead, take refuge in alliance with the one who alone is wise, and beg him to become their helper — just as one of the disciples of Moses, praying in his hymns, said, "Let the deceitful lips be struck dumb" (Psalm 30:19 [31:18]).
But how could they fall silent, unless they were muzzled and made obedient by him alone who also possesses reason itself? Gatherings that lead to sin, then, must be fled without turning back, while the pact of peace with the companions of prudence and knowledge must be made firm.
For this reason I have marveled at the harmonious concord of those who say, "We are all sons of one man; we are peaceable" (Genesis 42:11). For how, I would say, noble ones, could you not be vexed by war and love peace, since you are all inscribed as having one and the same father — not a mortal one but an immortal one, a man of God, who, being the Word of the eternal, is of necessity himself imperishable?
For those who have set up many first principles for the race within the soul, having given themselves over to the evil that is called polytheism, and who turn each to the honors of a different god, have created feuds and factions, both civil and foreign, filling the whole of life from its beginning to its end with wars that know no truce.
But those who rejoice in a single race and honor one father, right reason, and who have marveled at the harmonious and altogether musical concord of the virtues, live a fair and calm life — not, however, an idle and ignoble one, as some suppose, but one exceedingly manly and sharply honed against those who attempt to break treaties and are forever bent on confounding oaths. For it happens that those who are peaceable by nature are also warlike, standing arrayed against those who overturn the stability of the soul.
Testimony to my argument is given, first, by the disposition of the mind of every lover of virtue, which is arranged in just this way, and then also by a member of the prophetic band of revelers, who, inspired, cried out: "O mother, how great a thing you bore me, a man of strife and a man of loathing to all the earth! I have not lent, nor have they lent to me, yet my strength has not failed because of their curses" (Jeremiah 15:10).
But not every wise man is an implacable enemy to every base man, employing the equipment of triremes or siege-engines or weapons or an army for his defense, but rather reasonings.
For whenever he observes the war that is continual and troublesome to all people, waged in the very midst of a peace that knows no war — a war that is common, not confined to nations and lands, or cities and villages alone, but stirred up even within each household and each individual person — who is there who does not exhort, rebuke, admonish, and chasten, not only by day but also by night, since his soul cannot rest, because it is by nature a hater of evil?
For all the things that are done in war are done also in time of peace: they plunder, they seize, they enslave, they pillage, they sack, they commit outrage, they maltreat, they corrupt, they violate, they murder by stealth, and outright, if they are the stronger, they kill.
For each of them, having set before himself wealth or reputation as his goal, and shooting all the actions of his life at it as if they were arrows, disregards equality, pursues inequality, turns away from partnership, is eager to have alone the whole of everyone's possessions, hates mankind and hates his fellows, feigns goodwill, is a companion of spurious flattery, an enemy of genuine friendship, a foe of truth, a champion of falsehood, slow to help, quick to harm, most ready to slander, hesitant to come to another's defense, clever at deception, most given to perjury, most untrustworthy, a slave
to anger, yielding to pleasure, a guardian of evils, a destroyer of goods. These and things like them are the prized treasures of that joyless, much-admired "peace," which the idol-bearing mind of every fool gapes at in wonder and worships. And since every wise man rightly finds these things a burden, he is accustomed to say to his own mother and nurse, wisdom: "O mother, how great a thing you bore me" — not in bodily strength, but in the might of his hatred of evil — a man of loathing and strife, peaceable by nature, but for this very reason also warlike against those who defile the much-contested beauty of peace.
"I have not lent, nor have they lent to me" — for neither did they make use of my goods, nor did I make use of their evils, but, in accordance with the writing of Moses, "I have not taken the desire of a single one of them" (Numbers 16:15). For the whole race of desire, though they have stored it up within themselves as the greatest benefit, is in fact an overwhelming harm.
"I did no one good, nor did anyone do me good" -- for neither did they make use of my goods, nor I of their evils, but as Moses' text says, "I have not taken what any of them desired" (Numbers 16:15). They had stored up for themselves the whole class of desire as though it were the greatest benefit, when in truth it was an overwhelming harm.
"Nor did my strength fail before the curses that were pronounced against me," but by the most sovereign power of the divine doctrines fixed within me I was not bent even though ill-treated, but stood my ground vigorously against those who would not be purified from their own faults.
"For God set us up as a contradiction to our neighbors," as is also said somewhere in the Hymns (Psalm 79:7 LXX), meaning all who reach after right judgment. But it is not by nature that they have become contradictors -- all who have ever held the zeal for knowledge and virtue, contending against the neighbors of the soul, refuting the pleasures that dwell within, refuting also the desires that share our lodging, and fears too, shaming the whole crowd of passions and vices, and refuting also every sense-perception -- as to what it saw, as to what it heard, the smells concerning vapors and the tastes concerning flavors, and further the touches concerning the properties peculiar to the powers in bodies that impinge upon it, and indeed the spoken word too, concerning the matters it resolved to expound.
For what, or how, or why sense-perception perceived, or reason interpreted, or passion disposed -- this it is fitting to search out, not carelessly, and to test and refute each of the errors.
But the man who contradicts none of these, and instead nods assent to them all in succession, without realizing it deceives himself and builds up, as fortifications against his own soul, oppressive neighbors -- whom it is better to have as subjects than as rulers. For if they hold command they will do much great harm, since folly reigns among them; but if they are made to obey, they will dutifully perform what is needed, no longer stiffening their necks as before.
So it is with those who have learned not to obey, but rather have taken the rule not merely by knowledge but by power as well: all the reasonings that serve as bodyguards and champions of the soul will come to one mind, and, approaching the eldest among them, will say: "Your servants have taken the count of the men of war who are with us, and not one of them is missing" (Numbers 31:49) -- but rather, just as musical instruments are perfectly tuned to every note, so we have sounded together with every instruction, uttering no discordant or off-key word, nor performing any such deed, so that the other chorus, the unmusical one, is shown to be wholly voiceless and dead, laughed to scorn -- that chorus that worships the nourishment of the body, Midian, and her offspring, the fleshly mass named Baal-Peor (Numbers 25:3).
For we are the race of the "chosen ones" of the one who sees God, "Israel," of whom "not one voice was in discord" (Exodus 24:11), so that the instrument of the whole, the entire cosmos, might be played musically in harmonies.
For this reason Moses too says that peace was given as a prize of honor to the most warlike reasoning, which is called Phinehas (Numbers 25:12), because, having taken up zeal for virtue and having waged war against vice, he cut off an entire lineage... it is left, then, for those who wish -- peering closely and examining accurately, employing sight, which is a clearer witness than hearing -- to be persuaded that mortal nature is full of unbelief, hanging as it does from mere seeming alone.
Wonderful, then, is the harmony just described, but most wonderful of all, surpassing every harmony, is the common harmony of all, in accordance with which the whole people is represented as speaking with one accord: "All that God has said, we will do and we will hear" (Deuteronomy 5:27). For these no longer obey a word that leads the way,
but rather God, the leader of the whole, through whom they arrive at the deeds even before they meet with the words. For whereas others, once they have heard, then act, these -- and this is the most paradoxical thing -- say that, seized by divine possession, they will act first and hear afterward, so that they may not seem to act from teaching and instruction, but may meet the noble deeds with a mind that works of its own will and needs no bidding. And having acted, they say they will hear, so that they may judge what has been done, whether it accords with the divine words and sacred exhortations.
Those, on the other hand, who have conspired together in wrongdoing are said to have "set out from the east" and to have "found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there" (Genesis 11:2) -- said in a most natural sense. For there are two kinds of rising in the soul, the better and the worse: the better, whenever the light of the virtues rises like the rays of the sun; the worse, whenever the virtues are overshadowed and the vices rise instead.
An example of the former kind is this: "And God planted a garden in Eden, toward the east" (Genesis 2:8) -- not of earthly plants, but of heavenly virtues, which the Planter caused to rise up out of the incorporeal light that is his own, virtues that were to remain forever unquenched.
I have also heard one of the companions of Moses utter an oracle of this kind: "Behold, a man whose name is the Rising" (Zechariah 6:12) -- a most strange title indeed, if you suppose it spoken of one composed of body and soul; but if you understand it of that incorporeal one who differs in nothing from the divine image, you will agree that the name "Rising" was assigned to him most fittingly.
For this one the Father of the universe caused to rise as his eldest son, whom elsewhere he calls firstborn; and the one who was begotten, imitating the ways of his father, shaped the forms he saw, looking to the archetypal patterns set before him by that father.
Of the worse rising, on the other hand, a clear example is what is said concerning the man who wished to curse the one praised by God. For he too is represented as dwelling toward the rising, of a kind that, though bearing the same name as the former, is opposite to it and at war with it: "from Mesopotamia,"
he says, "Balak summoned me, from the mountains of the east, saying: Come, curse for me the one whom God does not curse" (Numbers 23:7-8). Balak is interpreted as "without mind" -- most fittingly. For how could it not be terrible mindlessness to hope to deceive Being itself, and to think to turn aside, by human sophistries, the most steadfast purpose of God?
For this reason he dwells in Mesopotamia, his understanding submerged, as it were, in the very depths of a river's midstream, unable to swim up and lift its head. And this passion is a rising of folly and a sinking of sound reasoning.
Those, then, who fit together this discordant harmony are said to move "from the east." Which kind of east, then, is it -- that of virtue, or that of vice? If it is that of virtue, a complete separation is implied; but if it is that of vice, it is a certain united motion, just as it is with the hands, which move together not each on its own separately, but in a kind of harmony with the whole body.
For the region of vice is a beginning and a starting point for the base man toward activities contrary to nature; but all who have emigrated from virtue and made use of the starting points of folly, having found the most fitting place, settle there -- a place called, in the tongue of the Hebrews, Shinar, but in Greek, "shaking-off."
For the whole life of the base is torn apart and convulsed and shaken, forever stirred up and disturbed, storing up within itself not a single trace of genuine good. For just as, of things that are shaken off, whatever is not held fast by some binding force falls away entirely, so too, it seems to me, the soul of one who has conspired to do wrong has been shaken clean in just this way: it casts off every form of virtue, so that not even a shadow or an image of it appears in it at all.
The body-loving race of the Egyptians, at any rate, is represented not as fleeing from the water but as fleeing "under the water," that is, under the onrush of the passions; and whenever the passions run beneath them, they are shaken and thrown into confusion, casting off the steady and peaceful element of virtue while taking up in its place the turbulent element of vice. For it is said that God "shook off the Egyptians into the midst of the sea as they fled under the water" (Exodus 14:27).
These are the ones who do not even know Joseph, the many-colored conceit of life, but instead practice sins openly, storing up not even a trace or shadow or image of nobility of character: "there arose,"
he says, "another king over Egypt," who did not know even Joseph (Exodus 1:8), the very last and youngest of the goods perceived by sense -- and this king abolished not only perfections but even advances toward them, not only the clarity that comes through sight but even the teaching that comes to be through hearing, saying: "Come, curse Jacob for me, and come, curse Israel for me" (Numbers 23:7) -- which is as much as to say, "Come, destroy both, the soul's sight and its hearing," so that it may neither see nor hear anything true and genuinely noble. For Israel is a symbol of sight, and Jacob a symbol of hearing.
The mind of such men, then, casts off the whole nature of the good, shaken free of it, so to speak, in a certain manner; while, conversely, the mind of the good, laying claim to the unmixed and undiluted form of the goods, shakes off and casts away instead the base things.
Observe, then, what the Practicer says: "Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments, and arise and go up to Bethel" (Genesis 35:2-3), so that, even should Laban demand a search, the idols might not be found anywhere in the whole household (Genesis 31:35) -- but rather, things that have real subsistence and true existence, enrolled as citizens in the mind of the wise man, which the self-taught race of Isaac also inherits as its portion; for he alone receives from his father the things that truly exist (Genesis 25:5).
Observe too that it does not say that they came to the plain in which they settled, but that they found it -- having searched and examined in every way and sought out the region most suited to folly. For indeed every fool does not receive evils from another but discovers them by seeking them himself, not content with only those things toward which base nature of itself proceeds, but adding to them, from his own evil craftsmanship, finished exercises in wickedness.
And indeed, after lingering there only a short time, he would move on. But now he claims even to remain settled there permanently; for it is said that, having found the plain, they settled in it as in a native land, not as sojourners in a foreign one. For it would have been less grievous, on encountering their sins, to regard those sins as alien and, as it were, foreign, rather than to suppose them to be one's own and akin; for those who merely stay a while as visitors would, even so, eventually depart again, but those who settle there permanently were bound to remain for good.
For this reason all the wise, in Moses' account, are represented as sojourners; for their souls never send out a colony away from heaven, but, out of love of contemplation and love of learning, they are accustomed to travel abroad into earthly nature.
So then, once they have lingered in bodies and beheld through them all things perceptible and mortal, they return again to that place from which they first set out, regarding as their homeland the heavenly region in which they hold citizenship, and as a foreign land the earthly region in which they have sojourned; for to those who send out a colony, the land that receives them becomes their homeland in place of the mother-city, whereas for those who merely travel abroad, the land that sent them forth remains their home, the place to which they also long to return.
Therefore Abraham fittingly, having risen up from the dead life of vanity, says to the guardians and stewards of the dead, "I am a sojourner and stranger among you" (Gen. 23:4); "but you are natives of the land," who have preferred the dust and clay of the soul, and have deemed worthy of the seat of honor a man named Ephron, whose name is interpreted "dust."
And fittingly the ascetic Jacob too laments his sojourn in the body, saying, "The days of the years of my life, in which I have sojourned, have been few and evil; they have not reached the days of my fathers, in which they sojourned" (Gen. 47:9).
And to the self-taught one too such an oracle was given: "Do not go down into" passion, that is "Egypt, but settle in the land that I shall tell you" (Gen. 26:2) — in unshowable and incorporeal wisdom — "and sojourn in this land," the visible and perceptible substance, so as to show that the wise man sojourns, as in a foreign body perceptible to sense, but truly dwells, as in a homeland, in the intelligible virtues, which God speaks of as not differing from divine words.
Moses too says, "I am a resident alien in a foreign land" (Exod. 2:22), regarding his stay in the body as exceptionally foreign — not merely, as resident aliens do, but supposing it worthy of estrangement rather than, on the contrary, of intimacy.
But wishing to display this unity of voice and speech not so much in names and words as in the fellowship of unjust deeds, the base man begins to build a city and a tower, as it were a citadel for the tyrant Vice, and he calls on all his fellow-devotees to take part in the work, having first prepared suitable material: "Come,"
he says, "let us make bricks and bake them with fire" (Gen. 11:3) — which is equivalent to saying that all the contents of our soul now lie heaped together and confused, so that no clear impression of any single form appears.
It is fitting, therefore, taking passion and vice as a kind of formless and unqualified substance, always to cut them, down to their smallest and most particular parts, into the qualities appropriate to them, both for a clearer grasp of them and for the use and enjoyment that comes with experience — which seems to beget still more pleasures and delights.
"Come forward, then, all you reasonings, like councillors, into the council-chamber of the soul, as many of you as have conspired for the destruction of justice and every virtue, and let us take careful thought and deliberate how, once we have set our hand to the work, we may bring it to success."
Now the strongest foundations of this success will be these: to give shape to what is formless, to mark off each thing individually by types and figures and outlines — not things that wobble and totter, but things firmly fixed, made akin to the nature of the square, which cannot be shaken — so that, like a brick, being immovably and firmly set, it may support what is built upon it.
Of all these things the god-opposing mind, which we say is king of Egypt, that is, of the body, is found to be the craftsman; for Moses represents him too as delighting in buildings constructed of brick.
For whenever someone blends together the liquid substance of water and the solid substance of earth, as they dissolve and decay, and produces from the two a third thing between them, which is called clay, he does not cease cutting it into portions and fitting to each of the pieces its proper shape, so that they may become more compact and more manageable;
for in this way what is being made would readily reach completion. In imitation of this process, men of depraved nature, whenever they blend the irrational and excessive impulses of the passions with the most grievous vices, cut what has been mixed into pieces and mold and shape them — these ill-starred men — pieces by which the soul's siege-wall will be raised aloft: sense-perception into sight and hearing, and again taste, smell, and touch; passion into pleasure and desire, fear and grief; and the class of vices into folly, licentiousness, cowardice, injustice, and all the others
akin and related to these. Some go so far in excess that they have not only anointed their own souls for this purpose, but have also forced and compelled those who are better, who belong to the seeing race, to make bricks and build fortified cities (Exod. 1:11) for the mind that seems to reign as king — wishing thereby to show that the good is enslaved and that vice is more powerful than good disposition, and that prudence and every virtue are subject to folly and to every vice, so that they are forced by necessity to serve whatever their master commands.
For behold, he says, even the eye of the soul, the most radiant and purest and sharpest-sighted of all, by which alone it is possible to see God, whose name is Israel, once bound in the bodily nets of Egypt, endures the heaviest commands, so as to work brick and everything made of earth with the most laborious and unwearying toils; and under these it fittingly suffers pain and groans, keeping this one thing stored up as a treasure amid its miseries — to weep over its present condition;
for it is rightly said, "the sons of Israel groaned because of their labors" (Exod. 2:23). And who among those of sound mind, seeing the deeds of the many and the excessive zeal that men commonly devote either to money-making or to reputation or to the enjoyment of pleasures, would not be greatly downcast and cry out to the only saving God, that he might lighten their burdens, and, paying a ransom and a price of deliverance, might set the soul free into liberty?
What, then, is the most secure liberty? What is it? The service of the one who alone is wise, just as the oracles attest, in which it is said, "Send out my people, that they may serve me" (Exod. 8:1).
It is the special mark of those who serve the Existing One neither to fashion nor to compound bodies like bricks — such as the works of cupbearers or bakers or cooks, or any other earthly things — but to ascend in their reasonings to the ethereal heights, having set Moses, the God-beloved race, before them as guide of the way.
For then they will behold the place which is manifest, where the unswerving and unchangeable God stands, "and what is beneath his feet, as it were a work of sapphire brick, and like a form of the firmament of heaven" — the perceptible world, which he intimates through these words (Exod. 24:10).
For it is fitting for those who have entered into fellowship with knowledge to long to see the Existing One; but if they cannot, then at least to see his image, the most sacred Logos, and after that the most perfect of his works among perceptible things, this world; for to philosophize was nothing other than to strive to see these things accurately.
He says that the perceptible world is, as it were, God's footstool, for the following reasons: first, so as to show that the cause that made it is not found within what has come into being; and next, in order to establish that not even the whole world employs a free and self-liberated motion, but that God the pilot has mounted it, steering and guiding all things safely with a helmsman's hand — using, according to the true account, neither feet nor hands nor any other part belonging to things in the realm of becoming, at all (for "God is not as man," Num. 23:19), but this figure is introduced solely for the sake of teaching us, who are unable to step outside ourselves, but who form our apprehensions concerning the Unbegotten from what happens within our own experience.
It is altogether beautiful, moreover, to speak by way of comparison of the world as being like a brick; for it seems to stand still and be fixed, as a brick does, according to the impressions of sense-perception, and yet it makes use of the swiftest motion, one that outruns all particular motions.
For by day the eyes of the body receive an impression of the sun, and by night of the moon, as though they were standing still; and yet who does not know that the swiftness of their circling motion is unmatched, seeing that they circle the whole heaven in a single day? In just this way the whole heaven itself, though it seems to stand still, revolves in a circle, its motion being grasped by the invisible and more divine faculty, which perceives through reasoning...
They are represented as baking the bricks with fire — a symbol for strengthening their passions and vices with a hot and highly active reasoning, so that they might never be overthrown by the guardsmen of wisdom, who continually mount their engines against them for their overthrow.
This is why it is added, "And the brick became stone for them" (Gen 11:3). What was loose and diffuse, belonging to a movement without reason, was compressed into a resistant and solid nature — condensed and hardened by powerful arguments and the firmest proofs — the grasp of their doctrines having in a sense grown to manhood, whereas in childhood it flows away, because the soul's moisture is not yet able to fix and preserve the impressions stamped upon it. "And bitumen served them for mortar" (Gen 11:3) — not, conversely, mortar for bitumen.
For the base think that the weak prevail over the better, and that what dissolves and flows can be made firm out of themselves, so that they may plant their feet on solid ground and shoot their arrows at virtue. But the Earth-born and Father of all good things will not allow what is bound to win out into indissoluble security, by refusing to give a stable foundation to a fluid ambition, thereby exposing its work as nothing but soft clay.
For if the clay had become bitumen, perhaps that earthly, perceptible substance, which is in continuous flux, would forever have won its way into a secure and unchangeable power. But since, on the contrary, the bitumen turned into clay, one need not despair; for hope, hope indeed, is that the firm foundations of vice will be broken through by the might of God.
So too the just man, even in the great and mutual flood of life, not yet able to see the things that truly exist with the soul alone, apart from sense-perception, secures "the ark" — I mean the body — by coating it "within and without with bitumen" (Gen 6:14), thereby giving stability to the impressions and activities that come through it. But when the evil has abated and the flood has held back, he will go forth, and, using a bodiless understanding, will lay hold of truth.
For the excellent character, planted and named from the beginning of his birth — Moses by name — who dwelt in the world as in a city and a homeland, having become a citizen of the cosmos, was once bound within the body that had been smeared over, as it were, with "bitumen and pitch" (Exod 2:3), a body that seems to receive and contain securely the impressions of all things that lie beneath sense-perception. He weeps (Exod 2:6) over the binding of a bodiless nature, pressed by longing for it; and he weeps too over the wandering and deluded mind of the many, wretched as it is, which, hanging upon false opinion, has supposed that something stable and secure exists within itself, or altogether among created things, unchangeable — when that which is fixed, constant, and ever the same is set up as a monument only in God.
The words "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose head shall reach to heaven" (Gen 11:4) suggest the following thought. The lawgiver holds that cities are not only those built upon the earth, whose materials are stones and timber, but also those which men carry about, founded within their own souls. And these latter are, as one would expect,
archetypes, since they have obtained a more divine construction, while the former are copies, being composed, as it were, of perishable matter. There are two kinds of city, the better and the worse. The better is that which practices democracy, a constitution that honors equality, whose rulers are law and justice — such a constitution is a hymn to God. The worse is the counterfeit of it, like debased and adulterated coinage — mob-rule, which admires inequality, in which injustice and lawlessness hold sway.
The excellent are enrolled as citizens of the former constitution, while the multitude of the base have girded themselves with the other, the worse one, loving disorder over good order and confusion over settled stability.
The fool, not content to rely on himself alone, thinks it fit to use accomplices for wrongdoing. He urges on sight, he urges on hearing, and he calls upon every sense to be marshaled at once under his command, each bringing everything useful for his service. He also rouses and sharpens the naturally untamed mass of the passions, so that, having acquired training and practice, it may become unbearable.
Having summoned these as his allies, the mind says: "Let us build ourselves a city" (Gen 11:4) — that is, let us fortify our own possessions and wall them about with strength, so that we may not easily be captured by those who assail us. Let us divide and distribute, as it were by tribes and townships, each of the powers within the soul, allotting some to the rational portion and some to the irrational.
Let us choose as rulers those capable of procuring wealth, reputation, honors, pleasures — everything from which they are able to provide. Let us set justice, the cause of poverty and disrepute, out of the way, and let us write laws that will secure the advantage of the stronger for those who are always able to carry off more than others.
And let the "tower" be constructed as a kind of acropolis, a most secure royal seat for tyrant vice — whose feet tread upon the earth while its head reaches toward heaven, mounting to such a height through sheer arrogance.
For in truth it does not stop at merely human wrongdoing, but runs on to attack even the heavenly realm, putting forward arguments of impiety and atheism whenever it maintains either that the divine does not exist, or that it exists but exercises no providence, or that the cosmos never had a beginning of its coming into being, or that, having come into being, it is carried along by unstable causes as chance dictates — sometimes erring, sometimes without fault — as tends to happen with ships and chariots.
For it sometimes happens that a voyage and a race are guided rightly even without helmsman or charioteer. But providence acts not seldom but constantly — human providence often, divine providence unfailingly and always rightly, since to err is by common agreement foreign to a divine power. It is these deranged minds who symbolically construct, as it were, a tower out of their argument concerning vice — wanting nothing else than to leave behind their own ill-famed name.
For they say: "Let us make a name for ourselves" (Gen 11:4). O excessive and unrestrained shamelessness! What are you saying? You who ought to conceal your own wrongdoings in night and deep darkness, and to have contrived a veil for them — if not true, then at least a pretended sense of shame — either for the sake of favor with more decent people, or as an escape from the penalties owed for acknowledged sins — you advance instead to such a pitch of boldness that you not only display yourselves in the light and beneath the brightest sun, fearing neither the threats of better men nor the inexorable justice that comes from God upon those who act so impiously, but you even think it right to send messengers of your own crimes everywhere as rumor, so that no one may remain uninitiated or unhearing of your deeds — O wretched and utterly polluted in your presumptions!
What sort of name, then, do you long for — is it not the one most fitting to what is being done? Is it, then, one thing only? One perhaps in kind, but countless in its species — which, even if you stay silent, you will hear named by others. Recklessness, then, is the offspring of shamelessness; outrage comes with violence; violence with murder; corruption goes together with adulteries; boundless desire with immoderate pleasures; despair with rashness; injustice with villainy; theft with plunder; false oaths with lying speech; impieties with lawless acts.
These, and others like them, are the names that belong to such things. It is indeed a fine thing to boast and pride oneself on the reputation hunted from these — things one ought rather to hide in shame! And yet some take great pride in them, as though they had reaped from being thought such men by all some invincible strength — men whom the justice that attends God will punish for their great presumption, even though perhaps they are not merely divining but actually foreseeing their own destruction. For they say: "before we are scattered" (Gen 11:4), I will take thought
for name and reputation. So I would say to them: do you know, then, that you will be scattered? Why then do you sin? But perhaps this reveals the character of fools, who, though the greatest of punishments hang over them — not obscurely but often quite openly — nevertheless do not hesitate to do wrong. The best-known punishments are those thought to be hidden, which happen in fact to fall from God.
For all the most base take up some notion that wrongdoing will not escape the divine, nor will they be strong enough entirely to evade paying the penalty. For how else do they know that they will be scattered?
And indeed they say, "before we are scattered" — but conscience within convicts them, and pricks sharply at the atheism they so studiously cultivate, dragging them, unwilling as they are, into agreement that all human affairs are watched over by a better nature, and that justice stands as an incorruptible avenger, hostile to the unjust deeds of the impious and to the arguments that plead on their behalf.
But all these are descendants of a wickedness that is always dying yet never dead, whose name is Cain. Is it not also that Cain, having begotten a son whom he called Enoch, is depicted as founding a city of the same name (Gen 4:17), building in a certain way the things that are begotten and mortal, upon the overthrow of those things allotted a more divine construction?
For Enoch is interpreted as "your grace." Each of the impious in mind supposes that he grants himself both his apprehensions and his thoughts, his eyes the power of seeing, his ears the power of hearing, his nostrils the power of smelling, and to the other senses their proper functions, and further still to the organs of voice the power of speech — while God either does not exist at all, or does not exist as the first cause.
For this reason he lays up for himself the firstfruits of what he has cultivated, while he is said to bring to God only the ordinary fruits that come after — even though a sound example stands close at hand. For his brother offers in sacrifice the firstborn, not the second offspring, of the flock, acknowledging that the more senior causes of things that come to be are established in accordance with the most senior of causes.
But to the impious man it seems the opposite — that the mind is sovereign over what it deliberates, and sense-perception likewise sovereign over what it perceives; for he judges that the body decides without error and without falsehood in the one case, and the mind in the other, over everything.
What could be more open to censure than these claims, or more thoroughly refuted by truth? Has not the mind itself, in countless instances, been convicted of unsound thinking, and have not all the senses been caught bearing false witness -- not before irrational judges, whom one might expect to be deceived, but in the very court of nature herself, whom it is impossible to bribe?
And indeed, since the standards of judgment within us, both mind and sense-perception, are prone to error, we must admit the logical consequence: that God rains down thoughts on the one and perceptions on the other, and that what occurs is not the doing of the parts within us, but is entirely the gift of him through whom we ourselves came to exist.
Children who inherit the portion of self-love from their father are eager to build it up together until it reaches heaven, until Justice -- who loves virtue and hates wickedness -- comes forward and tears down the cities they have fortified against the wretched soul, and the tower whose name is disclosed in the book that records these judgments.
As the Hebrews say, it is Phanuel; in our language, "turning away from God." For the stronghold built up through the persuasiveness of arguments was constructed for no other purpose than to turn and incline the mind away from the honor due to God. What could be more unjust than that?
But against the demolition of this stronghold, the plunderer of injustice stands ever ready and murderous, whom the Hebrews call Gideon, which is interpreted "a band of plunderers." For it says: "Gideon set out toward the men of Phanuel, loosing them, saying, 'When I return in peace I will tear down this tower'" (Judges 8:9).
It is a wholly beautiful and most fitting boast for a soul that hates wickedness and is sharpened against the impious, to be assured that it will demolish every argument that persuades the mind to turn away from holiness. And this is naturally so: for when the mind turns back, everything in it that had been leaning and turning away is dissolved.
The time for this demolition, most paradoxically, is not war, as one might say, but peace. For by the stability and calm of the mind, which piety naturally produces, every argument that impiety had fabricated is overturned.
Many have raised even the senses like a kind of tower, to such a height that they touch the very bounds of heaven -- and heaven, symbolically, is our mind, in whose realm the best and divine natures make their circuit. Those who dare this set sense-perception above the intellect, and claim the right to seize, through the objects of sense, all that belongs to the intelligible, forcing what is by nature master into the rank of slave, and what is by nature slave into the rank of ruler.
The words "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower" (Genesis 11:5) must certainly be understood in a more figurative sense. For to suppose that the divine approaches or withdraws, descends or, conversely, ascends -- or in general undergoes the same conditions and motions as particular living creatures, being confined and moved -- is, so to speak, an impiety that places God beyond the ocean and outside the world.
These things are spoken of God in human terms by the lawgiver, though God is not human in form, for the benefit of us who are being instructed, as I have often said elsewhere. For who does not know that for one who descends, it is necessary to leave one place and occupy another?
But by God all things have been filled, since he encompasses and is not encompassed; and to him alone it belongs to be both everywhere and nowhere. Nowhere, because he himself brought space and place into being together with bodies, and it is not lawful to say that the maker is encompassed by any of the things made. Everywhere, because he has extended his powers through earth and water, air and heaven, leaving no part of the world empty, and has drawn all things together, binding them through all things with invisible bonds, so that they might never be loosed -- for the sake of which, having taken this into careful consideration...
For that which is above the powers is conceived as existing in superabundance... in respect of being alone. But his power, by which he set in order and arranged all things, is rightly called God, and it has embraced the whole and passed through all the parts of the universe.
But the divine, which is invisible, incomprehensible, and everywhere present, is truly nowhere visible or comprehensible... "Behold, I stand here before you" (Exodus 17:6), seeming to be shown and grasped, has surpassed all created things, prior to every act of showing and every appearance.
None of the names denoting transitional motion, then, applies to God as he exists in himself: not "above," not "below," not "to the right," not "to the left," not "forward," not "backward." For he is conceived in none of the things named, since, even were he to turn, he could not change places.
Nevertheless it is said that he came down and saw -- he who by foreknowledge has clearly grasped all things, not only after they came to be but even before they came to be -- for the sake of exhortation and instruction, so that no one among those not present, relying on unstable conjecture, might place premature trust from a distance, but rather might come close to the facts themselves, peer into each one, and examine them with care. For an unwavering sight is a witness worthy to be set above deceitful hearing.
For this reason, even among those with the finest constitutions, a law has been recorded that hearsay is not to bear witness, since by nature the tribunal of hearing tends toward being bribed. Moses too says among his prohibitions: "You shall not accept an empty report" (Exodus 23:1) -- meaning not only that one should not accept, through hearsay, a false or foolish account, but also that hearing, coming a little short of sight in grasping the clear truth, is entangled and filled with emptiness.
This, we say, is the reason it is said that "God came down to view the city and the tower." Nor is it added carelessly, "which the sons of men built" (Genesis 11:5). For someone among the irreverent might perhaps say, mockingly at the same time, that the lawgiver teaches us a strange new lesson -- that towers and cities are built up by none other than the children of men! For who is unaware of things so plain, so conspicuous, so utterly obvious?
But you should not suppose that this obvious and commonplace point has been set down in the most sacred oracles for its own sake, but rather that what is hidden is to be tracked down through the visible names. What, then, is this hidden meaning?
Those who ascribe to many of the things that exist the status of, so to speak, fathers, and who introduce the crowd of many gods, have poured out confusion and a mingled chaos over reality alike, and have handed over the soul's end to pleasure -- these, if the truth must be told, are the builders of the city just spoken of and of its acropolis, piling up, tower-fashion, the things that produce that end. They differ not at all, I think, from those born of a harlot, whom the law has driven out of the divine assembly, saying: "No one born of a harlot shall enter the assembly of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 23:2) -- since, like archers wandering after many targets and hitting none of them truly, they have set up countless false-named first principles and causes for the coming-into-being of what exists, and in doing so have failed to recognize the one maker and father of all things.
But those who make use of knowledge are rightly called sons of the one God, as Moses too acknowledges when he says: "You are sons of the Lord God" (Deuteronomy 14:1), and "God who begot you" (Deuteronomy 32:18), and "Is not this one himself your father?" (Deuteronomy 32:6). It follows for those whose souls are so disposed to consider only the good to be beautiful -- which stands opposed, for the overthrow and demolition of it, to the end of pleasure championed by men skilled in warfare. And even if someone is not yet worthy to be called a son of God,
let him nonetheless be earnest to be adorned according to his firstborn Logos, the eldest of the angels, as it were the archangel bearing many names. For he is called Beginning, and the Name of God, and the Logos, and the Man after the image, and the one who sees, Israel.
For this reason I was led, a little earlier, to praise the virtues of those who say, "We are all sons of one man" (Genesis 42:11). For even if we have not yet become worthy to be reckoned children of God, we may still be children of his unseen image, the most holy Logos; for the Logos, the eldest, is the image of God.
And indeed in many places throughout the legislation, those who hear are again called "sons of Israel" -- sons of him who sees. For hearing has been honored with second place after sight, and what is learned always comes second to that which grasps clear impressions of the underlying realities without need of instruction.
I admire, too, what is revealed in the books of the Kingdoms, according to which those who flourished and lived many generations later are, without qualification, recorded as "sons" of David, who sang the praises of God (3 Kingdoms 15:11; 4 Kingdoms 18:3, and elsewhere) -- though in his own lifetime, their own great-grandfathers had perhaps not yet been born. For the begetting that belongs to souls made immortal through virtue is not the begetting of perishable bodies, and it is this kind that is traced back to the leaders of nobility of character, as though they were the begetters and fathers.
But against those who pride themselves on their vainglory, the Lord said: "Behold, one race and one lip, of them all" (Genesis 11:5) -- equivalent to saying, behold one kinship and one family, and again the same harmony and concord belongs to all of them together, with no one estranged in judgment or out of tune -- as happens also among people without music, whose vocal instrument, for all its notes, is sometimes made discordant and out of tune throughout, tuned to the height of disharmony and bringing only unison out of dissonance.
One can see something comparable happening in matters of health: the periodic fevers that physicians' children call quotidian, tertian, and quartan strike at the same hours, day or night, preserving toward their victims a fixed and orderly sequence.
The words "and this they began to do" are spoken with no small measure of indignation, because it was not enough for these reckless men to confound what was right toward their own kin — they went so far as to dare an assault on the very realm of the Olympians, sowing injustice
and reaping impiety, though to no advantage for the wretches. For it is not with impiety as it is with injustice toward one another, where they often accomplish much of what they wish, giving effect through their deeds to the schemes conceived by their thoughtless counsels; the divine is beyond harm and beyond injury, and those whose nature is too corrupt to be cleansed manage only to make a beginning against it — they never reach the end.
That is why it says, "they began to do": those insatiable for lawbreaking, once glutted with their evils against the things of earth, sea, and air — all that belongs to the perishable order — conceived the thought of turning their assault against the divine natures in heaven. Yet those beings, being outside the realm of created things, cannot in any way be treated with abuse; and blasphemy itself brings no harm to those it reviles, since they never depart from their own nature, but instead brings irreparable disaster upon those who utter the charge.
Yet the fact that they only began, and were unable to reach the end of their impiety, does not mean we should excuse them from the guilt of having accomplished the very things they intended. This is why Scripture speaks of them as having finished the tower even though they did not finish it, when it says, "the Lord came down to see the city and the tower" — not the one they were about to build, but the one they "had already built"
(Gen. 11:5). What proof is there, then, that the structure was never brought to completion? The first is plain to see: no part of the earth, whatever it may be, can possibly touch heaven, for the reason given earlier — that a center cannot touch a circumference. The second is that the aether, sacred fire, is an unquenchable flame, as its very name shows, derived from "aithein," which in ordinary speech means "to burn."
A single witness to this from the portion of heavenly fire is the sun, which, though it stands so far from the earth, sends its rays all the way to earth's innermost recesses, and both warms and scorches the air that stretches from earth up to the heavenly sphere — air that is by nature cold. Whatever lies far from the sun's path, or is set at an angle to it, it only warms; but whatever lies near it, or directly in its path, it sets ablaze by force.
If this is so, was it not inevitable that the men who dared to climb upward would be consumed by fire, struck by a thunderbolt, before their grandiose scheme could be brought to completion? This seems to be hinted at in what is said afterward: "they stopped," it says, "building the city and the tower" (Gen. 11:8) — not, surely, because they had finished, but because they were prevented from completing it by the confusion that fell upon them. Yet those who had gone as far as forming the plan and setting their hands to the work did not thereby escape responsibility for what they had attempted.
The diviner and reader of omens, then, who deals in vain guesses about uncertain things — for Balaam, too, is translated "vain" — the Law says that the Seer curses him, even though in his words he framed only auspicious blessings; for God looks not at what is said, which by his providence was altered like a genuine coin substituted for a counterfeit, but at the intent, in which harm rather than benefit was being rehearsed. For these things are by nature at war with one another: conjecture with truth, vanity with knowledge, and prophecy that comes through frenzy with sober wisdom.
Moreover, if a man lies in ambush intending to kill someone and fails to do so, he is nonetheless liable to the same penalty as a murderer, as the law written concerning such matters makes clear: "if," it says, "a man attacks his neighbor to kill him by treachery, and he flees for refuge, you shall take him even from the altar to put him to death" (Exod. 21:14). Though he only made the attempt and did not actually kill, the law reckoned the intent to murder an equal wrong to the killing itself; for this reason it granted no amnesty even to one who had become a suppliant, but commanded that the man who had acted with an unholy purpose be dragged away even from the sanctuary.
He is unholy not only because he plotted, against a soul capable of living forever through the acquisition and exercise of virtues, a murder carried out through the assault of vice, but also because he lays the blame for his impious daring upon God. For the word "flees for refuge" implies this very meaning: that many who wish to escape the charges against themselves, and think to deliver themselves from the wrongs they have done, cast the guilt properly their own — deserving punishment — upon God, who is the cause of no evil but of every good. For this reason it was judged a holy thing to drag such men away even from the altars themselves.
Scripture also sets an extraordinary penalty against those who build up and reinforce arguments in support of atheism — a penalty that some of the foolish might suppose to be, not a harm, but a benefit: "nothing they set their minds to do," it says, "shall fail them" (Gen. 11:6). What boundless, immeasurable misery! That everything the most deranged mind sets itself to attempt should lie subject and obedient to it, with nothing at all, great or small, ever lagging behind, but
as though racing to meet each need before it even arises. This is the demonstration of a soul bereft of good sense, one that finds nothing standing in the way of its wrongdoing. For a person not yet beyond all cure would rather pray that his mind's every resource fail him entirely, than that he should find easy success whenever he sets himself to steal, commit adultery, murder, or rob a temple, or attempt any such deed — and would rather find countless obstacles blocking the way. For one who is hindered casts off the greatest sickness, injustice, but one who carries the deed through unopposed takes that sickness upon himself.
Why then do you still envy and admire the fortunes of tyrants as blessed, fortunes by which they carry out with ease whatever their raging, brutalized minds conceive, when you ought instead to groan within yourselves over such men — if indeed helplessness and weakness are profitable to evils, in the same way that abundance and strength are most beneficial to goods?
But one of the foolish, perceiving to what extreme of misery the license to go on sinning leads, said with candor: "my guilt is too great to be forgiven" (Gen. 4:13). For it is a terrible thing to leave a soul unbridled, since by its own nature it is untamed, and can only be gentled by being held in check with reins and, if need be, the threat of the whip.
For this reason an oracle of the holy God, full of gentleness and sketching out good hopes, was set down for those who love discipline, to this effect: "I will never let you go, nor will I ever abandon you" (Josh. 1:5). For when the bonds of the soul by which it was held fast are loosened, the greatest of disasters follows in their train — to be abandoned by God, who has bound the whole universe with the unbreakable bonds of his own powers, by which, having drawn everything tight, he wills all things to remain unbroken.
And indeed he says elsewhere, "everything that is bound fast by a bond is clean" (Num. 19:15), since dissolution is the cause of unclean corruption. So then, whenever you see one of the base easily accomplishing everything he sets himself to do, never marvel at him as though he were succeeding; on the contrary, pity him as one who is failing, because he lives on in a state barren of virtue and abundantly fertile in vice.
It is worth pausing to consider what sense lies behind the words spoken in the person of God: "come, let us go down and confuse their language there" (Gen. 11:7). For he appears to be conversing with certain others as his fellow-workers, and the same thing was written earlier concerning the making of man: "God said,"
"let us make man according to our image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26), where "let us make" shows a plurality; and again, "God said, behold, Adam has become like one of us, in knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:22), for the phrase "like one of us" is set not with reference to one, but to several.
We must say this first: nothing among existing things has come into being equal in honor to God; there is one ruler and leader and king, to whom alone it belongs to govern and administer the whole. "The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler," one king — and this could rightly be said with even more justice of the cosmos and of God than of cities and of men. For it is necessary that of one thing there be one maker, and again one father and master.
This point having been established beforehand, it would follow to weave in what fits with it. Let us consider, then, what this is. God, though he is one, has around him countless powers, all of them assisting and preserving what has come into being, among which are also the powers that punish; and even punishment is not, properly speaking, harmful, since it is a restraint and correction of wrongdoing.
Through these powers the incorporeal and intelligible cosmos was framed — the archetype of this visible one — composed of invisible forms, just as this visible cosmos is composed of visible bodies.
Struck with awe, then, at the nature of each of these two worlds, some people not only deified them as wholes, but also deified the most beautiful parts within them — the sun, the moon, and the whole of heaven — which, feeling no shame at all, they called gods. Moses, discerning their folly, says, "Lord, Lord, king of gods" (Deut. 10:17), to mark the difference between the one who rules and those who are subject to him.
There is also, throughout the air, a most sacred choir of incorporeal souls, attendants upon the heavenly bodies; the oracular word is accustomed to call these souls angels. So the whole host of each rank, arrayed in its fitting order, serves and ministers to the commander who arrayed it, and follows him, in his lawful and rightful command, as its leader; for it is not permitted that the divine army should ever be found guilty of desertion.
It befits a king to associate with his own powers and to employ them for the service of such tasks as are fitting not to be brought about by God alone. The Father of the universe stands in need of nothing, so as to require the cooperation of others if he wishes to create; yet, seeing what is fitting both to himself and to the things coming into being, he entrusted to his subordinate powers the shaping of certain things, though he did not grant even to these full and independent authority to bring their work to completion, so that nothing amiss might occur among the things that come into being.
So much had to be sketched out first. Now I must say why: the nature of living things was first divided into two opposing portions, the irrational and the rational, and the rational was in turn divided into the perishable and the immortal kind—perishable being that of human beings, immortal that of the bodiless souls that circle through the air and heaven.
These souls have no share in vice, for they received from the beginning an untainted and blessed portion and were not bound to the body, that place of endless misfortunes. The souls of irrational animals likewise have no share in it, since, having no part in reasoning, they are not liable to the voluntary wrongs that arise from calculation.
Almost alone of all beings, the human being, possessing knowledge of both good and evil, often chooses what is basest and flees what is worthy of pursuit, so that he above all stands condemned for sins committed with forethought.
It was fitting, then, that God should attach the fashioning of this being to his subordinates as well, saying, “Let us make man,” so that man's right actions might be referred to God alone, but his sins to others. For it did not seem fitting to God, the ruler of all, to fashion by himself the road to vice within a rational soul; for this reason he entrusted the construction of this part of man to those who came after him. For the voluntary, as the counterpart to the involuntary, needed to be brought forth and fashioned as well, for the completion of the whole.
Let this much be said on that point. But it is also fitting to reflect that God is the cause of good things alone, and of nothing evil whatsoever, since he himself was the eldest and most perfect good among all beings. It is most fitting that the best being should fashion, by himself, only what belongs to his own nature—the best things—while the punishments inflicted on the wicked are secured through his subordinates.
My argument is confirmed by the words spoken by the one made perfect through discipline: “The God who has nourished me from my youth, the angel who has delivered me from all evils” (Gen. 48:15–16). For he too confesses, in effect, that the choicest of good things, which nourish luminous souls, are referred to God alone as their cause, while the portion of evils is again entrusted to angels—though not even they hold full authority to punish—so that his saving nature might never be the author of anything that tends toward destruction.
That is why he says, “Come, let us go down and confound.” For it is the impious who deserve to meet with such a sentence, so that his gracious, beneficent, and generous powers may be made familiar instead with punishments. Yet knowing that these powers are beneficial to the human race, he ordained that they act through others; for it was necessary both that the wicked be judged worthy of correction, and that the fountains of his unfailing graces be kept unmixed with things that are not only evil but even reputed to be evil.
We must inquire what confusion is. How then shall we inquire? In this way, as it seems to me: often we come to recognize people we did not know before by way of their kinsfolk, who bear some resemblance to them. In the same way, then, things that are not easily grasped from themselves might become clear through their likeness to things akin to them.
What things, then, are like confusion? Mixture, as the old account has it, and blending. But mixture is tested in dry substances, blending in liquid ones.
Mixture of differing bodies, then, is not a mere juxtaposition in some arrangement, as if one were to make a heap by bringing together barley and wheat and vetch and various other kinds of seeds into the same place; blending, however, is not juxtaposition, but an extension throughout the whole in which unlike parts interpenetrate one another, their qualities still capable of being separated out again by some technique—as is said to happen with wine and water.
For when the two are brought together they produce a blend, yet what has been blended can nonetheless be resolved again into the qualities out of which it was made: with an oiled sponge, the water is absorbed while the wine is left behind—perhaps because, since the sponge itself arises from water, it naturally reabsorbs from the blend what is its own, the water, and leaves behind what is foreign to it, the wine.
Confusion, however, is the destruction of the original qualities, when they are all extended together throughout every part to produce the generation of one single, different thing—as happens with the four-drug compound in medicine. Wax, tallow, pitch, and resin, I think, when brought together, produce this compound, and once it has been composed it is no longer possible to separate out the powers from which it was composed; rather, each of them has vanished, and the destruction of them all has given birth to one distinct new power.
So when God threatens confusion upon impious reasonings, he commands the destruction not only of the particular form and power of each vice, but also of the compound formed from them together, so that neither the parts by themselves nor the union and concord of them all should retain any strength for the overthrow of the better portion.
For this reason he says, “Let us go down there and confound their tongue, so that none of them may hear the voice of his neighbor” (Gen. 11:7)—which is equivalent to saying: let us render each of the parts of vice mute, so that it neither utters its own voice nor, by resounding together with another, becomes the cause of harm.
This is our reading; but those who follow only what is plain and ready to hand suppose that what is now being described is the origin of the Greek and barbarian dialects. I would not blame them—perhaps they too are using a true account—but I would urge them not to stop there, but to move on to the figurative interpretations, holding that the literal sense of the oracles is, as it were, the shadow of bodies, while the meanings signified beneath it are the things that truly subsist in reality.
The lawgiver himself, indeed, gives grounds for this to those whose understanding is not blind, as, for instance, in the very passage now under discussion. For he named what came about “confusion.” Yet if he meant only the origin of dialects, he would have applied a more accurate name in place of “confusion”—“separation.” For things that are cut apart are not confounded, but on the contrary separated; and the two names are opposites, not only in word but in the very deed each denotes.
For confusion, as I have said, is the destruction of simple powers to produce the generation of one thing compounded together, whereas separation is the division of one thing into several, as happens with a genus and the species contained under it. So if the wise lawgiver had meant to command that a single language be divided into the sections of several dialects, he would have used more exact and proper terms—division, distribution, separation, or something of that kind—not a word that fights against these, confusion.
No, the aim is to dissolve the massed ranks of vice, to nullify its compacts, to abolish its fellowship, to destroy and annihilate its powers, and to tear down the strength of its dominion, which it has fortified with dreadful transgressions.
Do you not see that the Fashioner of the soul's parts brought none of them into fellowship with any other? Eyes cannot hear, ears cannot see, the juices within the mouth cannot smell, nor can the nostrils taste; reason, in turn, cannot be affected by anything belonging to the senses, nor, conversely, can sensation give voice to speech.
For the Craftsman knew that it was advantageous for none of these to hear the voice of its neighbor; rather, the parts of the soul were to exercise their own proper powers, unconfused, for the benefit of living creatures, being kept apart from fellowship with one another, while the parts of vice were to be brought to utter confusion and destruction, so that, whether sounding together or existing by themselves, they might not become a source of harm to the better portion.
For this reason he also says, “The Lord scattered them from there” (Gen. 11:8), which is equivalent to saying he dispersed them, drove them into exile, made them vanish. For to sow is the cause of good things, but to scatter abroad is the cause of evil; the one occurs for the sake of increase, growth, and the generation of other things, the other for destruction and ruin. The God who plants wishes to sow nobility and goodness throughout the universe, but to scatter and drive out from the commonwealth of the world that accursed impiety, so that virtue-hating characters may at last cease building the city of vice and the tower of godlessness.
For once these have been scattered, those who long ago fled the tyranny of folly will find their way home through a single proclamation, which God himself has written and confirmed, as the oracles make plain, where it is declared: “If your dispersion is from one end of heaven to the other, from there he will gather you” (Deut. 30:4).
So it is fitting that the concord of the virtues should be attuned by God, and the discord of the vices dissolved and destroyed by him. The name most proper to vice is confusion, of which every fool is clear proof, employing words, counsels, and deeds that are worthless and in disarray.

======== On the Migration of Abraham ========

"And the Lord said to Abraham: Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed. And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse, and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3).
Wishing to purify the human soul, God first gives it, as a starting point toward complete salvation, migration from three places: the body, sense-perception, and spoken reason. For the land, as it happens, is a symbol of the body; kindred, of sense-perception; and the father's house, of reason.
Why is this? Because the body took its composition from the earth and is dissolved back into the earth again—Moses is witness to this when he says, "You are earth, and to earth you shall go" (Genesis 3:19); for he says that it was molded as clay into human form when God shaped it, and what is bound must necessarily be released back into the elements it was bound from. Sense-perception, on the other hand, is kin and sibling to the mind—the irrational to the rational—since both are parts of one soul. And reason is the house of the father, because our father is the mind, sowing into each of the parts its own powers and distributing to them its activities, having taken up the care and oversight of them all; and the house in which it dwells, set apart from the rest of the dwelling, is reason. For just as the hearth belongs to the man, so speech is the dwelling-place of the mind.
The mind, at any rate, displays itself and whatever thoughts it begets, arranging and ordering them as in a house, in speech. Do not be surprised that he has called the reason of the mind, in a human being, a house; for he says that the mind of the universe, God himself, also has his own Logos as a house.
Grasping the vision of this house, the ascetic openly confesses: "This is nothing other than the house of God" (Genesis 28:17). This is equivalent to saying: the house of God is not one of the things that come into visibility or that fall under sense-perception at all; it is invisible, formless, apprehended by soul alone, as soul.
Who, then, could this be but the reason older than all things that have come into being—the reason which, taken hold of as though it were a rudder, the pilot of the universe grips to steer all things, using it as an instrument when he was fashioning the cosmos, for the faultless constitution of the things brought to completion?
We have now shown that by "land" he hints at the body, by "kindred" at sense-perception, and by "father's house" at reason. As for essence: since the command, taken literally, would proclaim death, it is instead equivalent to saying, "be alienated in your judgment; held fast by none of them, stand above them all; they are subject to you—never treat them as your rulers."
Being a king, you were born to rule and not to be ruled; know yourself for your whole life, as Moses too teaches in many places when he says, "Attend to yourself" (Exodus 34:12). For in this way you will perceive both those whom it is fitting for you to obey and those over whom it is fitting for you to command.
Go out, then, from what is earthly about you—that utterly polluted thing, my friend—escaping the body as a prison, and from its pleasures and desires, which are like the guards of that prison, with all your might and every power, leaving out nothing that would harm them, but drawing yourself up against all of it at once, together, in a body.
Go out also from kindred sense-perception. For now you have lent yourself to each of the senses and have become estranged, having thrown away your own good, the good you had lent out. And you know that even if everyone else were silent, your eyes and ears, and the whole crowd of your household, lead you toward the things dear to themselves.
But if you should wish to recover your own loans and to wrap yourself in your own possession, dividing and alienating no part of it, you will lay claim to a life of blessedness, forever harvesting the use and enjoyment not of things foreign to you but of your own goods.
But you must also migrate away from spoken reason, which he named the father's house, so that, deceived by the beauties of words and names, you may not be divided off from the beauty that pertains to truth—the beauty that is found in the things being signified. For it is out of place to be carried along further by a shadow of bodies or an imitation of archetypes; for interpretation resembles a shadow and an imitation, while the natures of the things being interpreted resemble bodies and archetypes. Whoever aims at being, rather than at seeming to be, must cling to those natures, settling apart from the shadows.
So then, whenever the mind begins to know itself and to converse with intelligible truths, it will thrust away, all at once, the part of the soul that inclines toward the sensible form, which among the Hebrews is called Lot. For this reason the sage is introduced saying, quite openly: "Separate yourself from me" (Genesis 13:9). For it is impossible for one possessed by love of the bodiless and incorruptible to live together with one who inclines toward the sensible and the mortal.
Most beautifully, then, the hierophant wrote up one whole sacred book of the Law under the fitting title "Exodus" for the oracles it contains. For being an educator, and most ready to admonish and bring to soundness of mind all those capable of being admonished and made sound, he intends to remove the whole people of the soul out of the land of Egypt—the body—and away from its inhabitants, considering it the harshest and heaviest burden of all for the mind capable of vision to be pressed down by the pleasures of the flesh and made to serve whatever commands the pitiless desires give.
These people, then, having groaned and wept many tears over their bodily prosperity and the unstinting abundance of external goods—for it is said that "the sons of Israel groaned because of their labors" (Exodus 2:23)—God, being gracious, guides the way concerning the exodus, and his prophet delivers them.
But there are those who, right up to their death, kept up their libations to the body, and were buried, so to speak, in a coffin or a chest or whatever else one might call it, as though embalmed in it. Of these people, whatever parts were body-loving and passion-loving are consigned to oblivion and buried; but if anything virtue-loving happened to grow alongside, it is preserved in memory, through which noble things are naturally kindled back to life.
The bones of Joseph, at any rate—I mean the only incorruptible and memorable forms left behind of so great a soul—are what the sacred word takes care to preserve (Genesis 50:25), judging it out of place for the pure to be yoked together with the impure.
These are the memorable things: to believe that "God will visit" the seeing race (Genesis 50:24), and that he will not surrender it forever to blind Fate, its mistress, but will instead discern the mortal parts of the soul from the incorruptible—leaving behind in Egypt, as mortal, everything that concerns bodily pleasures and the other excesses of passion, while making a solemn pledge concerning the incorruptible parts, so that they may be carried up together with those ascending into the cities of virtue, and confirming that pledge with an oath.
What, then, are the incorruptible things? Estrangement from pleasure, which says, "let us lie together" (Genesis 39:7) and "let us enjoy human goods"; the shrewdness joined with endurance, by which he discerns and distinguishes the things reckoned goods by empty opinion, as though they were dreams... confessing that the true and clear interpretations of events belong to God (Genesis 40:8), while the obscure and unclear appearances belong to the wandering and still-unpurified life of men steeped in vanity, a life that delights in the pleasures provided by bakers and cooks and cupbearers—the refusal to be subject to it,
but instead to be recorded as ruler of all Egypt, the region of the body (Genesis 41:41); to take pride in being of the race of the Hebrews (Genesis 40:15), whose custom it is to migrate from the sensible to the intelligible—for "Hebrew" is interpreted as "one who crosses over"; to declare with dignity, "here I have done nothing" (ibid.)—for to have accomplished none of the things eagerly pursued here among the base, but to have hated and turned away from all of it, is no small thing to be praised for—
to mock the desires and the excesses of every passion; to fear God (Genesis 42:18), even if one has not yet become capable of loving him; to lay claim, while in Egypt, to the true life—wherefore the one who sees, marveling (and indeed it was a thing worthy of astonishment), says: "It is a great thing to me, if my son Joseph still lives" (Genesis 45:28)—not that he had died along with empty opinions and the corpse-bearing body—
to confess that he "belongs to God" (Genesis 50:19), and to none of the things that have come into being; to be recognized by his brothers, so as to shake and stir all the ways of those who love the body and who suppose they stand firmly upon their own doctrines, and to drive them out by force (Genesis 45:1-2); to say that he was sent not by men but was appointed by God (Genesis 45:7-8) to the lawful oversight of the body and of external things,
and many other things of the same kind besides, belonging to a better and more sacred order: not to endure dwelling in Egypt, the house of the body, nor to be buried at all in a chest, but, having departed entirely from everything mortal, to follow the lawgiver, reason, Moses, as guide,
for he is the nurse and rearer of noble deeds, words, and counsels, which, even if they should at times be overpowered by their opposites because of the confused mixture inherent in what is mortal, he nonetheless comes and separates out once more, so that the seeds and shoots of nobility may not vanish and be lost forever.
And he exhorts, with great vigor, to abandon the mother that gives birth to every kind of disorder—not delaying and lingering, but moving with the utmost speed. For he says it is necessary to sacrifice the Passover in haste (Exodus 12:11), which, when interpreted, means "crossing over," so that the mind, employing an undoubting resolve and unremitting eagerness, may make its crossing away from the passions without ever turning back, together with its thanksgiving to God the savior, who set it free for liberty when it had not even hoped for it.
And why do we wonder, if he urges the one held fast in the grip of an irrational passion not to yield nor be swept along by the rush of its current, but to resist and force it back, or, if he cannot, to flee? For flight is a second path to safety for those unable to defend themselves — this even in the case of one who is by nature a fighter and has never become a slave to the passions, but is always contending in the contests against each of them: he is not permitted to wrestle to the very end, lest by continual engagement with them he draw upon himself a grievous doom from them. For many by now have become imitators of the very vice they opposed, just as others, on the contrary, have become imitators of virtue.
Hence such an oracle was given: "Return to the land of your father and to your kindred, and I will be with you" (Gen. 31:3) — equivalent to saying: you have become a perfect athlete, and have been deemed worthy of prizes and crowns, since virtue herself sets them out and holds forth to you the rewards of victory; now put an end at last to your love of contention, so that you need not toil forever, but may also be able to enjoy the fruits of what you have toiled for.
But this you will never find while you remain here, still dwelling with the objects of sense-perception and lingering among bodily qualities, of which Laban is the ruling type — for that is what his name means, "quality" — but you must become a migrant to the ancestral land of the sacred word, and in a sense to the father of those in training; and this land is wisdom, the best dwelling-place for souls that love virtue.
In this country you also have a lineage that is self-taught, self-instructed, having no share in infant and milky nourishment, forbidden by a divine oracle to go down into Egypt (Gen. 26:2) and to consort with the pleasures of the flesh that lure us — I mean the one surnamed Isaac.
Once you have received his inheritance, you will necessarily lay aside toil; for abundance of things ready to hand and good at hand is the cause of freedom from toil. And the spring from which good things rain down is companionship with the God who gives freely; for this reason, sealing the promise of his benefits, he says, "I will be with you."
What good thing, then, could be lacking when the God who brings all to completion is present, together with the Graces, his virgin daughters, whom their father begets undefiled and unstained and rears as maidens? Then studies and toils and exercises come to rest, and, without need of art, by the providence of nature everything beneficial is bestowed all at once, and on all.
And this outpouring of self-generated goods is called a "release," since the mind is released from the activities that follow its own private undertakings, and is freed, as it were, from voluntary acts, because of the abundance of things rained upon it that pour down without cease.
These things are by nature most wonderful and most beautiful. For whatever the soul labors to bring forth by itself is, for the most part, miscarried and born before its time; but whatever God waters with his own shower is perfect and whole and comes to birth as the best of all things.
I am not ashamed to relate my own experience, which I have known times without number. There have been occasions when I intended, according to my custom, to set down my thoughts on philosophical doctrines, and though I knew well what needed to be put together, I found my mind barren and sterile, and went away having accomplished nothing, reproaching myself for my presumption, but struck with awe at the power of Being, by whom the wombs of the soul are opened and closed.
And there have been times when I came empty and suddenly became full, thoughts being showered and sown upon me invisibly from above, so that under divine possession I was seized with a kind of frenzy and knew nothing — neither the place, nor those present, nor myself, nor what was being said, nor what was being written. For then I obtained, I might almost say, a flow of interpretation, an enjoyment of light, a most keen-sighted vision, a most vivid clarity of the subject-matter, such as might come through the eyes from the clearest demonstration.
Now that which is thus shown is worthy to be seen, worthy to be beheld, worthy to be loved — the perfect good, and its nature is to turn the bitterness of the soul into sweetness, the finest seasoning of all delights, through which even things that give no nourishment become saving food. For it is said, "The Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water" (Exod. 15:25) — meaning the mind that was dissolved and flabby and full of bitterness, so that once sweetened it might be tamed.
And this tree promises not only nourishment but immortality; for it says that the tree of life was planted in the middle of paradise (Gen. 2:9) — that is, goodness, attended as by bodyguards by the particular virtues and the actions that accord with them; for this occupies the most central and the best place in the soul.
Now the one who sees is the wise man; for the foolish are blind, or have dim sight. For this reason people used to call the prophets "those who see" (1 Kingdoms 9:9); and the lawgiver was eager to give ears in exchange for eyes, that one might see what one had formerly only heard, and so obtain, in place of the portion that comes by hearing, the portion that comes by sight.
For into "Israel, the one who sees," the coin of learning and teaching is reminted — he who was formerly named Jacob — through whom seeing becomes the divine light, indistinguishable from knowledge, which directs the eye of the soul and leads it to apprehensions far clearer and more brilliant than those that come through the ears. For just as through music the things of music are apprehended, and through each art the things within that art, so too through wisdom the wise is contemplated.
Wisdom is not only, like light, an instrument of seeing, but she also sees herself. She is the archetypal radiance of God, of which the sun is an imitation and an image. And the one who shows each thing is God alone, who has knowledge; for men are called knowers only by seeming to know, but God is called knowing in a lesser sense than he truly is by nature, for all the accounts ever framed about him are overpowered by the powers of Being.
He establishes his wisdom not only from the fact that he fashioned the cosmos, but also from the fact that he has founded most securely within himself the knowledge of the things that have come to be;
for it is said, "God saw all that he had made" (Gen. 1:31) — not as though he merely cast a glance upon each thing, but rather that he had a seeing, a knowledge, and a comprehension of what he had made. It is therefore not fitting to guide, teach, and point out particular things to those who are ignorant, except for the one who has knowledge — one who is not benefited by an art as a man is, but is himself acknowledged to be the origin and
source of the arts and the sciences. And with careful precision he did not fix the time of his promise as the present but as the future, saying not "the land I am showing you" but "the land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1), as a testimony to the faith which the soul placed in God — a faith that does not display its gratitude on the basis of results already accomplished, but on the basis of expectation of what is to come;
for the soul that is suspended and hung upon good hope, and, because of the certainty of the one who made the promise, has judged without hesitation that things not yet present are already present, has found faith to be a perfect good, a reward in itself. For it is said again, "Abram believed God" (Gen. 15:6), and likewise to Moses, after showing him the whole land, he says, "I have shown it to your eyes, but you shall not enter there" (Deut. 34:4).
Do not, however, suppose that this was said to belittle the all-wise man, as some of the thoughtless imagine; for it would indeed be foolish to think that slaves partition the territory of virtue before their masters do.
Rather, this is meant to show you, first, that the region of the immature is one thing and that of the perfect another — the one called practice, the other called wisdom; and second, that the finest things in nature are objects to be seen rather than to be possessed. For how could one possess things allotted a more divine portion? Yet to see them is not impossible — though not for everyone; it belongs only to that race which is purest and keenest of sight, to whom, by displaying his own works, the Father of all grants the greatest of all gifts.
For what life is better than the contemplative, or more fitting for a rational being? For this reason, though it is hearing that serves as the judge of the voice of mortal creatures, the divine oracles reveal the words of God as things seen, after the manner of light; for it is said, "the people saw the voice" (Exod. 20:18) — not "heard" it — since what occurred was not a striking of the air by the instruments of mouth and tongue, but a radiance of virtue, most all-encompassing, indistinguishable from a rational spring, which is also indicated elsewhere in this way: "You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven" (Exod. 20:22) — not "you have heard," for the same reason.
And there is a place where he distinguishes things heard from things seen, and hearing from vision, saying: "You heard the sound of words, but you saw no likeness, only a voice" (Deut. 4:12) — a saying of great precision. For the voice that is divided into noun and verb and, in general, into the parts of speech, he rightly called audible, since it is judged by hearing; but the voice that consists not of words or names but is the voice of God, seen by the eye of the soul, he fittingly introduces as visible.
And having first said, "you saw no likeness," he adds, "but only a voice," which you certainly saw — for this is what is implied besides. So the words of God have as their criterion sight, occurring within the soul, while hearing belongs to the words divided into the particular forms of nouns and verbs.
And being an innovator in every branch of knowledge, he has here too made an innovation peculiar and strange, in saying that the voice is visible — the only one among the things within us that is not visible, thought alone being set apart from this rule; for all the things that belong to the other senses are visible — colors, flavors, vapors, hot and cold, smooth and rough, soft and hard — insofar as they are bodies.
But what this means I will explain more clearly. A taste is visible not qua taste, but only qua body—for it is qua taste that taste is known by the sense of taste. And a smell, qua smell, is examined by the nostrils, but qua body, by the eyes as well; and everything else is tested in the same way. But speech is not naturally visible, neither as something heard nor as body, even granting that it is in fact a body. Rather, mind and reason are the two things within us that are invisible.
But indeed our own vocal instrument is not like the divine instrument of voice. For ours mingles with air and takes refuge in its kindred place, the ears; but the divine voice consists of unmixed and unadulterated reason, reaching the hearing by virtue of its fineness, yet seen by a pure soul because of the sharpness of its sight.
So then, after the soul's abandonment of mortal things, God grants it, as I said, the first gift: the display and contemplation of immortal things; and the second is growth both in the multitude and in the greatness of virtue's doctrines. For he says, "And I will make you into a great nation," indicating by "nation" the multitude, and by "great" the growth toward what is better.
The increase of quantity in each of these two respects—in greatness and in multitude—the king of Egypt himself also attests, for he says, "Behold, the race of the sons of Israel is a great multitude" (Exodus 1:9), since both terms testify concerning the race that sees what is, as one who has acquired both multitude and greatness—the successes achieved in life and in reason.
For he did not say, as one preserving the ordinary sequence of words would, "much multitude," but "great," knowing that mere quantity by itself is an incomplete kind of greatness unless it also acquires the power of understanding and knowledge. For what good is it to take in many doctrines, if each of them is not made to grow to its fitting greatness? A field is not complete in which countless low plants exist, but no perfect shoot has grown up alongside them by the farmer's skill, already able to bear fruit.
Of the greatness and multitude of noble things, the beginning and the end is unceasing remembrance of God, and the invoking of the alliance that comes from him against the civil, confused, and unrelenting war of life. For he says: "Behold, a wise and understanding people, this great nation—for what nation is great, to whom God draws near as the Lord our God does in everything we call upon him for?" (Deuteronomy 4:6-7).
So it has been shown that a helping power stands ready at God's side to bring aid, and that the Leader himself draws nearer for the benefit of those worthy to be benefited. Who, then, are worthy to obtain these things? Surely it is clear: all lovers of wisdom and knowledge.
For these are the wise and understanding people he spoke of, each of whom is rightly called great, since each reaches for great things, and above all for one thing beyond measure: not to be separated from the greatest God, but to endure his approach steadily, without being overwhelmed, as he draws near.
This is the definition of the great people: to draw near to God, or "the one to whom God draws near." The wise man, citizen of the world and of the cosmos, is filled with many great goods; but the rest of the human crowd has more evils and fewer goods, for in a mixed and confused life the good is rare.
That is why it is sung in the oracles: "It is not because you outnumber all the other nations that the Lord chose and selected you—for you are the fewest of all nations—but because of the Lord's love for you" (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). For if one wished to divide the crowd within a single soul into nations, so to speak, one would find many disorderly ranks, marshaled by pleasures, desires, griefs, fears, and again by follies and injustices and their kindred and sister vices—but only one rank well ordered, led by right reason.
Among men, then, the unjust majority is preferred to the one just man; but with God, the rare good is preferred to countless unjust men. And he commands that one should never agree with such a multitude: "You shall not side with the many in wrongdoing" (Exodus 23:2). Should one then side with the few? Not even with a single base person—for the base man, though one, is many in his vices, and to be arrayed alongside him is the greatest loss. Rather, it is fitting to resist and make war on him, wielding an undaunted power.
"If," he says, "you go out to war against your enemies and see a horse"—the arrogant, unruly passion that kicks against restraint—"and a rider"—the mind carried along by it—"and a people more numerous than yours"—the zealots who march in formation behind what has just been named—"you shall not be afraid of them"; for though you are one, you will have as your ally the one Leader of all, "because the Lord your God is with you" (Deuteronomy 20:1).
For union with this One overthrows wars, builds up peace, overturns the many familiar evils, and preserves safe the rare race beloved of God—a race that everyone who becomes obedient to it comes to hate and abhor the earthbound throngs.
"For whatever creeping thing that goes upon the earth has many feet," he says, "you shall not eat, for they are abominations" (Leviticus 11). And is not a soul deserving of hatred that walks upon the earth not with one part but with all or most of its parts, licking after the pleasures of the body, and altogether unable to lift its gaze up to the divine circuits of heaven?
And indeed, just as the many-footed is blameworthy among creeping things, so too is the footless—the one for the reason already stated, the other because it has fallen wholly and entirely upon the earth, lifted up by nothing, not even the least bit. For he says that everything that goes upon its belly is unclean (ibid.), hinting at the person who pursues the pleasures of the belly.
Some, going even further, made use not only of the class of desire, but acquired also its sibling passion, anger, wishing to kindle the whole irrational part of the soul and to destroy the mind. For the saying that in word concerns the serpent, but in fact concerns every irrational and passion-loving human being, is truly a divine oracle: "Upon your breast and belly you shall go" (Genesis 3:14); for anger resides around the chest, and the form of desire in the belly.
The fool travels through both—anger and desire—never ceasing for a moment, having cast off the mind, his charioteer and umpire. But the man opposed to him has cut off anger and desire, and has enrolled the divine reason as his pilot, just as Moses, most beloved of God, did—who, when he performs the whole burnt offerings of the soul, "washes out the belly" (Leviticus 8:21), that is, washes away the whole form of desire, and "removes the breast from the ram of consecration" (Leviticus 8:29)—that is, all warlike anger—so that the remaining and better part of the soul, the rational part, with nothing any longer pulling it back and dragging it away, may exercise its truly free and noble impulses toward everything good.
For in this way it will grow in both multitude and greatness; for it is said: "How long will this people provoke me? And how long will they not believe me, despite all the signs I have done among them? I will strike them with a fatal blow and destroy them, and I will make you and your father's house into a nation greater and more numerous than this one" (Numbers 14:11-12). For whenever the great throng within the soul that indulges anger and desire is dissolved, at once, without fail, that which belongs to rational nature rises up and dawns.
Just as the many-footed and the footless, being opposites within the class of creeping things, are both recorded as unclean, so too the atheistic opinion and the polytheistic opinion, opposed to each other within the soul, are both profane. Here is the proof: the Law has driven both out of the sacred assembly, barring the atheistic—likened to the eunuch and the mutilated man—from taking part in the assembly, and likewise forbidding the polytheistic—likened to the child of a prostitute—from hearing or speaking there (Deuteronomy 23:1-2). For the man without offspring is atheistic, while the child of a prostitute is polytheistic, blind as to who his true father is, and so ascribing to himself many parents instead of one.
Two gifts, then, have already been described: the hope of the contemplative life, and growth toward multitude and greatness in noble things. The third is blessing, without which it is not possible to secure the former favors; for he says, "And I will bless you"—that is, "I will grant you praiseworthy reason"; for "well" always belongs to virtue. And reason is of two kinds: the one resembles a spring,
the other a stream flowing from it—the spring being reason within the understanding, and its utterance through mouth and tongue being the outflow. Each form of reason requires much wealth to be improved: the understanding, by being exercised in sound judgment toward all things, small and great alike; and the utterance, by being guided by right education.
For many reason well in their thoughts but are betrayed by a poor interpreter of that reasoning, not having practiced the general education in the arts of speech. Others, conversely, have become most capable interpreters but are utterly poor in deliberation—like those called sophists; for in such men the understanding is unmusical and without harmony, while the channels through their vocal instruments are wholly tuneful.
God grants his subjects nothing incomplete, but everything full and perfect. This is why, even now, he sends the blessing not upon one part of reason alone, but upon both parts together, judging it right that the one benefited should both conceive the best thoughts and be able to declare powerfully what he has conceived; for perfection, it seems, comes through both—through the one who supplies the thoughts purely, and through the one who translates them without stumbling.
Do you not see Abel—whose name means one who mourns mortal things and counts immortal things blessed—how, though he employs a blameless understanding, he is defeated because he has not been trained in arguments, wrestling against Cain, a man able to prevail by skill rather than by strength?
For this reason, while I admire the good fortune of his nature, I fault his manner to this extent: that when challenged to a contest of words, he came forward to compete, when he ought to have stood upon his accustomed calm, bidding a long farewell to his contentious rival—or, if he really wished to contend at all costs, he ought not to have entered the dust before being trained in the technical holds of wrestling; for among the wise of the countryside, it is generally those polished in civic affairs who tend most to prevail.
For this reason Moses, all-wise as he is, declines to enter into the examination of plausible and persuasive arguments, ever since God began to flash upon him the light of truth through the immortal words of knowledge and wisdom herself; yet he is drawn no less to the sight of these arguments -- not for the sake of becoming experienced in more matters, since the inquiries concerning God and his most sacred powers suffice for the lover of contemplation -- but in order to prevail over the sophists of Egypt, among whom mythical plausibilities are honored above the clarity of what is true.
Whenever, then, the mind walks about among the affairs of the Ruler of All, it needs nothing else for its contemplation, since among intelligible things the understanding alone is the sharpest-sighted eye; but whenever it deals also with things of sense-perception, or passion, or body -- of which the land of Egypt is a symbol -- it will need, along with these, the art and the power that concern words.
This is why he arranges to bring Aaron along with him, the spoken word: "Is not Aaron your brother?" he says. For since both share one mother, the rational nature, their offspring are surely brothers. "I know that he will speak" -- for grasping is the property of understanding, but speaking the property of utterance. "He will speak," he says, "for you" -- for the mind, unable to report to its neighbor the things stored within it, uses speech as an interpreter to make known what it has experienced.
Then he adds: "Behold, he himself will come out to meet you," since in truth speech, meeting thoughts, engraves what was unmarked by adding words and names, so as to make it notable. And "seeing you," he says, "he will rejoice in him" (Exod. 4:14) -- for speech rejoices and is glad whenever the thought is not dim, because when the thought shines clear, speech employs an unstumbling and smooth-running interpretation, richly supplied with names that are apt, well-aimed, and full of vivid force.
At any rate, whenever thoughts are somewhat unclear, speech treads on empty ground and, slipping, often falls so great a fall that it can no longer rise. "And you shall speak to him and put my words in his mouth" is equivalent to saying, you shall whisper to him the thoughts, which differ not at all from divine words and reasonings; for without a prompter, speech will not utter a sound -- and the prompter of speech is mind, as the prompter of mind is God.
And it goes on: "He himself will speak to you before the people, and he himself will be your mouth; and you will be to him as God" (Exod. 4:15-16) -- most vivid is the phrase "he will speak to you," as though to say he will interpret your thoughts, and again that "he will be your mouth," for the stream of speech, carried through tongue and mouth, carries the thoughts along with it. But speech is the interpreter of understanding to human beings, while understanding becomes, for speech, as God; and these are the thoughts, of which God alone is the overseer.
It is necessary, then, for the one who is about to meet a sophistic contest to have taken vigorous care over words -- so as not merely to escape their holds, but, counterattacking with both skill and power, to prevail.
Or do you not see the enchanters and sorcerers playing the sophist against the divine word, daring to attempt similar things -- not so much to display their own knowledge as celebrated, as to mock and deride what is happening? For they transform staffs into the nature of serpents, and turn water into the color of blood, and by incantations draw up onto the land what remains of the frogs (Exod. 7:12, 22; 8:7); and, wretched as they are, in piling up everything that leads to their own ruin, though they think they deceive, they are themselves deceived.
Against such men, how could one go to meet them except by making ready the reasoning word, the interpreter of understanding, called by the name Aaron? He who is now called mouth will later also be called prophet, when the mind too, having become divinely inspired, is addressed as god: "For I give you," he says, "as a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet" (Exod. 7:1). What a harmonious sequence! For the race that interprets the things of God is prophetic in kind, possessed by divine seizure
and frenzy. Accordingly, "the staff of Aaron swallowed up their staffs" (Exod. 7:12), as the oracle makes clear; for all sophistic arguments are swallowed up and vanish before the artful variety of nature, so that they confess that what is happening is "the finger of God" (Exod. 8:19) -- equivalent to a divine writ proclaiming that sophistry is forever overcome by wisdom; for it was by the finger of God, the sacred word says, that the tablets too were written, on which the oracles were inscribed (Exod. 32:16). This is why the sorcerers can no longer stand before Moses, but fall, as in a contest defeated by the mighty strength of their opponent (Exod. 8:18).
What, then, is the fourth gift? Greatness of name; for he says, "I will magnify your name" (Gen. 12:2). This means, as it appears to me, something of this sort: just as being good and noble is beneficial, so too is seeming to be so. Truth is better than reputation, but happiness comes from both together; for countless people who have approached virtue without pretense or flattery, and have caught sight of her genuine beauty, giving no thought to the fame that comes from the crowd, have been plotted against, judged wicked though they were good in the sight of truth.
And indeed there is no benefit even in seeming, unless a freedom from poison has long been present beforehand, as is naturally the case with bodies; for if everyone were to suppose the sick person healthy, or the healthy person sick, the opinion by itself would produce neither sickness nor health.
But the one to whom God has granted both -- both to be noble and good, and to seem to be so -- this person is truly happy, and in fact great of name. And one must take forethought, as for a great matter that greatly benefits the embodied life, for a good reputation. This falls to nearly everyone who, rejoicing with contentment, disturbs nothing of the established customs, but guards the ancestral way of life without neglect.
For there are some who, supposing the literal laws to be symbols of intelligible matters, have been overly precise about the latter while carelessly neglecting the former; these I myself would blame for their easy carelessness. For they ought to have taken care of both: a more exact inquiry into the unseen realities, and an irreproachable stewardship of the visible ones.
But as it is, as though living alone by themselves in a wilderness, or having become bodiless souls, knowing neither city nor village nor household nor any human community at all, they look past what seems good to the many and investigate the naked truth all by itself; these people the sacred word teaches to take thought for a good reputation and to dissolve none of the customs which divinely inspired men, greater than we are, have established.
For it is not because the seventh day is a teaching about the power that concerns the unbegotten, and the rest that concerns the begotten, that we should therefore dissolve the laws legislated for it -- such as kindling fire, or farming, or carrying burdens, or bringing accusations, or sitting in judgment, or demanding back deposits, or exacting the repayment of loans, or doing the other things permitted even at non-festival times;
nor, because a festival is a symbol of the soul's joy and of thanksgiving toward God, should we renounce the yearly seasonal festal assemblies; nor, because circumcision signifies the cutting away of pleasure and of all the passions, and the removal of the impious opinion by which the mind supposed itself capable of begetting through itself alone, should we abolish the law laid down concerning circumcision -- since in that case we would also neglect the sacred rites of the temple, and countless other things, if we attended only to what is made clear through hidden meanings.
Rather, one must consider these things to resemble the body, and those other things the soul; just as one must take forethought for the body, since it is the house of the soul, so too must one take care of the literal laws; for when these are kept, those other things too, of which they are symbols, will become more clearly known -- besides which one will also escape the blame and accusations of the many.
Do you not see that Abraham too says that great goods and small ones belong to the wise man, calling the great things his possessions and properties, which he permits the legitimate son alone to inherit, while the small things he calls gifts, which the illegitimate sons and the sons of concubines are deemed worthy to receive (Gen. 25:5-6)? The former
resemble the things that exist by nature, the latter the things established by convention. I also admire the all-virtuous Leah, who, at the birth of Asher -- who is the symbol of perceptible and illegitimate wealth -- says: "Blessed am I, for the women will call me blessed" (Gen. 30:13); for she aims at a fair reputation, judging it right to be praised not only by men and by truly manly reasonings, among whom unblemished nature and incorruptible truth are honored, but also by the more feminine, who in every way are overcome by appearances and are unable to conceive of anything perceptible beyond them.
It belongs to a perfect soul to lay claim both to being and to seeming to be, and to take pains to be well regarded not only in the men's quarters but also to be praised at the hearth of the women's quarters.
This is why Moses entrusted the making of the sacred works not only to men but to women as well; for they complete all the spinning of the hyacinth-blue, the purple, the scarlet, the fine linen, and the goats' hair (Exod. 35:25-26), and they contribute their own ornaments without hesitation -- "seals, earrings, rings, bracelets, hair-clasps" (Exod. 35:22), everything whose material was gold.
exchanging the ornament of the body for that of piety; and in their eager generosity they even dedicate their own mirrors together, for the making of the basin (Exod. 38:26), so that those who are about to perform the sacred rites, washing hands and feet -- the instruments by which the mind moves and takes its stand -- may see themselves reflected, in remembrance of the mirrors from which the basin was fashioned; for in this way they will allow no shameful thing to appear in the form of the soul, and will at last dedicate the votive offering of fasting and endurance, the most fitting and most perfect of offerings.
But these are truly noble and civilized women -- that is, the senses -- among whom virtue wishes to be honored as Leah is; while there are others who kindle the fire against the wretched mind, women without a city; for it is said that "women too further kindled fire against Moab" (Num. 21:30).
But does not each of the senses of the foolish person, when set ablaze by the objects of sense, set the mind itself on fire, pouring in a great and boundless flame with unstoppable rush and force? It is best, then, to conciliate the rank of women within the soul -- the senses -- just as also the rank of men -- the particular reasonings; for in this way...
...we will make our way through life most excellently and by the better road. This is why Isaac, who learned from no teacher but himself, prays that the lover of wisdom should receive both the intelligible and the sensible goods: for he says, "May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth" (Genesis 27:28) — which is equivalent to saying, first, may he continually water you with the intelligible and heavenly rain, not violently, so as to flood you, but gently and mildly, like dew, so as to do you good; and second, may he grant you sensible and earthly wealth, rich and abundant, drying up the opposite poverty both of the soul and of its parts.
If, however, you also examine the discourse concerning the high priest, you will find him thinking in harmony with this, and his sacred vestment made variegated out of both intelligible and sensible powers. Of these, some require a longer discussion than the present occasion allows, and must be postponed; but let us examine those at the extremities, at the head and at the feet.
On the head, then, is "a pure gold plate, bearing the impression of a seal, a consecration to the Lord" (Exodus 28:32), while at the feet, at the hem of the undergarment, are bells and flower-shapes (Exodus 28:29–30). But that seal is the idea of ideas, according to which God shaped the world — a thing bodiless, surely, and intelligible — while the flower-shapes and the bells are symbols of sensible qualities, whose criteria are sight and hearing.
And with great precision he adds that "the sound of it shall be heard when he goes in to the holy place" (Exodus 28:31), so that, as the soul enters into the intelligible and divine things that are truly holy, the senses too, benefited according to virtue, may sound in unison, and our whole constitution, like a well-tuned and populous chorus, may blend its different voices into a single harmonious song — the intelligible thoughts breathing the leading notes (for these are the leaders of this chorus), while the sensible things follow, singing along, being likened to the individual members of the chorus.
For in general, as the law says, "the necessities, the clothing, and the companionship" (Exodus 21:10) — these three — ought not to be withheld from the soul, but each of them assigned to it securely. Now the necessities are the intelligible goods, which must come to be by the reason of nature; the clothing concerns the visible adornment of life; and the companionship is the continual devotion and practice given to each of the kinds mentioned, so that the sensible things may appear to be of the same character as the invisible, intelligible ones.
The fifth gift, then, is the one that consists simply in existing itself; it is placed after the earlier ones not because it is inferior to them, but because it rises above and surpasses them all. For what could be more perfect than to be, by nature, truly and without pretense, good and worthy of blessing?
For he says, "You shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2), not merely "blessed by others." The one is reckoned among the opinions and reports of the many; the other belongs to that which is blessed in truth.
For just as being praiseworthy differs from being praised, in the direction of the better, and being blameworthy differs from being blamed, in the direction of the worse — since the one is said of things by nature, the other merely by opinion, and nature that does not lie is more secure than mere seeming — so too, being blessed by human beings, which amounts to being led into good repute through opinion, is a lesser thing than being by nature worthy of blessing, even if everyone should stay silent, which is what is called "blessed" in the oracles.
These, then, are the prizes God grants to the one who is destined to become wise. Let us next see what he apportions to others for the sake of the wise man: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you" (Genesis 12:3).
Now it is clear to everyone that this too happens in honor of the virtuous man; but it is said not only for that reason, but also because of the fitting consequence found in the facts themselves. For whoever praises the good man is himself worthy of praise, and whoever blames him is, conversely, blameworthy. And praise and blame are confirmed not so much by the power of those who speak and write them, as by the truth of the facts; so that those who introduce any falsehood into either kind would seem to be neither praising nor blaming at all.
Do you not see the ten thousand flatterers, who day and night wear away the ears of those they flatter, breaking them down — not merely nodding assent to each thing said, but stringing together long speeches, chanting them like epic verses, and often uttering prayers with their voice...
...while in their thought they are constantly cursing? What, then, would a sensible person say — is it not that those who speak in this way are enemies rather than friends, and are blaming rather than praising, even if they compose whole dramas of encomia and chant them?
This is why the vain Balaam, though he sang hymns to God that were surpassingly excellent — among them the most sacred of all songs, "God is not like a man" (Numbers 23:19) — and though he ran through countless praises of the seer, Israel, was nonetheless judged by the wise lawgiver to be impious and accursed, and was reckoned to be cursing, not blessing.
For, he says, having allied himself with the enemy for a fee, Balaam became an evil prophet of evils, laying in his soul the most grievous curses against the race beloved of God, while being compelled to prophesy through mouth and tongue the most extraordinary prayers. For God, the lover of virtue, prompted the words spoken, which were good, while his own mind, hater of virtue, gave birth to the thoughts conceived — for these were baser.
This is testified to by the oracle concerning these matters: "For God did not give Balaam the power to curse you, but he turned the curses into blessing" (Deuteronomy 23:5) — even though everything Balaam said was full of fair speech. But the overseer of what is stored away in the soul, who alone is able to see what is invisible to creation, saw, and passed the sentence of condemnation from those very things — being at once the truest witness and the incorruptible judge. Since, conversely, it is praiseworthy for one who seems, in voice, to blaspheme and accuse...
...to be, in his thought, blessing and speaking well. This, it seems, is the custom of those who bring people to their senses — tutors, teachers, parents, elders, rulers, laws. For by reproaching, and sometimes even by punishing, each of these makes the souls of those under their care better. And no one among them is anyone's enemy, but all are friends to all; and it is the work of friends who employ a genuine and unadulterated goodwill to speak freely, without harboring ill will.
Let none of what belongs to blessings and prayers, or to blasphemies and curses, be referred rather to the outward channels of speech than to the thought, from which, as from a spring, each kind of the things spoken is tested.
These, then, are the first things Moses says come to pass for the excellent man in his dealings with others, whether people wish to attach blame or praise, prayers or curses, to him. But the greatest thing comes next, when those others are silent: that no part of rational nature is left without a share in his benefit. For he says, "In you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).
And this is a most doctrinal statement. For if the mind continues free from sickness and harm, it makes healthy use of all the tribes and powers around it — those concerned with sight and hearing and all the other senses, and again those concerned with pleasures and desires, and all that transmutes the passions into good feeling.
Already, indeed, household and city and country and nations and regions of the earth have enjoyed great happiness because a single man took thought for the good and the beautiful — and most of all whoever, along with good judgment, has received from God an irresistible power as well, just as instruments serve the musician in music and every craftsman in his craft, or wood serves fire as its material.
For in truth the righteous man is a support for the human race: whatever he himself has, he brings forward into the common good, giving it ungrudgingly for the benefit of those who will use it; and whatever he does not find within himself, he asks for from God alone, who is all-wealthy. And God, opening his heavenly treasury, rains and snows down good things in abundance, so that the reservoirs of all things on earth overflow and pour forth.
These gifts God is accustomed to grant, not turning away from the suppliant word directed to him; for it is said elsewhere, when Moses made supplication: "I am gracious to them according to your word" (Numbers 14:20). And this, it seems, is equivalent in force to "In you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed." For this reason the wise Abraham, having experienced God's goodness in all things, came to believe that even if God should destroy everything else, yet if some small remnant of virtue, like a smoldering ember, should be preserved, on account of that little remnant he would have mercy on the rest as well — he who is able to raise up the fallen and rekindle the dead (Genesis 18:24ff.).
For even the smallest spark, smoldering under ash, when it is fanned by a breath and rekindled, sets ablaze a great fire; so too the smallest amount of virtue, when it is warmed by good hopes and flares up, opens the eyes of what was until then closed and blind, makes what had withered put forth new growth again, and brings what had been made barren by unfruitfulness round to a rich abundance of offspring. Thus the rare good, by the providence of God, becomes abundant...
...as it is poured out, making all things like itself. Let us pray, then, that the mind may remain, like a pillar in a house, within the soul, and that the righteous man may remain a true human being within the human race, for the healing of its sicknesses. For as long as he is healthy, we must not despair of hopes for complete deliverance, because, I think, God the Savior, having held out the most healing of all remedies — his gracious power — to his suppliant and worshiper, permits him to use it for the deliverance of those who are ailing, applying it to the wounds of the soul, which folly and injustice and the rest of the throng of vices, once sharpened, have inflicted.
The clearest example is Noah the righteous, who, when so many parts of the soul had been swallowed up in the great flood, rode the waves and swam vigorously, and stood above all the terrors, being brought safely through; and once saved, he cast down from himself great and noble roots, from which, like a plant, the race of wisdom sprang up — a race which, having borne gentle fruit for the seer, Israel, produced three fruits, the measures of an age: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For virtue is, and will be, and has been in the universe—though the untimeliness of human beings may perhaps overshadow it, the season that attends God reveals it again, in which prudence too gives birth to a male, Sarah, blossoming not according to the seasonal times of the year, but according to timeless prime and opportune moments; for it is said: "I will return and come to you at this time, in due season, and Sarah your wife shall have a son" (Gen. 18:10).
Concerning the gifts, then, which God is accustomed to grant to those who are to become perfect, and, for their sake, to others also, this has been made clear. It is said next that "Abraham went, just as the Lord had spoken to him" (Gen. 12:4).
This is what the best philosophers celebrate as the goal: to live in accordance with nature. And this comes about whenever the mind, having entered upon the path of virtue, walks in the tracks of right reason and follows God, remembering his commands and confirming them always and everywhere, in both deeds and words.
"For he went, just as the Lord had spoken to him"—and this means something like this: as God speaks—and he speaks altogether beautifully and admirably—so the man of worth does each thing, keeping the path of his life straight and blameless, so that the deeds of the wise man are no different from divine words.
Elsewhere, at any rate, he says that Abraham did "all my law" (Gen. 26:5); and law is nothing other than divine reason enjoining what must be done and forbidding what must not, as he testifies, saying that "he received a law from his words" (Deut. 33:3-4). If, then, the law is divine reason, and the good man does the law, he altogether also does the reason; so that, as I said, the words of God are the deeds of the wise man.
The goal, then, according to most sacred Moses, is to follow God, as he also says elsewhere: "You shall walk after the Lord your God" (Deut. 13:4)—not using the motion that comes through legs (for the vehicle of a human being is the earth, but of God, even if it is the whole cosmos, I do not know), but he seems to be speaking allegorically, representing the soul's conformity to divine doctrines, whose reference tends toward the honor of the cause of all things.
Intensifying the unrestrained longing for the good, he further exhorts us to cling to him: "You shall fear the Lord your God," he says, "and serve him and cling to him" (Deut. 10:20). What, then, is the glue? What is it? Surely piety and faith; for the virtues fit and unite the mind to the incorruptible nature; and indeed Abraham, because he believed, is said "to draw near to God" (Gen. 18:23).
If, then, in walking he neither grows weary, so as to give way and collapse, nor grows slack, so as to be turned aside to either side and wander, missing the middle and straight-stretched road, but, imitating good runners, completes the racecourse of life without stumbling, he will attain crowns and prizes worthy of his arrival at the goal.
Or are these not the crowns and the prizes: not to fail of the goal of one's labors, but to reach the hard-to-reach limits of wisdom? What, then, is the goal of thinking rightly? To condemn oneself and all that is created for folly; for to think that one knows nothing is the limit of knowledge, since there is only one who is wise, who is also the only God.
For this reason Moses most beautifully introduced him as both father of all things and overseer of what has come to be, saying: "God saw all the things he had made, and behold, they were very good" (Gen. 1:31); for it was possible for no one to perceive fully what had been composed, except the one who had made it.
Come forward now, you who are full of vanity and lack of education and much boastfulness, you who seem wise to yourselves and not only profess to know clearly what each thing is, but even dare, out of recklessness, to assign the causes as well—as though you had been present at the birth of the cosmos, and had observed how each thing was completed and from what, or had become counselors to the Craftsman about the things being constructed.
Then, letting go of everything else at once, know yourselves, and say clearly who you are—in respect of body, in respect of soul, in respect of sense-perception, in respect of reason, in respect of even one, the smallest, of your faculties. Declare what sight is and how you see, what hearing is and how you hear, what taste is, what touch, what smell, and how you exercise each of these, or what are the sources from which it has come about that these even exist.
Do not, then, prattle to me about moon and sun and the other things in heaven and cosmos, so far removed and differing in nature, O you empty of mind, before you have examined and come to know yourselves. Then, perhaps, you may be trusted also when you discourse about other things; but before you have made clear who you yourselves are, do not suppose that you will ever become judges of other things, or the most truthful of witnesses.
Since these things stand thus, the mind, having been made perfect, will render the end to the God who brings all to fulfillment, according to the most sacred writing; for it is a law that the end belongs to the Lord (Num. 31:28ff). When, then, does it render it? When it arrives "at the place which God had told him, on the third day" (Gen. 22:3), having passed the greater part of the intervals of time and already crossing over to the timeless nature.
For then he will sacrifice his beloved son—not a human being (for the wise man is no child-killer), but the male offspring of the virtue-bearing soul, the fruit that has blossomed forth, the fruit whose bearing he did not know how it came about, a divine growth. When this appeared, she who was thought to have conceived it tells of her ignorance of the good thing that happened, saying: "Who will announce to Abraham"—as to one presumably disbelieving concerning the rising of the self-taught race—"that Sarah is nursing a child" (Gen. 21:7)? Is it not, rather, that the child is nursed by Sarah? For that which is self-taught is nourished by no one, but is itself nourishment for others, being sufficient to teach and having no need to learn.
"For I have borne a son"—not as the Egyptian women do, in the prime of the body (Exod. 1:19), but as the Hebrew souls do, "in my old age" (Gen. 21:7), when whatever belongs to sense-perception and mortality has withered, and what belongs to intellect and immortality has grown young again—things worthy of honor and reverence.
"And I bore," having had no need of the midwife's art; for we give birth even before any human devices and skills come to our aid, without the customary co-workers, since it is God who sows and begets the noble offspring, which are fittingly rendered back to the giver, according to the law laid down for thanksgiving: "For my gifts, my presents, my offerings," he says—
"take care to bring to me" (Num. 28:2). This is the goal of the road for those who follow words and lawful commands and walk in the way that God leads; but he who yields to the hunger of pleasure and the greedy passions, whose name is Amalek—for it is interpreted "a people that licks up"—shall be cut off.
The oracles indicate that this character, lying in ambush, whenever it sees the stronger part of the soul's power having crossed over, rises up from its ambush and, as it were, "cuts off the rearguard" of the part left behind exhausted (Deut. 25:17-18). And weariness is of two kinds: one is the easily-yielding weakness of reasoning unable to bear up under the labors on behalf of virtue, and this, being found at the rear, is most easily caught; the other is the endurance of noble things, which takes up all noble things together vigorously, and does not think it right to carry anything base, however slight it may be, but throws it off as the heaviest of burdens.
For this reason the law addressed virtue too by a well-aimed name, Leah, which, when interpreted, means "toiling"; for she has rightly judged the life of the base—naturally burdensome and heavy—to be full of toil, and does not even deign to look upon it, turning her gaze toward the good alone.
Let the mind be zealous not only to follow God without slackening and with vigor, but also to travel the straight path, inclining to neither side—neither right nor left—where earthly Edom has made his lair, sometimes indulging in excess and abundance, sometimes in deficiency and want. For it is better to walk the middle road, the royal road that leads to truth (Num. 20:17), which the great and only King, God, has widened into a most beautiful dwelling-place for souls that love virtue.
For this reason, too, some of those who pursue the gentle and sociable philosophy have said that the virtues are means, positioning them on a boundary, since arrogance, full of much boastfulness, is a great evil, and the affectation of a lowly and inconspicuous bearing is easily fallen into, while what is blended moderately between the two is beneficial.
But what account is to be given of the words "Lot went with him" (Gen. 12:4) must be examined. Now Lot, when interpreted, means "turning aside"; and the mind inclines, sometimes toward the good, sometimes again turning away toward evil. And both of these are often observed in one and the same person; for there are some who are hesitant and double-minded, inclining now to one wall, now to the other, like a boat carried about by opposing winds, or swaying back and forth like a scale, unable to be firmly fixed upon one course—and not even their turning toward the better is to be praised, for it comes about by drift, not by settled judgment.
Of these Lot too is a devotee, of whom it is said that he went with the lover of wisdom. It would have been good, having begun to accompany that man, to unlearn ignorance and never run back to it again. But in fact he does not join him for the sake of being made better by imitating the superior one, but in order to provide him too with counter-pulls and diversions and occasions for slipping from that point.
And here is the proof: the one, relapsing into his old sickness, will go off, taken captive by the enemies within the soul; but the other, having guarded himself against his ambushes and plots, will by every means be separated from him. And this separation he will not accomplish at once, but only afterward. For now, since he is only just beginning divine contemplation, his perceptions are unsteady and wavering; but when they have become fixed and established more firmly, he will be able to sever the alluring and flattering enemy—implacable and hard to catch by nature—from himself.
Here is the proof: the one who relapses into the old sickness will go off, taken captive by the enemies within the soul, while the one who guards against its ambush-plots by every device will be resettled apart from it. But this resettlement he will effect later, not yet. For now, since he has only just begun divine contemplation, its truths sway and totter for him; but when they have become fixed and settled more firmly, he will be able to divorce what entices and flatters him, as an enemy irreconcilable and by nature hard to capture.
For this is the thing which, being hard to rub off, clings to the soul, hindering it from running swiftly toward virtue; this same thing followed us when we were leaving Egypt — the whole region of the body — eager, according to the instructions of the prophet Moses' word, to unlearn the passions; it took hold of our zeal for the exodus, and out of envy for the speed of our departure, it worked delays into it.
For it is said: "and a great mixed multitude went up with them, and sheep and cattle and very many flocks" (Exod. 12:38). This "mixed multitude," if the truth must be told, was the beastlike and irrational opinions of the soul. And most beautifully and aptly he calls the soul of the base person "mixed"; for it is compounded and heaped together, truly a mixture of many conflicting opinions, one in number but a myriad in its versatility.
That is why "great" is added to "mixed." For the one who looks to one goal only is simple, unmixed, and truly smooth; but the one who sets before himself many ends of life is great, mixed, and in truth hairy. For this reason the oracles present Jacob, the practicer of noble things, as smooth, and Esau, the practicer of the most shameful things, as hairy (Gen. 27:11).
On account of this mixed and hairy crowd, compounded of jumbled and confused opinions, the mind — though able to run swiftly, when it was fleeing Egypt, the region of the body, and to take possession of virtue's inheritance in three days by a threefold light: memory of things past, clear perception of things present, and hope for things to come — instead wears away a span of forty years, going around in a circle and wandering because of its versatility, when what was needed was the direct route, which is the most effective.
This is the one who delights not merely in a few forms of desire, but insists on leaving out nothing whatsoever, so that he may pursue, through and through, the entire genus in which every species is comprised. For it is said, "the mixed multitude among them desired a desire" — of the genus itself, not of some one species — "and sitting down they wept" (Num. 11:4). For the understanding, growing feeble, comprehends this, and when it cannot obtain what it craves, it weeps and groans — although it ought rather to rejoice at failing to attain passions and sicknesses, and to consider the lack and absence of them great good fortune.
But indeed even the dancers of virtue's chorus are accustomed to writhe and weep, either lamenting the misfortunes of the foolish because of their natural sociability and love of humanity, or out of sheer overflowing joy. And this joy arises whenever a sudden downpour of blessings, massed together and never even expected, comes flooding down all at once. It is from this, I think, that the poetic phrase was spoken: "she laughed through tears."
For joy, the best of the good emotions, falling upon the soul unexpectedly, makes it greater than it was before, so that the body can no longer contain its bulk, but, being pressed and squeezed, drips forth streams which are customarily called tears, concerning which it is said in the hymns: "you will feed us with the bread of tears" (Ps. 79:6) and "my tears have become my bread day and night" (Ps. 41:4). For the visible tears of inward and serious laughter are food for the understanding, whenever the divine longing, melting within, turns the created being's lament into a song of hymn to the Uncreated.
Some, then, cast off this mixed and hairy crowd and wall themselves off from it, delighting only in the God-loving race; but others form a partnership with it too, thinking it right to steer their own life as a mediator, setting it on the border between human and divine virtues, so as to touch both — both the virtues that are real and those that are merely apparent.
The character who lives by this second doctrine is the one customarily named Joseph, with whom, when he is about to bury his father, there go "all the servants of Pharaoh, and the elders of his house, and all the elders of Egypt, and all the household of Joseph, and his brothers, and all his father's house" (Gen. 50:7-8).
You see that this political character is stationed midway between Pharaoh and his father's house, so that he may lay equal hold both on the bodily things, that is, Egypt, and on the things of the soul, which are treasured up in his father's house. For whenever he says "I belong to God" (Gen. 50:19) and the other things akin to this, he abides by the customs of his father's house; but whenever he mounts "the second chariot" (Gen. 41:43) of the mind that thinks itself to reign, Pharaoh, he sets up again the delusion of Egypt.
More wretched, however, is the one thought more glorious — the king who rides in the leading chariot; for not to excel in noble things is the most conspicuous disgrace, so that carrying off second prize in such matters is the lighter evil.
You could learn his wavering between both sides also from the oaths he makes, swearing at one time "by the health of Pharaoh" (Gen. 42:16), and at another time, conversely, not by the health of Pharaoh (Gen. 42:15). But the oath that contains the negation would be a decree of his father's house, which is ever bent on putting the passion to death and wishing it dead, while the other belongs to Egypt, to which it is dear that this passion be kept alive.
That is why, although so great a multitude went up together with him, Scripture did not call it a "mixed crowd" — because to the one who sees to the utmost degree and loves virtue, everything that is not virtue or virtue's work seems mingled and confused together, whereas to the one who is still creeping along the ground,
the prizes of earth in themselves are reckoned worthy of love and honor. The lover of practical wisdom, as I said, will wall himself off from the one who, like a drone, is recognized as spoiling their useful labors and therefore tags along; but he will welcome those who follow for the sake of imitation, out of zeal for noble things, allotting to them their fitting portions. "Of the men who went with me," he says, "Eshcol, Aner, Mamre — these shall take a portion" (Gen. 14:24); by these he means characters who are lovers of contemplation.
For Eshcol bears a name that symbolizes fire, a token of good natural endowment, since a good nature is bold and fiery and takes firm hold of whatever it grasps; Aner belongs to the lover of contemplation, for it is translated "eyes," since the eyes of the soul also are opened wide by good cheer. The inheritance of both of these is the contemplative life, called Mamre, which by translation is named "from vision." And for the contemplative, seeing is fitting and most proper to him.
Whenever the mind, employing these as trainers, leaves nothing lacking for its exercise, it accompanies and runs together with perfect practical wisdom, neither exceeding it nor being exceeded, but walking in step with it, weighed exactly equal. This is shown by the oracle, where it is clearly said that the two of them went and came up together "to the place which God had told him of" (Gen. 22:3).
A surpassing equality of virtues indeed, when labor competes with good natural condition, and skill with self-taught nature, and both prove able to carry off equal prizes of virtue — just as if painting and sculpture no longer, as now, produced only motionless and lifeless works, but had the power to make the things painted and molded move and live; for then these arts, which of old were merely imitative of nature's works, would seem now to have themselves become natures.
And he who has been lifted up so far aloft on high will no longer allow any part of his soul to linger below among mortal things, but will draw them all along with him, as though suspended from a single cord. That is why an oracle of this sort was given to the sage: "Go up to your Lord, you and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel" (Exod. 24:1).
This is something like: "Go up, O soul, to the vision of Being, harmoniously, rationally, willingly, fearlessly, lovingly, in the holy and perfect numbers of the sevenfold multiplied tenfold." For Aaron is said in the laws to be the prophet of Moses — spoken word prophesying on behalf of the understanding; Nadab is translated "willing," one who honors the divine not out of compulsion; and Abihu, "my father": this is the one who needs God to govern him not as a master, through folly, but rather as a father, through wisdom.
These are the bodyguard powers of the mind worthy to reign, whose lawful part it is to escort the king, accompanying him. But indeed it is a fearful thing for a soul to go up to the vision of Being by itself, not knowing the way, lifted up by ignorance together with boldness — and great are the falls that come from lack of knowledge joined with much rashness —
and this is why Moses prays to have God himself as guide upon the road that leads to him; for he says, "If you yourself do not go with me, do not bring me up from here" (Exod. 33:15); because every motion without the divine is harmful, and it is better to remain here below, wandering through mortal life like the great mass of humankind, than to lift oneself up toward heaven and be overturned by arrogance — just as happened to countless sophists, who supposed wisdom to be the persuasive invention of arguments, and not the truest conviction concerning realities.
Perhaps also something like this is meant: do not lift me aloft, granting me wealth or reputation or honors or offices or any of the other so-called strokes of good fortune, unless you yourself intend to come along with me; for these things often bring their possessors either the greatest benefit or the greatest harm — benefit, whenever God leads the way for the judgment; harm, whenever the opposite is the case; for to countless people the so-called goods, which are not truly good, have become the cause of irreparable evils.
But the one who follows God necessarily has as fellow travelers God's attendant words, which it is customary to call angels; it is said, at any rate, that "Abraham went along with them, escorting them on their way" (Gen. 18:16). O most beautiful reciprocity, by which the one escorting was himself escorted, giving back exactly what he received — not one thing in exchange for another, but that very same thing, ready for mutual exchange.
For as long as he is not yet made perfect, he uses the divine word as guide of the road; for there is an oracle: "Behold, I send my angel before your face, to guard you on the way, that he may bring you into the land which I have prepared for you. Give heed to him and listen to him; do not disobey him, for he will not draw back from you, for my name is upon him" (Exod. 23:20-21).
But when he arrives at the height of knowledge, running with full effort, he will match the pace of the one who formerly led the way; for thus both will become followers of God, the leader of all, with no one holding a different opinion still accompanying them, but even Lot — who bent aside the soul that was capable of growing upright and unbending — being separated off.
"Now Abraham," Moses says, "was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran" (Gen. 12:4). About the number seventy-five - for it holds a meaning in harmony with what has already been said - we will speak precisely later. But first let us investigate what Haran is, and what it means to emigrate from that region.
No one who has encountered the Laws is likely to be ignorant that Abraham first left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran, and then, when his father died there, he moved on from that place too, so that he had already left two locations. What, then, must we say?
The Chaldeans are held to have worked out astronomy and the casting of horoscopes with more thoroughness and distinction than other peoples, fitting earthly things to celestial ones and heavenly things to those on earth, and displaying, as if through the music of reasoned discourse, the most harmonious symphony of the universe, through the fellowship and sympathy of its parts with one another - parts separated in place but not divided in kinship.
These men supposed that this visible universe was the only thing among the things that exist, either being itself god, or containing god within itself as the soul of the whole; and by fashioning fate and necessity into gods they filled human life with much impiety, teaching that apart from visible things nothing whatsoever is the cause of anything, but that the revolutions of the sun and moon and the other stars dispense good things and their opposites to each of the things that exist.
Moses, however, seems to endorse the fellowship and sympathy of the universe's parts with one another, in declaring that the world is one and created - for since it has come into being and is one, it is reasonable that the elemental substances underlying all the things brought to completion should be the same throughout its parts, just as happens with unified bodies whose members are interlinked -
but he disagrees with them about the belief regarding God: for neither the world nor the soul of the world is the first God, nor are the stars or their choral dances the most venerable causes of what befalls human beings; rather, this universe is held together by invisible powers, which the Craftsman stretched out from the farthest bounds of earth to the ends of heaven, taking care that what had been well bound should not be loosed - for the powers of the universe are unbreakable bonds.
Therefore, if somewhere in the legislation it says, "God is above in heaven and below on earth" (Deut. 4:39), let no one suppose this is said of him with respect to his being - for it is right that Being should contain, not be contained - but of his power, by which he established, arranged, and set the universe in order.
This power is, properly speaking, goodness itself: it has driven away from itself envy, which hates virtue and hates beauty, and it generates the gracious gifts by which it brought what did not exist into being and made it manifest. For Being, when it is merely imagined through opinion, in truth is nowhere to be found, so that the most truthful of oracles is the one in which it is said, "Here am I," pointed to as though it could be pointed to, seen as though it could be seen, "before you" (Exod. 17:6); for he is before all that has come into being, standing outside it and involved with none
of the things that come after him. Having said this, in order to overturn the Chaldean opinion, he thinks it necessary to turn about and call back to the truth those whose minds still Chaldaize, beginning his teaching thus: "Why," he says, "you remarkable people, do you suddenly rise so high from the earth and go swimming into the heights, overreaching the air and walking the upper sky, as though you could accurately track the motions of the sun, the revolutions of the moon, and the harmonious, celebrated dances of the other stars? These things are greater than your conceptions can grasp, since they have been allotted a more blessed and more divine portion.
"Come down, then, from heaven, and once you have come down, do not again go examining the forms of earth and sea and rivers, of plants and animals, but investigate only yourselves and your own nature, and do not settle anywhere else rather than in yourselves. For by observing the affairs of your own household - what rules in it, what obeys, what is ensouled, what is soulless, what is rational, what is irrational, what is immortal, what is mortal, what is better, what is worse - you will immediately gain clear knowledge of God and his works.
"For you will reason that just as there is mind in you, so there is mind in the universe as a whole; and just as your mind, having taken up rule and mastery over what belongs to you, has rendered each of your parts obedient to itself, so too the mind that has clothed itself in dominion over the whole steers the world by sovereign law and justice, caring not only for the more distinguished things
"but also for those that seem less conspicuous. So migrate from your meddling curiosity about the heavens and dwell, as I said, in yourselves - leaving behind the land of the Chaldeans, that is, opinion, and moving instead to Haran, the region of sense-perception, which is the bodily house of the mind.
"For Haran is translated 'cavern,' and caverns are symbols of the openings of sense-perception; for in a sense the eyes are the openings and burrows of sight, the ears of hearing, the nostrils of smells, the throat of taste, and the whole structure of the body is the burrow of touch.
"Stay a while longer with these faculties, then, settle down, take your leisure, and determine as precisely as you can the nature of each; and once you have learned what is good and what is worse in each, flee the one and choose the other instead. But when you have examined your own household with full precision and have illuminated the meaning that each of its parts holds, rouse yourselves and seek the migration from this place - a migration that proclaims not death but immortality.
"Of this migration you will observe clear evidence even while still confined within your bodily and perceptible burrows: at times in deep sleep - for when the mind withdraws and slips away from the senses and everything else pertaining to the body, it begins to converse with itself, gazing upon truth as in a mirror, and having washed away everything it had impressed upon itself from sense-perceived images, it becomes inspired with the most truthful divinations of the future through dreams -
"and at times even while waking; for when the mind is seized and led by one of the contemplations of philosophy, it follows that contemplation and, no doubt, forgets everything else that belongs to the bodily mass. And if the senses stand in the way of a precise vision of the intelligible, those who love to contemplate take care to strip away their interference: they close their eyes, stop up their ears, and see fit to check the impulses of the other senses as well, spending their time in solitude and darkness, so that the eye of the soul, to which God gave the power to see intelligible things, may not be overshadowed by anything perceptible.
"Having learned in this way what it means to leave the mortal behind, you will also be instructed in true beliefs about the Uncreated - unless you fail to recognize that your own mind, once it has stripped off body, sense-perception, and speech, is able to see the things that are in their nakedness apart from these; and that the mind of the whole, God, stands outside all of nature, containing it, not contained by it, and has gone beyond it not merely in conception, as a human mind does, but in his very essence, as befits God.
"For our mind has not fashioned the body but is the work of another; and so it is contained, as in a vessel, by the body. But the mind of the whole has begotten the whole universe, and the maker is greater than the thing made; so that it could not be contained by what is inferior to it - not to mention that it would not be fitting for a father to be contained in his son, though a son may grow through the care of his father.
"Thus, moving forward little by little, the mind will arrive at the Father of piety and holiness, first departing from the casting of horoscopes, which had persuaded it to suppose that the world is the first God rather than a creation of the first God, and that the courses and motions of the stars are the causes of misfortune and, conversely, of happiness for human beings.
"Then, coming to the examination of itself, and philosophizing about its own household - about body, about sense-perception, about speech - and learning, in the poet's words, that 'both good and evil are wrought within one's own halls,' the mind next cuts a path from itself and, through this path, hopes to comprehend the Father of the universe, hard to conjecture and hard to trace; and having come to know itself precisely, it will perhaps come to know God too, no longer remaining in Haran, among the instruments of sense-perception, but turned back upon itself. For it is impossible, while still moving in a manner governed by the senses rather than the intellect, to arrive at the
"contemplation of that which is. For this reason the character stationed in the best rank before God, whose name is Samuel, does not teach Saul the rules of kingship while he is still lingering among the baggage, but only once he has drawn him out from there. For someone inquires whether the man is still coming here, and the oracle answers: 'Behold, he himself is hidden among the baggage.'"
"What, then, does it befit the one who hears this - being by nature suited to instruction - to do, except to draw him out with urgency? For 'running,' it says, 'he took him from there' (1 Kings 10:22-23), because while he lingered among the vessels of the soul, body and sense-perception, he was not fit to hear the doctrines and laws of the kingdom - and we say that kingship is wisdom, since the wise man too is a king - but once he had migrated away, when the mist had scattered, he was about to see keenly. It is reasonable, then, that the companion of knowledge should think it necessary to leave behind the country of sense-perception too, whose name is Haran."
"He leaves it at the age of seventy-five years; and this number stands at the boundary between the perceptible and the intelligible nature, between the older and the younger, and further between the perishable and the imperishable.
"For the number seventy stands for a reckoning that is intelligible, older, and imperishable, while the number five stands for one that is perceptible and younger, being equal in count to the senses. By this number the ascetic still in training is also assessed, since he has not yet been able to carry off the perfect victory prizes; for it is said that 'all the souls from Jacob were seventy-five' (Exod. 1:5)."
For these are the souls of one who competes and does not corrupt the truly sacred contest for the acquisition of virtue - offspring generated before their bodies, but not yet cut free of the irrational, still dragging along the venomous crowd of sense-perception. For Jacob is the name of one who wrestles, gets covered in dust, and trips up his opponent by the heel - not of one who has already won.
But when he seems capable of seeing God and is renamed Israel, he will use only the seventieth word, having excised the pentad of the senses; for it is said, "your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy souls" (Deut. 10:22). This is the number familiar to Moses the wise: those chosen from the whole multitude for excellence turn out to number seventy, and all of them elders, not in age but in understanding and counsel, in judgment and zeal for ancient ways.
This number is consecrated and offered to God whenever the perfect fruits of the soul are gathered in and brought together; for at the Feast of Tabernacles, apart from the other offerings, it is prescribed to bring seventy calves as a whole burnt sacrifice (Num. 29:13ff.). According to the seventieth word the bowls of the rulers, too, are fashioned—for each weighs seventy shekels (Num. 7:13ff.)—since the things that are covenantal, reconciling, and truly dear to the soul possess, as it were, a drawing power: the seventieth and holy word, which Egypt—that nature which hates virtue and loves passion—is represented as mourning; for among them the mourning is reckoned at seventy days
(Gen. 50:3). This number, then, as I have said, is familiar to Moses; but the number of the five senses belongs to him who embraces both the body and external things, whom it is customary to call Joseph. So great is the care he takes of them that his full brother, who is the offspring of sense-perception—for he scarcely recognizes those who share only his father—he presents with five changes of festal robes (Gen. 45:22), considering the senses worthy of distinguished adornment and honor.
For the whole of Egypt he even writes laws, that they should honor the senses and bring them tributes and taxes on every produce as though to kings; for he commands that the grain be taxed a fifth (Gen. 47:24), which means: to store up abundant materials and food, without stint, for the five senses, so that each, insatiably filled with its own proper objects, may live in luxury and, weighing down the mind with what is piled upon it, may submerge it; for by the feastings of the senses the understanding is brought to famine, just as, conversely, by fastings it is brought to gladness.
Do you not see that the five daughters of Zelophehad also, whom those who read allegorically say are the senses, were born of the tribe of Manasseh, who is the son of Joseph—older in time, but weaker in power? And rightly so: for he is named from forgetfulness, a thing equivalent in force to remembrance. Now recollection holds second place after memory, whose namesake is Ephraim, who is interpreted as meaning "fruit-bearing"; and the fairest and most nourishing fruit of the soul is what is unforgettable in one's memories.
At any rate the maidens say, in words that fit their own case, "our father died"—but death is the forgetting of remembrance—"and he died not for his own sin"—most beautifully said; for forgetfulness is not a voluntary affection, but one of those things not in our power, coming upon us from outside—"but he had no sons" (Num. 27:3), "but daughters," since the faculty of memory, as being by nature one that rouses itself, begets males, while the faculty that forgets, making use as it were of the sleep of reasoning, bears females; for it is irrational, and the senses, being daughters of the irrational part of the soul, are female.
But if one has run past sense-perception swiftly, and has followed Moses, yet has not yet been able to keep pace with him, he will use the mixed and blended number, the seventy-fifth, which is a symbol of the sensible and the intelligible nature, both blended together into the generation of one thing free from reproach.
I admire greatly also the patient endurance of Rebekah, when she counsels the man made perfect, who has put down the roughness of his passions and vices, to flee at that time to Haran; for she says: "Now therefore, my child, listen to my voice, and rise up and flee to Laban my brother, in Haran, and dwell with him some days, until your brother's fury and anger turn away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him"
(Gen. 27:43–45). Most beautifully has she called the road toward the senses a flight; for the mind truly becomes a runaway when, abandoning what belongs properly to it, the intelligible, it turns toward the opposite order, that of the sensible. Yet there are times when even fleeing is useful, when one does it not out of hatred toward the better, but for the sake of not being plotted against by the worse. What, then, is the counsel of this patient endurance?
Most admirable and worth fighting for: if ever, she says, you see the passion of anger and fury stirred up and grown savage within yourself or in someone else—the passion that irrational and untamed nature nurtures like an animal—do not sharpen it further and turn it wild, for perhaps it will bite incurably; rather, cooling its heat and its excessive inflammation, tame it; for should it become tame and gentle to the hand, it would do the least harm. What, then, is the manner of taming and gentling it?
Having changed and refashioned yourself, so far as appearances go, follow at first whatever it wishes, and, opposing it in nothing, agree to love and hate the same things; for in this way it will be won over. And once it has been soothed, you will lay aside the pretense, and, no longer expecting to suffer any harm from it, you will return at ease to the care of your own affairs.
For this reason Haran is represented as full of livestock, and inhabited by keepers of cattle; for what place could be more suited to irrational nature, and to those who have taken up its care and oversight, than the senses within us?
At any rate, when the man in training asks, "Where are you from?", the shepherds answer truthfully, "From Haran" (Gen. 29:4); for the irrational powers come from sense-perception just as the rational ones come from the understanding. And when he further asks whether they know Laban, they say, reasonably, that they know him (Gen. 29:5); for sense-perception, it is thought, recognizes color and every quality, and Laban is a symbol of colors and qualities.
And he himself, once he has at last been made perfect, will leave the house of the senses, and will settle that of the soul as of the soul, which even while he is still amid his labors and exercises he sketches out in advance; for he says, "When shall I too make a house for myself?" (Gen. 30:30)—that is, when, having risen above the sensible things and the senses, shall I dwell with mind and understanding, nourished together and living together with things contemplated by reason, as do those souls that seek out hidden things—whom it is customary to call midwives?
For these too make for themselves proper coverings and safeguards, souls that love virtue; and the most secure building of all was the fear of God for those who made it their unbreakable guard and wall. "For because," it says, "the midwives feared God, they made houses for themselves" (Exod. 1:21).
So then, departing from the region of Haran, the mind is said "to journey through the land as far as the place of Shechem, to the lofty oak" (Gen. 12:6). Let us consider what it is to journey through: the love of learning is by nature a thing that seeks and inquires, that walks everywhere without hesitation, peers in on every side, and holds it right to leave nothing among the things that exist, whether bodies or affairs, unexamined. For it is by nature extraordinarily greedy for sights and sounds, so that it is not content with what is native to it, but longs also for what is foreign and settled at the farthest remove.
At any rate people say it is absurd that merchants and traders, for the sake of paltry gains, should cross the seas and travel round the whole inhabited world, letting nothing stand in their way—not summer, not winter, not violent winds, not contrary ones, not youth, not old age, not bodily illness, not the company of friends, not the ineffable pleasures found in wife and children and other kin, not the enjoyment of homeland and civic affection, not the secure use of money and property and other abundance, not anything else at all, great or small—
while for the sake of the fairest and most fought-for thing, and the one most proper to the human race alone—wisdom—they should not cross every sea and visit every corner of the earth, eagerly inquiring whether there is anywhere something good to be seen, and tracking it down with all zeal and eagerness, until it becomes possible to arrive at the enjoyment of the things sought and longed for.
Journey, then, O soul, through the human being too, if you wish, bringing each of the things that belong to him to judgment: what, for instance, is the body, and what does it do or undergo that cooperates with the understanding; what is sense-perception, and in what way does it benefit the ruling mind; what is reason, and by becoming the interpreter of what things does it contribute to nobility of character; what is pleasure and what is desire; what are grief and fear, and what is the remedy for these, by which one who has been caught may easily slip free, or else not be captured by them at all; what is folly, what is licentiousness, what is injustice; what is the multitude of other diseases that destructive vice by nature brings forth, and what turns them aside; and, on the contrary side, what is justice or prudence or self-control, courage, good counsel, virtue entire and well-being altogether, and in what way each of these is wont to be attained.
Journey, then, also through the greatest and most perfect human being, this world, and examine its parts, how they are separated by places yet united by powers, and what is this invisible bond of harmony and union in all things. Yet if, upon examining, you do not easily grasp what you seek, persist without growing weary; for these things are not to be seized in a holiday mood, but are found only with much great labor.
For this reason the lover of learning has taken hold of the place Shechem, whose name, translated, means "shoulder," a symbol of labor, since it is these parts that are accustomed to bear burdens, as he himself elsewhere recalls, saying of a certain athlete in this manner: "he bowed his shoulder to labor, and became a man who tills the soil" (Gen. 49:15).
So never, O understanding, grow soft and give way, but even if something seems hard to make out, open the eye that sees within you, peer inside, and gaze upon what exists with greater exactness, and never close your eyes, whether willingly or unwillingly; for sleep is blind, as waking is sharp-sighted. Be content to gain, through the continuity of your effort, a clear and undistorted impression of the things sought.
Do you not see that he says a lofty oak was planted at Shechem too, hinting at the unyielding and unbending, the firm and unbreakable labor of education? This the man who is to become perfect must necessarily make use of, so that the tribunal of the soul, named Dinah—for the name is interpreted as "judgment"—may not be seized by the labor that toils in the opposite direction, the labor that plots against prudence.
For the one after whom this place, Shechem, is named, being the son of Hamor—a nature that is irrational, for Hamor means "ass"—practiced folly, and, raised in shamelessness and boldness, this thoroughly polluted creature attempted to defile and corrupt the tribunals of the understanding, had not the hearers and disciples of prudence, Simeon and Levi, quickly fenced round what belonged to them and gone out securely against him, cutting him down while he was still in the midst of that labor that loves pleasure and loves passion and is uncircumcised; for there being an oracle that no daughter of him who sees, that is, Israel, should ever become a prostitute (Deut. 23:17), these men, having seized the virgin soul, hoped to escape notice (Gen. 34).
For it is not the case that there is a want of helpers for those who are treacherously wronged; but even if some suppose there is, they will only suppose it, and will be shown false in their opinion by the very outcome. For there is, there truly is, Justice, who hates evil, is implacable, and stands as an unyielding champion of those who are wronged, bringing to nothing the aims of those who would shame virtue; and when these have fallen, the soul that seemed to have been shamed changes back into a virgin—I say "seemed," because it was never in truth corrupted; for none of the things that happen against one's will is truly an affection of the one who suffers it, just as the deed done is not truly the act of one who does wrong unintentionally.

======== Who is the Heir of Divine Things ========

In the treatise before this one we went through the subject of rewards as precisely as we could. Now our task is to inquire who the heir of divine things is.
For when the wise man heard the oracle proclaimed to him — "Your reward will be very great" — he asks, saying: "Master, what will you give me? I am departing childless. This son of Masek, my house-born slave, is Damascus Eliezer," and "since you have given me no offspring, my house-born slave will be my heir" (Genesis 15:1-3).
Now who would not have been struck dumb and speechless at the majesty and greatness of the one uttering the oracle, if not from fear then at least from overwhelming joy? For excessive griefs silence the mouth, and so too do excessive joys.
That is why Moses too confesses that he became slow of speech and heavy of tongue from the moment God began to converse with him (Exodus 4:10). And the prophet's testimony is truthful, for it is likely that at that time the organ of the voice was held in check, while the reasoning that follows the course of thought, unrestrained in its rush, was philosophizing in an unbroken succession of beauties — of thoughts, not of words — with a swift and lofty power.
But wonderful too are courage and outspokenness exercised, when it is fitting, toward one's betters, so that even the comic line seems to be spoken more truly than comically: "If the slave learns to keep silent about everything, he will turn out wicked; give him a share of frank speech." When, then, does a household servant properly exercise frank speech toward his master?
Is it not when he is conscious of no wrong done by himself, and does and says everything on behalf of the one who owns him?
When, then, is it fitting for even God's servant to speak freely before the one who is ruler and master both of himself and of the universe, except when he is pure of transgressions and judges from his own conscience that he is devoted to his master — enjoying greater joy at having become a servant of God than if he had reigned over the whole human race, having fastened upon himself, without a struggle, mastery over both land and sea?
The devoted services and ministrations of Abraham toward his master are set forth by the closing words of the oracle delivered to his son: "I will give to you and to your seed all this land, and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because Abraham your father obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts and my commandments and my ordinances and my statutes" (Genesis 26:3-5).
It is the greatest praise to neglect nothing that one's master commands, but to strive tirelessly and diligently, with a favorable disposition, to accomplish everything beyond one's power.
There are, then, those for whom it is fitting to listen rather than to speak — those of whom it is said, "Be silent and" (Deuteronomy 27:9) — an altogether excellent precept. For ignorance is most bold and most talkative, and its first remedy is quiet, and its second is attention to those things worth hearing that are put forward.
Yet let no one suppose that this alone is signified by "be silent and listen," but something else, more powerful still: for it counsels not merely to be silent with the tongue and to listen with the ears, but for the soul as well to undergo both of these.
For many who have come to hear someone have not come with their minds present, but wander outside and go through countless matters about countless things with themselves — family affairs, foreign affairs, private affairs, public affairs — of which it would have been fitting not to be mindful at the present time, numbering through virtually everything in succession, and because of the great din within themselves they are unable to listen to the speaker; for he speaks as though not to living beings but to lifeless statues, which have ears but no hearing within them.
If, then, the mind deigns to consort with none of the things that visit it from outside or are stored up within, but achieving calm and stillness stretches itself out toward the speaker, having fallen silent in accordance with the precept of Moses, it will be able to listen with the whole of its attention; otherwise it will not have the strength to do so.
For the ignorant, then, quiet is advantageous, but for those who reach after knowledge and are at the same time devoted to their master, frank speech is a most necessary possession. It is said, at any rate, in the Exodus: "The Lord will fight for you, and you shall be silent," and immediately following this an oracle is set down: "And the Lord said to Moses, Why do you cry out to me?" (Exodus 14:14-15) — as though those who have nothing worth hearing to say ought to be silent, while those who have entrusted themselves to a divine love of wisdom ought to speak, and not merely speak with quietness, but cry aloud with a still greater shout, not with mouth and tongue, by which speech makes the air take a spherical shape perceptible to hearing, but with the all-musical and most loud-voiced instrument of the soul, of which no mortal at all is a hearer, but only the one who is unborn and imperishable.
For only a mind capable of intelligible things can grasp the well-tuned and harmonious melody of intelligible harmony, and not one of those confused among things of sense-perception can do so. When the whole instrument of the understanding sounds forth in concord through the octave or the double octave, the hearer, as it were, inquires — though in truth not inquiring, for all things are known to God — "Why do you cry out to me?" Is it in supplication to avert something, or in thanksgiving for a share in good things, or both together?
The one who seemed slow of speech and heavy of tongue and without reason is found to be so talkative that in one place he is represented not merely speaking but crying out, while elsewhere he uses an unceasing and unbroken torrent of words.
For it says, "Moses was speaking, and God was answering him with a voice" (Exodus 19:19) — he did not speak to completion, but kept speaking in an extended, drawn-out manner, and God did not teach to completion, but answered continuously and without pause. And wherever there is an answer, there is, in every case, a question.
Now each person asks what he does not know, judging it worthwhile to learn, and knowing that the most beneficial task for the attainment of knowledge is to seek, to ask, to inquire — to suppose that one knows nothing, and to think that one has grasped nothing firmly.
The wise, then, employ God as their guide and teacher, while those less complete employ the wise man. That is why they say, "You speak to us, and do not let God speak to us, lest we die" (Exodus 20:19). But the man of true worth uses such frank speech that he not only speaks and cries out, but even now cries out against, taking courage from genuine faith and from a sincere passion.
For the words "If you will forgive them their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out of your book which you have written" (Exodus 32:32), and "Did I conceive all this people, or did I give birth to them, that you say to me, Take them into your bosom as a nurse carries a suckling child?" (Numbers 11:12), and "From where am I to get meat to give to all this people, since they weep before me? Shall sheep and cattle be slaughtered, or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together, and will that be enough?" (Numbers 11:13, 22), and "Lord, why have you afflicted this people? And why have you sent me, and from the time I went before Pharaoh to speak in your name he has afflicted the people, and you have not delivered your people" (Exodus 5:22-23) — these words and others like them, one would have feared to speak even to one of the particular kings of this world; but he took courage to declare them even to God.
This, then, was the culmination not simply of daring but of a noble courage in him, because all the wise are friends of God, and above all according to the most sacred lawgiver — and frank speech is akin to friendship, since toward whom would one speak freely if not toward one's own friend? Most beautifully, then, in the oracles Moses is celebrated as a friend (Exodus 33:11), so that whatever bold and hazardous things he goes through may be seen to proceed from friendship rather than from self-will. For boldness belongs to the self-willed man, but courage is proper to a friend.
But observe again that his boldness is tempered with reverence. For the words "What will you give me?" (Genesis 15:2) show boldness, while "Master" shows reverence. Though he is accustomed to use above all two forms of address for the Cause — "God" and "Lord" — he has now taken up neither, but rather that of "Master," a term at once most reverent and most strictly proper; and yet these — Lord and Master — are said to be synonyms.
But even if the underlying reality is one and the same, the names differ in their conception. "Lord" is spoken from "authority" (kuros), which is a firm and settled thing, in opposition to what is unstable and without authority; "Master" (despotes) is from "bond" (desmos), from which, I think, comes fear — so that the master is a lord, and, as it were, a lord to be feared, one who has not only authority and power fastened over all things, but is also capable of instilling awe and fear — and perhaps too because he is the bond of the universe, holding it together indissolubly and binding tight things that are of themselves dissoluble.
The one, then, who says "Master, what will you give me?" is in effect saying this: I do not fail to know your surpassing power; I understand the fearsomeness of your dominion; in fear and trembling I approach you, and yet again I take courage.
For you yourself have decreed that I should not be afraid; you yourself gave me a tongue of instruction, that I might know when it is necessary to speak; you yourself loosed my mouth that had been sewn shut; you yourself, having opened it further, gave it articulate speech; you yourself have put together the things that must be said, confirming that oracle: "I will open your mouth, and instruct you in what you are to say" (Exodus 4:12).
For it was you who ordained that I should not be afraid; it was you who gave me the tongue of instruction, to know when I must speak; it was you who loosed my sewn-shut mouth; it was you who, opening it further, gave it articulate speech; it was you who put together the very things I must say, confirming that oracle: "I will open your mouth, and I will instruct you in what you are to say" (Exodus 4:12).
For who was I, that you should give me a share of reason, that you should promise me a wage more perfect than any good of grace and gift? Am I not an exile from my homeland? Have I not been driven out from my kinship? Have I not been made a stranger to my father's house? Do not all call me a banished man and a fugitive, solitary and without honor?
But you, Master, are my homeland to me, you are my kinship, you are my father's hearth, you are my honor, my freedom of speech, the great, celebrated, and unstealable wealth.
Why then should I not be bold to say what I think? Why should I not ask, deeming myself worthy to learn something more? But I who say I am bold confess again that I am afraid and struck with terror, and the fear and the boldness in me do not wage an unmixed war, as someone might perhaps suppose, but rather form a blended harmony. So I feast insatiably on the mixture, which has persuaded me neither to speak freely without caution nor to be cautious without freedom of speech.
For I have learned to measure my own nothingness and to look all around at the surpassing heights of your benefactions; and whenever I perceive myself to be "earth and ashes" and whatever is more contemptible still, then I take courage to approach you, having become humble, cast down into dust, reduced, as far as concerns my own substance, to the very verge of seeming not even to exist. And this passion of my soul Moses the overseer inscribed as on a monument, in my own memorial.
For he says: "Abraham drew near and said: now I have begun to speak to the Lord, though I am earth and ashes" (Genesis 18:27), since that is the moment for a created thing to approach its Maker, when it has come to know its own nothingness. And the words "what will you give me?" are the voice not of one at a loss, but rather of one giving thanks for the multitude and greatness of the good things he has enjoyed.
"What will you give me?" For is there still something greater left to expect? Boundless, O lover of giving, are your graces, without limit, having neither boundary nor end, welling up like springs with more than is ever drawn from them.
But it is worth considering not only the ever-flooding torrent of your benefactions, but also the fields that we irrigate with them; for if the stream should be poured out to excess, the plain, instead of fruit-bearing earth, will become a marsh and a swamp. What I need, then, for fruitfulness, is an inflow that is measured, not unmeasured.
Therefore I will ask "what will you give me?" though you have given things beyond telling, and virtually everything that mortal nature was capable of containing. For what I still seek to learn and to acquire is this: who might become a worthy heir of your benefactions?
Or shall I say, "I shall depart childless" (Genesis 15:2), having received a short-lived, ephemeral, swiftly-perishing good, when I pray for the opposite — one of many days, long-lasting, unspoiled, and immortal, so that it might be able both to cast seeds and to extend roots for the sake of firmness, and to raise its stalk on high, lifting it up toward heaven?
For human virtue must walk upon the earth but reach as far as heaven, so that there, feasted upon incorruption, it may remain forever unharmed.
For I know that you, who bring into being what does not exist and beget all things, have hated a soul that is childless and barren, since you gave to the clear-sighted race the exceptional grace of never becoming barren or failing to bring forth; and I, too, having been allotted a share in that race, rightly long to be its heir. For, beholding it to be unquenchable, I consider it most shameful to look on while my own nature is stripped of the good.
I therefore become a suppliant and implore, that out of the seeds and smoldering embers the saving light of virtue may be kindled and blaze up, a light which, handed on like a torch through successive generations, will become coextensive in time with the universe.
You have given zeal also to those who practice the discipline, for children born and begotten of the soul, and, overcome by joy, they have burst out saying: "the children with whom God has shown mercy to your servant" (Genesis 33:5) — children whose nurse and foster-mother is innocence, whose souls are tender and well-formed, ready to receive the wholly beautiful and most godlike stampings of virtue.
But teach me this too: whether "the son of Masek, my house-born servant," is fit to become heir of your graces; for up to now I have not received the one I hoped for, and the one I have received, I do not hope for.
Who Masek is, and who her son, must not be examined carelessly. Masek, then, is interpreted "from a kiss." But a kiss differs from loving; for the one seems to show a union of souls fitted together by goodwill, while the other seems to display only a superficial and cold greeting brought about by some need that draws people together for the moment.
For just as in "looking up" there is no "stooping," nor is "drinking down" wholly the same as "drinking," nor is a "horse" contained in a "wallet," so too "loving" is not contained in "kissing," since even among enemies countless people, yielding to the harsh necessities of life, extend a greeting.
Who, then, is she who has been established with us from a kiss but not from a genuine friendship? I will say it, holding nothing back: it is life together with sense-perception, fortified in every way, which no one fails to love, whom the many consider a mistress but the refined consider a handmaid — not a foreigner or a bought slave, but house-born and in a manner of the same stock; these latter have also been trained to kiss her, not to love her, while the former love her exceedingly and hold her to be thrice-desired.
But Laban, the hater of virtue, will not even be able to acknowledge the powers allotted to the one in training; rather, having hung his whole life upon pretense and false fabrications, as though aggrieved — though not in truth pained — he says: "I was not deemed worthy to kiss my children and my daughters" (Genesis 31:28 [cf. 28]); and rightly and fittingly so, for we have been trained to hate irony.
Love the virtues, then, and embrace them with your very soul, and truly love them, and you will least of all wish to do that counterfeit of friendship, mere kissing. "For do they still have a share or an inheritance in your house? Have they not been reckoned by you as strangers? Have you not sold them, and devoured their silver?" (Genesis 31:14–15), so that not even afterward will you be able to give back what you have already devoured as ransom and redemption price? Pretend now that you wish to kiss them, you who are implacable toward every judgment. But Moses will not kiss a son-in-law in that fashion; rather he will love from a genuine passion of the soul: "he kissed him," it says, "and they embraced" (Exodus 18:7).
Now there is a threefold kind of life: one directed toward God, one toward becoming, and one in between, a mixture of both. The life directed toward God has not come down to us, nor come under the necessities of the body. The life directed toward becoming has never risen at all, nor sought to rise, but lurking in the recesses of Hades, delights in a life not worth living.
But the mixed life is one which, often led by the better order, becomes divine and is possessed by God, but often, dragged back by the worse order, turns aside. This life, whenever, as on a scale, the portion belonging to the better life weighs down the whole, the counterweight of the opposite life, being dragged along with it, is rendered a most trifling burden.
Moses, having crowned without contest the kind of life directed toward God, leads the remaining kinds forward for judgment, likening them to two women, of whom he calls the one "loved" and the other "hated," fitting the names most aptly to each.
For who does not welcome the pleasures and delights that come through the eyes, who does not welcome those that come through the ears, who does not welcome those that come through taste, smell, and touch? And who has not hated their opposites — frugality, self-control, a stern and disciplined life empty of laughter and play, full of earnestness, cares, and toils, a friend of contemplation, an enemy of ignorance, superior to money and reputation and pleasures, yet inferior to prudence, good repute, and a wealth that sees rather than one that is blind?
The offspring of the hated virtue are always the elder. But Moses, even though they are younger in time, judges these too by nature worthy of the elder's privilege, giving them a double share and taking away half from the others. For he says: if a man has two wives, one loved and one hated, and both bear him children, when he is about to distribute his property he will not be permitted to give the elder's privilege to the son of the loved wife, of pleasure — for this son is young, even if he should become gray-haired with time — but to the son of the hated wife, of prudence, who from childhood is the elder, so as to assign him a double portion (Deuteronomy 21:15–17).
"But Rachel was barren" (Gen. 29:31). Is it not the case that whenever the soul begins to bear the offspring proper to soul, then whatever is perceptible to the senses, itself becoming barren, ceases to bear—things which receive only the welcome given by a kiss, not the welcome that comes through genuine friendship?
Of this life according to sense-perception, then, which he calls Masek, each of us is a son, honoring and admiring the nurse and foster-mother of the mortal race, sense-perception—which the earthly mind too, named Adam, when he saw it fashioned as his own venomous death, called "life." For he says, "Adam called his wife's name Life,
because she is the mother of all the living" (Gen. 3:20)—that is, of those who live, presumably, a life that is dead to the soul. But those who are truly alive have Wisdom for their mother, and sense-perception as a slave, fashioned by nature for the service of knowledge.
The name of the one born from Life, whom we came to know through the kiss, is composed as "Damascus"—which, translated, means "blood of a sack"—very forcefully and aptly hinting, by "sack," at the body, and by "blood," at the life of the blood.
For since "soul" is spoken of in two senses—the whole soul, and its ruling part, which properly speaking is the soul of the soul, just as with the eye there is both the whole orb and the most sovereign part by which we see—the lawgiver held that the substance of soul is likewise twofold: blood for the whole, and divine spirit for the most sovereign, ruling part.
At any rate he says outright, "The soul of all flesh is blood" (Lev. 17:11). How well he assigns the flowing of blood to the mass of flesh, kindred to kindred! But the substance of the mind he made dependent on nothing created; rather, he brought it in as something breathed by God: "for the maker," he says, "breathed into his face the breath of life that comes from the God of all things, and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7)—by which also, according to the image
of the maker, reason is said to have been stamped, so that there are two kinds of human beings: the one living by divine spirit and reason, the other living by blood and the pleasure of the flesh. This latter kind is a thing molded from earth; that former is a faithful impression bearing the likeness of the divine image.
Our clay, molded with no small care and kneaded through with blood, stands in great need of help from God; wherefore this one is called "Damascus Eliezer"—translated, Eliezer means "God is helper"—since the blooded mass, being in itself dissoluble and dead, holds together and is kindled to life by the providence of God, who stretches out his hand and shields it, since our race by itself could not remain firmly established for a single day.
Do you not see that the second of Moses' sons bears this very name? "For the name of the second," he says, "carries with it its own reason: 'for the God of my father is my helper, and he delivered me from the hand of Pharaoh'" (Exod. 18:4).
And upon those who are still companions of the blooded, sense-perceptible life, there falls that formidable way of life whose business is to scatter piety, named Pharaoh, whose dominion, full of lawlessness and cruelty, it is impossible to escape without Eliezer being born within the soul,
and without one's placing hope in the help that comes from God, the only savior. And it was altogether fitting that he traced the descent of Damascus not from a father but from a mother, Masek, in order to teach that the blooded soul, by which even the irrational animals live, belongs to the maternal, female kind, and has no share in male generation.
But virtue is not Sarah in that sense: for she lays claim to descent from men alone, being a motherless origin, born from the Father of all things alone—for he says, "she is my sister, on my father's side, but not on my mother's" (Gen. 20:12).
What it was necessary to hear beforehand, then, we have now set forth; for the proposition contained an enigmatic obscurity. But what the lover of learning is seeking must now be interpreted more precisely: is it not perhaps this—whether it is possible for one who still desires the blooded life and still lays claim to things of sense-perception to become an heir of the bodiless and divine things?
Of these things only he is deemed worthy who has been breathed upon from above and has obtained a portion of heavenly and divine allotment—the purest mind, one who takes no account not only of the body but even of the other part of the soul, which, being irrational, is smeared with blood, kindling boiling tempers and inflamed desires.
At any rate he inquires in this fashion: "Since you have not given me that intelligible seed, the self-taught, the god-formed, will my house-born slave be my heir?" (Gen. 15:3)—the offspring of the blooded life? Then God, hastening, arrived even before the venom could speak, having sent ahead, so to speak, instruction preceding the utterance.
"For immediately," he says, "the voice of God came, saying: this one shall not be your heir" (Gen. 15:4)—none of those who come forward for display to sense-perception; for it is bodiless natures that are heirs of intelligible things.
It has been observed with the utmost precision that he did not say "he said" or "he spoke," but "the voice of God came"—of one crying out vigorously and resounding unbrokenly, so that the voice, distributed into every soul, might leave no part deserted and empty of right instruction, but that all things throughout might be filled with sound learning.
Who then shall be the heir? Not the reasoning that remains, by its own deliberate choice, within the prison of the body, but the reasoning that has been loosed from its bonds and set free, and has gone forth beyond the walls, and has left behind—if one may put it so—its very self. "For he who shall come forth from you"—"this one shall be your heir" (Gen. 15:4).
If, then, any longing enters the soul to inherit the divine goods, do not leave behind only "your land"—the body—and "your kindred"—sense-perception—and "your father's house" (Gen. 12:1)—speech—but flee also from yourself and step outside yourself, like those possessed and driven into Corybantic frenzy, seized by Bacchic and god-borne inspiration under some prophetic rapture.
For when the mind is filled with god and is no longer in itself, but is roused and driven to distraction by a heavenly love, and is led by him who truly is and drawn up toward him, with truth going before it and clearing away the obstacles in its path, so that it may walk along the highway of the road—this is the inheritance. How then did you migrate from those former things?
"Speak to us boldly, O mind, you who resound to those trained to hear things intelligible, ever declaring that I removed myself from the body, when already I disregarded the flesh; and from sense-perception, when I came to regard all sensible things as mere appearances, not truly existing—having condemned its criteria as adulterated and bribed and infected with false opinion, and having condemned also the things judged by it, as things equipped to entice and deceive and snatch truth away from the very midst of nature. And I migrated also from speech, when I condemned its great irrationality, for all its soaring and self-inflation.
For it dared no small daring: to show me bodies through shadows, and realities through mere words—things which were impossible; yet, though it stumbled, it babbled on and ran in circles, unable, through the mere commonness of names, to represent with clear distinctness the particular properties of the things underlying them.
But having suffered this, like a foolish and infant child, I learned how much better it truly was to withdraw from all these things, and to dedicate the powers of each to God, who gives the body its bodily form and holds it together, and equips sense-perception to perceive, and furnishes speech with the power to speak.
In just the way, then, that you have withdrawn from the others, withdraw also and migrate from yourself. And what does this mean? Do not keep for yourself, as your own private store, the acts of understanding and thinking and comprehending; rather, take these too and dedicate them to the Cause of understanding with precision and of comprehending without being deceived.
The dedication will be received by the more sacred of the two most holy precincts; for there appear to be two: the one intelligible, the other sensible. Of sensible natures, this cosmos is the temple; but of invisible things, the truly intelligible cosmos is the shrine of all the gods.
That by stepping outside our own faculties of understanding and longing to be a follower of God he becomes heir of a wealth that the nature of things itself sings of, he testifies when he says: "He brought him outside and said, Look up to heaven" (Gen. 15:5), since that is the treasury of divine things—"for the Lord will open to you," it says, "his treasury, the heaven" (Deut. 28:12), from which the giver pours out, without pause, the most perfect joys. And "look up" serves also to expose the blindness of the common herd of men, who suppose they see but are in fact maimed.
How could they not be maimed, when they have chosen evils instead of goods, disgraceful things instead of noble ones, unjust things instead of just, passions instead of good feeling, mortal things instead of immortal, and when they run from those who would admonish and correct them, from reproof and instruction, but welcome flatterers and speeches aimed at pleasure, craftsmen of idleness, ignorance, and self-indulgence?
The virtuous person alone truly sees—which is why the ancients called the prophets "seers" (1 Sam. 9:9). And the one who advanced outside was called not merely one who sees, but one who sees God: Israel, that is, "one who sees God." But the others, even when they do open their eyes, bow toward the earth, pursuing earthly things and keeping company with the dwellers in Hades. For the one drinks in his vision toward the upper air and the circuits of heaven,
and has been trained to fix his sight on the manna, the divine Word, the imperishable food of the soul that loves contemplation, while the others look to onions and garlic, which sting the eyes and harm them and make them shut tight, and to the other foul smells of leeks and dead fish, the native foods of Egypt.
"We remember," they say, "the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic; but now our soul is dried up, our eyes see nothing but the manna" (Num. 11:5-6).
It also bears on character-formation that "he brought him outside" — words that some, out of a tasteless disposition, are accustomed to laugh at, saying: is a person led inside, or does he conversely enter outside? Yes, I would say, you ridiculous and altogether too flippant men: you have not learned to track the ways of the soul, but investigate only the movements of bodies from place to place. That is why it seems paradoxical to you that anyone should go out inward or come in outward; but to us who are disciples of Moses none of this is discordant.
Would you not say that the high priest who has not yet attained perfection, when he performs the ancestral rites of his fathers in the innermost sanctuary, is both within and without—within in his visible body, but without in his soul, which wanders and roams; while conversely someone who does not even belong to the priestly family, but is a lover of God and beloved by God, though he stands outside the sprinkling-vessels, dwells in the innermost place, regarding his whole bodily life as an exile abroad, and supposing that whenever he is able to live by the soul alone, he remains in his homeland?
For indeed every fool is outside the door, even if he spends every day with others and is never absent from them for a moment; and every wise man is within, even if he happens to be settled apart, not merely in different lands but in the far quarters of the earth. According to Moses, the friend is so near that he makes no difference from one's own soul; for he says:
"The friend, who is as your own soul" (Deut. 13:6). And of the priest too it is said: "No man shall be with him when he enters the holy of holies, until he comes out" (Lev. 16:17)—not in the bodily sense, but with respect to the soul's affairs. For the mind, when it serves God in purity, is no longer human but divine; but when it turns to something merely human, it has come down from heaven, or rather it has fallen to earth and gone outside, even while the body still remains within it.
Rightly, then, is it said: "He brought him outside" — outside the prison-houses of the body, the dens of the senses, the sophistries of deceitful reasoning, and beyond all these, outside of himself and outside the illusion of thinking and grasping things by his own independent and self-governing judgment.
Having led him forward outside, it says: "Look up to heaven and count the stars, if you can number them. So shall your offspring be" (Gen. 15:5). It is beautifully said "shall be," not merely equal in number to the stars. For God means to signify not that one thing alone, but countless other things bearing on complete and perfect happiness.
"So shall it be," he says, like the visible heavenly realm—ethereal, heavenly, full of unshadowed and pure radiance (for night is banished from heaven, and darkness from the upper air), most star-filled, well ordered, governed by an unswerving order that remains constant and unchanging.
For he means to show the soul of the wise man as an imitation of heaven, or, to put it even more boldly, as an earthly heaven, containing within itself, as if in the upper air, pure natures, movements, harmonious dances, divine circuits, the most starlike and radiant brightnesses of the virtues. And if it is impossible to find the number of the visible stars, how much more impossible is it to find the number of the intelligible ones?
For to the degree, I think, that the judging faculty is better or worse than the thing judged—mind being better than sense-perception, sense-perception being duller than understanding—to that same degree the things judged also differ; so that intelligible things surpass sensible things by an immeasurable multitude. For the eyes of the body are the smallest fraction of the eye of the soul: the one is like the sun, while these practice only kindling and going out, like lamps in their sockets.
It is therefore necessary that it goes on to say: "Abraham believed God" (Gen. 15:6), in praise of the one who believed. And yet, someone might perhaps ask: do you judge this worthy of praise? Who would not pay heed to God when he speaks and makes a promise, even if he happened to be the most unjust and impious of all men?
To such a person we shall say: noble sir, do not thoughtlessly strip the wise man of the praise that is his due, nor bear false witness against the most perfect of the virtues, faith, by crediting it to unworthy men, nor accuse our understanding of these matters of error.
For if you were willing to make a deeper inquiry, and not a wholly superficial one, you would clearly recognize that it is no easy thing to believe in God alone, apart from anything else, because of our kinship with the mortal nature to which we are yoked—a kinship that persuades us to place our trust instead in wealth, reputation, office, friends, health, and bodily strength, and in many other things besides.
But to wash oneself clean of every one of these, and to distrust created being, which of itself is wholly untrustworthy, and to trust in God alone, who alone is truly trustworthy, is the work of a great and Olympian understanding, one no longer enticed by anything among the things that belong to us.
It is well said, too, that his faith "was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6). For nothing is so just as to make use of unmixed and unadulterated faith in God alone.
This, though just and consistent with nature, has been thought paradoxical because of the general faithlessness of the many, whom the sacred word rebukes by declaring that to be moored firmly and unswervingly to Being alone is a marvel among men, for whom the possession of unmixed goods does not exist, but is no marvel in the sight of truth, which awards the prize—it is simply the work of righteousness alone.
"He said to him," it says, "I am the God who brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans, so as to give you this land" (Gen. 15:7). This signifies not merely a new promise, but the confirmation of an old one.
The good bestowed long ago was the exodus from the astrology of the Chaldeans, which taught one to suppose that the world was not God's work but God himself, and that good and ill for all existing things are apportioned by the movements and fixed circuits of the stars, and that from these the origin of good and evil depends—beliefs which the smooth and orderly motion of the heavenly bodies persuaded the more credulous to elaborate into marvels. And indeed the very name "Chaldeans," translated, is akin in meaning to "smoothness"—
while the new good was to inherit wisdom, which sense-perception cannot receive but which is grasped by the purest mind alone, through which the best of migrations is confirmed, as the soul changes its home from astronomy to the study of nature, from unstable conjecture to firm apprehension, and, to put it properly, from the created to the uncreated, from the world to its Maker and Father.
For those whose minds are Chaldean-minded have put their trust in heaven, but the one who has migrated from there has put his trust, the oracles say, in him who is above heaven and charioteer of the whole universe, God. A fine inheritance indeed—perhaps greater than the capacity of the one who receives it, yet worthy of the greatness of the one who gives it.
But it is not enough for the lover of wisdom to hope for good things and to look forward to such wonders as are foretold by the oracles; unless he also comes to know the manner by which he will attain succession to the inheritance, he considers himself no better off, thirsting as he is for knowledge and insatiable for it. That is why he asks, saying: "Master, by what shall I know that I shall inherit?" (Gen. 15:8).
Perhaps someone might say this conflicts with having believed: for to be perplexed belongs to one who doubts, but to no longer seek is the mark of one who has believed. It must be said, then, that he both is perplexed and has believed, yet not about the same thing — far from it. For he has believed that he will be heir of wisdom, but seeks only the manner in which this might come about; that it will come about he has grasped with complete certainty, in accordance with the divine promises.
The teacher, then, having praised the longing with which he pursues learning, begins his instruction from an elementary introduction, in which the first and most necessary thing written is "Take for me" (Gen 15:9). The expression is brief, but it signifies much — for it reveals no small matters.
First, he says, you possess nothing good of your own, but whatever you suppose you have, another has supplied it. From this it is gathered that all possessions belong to God who gives, and not to created being, which is a beggar stretching out its hands to receive.
Second, even if you receive, receive it not for yourself, but consider what is given a loan or a deposit belonging to the one who deposited and lent it, repaying an earlier favor with a later one, justly and fittingly requiting the favor that came first with the gratitude that answers it.
For countless people have become deniers of sacred deposits, misusing what belongs to another as their own through boundless greed. But you, noble friend, strive with all your strength not only to keep unharmed and unadulterated what you have received, but also to deem it worthy of every care, so that the one who made the deposit may have no charge to bring against your keeping of it.
The Maker of living things deposited with you soul, reason, and sense-perception — things named symbolically in the sacred writings as heifer, ram, and goat (Gen 15:9). Some appropriated these at once out of self-love, while others stored them up for the most opportune moment of repayment.
Of those who misappropriate them, one cannot find the number; for which of us does not say that soul and sense-perception and reason — all these together — are his own possessions, supposing that perceiving, speaking, and comprehending rest on himself alone?
But of those who genuinely preserve their trust as sacred and truly inviolable, the number is small. These have dedicated these three things to God — soul, sense-perception, reason; for they received them not for themselves but for him, all of them, so that they rightly confessed that the activities of each belong to him: the thoughts of the mind, the interpretations of reason, the impressions of sense-perception.
Those, then, who inscribe these things to themselves have obtained a lot worthy of their own wretchedness: a soul treacherous, mixed up with irrational passions and overtaken by a multitude of vices, at one time outraged by gluttony and lust as though in a brothel, at another confined by a multitude of wrongdoings as though in a prison together with criminals — not people, but practices — which have become liable to every judge; a reason glib-mouthed, sharpened against truth, harmful to those who meet it, bringing shame to those who possess it; and a sense-perception insatiable, always gorging itself on sensible things, yet, being under the mastery of unrestrained desire, never able to be filled, paying no heed to those who would correct it, so as to overlook and mishear and spit out whatever is spoken for its benefit.
But those who received these things not for themselves, but dedicated each of them to God himself, kept them truly holy and sacred for their owner — the mind, so that it should think of nothing else but God and his virtues; reason, so that with unbridled mouth it might honor the Father of all with praises and hymns and proclamations of blessedness, mustering all the virtues that serve interpretation for this one work alone and displaying them; and sense-perception, so that, forming images of the whole perceptible world — heaven and earth and the natures between them, living things and plants, their activities and powers, and all their motions and states — it might report these to the soul without deceit and in purity.
For God has granted to the mind to apprehend the intelligible world through itself, and the visible world through sense-perception. If, then, one could live with every part of oneself for God rather than for oneself — peering through the senses into sensible things for the sake of discovering truth, and through the soul pursuing philosophy concerning the intelligible things that truly are, and through the instrument that produces voice, hymning both the world and its craftsman —
then one will enjoy a happy and blessed life. I think these things are implied in "Take for me." Wishing, moreover, to send down from heaven to earth an image of divine virtue, out of pity for our race, so that it might not miss its share in the better lot, he constructs, symbolically, the sacred tabernacle and the things within it — a likeness and imitation of wisdom.
For the oracle says that the tabernacle was set up in the midst of our uncleanness, so that we might have something by which to be purified, washing and cleansing away the things that defile our wretched life, so full of ill repute. Let us, then, see in what manner he ordered the materials contributing to its construction to be brought in.
"The Lord spoke," he says, "to Moses, saying: to the sons of Israel, and take for me first-fruits from all whose heart inclines them; you shall take my first-fruits" (Exod 25:1-2). Here too, then, is an exhortation to take not for themselves but for God, examining who the giver is and not damaging what has been given, but keeping it unharmed, blameless, complete, and whole. And he dedicated the "beginnings" to him in the most doctrinally significant way; for in truth the beginnings both of bodies and of affairs are examined only in relation to God.
Search, if you wish to know, into each thing — plants, animals, arts, sciences. Are, then, the first seed-sowings of plants works of farming, or are they the invisible works of invisible nature? And what of the origins of humans and other animals? Do they not have their parents as contributing causes, but nature as the highest, most venerable, and truly the cause?
For arts and sciences, is not nature the spring and root and foundation, and whatever other name of a more venerable origin there may be, on which all the particular theorems of each are built up? And if nature does not exist beforehand as a foundation, all things are incomplete. From this, it seems to me, someone was moved to say, "the beginning is half of the whole," hinting at nature as the beginning, which, like a root, is laid down for the growth of each thing, and to which he assigned half of the whole.
Rightly, then, has the oracle dedicated beginnings to God the guide. And elsewhere too it says, "The Lord spoke to Moses: consecrate to me every firstborn, first-produced, that opens every womb among the sons of Israel, from man to beast; it is mine" (Exod 13:1-2).
So that it is agreed also through these words that things belong to God both in time and in power, and especially the first-born. For since every kind is imperishable, it will rightly be assigned to the Imperishable One; and if one is to speak of opening a womb altogether — from man, that is reasoning and reason, to beast, that is sense-perception and body.
For the one who opens the womb of each thing — of the mind for its intelligible apprehensions, of reason for its activities through speech, of the senses for the impressions that arise in them from underlying objects, of the body for its own proper states and motions — is the invisible, seed-bearing, and skillful divine Word, which will fittingly be dedicated to the Father.
Moreover, just as beginnings belong to God, so also do ends. Moses bears witness to this, commanding that the "end" be set apart and acknowledged to the Lord (Num 31:28ff). The things in the world also bear witness.
How so? The beginning of a plant is seed, its end is fruit; each is a work not of farming but of nature. Again, the beginning of a science is nature, as has been shown, but its limit has never yet come to human beings. For no one is complete in any pursuit, but completeness and the heights of perfection belong, without deceit, to one alone. We, then, are carried along for the rest in the borderland between end and beginning — learning, teaching, farming, laboring at each of the other pursuits as though sweating, so that whatever comes to be may seem to accomplish something.
More clearly, however, he confessed that beginnings and ends belong to God, when speaking of the coming-to-be of the world: "In the beginning God made" (Gen 1:1), and again, "God completed the heaven and the earth" (cf. Gen 2:1-2).
For the present, then, he says, "Take for me" (Exod 25:2), giving what is his own and urging that what has been given not be adulterated, but kept in a manner worthy of the giver; while again elsewhere, he who needs nothing, and for this reason takes nothing, will not admit to taking anything, but does so for the sake of anointing us toward piety and instilling eagerness for holiness and sharpening our own service to him, as one who welcomes and receives the soul's willing acts of goodwill and genuine service.
For he says, "Behold, I have taken the Levites instead of every firstborn that opens the womb from the sons of Israel; they shall be their ransom" (Num 3:12). So we take, yet we are said to give — properly speaking we take, but by an extension of usage we are said to give, for the reasons I have stated. And fittingly he named the Levites "ransoms." For nothing so releases the mind into freedom as becoming a suppliant and refugee of God. This is what the consecrated tribe of the Levites professes.
Having, then, said what is fitting concerning these matters, let us run back to our starting point; for we passed over many things that ought to have been treated with precision. "Take for me," he says, "a heifer" unyoked and unharmed, tender, young, and vigorous — a soul able readily to receive the reins, discipline, and oversight; "take for me a ram" — reason, a perfect contender, able both to dissect and refute the sophistries of adversaries, and able also to secure safety together with good order for the one who uses it.
“Take for me” also the darting sense-perception directed at the world of the senses, “a goat,” wholly “three years old,” having its consummation in the perfect number, the middle term; and besides these, “a turtledove and a pigeon” (Gen 15:9), that is, divine wisdom and human wisdom — both winged, and both trained to leap upward, yet differing from one another as a genus differs from a species, or an archetype from its imitation.
For divine wisdom loves solitude, because of the one God whose possession it is, and cherishes being alone — this is symbolically called the turtledove — while the other kind is tame, domesticated, and gregarious, circling the cities of men and taking pleasure in a way of life shared with mortals.
The pigeon is likened to this latter kind. It is these virtues, I think, that Moses is hinting at when he names the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah (Exod 1:15): the one is interpreted as “little bird,” and Puah as “red.” It is proper to divine knowledge, like a bird, always to soar aloft; it is proper to human knowledge to instill modesty and self-control, of which blushing at what deserves it is the clearest evidence.
“And he took for himself all these things” (Gen 15:10). This is praise of the one who, having received the sacred deposit entrusted to him — soul, sense-perception, reason, divine wisdom, human knowledge — kept it purely and without deceit, not for himself, but only for the one who had entrusted it.
Then he adds: “he divided them in the middle,” without adding who did it, so that you may understand it is the God who cannot be pointed to who fits and unites, by the word that is the divider of all things, all the natures of bodies and of affairs that seem to follow one upon another in sequence — a word whetted to the sharpest edge, which never ceases dividing.
For all sensible things, when this divider has proceeded as far as the atoms and so-called indivisible parts, then in turn begins from these to divide the objects of reason into portions countless and undelineable. And “the leaves of gold are cut into hairs” (Exod 36:10), as Moses says — cut so fine as to resemble incorporeal lines.
So he divided each of the three in the middle: the soul into the rational and the irrational, reason into the true and the false, and sense-perception into apprehensive impression and non-apprehensive. These divisions he immediately “set facing one another,” irrational against rational, true against false, apprehensible against inapprehensible — but he left the birds undivided (Gen 15:10); for it is impossible to cut incorporeal and divine things into warring opposites.
This is a long and necessary line of argument concerning division into equal parts and concerning opposites, and while we will not pass over it, neither will we draw it out, but abridging it as it deserves we shall content ourselves with only the essential points. For just as the Craftsman divided our soul and our limbs down the middle, so too he divided the substance of the universe, when he was fashioning the world.
Taking it in hand, he began to divide as follows: first he made two sections, the heavy and the light, separating the coarse-textured from the fine-textured; then he divided each of these again, the fine-textured into air and fire, the coarse-textured into water and earth, which he laid down as the perceptible elements of the perceptible world, like foundations.
Again he cut the heavy and the light by other distinctions: the light into cold and hot — he named the cold air, and the hot, by nature, fire — and the heavy in turn into moist and dry; he called the dry earth, and the moist water.
Each of these in turn admitted further divisions: earth was divided into continents and islands; water into sea and rivers and whatever is drinkable; air into the turnings of summer and winter; and fire into the destructive kind — which is insatiable and corrupting — and, by contrast, the preserving kind, which was allotted to the constitution of heaven.
And just as he divided the wholes, so he divided the parts, some of which were inanimate and some animate; and of the inanimate, some remain in the same state, held together by cohesion, while others move not by change of place but by growth, which unseen nature has endowed with life; and of these, some bear the wild produce of wild matter, which serves as food for beasts, while others bear the produce of cultivated matter, whose oversight and care has fallen to farming, and which brings forth fruits for the enjoyment of the gentlest of all living things, man.
And just as he divided the inanimate things, so he divided the things that have a share of soul — among these he distinguished one kind irrational, one kind rational — and taking each in turn he divided it further: the irrational into the untamed kind and the domesticated kind, and the rational into the imperishable and the mortal.
And of the mortal he made two portions, naming the one male and the other female. And in another way too he divided the living creature into male and female; and it admitted still other necessary divisions, which distinguished the winged from the land-dwelling, the land-dwelling from the water-dwelling, and the water-dwelling from both of the other extremes.
In this way God, having whetted the word that is the divider of all things which is his own, divided the shapeless and qualityless substance of the universe, and the four elements of the world separated out from it, and the animals and plants in turn formed by means of these.
Since he says not only “he divided” but also “he divided them in the middle,” it is necessary to recall a few points about equal divisions as well. For what is divided exactly down the middle produces equal portions.
Now no human being could ever divide anything into perfectly equal parts, but of necessity one of the portions must fall short or exceed the other, and if not by a large amount, at least by some small part — one that perhaps escapes the perception of those whose senses, by nature and by habit, engage only with the coarser masses, and are unable to grasp what is atomic and indivisible.
Of equality no created thing is found, by an incorruptible account of the truth, to be the cause. It appears, then, that God alone is exactly just, and that he alone is able to divide bodies and affairs down the middle, in such a way that none of the portions, not even by the smallest and most indivisible fraction, becomes greater or less than the other, but is able to share in the highest and most perfect equality.
Now if the equal had but a single form, what has been said would suffice; but since there are several, we must not shrink from adding what is fitting. For equality is spoken of, in one sense, in numbers, as two is equal to two and three to three and so on; in another sense, in magnitudes, which have length, breadth, and depth as their dimensions — for a handbreadth is equal to a handbreadth and a cubit to a cubit in size, but there are other things equal in power, as in weights and measures.
There is also a necessary form of equality that operates by proportion, according to which the few are reckoned equal to the many, and the small to the great; and cities are accustomed to use this kind at critical times, requiring each citizen to contribute the equal share of his substance — not, of course, in number, but in proportion to the assessed value of his estate, so that the man who contributes a hundred drachmas
would seem to have given the same as the man who contributes a talent. With these points laid down beforehand, see how, in dividing down the middle, he divided into equal parts according to every form of equality, in the generation of the whole heaven. In number, then, he divided the heavy things equal to the light: two to two, earth and water, which have weight, against air and fire, which are light by nature; and again one to one, the driest to the moistest, earth to water, and the coldest to the hottest, fire to air; and in the same way darkness to light, day to night, winter to summer, autumn to spring, and all things akin to these.
In magnitude he made equal, in heaven, the parallel circles: the equinoctial circles, the spring and autumn ones, and the tropical circles, the summer and winter ones. And on earth the zones: two equal to one another, which lie near the poles and are frozen and for that reason uninhabited, and two which border both these and the scorched zone, which are said to be inhabited because of their temperate climate, the one lying toward the south, the other toward the north.
Equal too in length are the intervals of time: the longest day to the longest night, and again the shortest to the shortest, and the middling to the middling. The equinoxes seem best to disclose the equal magnitudes of the other days and nights as well.
For from the spring equinox to the summer solstice the day gains and the night loses, until the longest day and the shortest night are brought about; and from the summer solstice the sun, turning back on the same path, neither faster nor slower, but keeping to the same and like intervals, moving with equal speeds, comes round to the autumn equinox, and having made the day equal to the night begins to increase the night and diminish the day until the winter solstice;
and when it has made the night longest and the day shortest, turning back again along the same intervals it arrives at the spring equinox. Thus the intervals of time, which seem unequal, achieve equality in magnitude not within the same seasons of the year but across different ones.
and when it brings about the longest night and the shortest day, and then again, turning back through the same intervals, arrives at the spring equinox. In this way the intervals of time, though they appear unequal, exchange their equality of magnitude, not within the same seasons of the year but across different ones.
The same thing may be observed too in the parts of living creatures, and especially of human beings. For foot corresponds to foot, and hand to hand, and almost everything else is equal in size, the parts on the right to those on the left; and things equal in capacity are extremely numerous both among dry things and moist things, and the assessment of these is made by measures and scales and similar means.
By analogy, indeed, virtually all things are equal, both the small and the great, throughout the whole cosmos. For those who have examined the workings of nature most exactly say that the four elements are equal by analogy, and that the whole cosmos too, having been blended by analogy, was constituted by allotting an equal share to each part, and having been so constituted persists forever in this condition.
And indeed the four elements affecting us — dry, moist, cold, and hot — have been fitted together by blending an equality achieved through analogy, and we ourselves are nothing other than a mixture of these four powers blended in an equality of analogy.
If one went through each case in turn, one could in principle extend the account to infinite length. For one would find the smallest living creatures equal by analogy to the greatest — the swallow to the eagle, the red mullet to the sea-monster, the ant to the elephant. Indeed body and soul and passions, pains and pleasures, and further affinities and aversions, and whatever else the nature of living creatures embraces, are almost all alike in kind, made equal by the rule of analogy.
In this way some have been bold enough to declare that even the smallest living creature, man, is equal to the whole cosmos, having observed that each of the two consists of a body and a rational soul; so that, interchanging the terms, they said that man is a small cosmos, and the cosmos a great man.
And they do not teach this at random, but because they recognized that the art of God, by which he fashioned the universe, admits neither intensification nor relaxation, but remaining ever the same in its consummate excellence, has fashioned each of the things that exist to perfection, God having made use, in his creating, of every number and every form
conducive to perfection. “For according to the small and according to the great,” as Moses says, he judged (Deut. 1:17), and in shaping each thing he neither, on account of the obscurity of the matter, withheld anything of his skill, nor, on account of its brilliance, added anything beyond what was fitting.
since even those craftsmen who are held in esteem, whatever materials they take in hand, whether costly or of the humblest kind, wish to work them in a manner deserving of praise. And indeed some, out of special devotion to beauty, have produced in the cheaper materials work more skillful than that in the costly ones, wishing by the addition of their knowledge to make up for what was lacking in the material.
But nothing in matter is precious in the sight of God; therefore he imparted the same art equally to all things. Hence too it is said in the sacred writings: “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31); and things that share in the same excellence are, in the judgment of the one who praises them, altogether equal in honor.
But God praised not the matter that had been fashioned — the lifeless, flawed, dissoluble matter, in itself corruptible, uneven, and unequal — but his own works of skill, each brought to completion by one equal and uniform power and by a knowledge that is alike and the same in every case. For this reason it was held that, by the standards of analogy, all things are equal and alike to all, in keeping with the principle of his art and knowledge.
And if anyone else has ever been a praiser of equality, Moses has been, first by hymning, always and everywhere, justice as well, whose peculiar property — as its very name somewhere shows — is to divide bodies and affairs into equal portions; and then by censuring injustice, the artisan of that most hateful thing, inequality.
Inequality gave birth to the twin wars, the foreign and the civil, just as, conversely, equality gave birth to peace. And his praises of justice and his censures of injustice he sets forth most vividly when he says: “You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measures, in weights, in scales; you shall have just scales and just weights and just measures and a just quart-measure” (Lev. 19:35–36), and again in the supplementary law: “There shall not be in your bag two weights, a large and a small; there shall not be in your house two measures, a large and a small; a true and just weight shall you have, that you may live long upon the land that the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, because everyone who does these things, everyone who does what is unjust, is an abomination to the Lord” (Deut. 25:13–16).
God, then, who loves justice, abominates and hates injustice, the origin of faction and of evils. And where does the lawgiver not embrace equality as the nurse of justice, beginning from the very creation of the whole heaven? “God,” he says, “separated the light from the darkness, and God called the light Day and the darkness Night” (Gen. 1:4–5); for it was equality that assigned to the things that exist their day and their night, their light and their darkness.
Equality also divided the human being into man and woman, two portions unequal in strength, but, with a view to that toward which nature was hastening — the generation of a third thing resembling them both — equal in the highest degree. For he says: “God made man; according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made” — no longer “him” but “them,” he adds, in the plural (Gen. 1:27), fitting the species, once divided by kind,
into equality, as I have said. Cold too, and heat, and summer, and spring he recorded (Gen. 8:22), the yearly seasons again divided by that same divider. And indeed the three days before the sun came into being were equal in number to those after the sun (Gen. 1:5ff.), the six being honored with equality so as to signify eternity and time; for the three days before the sun he assigned to eternity, and those after the sun to time, which is an image of eternity.
As for the primary powers of the Existent — the beneficent power, by which he formed the cosmos, which is called God, and the punitive power, by which he rules and governs what has come to be, which is called Lord — he says that these are set apart by him as he stands above, in the middle: “For I will speak to you,” he says, “from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim” (Exod. 25:21), in order to show that the most venerable powers of the Existent, the bestowing power and the punitive power, are equal, using him as their common divider.
What then? Are not the tablets of the ten general laws, which he calls the tables, two in number, equal to the parts of the soul, the rational and the irrational, which need to be instructed and disciplined — divided again by the lawgiver alone? “For the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved upon the tables” (Exod. 32:16).
And indeed of the ten words upon them, which are properly the ordinances, an equal division has been made into two sets of five, of which the first contains the just claims owed to God, and the other those owed to human beings.
Of the just claims owed to God, the first ordinance is the one opposed to the belief in many gods, teaching that the cosmos has but a single ruler; the second is the one concerning not fashioning gods out of things that are not causes, by the conniving arts of painters and sculptors, arts from which Moses banished, as their own peculiar exile, all those who practice them from his commonwealth, casting his vote against them, so that the one God alone, and in truth, might be honored.
the third is the one concerning the name of the Lord — not the name of the one who has not even come into being, for the Existent is ineffable — but of the name given to his powers, since it is ordained that this name not be taken in vain; the fourth is the one concerning the ever-virgin, motherless seventh day, so that creation, by practicing its own inactivity, may come to remember him who accomplishes all things invisibly; the fifth is the one concerning honor to parents;
for this too is a sacred ordinance, having its reference not to human beings but to the cause of all sowing and generation, on whose account mother and father were thought to beget, though in truth they do not beget but are instruments of generation.
This ordinance was written as a boundary-marker between the set of five tending toward piety and the set that contains the prohibitions of wrongs against one's fellows, since mortal parents are the terminus of immortal powers, which, generating all things in accordance with nature, granted also to the last and mortal race, in imitation, the art of begetting by sowing; for God is the beginning of generation, while the mortal form, the last and least honored thing, is its end.
The other set of five is the prohibition of adultery, murder, theft, false witness, and desire. These are, in effect, the general rules covering virtually all sins,
to which each of the particular offenses is referred back. But you may also see the continual sacrifices divided into equal parts — that of fine flour which the priests offer on their own behalf, and that on behalf of the nation, of the two lambs which they are ordained to offer. For the law commanded that half of what has been mentioned be sacrificed in the morning and the other half in the evening (Lev. 6:20; Exod. 29:38–39), so that God might be thanked by all, both for the goods enjoyed by day and for those enjoyed by night.
You also see the two emerald stones on the long robe, divided with equality between the right side and the left, on which are engraved, six to each, the names of the twelve tribal fathers, letters divine and set up like monuments, records of divine natures (Exod. 28:9-12). What further need is there to say?
Did he not, taking two mountains as symbols of two kinds, and again dividing them with a corresponding equality, assign the one to those who bless and the other, in turn, to those who curse, setting six tribal fathers over each (Deut. 27:11-13), so as to show those in need of admonition that the curses are equal in number to the blessings and, if one may say so, nearly equal in honor?
For in the same way both the praises of the good and the censures of the wicked are beneficial, since among those of sound mind, fleeing evil has been reckoned similar to, and the same as, choosing the good.
I am struck also by the judgment made concerning the two goats brought for propitiation, and by their allotment, divided by an obscure and untraceable divider: the lot. For of the two goats, the one whose business concerns matters of divine virtue is consecrated and dedicated to God, while the other, which has aspired to the concerns of human ill-fortune, is dedicated to fugitive becoming; and indeed the lot that falls to this one the oracles call the "one sent away" (Lev. 16:8), because it emigrates, is settled apart, and is driven far from wisdom.
Just as there are, among coins, those that bear a stamp and those that do not, so too, among the many things that exist in nature, does it not seem to you that the unseen divider divides them all into equal portions, assigning the stamped and approved to the lover of learning, but the unformed and unstamped to the ignorant? For it says, "the unmarked belonged to Laban, and the marked to Jacob" (Gen. 30:42).
For the soul too is, as one of the ancients said, a waxen tablet: when it is hard and resistant it pushes away and shakes off the impressions brought to it and necessarily remains unshaped, but when it is pliable and yields moderately it receives deep impressions, and having taken the stampings, preserves with the utmost care the ineffaceable forms
that have been imprinted upon it. Wonderful too is the equal division of the blood of the sacrifices, which Moses the high priest, using nature as his teacher, carried out. For it says, "taking half of the blood, he poured it into bowls; and the other half he poured out at the altar" (Exod. 24:6), so as to teach that the sacred kind of wisdom is twofold, the one divine, the other human;
and the divine kind is unmixed and unblended, and for this reason it is poured out as a libation to God, who, in his solitary unity, is unmixed, unblended, and a monad; while the human kind is mixed and blended, and this is scattered over the mixed, composite, and blended kind that is ours, producing concord and fellowship, and — what else could one call it? — a blending of parts and characters.
But indeed, of the soul too, the unmixed and unblended part is the purest mind, which, breathed in from above out of heaven, when it is kept free of disease and unharmed, is fittingly given back whole, transformed into the elements of a sacred libation, to the one who breathed it in and kept it free from every affliction; while the mixed kind, in turn, is that of the senses, for which nature has fashioned its own proper bowls.
The bowls are: for sight, the eyes; for hearing, the ears; and the nostrils for smell, and the fitting receptacles for the others. Into these bowls the sacred word pours the blood, deeming it right that the irrational part of us be given soul and become, in a certain manner, rational, following the circuits of admonition and keeping itself pure from the deceitful power of the sensible objects that drag it down.
Was it not in this same manner that the sacred half-shekel too was divided, so that the half of it, the drachma, we might consecrate, laying it down as ransom for our own soul (Exod. 30:12-13) — the soul which God alone, the only one who is truly free and who makes others free, releases with all his power when entreated from the harsh and bitter tyranny of the passions and wrongdoings, and sometimes even without entreaty — while the other part we should leave to the servile and slavish kind, which the one who says has come to share: "I have loved my master" — the mind that rules within me — "and my wife" — sense-perception, the beloved keeper of the house of the passions — "and my children" — their evil offspring — "I will not go out free" (Exod. 21:5).
For it is necessary that to such a kind too a lot without inheritance and cast out be given from the half-shekel, opposed to the drachma and the monad that has been consecrated; and it is the nature of the monad to admit neither addition nor subtraction, being an image of the God who alone is complete.
For all other things are, of themselves, loose and slack, and if at any point they are made compact, it is by the divine word that they are bound together. For this is the glue and the bond that has filled all things full of substance; but he who has bound and woven each thing together is himself, in the proper sense, full of himself, having no need whatsoever of anything else.
Fittingly, then, Moses will say: "the rich man shall not add, and the poor man shall not subtract from the half of the half-shekel" (Exod. 30:15), which is, as I said, the drachma and the monad; of which every number might say that line of poetry: "in you I will end, and from you I will begin."
For the number infinite upon infinite that arises through composition ends, when it is resolved, in the monad, and again begins from the monad, being composed up into an unbounded multitude. For this reason they called this not a number but the element and origin of number — those, that is, whose concern it is to inquire into such things.
Further, then, the heavenly food of the soul — it is wisdom — which he calls manna, the divine word distributes equally to all who are to use it, having taken particular care for equality. Moses bears witness to this, saying: "he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no lack" (Exod. 16:18), when they made use of that wonderful and highly contested measure, proportion; by which it came to be understood that each person gathered for himself "according to what was fitting" (Exod. 16:16) not so much men as reckonings and characters; for what fell to each was allotted by providence, so that he should neither fall short
nor again have any excess. Something similar to this equality according to proportion is also to be found in what is called the Passover. Now Passover occurs whenever the soul practices unlearning the irrational passion, and willingly undergoes the reasonable good-passion; for it has been laid down, "if there are too few in
the household to be sufficient for the lamb, he shall take in his neighbor next door, according to the number of souls, so that each is counted for as much as is enough for him" (Exod. 12:4), each finding the portion for which he is fit and which he needs.
And when he wishes to distribute virtue, in the manner of land, to those who dwell in it, he directs that possession be increased for the more numerous and diminished for the fewer (Num. 35:8), holding it just that the greater should not be deemed worthy of the lesser portions — for they would then be empty of knowledge — nor the lesser worthy of the greater; for they would be unable to contain their magnitude.
The clearest proof of equality according to number is the sacred gifts of the twelve rulers (Num. 7:10 ff.), and further the portions distributed from the gifts to the priests; for it says, "to each of the sons of Aaron the portion shall be equal" (Lev. 6:40 [6:33 LXX]).
Very beautiful too is the equality found in the composition of the substances burned as incense; for it is said: "take for yourself spices, stacte, onycha, and sweet galbanum, and pure frankincense, equal weight for equal weight, and they shall make of it an incense, a perfumer's compound, the work of a pure blending, a holy work" (Exod. 30:34-35). For it says that each of the parts must be joined to each in equal measure, for the blending of the whole.
These four ingredients, I think, from which the incense is compounded, are symbols of the elements from which the whole universe was made. For he likens stacte to water, onycha to earth, galbanum to air, and the transparent frankincense to fire; for stacte, named from its drops, is watery, while onycha is dry and earthy; and to galbanum was added the quality of fragrance in reference to the manifestation of air — for that which is sweet-smelling is in the air — while to frankincense was added transparency, as an indication of light.
For this reason he also kept apart the heavy substances from the light ones, uniting some by a connective conjunction and setting forth others disjointedly; for he said, "take for yourself spices, stacte, onycha" — these without a connective, symbols of the heavy things, water and earth — and then, from a fresh beginning, joined together, "and sweet galbanum, and transparent frankincense" — these again by themselves, signs of the light things, air and fire.
And it has come about that the harmonious composition and blending of these is, in truth, the most venerable and most perfect holy work: the universe, for which, through the symbol of the incense, he thinks it right to give thanks to its Maker, so that in word the compound prepared by the perfumer's art is burned as incense, while in deed the entire universe, fashioned by divine wisdom, is offered up, consumed as a whole burnt offering, morning and evening.
For a life befitting the universe is to give thanks continually and without interruption to the Father and Maker, all but burning oneself as incense and dissolving oneself into one's elements, in token that one lays up nothing in store for oneself, but...
A life fitting for the world is to give thanks continually and without interruption to the Father and Maker, all but consuming itself like incense and dissolving itself into its elements, as a demonstration that it stores nothing up for itself, but
dedicates itself wholly as a votive offering to the God who begot it. I also marvel at the one who ran the sacred word swiftly and without pausing for breath, with such urgency, "that he might stand between the dead and the living"; for Moses says, "immediately the destruction was checked" (Num. 16:47-48). But it was not going to be checked, and the forces crushing and breaking and shattering our soul were not going to be lightened, unless the one dear to God had distinguished and walled off, by a partition of reasonings, the holy - who truly live - from the unholy, who are in truth dead.
For often, by mere nearness to the sick, even those in the soundest health, having caught their disease, have come near to death. But it was impossible for this still to happen to those separated by a boundary fixed between them, of the greatest power, which would repel the assaults and incursions of the worse part against the better.
And I have marveled still more, whenever, listening closely to the sacred sayings, I am taught anew in what manner the cloud entered between the Egyptian army and the Israelite (Exod. 14:20). For it no longer allowed the self-indulgent and godless part to pursue the self-controlled race dear to God - the cloud, a weapon that was a shelter and salvation for its friends, but a defense and instrument of punishment against its enemies.
For upon minds that flourish in virtue it gently sprinkles wisdom, wisdom that by nature is untouched by any evil, but upon those that are barren and unfruitful of knowledge it pours down, all at once, punishments like heavy snow, bringing a flood, a most pitiable destruction.
But to the archangel, the eldest Word, the Father who begot all things gave a special gift, that standing on the boundary he might separate the created from the Creator. And this same being is a suppliant of mortal humanity, forever wasting away in longing toward the incorruptible, and an ambassador of the Ruler to those under his rule.
He exults in this gift and, magnifying it, describes it, saying, "and I stood between the Lord and you" (Deut. 5:5) - being neither uncreated as God is, nor created as you are, but midway between the two extremes, a hostage to both: to the one who planted him, a pledge that the created order would never wholly rebel and revolt, choosing disorder in place of order; and to the offspring, a ground for good hope that the merciful God will never overlook his own work. "For I stand as herald," he says, "proclaiming peaceable things to creation, on behalf of that God who has resolved to abolish wars and who forever keeps the peace."
Having taught us, then, about division into equal parts, the sacred word leads us also to the knowledge of opposites, saying that the divided pieces "he placed facing one another" (Gen. 15:10). For indeed, virtually everything in the world is by nature composed of opposites; and one must begin from the first things.
Hot is the opposite of cold, dry of moist, light of heavy, darkness of light, night of day; and in heaven the fixed stars are opposite to the wandering ones in their motion, while in the air clear weather is opposite to cloud, calm to wind, summer to winter, spring to autumn - for in the one, things on earth bloom, while in the other they wither. Again, the sweetness of water is opposite to bitterness, and barren earth to fruitful.
And the other oppositions are equally plain: bodies and things without body, ensouled and soulless, rational and irrational, mortal and immortal, perceptible and intelligible, comprehensible and incomprehensible, elements and their products, beginning and end, coming-to-be and passing away, life and death, sickness and health, white and black, right and left, justice and injustice, prudence and folly, courage and cowardice, self-control and license, virtue and vice, and every form of the one set matched against every form of the other.
Again, literacy and illiteracy, musical skill and its lack, education and its lack, and in general skill and unskill; and within the arts, vowel sounds and consonants, high and low notes, straight lines and curved.
And among animals and plants, barren and fertile, prolific and sparing in offspring, egg-bearing and live-bearing, soft-bodied and shelled, wild and tame, solitary and gregarious.
And again poverty and wealth, reputation and disrepute, low birth and noble birth, want and abundance, war and peace, law and lawlessness, natural aptitude and its lack, effortlessness and toil, youth and old age, incapacity and capacity, weakness and strength. And what need is there to gather up each particular instance, since they are without limit and beyond counting in their multitude?
Most beautifully, then, does the interpreter of the facts of nature, taking pity on our idleness and lack of practice, teach us abundantly on every occasion, as he does now, that the position of each pair facing one another belongs not to whole things but to divided portions; for the two opposites together form a single whole, and it is by the cutting of this whole that the opposites become recognizable.
Is this not what the Greeks say the great Heraclitus, celebrated among them, made the chief point of his own philosophy, and boasts of it as though it were a new discovery? For it is an ancient discovery of Moses, that opposites are produced by dividing a single thing that contains the principle of both, as has been clearly shown.
These points we shall pursue with more precision elsewhere. But it is worth not passing over this either: the so-called half-pieces of the three animals, once each was divided in two, came to six, so that the seventh, the divider, is the Word, which sets the two triads apart, itself established in the middle.
The same thing seems to me to be signified most clearly also in the sacred lampstand. For it was fashioned with six branches, three on each side, and a seventh, itself the middle one, dividing and separating the two triads. For it is hammered work, a skillful and approved work of God, made from a single piece of pure gold (Exod. 25:30; 38:13-14); for the one thing that is truly single and pure has of itself alone begotten the motherless number seven, without making any use at all of matter.
Those who sing the praises of gold list many other points in its favor, but two stand above the rest: first, that it does not admit rust; second, that, remaining unbroken, it can be beaten and poured out into the thinnest of sheets. It has fittingly become, then, a symbol of a greater nature, one that, stretched and poured out and having reached everywhere, is wholly full through and through, harmoniously weaving all other things together as well.
Speaking again about the lampstand mentioned above, the craftsman of these words says, "from the branches there project shoots, three on each side, equal to one another; and their lamp-cups, which are on the tips, are almond-shaped, from them; and the flower-ornaments upon them, so that the lamps may rest on them, and the seventh flower-ornament at the tip of the lamp-cup on the very top, entirely solid gold; and seven golden lamps upon it" (Exod. 38:15-17).
So it has now been established through many considerations that the six is divided into two triads by the seventh, middle Word, just as it now stands; for the whole lampstand, together with its most general parts, is six - so it was constructed - having seven lamp-cups, seven flower-ornaments, seven lamps.
They are divided, the lamps by the seventh, and likewise the flower-ornaments by the middle one, and the lamp-cups in the same way by the seventh and middle one, and the six branches and the shoots growing out from them, equal in number,
by the very stem of the seventh. But the argument concerning each point, being lengthy, must be deferred to another time. This much alone must be recalled: that the sacred lampstand and its seven lamps are a copy of the dance of the seven planets in heaven. How so?
Someone might perhaps ask; we shall answer that just as the lamps do, so too does each of the planets give light; for being the brightest of bodies, they send their most radiant rays all the way to earth, and especially the one in the middle of the seven, the sun.
And I call it the middle one not only because it occupies the middle position, as some have thought fitting, but also because it deserves, on every ground, to be attended and escorted by those stationed on either side as bodyguards, on account of its dignity and its magnitude and the benefits it provides to all things upon earth.
Since human beings have not firmly grasped the order of the planets - and indeed what else among the things of heaven have they been able to comprehend with certainty? - they offer conjectures; but those seem to me to guess best who have assigned the middle position to the sun, saying that three lie above it and an equal number below it: above it, Phainon, Phaethon, and Pyroeis, then the sun, and below it, Stilbon, Phosphoros, and the moon, neighbor of the air.
Wishing, then, that there should exist among us an earthly copy of the seven-shining archetype, the heavenly sphere, the craftsman ordered that this most beautiful work, the lampstand, be made. And its resemblance to the soul has also been shown: for the soul has three parts, and each of these parts, as has been shown, is divided in two, so that six portions come to be, and the seventh, fittingly, was the divider of them all, the sacred and posited Word.
It is worth pausing over one further point. Of the three sacred furnishings — the lampstand, the table, and the incense altar — the incense altar, as we showed earlier, refers to thanksgiving for the elements, since it too contains a portion of each of the four: earth in its wood, water in the aromatic gums (for these first melt into liquid drops and are then dissolved again), air in the rising smoke, and fire in what is kindled; and the blended incense of frankincense, galbanum, onycha, and myrrh (Exod. 30:34) is a symbol of the elements. The table refers to thanksgiving for the products that sustain mortal life — for loaves and libations are set upon it (Num. 4:7), which all things that need nourishment must use. And the lampstand refers to thanksgiving for everything in the heavens, so that no part of the cosmos should be found guilty of ingratitude, but that we should know that every part of it gives thanks — the elements and their products, not only those on earth but those in heaven as well.
It is worth asking why, having stated the measurements of the table and the incense altar, he recorded none for the lampstand. Perhaps it is because the elements and the mortal products, of which the table and the incense altar are symbols, are measured, being bounded by heaven — for that which contains is always the measure of what it contains — whereas heaven, of which the lampstand is the symbol, is unbounded in magnitude.
For it is contained by no body, neither one equal to it in size nor one infinite, nor even — according to Moses — by a void, on account of the mythical doctrine of a sale of the elements at the world's conflagration. Its boundary is God, its charioteer and pilot.
Just as Being itself cannot be comprehended, so too what is bounded by it is not measured by measures that reach our understanding, and perhaps this is because, being spherical and turned with utmost precision into a globe, it has no share in length or breadth.
Having said what was fitting about these matters, he adds: "But the birds he did not divide" (Gen. 15:10), calling by the name of birds the two winged reasons that by nature range the heights — one the archetype above us, the other the copy existing within us.
Moses calls the one above us the image of God, and the one within us the impression of the image. For he says: "God made man," not as the image of God, but "according to the image" (Gen. 1:27) — so that each of our individual minds, which is properly and truly what "man" means, is a third impression from the Maker, while the middle term is the pattern of this one and the copy of that. By nature our mind has come into being undivided.
For the irrational part of the soul the Craftsman divided sixfold, fashioning seven portions — sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, voice, and the generative faculty — but the rational part, which is called mind, he left uncut, in likeness to the whole of heaven.
For in heaven too reason keeps the outermost, fixed sphere undivided, while it makes the inner sphere, divided sixfold, into the seven circles of the so-called planets; for what the soul is in a human being, that heaven is in the cosmos. So it comes about that the two intelligent and rational natures, the one in man and the one in the universe, are entire and undivided. That is why it says: "But the birds he did not divide."
Our mind is likened to the dove, since that creature is tame and lives familiarly among us, whereas its archetype is likened to the turtledove; for the Logos of God loves solitude and lives apart, not mingling with the crowd of things that come into being and will perish, but accustomed always to travel on high and trained to follow only the One. So the two natures — the reasoning within us and the divine Logos above us — are undivided, and being undivided, they divide countless other things.
For the divine Logos has divided and apportioned all that is in nature, and our mind, whatever objects and bodies it grasps intelligibly, divides into parts endlessly multiplied, and never ceases dividing.
This comes about because of its likeness to the Maker and Father of all. For the divine, though unmixed, unblended, and utterly without parts, has become for the whole cosmos the cause of mixture, blending, division, and multiplicity — so that, fittingly, the things made like it, the mind within us and the mind above us, being themselves without parts and undivided, will be able vigorously to divide and distinguish each of the things that exist.
Having spoken, then, of the undivided and indivisible birds, he goes on to say: "And birds came down upon the divided bodies" (Gen. 15:11) — using a play on the same word, but pointing out most clearly, to those able to see, the real conflict at issue; for it is contrary to nature for birds, winged in order to range the heights, to come down.
For just as earth is the most fitting place for land creatures, and especially for reptiles, which cannot bear even to crawl above it but seek burrows and lairs, shunning the upper region because of their kinship with what lies below, in the same way air is the natural dwelling for winged creatures, light things suited by their feathers to the naturally light element. So whenever creatures meant to travel the upper air come down and reach the earth, they are unable to live the life that accords with their nature.
Moses, on the contrary, approves without reserve of those reptiles that are able to leap upward. He says: "These you may eat, of the winged creeping things that go on four feet, which have legs above their feet, so that with them they can leap from the ground" (Lev. 11:21). These are symbols of souls that, though rooted like reptiles to the earthly body, are able, once purified, to range the heights, exchanging earth and corruption for the immortality of heaven.
One must consider those souls utterly weighed down with misfortune that, having been nurtured in the purest air and ether, have migrated downward, unable to bear their fill of divine blessings, to the region of mortal and evil things. But countless notions visit us concerning countless matters, some voluntary, some arising through ignorance, no different from birds — to which he likens the notions that come down.
Of these notions, the upward flight has been allotted the better rank, virtue traveling with it and leading it to the divine and heavenly choir, while the downward, worse flight is led and dragged by force by vice. Their very names reveal the opposition of these two regions no less clearly; for virtue (aretē) is named not only from choice (hairesis) but also from being lifted up (arsis) — for it is raised and elevated, since it forever loves the Olympian realm — while vice (kakia) is named from having gone downward (kato) and from forcing those who practice it to fall (katapiptein).
The hostile notions of the soul, then, that hover and flit about, themselves come down, and shamefully drag the mind down with them, since they attach themselves to bodies and to sense-perceptible things, not intelligible ones — to things incomplete, not whole, to things corrupted, not living. For they visit not only bodies but also fragments of bodies cut apart; and things thus divided cannot possibly receive harmony and union, once the spiritual
bonds, which were the most natural ties, have been severed. He introduces here a most true opinion, teaching that righteousness and every virtue are in love with the soul, while injustice and every vice are in love with the body, and that what is dear to the one is altogether hostile to the other — just as here; for hinting at the enemies of the soul, he brought in birds eager to entangle and fasten themselves upon bodies and glut themselves on flesh, and wishing to check their attacks and assaults, the good man is said to have sat down beside them (Gen. 15:11), like some presiding officer or counselor.
For since even his own kindred creatures were split apart by civil strife, and the hostile ranks were at odds with one another, he gathered a council of them all and deliberated about their differences, in order, if he could, by using persuasion, both to put an end to the foreign war and to remove the civil disturbance; for it was expedient to scatter those who had massed together like a storm-cloud in a spirit of irreconcilable hostility, but to reconcile the others to their ancient kinship.
The hostile parties, then, that are utterly unappeasable and irreconcilable, are written down as the follies and intemperances of the soul, its cowardices and injustices, and all the other irrational appetites that tend to spring from excessive impulse — leaping, throwing off the yoke, checking the mind's straight course, and often tearing apart and casting down its whole form as well.
But the clashes of those capable of being reconciled are of the sort that occur in the dogmatic disputes of the sophists; for insofar as they incline toward one goal, the contemplation of the things of nature, they might be called friends, but insofar as they do not agree in their particular inquiries, they engage in civil strife — as, for instance, those who say the universe is uncreated against those who maintain it came into being; or again, those who hold it will be destroyed against those who hold that, though destructible by nature, it will never in fact be destroyed, because it is held together by a stronger bond, the will of its Maker; and those who affirm that nothing exists but everything is only becoming, against those who hold the opposite; and those who declare that man is the measure of all things, against those who distinguish the criteria of sense-perception from those of thought; and, in general, those who maintain that all things are unknowable, against those who claim that a great many things can be known.
Indeed the sun and moon and the whole of heaven, earth and air and water, and virtually everything derived from them, have furnished the skeptics with disputes and contentions, as they investigate their substances and qualities, their changes and turnings and comings-to-be, and further their corruptions; and concerning the magnitude and motion of the heavenly bodies too, making their inquiry no idle matter, they hold conflicting opinions and cannot agree — until the man who is both midwife and judge, sitting down among them, examines the offspring born of each soul, and casts away what is unworthy of nourishment, while preserving what is fit and deeming it worthy of the appropriate care.
The matters of philosophy have become full of discord, since truth flees the plausible, conjecturing mind; for its being so hard to find and hard to hunt down has, I think, given birth to these logical factions.
"About the setting of the sun," he says, "a trance fell upon Abraham, and behold, a great, dark fear falls upon him" (Gen. 15:12). Trance is of several kinds: one is a raving madness producing derangement, brought on by old age or melancholy or some similar cause; another is violent consternation at things that happen suddenly and unexpectedly; another is stillness of mind, if indeed it is ever its nature to be at rest; and the best of all is inspired possession and madness,
The second kind occurs often. For it says, "Isaac was struck with great amazement and said: 'Who, then, is he who hunted game for me and brought it to me, and I ate of all of it before you came, and I blessed him? And blessed let him be'" (Gen 27:33). And concerning Jacob, who did not believe those who told him that "Joseph is alive and rules all the land of Egypt," it says: "he was amazed in his mind, for he did not believe them" (Gen 45:26). And at the exodus, concerning the assembly: "for the mountain," it says, "Sinai, was all smoking, because God had come down upon it in fire, and smoke went up like the vapor of a furnace, and all the people were greatly amazed" (Exod 19:18). And in Leviticus, at the consecration of the priests, on the eighth day, when "fire went out from heaven and consumed what was on the altar, both the whole burnt offerings and the fat" — for it says immediately: "and all the people saw, and were amazed, and fell on their faces" (Lev 9:24) — for such amazement produces terror and dreadful consternation. But it is not surprising also in the case of Esau,
that although he knew how to hunt, he is always the one hunted and outwitted, having acquired his skill to his own harm, not his benefit, while never earnestly devoting himself to hunting; and in the case of Jacob, that he hunts without having learned it, but moved by nature to this experience, and brings the game to the one who will test it, who will discern whether it is genuine — hence "he ate of all of it" (Gen 27:33).
For all the foods of ascetic training consist of these: inquiry, reflection, reading, listening, attentiveness, self-control, indifference to indifferent things. Of all these he certainly ate the firstfruits, but not all of them; for something had to be left even for the one in training, as prizes — food proper to himself.
"Before you came" is said with natural fitness; for if the passion comes into the soul, we shall not enjoy self-control. It also convicts the base person as slow, hesitant, and procrastinating toward the works of education, but never toward those of licentiousness.
Egypt, then, has taskmasters who hasten men on to the enjoyment of the passions, but Moses, on the contrary, earnestly commands that the Passover be eaten in haste, that the crossing away from these things be celebrated as a feast. And Judah says: "for if we had not delayed, we would already have returned twice" (Gen 43:10) — he does not say, "we went down into Egypt," but, "from there we were brought back to safety."
It is fitting, too, that Jacob marveled that the mind still in the body, Joseph, lives toward virtue and rules over the body rather than being ruled by it (Gen 45:26). And going through the other examples one could track down the truth in them as well. But it is not our purpose now to give a precise account of these matters, so we must turn to what follows. The third kind is found in the passages where he philosophizes about the woman's origin —
"For God cast," it says, "a trance upon Adam, and he fell asleep" (Gen 2:21), taking the trance to mean the mind's quiet and stillness; for sleep of the mind is the waking of sense-perception, and indeed the waking of the intellect is the inactivity of sense-perception —
and the fourth kind is what we are now examining: "about sunset a trance fell upon Abraham" — the passion of one inspired and possessed by God. But it is not this alone that establishes him as a prophet, but also a written text, set up like an inscription in the books, on the occasion when someone attempted to separate from him Sarah, virtue that rules by nature, as though she were not the private possession of the wise man alone but of anyone who merely puts on the appearance of prudence. "Restore," it says, "the woman to the man, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live" (Gen 20:7).
To every excellent person the sacred word bears witness of prophecy; for the prophet declares nothing of his own, but everything he utters belongs to another who is prompting him from within; and it is not permitted for a base person to become an interpreter of God, so that, properly speaking, no wicked person is ever inspired — this applies only to the wise man, since he alone is an instrument of God, a resonant one, struck and played invisibly by him.
At any rate, all whom he has recorded as righteous he has represented as possessed and prophesying. Noah was righteous — was he not immediately also a prophet? Or did he not, without being possessed, pronounce the blessings and curses he made concerning the generations to come (Gen 9:25ff), which were confirmed by the truth of events?
And what of Isaac? What of Jacob? For these too are acknowledged to have prophesied, both through many other things and especially through their addresses to their descendants. For the words "Gather together, that I may tell you what will happen to you in the last days" (Gen 49:1) were the words of one inspired; for grasping the future is not proper to man. And what of Moses? Is he not everywhere celebrated as a prophet?
For he says: "If there is a prophet of the Lord among you, I will be known to him in a vision, but to Moses in visible form, and not through riddles" (Num 12:6,8); and again, "There has not arisen since a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deut 34:10).
Excellently, then, does he indicate the one who is inspired when he says, "about sunset a trance fell" upon him (Gen 15:12), calling our mind, by way of symbol, the sun; for what reason is within us, the sun is in the cosmos, since each of the two gives light — the one sending forth perceptible light to the whole universe, the other sending to us the intelligible rays of our apprehensions.
So then, as long as our mind shines round about and circles overhead like a midday light, pouring itself out over the whole soul, we remain within ourselves and are not possessed; but when it comes to its setting, naturally trance and divine possession and madness fall upon us. For whenever the divine light shines, the human sets; and whenever that sets, this rises and dawns.
This is what tends to happen to the prophetic kind: our mind is evicted at the arrival of the divine spirit, and at its departure it moves back in again; for it is not lawful for what is mortal to dwell together with what is immortal. For this reason the setting of reason and the darkness surrounding it produce trance and God-inspired madness.
What follows, he weaves into the text with the words, "it was said to Abraham" (Gen 15:13); for truly the prophet, even when he seems to be speaking, is in truth silent, and another uses his organs of speech, his mouth and tongue, to declare whatever he wishes; and by an invisible and consummately skillful art, striking upon them, he produces sounds that are melodious, entirely harmonious, and full of the fullness of concord.
It is good to hear what things were said, foretold in advance. First, that God does not allow the lover of virtue to dwell in the body as in a native land, but permits him only to sojourn there as in a foreign country. "You shall surely know," it says, "that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own" (Gen 15:13). But for every base person the region of the body is kin, and there he intends to dwell, not merely to sojourn.
This, then, is one lesson; and there is another: that slavery, ill-treatment, and, as he himself said, dreadful humiliation are inflicted on the soul by the little dwellings that belong to earth; for the passions of the body are truly bastard and alien to the mind, having grown out of the flesh in which the mind has taken root.
The slavery lasts four hundred years (Gen 15:13), corresponding to the powers of the four passions. For when pleasure rules, the intellect is lifted up and puffed up, exalted by a hollow lightness; and when desire prevails, longing arises for things that are absent, and it hangs the soul, as it were, from the noose of an unfulfilled hope; for it is forever thirsty but unable to drink, enduring a torment like that of Tantalus.
And under the dominion of grief the soul contracts and shrivels, in the manner of trees shedding their leaves and withering; for its vigor and richness waste away. And when fear tyrannizes, no one is willing to remain in place, but resorts to flight and escape, expecting that only in this way will he be saved; for desire, having a drawing power, compels one to pursue the desired thing even when it flees, while fear, on the contrary, produces alienation, separates a person, and drives him far
from what appears before him. And the dominations of the passions just mentioned impose a heavy slavery on those they rule, until God, the umpire and judge, distinguishes the one wronged from the one who wrongs, and takes the one out into complete freedom while rendering to the other the wages of his wrongdoing.
For it is said: "And the nation to whom they are enslaved I will judge; and after this they shall go out with much baggage" (Gen 15:14). For it is necessary that, being mortal, one be oppressed by the nation of the passions and take on the misfortunes proper to one who has come into being, but it is God's will to lighten the evils innate to our race; so that we too, at the beginning,
shall suffer what belongs to us, becoming slaves to harsh masters, while God will do what belongs to himself, having proclaimed in advance release and freedom for the souls that supplicate him, providing not only release from bonds and an exodus from the closely guarded prison, but also giving provisions for the journey, which he called "baggage."
And what is this? When the mind, having come down from heaven above, is bound by the necessities of the body, and then, without being lured by any of them, like a man turned woman or a woman turned man, into embracing pleasant evils, but remains true to its own nature, truly a man, able rather to master than to be mastered, having been nurtured in all the studies of general education — from whose contemplation it acquires a longing for self-control and endurance, sturdy virtues — then, migrating and finding its way home to its fatherland, it brings with it all the things of education, which are called "baggage."
Having said so much also about these things, he adds: "But you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished to a good old age" (Gen 15:15). Therefore we who are imperfect are at war and enslaved, and scarcely find release from the fears hanging over us, but the perfect kind is unenslaved, unwarred-upon, nurtured in the most secure peace and freedom.
In this doctrine, Moses represents the good person not as dying but as departing, so that the race of a soul purified to the utmost degree may be shown to be inextinguishable and immortal, making its journey from here to heaven not by dissolution and decay, which death seems to bring about.
After 'you shall go' it is written 'to your fathers.' What fathers are meant is worth examining. He would not mean those who had lived in the land of the Chaldeans, the only kinsmen he had made use of, because by the divine oracle he had been separated from all his blood relations. For it says, 'The Lord said to Abraham: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation' (Genesis 12:1-2).
For how could it be reasonable that one alienated by divine providence should again be made a member of the household of the very people from whom he had been estranged? And how could one destined to become the founder of a different nation and race be assigned a share in the old one? For God would not have graciously given him, in some new and unprecedented way, a nation and race of his own, unless he had entirely severed him from the ancient one.
For this man is in truth an ethnarch and a founder of a race, from whom, as from a root, there sprang the shoot that observes and contemplates the things of nature, named Israel. Since it has also been decreed that 'old things should be brought forth from before new ones' (Leviticus 26:10). For what use is there any longer in ancient lore and old, well-worn customs, on those to whom, suddenly and beyond their expectation,
new goods poured down in abundance? The fathers, then, to whom the soul that has migrated returns, are not those buried in the tombs of the Chaldeans, but, as some say, the sun and moon and the other stars — for the account holds that the generation of all earthly things is brought about through these — or, as others suppose, the archetypal Forms, those intelligible and invisible patterns of these sensible and visible things, toward which the wise man's mind migrates.
But some have supposed that the fathers meant are the four principles and powers out of which the cosmos is composed: earth, water, air, and fire. For into these, they say, each of the things that come to be is properly resolved.
Just as nouns and verbs and all the parts of speech are composed of the elements of grammar, and are in turn resolved back into those ultimate elements, so too each of us, being compounded out of the four elements and having borrowed small portions from each substance, at appointed periods of time pays back the loan — if it is something dry, restoring it to earth, if moist, to water, if cold, to air, if hot, to fire.
These are the corporeal elements; but the intelligent and heavenly kind belonging to the soul will arrive at the purest ether as its father. For there is, as the account of the ancients has it, a fifth substance, moving in a circle, superior to the four by virtue of its excellence, out of which the stars and the whole heaven are thought to have come to be, and in accordance with this it must be supposed that the human soul too
is a fragment. The phrase 'nurtured in peace' has not been added without purpose, but because nearly the greatest part of the human race is nurtured amid war and all the evils that come from war. And war is of two kinds: one comes from external things — the war that disrepute, poverty, low birth, and their like bring on; the other comes from within, from one's own community — as regards the body, weaknesses, mutilations, complete disablements, and a heap of countless other afflictions; as regards the soul, passions, sicknesses, infirmities, and, through folly and injustice and the doings of fellow tyrants, harsh and heaviest uprisings and dominions that cannot be overthrown.
'Nurtured in peace,' then, means having acquired a calm and fair-weathered life, truly happy and blessed. When, then, will this come about? When outward things go well toward abundance and good repute, when the body's affairs go well toward health and strength, and when the soul's affairs go well toward the enjoyment of the virtues.
For each of these requires its own bodyguards. The body is guarded by good repute, abundance, and plenty of wealth; the soul, by the body's being whole and healthy in every respect; and the mind, by the theorems found in the sciences. Since it is clear to those who read the sacred scriptures that Moses is not speaking of the peace that cities observe: Abraham took on great and heavy wars, which he is shown to have overcome.
And indeed the leaving behind of his ancestral land was a heavy war for one who had migrated and could not settle again, but was carried here and there, wandering along deserted and untrodden paths, for one who had not put his trust in divine pronouncements and oracles. But it was also necessary that a third of the fearsome things be added in generous measure: famine, an evil worse than migration and war. What peace, then, did he bring about?
For, I think, to be a migrant and unsettled, to stand opposed to the irresistible powers of kings, and to be oppressed by famine, seems to indicate not one war but many wars of many kinds.
But in the interpretations that proceed by way of deeper meaning, each of these turns out to be evidence of unmixed peace. For want of the passions, and famine, and the destruction of the wrongs done by enemies, and migration from the Chaldean opinion to the God-loving one — that is, from the created realm of sense-perception to the intelligible and creative cause — bring about good order and stability.
To one who leads such a peace, a good old age is promised — not, of course, a long-lived one, but a life lived with wisdom. For a good day is better than many years, by as much as a shorter light is better than everlasting darkness. For a certain prophetic man said he would rather live one day rightly, with virtue, than ten thousand years 'in the shadow of death' (Psalm 22:4 [LXX numbering]), thereby hinting at the death that constitutes the life of the worthless.
Moses now establishes this same point by deeds rather than words. For the man he records as attaining a good old age he introduces as, of nearly all those before him, the shortest-lived, philosophizing and teaching us who it is that in truth grows old well — so that we should not accept the great conceit that clings to the visible body, full of shame and many reproaches, but that, seeing good counsel and steadiness of soul — which is old age's kin and namesake — we should call this a good old age and bear witness to it.
Hear, then, in this doctrine, that according to the lawgiver only the good person grows old well and lives longest, while the worthless person is shortest-lived, always learning to die, or rather already having died to the life of virtue.
It is said next: 'In the fourth generation they shall return here' (Genesis 15:16), not merely so that a length of time might be indicated, in which they will dwell in the sacred land, but also in order to represent the complete restoration of the soul. It comes about, as it were, in a fourth generation; and the manner of this is worth examining together.
The infant, once born, up to the first seven years, is allotted a childlike age of the soul, most like smooth wax, not yet stamped with the impressions of good and evil things;
for even what seems to be written on it is blotted out and confused because of its moistness. This, then, is the first generation, as it were, of the soul. The second is that which, after the age of childhood, begins to live together with evils — both those the soul is accustomed to generate from itself, and those it gladly receives from others. For there are countless teachers of wrongdoing: nurses, tutors, parents, and the written and unwritten laws established city by city, which admire what ought to be laughed at; and, even without teachers, the soul is self-taught toward blameworthy things, so that it is always weighed down by an abundance of evils.
For Moses says, 'The mind of man is intently set upon wicked things from his youth' (Genesis 8:21). This is the most accursed generation, symbolically speaking, but properly it is an age of life, in which the body reaches puberty and the soul comes into full growth, while the smoldering passions are fanned into flame, setting fire to threshing floor and standing corn and fields (Exodus 22:6) and whatever else they happen to consume.
This diseased generation, or age, must be healed by a certain third thing, as if by the medical art of philosophy, charmed by healthful and saving words, through which it will receive a purging of the immoderate surfeit of its sins, and a filling of the famished emptiness left by its right actions and its dreadful desolation.
After this treatment, then, in the fourth generation there grows in the soul both power and strength, in accordance with the most secure recovery of good sense, and an unswerving and stable firmness in all the virtues. This is what is meant by the saying: 'In the fourth generation they shall return here.' For in accordance with the fourth number just shown, the soul, having turned away from sinning, is shown to be the heir of wisdom.
For the first number is that according to which one can grasp the notion neither of good things nor of evil things, the soul being still unstamped; the second is that according to which we are carried along by our sins; the third is that in which we are healed, driving away the sickly things and outgrowing the prime of our passions; and the fourth is that in which we lay claim to complete health and vigor, when, turning away from base things, we seem to set our hand to noble ones — before which it is not
possible. As to how far this extends, he himself will make plain, saying: 'For the iniquities of the Amorites are not yet full' (Genesis 15:16). Such statements give the weaker-minded an occasion to suppose that Moses introduces fate and necessity as the causes of all that comes to be.
But one must not be ignorant that he, being a philosopher and a man who speaks of God, knows the sequence and chain and interweaving of causes, yet he does not fasten the causes of what happens to these. For he had a vision of something older still, riding upon the whole like a charioteer or a pilot; for it steers the common vessel of the cosmos, in which all things sail, and it drives, as a winged chariot, the whole heaven, exercising a sovereign and self-ruling kingship. What, then, must be said about these things?
"Amorites" is interpreted as "talkers," and the greatest good given to man by nature, reason, countless of those who received it have corrupted, treating the one who gave it with ingratitude and faithlessness. These are the sorcerers, the flatterers, the inventors of persuasive sophistries, who know only how to cheat and deceive, having no concern for truthfulness. They cultivate obscurity as well, and obscurity is deep darkness in speech, and darkness is an accomplice to thieves.
For this reason Moses adorned the high priest with Manifestation and Truth [Exodus 28:26], deeming it right that the speech of the virtuous person be perfectly clear and true. The many pursue what is unclear and false, and to it subscribes the whole deceived crowd of herd-like and neglected men.
So then, as long as "the sins of the Amorites are not fulfilled" - that is, the sophistic arguments, because they remain unrefuted but still possess an alluring power that draws us in by their plausibilities - we, unable to turn away and abandon them, remain, being enticed.
But if all the false plausibilities are refuted by true convictions, and their sins are shown to be full and brimming over, we will flee without turning back, and, all but weighing anchor from land, we will set sail out of the country of falsehoods and sophistries, hastening to anchor in the safest roadsteads and harbors of truth.
Such, then, is what is signified by the proposition: it is impossible to turn away from, hate, and abandon a plausible falsehood, unless the sin attached to it is shown to be full and complete; and it will be shown to be so by being carefully refuted through opposition to, and confirmation of, the truth.
He goes on to say: "And when the sun was at its setting, a flame arose" [Genesis 15:17], showing that virtue is a thing that comes late - indeed, as some have said, it becomes secure only at the very setting of life. He compares virtue to a flame: for just as the flame burns up the fuel laid before it but illuminates the neighboring air, in the same way virtue burns up sins but fills the whole mind with radiance.
But while the undivided and unpartitioned arguments still prevail through their plausibilities - the ones he calls Amorites - we are unable to see the most manifest and shadowless light; instead, we are in the condition of an oven that does not have pure fire but, as he himself says [Genesis 15:17], is smoking - we are smoldering with the sparks of knowledge, but not yet able to be tested and strengthened by clear fire.
Great is the gratitude owed to the one who sowed these sparks, so that the mind might not be chilled by the passions like the bodies of the dead, but rather, being warm and gently heated by the kindling-materials of virtue, might be fanned into flame until it undergoes transformation into sacred fire, as did Nadab and Abihu [Leviticus 10:2].
Smoke arises before fire, and forces those who draw near to weep. It is likely that both of these happen to us: for as we approach the rays of virtue we hope for perfection, and even if we are not yet able to attain it, we spend our time grieving, not without tears. For when great longing has melted into the soul, it hastens toward the capture of the desired object and compels one to be downcast until it is seized.
He has now likened to an oven the soul of the one who loves learning and has hope of perfection, since each vessel serves to solidify food as it is cooked - the one, food of perishable grain; the other, food of imperishable virtues. And the torches of fire, kindled as by a torch-bearer, are the judgment of God, the bright and radiant torches whose custom it is to pass through the midst of the divided portions - I mean, of the opposites out of which the entire cosmos is composed.
For it is said: "torches of fire, which passed through the midst of the divided portions" [Genesis 15:17], so that you may know that the divine powers, passing through the midst of both things and bodies, destroy nothing at all - for the divided portions remain unaffected - but they divide and distinguish, most excellently, the natures of each.
Rightly, then, the wise man is shown to be the heir of the knowledge just described; for it says: "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying: To your offspring I will give this land" [Genesis 15:18].
What land does he mean, if not the one previously mentioned, to which he makes reference? Its fruit is the secure and certain apprehension of the wisdom of God, according to which he preserves all things, by his own divisions, keeping the goods unaffected by evil, in accordance with what belongs to those things whose coming-to-be is imperishable.
Then he adds: "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates" [Genesis 15:18], showing that those who are perfect have their beginnings from the body and sense-perception and the instrumental parts, without which it is not possible to live - for these are useful for the education proper to life together with the body - but their ends rest in the wisdom of God, the truly great river, overflowing with joy and gladness and the goods from above.
For he did not mark out the boundaries of the land from the river Euphrates to the river of Egypt - for he would not have brought virtue down to the bodily passions - but on the contrary, "from Egypt to the great Euphrates." For improvements proceed from mortal things toward the imperishable.

======== On Mating / Preliminary Studies ========

"Now Sarah, the wife of Abraham, bore him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave girl named Hagar. And Sarah said to Abraham: See, the Lord has closed me up, so that I do not bear; go in to my slave girl, that you may have children by her" (Gen. 16:1-2).
The name Sarah, translated, means "my sovereignty." For the wisdom that is in me, and the self-control that is in me, and the particular justice, and each of the other superior qualities that happen to belong to me alone, is a sovereignty over me alone; for it governs me and rules me, since I have chosen to obey it, being by nature a queen.
This power Moses declares, most paradoxically, to be both barren and exceedingly fruitful, since he acknowledges that the most populous of nations came into being from her. For in truth, virtue is barren toward everything base, but enjoys such an easy fruitfulness in good things that it needs no midwife's art at all — for it brings forth before the midwife can arrive.
Now animals and plants, resting for the greater part of the year, bear their proper fruits once, or at most twice, in accordance with the number that nature has assigned to each, fitted to the yearly seasons. But virtue, never resting, but continually and without interruption, at every indivisible moment of time, gives birth — never indeed to infants, but to graceful words, blameless counsels, and praiseworthy actions.
But neither does wealth benefit its possessors if they cannot use it, nor does a fruitful wisdom benefit us if it does not also bring forth what is useful to us ourselves. For some she judged altogether worthy of living with her, while others did not yet seem to have reached the age to sustain a praiseworthy and temperate household; to these she permitted the preliminary rites of marriage, giving them hope that they would one day also celebrate the marriage itself.
Sarah, then, the virtue that rules my soul, was bearing children, but not to me; for I, being still young, was not yet able to receive her offspring — right thinking, right action, piety — because of the multitude of bastard children whom empty opinions had begotten upon me. For the nurture of these, and the ceaseless care and unending anxieties they demanded, forced me to neglect the legitimate children, the true citizens of the soul.
It is good, then, to pray not only that virtue may bear children — for she is fruitful even without prayer — but that she may bear them to us ourselves, so that, sharing in her seeds and offspring, we may be happy. For she is accustomed to bear only to God, gratefully rendering the firstfruits of whatever good things she has received to the one who opened, as Moses says, "the ever-virgin womb" (Gen. 29:31).
And indeed of the lampstand — the archetype, the model of the copy — he says that it shines from the one part, evidently the part turned toward God; for being the seventh and middle branch among the six lamp-stems divided into two triads on either side as bodyguards, it sends its rays upward toward Being, considering its light too bright for
mortal sight to bear (Exod. 25:37, 31). For this reason he does not say that Sarah does not bear at all, but that she does not bear to a particular someone. For we are not yet able to receive the offspring of virtue, unless we first make the acquaintance of her handmaid; and the handmaid of wisdom is the general education that comes through the preliminary studies.
For just as in houses there are outer courts before the inner doors, and in cities the suburbs, through which one may pass to go inside, so too the general studies stand before virtue; for these are the road that leads to her.
One must know that great undertakings have great preludes as well. And virtue is the greatest of undertakings; for it concerns itself with the greatest of materials, the whole of human life. It is fitting, then, that it should not employ brief preludes, but grammar, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, music, and the whole of the other rational studies, of which Sarah's handmaid Hagar is the symbol, as we shall show.
"Sarah said," it says, "to Abraham: See, the Lord has closed me up, so that I do not bear; go in to my slave girl, that you may have children by her" (Gen. 16:1). We must set aside from the present discussion the union and intercourse of bodies with bodies that have pleasure as their end; for what is meant is the union of the mind with virtue, the mind desiring to have children by her, but if it cannot do so at once, then at least being taught to become betrothed to her handmaid,
that is, to intermediate education. And it is worth marveling at the modesty of wisdom, who did not think it right to reproach us for our slowness, or our utter barrenness, in coming to birth, even though the oracle spoke the truth in saying "she did not bear" — not out of jealousy, but because of our own unfitness. For it says, "the Lord closed me up, so that I do not bear," and does not add "to you," so that it should not seem to be casting misfortune in our teeth or reproaching others. "Go in, then," it says, "to my slave girl,"
the intermediate education of the intermediate and general sciences, that you may first have children by her; for afterward you will also be able to enjoy your union with the mistress for the begetting of legitimate children.
For grammar, by teaching us the history found in poets and prose writers, will produce understanding and broad learning, and will teach us to look with contempt upon all that empty opinion puffs up as grand, on account of the misfortunes that story tells the celebrated heroes and demigods of the poets to have suffered.
Music, charming away what is unrhythmic with rhythms, what is discordant with harmony, and what is out of tune and unmelodious with melody, will bring what is dissonant into consonance. Geometry, implanting the seeds of equality and proportion in a soul that loves learning, will through the elegance of continuous study instill in it a zeal for justice.
Rhetoric, sharpening the mind for contemplation and training the reasoning faculty for expression, and welding it together, will show the human being to be truly rational, by cultivating that peculiar and special gift which nature has bestowed on no other living creature.
Dialectic, the sister and twin of rhetoric, as some have called it, distinguishing true statements from false and refuting the plausibilities of sophistries, will heal a great sickness of the soul, namely deception. It is profitable, then, to associate and practice beforehand with these and similar studies; for perhaps, perhaps, it will happen to many of us that through these subject arts we shall come to be known to the sovereign virtues.
Do you not see that even our body does not partake of solid and costly foods before it has, in its infant age, been nourished on varied, milk-like foods? In the same way, consider that the general studies and the particular theories within each of them are prepared as childhood nourishment for the soul, while the virtues are the more perfect food, truly fitting for grown men.
The first characteristics of intermediate education are represented by two symbols, that of race and that of name. By race she is Egyptian, and she is called Hagar, which, translated, means "sojourning"; for it is necessary that one who takes part in the general studies, and is a companion of broad learning, should be allotted to the earthly and Egyptian body, needing eyes in order to see and read, ears in order to attend and hear, and the other senses in order to unfold each of the objects of sense.
For that which is judged cannot naturally be apprehended apart from that which judges; and it is sense-perception that judges the perceptible, so that nothing precise concerning the perceptible world — in which lies the greater part of philosophizing — could be attained without sense-perception. And sense-perception, the more bodily part of the soul, is rooted in the vessel of the whole soul, and the vessel of the soul is, by symbol, called Egypt.
This, then, is the one characteristic derived from race, which the handmaid of virtue has received as her lot; let us now examine what sort of characteristic derives from her name. It happens that intermediate education has the status of a resident alien. For knowledge and wisdom and virtue in its entirety are alone, in truth, native-born, indigenous, and citizens of the universe, while the other branches of learning, obtaining second, third, and last prizes, occupy a middle ground between foreigners and citizens; for they belong purely to neither race, and yet in some measure touch upon both.
For a resident alien is like the citizens in that he dwells among them, but like the foreigners in that he does not have his home there; just as, I think, adopted children, in that they inherit the property of those who adopted them, are like the legitimate children, but in that they were not begotten by them, are like strangers. The same relation that a mistress has to her handmaid, and a citizen wife to a concubine, virtue Sarah has to education Hagar; so that, fittingly, for the one who has aspired to contemplation and knowledge, whose name is Abraham, virtue, Sarah, would be his wife, and his concubine would be Hagar, the whole of general education.
The one, then, to whom right thinking comes through instruction would not reject Hagar; for the acquisition of the preliminary studies is altogether necessary. But if someone, having recognized the contests set before virtue, applies himself to them with unremitting and continuous exercises, holding fast to training, he will take to himself two citizen wives, and as many concubines, the handmaids of the citizen wives.
Each of these was allotted a different nature and character. To begin with the citizen wives: the one is a most healthy, most stable, and most peaceable motion, whom he named, from what befell her, Leah. The other is like a whetstone, and is called Rachel, against whom the mind that loves contest and exercise is sharpened and made keen; her name is translated "vision of unhallowed things," not because she sees profanely, but on the contrary, because she considers visible and perceptible things, in comparison with the pure nature of the invisible and intelligible, to be unholy and profane.
For since our soul is twofold, possessing a rational part and an irrational part, it happens that each has its own virtue: Leah belongs to the rational part, and Rachel to the irrational.
For the one trains us, through the senses and all the parts of the irrational faculty, to hold in contempt those things that deserve to be held of no account — reputation, wealth, and pleasure — which the great herd-like crowd of men, with corrupted ears and with the whole tribunal of the other senses likewise corrupted, judges to be things worth looking at and worth fighting for.
while the other teaches us to turn away from the uneven and rough road, impassable to souls that love virtue, and instead to walk smoothly along the highway, without stumbling or slipping underfoot.
It follows of necessity that the handmaid of the first will be the interpretive power exercised through the organs of speech, and the rational invention of clever arguments that casts its spell through well-aimed plausibility; while the handmaid of the second will be the necessities of nourishment, drink and food.
He has recorded for us the names of the two handmaids, Zilpah and Bilhah. Zilpah, when translated, means ‘a mouth that walks,’ a symbol of the interpretive and discursive faculty; while Bilhah means ‘swallowing,’ the first and most necessary support of mortal creatures, for by swallowing our bodies find their anchorage, and the cables of life are made fast to it as to a foundation.
So the man in training keeps company with all the powers named, with some as free women, citizens’ wives, and with others as slaves and concubines. He desires the movement of Leah — for smooth movement, occurring in the body, produces health, and in the soul it would produce nobility of character and justice — and he loves Rachel too, as he wrestles against the passions and trains himself for self-control and sets himself in opposition to everything perceived by the senses.
For there are two modes of benefit: one that comes through the enjoyment of good things, as in peacetime, and one that comes through resistance to and the stripping away of evils, as in war. Leah, then, is the one through whom it happens that we enjoy the elder and ruling goods, while Rachel is the one through whom we gain, as it were, spoils of war. Such, then, is life together with the free-born wives.
But the man in training also has need of Bilhah — of swallowing — though as a slave and concubine; for without nourishment and life not even living well could be attained, since the intermediate things are always the foundations of the better ones. And he has need too of Zilpah, of discursive interpretation, so that his rational faculty may be gathered together toward perfection from two sources at once: from the spring within the understanding, and from the outflow through the organ of speech.
But these men became husbands of several wives and concubines, and not merely of free-born wives, as the sacred writings show; whereas Isaac had neither more than one wife nor any concubine at all — only his lawful wife lived with him to the end. Why is this?
Because the virtue attained through teaching, which Abraham pursues, has need of several things — of legitimate doctrines belonging to practical wisdom, and of illegitimate ones belonging to the studies of general education — and so too does the virtue perfected through training, which Jacob evidently pursued with such zeal; for acts of training proceed through many different doctrines, some leading and some following, some coming ahead and some lagging behind, involving labors now smaller, now greater.
But the self-taught kind, which Isaac shares — joy, the best of the good emotions — has been allotted a nature that is simple, unmixed, and unadulterated, needing neither training nor teaching, the very things for which there is need of concubine sciences, and not only of free-born ones. For once God has rained down the self-taught and self-instructed good from heaven above, it would be impossible to still keep company with slave and concubine arts, reaching out, as it were, for bastard children of illegitimate doctrines.
For he is recorded as a man who has received this privilege from a mistress and queenly virtue; among the Greeks she is called Patience, among the Hebrews Rebekah. For the man who has found wisdom without toil or hardship, through the good fortune of his nature and the good bearing of his soul, seeks nothing further toward improvement.
For he has ready at hand the perfect gifts of God, breathed into him by the elder graces, and he wishes and prays only that these should remain with him. For this reason, it seems to me, the Benefactor, so that his graces might last forever for the one who received them, betrothed to him, as a wife, Constancy.
Recollection, indeed, takes second place to memory, and the man who recollects ranks below the man who remembers; for the one is like a man continuously in health, the other like one recovering from an illness — for forgetfulness is a disease of memory.
Now the man who makes use of reminding must first have forgotten what he once remembered. The sacred word, then, calls memory Ephraim, which means ‘fruit-bearing,’ while the Hebrews call recollection out of forgetfulness Manasseh.
For truly the soul of the man who remembers bears fruit from what it has learned, casting none of it away, while the soul of the man who makes use of recollection escapes the forgetfulness in which it was held before being reminded. So a free-born wife lives with the man of good memory — that wife is Memory — but a concubine lives with the forgetful man, and she is Recollection, Syrian by birth, boastful and arrogant; for Syria, when translated, means ‘lofty things.’
The son of this concubine, Recollection, is Machir, as the Hebrews call him — which in Greek means ‘of a father’; for those who recollect suppose that the mind, as father, is the cause of their being reminded, and they do not reckon that this very same mind once made room for forgetfulness too, and would not have admitted it, if remembering had depended on the mind itself.
For it is said: ‘These were the sons of Manasseh, whom the Syrian concubine bore him: Machir; and Machir fathered Gilead.’
Nahor too, Abraham’s brother, has two wives, a free-born one and a concubine; the free-born wife’s name is Milcah, and the concubine’s is Reumah. But this is not a historical genealogy recorded by the wise lawgiver — no one of sound mind should suppose such a thing — but an unfolding, through symbols, of matters able to benefit the soul. And by translating the names into our own language we shall know that this promise is true. Come, then, let us examine each of them.
Nahor is translated ‘rest of light,’ Milcah ‘queen,’ and Reumah ‘one who sees something.’ Now to possess light in the understanding is a good thing, but for it to rest, stay still, and remain motionless is not a perfect good; for it is profitable for evils to be treated with quiet, but it is advantageous for good things to be in motion.
For what use is a man with a beautiful voice who keeps silent, or a flute-player who does not play the flute, or a lyre-player who does not play the lyre, or in general a craftsman who does not put his craft into action? Mere theory, without practice, is of no benefit at all to those who possess it; for a man who knows how to compete in the pankration, or to box, or to wrestle would gain no benefit from athletic training if his elbow were disabled, nor would one who has thoroughly learned the science of running, if he were afflicted by gout or fell prey to some other affliction of the feet.
The most sun-like light of the soul is knowledge; for just as the eyes are lit up by rays, so too the understanding is bathed in light by wisdom, and, anointed with ever-new insights, it becomes accustomed to seeing more keenly.
So Nahor is fittingly translated ‘rest of light’; for insofar as he is kinsman to Abraham the wise, he has had a share in the light of wisdom; but insofar as he did not journey abroad with him — the journey from that which has come into being toward the uncreated, and from the world toward the world’s fashioner — he acquired a knowledge that is lame and incomplete, one that rests and remains fixed, or rather is set fast like a lifeless statue.
For he does not remove himself from the land of the Chaldeans — that is, he does not separate himself from the study of astronomy — since he has honored the thing made above the one who made it, and the world above God, or rather has come to regard the world itself as an absolute, sovereign god, rather than as the work of the sovereign God.
He takes Milcah as a wife — not one who by chance actually rules over men or cities as a queen, but one who bears only the name in common with such a queen. For just as one might, not unreasonably, call heaven, being the mightiest of created things, king of the objects of sense-perception, so too the science concerning it, which astronomers, and the Chaldeans especially, pursue, could be called the queen of the sciences.
This woman, then, is a wife of full status; but a concubine is she who sees only one particular thing among the things that are, even if it should be the most trivial of all. For it falls to the best kind to see the best, that which truly is—for Israel is translated “seeing God”—while to one who reaches for second prizes falls the second thing: the perceptible heaven and the harmonious order of the stars within it, a dance that is truly full of music.
Third are the skeptics, who lay hold neither of the mightiest things in nature, whether perceptible or intelligible, but wear themselves down over petty sophistries and hairsplitting arguments. To these belongs a concubine who sees something, even the smallest thing—Rouma—as a consort, since they are unable to advance to the search for better things, things from which they might actually benefit their own lives.
For just as among physicians the thing called “word-doctoring” falls far short of benefiting the sick—since diseases are cured by drugs, surgery, and diet, not by words—so too in philosophy there are certain word-peddlers and word-hunters who are only this: unwilling and unpracticed at curing a life full of sicknesses, but from earliest youth to extreme old age they wrangle and skirmish over verbal quibbles without a blush, as though happiness lay in names and phrases and an endless, interminable fussing over trifles, rather than in better establishing one's character—the wellspring of human conduct—by banishing vices beyond its borders and settling virtues within it.
Yet even the base admit concubines, that is, opinions and doctrines. At any rate Scripture says that Thamna, the concubine of Eliphaz the son of Esau, bore to Eliphaz Amalek (Gen. 36:12). Oh, the illustrious ignobility of that descendant! You will see his ignobility if you set aside the notion that these things are said about human beings, and instead examine the soul as though by dissection.
The irrational and immoderate impulse of passion, then, Scripture calls Amalek; for translated it means “a people that licks up.” For just as the power of fire consumes the fuel laid beside it, in the same way passion, seething, licks up and destroys everything in its path.
The father of this passion is fittingly recorded as Eliphaz; for translated it means, “God scattered me.” But is it not the case that whenever God shakes loose, scatters, and drives the soul away from himself, the irrational passion is immediately born? For the soul's God-loving faculty of sight—a noble scion—God plants, sending its roots out toward eternity and granting fruitfulness for the acquisition and enjoyment of the virtues.
For this reason Moses too prays, saying, “Bring them in and plant them” (Exod. 15:17), so that the divine shoots may become not short-lived but immortal and long-enduring. But the unjust and godless soul he banishes far from himself, scattering it into the region of pleasures, desires, and wrongdoing. This region is most fittingly called the place of the impious—not the mythical Hades—for the true Hades is the life of the wicked man: accursed, polluted, liable to every curse.
This same teaching is inscribed elsewhere too: “When the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam” (Deut. 32:8)—he drove away all the earthbound dispositions that have taken no care to see anything heavenly and good, truly rendering them homeless, cityless, and scattered. For no base person keeps a home, a city, or anything else that belongs to fellowship intact, but being unsettled he is sown broadcast, carried everywhere, forever changing his abode, and unable to be fixed anywhere.
In the base person, then, vice arises from the wife of full status, but passion from the concubine. For the whole soul is, as it were, the lawful consort of reason—though a soul subject to seizure gives birth to vices—while the nature of the body is the concubine, through whom the origin of passion is observed; for the body is the region of pleasures and desires.
She is called Thamna, a name which translated means “a failing that is tossed about.” For the soul fails and grows powerless under passion, receiving great tossing and surging from the body because of the heavy storm that breaks upon it from the immoderacy of its impulse.
As the head of a living creature is to all the parts already mentioned, so is Esau the founder of this whole line, who is translated now as “a made thing,” now as “oak.” “Oak,” insofar as he is unbending, unyielding, disobedient, and stiff-necked by nature, taking folly as his counselor—truly oaken; and “a made thing,” insofar as the life lived with folly is a fabrication and a myth, full of tragic bombast and empty boasting, and again of laughter and comic mockery, having nothing sound in it, falsified, having shot truth far from its mark—truth being that quality-less, form-less, unfabricated nature which he holds in no regard, though the man in training loves it.
Moses bears witness to this, saying, “Jacob was an unfabricated man, dwelling in a house” (Gen. 25:27), so that his opposite would be homeless, a companion of fabrication, of made things, and of mythical nonsense—or rather, he is himself a stage-show and a myth.
The union, then, of a reason fond of contemplation with its wife-powers and its concubine-powers has been described as far as was possible; but we must weave together the sequence of the argument by tracing out what follows. “Abraham obeyed the voice of Sarah,” it says (Gen. 16:2); for it is necessary that the one who learns should submit to the commands of virtue.
But not all submit—only those in whom a fierce longing for knowledge has taken root. For nearly every day the lecture halls and theaters fill up, and those who profess philosophy run on without pausing for breath, stringing together their discourses about virtue,
but what use is what is said? For instead of paying attention, they send their minds elsewhere—some to voyaging and trade, some to revenues and farming, some to honors and public office, some to the profits available from each craft and pursuit, others to vengeance on enemies, and others still to the enjoyments found in erotic desires—and, in short, different people are absorbed in different things, so that, deaf for the sake of appearances, they are present only in body while absent in mind, no different from images and statues.
And if some do pay attention, they sit only for as long as they are listening, and once they leave, remember nothing of what was said; they have come to be delighted through hearing rather than to be benefited, so that their soul had no strength to conceive and carry to term any of it, but as soon as the cause that stirred pleasure fell silent, their attention too was extinguished.
Third are those in whose ears what was said still echoes, but who turn out to be sophists rather than philosophers. Of these, the discourse is praiseworthy but the life is blameworthy; for they are capable of speaking the best things but incapable of doing them.
It is hard, then, to find a person who is attentive and retentive, who values doing above speaking—qualities attested in the lover of learning through the phrase “obeyed the voice of Sarah.” For he is introduced not as one who hears but as one who obeys; and “obeying” is the most exact term for assenting and submitting.
Nor is the addition of “the voice” beside the point, meaning that he obeyed Sarah as she spoke rather than merely heard her. For it is characteristic of the learner to listen to voice and words, since he is taught by these alone; but the one who acquires the good by practice rather than by instruction attends not to what is said but to those who say it, imitating their life in its individual, blameless actions.
This is said of Jacob when he is sent to a marriage among his kin: “Jacob obeyed his father and his mother, and went into Mesopotamia” (Gen. 28:7)—not “the voice” nor “the words”; for the man in training must be an imitator of a life, not a listener to words. The latter belongs to the one being taught, the former to the one who competes in the contest—so that here too we may grasp the difference between the man in training and the learner: the one being formed according to the speaker himself, the other according to the speaker's argument.
“So Sarah, Abraham's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her own maidservant, after Abraham had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abraham as a wife” (Gen. 16:3). Vice is by nature envious, bitter, and malicious, while virtue is gentle, sociable, and kindly, willing in every way to benefit those of good natural capacity, either through herself or through others.
Now then, since we are not yet able to bear children from prudence itself, she pledges her own handmaid—general education, as I have said—and all but undertakes to arrange and escort the marriage; for she herself is said to have taken this woman and given her as a wife to her own husband.
It is worth raising the question why Scripture again calls Sarah “the wife of Abraham” at this point, having already made this clear many times before; for Scripture does not practice the most worthless form of verbosity, namely repetition for its own sake. What, then, must be said? Since she is about to pledge prudence's handmaid, general education, Scripture says that she has not forgotten her agreements with her mistress, but knows that mistress to be his wife by law and by settled judgment, while this other woman is his wife only by necessity and the constraint of circumstance—and this happens to every lover of learning.
The man who has experienced this could be the most truthful witness. I myself, at any rate, when I was first goaded by the stings of philosophy toward longing for her, while still quite young, kept company with one of her handmaids, grammar, and whatever children I begot by her—writing, reading, the lore found in the poets—I dedicated to the mistress.
And again, coming together with another, geometry, and admiring her beauty—for she had symmetry and proportion in all her parts—I appropriated none of her offspring for myself, but to
And again, I met with another—geometry—and admired her beauty, for she had symmetry and proportion in all her parts; and none of her offspring did I keep back for myself, but gave them all as a gift to my noble wife.
I was eager also to meet a third—she was well-rhythmed, well-attuned, tuneful, and was called Music—and from her I begot diatonic and chromatic scales, and enharmonic ones, conjunct and disjunct melodic sequences, belonging to the concord of the fourth, the fifth, and the octave; and again I hid none of these away, so that my noble wife might become rich, served by a countless multitude of household slaves.
For some men, enticed by the love-charms of the handmaids, have made light of their mistress, philosophy, and grown old, some among poems, some among lines and figures, some in blendings of colors, some among countless other things, unable to run back up to the noble wife.
For each art has its own elegant refinements, certain seductive powers, by which some men, having their souls led captive, remain fixed, forgetting the agreements they made with philosophy. But the one who abides by the covenants procures everything from every side for her satisfaction. It is fitting, then, that the sacred word, admiring him for his faithfulness, says that even now Sarah was his wife, at the time when he took the handmaid to please her.
And indeed, just as the studies of general education contribute to the taking up of philosophy, so too does philosophy contribute to the acquisition of wisdom. For philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, and wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human and of their causes. It would follow, then, that just as general education is the handmaid of philosophy, so philosophy is the servant of wisdom.
Philosophy teaches self-mastery of the belly, self-mastery of what comes after the belly, and self-mastery also of the tongue. These things are said to be choiceworthy in themselves, but they would appear more venerable if they were pursued for the honor and pleasing of God. We must, then, keep the mistress in mind whenever we are about to court her handmaids; and let these be, as it were, husbands of the handmaids, but let that other truly be our wife—let this not merely be said.
He gives her not immediately upon arriving in the land of the Canaanites, but after ten years of sojourning there. What this means must not be examined carelessly. At the beginning of our coming into being, the soul deals only with the passions that grow up with it—griefs, pains, terrors, desires, pleasures—which come upon it through the senses, since the reasoning faculty is not yet able to see the things that are good and bad and to distinguish precisely how these differ from one another, but is still drowsy, as it were shut fast in deep sleep.
But as time goes on, when, leaving behind the age of childhood, we are about to become youths, the twin stem, virtue and vice, immediately springs up from a single root; and we come to apprehend them both, but we choose, in every case, one or the other—those of good nature choosing virtue, and those of the opposite disposition, vice.
Once these things have been sketched out in advance, one must know that Egypt is a symbol of the passions, and the land of the Canaanites a symbol of the vices; so that it was fitting that, having raised the people up out of Egypt, he should lead them into the land of the Canaanites.
For man, as I said, at the very moment of his birth is allotted the Egyptian passion, taking root among pleasures and pains as his dwelling; but afterward he sends out a colony toward vice, once the reasoning faculty has already advanced to sharper sight and apprehends both things, the good on the one hand and the evil on the other, but chooses the worse, because it partakes largely of the mortal, to which evil is akin, since the good, in turn, is akin to the divine.
But these are our native lands by nature—the passion, Egypt, belonging to the age of childhood, and vice, the land of Canaan, to the age of youth. Yet the sacred word, though it knows clearly the native lands of our mortal race, lays down as our task, giving orders about what must be done and what will be advantageous, that we hate their customs and their laws and their practices, when it says: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them: I am the Lord your God. According to the practices of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you, you shall not do; and you shall not walk in their laws. You shall do my judgments, and keep my ordinances, and walk in them: I am the Lord your God. And you shall keep all my ordinances and all my judgments, and do them. The one who does them shall live by them: I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 18:1–5).
Therefore true life belongs to the one who walks in God's judgments and ordinances, so that death would be the practices of the godless. Some things are unseen forms of passion and of the vices, from which the multitudes of the impious and the unholy spring up.
After ten years, then, of sojourning among the Canaanites, we shall take Hagar to wife, since as soon as we are born endowed with reason we lay claim to that ignorance and lack of instruction which is by nature harmful, but later, and in the perfect number, the decad, we come to desire the lawful education that is able to benefit us.
Now the account concerning the decad has been worked out with precision by the sons of the musicians, and our most holy Moses has praised it not modestly, dedicating to it the finest things: the first-fruits, the offerings of first produce, the continual gifts of the priests, the observance of the Passover, the atonement, the release and return to the ancient allotments that comes every fifty years, the construction of the indissoluble tabernacle, and countless other things, which it would take long to mention.
But the essential points must not be passed over. To begin with, Noah—the first man to be proclaimed righteous in the sacred writings—he introduces as the tenth from the man molded out of earth, not wishing to set before us a mere quantity of years, but to teach clearly that just as the decad is the most perfect limit of the numbers proceeding from the unit, so righteousness in the soul is the perfect limit, truly the boundary of the actions that make up a life.
For the oracles have declared that the triad, multiplied by itself, which produces the number nine, is most hostile, while they have welcomed the unit added on to complete the decad, as I have said.
Here is a sign: when the nine kingships of the kings were involved—at the time when civil strife blazed up, the four passions having taken up arms against the five senses, and the whole soul, like a city, was in danger of undergoing pillage and destruction—the wise Abraham marched out and, appearing as the tenth, put an end to it (Genesis 14).
This man secured calm instead of storm, and health instead of sickness, and, if the truth must be told, life instead of death, since God, who grants victory, displayed him as bearer of the trophy; to whom he also dedicates the tithes as thank-offerings for the victory (Genesis 14:20).
And indeed, of every tame and domesticated creature that comes "under the rod"—by which I mean instruction—the tenth is set apart, becoming, by the ordinance of the law, "holy" (Leviticus 27:32), so that from many examples we may be taught the kinship of the decad with God, and of the number nine with our mortal race.
But it is not from animals alone that tithes are to be offered as first-fruits; it has also been ordained concerning whatever springs up from the earth. For he says: "Every tithe of the land, from the seed and from the fruit of the tree, is holy to the Lord; and every tithe of oxen and of sheep, and everything that passes under the rod in the counting, the tenth shall be holy to the Lord" (Leviticus 27:30, 32).
Do you see that he thinks it right that first-fruits should be offered even from the bodily mass that surrounds us, which is truly of earth and of wood? For its life and persistence and growth and health come to it by divine grace. And do you see that it has also been ordained that first-fruits be offered again from the irrational animals within us ourselves—these being the senses? For seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting, and touching besides, are divine gifts, for which thanks must be given.
But indeed, we are taught to praise our benefactor not only for the masses of the body, made of wood and earth, nor for the irrational animals, the senses, but also for the mind, which, properly speaking, is the human being within the human being—the better part within the worse, the immortal within the mortal.
For this reason, I think, he consecrated all the firstborn, exchanging for them the tenth—I mean the Levitical tribe—for the maintenance and safeguarding of holiness and piety and the services that are referred to the honor of God. For the first and best thing within us is reasoning, and it is fitting to offer to God, who has granted us the abundant capacity to think, the first-fruits of understanding and quickness of mind, of apprehension and prudence, and of the other faculties that belong to it.
It is from this that the man of ascetic practice, setting out in prayer, said: "Of all that you give me, I will tithe a tenth to you" (Genesis 28:22); while the oracle recorded after the prayers of victory, which Melchizedek—who has obtained a priesthood self-taught and untaught—offers, says, "for he gave to him," it says, "a tenth of everything" (Genesis 14:20): from the things of perception, right perceiving; from the things of speech, speaking well; from the things of the mind, thinking well.
From each of these three measures, then, a tenth must be set apart as a kind of sacred offering, so that speaking, perceiving, and comprehending may all be examined without blame and in health, according to God. For this is the true and just measure; what falls short of it, on our part, is false and unjust.
It is fitting, then, that also in the sacrifices a tenth part of the measure of fine wheat flour should be brought up to the altar together with the victims (Exodus 29:40), while the number nine, the remainder left from the tenth, stays behind with us.
With these things the continual sacrifice of the priests also harmonizes; for they are instructed always to offer the tenth part of an ephah of fine wheat flour (Leviticus 6:20). For they have learned, by passing over the ninth, to worship truly the tenth alone, who is God to the sense of perception - since the ordered world has been allotted nine portions,
eight of them in heaven - the fixed sphere and the seven wandering stars carried along in their own courses - and a ninth, the earth together with water and air; for these last belong to one kindred, since they undergo every sort of turning and change.
The many, then, honor these nine portions and the ordered world compacted out of them, but the perfect man honors the tenth God who stands above the nine, their craftsman; for having risen above the whole work he longed for the artisan himself, and was eager to become his suppliant and servant. For this reason the priest dedicates a continual tenth to the tenth, the only and eternal one.
This, properly speaking, is what should be called the Passover of the soul - the crossing over from every passion to the tenth, which is the object of mind and divine. For it is said: "On the tenth of this month let each man take a sheep for his household" (Exodus 12:3), so that from the tenth day the victims, kept watch over in the soul that has been illumined in two of its three portions, might be consecrated to the tenth, until the soul, having become wholly light throughout, like the moon nearly full as it waxes toward the second week, is able not only to guard its unharmed and blameless advances but already to offer them as a sacred act.
This is propitiation - for this too is confirmed on the tenth of the month (Leviticus 23:27), when the soul supplicates the tenth God, having been persuaded by careful reflection of the lowliness and nothingness of what is created, and having been taught the surpassing heights, in all that is good, of the uncreated. So he who has thus humbled and drawn himself in, without even a plea, at once finds God gracious and propitious, while those who are puffed up with boasting and self-conceit do not. This is release (Leviticus 25:9 and following),
this is the complete freedom of the soul, as it shakes off the wandering in which it went astray and puts in at the unwandering nature, returning to the portions allotted to it - the portions it received when it still breathed brightness and strove in the labors concerned with what is good. For then, admiring it for its victories, the sacred Word honored it, giving it an extraordinary prize, an immortal inheritance, its rank within the imperishable race.
This too is what the wise Abraham entreats, when the land of Sodom - in word - but in fact the soul barren of what is good and blind in its reasoning, was about to be set ablaze, so that if the memorial of justice, the number ten, should be found in it, it might obtain some reprieve (Genesis 18:32). He begins his entreaty from the number of release, fifty, and ends at ten, the final
redemption. From this, I think, Moses too, after choosing captains of thousands, of hundreds, and of fifties, appoints in addition captains of tens over all (Exodus 18:25), so that if the mind cannot be improved through the higher ranks, it may at least be purified through the lowest.
A most excellent teaching the studious son also learned, when he conducted that remarkable embassy, procuring for the self-taught sage his most fitting virtue, perseverance. "For he takes ten camels" - the remembrance of the number ten, I mean of right instruction, drawn from the many, indeed countless, memories of his master.
"He also takes some of his master's good things" (Genesis 24:10) - clearly not silver nor gold nor anything else made of perishable matter, for Moses never applies the name "good" to such things - but he equips and furnishes himself with the genuine goods that belong to the soul alone: teaching, advancement, diligence, longing, zeal, inspired impulses, prophecies, a passionate desire to succeed.
Practicing and training himself in these, when he is about to make harbor as if out of the open sea, he will take two earrings, a drachma's weight each, and ten gold bracelets for the hands of the woman he is procuring (Genesis 24:22). Oh, an arrangement worthy of God! That what is heard should be a single drachma, an unbroken unit and one by nature - for it is fitting that hearing attend to nothing except a single word, one that rightly recounts the virtues of the One and only God - and that the undertakings should be ten pieces of gold; for actions in accordance with wisdom are made sure by perfect numbers, and each such action is more precious than gold.
Such also is the offering, chosen by merit, that the rulers made when the soul, adorned by philosophy in a manner worthy of the sacred, kept the dedication festival, giving thanks to God its teacher and guide. "For he dedicates a censer of ten shekels of gold, full of incense" (Numbers 7:14), so that the wise man alone may judge the fragrances given off by prudence and every virtue.
And when they seem to be pleasing, Moses will sing the refrain, saying: "The Lord smelled a fragrance of sweetness" (Genesis 8:21), setting the smelling in place of approving; for God is not shaped like a human being, nor does he have need of nostrils or any other bodily organs.
Proceeding further, in speaking of the divine dwelling, the tabernacle, he will say, "ten curtains" (Exodus 26:1); for the whole structure of wisdom has been allotted the perfect number, ten; and wisdom is the court and royal dwelling of the ruler of all and only sovereign King.
This, then, is the house perceived by mind; the house perceived by sense is the ordered world, since he wove the curtains together also from materials that are symbols of the four elements. For they are worked from fine linen, hyacinth-blue, purple, and scarlet (ibid.), four kinds, as I said. Fine linen is a symbol of earth, for it grows from it; hyacinth-blue of air, for this color is black by nature; purple of water, for the cause of its dye comes from the sea, from the shellfish that shares its name; and scarlet of fire, for it most resembles flame.
Again, when Egypt grew unruly, exalting the mind that sets itself against God by conferring on it the insignia of royalty - the throne, the scepter, the diadem - the overseer and guardian of all things admonishes it with ten plagues and punishments.
In the same way Abraham too promises the wise man that he will bring about the destruction and complete ruin of neither more nor fewer, but precisely ten nations, and will give the land of those destroyed to his descendants (Genesis 15:18-20), deeming it right to make use of the number ten everywhere - for praise and for blame, for honor and for punishment.
Yet why do we recall these things? For the sacred and divine legislation Moses has recorded, all together, in ten sayings; and these are the ordinances, the general chapters of the countless particular laws, the roots and origins and ever-flowing springs of the injunctions that contain commands and prohibitions for the benefit of those who use them.
It is fitting, then, that the union with Hagar comes ten years after the arrival in the land of Canaan; for we cannot, the moment we become rational beings, while our understanding is still soft, reach out for the general course of instruction, but only after we have made our understanding and quickness of mind firm, so that we no longer approach all things with a light and superficial judgment, but with a settled and secure one.
For this reason what follows is woven on in due sequence: "he went in to Hagar" (Genesis 16:4); for it is fitting that the one who is learning should go to the teacher for the sake of knowledge, so as to be taught the lessons appropriate to human nature. Here the pupil is represented as going to the teacher; but often it is she who runs ahead, banishing envy from herself and drawing to herself those who are well endowed by nature.
One may see, at any rate, virtue - Leah - going out to meet the man in training and saying to him, "You shall come in to me today" (Genesis 30:16), when he was returning from the field. For where else ought the steward of the fields and plants of knowledge to go, if not to virtue, once she has been cultivated?
There are times, too, when she tests those who come to her, to see how much eagerness and diligence they have; she does not go to meet them, but veils her face and sits, like Tamar, at the crossroads, giving those who pass by the impression of a prostitute (Genesis 38:14-15), so that those who are curious enough to uncover her may bring to light and behold the untouched, undefiled, and truly virginal beauty, most excellent of all, of modesty and self-control.
Who, then, is the one given to inquiry and love of learning, who thinks it right to leave nothing veiled unexamined and unsearched, if not the commander-in-chief and king, the one who abides by and rejoices in his agreements with God, whose name is Judah? For it says, "He turned aside to her on the road and said, 'Let me come in to you'" (ibid. 16) - though he was not going to force the matter - and to consider what power lies veiled there, and for what it has been prepared.
After the entrance, then, it is written, "and she conceived" (ibid. 18), and the text does not expressly indicate who does the conceiving; for the discipline conceives and seizes upon the learner, persuading him to be enamored of her, while the learner in turn seizes upon the one who teaches him, whenever he is eager to learn.
Often one of those who lead others through the intermediate branches of learning, having gained a gifted pupil, boasts of his teaching as though he alone were responsible for the pupil's aptitude, and, puffing himself up and swelling with pride, he holds his neck stiffly, arches his brows, and grows conceited, and from those who wish to study with him he demands a great deal, while those he perceives to be poor, though thirsting for education, he turns away, as though he alone had discovered some treasure of wisdom.
This is what "having in the womb" means: to be swollen, puffed up, and wrapped in a bulk greater than is fitting — through which some have even come to dishonor virtue, the mistress of the intermediate sciences, though she is honorable in her own right.
Now all the souls that conceive with understanding nevertheless give birth by distinguishing and separating things that are confused — as did Rebecca. For having received in her womb the understanding of the two nations of the mind, virtue and vice, by a good delivery she separates and distinguishes the nature of each (Gen. 25:23). But those souls that conceive without understanding either miscarry, or bring forth a contentious sophist who shoots and hurls his arrows (Gen. 21:20), or one who is himself struck and pierced by arrows.
And perhaps this is reasonable; for some souls think they "receive," others that they "have" in the womb, and the difference between the two is very great. Those who think they "have" ascribe the conception and the birth to themselves and speak of it grandly, while those who hold that they "receive" acknowledge that they possess nothing of their own, but recognize that the seeds and offspring are watered from outside, and they marvel at the giver; self-love, that greatest of evils, they thrust away, in favor of the perfect good, piety toward God.
In this manner, too, the seeds of legislation among human beings were sown. "For there was a certain man," it says, "of the tribe of Levi, who took one of the daughters of Levi, and had her. And she conceived, and bore a male child; and seeing that he was beautiful, they hid him for three months" (Exod. 2:1–2).
This is Moses, the purest mind, the truly beautiful one, who received both lawgiving and prophecy together through an inspired and god-possessed wisdom — he who, being of the tribe of Levi both on his father's and his mother's side, holds fast to truth from both lines equally.
The greatest profession of the founder of this tribe is this: he is bold enough to say, "He alone is God to be honored by me" (Exod. 20:3), and nothing else that comes after him — not earth, not sea, not rivers, not the nature of the air, not the changes of the winds or the seasons, not the forms of animals or plants, not sun, not moon, not the multitude of stars circling in harmonious order, not the whole heaven and cosmos together.
It is the boast of a great and transcendent soul to rise above creation and to overstep its boundaries, and to cling only to the uncreated, according to the sacred instructions, in which it is said, "to cling to him" (Deut. 30:20). Therefore to those who cling to him and serve him without ceasing, he gives himself in return as their portion. And an oracle guarantees this promise, in which it is said: "the Lord himself is his portion" (Deut. 10:9).
Thus souls are by nature apt to give birth by "receiving" in the womb rather than by "having." And just as the eyes of the body see sometimes dimly and sometimes clearly, in the same way the eye of the soul at times receives the properties of things confused and indistinct, and at times pure and clear.
The unclear and indistinct impression resembles an embryo not yet formed in the womb, while the vivid and altogether clear impression resembles one that has been fully shaped, fashioned in each of its inner and outer parts, and has received its fitting form.
On these matters a law was written, set down very finely and beneficially, as follows: "If two men are fighting and one strikes a woman who is with child, and her child comes out not yet fully formed, he shall be fined a penalty; whatever the woman's husband exacts, he shall pay along with an assessment. But if it is fully formed, he shall give life for life" (Exod. 21:22–23). For it is not the same thing to destroy a complete work of the mind and an incomplete one, nor a thing merely conjectured and apprehended, and a thing already hoped for and now existing.
For this reason, where the matter is unclear, an unclear penalty is legislated, but where it is complete, a fixed penalty is legislated — complete not in the sense of moral virtue, but in the sense of having reached completion by some technical process free from fault. For it is not the one who has "received" who carries it in the womb, but the one who "has" in the womb, professing self-conceit in place of freedom from vanity. Indeed, it is impossible for the one who has "received" in the womb to miscarry, since the plant, once sown by a competent hand, is fit to be brought to full term; but for the one who "has," it is not unnatural, since she is held fast by a disease without a physician.
Do not suppose that Hagar is said to "see herself" as having conceived, through the words "seeing that she had conceived" (Gen. 16:4); rather, it is her mistress Sarah who sees this. For later Sarah herself says of herself, "seeing that she had conceived, I was dishonored in her eyes" (ibid. 5).
Why is this? Because the intermediate arts, even if they do see the things proper to themselves, of which they are pregnant, see them altogether dimly; whereas the sciences apprehend clearly and with great vividness. For science is more than art, having gained from reason what is firm and unshakeable.
For the definition of art is this: a system of trained apprehensions directed toward some useful end, the "useful" being rightly added because of the existence of harmful arts and crafts; but the definition of science is: a sure and firm apprehension, unshakeable by reason.
Music, then, and grammar and their kindred we call arts — indeed those who are made proficient through them are called craftsmen, musicians and grammarians — but philosophy and the other virtues we call sciences, and those who possess them we call knowers; for they are prudent, temperate, and lovers of wisdom, and not one of them ever errs in the doctrines of a thoroughly worked-out science, as do those mentioned before in the theorems of the intermediate arts.
For just as the eyes see, but the mind sees more clearly through the eyes, and the ears hear, but the mind hears better through the ears, and the nostrils smell, but the soul perceives more vividly through the nostrils, and the other senses each apprehend what is proper to them, while the understanding perceives more purely and genuinely — for, properly speaking, this is the eye of eyes, the hearing of hearing, and a purer sense than each of the senses, using them as its assistants in a court of law, while it itself judges the natures of the things submitted, so as to agree with some and reject others — in the same way, the so-called intermediate arts, resembling the powers of the body, encounter their subjects by certain simple impressions, while the sciences do so more accurately and with exceptional scrutiny.
For what mind is to sense-perception, science is to art. For just as the soul is, so to speak, a sense of the senses, as was said before... [lacuna] ...each of these arts has appropriated for itself some small portion of what exists in nature, about which it labors and busies itself — geometry with lines, music with sounds — but philosophy claims the whole nature of existing things; for its material is this cosmos and the whole visible and invisible substance of what exists.
What wonder is it, then, if the science that surveys the wholes also beholds the parts, and does so better than they do, since it has been furnished with greater and keener-sighted eyes? Fittingly, then, sovereign philosophy will behold the intermediate education, her handmaid, as pregnant, rather than that handmaid beholding herself.
And indeed no one is unaware of this either: that philosophy has bestowed on each of the particular arts the principles and seeds from which their theorems are thought to have sprung. For geometry discovered further the equilateral and scalene figures, circles and polygons and the other shapes, but it was not geometry that discovered the nature of the point, the line, the surface, and the solid, which are the roots and foundations of what has been mentioned.
For how could geometry, in defining these, say that a point is that which has no part, a line is length without breadth, a surface is that which has only length and breadth, and a solid is that which has the three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth? These belong to philosophy, and the whole business of definitions belongs to the philosopher.
To write and to read is the task of the more elementary grammar, which some, altering the name, call "letters," while the unfolding of what is found in poets and prose writers belongs to the more complete grammar. So when grammarians go through the parts of speech, are they not then dragging off and appropriating as a side business the discoveries of philosophy?
For it is philosophy's own task to examine what a conjunction is, what a noun, what a verb, what a common noun, what a proper noun, what is elliptical in speech and what is complete, what is declarative, what is a question, what is an inquiry, what is inclusive, what is optative, what is imprecatory; for it is philosophy that has put together the study of self-complete statements, propositions, and predicates.
To see that an element is a semivowel, a vowel, or wholly voiceless, and how each of these is customarily pronounced, and the whole theory concerning sound, elements, and the parts of speech — has this not been labored over and brought to completion by philosophy? Yet after drawing brief trickles as though from a torrent, and squeezing what they have stolen into their own smaller souls, these thieves feel no shame in bringing it forward as their own.
For this reason, priding themselves against their mistress -- the one to whom the true authority and the confirmation of the things under study properly belong -- they hold her in no account. But she, perceiving their disregard, will reprove them, and will say with all frankness: I am wronged and cheated by men who, so far as lies with them, transgress our agreement.
For ever since you took to your bosom the preliminary studies, the offspring of my handmaid, you have honored her as a wedded wife, but have turned away from me in such a way as never even once to have come together with me. Yet perhaps this is only what I suppose about you, inferring from your open intimacy with the servant-girl a hidden estrangement from myself; but if your disposition is the opposite of what I have supposed, it is impossible for anyone else to know it, though easy for God alone.
For this reason she will fittingly say, "Let God judge between me and you" (Gen. 16:5), not because she has already condemned him as having done wrong, but because she is in doubt whether perhaps he may even be acting rightly -- a doubt which is truly resolved not long after, through the words with which he defends himself and heals her uncertainty, saying, "Behold, the maidservant is in your hands; deal with her as is pleasing to you" (Gen. 16:6).
For in calling her a "maidservant" he acknowledges both things at once, that she is a slave and that she is a child -- for the name "maidservant" fits both of these -- and at the same time he wholly acknowledges also their opposites, ascribing to the mistress maturity, and to the slave-girl her position as mistress, all but crying aloud: the encyclical education I embrace as younger and as a handmaid, but knowledge and understanding I have honored as mature and as mistress.
And the phrase "in your hands" signifies that she is subject to you. But it also indicates something else of this kind: the things belonging to the slave-girl come into the hands of the body -- for the ordinary needs of the encyclical studies belong to bodily organs and faculties -- but the things belonging to the mistress come into the soul; for by reasoning are the matters of understanding and knowledge entrusted.
So that by as much as the mind is more powerful and more effective and altogether superior to the hand, by so much have I judged the knowledge and understanding to be more admirable than the encyclical culture, and have honored it exceptionally. Take, then, O you who are and are considered by me to be mistress, all my instruction, and use it as a handmaid, "as is pleasing to you."
Now what is pleasing to you, I am not ignorant, is altogether good, even if not agreeable, and beneficial, even if far removed from what is pleasant. For those in need of correction, admonition is good and beneficial, which the sacred word signifies by another name: affliction.
For this reason it continues, "and she afflicted her" (Gen. 16:6), equivalent to: she admonished her and brought her to her senses. For a sharp goad is exceedingly profitable to those living in ease and unrestraint, as it is to unruly horses, since with the whip and with training alone they can scarcely be tamed and made gentle.
Or do you not see the prizes set before those who go unreproved? They grow sleek, they spread out, they fatten, they breathe splendor; then the utterly wretched and ill-starred are lifted up in impiety, crowned and proclaimed with pitiable garlands. For because of the smoothly flowing course of their good fortune, they have supposed themselves to be gods plated with silver and gold, after the manner of counterfeit coin, forgetting the true and truly existing God.
Moses too bears witness to this where he says, "He grew fat, he grew thick, he grew broad, and he abandoned God who made him" (Deut. 32:15); so that if excessive ease brings forth the greatest evil, impiety, then, on the contrary, affliction accompanied by law brings forth a perfect good, admonition worthy of song.
Setting out from this, he called the symbol of the first festival "the bread of affliction" (Deut. 16:3), that is, the unleavened bread. And yet who does not know that festivals and feasts produce cheerful gladness and good spirits, not afflictions?
But it is clear that he has used the word for the toil that brings correction. For most and greatest of goods are wont to arise from disciplined exercises and vigorous toils; and the festival of the soul is zeal, the toil for what is best when brought to its fulfillment. For this reason it is also prescribed "to eat the unleavened bread with bitter herbs" (Exod. 12:8), not as a mere relish, but because most people count as unpleasant the not swelling up and boiling over with desires, and being restrained and drawn together, thinking it bitter to unlearn the passion -- which is in truth
gladness and festival to a mind that loves the contest. For this reason, it seems to me, the laws were taught again in the place called Bitterness; for doing wrong is pleasant, but doing what is just is laborious -- and this is the truest law of all. For, it says, after coming out from the passions of Egypt "they came to Marah, and they were not able to drink the water of Marah, for it was bitter; therefore the name of that place was called Bitterness. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water became sweet. There he set for him statutes and judgments, and there he tested him" (Exod. 15:23-25).
For the hidden trial and testing of the soul lies in laboring and being made bitter; for it is difficult to discern which way the balance will tip. For those who grow weary too soon collapse, judging toil to be a heavy adversary, and drop their hands through weakness like athletes who have given up, having resolved to run back to Egypt for the enjoyment of passion.
But those who endure the fearful and terrible things of the wilderness with great fortitude and strength contend through the struggle of life, keeping themselves undefiled and unconquered, and rising above the necessities of nature -- hunger, thirst, cold, heat, all the things that are accustomed to enslave others -- brought under control through great abundance of strength.
The cause of this was that the toil was not bare, but was accompanied by being made sweet; for it says, "the water was made sweet" -- sweet and pleasant toil is called by another name, love of labor. For the sweetness within toil is love and longing and zeal and affection for the good.
Let no one, then, turn away from such affliction, nor ever suppose that "the bread of affliction" is spoken of the table of festival and gladness as harm rather than benefit; for the soul that is being admonished is nourished by the doctrines of instruction.
This unleavened cake is so sacred that it has been commanded by oracles to set out twelve unleavened loaves, equal in number to the tribes, upon the golden table in the inner sanctuary (Exod. 25:29). And they are called loaves of presentation.
And by law it is also forbidden to offer any leaven or any honey upon the altar (Lev. 2:11); for one must not consecrate as holy either the sweetnesses of bodily pleasures or the loose and puffed-up exaltations of the soul, things that are by their very nature profane and unholy.
Is it not, then, fitting that the prophetic word, by name Moses, speaking with solemnity, should say: "You shall remember all the way by which the Lord your God led you in the wilderness, that he might afflict you and test you, and that it might be known what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not; and he afflicted you and made you hungry, and fed you with manna, which your fathers did not know, that he might declare to you that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds through the mouth of God" (Deut. 8:2-3)?
Who, then, is so impious as to suppose that God is one who afflicts, and that famine, that most pitiable destruction, is brought by him upon those who cannot live without food? For he is good and the cause of good things, a benefactor, a savior, a nourisher, a bestower of wealth, a giver of great gifts, having driven wickedness out from his sacred boundaries -- for it was thus that he exiled from paradise the burdens of the earth, both Adam and Cain. Let us not, then, be led astray by mere words,
but let us consider what is signified through the hidden meanings, and say that "he afflicted" is equivalent to "he disciplined and admonished and brought to his senses," while "he tried by famine" did not produce a lack of food and drink, but of pleasures and desires, of fears and grief and wrongdoings, and, in sum, of all the works either of vice or of passion.
And what follows next bears witness to this: "he fed you with manna." Is it fitting to call famine and affliction, or on the contrary the cause of abundance and prosperity, of freedom and good order, that food which, without toil and without hardship on the part of men, apart from effort, was given not from the earth as is customary but from heaven, a prodigious work, provided for the benefit of those who would partake of it?
But the many, the herd-like, suppose that those who are nourished on divine words live wretchedly and miserably -- for they have never tasted the all-nourishing taste of wisdom -- while those who live amid comforts and pleasures are unaware that they
Thus, then, a certain kind of affliction is beneficial, so much so that even its lowliest form, slavery, has been reckoned a great good. And this a father in the sacred writings prayed for his son -- the excellent Isaac for the foolish Esau.
For he said somewhere: "By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother" (Gen. 27:40), judging it most advantageous for the one who chooses war instead of peace, and who, as it were, bears arms in battle because of the faction and turmoil within his soul, to become obedient and to serve, and to obey in everything whatever commands the lover of self-control lays upon him.
From this, I think, one of the disciples of Moses, named "peaceable" — who in his ancestral tongue is called Solomon — says: "My son, do not disdain the discipline of God, and do not grow faint when reproved by him; for the Lord disciplines whom he loves, and scourges every son whom he receives" (Prov. 3:11-12). So it is that rebuke and admonition have been reckoned so noble a thing that through them acknowledgment of God becomes kinship with him. For what is closer to a son than a father, or to a father than a son?
But so that we may not seem to draw out our discourse by stringing argument upon argument, we will offer, apart from what has already been said, the clearest possible proof that a particular kind of affliction is the work of virtue. For there is a law of this sort: "You shall not afflict any widow or orphan; but if you afflict them with wickedness..." (Exod. 22:22). What does this mean? Can one be afflicted by anything other than wickedness? For if afflictions are the work of wickedness alone, then it is superfluous to write down what is already agreed upon, and it would be affirmed even without the addition.
He will certainly say: I know of one who is reproved by virtue and disciplined by wisdom as well. Therefore I do not hold every affliction blameworthy, but the affliction that is the work of justice and lawgiving — for it brings a person to soundness of mind through rebuke — this I admire above all, while the affliction that arises from folly and wickedness, being harmful, this I turn away from and rightly condemn.
So then, whenever you hear that Hagar was afflicted by Sarah, do not suppose that anything of what customarily happens in the jealousies of women took place. For the discourse is not about women, but about minds — the one still being trained in the preliminary studies, the other already contending in the contests of virtue.

======== On Flight and Finding ========

"And Sarah mistreated her, and she fled from her presence. And an angel of the Lord found her at the spring of water in the wilderness, at the spring on the road to Shur. And the angel of the Lord said to her, 'Slave-girl of Sarah, where have you come from, and where are you going?' And she said, 'I am fleeing from the presence of Sarah my mistress.' And the angel of the Lord said to her, 'Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.' And the angel of the Lord said to her, 'Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your humiliation. This one will be a wild man; his hands will be against everyone, and everyone's hands against him' (Genesis 16:6-12, omitting verse 10)."
Having said in the previous treatise what was fitting concerning preliminary studies and concerning ill-treatment, we shall next set down what concerns fugitives — the fitting subject. For Scripture makes mention in many places of those who run away, just as now it says of Hagar that, having been ill-treated, she "fled from the presence of her mistress."
I myself think there are three causes of flight: hatred, fear, and shame. Out of hatred, then, both women leave their husbands and men their wives; out of fear, children leave their parents and household slaves their masters; out of shame, friends leave their companions, whenever they have not done something pleasing to them. And I have known fathers, too, who because of their sons' soft and luxurious living have turned away from a severe and philosophic life, and out of shame have chosen to live in the country rather than in the city.
Of these three causes it is possible to find records in the sacred writings. The practicer Jacob, at any rate, flees his father-in-law Laban out of hatred, and his brother Esau out of fear, as we shall presently show.
Hagar, on the other hand, departs out of shame. The sign of this is that an angel — the divine Word — meets her, one who is to counsel and guide her back to her mistress's house, and who, encouraging her, says: "The Lord has heard your humiliation" (Genesis 16:11) — a humiliation you endured neither through fear nor through hatred (for the one is the passion of an ignoble soul, the other of a quarrelsome one), but for the sake of the image of self-mastery, namely shame.
For it would be likely, if she had been fleeing out of fear, that the one who had threatened her with fear should console her to feel gently disposed; for then it would be safe for the fugitive to return, but not before. But no one goes first to meet her, since she has been reconciled through herself; but the one who out of goodwill is at once friend and counselor — conviction — teaches her not merely to feel shame, but also to employ boldness. For shame without courage is only half of virtue.
The more exact characteristics the discourse to follow will disclose. But we must return to the topics proposed, and begin from those who flee out of hatred. For it says: "Jacob concealed it from Laban the Syrian, so as not to tell him that he was fleeing, and he himself fled, and all that was his" (Genesis 31:20-21).
What, then, is the cause of the hatred? For perhaps you desire to learn this. There are some who fashion into a god the qualityless, formless, and shapeless substance, neither knowing the moving cause nor taking pains to learn it from those who know, but living in ignorance and unlearning of the finest of studies, of which alone and above all it was necessary to work out the knowledge.
Laban belongs to this class; for the oracles assign to him the unmarked flock (Genesis 30:42). And "unmarked," as applied to the universe as a whole, is qualityless matter; as applied to human beings, it is the untaught and undisciplined soul.
There are others, of the better portion, who have said that mind came and set all things in order, bringing the disorder arising from mob-rule among existing things into the order of lawful rule, of kingship. Jacob is a member of this company, a dancer in its chorus, one who presides over the marked and dappled flock. And "marked" and "dappled," as applied to the universe as a whole, means form; as applied to human beings, the well-schooled and learning-loving understanding.
Having drawn deeply on what is by nature sociable, the marked one, companion of true monarchy, comes to the unmarked one — who, as I have already said, fashions material powers into gods and thinks nothing effective exists apart from these — in order to teach him that he does not think rightly.
For the world has come into being, and it has certainly come into being through some cause; and the reason of the maker is itself the seal by which each of existing things has been shaped. This is why complete form accompanies things that come into being from the very beginning, since they are impression and image of a complete reason.
For the living creature that has come into being is incomplete in quantity — witness the growths that accompany each stage of life — but complete in quality; for the same quality remains, since it has been stamped from a divine reason that remains and is in no way subject to change.
But seeing that the unmarked one is deaf to learning and to lawful oversight, the marked one rightly resolves upon flight; for he fears that, in addition to being unable to do him any good, he may even suffer harm besides. For associations with the unintelligent are harmful, and the soul, often against its will, receives impressions of their derangement. And truly by nature education is hostile to lack of education, and diligence to negligence.
This is why the powers under training, giving voice, cry out, recounting the causes of their hatred: "Have we still a portion or an inheritance in our father's house? Have we not been reckoned by him as strangers? For he has sold us, and has utterly consumed our money. All the wealth and glory which God has taken from our father shall be ours and our children's" (Genesis 31:14-16).
For being free, both in name and in thought, they consider none of the foolish to be rich or held in honor, but reckon all of them, so to speak, dishonored and poor, even should they exceed the fortunes of kings laden with gold. For they say they will possess not the wealth of their father, but the wealth that was taken away from him, nor his glory, but the glory that was taken away from him.
The worthless man has been deprived of true wealth and of honor that does not deceive; for these good things — prudence, self-mastery, and the kindred dispositions — are procured by virtue, which soul-loving souls inherit. Therefore it is not…
…the things that belong to the base man, but the things of which he has been deprived, that are abundance and true renown for the good. And he has been deprived of the virtues, which have become the possessions of these — so that the saying elsewhere spoken may agree with this: "We shall sacrifice to the Lord God the abominations of Egypt" (Exodus 8:26). For the finest and unblemished victims are the actions done according to virtue, which the passion-loving Egyptian body abominates.
For just as here, by a natural process, the things held sacred among the Egyptians as profane are, in the eyes of those who see sharply, said and reckoned all fit for sacrifice, in the same way whatever every fool has been deprived of and stripped of, of these the companion of true nobility shall be heir. And these are: true glory, indistinguishable from knowledge, and wealth — not the blind kind, but the most sharp-sighted of existing things, which admits no counterfeit coin, nor indeed anything lifeless at all, even should it pass as genuine.
Fittingly, then, he will flee from the one who has no share in the divine goods — who, even in the very matters where he accuses another, unknowingly incriminates himself, when he says: "If you had told me, I would have sent you away" (Genesis 31:27). For this very thing would have been worthy of flight — if, being a slave of countless masters, you had, while play-acting rule and leadership, proclaimed freedom to others.
"But I," he says, "did not take a human being as a fellow-worker for the road that leads to virtue, but obeyed divine oracles commanding me to depart from here — the very oracles that guide me even now. How, then, could you have sent me away?"
"Or would you have escorted me, as you boasted you would, with a gladness that was grief to me, and with unmusical music, with drums and inarticulate, irrational blows carried through the ears into the soul, and with the lyre" (ibid.) — instruments that are not so much lyreless and out of tune as the actions of that kind of life are? But indeed, these are the very things for the sake of which I resolved upon flight; and you, it seems, were devising counter-pulls against my flight, so that I might run back again, because of the deceptive and easily-led nature of the senses, upon which I have with difficulty managed to gain a footing."
Hatred, then, has been the cause of the flight just described; fear will be the cause of the one about to be described. For it says: "Rebecca said to Jacob: Behold, Esau your brother threatens to kill you. Now then, hear my voice, and rise up and flee to Laban my brother, to Haran, and dwell with him for some days, until your brother's fury and anger turn away, and he forgets what you have done to him; and I will send and fetch you from there" (Genesis 27:42-45).
For it is worthy of fear, lest the worse part of the soul, lying in ambush or even raising dust openly, should overturn and cast down the better part. And this is the best counsel of right-minded perseverance, the counsel of Rebecca.
"Whenever you see," she says, "the base man flowing in full flood against virtue, and giving much account to the things one ought rather to disregard — wealth, glory, pleasure — and praising wrongdoing as the cause of each of these (for those who do wrong become, they say, especially rich in silver and gold and glorious), do not turn at once to the opposite road and take up a life without possessions, without vanity, austere and solitary; for you will provoke your adversary and anoint against yourself a heavier enemy. Consider, then, what you must do to escape his wrestling holds."
Whenever, he says, you see the base man flowing in abundance against virtue and holding in high esteem the things one ought to disregard—wealth, reputation, pleasure—and praising injustice as the cause of each of these (since it is the unjust, above all, who become rich in silver and gold and renowned), do not turn to the opposite path and at once take up a life without money, without pride, austere and solitary. For you will only provoke your opponent and anoint a heavier enemy against yourself. Consider, then, what you must do to escape his wrestling holds.
Engage with the very same things—I do not mean the practices themselves, but the things that produce what has been named: honors, offices, silver, gold, possessions, colors, various shapes, beauties—and whenever you encounter them, like a good craftsman, engrave the finest form upon the material substances and bring the work to completion as something praiseworthy.
Or do you not know that when an amateur takes charge of a ship capable of being saved, he capsizes it, while a man skilled in piloting has often saved even a ship that was being lost? And of the sick, some who relied on the inexperience of their attendants have come off badly in body, while others through experience have escaped even dangerous diseases. And why prolong the point? For whatever is done with skill is always a refutation of what is done without skill, and true praise of the one is an unerring accusation of the other.
If, then, you wish to refute the base man of great wealth, do not turn away from abundance in money. For he will show himself to be either an illiberal and slavish money-lender and usurer, a wretched man, or, at the other extreme, a spendthrift swept along, most ready to gulp down and squander, the most ambitious patron of courtesans and pimps and procurers and every unrestrained troupe of revelers.
You, however, will furnish a subscription for your poor friends, will grant gifts to your homeland, will help marry off daughters of parents without means by providing a sufficient dowry, and, all but laying your own resources out in the open, will call to a share in them all who are worthy of the favor.
In the same way, too, if you wish to reproach the wicked man who is mad for reputation and boastful, then, having the power to be honored, do not turn away from the praise of the many. For thus you will trip up the wretch who struts and takes long strides in his arrogance. He will misuse his prominence for the outrage and dishonor of others who are better than he, exalting the worse sort through it; but you, on the contrary, will share your good repute with all who are worthy, securing safety for the good and improving the worse through admonition.
And if you go to tables of unmixed wine and lavish extravagance, go with confidence; for you will put the intemperate man to shame by your own self-control. For he, falling upon his belly and opening before his mouth his insatiable desires, will gorge himself without order, will snatch at his neighbor's portion, and, licking up everything, will feel no shame; and once he is glutted with food, drinking open-mouthed, as the poets say, he will provide laughter and mockery for onlookers.
But you will use moderate things without necessity, and if you are ever compelled to come to the enjoyment of more, setting reasoning in command over the necessity, you will never turn pleasure into displeasure but will—if one may put it this way—get drunk soberly.
Truth, then, would justly find fault with those who without examination abandon the business and money-making of political life and claim to have despised reputation and pleasure. For they are posturing, not despising; they put forward squalor and gloominess, living out a harsh and unkempt existence as bait, as though they were lovers of orderliness and self-control and endurance.
But they cannot deceive the more discerning, who peer within and are not led along by what is in plain view. For these, drawing back the veils that conceal other things, have looked upon what lies stored within, whatever its true nature is; and if it is beautiful, they have admired it, but if shameful, they have mocked it and hated the pretense.
Let us, then, say to such people: do you aspire to a life unmixed, unsociable, solitary, and isolated? What have you shown beforehand of the goods found in community? Do you turn away from money-making? Well, when you became men of business, did you wish to act justly? Do you affect to disregard the pleasures of the belly and those after the belly, while, when you had abundant material for them, did you practice moderation? Do you despise reputation? Well, when you were held in honor, did you practice freedom from pride? You have laughed at political life, perhaps not understanding how useful the thing is.
First, then, train and practice beforehand in the affairs of life, both private and public, and having become skilled in both statesmanship and household management through their sister virtues—the virtue of household management and that of statesmanship—set out, out of great abundance, on a migration to another and better life. For it is good to have first contended in the practical life as a kind of preliminary contest before the more perfect contest of the contemplative life. Thus you will escape the charge of hesitancy and idleness.
So too the Levites were ordained to carry out their tasks only up to the age of fifty (Num. 4:30ff.), and once released from practical service, to observe and contemplate each thing, receiving as the prize for their success in the practical life another life, one that delights in knowledge and contemplation alone.
And it is necessary, absolutely necessary, that those who claim a share in things divine should first fulfill what is required of human beings; for it is great foolishness to suppose that those unable to master the lesser things will attain the greater. Become known, then, first for virtue as it concerns human beings, so that you may also be commended for virtue toward God. Such is what endurance teaches to the one in training,
and we must examine the wording closely. "Behold," he says, "Esau your brother threatens you" (Gen. 27:42)—but is it not the oaken and, through ignorance, unpersuadable character, named Esau, that bears a grudge and, holding out the baits of mortal life for your destruction—money, reputation, pleasures, and their kin—murders you? But you, child, flee the present contest; for the strength has not yet been given to you in full, but the sinews of your soul are still, as befits a child, rather soft.
For this reason he also addressed him as child, which is a name at once of goodwill and of age; for we hold that the character in training, being young, stands beside the perfect character, worthy of friendship. Such a one is capable of carrying off the prizes set before children, but is not yet able to carry off those set before men; and the best prize of men is the service of God alone.
For this reason, whenever, not yet fully purified, but merely supposing we have washed away only what defiles our life, we arrive at the courts of that service, we leap back faster than we approached, unable to bear its austere regimen, its sleepless worship, and its continuous and unwearying toil.
Flee, then, for the present, both the worst and the best: the worst being the fictional invention of myth, the immoderate and discordant poem, the truly hard and oaken notion and persuasion born of ignorance, of which Esau is the namesake; and the best being the votive offering—for the priestly race is a votive offering to God, consecrated to the great high priesthood of him alone.
For to dwell together with what is bad is most harmful, and to dwell together with what is perfectly good is most perilous. Jacob, at any rate, both flees from Esau and is separated from his parents; for being still in training and still contending, he flees vice, but is unable to live together with perfect and self-taught virtue.
For this reason he will journey abroad to Laban—not "the Syrian," but the brother of his mother—that is, he will arrive at the brilliant splendors of life; for Laban is translated "white." But upon arriving he will not be haughty, puffed up by chance successes; for translated, "the Syrian" means one who is elevated. Now here Laban is not called "the Syrian," but the brother of Rebecca.
For the materials of life, when handed over to a base man, lift up and elevate the mind that is empty of good sense—the one named "the Syrian"—but for the lover of education who remains firmly and steadily fixed in the doctrines of nobility... this is the brother of Rebecca, of steadfastness; and he dwells in Haran, which, translated, means "holes," a symbol of the senses; for one who still dances in mortal life has need of the instruments of the senses.
"Dwell then, child," he says, "with him"—not for all time, but "for some days" (Gen. 27:44); and this means: learn thoroughly the domain of the senses, know yourself and your own parts—what each is and for what it exists and how it is naturally fitted to act—and who it is that moves and pulls the strings of these marvels, invisible and invisibly, whether it be the mind within you or the mind of the universe.
And when you have examined yourself, scrutinize also what belongs to Laban—the successes that seem brilliant according to empty reputation—so that you may be captured by none of them, but, like a good craftsman, skillfully fit them all to their proper uses. For if you show yourself, once you have entered this political and turbulent life, to possess a steady and well-schooled character, I will send for you from there (Gen. 27:45), so that you may obtain the same prize that your parents obtained. And the prize is the unswerving and unyielding
service of him who alone is wise. The father, too, teaches the same things, adding a little: for he says, "Rise up and flee to Mesopotamia, to the house of Bathuel, the father of your mother, and take for yourself from there a wife from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother" (Gen. 28:2).
Here too he does not call Laban "the Syrian," but Rebecca's brother, who is about to form a bond of kinship with the man in training through marriage. "Flee, then, to Mesopotamia"—that is, into the middle of the torrential river of life—and do not be swept away and swallowed up, but stand firm and vigorously repel the most violent surge of affairs that breaks over you from above and from either side and from every direction.
For you will find the house of wisdom a fair-weather and calm harbor, which will readily receive you when you anchor there. Wisdom's name is sung in the oracles as Bathuel, which, translated, is called "daughter of God"—and a genuine daughter indeed, and ever-virgin, having obtained a nature untouched and undefiled, both because of her own orderliness and because of the dignity of him who begot her.
He said that the father of Rebecca was Bethuel. And how could the daughter of God, wisdom, rightly be called a father? Is it because the name of wisdom is feminine, but its nature is masculine? For indeed all the virtues have designations that are feminine, yet powers and activities belonging to the most perfect of men, since that which comes after God—even if it should be the eldest of all other things—holds second place, as female to the male that makes all things, in accordance with its likeness to the rest; for the male always has precedence, while the female is deficient and comes second.
Let us then, giving no thought to the difference in names, say that wisdom, the daughter of God, is both male and father, sowing and begetting in souls learning, education, knowledge, prudence, and fine and praiseworthy actions. It is from this house that Jacob the practicer courts a marriage for himself; for where else than from the house of wisdom will he find a partner, a judgment beyond reproach, with whom he will spend the whole of his life?
He has spoken more precisely about flight when he laid down the law concerning murderers, in which he went through every type—voluntary killing, involuntary killing, killing by ambush, killing by premeditation. Read the law: ‘If someone strikes another and he dies, let him be put to death by death; but if he did not do it willingly, but God delivered him into his hands, I will give you a place to which the murderer may flee. But if someone plots against his neighbor to kill him by treachery and takes refuge there, you shall take him from the altar to be put to death’ (Exodus 21:12–14).
Knowing clearly that he sets down no superfluous word, I was at a loss within myself, under the boundless impulse to examine the meaning of the text, as to why he did not simply say that the willful killer should ‘be put to death,’ but ‘be put to death by death’; for by what else does one who dies come to his end, if not by death?
So, when I visited a wise woman named Reflection, I was released from my inquiry; for she taught me that some who are living are dead, and some who are dead are alive. Those who are base, she said, though they extend their years to extreme old age, are dead, since they have been deprived of the life that goes with virtue; but those who are good, even if they are separated from partnership with the body, live forever, having obtained a portion of immortal destiny.
She confirmed her own account also by oracles, by one such as this: ‘You who cling to the Lord your God, all of you are alive today’ (Deuteronomy 4:4)—for he knows that only the refugees and suppliants of God are living, and that all others are dead; and to those, it seems, he even bears witness of incorruption by adding, ‘live today.’
‘Today’ is an unbounded and untraversable age; for the cycles of months and years, and periods of time altogether, are the doctrines of men who have honored number. But the true name of the age is ‘today.’ For the sun, unchanging, is ever itself, going now above the earth and now beneath it, and by it day and night, the measures of the age, are distinguished—
she confirmed her teaching also by another oracle of this kind: ‘Behold, I have set before your face life and death, good and evil’ (Deuteronomy 30:15)—so, O all-wise soul, the good, that is virtue, is life, while evil, that is vice, is death—and in another place: ‘This is your life and the length of your days, to love the Lord your God’ (Deuteronomy 30:20). This is the finest definition of the immortal life: to be possessed by love and friendship for God, unmixed with flesh and body.
In this way the priests Nadab and Abihu, that they might live, die, exchanging a mortal life for an incorruptible one, and migrating from that which has come into being to that which has not. Of these the symbols of incorruption are sung, that ‘they died before the Lord’ (Leviticus 10:2), that is, they lived; for it is not lawful for a corpse to come into the sight of God. And again this is what the Lord said: ‘I will be sanctified among those who draw near to me’ (Leviticus 10:3), ‘but the dead,’ as it is also said in the hymns, ‘will not praise the Lord’ (Psalm 113:25)—
for the work belongs to them. But Cain, the accursed and fratricide, is nowhere in the legislation said to die dying—rather, there is even an oracle spoken concerning him of this kind: ‘The Lord God set a sign upon Cain, so that no one who found him would kill him’ (Genesis 4:15). Why?
Because, I think, impiety is an endless evil, once kindled, and never able to be quenched—so that the poet’s saying fits when applied to vice: it is not mortal, but an immortal evil; immortal, that is, in our life here, since compared to the life in God it is soulless and dead and, as someone said, ‘more fit to be cast out than dung.’
But surely different regions had to be assigned to different things—heaven to the good, the regions around the earth to evil. The good, then, has no fixed dwelling below; and even if it should ever come to us—for its father is generous with gifts—it is eager to run back rightly to its source; but evil remains here, settled far from the divine chorus, roaming through mortal life and unable to die out of the human race.
This same thing one of the men admired for wisdom proclaimed even more grandly in the Theaetetus, saying: ‘But it is not possible for evils to be destroyed—for there must always be something opposed to the good—nor can they be established among the gods; rather, of necessity they haunt mortal nature and this region here. Therefore one must try to escape from here to there as quickly as possible; and escape is becoming like God so far as possible; and to become like him is to become just and holy, with wisdom.’
Reasonably, then, Cain—the symbol of vice—will not die, if it must live among mortal humankind; so it is not off the mark that ‘be put to death by death’ is said of the murderer, for the reasons that have been shown.
‘But if he did not do it willingly, but God delivered him into his hands’ is very well said concerning those who commit involuntary killing. For it seems to him that voluntary acts belong to our own judgment, but involuntary ones belong to God—I do not mean the sins themselves, but rather, on the contrary, whatever serves as punishment for sins.
For it is unfitting for God to inflict punishment, as he is the first and best of lawgivers; rather he punishes through others who serve him, not through himself. For it befits him to extend favors, gifts, and benefactions himself, since he is by nature good and generous; but punishments he does not carry out without the command of himself as king, yet through others who are equipped for such tasks. Jacob the practicer bears witness to my account in what he says—
‘The God who has fed me from my youth, the angel who has delivered me from all evils’ (Genesis 48:15–16). For the older, greater goods, by which the soul is nourished, he attributed to God, but the younger goods, those that come from the avoidance of sins, to the servant of God.
For this reason, I think, when he was philosophizing about the making of the cosmos, having said that all other things came into being by God alone, he showed that man alone was fashioned with the help of other collaborators. For ‘God said,’ he says, ‘let us make man according to our image’ (Genesis 1:26)—a plurality being indicated by ‘let us make.’
The father of all things converses with his own powers, to which he gave the mortal part of our soul to fashion, imitating his own craft, when he was shaping the rational element within us, deeming it right that the ruling part in the soul be created by the ruler, and the subject part by subjects.
He made use of the powers with him not only for the reason stated, but because the human soul alone was to receive notions of good and evil and to make use of both—if it were not possible to use both alike. He therefore judged it necessary to assign the origin of evils to other craftsmen, and that of goods
to himself alone. Wherefore, when it was first said, ‘let us make man,’ as though about a plurality, there follows, as though about one: ‘God made man’ (Genesis 1:27). For of the true man—who is indeed the purest mind—God alone is the sole craftsman; but of the man so called, the one mixed together with sense-perception, the plurality is responsible.
For this reason, the man who is preeminent is indicated with the article—for it says ‘God made the man,’ meaning that formless and unmixed reasoning—while the other is spoken of without the addition of this article; for ‘let us make man’ signifies the man woven together out of both irrational and rational nature.
Following these same lines, he assigned the blessing of the good and the cursing of the guilty not to the same persons, although both acts carry honor, but since blessing the worthy holds the leading place among praises, while pronouncing curses on the base holds second rank, among those appointed to these tasks—there are twelve leaders of the tribes in number, whom it is customary to call tribal chiefs—he set six of the better ones over the blessing: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin; and the others over the curse: the firstborn and the last of Leah’s sons, Reuben and Zebulun, and the four illegitimate sons of the maidservants (Deuteronomy 27:12–13).
For the leaders of the royal and priestly tribe, Judah and Levi, take their place in the first rank. Reasonably, then, he also hands over those who deserve death for punishment to the hands of others, wishing to teach us that the nature of evil has been driven far from the divine chorus, seeing that even the good that imitates it in dealing with evil—namely, punishment—is carried out through others.
The words ‘I will give you a place to which the murderer may flee’ (Exodus 21:13), spoken of one who kills unwillingly, seem to me very well said; for here he calls ‘place’ not a region filled by body, but, through allegory, God himself, since, though he contains all things, he is not contained, and since he is the refuge of the universe.
It is therefore lawful for one who has evidently used an involuntary turning-aside to say that the turning happened by God's will — which is not lawful for one who has sinned deliberately. And Scripture says he 'will give' this not to the one who killed, but to the one with whom he converses, so that the inhabitant is one thing and the fugitive another. For to his own Word God has granted, as to a native, to dwell in his own knowledge as a homeland, but to the one who has fallen into involuntary faults he has granted refuge,
as to a foreign land for a stranger, not as a homeland for a citizen. Having philosophized in this way about involuntary acts, he next legislates concerning premeditated assault and deliberation, saying: 'But if someone lies in wait to kill his neighbor by treachery and he flees' to God, the place spoken of symbolically, beside whom it has fallen to all things to live — for indeed he says elsewhere: 'whoever flees there shall live.'
But is not the refuge to that which truly is eternal life, and flight from it death? If someone lies in wait, he does wrong altogether out of premeditation, and what is done with treachery is culpable as voluntary, just as, conversely, what is done without treachery is not even blameworthy.
None, then, of the wrongs done insidiously, treacherously, and out of premeditation should be said to happen according to God, but according to ourselves. For within ourselves, as I have said, are the storehouses of evils, but with God are the storehouses of good things alone.
Whoever, then, flees for refuge — that is, whoever blames not himself but God for his sins — let him be punished, being deprived of the altar, the refuge that belongs to suppliants alone for safety and security, and not without reason; for the altar is full of unblemished offerings, I mean of souls unharmed and purified; but a blemish hard to heal, or altogether incurable, is to say that the divine is the cause of evils.
Let such characters, then, who have been zealous to be lovers of self rather than lovers of God, walk outside the sprinkling-basins, so that, as polluted and unclean, they may not even from a distance behold the sacred flame of the soul that is kindled unquenchably and consecrated to God with its whole and entire power.
One of the sages of old, running up most excellently against this very point, dared to say: 'God is in no way whatsoever unjust, but as just as it is possible to be, and nothing is more like him than whoever among us in turn becomes most just. Concerning this is found the true skill of a man, as well as his worthlessness and unmanliness. For knowledge of this is wisdom and true virtue, while ignorance of it is folly and manifest vice. The other seeming skills and wisdoms, when they occur in political powers, are vulgar, and in the arts, menial.'
Having thus ordered that the man unholy and slanderous of divine things be led away from the most sacred places and handed over for punishment, he next says: 'Whoever strikes his father or mother, let him die,' and likewise, 'whoever reviles father or mother, let him die.'
For he all but shouts and cries aloud that no pardon is to be granted to any who blaspheme against the divine. For if those who revile their mortal parents are led away to death, of what punishment must we think worthy those who dare to blaspheme the Father and Maker of all things? And what reviling could be more shameful than to assert that the origin of evils lies not in us, but in God?
Drive them out, then, drive them out, you initiates and hierophants of the divine mysteries — those mixed, promiscuous, and adulterated souls, hard to purify and hard to wash clean, which carry about ears unclosed and a tongue unbarred, instruments ready for their own heavy misfortune, so that they may hear everything, even what is not lawful to hear, and blurt out everything, even what ought not to be spoken.
But those who have been trained in the distinction between voluntary and involuntary acts, and whose lot is a reverent mouth instead of a reviling tongue, are praiseworthy when they succeed, and, when they stumble unintentionally, not altogether blameworthy; and for this reason cities were also set apart for them as places of refuge.
It is worth examining with the utmost precision the essential points concerning this topic. They are four in number: first, why cities of refuge were set apart not from those allotted to the other tribes, but only from those of the Levitical tribe; second, why they number six, and neither more nor fewer; third, why three are beyond the Jordan and the others in the land of the Canaanites; fourth, why the time-limit fixed for the fugitives' return is the death of the high priest.
We must, then, speak fittingly on each point, taking our start from the first. It has been ordained, most appropriately, that refuge be sought only in the cities allotted to the Levites; for the Levites are themselves, in a sense, fugitives, having for the sake of pleasing God abandoned parents, children, brothers, and all mortal kinship.
The founder of this order, at least, is represented as saying to his father and mother: 'I have not seen you, and I do not know my brothers, and I disown my sons,' for the sake of serving that which is, without any divided allegiance. True flight is the deprivation of one's nearest and dearest; fugitives, then, are entrusted to fugitives, for amnesty regarding what they have done, on account of the likeness of their deeds.
Is it, then, for this reason alone, or also for that other reason, that the Levitical tribe of temple-attendants, when men had fashioned as a god the golden calf — that Egyptian vanity — slew them wholesale in a sudden onrush, moved by righteous anger together with an inspired frenzy and a kind of divine possession? 'And each man slew his neighbor and his nearest kin' — the body being the brother of the soul, the irrational the neighbor of the rational, and spoken reason the nearest kin of the mind.
For only in this way could the best thing within us be healed of the worst of poisons: first, if the human being were resolved into soul, its brother the body, together with its endless desires, being severed and cut away; and then, once the soul had cast off, as a scourge, the neighbor of the rational — the irrational — which, splitting itself fivefold like a torrent, stirs up through all the senses, as through channels, the flood of the passions —
and then, next, once reasoning had separated and cut off what seemed nearest of all, spoken reason, so that the reason within, the reasoning of the mind, might be left alone, bereft of body, bereft of sense-perception, bereft of the utterance of audible speech; for being so left, and living the life proper to solitude, it comes to worship purely and without distraction that which alone truly is. In addition to what has been said, this too must be recalled:
that the Levitical tribe consists of temple-attendants and priests, to whom the service of holy things is entrusted; and those who commit involuntary manslaughter likewise perform a service, if indeed, according to Moses, God 'delivers into their hands' those who have done deeds deserving death, for their destruction. But the one group is appointed to give honor to the good, the other to
punish the guilty. These, then, are the reasons why those who have committed involuntary manslaughter flee for refuge only to the cities of the temple-attendants. Who these cities are, and why they number six, must next be told. Perhaps, then, the oldest, strongest, and best metropolis — not merely a city, but the divine Word itself — is the one to which it is most profitable to flee first of all.
The other five, like colonies, are powers of the One who truly is, over which the creative power holds first place, by which the Existent fashioned the cosmos by reason; second is the kingly power, by which the Maker rules what has come to be; third is the gracious power, through which the Craftsman pities and has mercy on his own work; fourth is [ ... ] the share of the legislative power, through which he forbids what ought not to happen.
These are altogether excellent and most strongly fortified cities, the best refuges for souls worthy to be preserved forever; and the ordinance is kind and humane, sufficient to anoint and strengthen one toward good hope. Who could better have shown forth so great an abundance of powers able to benefit, suited to the differences among those who have fallen into involuntary turnings, whose strength and whose weakness are not the same?
He urges the one able to run swiftly to strain onward without pausing for breath toward the highest, divine Word, which is the fountain of wisdom, so that, having drawn from that stream, he may find, instead of death, eternal life as his prize; but the one not so swift, to take refuge in the creative power, which Moses calls God, since through it all things were established and set in order — for whoever grasps that the universe has come to be gains possession of a great good, namely knowledge of its Maker, and this at once persuades the thing made to love the one who planted it —
and the one not so ready for this, to take refuge in the kingly power — for the subject is admonished by fear of the ruler, even if the offspring is not admonished by the goodwill of a father, being corrected by a chastening necessity —; and for the one who cannot reach the boundaries already named, as though they lay too far off, other turning-posts of the necessary powers have been fixed nearer at hand: that of the gracious power, and that which enjoins what must be done, and that which forbids what must not be done.
For the one who has already grasped that the divine is not implacable but, through the gentleness of its nature, benevolent, and that even if he has sinned before, he may repent again in hope of amnesty; and the one who has come to understand that God is a lawgiver, and that by obeying whatever he commands he will be happy in all things — and the last of all will find as his last refuge a turning away from evils, even if not a share in the foremost goods.
These are the six cities which he calls places of refuge, of which five have been figured, and their likenesses exist among the holy things: the laws in the ark represent the commanding and forbidding power; the cover of the ark — which he calls the mercy-seat — represents the gracious power; and the winged Cherubim set upon it represent the creative and kingly powers;
The reasoning that stands above these things is the divine Logos, which never came into a visible form, since it resembles nothing perceived by sense, but is itself the image of God, the eldest of all intelligible things. It is stationed nearest of all, with no interval of separation between it and the One alone who truly is. For it is said: "I will speak to you from above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim" (Exodus 25:21), so that the Logos is the charioteer of the powers, while the one who speaks rides above him, giving the charioteer his commands for the right guidance of the whole.
The one, then, who is without any deviation at all — I will not even speak of the voluntary kind, since he has become free even of the involuntary — having God himself as his portion (Deuteronomy 10:9), will dwell in him alone. But those who, not by forethought but through unwilled errors, have gone astray, will have as their refuges the cities of asylum just named, which are so abundant and so generous.
Of the cities of refuge, three lie across, far removed from our race. What are these? The reasoning of the Ruler, and his power to create and his power to rule as king; for it is in these that heaven and the whole cosmos share.
But the cities near us, touching the mortal race of human beings — the only race to which erring belongs — are the three within: the gracious power, the power that commands what is to be done, and the power that forbids what is not to be done.
For these already touch us. What need is there of a prohibition for those who are not about to do wrong, or of a command for those not disposed to fail, or of the gracious power for those who will never sin at all? But our race has come to need these, because it is by nature inclined
toward both voluntary and involuntary offenses. Fourth and last among the points proposed was the fixed term for the return of the fugitives — the death of the high priest — which presents me with considerable difficulty in the letter of the text. For an unequal penalty is legislated for those who have done the same deed, if indeed some will remain in exile a long time and others a short time; for among the high priests some live very long lives and others very short ones, and some are appointed young, others old.
And among those convicted of involuntary manslaughter, some were exiled at the beginning of a high priest's tenure, others when the one holding the priesthood was already about to die, so that the former are deprived of their homeland for a very long age, while the latter lose only a single day, as it might happen — after which they lift their necks, snort, and laugh as they return to the nearest kin of those they killed.
We shall escape, then, this perplexing and hard-to-defend difficulty by resorting to the natural interpretation through implied meanings. For we say that the high priest is not a man but the divine Logos, who has no share in wrongdoing, whether voluntary or involuntary.
For Moses says that he cannot be defiled either by his father, the mind, or by his mother, sense-perception (Leviticus 21:11), because, I think, he was allotted incorruptible and utterly pure parents: a father who is God, who is also father of all things, and a mother who is Wisdom, through whom all things came into being.
And because his head has been anointed with oil — I mean that his ruling faculty is bathed in radiant light — he was judged worthy to put on the garments. For the eldest Logos of the One who Is puts on the cosmos as a garment — for he wraps himself in earth and water and air and fire and what is made of them — while the individual soul puts on the body, and the mind of the wise man puts on the virtues.
And that he will "never uncover his head" means he will never lay aside the royal diadem, the symbol not of an absolute but of a delegated and admirable rulership; nor again will he tear his garments (Leviticus 21:10).
For the Logos of the One who Is, being the bond of all things, as has been said, holds together and constrains all the parts, preventing them from being dissolved and torn apart; and the individual soul, to the extent that it has been allotted power, does not allow any of the parts of the body to be split off and severed contrary to nature, but keeps them all whole and leads them into an unbreakable harmony and union with one another; and the purified mind of the wise man keeps the virtues unbroken and unharmed, having fitted their natural kinship and fellowship together with a firmer goodwill.
This one, Moses says, "shall not go in to any dead soul" (Leviticus 21:11); and the death of the soul is the life lived with vice, so that no defilement, of the kind folly loves to inflict, will ever touch him.
To this one a virgin from the sacred family is joined in marriage, one whose resolve is pure, unstained, and incorruptible forever; for a widow, a divorced woman, a profaned woman, and a prostitute never become his wife (Leviticus 21:13-14), since he wages relentless and undeclared war against them forever. For to be widowed of virtue, to be cast out and exiled from her, and every profane and unholy persuasion, is his enemy; and the promiscuous, the much-mated, the many-godded — the wicked, godless thing, the prostitute — he does not deem worthy even to look upon, since he has set his love on the woman inscribed as belonging to one husband and father, the Ruler, God.
A certain excess of perfection is discernible in this manner of life. For he knows that even the man who has vowed the great vow may sometimes stumble involuntarily, though not by deliberate purpose; for it is said: "If anyone should die suddenly beside him, he will at once be defiled" (Numbers 6:9). For unwished-for things that fall upon one suddenly from outside defile the soul on the instant, but not for the longest age, since they are involuntary. Of these, the high priest, standing above them just as he stands above voluntary offenses, takes no account.
I have said this not beside the point, but in order to teach that the most natural fixed term for the return of fugitives is the death of the high priest (Numbers 35:25).
For as long as this most sacred Logos lives and remains in the soul, it is impossible for any involuntary deviation to enter it; for it is by nature without share or admission of any offense. But if it dies — not being destroyed itself, but separated from our soul — a return is immediately granted to voluntary offenses; for if, while it remained and was sound within us, they were driven out, then when it departs they will certainly move in and take up residence.
For the unstained high priest, Conviction, has reaped as his own special privilege, by nature, never to admit into himself any slip of judgment. It is therefore worth praying that the high priest and king together, the judge Conviction, may live in the soul — he who, having been allotted the whole tribunal of our reasoning, is overawed by none of those brought to judgment.
Having said what is fitting concerning fugitives, we shall now weave together the sequence that follows in due order. For it is said next: "the angel of the Lord found her" (Genesis 16:7), voting for the return, out of reverence, of a soul in danger of wandering, and becoming, one might almost say, the escort of her return to an unwandering resolve.
It is also useful not to pass over in silence what the Lawgiver philosophizes concerning finding and seeking. For he introduces some who neither seek nor find anything, others who succeed at both, and some who have gained one but not the other — of whom some seek but do not find, and others find without having sought.
Those, then, who desire neither finding nor seeking have, through lack of training and lack of practice, cruelly maimed their reasoning power, and though able to see keenly, have been blinded. So Moses says that "Lot's wife, having turned back, became a pillar" (Genesis 19:26) — not fashioning a myth, but pointing to the peculiar nature of the thing.
For whoever, out of an innate and habitual laziness, neglects the teacher and, disregarding what lies ahead — the things by which one is able to see and hear and use the other faculties for the discernment of the facts of nature — twists his own neck around to face backward instead, having become enamored of the blind things of life rather than of the blind parts of the body, is set up as a monument in the manner of a lifeless and deaf stone.
For such characters, as Moses says, did not have "a heart to understand, eyes to see, and ears to hear" (Deuteronomy 29:4), but fashioned for themselves a blind, deaf, senseless, and wholly maimed life, unlivable, attending to none of the things that matter,
and settling on nothing. The leader of this chorus is the king of the region of the body; for it says: "Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and did not set his mind even to this" (Exodus 7:23) — equivalent to saying he set it to nothing at all, but let himself wither like an untended plant and remain barren through infertility.
Those who deliberate and examine and scrutinize everything carefully sharpen and hone the mind; and the one who exercises it bears its proper fruits — quickness of wit and understanding, through which freedom from deception is achieved; but the thoughtless man dulls and shatters the keen edges of prudence.
Now the flock that is truly irrational and soulless in this sort of pursuit must be dismissed, but the flock of those who employ inquiry and discovery is to be commended. So, for instance, the political character—far from being mad for popular opinion—desires the better generation, the one apportioned by the virtues, and is introduced in the act of seeking and finding it.
“A man,” it says, “found Joseph wandering in the field, and asked him, ‘What are you seeking?’ And he said, ‘I am seeking my brothers; tell me where they are pasturing their flocks.’ And the man said to him, ‘They have set out from here, for I heard them saying, Let us go to Dothan.’ And Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan” (Genesis 37:15–17).
Dothan is interpreted as “adequate failing,” a symbol of a soul that has fled empty opinions not partially but completely—opinions that resemble the pursuits of women rather than of men. That is why Sarah, virtue herself, is so aptly said to have had “the things of women fail” in her (Genesis 18:11), the very things over which we labor who pursue an unmanly and truly effeminate life. But the wise man, when he “fails, is added” (Genesis 25:17), according to Moses—most naturally, for it turns out that the removal of empty opinion is an addition of truth.
If, then, someone still spending time in a mortal, much-mixed, and many-shaped life, and possessed of abundant material resources, nonetheless considers and seeks after the better generation, the one that looks only toward the good, he is worthy of approval—provided he does not let the dreams and phantoms of things reputed and apparent to be good rise up again and get the better of him.
For if he remains in an unadulterated inquiry of soul, walking in the tracks of the things sought and following after them closely, he will not let go until he encounters the things he longs for. Yet among the worthless he will find none of them. Why is that?
“For they have set out from here,” having abandoned our pursuits and migrated to the desolate country of the impious. These are the words of the true man, the reproof within the soul, who, seeing the soul at a loss, deliberating, and searching, is on guard lest, wandering, it should miss the straight road.
I have marveled greatly, too, at those two: the one eagerly inquiring about the middle term between the two extremes, and saying, “Behold the fire and the wood; where is the sheep for the whole burnt offering?” and the other answering, “God will see to a sheep for himself for a whole burnt offering, child”—and afterward finding the thing given in exchange: “For behold, a single ram, caught by its horns in a Sabek plant” (Genesis 22:7, 8, 13).
Let us see, then, what the one who asks is at a loss over, what the one who answers declares, and, third, what the thing found was. What he inquires about is this: behold the acting cause, the fire; behold also the thing acted upon, the matter, the wood; where is the third thing, the result?
For instance: behold the mind, a warm and fiery breath; behold also the objects of thought, as it were the matter; where is the third thing, the actual thinking? Again: behold the sight, behold the color; where is the actual seeing? And in general: behold sense-perception, the faculty of judgment, and behold also the perceptible objects, the matter; where, then, is the actual perceiving?
To one inquiring into these things the fitting answer is: “God will see to it for himself,” for the third thing is God's own work. By his providence the mind apprehends, sight sees, and every sense perceives. “And a ram is found caught,” that is, reason kept still and holding back.
For the best sacrificial victim is stillness and suspension of judgment concerning matters about which there is, in every case, no certainty. For only this is expressible: “God will see to it”—he to whom all things are known, who by the most brilliant light, himself, illumines the universe. All else is inexpressible to created being, over which darkness is poured thick; and quiet is safety in darkness.
They also sought what it was that nourished the soul—“for,” as Moses says, “they did not know what it was” (Exodus 16:15)—and, learning, found it to be God's utterance and the divine Logos, from which all forms of instruction and wisdom flow unceasingly. This is the heavenly food, and it is disclosed in the sacred writings by the mouth of the Cause himself, saying, “Behold, I will rain bread on you from heaven” (Exodus 16:4). For in truth God sprinkles down ethereal wisdom from above upon minds that are well-endowed and fond of contemplation.
Those who saw it, tasted it, and were greatly delighted, learned by experience what they had undergone, but they remained ignorant of what it actually was. Hence they inquire, “What is this?” (Exodus 16:15)—this thing that by nature is sweeter than honey and whiter than snow.
They will be taught by the interpreter of God that “this is the bread which the Lord gave them to eat” (Exodus 16:15). What, then, is the bread? Tell me. “This,” he says, “is the word which the Lord has ordained” (Exodus 16:16). This divine ordinance both illumines and sweetens at once the soul capable of sight, flashing forth the light of truth, and, by persuasion—that sweet virtue—sweetening those who thirst and hunger for nobility of character.
The prophet himself, too, when he sought what the cause of success was, discovered that it is fellowship with God alone. For when he was at a loss, asking who he is and how, being of the seeing race, he might escape the man who seemed to reign as a rival to God, he was taught by the oracle, “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:11, 12).
Inquiries into particular things have, to be sure, an elegant and philosophical character—how could they not?—but the inquiry into God, the best and incomparable of beings and cause of all things, gladdens those who set out on the search from the very start, and it never remains unfulfilled, because he, by his own gracious nature, comes forward to meet them with his virgin Graces and displays himself to those who long to see him. Not, indeed, as he truly is—for that is impossible, since even Moses “turned away his face, for he was afraid to look directly upon God” (Exodus 3:6)—but so far as created nature could touch his incomprehensible power.
This too is recorded among the exhortations: “You shall turn back to the Lord your God,” it says, “and you shall find him, when you seek him out with your whole heart and your whole soul” (Deuteronomy 4:29–30).
Having spoken adequately about these matters too, let us pass on next to the third heading, in which there was seeking but no finding followed. Laban, at any rate, having searched the whole household of the soul of the ascetic, “did not find,” as Moses says, “the idols” (Genesis 31:33).
For it was a matter of realities, not of dreams and empty phantoms. Nor did the Sodomites, blind in mind, though they eagerly strove to violate the sacred and undefiled words, find the road leading to that end; rather, as the oracle says, “they grew weary searching for the door” (Genesis 19:11), even though they ran circling round the whole house and set every stone in motion to satisfy their outlandish and impious desire.
There have already been some who wished to become thresholds instead of doorkeepers, and to overthrow order, the finest thing in life; they not only failed of the prosperity unjustly hoped for, but were forced to cast away even what they already held in their hands. For the law says that the followers of Korah, when they reached out for the priesthood [...], missed both (Numbers 16).
For just as children and grown men do not learn the same things, but each stage of life has its fitting instruction, so by nature there are always some souls that remain childish even in bodies grown old, and, conversely, others that are most mature even while their bodies are just now in the flower and vigor of youth. Those, then, would be guilty of folly who set their desire on things greater than their own nature can bear, since everything that is strained beyond its capacity snaps under the force of the effort.
And Pharaoh, “seeking to destroy Moses” (Exodus 2:15), the prophetic race, will never find him—even though he has heard a harsh report against him, that he has undertaken to overthrow the entire dominion of the body, by two assaults.
Of these he made the first against the Egyptian type, the one who fortified the soul with pleasure—“for, striking him,” says the text, “he buried him in scattered matter, in sand” (Exodus 2:12), thinking that both doctrines were of the same stamp: pleasure as the first and greatest good, and the atoms as the first principles of all things. He made the other assault (Exodus 2:13) against the man who cuts the nature of the good into pieces, assigning one part to the soul, another to the body, and another to external things. For he wishes the good to be whole and entire, allotted to the best thing within us, the mind alone, and fitting none of the soulless things.
Nor did the man sent in search of her find unconquered virtue—the one whose name is Tamar—though she was embittered by the laughable pursuits of men; and this is most natural, for it is said: “And Judah sent the kid by the hand of his shepherd friend the Adullamite, to recover the pledge from the woman; and he did not find her. And he asked the men of that place, ‘Where is the prostitute who was at Enaim by the road?’ And they said, ‘There was no prostitute here.’ And he returned to Judah and said, ‘I did not find her, and the men of that place say there is no prostitute there.’ And Judah said, ‘Let her keep them, lest we become a laughingstock; I sent this kid, and you have not found her’” (Genesis 38:20–23). O wondrous test, O trial!
Someone gave a pledge, having a mind set on purchasing the finest possession, piety, by means of three tokens or symbols—the ring, the necklace, and the staff (Genesis 38:18)—namely, steadfastness and faith, the coherence and consistency of reason with life and of life with reason, and a straight and unswerving education, on which it is profitable to lean.
he tests whether it was well given, this pledge. What, then, is the test? To let down some bait employing an attractive power - reputation, or wealth, or bodily health, or something of that kind - and to learn toward which of these, as on a balance-scale, she will tip; for if there should be an inclination toward any of these, the pledge is not secure. He therefore sent the kid to fetch back the pledge from the woman, not because he had altogether resolved to take it back, but so as to see whether she should ever prove unworthy to keep it. And when will that be?
Whenever she exchanges what matters for what does not matter, preferring counterfeit goods to genuine ones. Now the genuine goods are faithfulness, coherence and consistency of words with deeds, the rule of right instruction; and, conversely, the evils are faithlessness, inconsistency, want of instruction -
and the counterfeit goods are all those things that hang suspended from irrational impulse. Seeking her, then, "he did not find her"; for the good is hard to find, or altogether unfindable, in a life that is all confusion. And should he inquire whether there is anywhere, in the whole region, a soul that has played the harlot after the beautiful, he will hear expressly that she neither is nor ever was; for the licentious woman, the wanton, or the streetwalker who parades at the crossroads, or who cheapens the flower of her youth, or who brightens her outward appearance with purifications and washings while remaining foul within, or who, like painted panels, sketches in her features with pigments for want of natural beauty, or who pursues as a good the thing called the "crowd-of-men" evil, or who is enamored of promiscuity, or who scatters herself among countless partners, or who is mocked and utterly abused by countless bodies and affairs at once - such a woman is not there.
When the one who had sent the messenger heard this, having banished envy from himself and, being gracious by nature, rejoiced beyond measure, and said: is it not, indeed, my prayer that my understanding be truly refined and a citizen of heaven, distinguished by orderliness and self-control and the other virtues, attentive to one man alone, loving the housekeeping of one, and delighting in monarchy? If, then, she is such a one, let her keep what was given - both the instruction and the coherence of word with life and of life with word, and, most necessary of all, security and faithfulness.
But let us take care lest we be mocked for supposing we had bestowed gifts on one unworthy, though we had thought we were giving them most fittingly to the soul. As for me, I have done what it was reasonable for one wishing to take a test and trial of character to do: I let down the bait and sent it forth, and she has shown that her own nature is not easily caught.
And it is clear to me why she is not easily caught. I have seen countless very base people doing the very same things that the very good do, sometimes, but not from the same understanding, since in the one case truth is practiced, in the other, pretense; and the discernment between the two is difficult, for often what merely seems to be has outrun what truly is.
And the lover of virtue seeks the goat offered for sin, but does not find it; for it had already been burned up, as the oracle makes clear (Lev. 10:16). What this hints at must be considered: to sin not at all belongs to God alone; to repent belongs to the wise man; but even this is very difficult and hard to find.
The oracle says, then, that "Moses sought and sought out" (Lev. 10:16) - in mortal life - the doctrine of repentance for sins. For he was eager to find a soul stripping off wrongdoing and going forward naked of sins, without shame. But nevertheless he did not find it, because the flame - I mean the swiftest-moving impulse of the irrational - had run down upon and grazed over the whole soul.
For the lesser things are overcome by the greater, the slower by the swifter-running, and things still to come by things already present; and repentance is a small thing, slow, and still to come, while wrongdoing in mortal life is abundant, swift, and continuous. Reasonably, then, one who has turned about says he is not able "to eat of the sin-offering" (Lev. 10:19-20); for his conscience does not permit him to be nourished by repentance. Hence it is said: "Moses heard, and it pleased him" (Lev. 10:19-20).
For the things that pertain to creation are set far apart from the things that pertain to God; to the one only the visible things are known, but to the other the invisible things as well are known. And he raves who, lying against the truth, claims to have repented while still doing wrong - as if one who is sick should play the part of one who is healthy; for such a man will rather, it seems, become more sick, if he thinks it right to practice none of the things that conduce to health.
Moses once, led on by his love of learning, sought also the causes by which the most necessary events in the world are accomplished; for as he beheld the things in creation - some perishing and being generated, some being destroyed yet others remaining - he was struck with amazement, overwhelmed, and cried out, saying:
"Why is it that the bush burns and is not consumed?" (Exod. 3:2-3). For he does not pry into the untrodden place, the dwelling of divine natures; but when he was already about to engage in an endless and unaccomplishable labor, he was relieved by the mercy and providence of God, the savior of all, who spoke an oracle from the inner shrine: "Do not draw near here" (Exod. 3:5) - equivalent to "do not approach such an inquiry"; for the task belongs to a curiosity and meddlesomeness greater than human power allows. Rather, marvel at the things that have come to be, but do not pry into the causes by which they came to be or perish.
"For the place on which you stand," it says, "is holy ground" (Exod. 3:5). What place is this? Clearly it is the place concerned with causation, which he attached to the divine natures alone, judging no human being competent to lay hold of causation.
He, then, out of longing for knowledge, peering above the whole world, seeks concerning the maker of the world who this hard-to-see and hard-to-conjecture being is - whether body, or bodiless, or something above these, or a simple nature such as a unit, or a composite, or something else among existing things. And seeing that this is hard to hunt down and hard to conceive, he prays to learn from God himself who God is; for he did not hope to be able to learn it from any other of the beings that come after him.
But even so he had no power to inquire into anything concerning the essence of the One Who Is; for "you shall see what is behind me," it says, "but my face you shall not see" (Exod. 33:23). For it suffices the wise man to know the things that follow and attend upon God and all that comes after him, but whoever wishes to gaze upon the essence that governs all will be blinded by the surrounding brilliance of the rays before he sees it.
Having discussed so much concerning the third heading, let us pass on to the fourth and last of the topics proposed, according to which discovery loves to come forward even when no inquiry has taken place. Under this heading is ranked every self-taught and self-instructed sage; for he was not improved by considerations, exercises, and labors, but as soon as he came into being he found wisdom already prepared, rained down from above out of heaven, and having drawn deep of its unmixed draught he feasted, and continued drunk with that sober intoxication that comes with right reason.
This is the one whom the oracles named Isaac, whom the soul did not conceive at one time and bear at another; for it says, "having conceived, she bore" (Gen. 21:2), as though timelessly. For what was being born was not a man, but a thought most pure, beautiful by nature rather than by cultivation; for which reason the one who bore it is also said to have "ceased to have the way of women" (Gen. 18:11) - the customary, reasonable, and human way.
For the self-taught kind is new and beyond reason and truly divine, constituted not by human devisings but by divine frenzy. Or are you unaware that Hebrew women have no need of midwives for childbirth, but "give birth," as Moses says, "before the midwives come in" (Exod. 1:19) - I mean the methods, arts, and sciences - using nature alone as their helper? And it gives most beautiful and most fitting definitions of the self-taught: one such is this, that which is found quickly; the other, "that which God has handed down."
Now that which is taught requires a long time, while that which comes by nature is swift and, in a manner, timeless; and the one has a man as its guide, the other, God. The former definition he set down in a question: "What is this that you found so quickly, my child?"; the other in an answer, saying: "What the Lord God handed to me" (Gen. 27:20).
There is also a third definition of the self-taught: that which comes up of itself. For it is said among the exhortations: "You shall not sow, nor shall you reap the things that come up of themselves" (Lev. 25:11); for the things that come by nature have no need of art, since God himself sows them and brings them to completion by the art of husbandry, so that things not truly spontaneous appear as though spontaneous - except insofar as they had no need at all of human contrivance.
And this is not so much an exhortation as it is a declaration of judgment; for if he were advising, he would have said: do not sow, do not reap; but declaring, he says: "you shall not sow, nor shall you reap the things that come up of themselves." For of the things we obtain that grow spontaneously from nature, we find that we ourselves are the cause of neither their beginnings nor their ends -
the beginning being the sowing, and the end the reaping. But it is better to understand it thus: every beginning and every end is spontaneous, that is, it is nature's work, not ours. For instance, what is the beginning of learning? Clearly it is that nature in the one being taught which is receptive to particular teachings. And what, again, is the beginning of being brought to perfection? If one must speak without holding anything back, it is nature. For the teacher is capable of producing advances, but the perfection that reaches the summit belongs to God alone, the best nature.
He who is nourished on these doctrines lives in everlasting peace, released from unwearying toils. And the peace of the seventh day, according to the lawgiver, admits of no distinction; for in it, creation lays aside the appearance of activity and rests.
Fittingly, then, it is said: "and the sabbaths of the land shall be food for you" (Lev. 25:6) - by way of hidden meaning; for only the rest that is in God is nourishing and enjoyable, procuring the greatest good, peace unmixed with war. For the peace found among cities is tainted with civil strife, while the peace of the soul is unmixed with any discord.
It seems to me that the following passage most vividly represents discovery without inquiry: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers to give you - great and goodly cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill, cisterns hewn out that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant" (Deut. 6:10-11).
Do you see the abundance of great goods poured out and ready for possession and enjoyment? The generic virtues are likened to cities, because they extend most broadly; the particular virtues to houses, for these are drawn into a narrower circle; well-formed souls are likened to cisterns, easily filled with wisdom as those are with water; and to vineyards and olive groves are likened progress, growth, and the production of fruits. The fruit of knowledge is the contemplative life, which produces unmixed joy as from wine, and intelligible light as from a flame, whose nourishment is oil.
Having said this much about finding, let us move on next to what follows in our approach. ‘The angel of the Lord found her,’ he says, ‘at the spring of water’ (Gen. 16:7). Now ‘spring’ is used in many senses: in one, our own mind; in another, the rational disposition and education; in a third, the base condition; in a fourth, the excellent condition opposed to it; and in a fifth, the maker and father of all things himself.
The oracles that have been recorded show the proofs of these; we must examine what they are. Right at the beginning of the Law, immediately after the creation of the world, a certain verse is sung out: ‘A spring rose up from the earth and watered the whole face of the earth’ (Gen. 2:6).
Those uninitiated into allegory and into a nature that loves to hide itself liken the spring just mentioned to the Egyptian river, which floods the plain every year, seeming almost to display a power that imitates the sky.
What the sky is to other regions in winter, the Nile is to Egypt when summer is at its height: the sky sends rain down from above onto the earth, but the Nile, most paradoxically, flows from below upward and waters the fields by its flow. Starting from this, Moses too, not without insight, described the Egyptian way of thinking as one that prefers earth to heaven, things of the land to the Olympian gods, and the body to the soul.
But it will be possible to speak of these matters again another time, when circumstances allow. For now, since we must aim not to speak at excessive length, we should return to the interpretation by way of implied meanings, and say that ‘a spring rose up and watered the whole face of the earth’ means something like this:
Our governing faculty, as though from a spring, pours out many powers as if through channels in the earth, and sends these powers on to the organs of sense — eyes, ears, nostrils, and the rest — which belong to every living creature around the head and face. So the governing part of the body, that is, the face, is watered as if from a spring by the governing part that belongs to the soul: the visual spirit stretching out to the eyes, the auditory to the ear, the olfactory to the nostrils, the gustatory in turn to the mouth, and the tactile over the whole surface of the body.
There are also the manifold springs of education, beside which grow upright and most nourishing words, like the trunks of palm trees. For it says, ‘They came to Elim, and in Elim there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trunks; and they camped there beside the water’ (Exod. 15:27). Elim is translated ‘gates,’ a symbol of the entrance to virtue; for just as gates are the beginnings of a house, so the general course of preliminary studies is the beginning of virtue.
Twelve is a perfect number; witness the zodiac circle in the sky, set with just that many luminous stars; witness too the sun’s revolution, which completes its circuit in twelve months, and men reckon the hours of day and night in numbers equal to the months of the year.
Moses praises this number in no small number of places: he records twelve tribes of the nation, legislates twelve loaves of the presentation-bread, and orders that twelve engraved stones be woven into the sacred vestment, into the ankle-length robe, upon the breastpiece (Exod. 28:17ff).
He also praises the number seven multiplied by ten: here, saying there were seventy palm trees by the springs; elsewhere, that there were seventy elders alone, upon whom the divine and prophetic spirit was distributed (Num. 11:16); and again, that seventy calves are brought as sacrificial victims, divided into harmonious groups, at the Feast of Tabernacles. For the bulls are not all sacrificed together, but over seven days, beginning with thirteen bulls (Num. 29:13ff); for by subtracting one bull each successive day, all the way to the seventh, the sum total of seventy would be reached.
Arriving, then, at the gateways of virtue, that is, the preliminary studies, and seeing springs there with young palm shoots beside them, they are said to camp not beside the plants but beside the waters. Why? Because those who carry off the prizes of complete virtue are crowned with palm and ribbons, whereas those who are still engaged with the whole cycle of preliminary studies, thirsting as they are for learning, settle beside the branches of knowledge that are able to irrigate and water their souls.
Such, then, are the springs of intermediate education. Let us now examine the spring of folly, about which the lawgiver has spoken as follows: ‘Whoever lies with a woman who is menstruating has uncovered her spring, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood; let both of them be utterly destroyed’ (Lev. 20:18).
He calls sense perception ‘the woman,’ taking mind to be its ‘husband.’ Sense perception ‘sits apart,’ that is, sits at the furthest remove, whenever it abandons the mind, its own proper husband, and settles instead among the seductive and corrupting objects of sense, entangling itself amorously with each of them. If, then, the mind should turn to sleep, when it ought to stay awake, it ‘uncovers’ its own ‘spring’ — the spring, that is, of sense perception, for the mind itself was, as I said, the spring of sense perception — and by doing so, it makes itself unroofed, unwalled, and an easy target for attack.
But sense perception too ‘uncovers the flow of her own blood.’ For sense perception, always flowing out toward the external object of sense, is covered over and held in check when it is restrained by reasoning; but it is left desolate, bereft of its rightful guide, when reasoning fails. And just as lack of walls is the gravest evil for a city, so lack of a guard is for the soul. When, then, does it become unguarded?
It is when sight is left unroofed, poured out toward visible things; when hearing is left unroofed, drenched by every sound; when smell and its kindred faculties are left unroofed, ready to suffer whatever those who assail them wish to inflict; and when spoken speech, too, is left unroofed, blurting out at the wrong moment countless secrets, since nothing checks its onward rush. Flowing unchecked in this way, it has overturned great life-projects that were sailing along steadily, as if in calm water.
This is the great flood, in which ‘the floodgates of heaven were opened’ — I mean, of the mind — ‘and the springs of the abyss were uncovered’ (Gen. 7:11), that is, the springs of sense perception. For it is only in this way that the soul is flooded: from above, as it were from the sky of the mind, when wrongdoings burst forth; and from below, as it were from the earth of sense perception, when passions pour down.
For this reason Moses forbids ‘uncovering the shame of father and mother’ (Lev. 18:7), knowing clearly what a great evil it is not to restrain and conceal the sins of mind and sense perception, but instead to parade them out into the open
as though they were achievements. These, then, are the springs of sins; we must now search out the spring of practical wisdom. Rebecca, that is, endurance, goes down to this spring, and having filled the whole vessel of her soul, comes back up — the lawgiver quite naturally calling the descent an ascent. For virtue is lifted up to the heights whenever it resolves to come down from arrogant pride.
For it says: ‘She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up’ (Gen. 24:16). This spring is divine wisdom, from which the particular sciences are watered, along with every soul that loves contemplation and is possessed by love of the best.
To this spring the sacred word gives most fitting names, calling it ‘Judgment’ and ‘holy.’ For it says, ‘Having turned back, they came to the spring of judgment; this is Kadesh’ (Gen. 14:7); and Kadesh means ‘holy.’ It all but shouts and cries out that the wisdom of God is holy, bringing with it nothing earthly, and is the judgment of all things, by which all
contrarieties are separated out and judged. We must now speak of the highest and best spring, which the Father of all proclaimed through prophetic mouths. For he said somewhere: ‘They have abandoned me, the spring of life, and dug for themselves broken cisterns that will not be able to hold water’ (Jer. 2:13).
So God is the most ancient spring — and rightly so, no doubt, for he has rained down this entire universe. I am struck with wonder when I hear that this spring belongs to life; for God alone is the cause of soul and of life, and especially of rational soul, and of life lived with practical wisdom. For matter is dead, but God is something more than life — an ever-flowing spring of living, as he himself said.
But the impious, having run away, remain to this day untasting of the drink of immortality; in their derangement, they dug for themselves, and not for God, in the first place, preferring their own doings to the things of heaven and Olympus, and preferring what comes from careful contrivance to what comes ready-made and spontaneous.
Then, unlike Abraham and Isaac, the wise, who dig wells (Gen. 21:30; 26:18) — deep understandings that yield drinkable words — they dig cisterns, which have no good nourishment of their own, but need an inflow from outside, one that could come only from teaching, when instructors constantly pour into the ears of their students, all at once, the doctrines and theorems of knowledge, for the mind to grasp and memory to store up what has been handed down.
But now "the pits are broken" — that is, all the reservoirs of the untutored soul are shattered and leaking, unable to hold and keep safe the inflow of things that could do it good.
So much, then, has been said about springs as the occasion called for. But very precisely do the oracles introduce Hagar as found at the spring (Gen 16:7), yet not drawing from it. For the soul that is still making progress is not yet able to make use of the unmixed drink of wisdom, though it is not forbidden to spend its time nearby.
And the whole road that runs through education is a highway, most secure and best fortified. Hence he says she was found "on the way to Shur" (ibid.), and Shur is translated "wall" or "straightness." So the conviction speaking within the soul says to her: "Where have you come from, and where are you going?" (ibid. 8). He says this not because he doubts or is asking, but rather to shame and reproach her.
For it is not right for an angel to be ignorant of anything that concerns us. And here is a sign: he clearly knows even what is in the womb, which is unclear even to the one carrying it, when he says, "Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Ishmael" (ibid. 11). For to know that the child being carried is male is beyond human power — and so is knowing, before it is even born, what course of life it will choose, namely that it will be "a wild man," not civilized and gentle.
"Where have you come from," then, is said as a rebuke to the soul that is fleeing the better and ruling judgment, whose handmaid she was — not merely called so, but so in fact — and who was destined to carry off great renown. "And where are you going?" You are chasing after what is unclear, having thrown away what was agreed and acknowledged.
It is right, then, to praise her for rejoicing at the admonition. And she has produced proofs of that joy: not accusing her mistress, laying the blame for her flight on herself, and giving no answer to the second question, "Where are you going?" — for that is unclear, and about unclear things it is both safe and necessary to suspend judgment.
Accepting her obedience, the conviction says, "Return to your mistress" (ibid.); for it is profitable to the learner to be under the oversight of the teacher, and to the imperfect to be a slave to prudence. "And when you return, be humbled under her hands" (ibid. 9) — a fine humbling, one that consists in pulling down an irrational pride.
For with such gentle birth-pangs you will bring forth a male offspring named Ishmael (ibid. 11), disciplined by divine hearing; for Ishmael is translated "hearing of God." Hearing takes second place to sight, and sight is the portion allotted to the true and firstborn son, Israel; for by interpretation he is "one who sees God." For it is possible to hear falsehoods as though they were truths, since hearing is deceptive, but sight is free of falsehood, and by it things that truly exist are apprehended.
He characterizes the manner of the one begotten both by saying he will be "a wild man" — a kind of rustic-wise man, not yet judged worthy of the tame and truly civilized portion (and this portion is virtue, through which character is by nature made gentle) — and by saying, "his hands against all, and the hands of all against him" (ibid.); for this is the mark of a sophist, one who postures as excessively skeptical and delights in contentious arguments.
This man strikes at all who belong to true learning, opposing each one individually and all of them together, and he is struck by all of them in turn, who naturally defend themselves as though defending their own children — the doctrines their soul has borne.
But he assigns him a third mark as well, saying, "he shall dwell over against all his brothers" (ibid.), almost openly displaying the face-to-face conflict and everlasting opposition. So the soul pregnant with the sophist's reasoning says to the conviction speaking within her: "You are the God who watches over me" (ibid. 13) — equivalent to "you are the maker of my intentions and my offspring" — and not without reason.
For to free souls — truly free, truly citizen souls — he is a free and freedom-making craftsman, but to slaves he is a slave. Angels are the household servants of God, though considered gods by those still bound in toils and slavery. "Therefore," it says, "she called the well 'the well of him whom I saw before me'" (ibid. 14).
But were you not going to, O soul still making progress and going deep into the learning of the general preliminary studies, see, as though through a mirror made of education, the cause of that learning? And most fitting is the location of such a well, "between Kadesh and Bered" (ibid. 14); Bered is translated "in evils," and Kadesh "holy" — for it lies on the border between holy things and profane, in the midst of progress, fleeing what is base, but not yet capable of living together with things that are perfectly good.

======== On the Change of Names ========

"Abraham was ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him: I am your God" (Gen. 17:1). The number ninety-nine borders on the hundred, in which shines forth the self-taught kind, Isaac, best of the good affections, joy; for he is born when Abraham is a hundred years old.
There is also the first-fruit given to the priests of the Levitical tribe: for having received tithes, from these, as from their own produce, they in turn offer first-fruits which contain the ratio of a hundredth (Num. 18:26). For the ten is a symbol of progress, the hundred a symbol of perfection. The one in the middle always hastens toward the summit, enjoying a fortunate nature; and to him, it is said, the Lord of all things appeared.
But do not suppose that the encounter comes through the eyes of the body — for these see only what is perceptible to sense, and the perceptible is composite and full of corruption, whereas the divine is incomposite and incorruptible — rather, that which receives the divine appearance is the eye of the soul.
For indeed, whatever the eyes of the body observe, they apprehend by the aid of light, which is distinct both from the thing seen and from the one seeing; but whatever the soul apprehends, it apprehends through itself alone, without the cooperation of anything else — for the things thought are themselves a light to themselves.
In the same way we are taught the sciences: for the mind, directing its unclosing and unsleeping eye upon doctrines and speculations, sees them not by a borrowed light but by its own genuine light, which shines forth from itself.
So whenever you hear that God appeared to a man, understand this to happen without perceptible light; for it is likely that the intelligible is apprehended by intellection alone. And God is the source of the purest radiance, so that whenever he shines upon a soul, he raises up rays that cast no shadow and are most clear.
Do not suppose, however, that the Existent, who truly is, is apprehended by any human being. For we possess in ourselves no instrument by which we might form an image of that being — neither sense-perception, since he is not an object of sense, nor mind. Moses, then, the beholder of the invisible nature — for the sacred oracles say he entered into the darkness (Exod. 20:21), hinting at the invisible and incorporeal substance — having searched everywhere through everything, sought to see clearly the thrice-longed-for and only good.
But since he found nothing, not even any form resembling what he hoped for, despairing of instruction from other things, he takes refuge in the very object of his search and begs, saying: "Show yourself to me, that I may see you with knowledge" (Exod. 33:13); and yet he does not obtain his request, since the most sufficient gift granted to the best of mortal kinds is deemed to be the knowledge of the bodies and things that come after the Existent. For it is said:
"You shall see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen by you" (ibid. 23) — meaning that of the bodies and affairs that come after the Existent, those things which come within our apprehension, even if not all of them are apprehended already, while that One alone is not by nature visible.
And what wonder is it, if the Existent is incomprehensible to human beings, when even the mind within each of us is unknown to us? For who has seen the essence of the soul? Its obscurity has bred countless disputes among the sophists, who propose opposing opinions, some even contrary to whole classes of being.
It followed, then, that not even the name "Lord" could be applied to him who truly is. Do you not see that when the prophet, eager to learn, asks what he should answer those who inquire about his name, he says: "I am the One who is" (Exod. 3:14) — equivalent to saying, "my nature is to be, not to be spoken"?
But that mankind should not be wholly deprived of an address for the best of beings, he grants that his name be used, by way of accommodation, as though he were a being of that sort: "the Lord God" of the three natures — teaching, perfection, practice — whose symbols are recorded as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "For this," he says, "is my name forever" — as considered in our own age, not in the age before the ages — "and my memorial," not that which stands beyond memory and thought, and again, "for generations" (ibid. 15), not for natures ungenerated.
For those who have come into mortal existence need this accommodated use of the divine name, so that, even if not in reality, at least in name they may approach and be adorned by what is best. A further oracle, spoken from the person of the ruler of all things, makes clear that his name "Lord" has been revealed to no one. "I appeared," he says, "to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, being their God, and I did not reveal my name 'Lord' to them" (Exod. 6:3). For when the inverted order is set right, the sense would run thus: "My name, the 'Lord,' I did not reveal to them," but only the name used by accommodation, for the reasons already stated.
So ineffable indeed is the Existent that not even the powers who serve him tell us his lordly name. At any rate, after the wrestling match which the ascetic wrestled for the possession of virtue, he says to the invisible overseer: "Tell me your name," and he replied: "Why do you ask this, my name?" (Gen. 32:29), and he does not disclose his own and proper name. "It is enough for you," he in effect says, "to be benefited by my good words spoken over you; but do not seek names, which are symbols of created things, from natures that are incorruptible."
Do not, then, be perplexed if the eldest of beings is unspeakable, seeing that even his word is not utterable by us in a lordly name. And indeed, if he is unspeakable, he is also inconceivable and incomprehensible; so that the statement "the Lord appeared to Abraham" (Gen. 17:1) must be understood not as though the Cause of all things himself shone forth and appeared — for what human mind is capable of containing the magnitude of such an appearance? — but as one of the powers around him, the royal power, appearing in advance; for the title "Lord" belongs to rule and kingship.
Our mind, when it played the Chaldean and babbled of things on high, was accustomed to attend to the active powers of the cosmos as causes; but having become a migrant from the Chaldean doctrine, it came to know that the cosmos itself is guided and steered by a ruler, of whose rule it received an impression.
For this reason it is said, "there appeared" — not the Existent, but the Lord; just as one might say a king appeared, one who existed from the beginning but was not yet known to the soul, which, though late in learning, did not remain wholly ignorant, but formed an impression of the rule and sovereignty that exists among beings.
And the ruler, once he has appeared, confers a still greater benefit on the listener and beholder, saying: "I am your God" (Gen. 17:1). For of whom, I might ask, are you not God, of all that has come into being? But the interpretive word will teach me that he is not now speaking about the cosmos, of which he is entirely craftsman and God, but about human souls, which he has not deemed worthy of the same care.
For he judges it right that he be called Lord and Master of the base, but God of those making progress and improving, and both together, Lord and God at once, of the best and most perfect. For instance, having established Pharaoh as the extreme limit of impiety, he never once called himself Pharaoh's God — but wise Moses he calls so, for he says, "See, I give you as god to Pharaoh" (Exod. 7:1) — while he named himself Lord in many of the oracles delivered by him; and such things are sung as these:
"Thus says the Lord" (Exod. 7:17), and at the beginning: "The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I am the Lord; speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I speak to you" (Exod. 6:29), and Moses says to him:
"When I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord, and the voices will cease, and the hail and rain will be no more, that you may know that the earth is the Lord's" — as it were, the whole bodily and earthly constitution — "and you" — the mind that carries the image — "and your servants" — the individual thoughts that serve as bodyguards. "For I know that you do not yet fear the Lord" (Exod. 9:29-30) — equivalent to saying, not the one so called in some other sense, but the one who is truly the Master.
For no created being is in truth Lord, even if he should stretch his rule from one end of the earth to the other; only the Unbegotten is a leader who does not deceive, whose rule the one who fears and is struck with awe takes up as a most profitable prize of admonition, while ruin, pitiable in every way, awaits the one who is careless of it.
He has shown himself, then, as Lord to the foolish, holding over them the fear proper to a ruler, but he is written as God to those improving, as also now: "I am your God" (Gen. 17:1), "I am your God, increase and multiply" (Gen. 35:11); but to the perfect he is both together, Lord and God at once, as in the Ten Words: "I am the Lord your God" (Exod. 20:2), and elsewhere:
"The Lord God of your fathers" (Deut. 4:1). For he judges it right that the base be mastered as by a lord, so that, being cautious and groaning, he may keep the fear of a master hanging over him; and that the one making progress be benefited as by a God, so that by good deeds he may attain to perfection; and that the perfect one both be led as by a lord and be benefited as by a God — for this one remains forever unchanging, while the other is altogether a man of God.
This is shown most clearly in the case of Moses: "This," he says, "is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed" (Deut. 33:1). O most beautiful and most fitting exchange, to be deemed worthy of giving oneself in return for divine providence!
But do not suppose that becoming a man and becoming a man of God happen in the same way: a man belongs to God as his possession, but a man of God belongs to him as a boast and a benefit. If, then, you wish to have God as the portion of your understanding, first become yourself a portion worthy of him; and you will become this if you flee from all laws that are handmade and adopted by choice.
But indeed it was not right to be ignorant of this either: that the phrase 'I am your God' (Gen 17:1) is spoken in an extended sense, not in its strict and proper one. For That Which Is, insofar as it is, does not belong to the category of the relative; it is full of itself and sufficient to itself, both before the coming-to-be of the world and after the coming-to-be of the universe, in the very same way.
For it is unchangeable and immutable, needing absolutely nothing else, so that all things belong to it, while it, properly speaking, belongs to nothing. Of the powers that it extended toward creation for the benefit of what was composed, some happen to be spoken of as relative: the royal power and the beneficent power. For a king is king of someone, and a benefactor is benefactor of some other person, who in every case is being ruled or benefited.
Akin to these is also the creative power, which is called God; for through this power the Father who begot and crafted all things established everything, so that 'I am your God' is equivalent to 'I am maker and craftsman.'
The greatest gift is to have obtained him as one's architect, of whom the whole cosmos itself also obtained a share. For he did not fashion the soul of the base person — vice is hateful to God — but the soul of middling character he did not shape by himself alone, according to most holy Moses, since this soul, like wax, was going to receive the impression of both the beautiful and the shameful.
That is why it is said: 'Let us make man according to our image' (Gen 1:26), so that, if it receives a base stamp, it may appear to be the work of others, but if a beautiful one, the work of the sole craftsman of things beautiful and good. In every case, then, that man is virtuous to whom he says 'I am your God,' since he has obtained the maker alone, without the cooperation of others.
At the same time this also gathers together and teaches the doctrine established by him in many places, that he is craftsman of good and wise things alone. This whole company, moreover, has of its own will disregarded the abundant possession of external goods, and even the pleasures dear to the flesh.
For well-conditioned, vigorous athletes fortify the body — the soul's slave — against the soul, whereas those who are pale and wasted and reduced almost to skeletons through education have, in a sense, allotted even their bodily vigor to the powers of the soul, and, to tell the truth, have been resolved into the single form of the soul and have become bodiless intellects.
It is fitting, then, that the earthly element perishes and is dissolved whenever the mind, wholly and entirely, chooses to be well-pleasing to God; but this kind is rare and scarcely to be found, though not impossible to come about. The oracle given concerning Enoch shows this: 'Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and he was not found' (Gen 5:24).
Where, indeed, could one go to contemplate this good thing? What seas would one have to cross? To what islands, coming to whom — among barbarians or among Greeks?
Or is it not the case that even now there are some among those initiated into philosophy who say that wisdom does not exist, since neither does the wise man — for no human being, from the beginning of creation up to the present life, has been considered entirely blameless, since it is impossible for one bound to a mortal body to be wholly happy?
Whether these things are rightly said we shall examine at the proper time; but for now, following the oracle, we shall say that wisdom is indeed an existing thing, and that its lover, the wise man, also exists — though, existing as he does, he has escaped the notice of us who are base; for the good is unwilling to consort with evil.
For this reason it is said: 'he was not found' — the character who was well-pleasing to God — as one who, though existing, is hidden away and flees our coming together with him, since he is also said to have been 'transferred,' which is to migrate and undertake a change of dwelling from mortal life to the immortal.
These men, then, driven mad with a divine madness, have grown wild; but there are others who are companions of a tame and gentle wisdom. Among these, piety is practiced with particular care, and human affairs are not disregarded. Witness the oracles, in which it is said to Abraham, in the person of God: 'Be well-pleasing before me' (Gen 17:1) — which means, not to me alone, but also in my presence as judge of your deeds, as one who oversees and watches over them.
For in honoring your parents, or showing mercy to the poor, or benefiting friends, or defending your country, or attending to the claims of justice common to all human beings, you will indeed be pleasing to those you deal with — but you will be pleasing before God. For with an unsleeping eye he sees all things, and by a special grace he calls to himself and welcomes what is excellent.
That is why the practicer of virtue too, in his prayer, declares the same thing, saying: 'The God before whom my fathers were well-pleasing,' adding 'before him' (Gen 48:15), so that we may know the real difference between being well-pleasing 'to God' and being well-pleasing 'before him': the one phrase encompasses both, the other only one of the two.
So too Moses, among his exhortations, admonishes, saying: 'You shall do what is pleasing before the Lord your God' (Deut 12:28) — meaning, do such things as will prove worthy to appear before God, and which he will accept even without being seen; and such deeds are also accustomed to extend toward those who resemble him.
Setting out from this, he wove the tabernacle together with two enclosing boundaries, placing a curtain between the two, so that the things within might be distinguished from the things outside (Exod 26:33); and he overlaid the sacred ark, guardian of the law, with gold both within and without (Exod 25:10); and to the high priest he gave two robes, the linen one within, and the embroidered one, together with the ankle-length robe, outside (Exod 28:4; Lev 6:10).
For these things, and others like them, are symbols of a soul that is pure both within, toward God, and without, toward the perceptible world and life. Fittingly, then, that declaration was made to the wrestler who had won his victory and was about to be crowned with the wreaths of triumph. For the proclamation concerning him is this: 'You have prevailed with God, and are mighty with men' (Gen 32:28).
For to be well-esteemed in each rank — both in relation to the uncreated and in relation to the created — belongs to no small understanding, but, to tell the truth, to one who stands at the border between the world and God; and altogether it is fitting that the virtuous man be an attendant of God, for the ruler and father of all that has come to be cares for what he has made.
For who does not know that even before the coming-to-be of the world God was sufficient unto himself, and that after the coming-to-be of the world he remained the same, without change? Why, then, did he make the things that did not exist? Was it not because he was good and a lover of giving? Shall we, then, his servants, not follow our master, marveling exceedingly at the cause, yet not overlooking our own nature?
Having said 'Be well-pleasing before me,' he adds, 'and become blameless' (Gen 17:1), observing a sequence and order. Strive, then, rather for what is noble, so that you may be well-pleasing; but if not, at least abstain from wrongdoing, so that you may not incur blame. For the one who succeeds is praiseworthy, while the one who does no wrong is not blameworthy.
And for those who succeed there lies the elder's prize, being well-pleasing; but the second prize, for those who do not sin, is being blameless. Perhaps, too, for mortal creation, not to fail utterly is written down as equal to, and the same as, succeeding. For, as Job says, 'Who is clean of defilement, even if his life is but a single day?' (Job 14:4).
Countless are the things that defile the soul, which it is not possible to wash and cleanse away entirely. For inescapably there remain, akin to every mortal being, certain destructive spirits, which it is reasonable to expect will subside, but which it is altogether impossible to remove.
Does anyone, then, seek a just or prudent or self-controlled or, in general, a perfectly good man in a life so thoroughly confused? Be content, even if you do not find one who is not unjust, or not foolish, or not licentious, or not utterly base in every respect. For the overthrow of the vices is something to be grateful for; but the complete possession of the virtues is impossible for man as we know him.
It was therefore reasonable that he said, "Be blameless" (Gen. 17:1), supposing that to be free from sin and reproach was a great advantage toward a happy life. And to the one who has chosen to live in this manner he acknowledges that he will leave, in accordance with the covenants, the inheritance that is fitting — for God to give, and for the wise man to receive.
For he says, "I will set my covenant between me and you" (Gen. 17:2). Covenants are written for the benefit of those worthy of the gift, so that a covenant is a symbol of grace, which God has placed in the middle, himself reaching it out and the human being receiving it.
And it is an excess of benefaction that there should be nothing between God and the soul, except grace herself, the virgin. I have set down the whole account concerning covenants in two treatises, and, not wishing to repeat myself, I willingly pass over it here, and at the same time I do not wish to break the continuity that belongs to this present treatise.
It is said next: "Abraham fell upon his face" (ibid. 3). Was he not bound, through the divine promises, both to know himself and the nothingness of the mortal race, and to fall down beside the one who stands, as a display of the understanding he held concerning himself and concerning God? For the one who stands always in the same way sets the whole of created instability in motion — not through legs, for he is not shaped like a human being,
but through that which shows him unswerving and unchangeable; whereas the other, never firmly established in the same state, receives at different times changes of every kind, and — tripped up, poor wretch (for his whole life is a slippery slope) — must he not fall a great fall?
But the one falls unwillingly, in ignorance, while the other falls willingly, being tractable. For this reason he is said to have fallen "upon his face" — upon the senses, upon speech, upon the mind — all but crying out and shouting that sense-perception has fallen, unable of itself to perceive, unless by the forethought of the Savior it should be roused again to the apprehension of the bodies that underlie it; and that speech, too, has fallen, unable to interpret anything of what exists, unless he who fashioned and fitted together the vocal instrument should open the mouth and articulate the tongue and strike the sounds musically; and that the mind, too — the king — has fallen, stripped of its powers of comprehension, unless the one who molded living things should raise it up again and set it firmly in place, and, furnishing it with keen-sighted pupils, lead it to the vision of things incorporeal.
Approving, then, of the manner in which he fled from himself and fell of his own free will, on account of the confession he made concerning Being — that the one who stands in truth was one alone, while the things that come after him admit of turnings and changes of every kind — God resounds, as it were, and grants him a share of speech, saying, "And as for me, behold, my covenant is with you" (Gen. 17:4).
And this suggests some such thought as this: there are very many forms of covenant, apportioning graces and gifts to the worthy, but the highest kind of covenant is I myself. For having shown himself — insofar as it was possible for the unshowable to be shown — through saying "And as for me," he adds, "behold my covenant": I myself am the beginning and source of all graces.
For to some God is accustomed to hold out his benefactions through others — through earth, water, air, sun, moon, heaven, and other incorporeal powers — but to others through himself alone, declaring that those who receive himself are his portion; and these he immediately deemed worthy of another appellation as well.
For it is said, "Your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham" (Gen. 17:5). Now some of those who love to give offense, and who are always eager to attach blemishes to what is blameless — waging war, not so much on bodies as on things, an undeclared war on the sacred texts — take everything that does not seem, on the surface of the wording, to preserve propriety (though such things are symbols of a nature that always loves to hide itself), and, after examining it with meticulous scrutiny, disparage it and bring it forward for slander — above all, the changes of names.
And I myself once heard a godless and impious man, mocking and jeering, who dared to say: "Great indeed, and extravagant, are the gifts which Moses says the ruler of the universe holds out! By the addition of one letter — alpha added to the single one already there — and again by another addition, of the letter rho, what a marvelous benefaction he supposed himself to have bestowed... he named Abram's wife Sarah 'Sarrah,' taking on a second rho!" And he went through a whole string of similar remarks in one breath, sneering all the while.
Now for his derangement he did not long delay in paying the fitting penalty; for from a small and chance pretext he rushed to the noose, so that the vile and incurable man might not even end his life by a clean death. But it would be just for us, to prevent someone else being caught by the same errors, to cut away the false suspicions, by giving a natural explanation and demonstrating that these sayings are worthy of all earnest attention.
For God does not bestow mute or vowel letters, or words and names in general — seeing that when he had brought forth plants and animals in turn, he summoned them before the human being as before a ruler, whom he had set apart from all others on account of understanding, so that he might give to each its proper name. For it says, "Whatever Adam called each, that was its name" (Gen. 2:19).
Then, since God did not even deem it fitting to pronounce the entire formation of names, but entrusted the task to a wise man, the founder of the human race, it is worth surmising that he himself added and refitted parts of names, or syllables, or letters — not vowels only, but consonants as well — and did this under the pretext of a gift and an extravagant benefaction? It cannot be said.
Rather, such things are the marks of powers — small tokens of great realities, perceptible signs of intelligible things, visible signs of the unseen. And the powers themselves are examined in the finest doctrines, in true and pure conceptions, in improvements of the soul. It is easy to grasp the proof of this if one begins from the man now renamed.
Abram, when interpreted, means "uplifted father"; Abraham means "elect father of sound." How these differ from one another we shall know more clearly once we have first read what is signified by each.
By "uplifted," then, allegorizing, we mean the man who raises himself up from earth to the height and surveys the things aloft — a wanderer among the heavens, a student of celestial phenomena, investigating what the size of the sun is, what its courses are, how it apportions the seasons of the year as it approaches and withdraws again in circuits of equal speed, and inquiring about the moon's illuminations, phases, waning, and waxing, and the movement of the other stars, both the fixed and the wandering.
For the examination of these matters does not belong to an unproductive and barren soul, but rather to one exceptionally well-endowed, and capable of begetting whole and perfect offspring. For this reason he called the student of celestial things "father" — because he is not barren of wisdom.
The symbols pertaining to Abram, then, are worked out with this precision; those pertaining to Abraham we shall now show. There were three: father, elect, and of sound. We say that the "sound" is uttered speech — for the vocal organ is the sounding instrument of the living creature — and that the father of this is the mind, since the stream of speech flows from the understanding as from a spring; and "elect" belongs to the wise man, for whatever is best is found in him.
According to the earlier characteristics, then, the lover of learning and the babbler about celestial things was sketched in outline; but according to those just now described, the philosopher — or rather the wise man — was made clear. No longer suppose, then, that the divine bestows a mere change of names, but rather a correction of character conveyed through symbols.
For the man who had earlier busied himself with the nature of the heavens, whom some call an astronomer, God summoned to a share in virtue, and showed him to be, and named him, wise, setting a seal upon his transformed character — as the Hebrews would say, Abraham, but as the Greeks would say, "elect father of sound."
"For what purpose," he says, "do you investigate the dances and revolutions of the stars, and leap up so far from earth toward the ether? Is it merely that you may busy yourself with things up there, and nothing more? And what benefit could come from such excessive meddling? What abatement of pleasure? What overthrow of desire? What dissolution of grief or fear? What excision of the passions that shake and confound the soul?"
For just as there is no benefit in trees unless they prove capable of bearing fruit, in the same way there is none in the study of nature either, unless it is going to bring about the acquisition of virtue; for this is its fruit.
For this reason some of the ancients, likening the discourse of philosophy to a field, compared the natural part to the plants, the logical part to the hedges and enclosures, and the ethical part to the fruit — supposing that the surrounding walls, too, were constructed for the guarding of the fruit by those who own it, and that the plants themselves had been fashioned for the sake of producing fruit.
In this way, then, they said that in philosophy too the study of nature and of logic must be referred back to ethics, by which character is improved, aiming at once at the acquisition and at the use of virtue.
This, then, is what we were taught concerning him who was renamed in word but who in deed changed from natural philosophy to ethical philosophy, and migrated from contemplation of the cosmos to knowledge of its Maker, from which he acquired piety, the fairest of possessions.
We shall now speak of the matters concerning his wife Sarah, for she too is renamed, to Sarrah, by the addition of the one letter rho. These, then, are the names; but their meanings must be explained. Sara is translated "my ruler," and Sarrah, "ruler."
The former, then, is a symbol of particular virtue, the latter of generic virtue. And by as much as a genus differs from a species in the direction of being less particular, by so much does the second name surpass the first; for the species is both small and perishable, while the genus is both extensive and imperishable.
God wishes to bestow great and immortal things in place of small and perishable ones, and this work is fitting for him. For the practical wisdom that resides in the excellent person is the beginning only of that person, and one who possesses it would not err in saying, "The beginning of me is the practical wisdom within me"; but the generic practical wisdom that stamped this individual wisdom is no longer the beginning of some particular person, but is itself, absolutely, the Beginning.
Accordingly, the particular wisdom that exists in a species will perish along with its possessor, but the wisdom that, like a seal, stamped it will remain, freed from everything mortal, imperishable throughout eternity. So too among the arts, some perish together in species with those who acquired them - geometers, grammarians, musicians - while the generic arts remain indestructible. And in this same passage he further teaches, in passing, that every virtue is a queen, ruling and governing the affairs of life.
But Jacob too came to be renamed Israel, and not without purpose. Why? Because Jacob means "supplanter," while Israel is called "one who sees God." Now it is the work of a supplanter, when practicing virtue, to shake the very footings of passion on which it is established, and to move, unsettle, and overturn whatever in them is firm and fixed - and this does not tend to happen without struggle and free of contest, but only when someone, contending in the exercises of practical wisdom, trains the exercises of the soul and wrestles against the reasonings that oppose and try to throw it by the neck. But it is the work of one who sees God not to leave the sacred contest uncrowned, but to carry off the prizes for victory.
What crown could be woven more full of bloom and more fitting for a victorious soul than the one by which it will be able to gaze sharply upon the One who truly is? A noble prize indeed lies before the soul in training: to have its eyes opened toward the far-shining comprehension of the sight of the only Being worthy of contemplation.
It is worth raising the question why Abraham, from the moment he was renamed, is deemed worthy of that same appellation, no longer being called by his former name, whereas Jacob, though addressed as Israel, is nonetheless called Jacob again, still more often, afterward. We must say, then, that these too are distinguishing marks by which taught virtue differs from virtue acquired by training.
The one who has been made better through teaching, having obtained a favored nature that secures for him what is unforgettable through the cooperation of memory, makes constant use of what he has learned, gripping it tightly and holding it firmly; but the one in training, once he has exercised strenuously, in turn takes breath and relaxes, gathering himself and restoring the strength worn down by his labor, just as those who oil their bodies for athletics do. For these too, when they grow weary in their exercise, pour on oil so that their strength may not be entirely torn away by the violence and intensity of the contest.
Then the one who was taught, since he makes use of an immortal instructor, possesses the benefit as something dwelling within him and immortal, never turning aside; while the one in training possesses only his own voluntary effort, and it is this that he exercises and hardens, so that he may return to his proper kind.
The latter, then, is the more enduring of hardship, but the former is the more fortunate; for the one makes use of another as teacher, while the other seeks and inquires and investigates from himself, searching earnestly into the things of nature, employing unbroken and continuous labor.
For this reason the changeless God renamed Abraham, since he was destined to remain in a like condition, so that, by the one who stands fixed and is ever the same and in the same way, he might be firmly established in that state which was to be his lasting one; but Jacob was renamed by an angel, a servant of God, a word - so that it might be acknowledged that nothing among the things that come after the One who Is is a cause of unwavering and unshifting steadiness, but rather a cause of harmony, such as that in a musical instrument, which contains the tensions and relaxations of notes for the artful blending of melody.
But of the three founders of the nation, the outer two were renamed, Abraham and Jacob, while the middle one, Isaac, retained the same appellation forever. Why? Because taught virtue and trained virtue admit of improvement - for the one who is being taught desires knowledge of what he does not know, and the one who makes use of training desires the crowns and the prizes set before a soul that loves labor and loves contemplation - whereas the self-taught and self-learned kind, since it is constituted more by nature than by pursuit, was brought forth from the beginning equal, complete, and perfect, lacking nothing needed to fill out its number.
But Joseph is not the steward of the goods proper to the body; for he changes his name, being called Psonthomphanech by the king of the land (Gen. 41:45). What account this too gives must be explained. Joseph is translated "addition"; and an addition is whatever belongs to convention rather than to nature - gold, silver, possessions, revenues, the service of household slaves, an abundant supply of treasures and furnishings and other wealth, and the countless provisions that produce pleasure.
The provider and steward of these things has come to be called, quite fittingly, by the name "addition," since he has taken charge of things brought in and added from outside to what accords with nature. The oracles bear witness to this, showing that he stored up the food of the whole bodily region, Egypt, and administered its grain supply (Gen. 41:
48). Such, then, is the Joseph made known to us by these signs; let us now consider what sort of figure Psonthomphanech is. It is translated "mouth that judges in response." For every foolish person supposes that the man of great wealth, awash in external goods, is thereby also a man of sound judgment, competent to answer whatever questions he is asked and competent also to propose beneficial counsels from himself - and, in general, such a person locates practical wisdom in fortune, when instead fortune ought to be located in practical wisdom; for it is fitting that the unstable be guided by the stable.
And indeed, his brother by the same mother - the father calls him Benjamin, but the mother calls him "son of my pain" (Gen. 35:18), very fittingly by nature. For Benjamin, translated, means "son of days," and day is illumined by the light perceptible from the sun, and it is to this light that we liken empty opinion.
For empty opinion possesses a certain perceptible brightness in the praises given by the many and the common herd, in decrees inscribed, in the dedication of statues and images, in purple robes and golden crowns, in chariots and four-horse teams and the escorting of crowds. The one who zealously pursues these things has fittingly, then, been named "of days" - of perceptible light, and of the brightness that surrounds empty opinion.
This, the elder reason, truly the father, gives him as his fitting and proper name; but the soul that has suffered gives the name that matches what it has suffered, for it calls him "son of pain." Why? Because those who are carried along by empty opinions are supposed to be happy, but in truth they are wretched.
For the contrary winds are many: envy, jealousies, unceasing quarrels, rivalries irreconcilable even unto death, hostilities handed down from children's children in succession - an inheritance no one would choose to possess. It is therefore necessary that the God-inspired reason present her as dying in these very birth-pangs,
the birth-pangs that bring forth vain opinion - for it says, "Rachel died in hard labor" (Gen. 35:16, 19), since indeed the sowing and begetting of perceptible and empty glory is, in truth, the death of the soul.
What of this, then? Were not the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, made to resemble, quite fittingly by nature, the two eldest sons of Jacob, Reuben and Simeon? For it is said: "Your two sons, who were born in Egypt before I came into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be to me as Reuben and Simeon" (Gen. 48:5). Let us then consider in what manner these are fitted to the two.
Reuben is a symbol of a good natural endowment - for translated it means "son who sees," since everyone who possesses quickness and a good natural endowment has clear sight - while Ephraim, as we have often said elsewhere, is a symbol of memory - for translated it means "fruit-bearing," and the best fruit of the soul is memory. And nothing else is so akin to another thing as remembering is to a good natural endowment.
Again, Simeon is a name for learning and instruction - for translated it means "hearing" - and it is characteristic of one who is learning to listen and pay attention to what is said; while Manasseh is a symbol of recollection, for he is named from forgetting.
But it necessarily happens that the one who comes forth out of forgetting must remember; and recollection is proper to learning. For often the theorems of the one who is learning slip away, since through weakness he is unable to retain them, and then rise again to the surface from the beginning. The affliction of this slipping-away is called forgetting, and that of the return-flow is called recollection.
Is it not fitting, then, that memory corresponds to natural aptitude, and recollection to learning? Indeed, the relation Simeon bears to Reuben — that is, learning to nature — is the same relation Manasseh bears to Ephraim, that is, recollection to memory.
For just as the naturally gifted person is superior to the one who learns — the one resembles sight, the other hearing, and hearing takes second place to sight — so too the person of memory is in every way superior to the person of recollection, because the latter is mixed with forgetfulness, while the former remains unmixed and unadulterated from beginning to end.
Indeed, the oracles call the father-in-law of the chief prophet now Jethro, now Reuel: Jethro when vanity is flourishing, for the name, translated, means 'superfluous,' and vanity is a superfluity in a life devoted to truth — a vanity that treats what is fair and necessary to life as a laughing matter, while dignifying the unequal claims of greed.
This man prefers human things to divine, custom to law, the profane to the sacred, the mortal to the immortal, and, in short, seeming to being. And having taken it upon himself unbidden, he steps into the role of counselor, instructing the wise man not to teach what alone is worth learning — ‘the ordinances of God and the law’ (Exodus 18:20) — but instead the contracts men make with one another, which are all but the cause of a fellowship that is no fellowship at all. And the great man submits to all of it, thinking it fitting that small matters be judged by small men, and great matters by great (ibid. 22, 24).
But this man who merely seems wise often changes, and having passed on from the flock he had blindly been allotted to drive, and having sought out the divine herd, he becomes no discreditable part of it, marveling at the herdsman of nature and admiring the oversight he exercises in caring for his own flock. For Reuel, translated (Exodus 2:18), means 'the shepherding of God.'
The main point has been stated; now let the proofs be set out. First, he is introduced as an attendant of judgment and justice, for the name Midian, translated, is derived from 'judgment.' And this has a double sense. It signifies, on the one hand, exclusion and rejection — the very thing that regularly happens to competitors in what are called the sacred games, for countless men who proved unfit have already been disqualified by the judges of the contest.
These men, initiated into the unholy rites of Baal-peor (Numbers 25:3) and widening every orifice of the body to receive the streams poured in from outside — for Baal-peor, translated, means, roughly, 'mouth of the skin' — flooded the mind that should have governed them and let it sink to the utmost depths, so that it could not swim back up nor manage to rise even a little.
And it suffered this, until the peaceable one, priest of God (ibid. 12, 13), clear-spoken Phinehas, came as an unbidden champion, being by nature a hater of wickedness and possessed by zeal for what is noble. Having taken up his javelin — that is, a sharpened and penetrating reason, capable of searching out and tracking down each thing — he was able not to be deceived, and, employing his vigorous strength, pierced the passion through the womb (ibid. 7, 8), so that it might no longer breed any evil sent from God.
Against these men the greatest war was also waged by the race that sees, in which, of those who fought it out, 'not one was missing' (Numbers 31:49), but each returned unwounded and safe, crowned with the wreaths of victory.
This, then, was one thing signified by Midian. There is another kind, the discerning and judicial, which is also joined by marriage to the prophetic race. 'The priest,' he says, of judgment and justice, 'has seven daughters' (Exodus 2:16) — symbolically, the faculties of the irrational part: the organ of generation, the voice, and the five senses, shepherding the flock of their father.
For it is through these seven faculties that the advances and increases of the father-mind are established, by the apprehensions that arise within them. Each, when it arrives at its proper object — sight at colors and shapes, hearing at sounds, smell at vapors, taste at flavors, and the others at whatever suits them — 'draws water,' in a certain sense, from the perceptible things outside, 'until they have filled the troughs of the soul, from which they water the flock of their father' (ibid.) — I mean the purest flock of reasoning, which carries about with it both security and order at once.
But when the companions of envy and malice arrive, leaders of a wicked herd, they drive the daughters away from their natural use (ibid. 17). For the senses lead things from outside in, to the mind as if to a judge and king, so that, employing what is best, they may act rightly.
But those others sit opposed, pursuing them and issuing the contrary command: to drag the mind outward and hand over appearances as plunder — until 'rising up,' the disposition that had until then seemed quietly to love virtue, and being seized with divine inspiration, its name Moses, will shield them and 'rescue them' (ibid.) from those who held them captive, nourishing the father's flock with words that give drink.
Having escaped the attack of enemies of the understanding — men who are enemies at heart but who covet only outward trappings, as in a tragedy — the daughters no longer come to Jethro but to Reuel (ibid. 17, 18). For they have abandoned their kinship with vanity and have been made kin, through a lawful upbringing, to a portion of the sacred herd worthy to be counted its own, the herd that the divine Word leads, as the name shows: for it means 'the shepherding of God.'
And when the herdsman tends his own flock, good things are at hand in abundance, ready-made, for those of the flock who obey and do not resist. Indeed, a song of this kind is sung among the hymns: 'The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing' (Psalm 22:1).
The mind, then, that has the divine Word for shepherd and king, will fittingly ask his seven daughters: 'Why have you come today, hurrying with such great speed?' (Exodus 2:18). For formerly, when you were occupied with things perceptible to sense, you would linger outside for a long time and return only with difficulty, lured on by those very things; but now, I do not know what has come over you, that you have returned so promptly, contrary to custom.
They will say, then, that they themselves were not the cause of running the double course to and from the objects of sense without pausing for breath and with great impetus, but rather the man who rescued them from the shepherds of the wild herd — whom they call an Egyptian, that is, Moses (ibid. 19) — though he is not only a Hebrew but of the purest stock of the Hebrews, the stock that alone serves as priests — they themselves being unable to rise above their own nature.
For since the senses stand on the border between the intelligible and the perceptible, it is a welcome thing if they reach out toward both, rather than being led by the perceptible alone; but to suppose that they will ever confine themselves solely to the objects of the understanding is great naivety. For this reason they put both together, signifying by 'man' the things discernible by reason alone, and by 'Egyptian' representing the objects of sense.
On hearing this, he will ask again: 'Where is the man?' (ibid. 20). In what part of your domain does the rational form dwell? 'Why have you left him' so readily (ibid.), instead of holding fast, once you had met him, to the fairest and most profitable possession for yourselves?
But if not before, then now 'call him, so that he may eat' (ibid.) and be nourished by your improvements and your growing kinship with him. For perhaps that winged, god-borne, and prophetic race, named Zipporah, will also come to dwell with us, and will be led as a bride (ibid. 21).
So much, then, about these things. But Moses also renames Hoshea as Joshua (Numbers 13:17), reminting the man of a particular quality into a settled disposition. For Hoshea, translated, means 'this particular kind of man,' while Joshua means 'the salvation of the Lord,' a name for the best possible disposition.
For settled dispositions are superior to the particular men who possess them, just as musicianship is superior to the musician, and medicine to the physician, and every craft to the craftsman who practices it — superior in permanence, in power, and in the unstumbling excellence of its principles. For a disposition is permanent, active, complete, whereas the particular man is mortal, passive, incomplete; and what is incorruptible is superior to what is mortal, what is actively causative is superior to what merely suffers, and what is complete is superior to what is incomplete.
In this way the coinage of the man just mentioned was reminted into a better form. And Caleb, too, is himself entirely transformed; for it says, 'another spirit came to be in him' (Numbers 14:24), as though the governing faculty had changed toward the utmost perfection.
For Caleb, translated, means 'whole heart'; and this is a symbol that the soul has not shifted and wavered only in part, but has been transformed wholly and entirely toward what is approved, having banished, through arguments of repentance, whatever was not altogether praiseworthy. For only by washing away what defiled it in this way, and making use of the cleansing baths of practical wisdom, was it destined to shine bright.
It so happens that the chief prophet has many names. When he interprets and expounds the oracles that are delivered to him, he is called Moses; when in prayer he blesses the people, he is 'a man of God' (Deuteronomy 33:1); and when Egypt pays the penalty for its impieties, he is 'god' to Pharaoh, the king of that land (Exodus 7:1).
Why is this? Because rewriting laws for the benefit of those who will encounter them is the work of one who gropes his way, one who always keeps hold of divine things by hand and who has been called up (Exodus 24:1) by the god-proclaiming lawgiver, and who has received from him a great gift: the interpretation and prophecy of sacred laws. For "Moses," when translated, means "taking," but it can also mean "a groping," for the reasons stated.
But to pray and to bless is not for just anyone, but for a man who has not looked to kinship with created things, but has assigned himself to the leader and father of all.
For it would be a welcome thing if someone managed merely to use sound judgment for himself; but to procure the good for others as well — this was the promise of a greater and more perfect soul, one truly touched by the divine, and one who, having obtained this, will fittingly be called god. And this same person is god precisely because he is wise, and for that reason rules over every fool, even should that fool be enthroned upon a royal scepter and pride himself greatly on that very account.
For the ruler of all things wishes — even when certain people, guilty of unbearable wrongs, are about to be punished — to have intercessors on their behalf, men who, imitating the propitious power of the Father, will use their punishments more moderately and humanely. For to do good is the property of God.
Having now spoken sufficiently about the change and alteration of names, we shall turn to the next topics on our route. There followed immediately the birth of Isaac. For having called his mother Sarah instead of Sarai, he says to Abraham: "I will give you a child from her" (Genesis 17:16). We must examine each point in turn.
Now whoever gives anything in the proper sense of the word always gives something that is entirely his own. If this is true without falsehood, then Isaac would be, not the man, but that which shares a name with the best of the good affections — joy, laughter — the inward son of God, who gives him as a gentle balm and cheerfulness to the most peaceable souls.
For it would be absurd for one man to exist, and for another to father bastard and adulterine children upon his wife; and indeed Moses records God as the husband of the quiver-bearing mind, when he says: "The Lord, seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb" (Genesis 29:31).
For having taken pity and compassion on virtue, hated by the mortal race, and on the soul that loves virtue, he leaves barren [...] its cluster-loving nature, but opens the spring of good offspring, granting her an easy childbirth.
And Tamar, having become pregnant with divine seed, and not having seen the one who sowed it — for it is said that she then "veiled her face" (Genesis 38:15), just as Moses, when he turned away, reverent of looking upon God (Exodus 3:6) — but having closely examined the tokens and the pledges and having judged the matter within herself, that a mortal does not give such things, cried out: "Whosever these are, by him I am with child" (Genesis 38:25).
Whose is the ring — Faithfulness, the seal of the universe, the archetypal Idea, by which all things that are without quality and without shape were stamped and given form? And whose is the necklace — Destiny, the sequence and proportion of all things, holding an unbreakable chain? And whose too is the staff (ibid.) — that which is fixed, unshaken, unchangeable: admonition, discipline, education? The scepter, the kingship — whose is it? Is it not God's alone?
And so the confessing disposition, Judah, delighted by her possessed and god-inspired manner, speaks boldly, saying: "She has been shown righteous, for the reason on account of which I did not give her to any mortal" (ibid. 26), considering it impious to defile things once profaned that belong to the divine.
...things. And practical wisdom too, having given birth in the manner of a mother, reveals the self-taught race — that God himself sowed it. For once the child was born she exults, saying: "The Lord has made laughter for me" (Genesis 21:6), which is equivalent to saying: he shaped Isaac, he fashioned him, he begot him, since he himself was laughter.
But this saying is not for everyone's ears, since much of the evil of superstition has flowed among us and flooded unmanly and ignoble souls. Hence she adds: "For whoever hears will rejoice with me" (ibid.), implying that there are few whose ears are open and pricked up to receive these sacred words, which teach that to sow and beget noble things is the proper work of God alone.
To these words all others are deaf. And I recall an oracle once proclaimed by a prophetic mouth, fiery in this way: "From me your fruit has been found. Who is wise, and will understand these things? Who is intelligent, and will know them?" (Hosea 14:9-10). And I pondered on him who resounds and strikes the instrument of voice, himself invisible in an invisible way, and I marveled, struck with astonishment at what was said.
For if there is any good among existing things [...] or rather, if the whole heaven and cosmos, to speak the truth, is the fruit of God, sustained as it were by a tree of eternal and ever-flourishing nature. And it belongs to intelligent and wise men to know and confess such things — not to men of no account.
What "I will give you" means has been stated; but what "from her" (Genesis 17:16) means must now be shown. Some have taken it to mean what comes from outside her, thinking it judged best by right reason that the soul declare nothing beautiful to be properly its own, but rather something that comes to it from outside, according to the magnanimity of the God who rains down graces. Others take it to mean immediate speed.
For "from her" is equivalent to "at once," "immediately," "without delay," "without postponement." And it is in this manner that divine gifts love to occur, outrunning even the intervals of time. And there is a third group, who say that virtue is the mother of that which comes to be good, receiving its seed from no mortal source.
To those who ask whether a barren woman gives birth — for the oracles, having earlier introduced Sarah as barren, now acknowledge that she will become a mother — this must be said: that a barren woman does not by nature give birth, just as a blind man does not see nor a deaf man hear; but the soul that is barren toward base things, and infertile of the excess of passions and of vices, is nearly the only one that enjoys an easy delivery, bearing things worthy of love, seven in number, according to the song sung by Grace, that is, by Hannah, who says: "The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children has grown weak" (1 Kingdoms 2:5).
She calls "she who has many children" the mind heaped together out of mixed and jumbled reckonings, which, because of the multitude of crowds and disturbances surrounding it, bears incurable evils; and she calls "barren" the soul that does not receive what is mortal as fertile seed, but rather consumes and destroys the company and intercourse of base things, and instead holds fast to the number seven and to the most peaceful state that accords with it. For it is this that she wishes to be pregnant with and to be called mother of.
Such was the meaning of "from her." Now let us examine the third point, what was meant by "child." First, then, it is worth marveling that he does not say he will give many children, but will grant only one. Why is this? Because the beautiful is by nature to be assessed not so much by multitude as by power.
For there are, if it should happen, very many things that are musical, grammatical, geometrical, just, prudent, courageous, and temperate; but the musical itself, and the grammatical itself, and the geometrical itself, and further the just, the temperate, the prudent, and the courageous itself — this one thing alone, supreme, differing in nothing from the archetypal Idea, from which all those many and countless things were shaped.
This, then, concerns his saying that he would give one. But now he has said "child," not carelessly nor without forethought, but in order to establish that it is not a stranger, nor a supposititious child, nor again a bastard or illegitimate offspring, but a legitimate and comely one, truly the offspring of a noble soul. For "child" (teknon) is derived from "birth" (tokos), spoken to emphasize the kinship by which children are naturally fitted to their parents.
"I will bless her," he says, "and she shall become nations" (Genesis 17:16), showing not only that generic virtue is, as it were, divided into nations — that is, into its nearest species and the subdivisions beneath those species — but also that it has come about that, just as with living beings, so too with things, there are, in a sense, nations, for whom it is a great benefit to have virtue present with them.
For all things bereft and widowed of practical wisdom are harmful, just as things unlit by the sun are necessarily dark. For it is by virtue that the farmer better tends his plants; by virtue too that the charioteer drives his chariot without stumbling in the races; by virtue too that the pilot steers his ship on its voyage. Virtue has made it possible for households, cities, and countries to be better managed, fashioning men skilled in household management, in statecraft, and in fellowship.
Virtue has introduced the best laws and has everywhere sown the seeds of peace, since by its opposite the opposite things swiftly tend to arise: war, lawlessness, bad government, confusion, disastrous voyages, overturnings, and that most troublesome disease among the sciences, villainy, from which, instead of arts, evil arts have taken their name. Necessarily, then, virtue will extend into nations — great and massed assemblies alike of living beings and of things — for the benefit of those who receive it.
It is said next, "and kings of nations shall come from her" (Gen 17:16). For all those she conceives and bears are rulers — not by lot, an unstable thing, nor by the vote of hired men choosing them for a short time, but established forever by nature itself.
This is not a tale of my own invention, but comes from the most sacred oracles, in which certain people are introduced saying to Abraham: "You are a king from God among us" (Gen 23:6) — not because they had examined his material possessions (for what possessions could belong to a man who had emigrated, who did not even dwell in a city but wandered a vast, desolate, and trackless land?), but because they perceived the kingly disposition in his mind, so that they had to agree, in Moses' terms, that only the wise man is king.
For truly the prudent man is a ruler over the foolish, knowing what must be done and what must not; the self-controlled man rules the licentious, having examined with care the matters of choice and avoidance; the courageous man rules the cowardly, having clearly learned what must be endured and what must not; the just man rules the unjust, aiming at an unwavering equality in the distribution of what is due; and the pious man rules the impious, holding fast to the best convictions about God.
It was likely that the mind, puffed up by such promises, should be lifted aloft. But he, to our reproof — we who are accustomed to hold our heads high even over the smallest things — falls, and immediately laughs (Gen 17:17) with the laughter of the soul: gloomy in countenance, but smiling in mind, since a great and unmixed joy had settled within him.
Both things happen at the same time to the wise man who inherits goods greater than hope: he laughs and he falls. The falling serves as assurance against boastfulness, through recognition of mortal nothingness; the laughing serves to confirm piety, through the conviction that God alone is the cause of graces and goods.
Let becoming, then, fall and grow gloomy — naturally so, for of itself it is unstable and full of grief — but let it be raised up by God, and laugh; for God alone is its support and its joy.
One might reasonably be puzzled how it is possible for anyone to laugh when laughter has not yet come into existence among us — for Isaac is laughter, and according to the present inquiry he has not yet been born. For just as it is not possible to see without eyes, or to hear without ears, or to smell without nostrils, or indeed to use any of the other senses without their proper organs, nor to comprehend without reasoning, so too it would not seem possible to laugh unless laughter had already been fashioned. What, then, should we say?
Nature often foreshows many things that are about to come into being through certain signs. Do you not see the fledgling that, before it can swim upon the air, flaps its wings and shakes its pinions, giving a foretaste of the good news that it will be able to fly?
Have you not seen a lamb, or a kid, or a calf still newborn, before its horns have grown, when someone provokes it, standing its ground and charging with those very parts from which nature will produce its weapons of defense?
Indeed, in beast-fights the bulls do not immediately gore their opponents, but first plant their feet firmly apart, moderately loosen their necks, turn one side away, and glare with a truly bull-like look — and only then do they charge, taking hold of the task. What happens then, those accustomed to coining names have called an "onrush": a kind of impulse existing before the impulse itself.
The soul, too, undergoes something similar in most cases: when the good is hoped for, it rejoices beforehand, so as, in a sense, to be glad before gladness and to take delight before delight. One might compare it also to what happens with plants: for these too, when they are about to bear fruit, put forth shoots beforehand, blossom beforehand, and grow green beforehand.
Look at the cultivated vine, how it has been wondrously wrought by nature with tendrils, coils, shoots, leaves, and vine-branches, which, all but giving voice, announce the tree's joy over the fruit to come. And indeed the day laughs beforehand, deep in the dawn twilight, when the sun is about to rise; for one gleam is the herald of another, and a fainter light goes forth before a light of greater brilliance.
So joy accompanies the good that has already arrived, but hope accompanies the good that is expected: we rejoice over what has come, but hope for what is to come — just as it happens, too, in the case of opposites; for the presence of evil produces grief, but its expectation produces fear. And fear, it turns out, is nothing other than grief before grief, just as hope is joy before joy; for what fear is in relation to grief, that hope is in relation to joy.
The senses carry about clear evidence for what has just been said. Smell, stationed before taste, all but decides in advance almost everything concerning food and drink — for which reason some, looking sharply at this evident fact, have called it the "foretaster." And hope, too, is by nature a kind of foretasting of the good to come, and it establishes that good beforehand in the soul that is destined to acquire it with certainty.
So too on journeys, a man hungry and thirsty, suddenly seeing springs, or trees of every kind heavy with cultivated fruit, though he has not yet eaten or drunk, nor even drawn water or plucked fruit, is filled beforehand with the hope of enjoyment. Then shall we suppose that the body's nourishments can be feasted upon even before their use, while the mind's nourishments are not capable of giving delight in advance, even when they are about to provide a feast?
He laughed, then, reasonably enough, since laughter did not yet seem to have been sown in the race of mortals; and not he alone, but his wife laughs as well. For it says again: "Sarah laughed within herself, saying, 'This has not yet happened to me, even now'" (Gen 18:12) — a good that comes about spontaneously, without effort; and the one who made the promise is "my lord and elder" (ibid.) over all becoming, whom it is necessary to trust.
At the same time this also teaches us that virtue is by nature a thing to rejoice in, and that the one who possesses it always exults; and conversely, that vice is a thing of grief, and that the one who possesses it is most sorely pained. Do we still wonder at those philosophers who say that virtue is a state of good feeling?
For behold, Moses has been found to be the sponsor of this wise doctrine, since he represents the man of worth as rejoicing and laughing; and elsewhere not only him, but also those who come into the same condition as he. "For seeing you," he says, "he will rejoice in himself" (Exod 4:14) — as though the mere sight of the man of excellence were sufficient to fill the mind with gladness, unburdening it of the most hateful of the soul's evils, grief.
But rejoicing is granted to no wicked person, just as is also sung in the words of the prophets: "There is no rejoicing for the impious, says God" (Isa 48:22). For this is truly a saying and a divine oracle: that the life of every worthless person is gloomy, grief-laden, and full of misery, even if it pretends to smile in its outward face.
For I would not say that the Egyptians truly rejoiced, in truth, when they heard that Joseph's brothers had come, but rather that they feigned appearances by putting on a show. For no rebuke that comes upon fools is pleasant; just as no physician is pleasant to the undisciplined invalid. For toil follows what is beneficial, and ease follows what is harmful; and those who prefer ease to toil naturally come to hate those who recommend what is beneficial.
So whenever you hear that "Pharaoh and his court rejoiced" (Gen 45:16) at the arrival of Joseph's brothers, do not suppose that this was true delight — unless perhaps insofar as they expected him to change from the goods of the soul, on which he had been raised, to the endless desires of the body, having falsified the ancient and ancestral coinage of his kindred virtue.
Having conceived such hopes, the pleasure-loving mind does not consider it enough to hook the younger men, those only just beginning their training in self-control, with the bait of desires; it considers it a terrible thing unless it also brings under its sway the elder reason, in whom the raging passions have already grown old and subsided.
For again he speaks, offering losses as though they were benefits: "Take your father and your possessions, and come to me" (ibid. 18) — to Egypt, and to this fearsome king, who drags back by force the goods that are our ancestral and truly existing possessions, once they have advanced outside the body (for by nature they are free), forcing them to be handed over to a most bitter prison, having appointed as jailer — so the oracle says — Potiphar the eunuch and chief cook (Gen 39:1), a man deprived of noble things and cut off from the generative powers of the soul, and moreover unable to sow or plant anything pertaining to education; a man who, in the manner of a cook, kills living things and cuts and divides them limb by limb and part by part, and wallows among lifeless and dead things — not so much bodies as affairs — and, by his elaborate seasonings, rouses and provokes the impulses of the endless passions, which it would have been fitting instead to tame and calm.
And he says, "I will give you all the good things of Egypt, and you shall eat the marrow of the land" (Gen 45:18). But we shall say to him: we who have beheld the goods of the soul do not admit any good of the body; for the thrice-longed-for desire for those goods is sufficient, once it has melted within us, to work forgetfulness of everything dear to the flesh.
Such, then, is the false-named joy of the foolish; but the true joy has already been spoken of, and it fits only the man of worth. "So he fell down and laughed" (Gen 17:17) — falling not away from God, but away from himself; for he stood firm with respect to the unchangeable one, but fell from his own self-conceit.
Such is the falsely named joy of the foolish, but the true joy has already been described, and it belongs to the good alone. "So he fell down and laughed" (Gen 17:17) — not falling away from God, but from himself; for he stood firm with respect to the unchangeable one, but fell from his own self-conceit.
And so, when the mind's presumption of wisdom had been cast down, and the God-loving disposition had been roused and set firmly upon the unswerving alone, he laughed, and at once "he said in his understanding: shall a child be born to a hundred-year-old man, and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?" (ibid.)
Do not, however, think that the phrase "not with the mouth" but "in the understanding" is added carelessly, but rather with great precision. Why? Because by saying "if a child will be born to the hundred-year-old man" he seems to raise a doubt about the birth of Isaac, a birth which he was earlier said to have believed in, as this recent oracle made clear: "this one shall not inherit you, but the one who shall come out of you" — and immediately after he said: "and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:4, 6).
Since, then, it was not consistent for one who had believed to doubt, he made the doubt not long-lasting, not extending as far as the tongue and mouth, but stopping short within the swiftly moving understanding itself. "For in the understanding," it says, "he spoke" — a thing which none of those praised for swiftness of foot could outrun, since it has outstripped even every winged creature.
This, I think, is why the most esteemed of the Greek poets said, "like a wing or a thought," showing the swiftness of quickness, later intensifying it by making thought swifter than the wing of an arrow. For the understanding travels over many things and bodies at once, in the same moment, with an unutterable motion, and reaches at once to the ends of earth and sea, contracting and cutting through the boundless distances; and at the very same time it leaps up so far from the earth that it ascends through the air into the ether, and comes to rest, with difficulty, near the outermost vault of the fixed stars.
For its fiery and burning heat does not allow it to remain at rest; hence it goes far beyond, and is carried outside the boundary of this whole realm of sense-perception, toward that which is fashioned, of kindred nature, out of the Forms. So in the case of the good man the turning aside was brief, indivisible, without parts, not perceptible by sense but only by the understanding, in a certain way timeless.
But perhaps someone might say: what then, that one who has believed admits even a trace or shadow or breath of unbelief at all? This person, I think, wishes to say nothing else than that he declares the one who has come into being to be uncreated, the mortal immortal, the perishable imperishable, and man — if it is right to say it — God. For the faith which falls to a human being's lot
he says must be so secure as to differ in no way from that faith which concerns Being itself, the faith that is complete and full in every respect. For Moses says in the greater song: "God is faithful, and there is no injustice in him" (Deut 32:4).
But it is great ignorance to suppose that a human soul can contain the virtues of God, which are unswerving and utterly steadfast; it is enough to be able to acquire images of them, images diminished by many and great degrees from their archetypes — and perhaps not even that is unreasonable.
For the virtues of God must necessarily be unmixed, since God too is not a composite, being a simple nature; but the virtues of human beings are mixed, since we too have come into being as mixtures, blended of the divine and the mortal, and harmonized according to the principles of perfect music. And whatever is composed of several elements has, by nature, opposing pulls toward each of its parts.
Happy is the one to whom it has been given to incline, for the greater part of his life, toward the better and more divine portion; for to do so for the whole of time is impossible, since the opposing weight of mortality sometimes tips the balance the other way, and lying in wait, seizes its opportunity in the untimely lapses of reasoning, so as to resist by force.
"Abraham, then, believed God" (Gen 15:6) — but he believed as a man, so that you may know the peculiar mark of mortality and learn that no other turning could come upon him except one that arose from his own nature. But if the turning was brief and momentary, one ought to give thanks for it; for many others have been swept away entirely, submerged by the rush and current, and destroyed by its force.
For virtue in a mortal body, noble friend, is not, according to most sacred Moses, sound of foot, but suffers something like numbness, limping a little. "For the broad part of his thigh was numbed," it says, "and because of it he limped" (Gen 32:25, 31).
But perhaps one of the bolder sort might come forward and say that this utterance is not that of a man who disbelieves, but of one who is praying — that if the best of the good emotions, joy, is to be born, it should be born by no other numbers than the ninety and the hundred (Gen 17:17), so that the perfect good might come into being through perfect numbers.
And the numbers mentioned are indeed perfect, especially according to the most sacred records. Let us look at each of them. Shem, at once, the son of righteous Noah and ancestor of the seeing race, "is said to have been a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad" (Gen 11:10), whose name is interpreted "he threw wretchedness into confusion" — a fine thing, to shake, confound, and destroy the wretched offspring of the soul that is full of evils, namely injustice.
But also "Abraham plants a field" (Gen 21:33), using the hundredth measure to reckon out the plot of land, and Isaac "finds barley yielding a hundredfold" (Gen 26:12). And Moses builds the court of the sacred tabernacle a hundred cubits (Exod 27:9), measuring out the distance toward the east and the west.
And the hundredth part is a firstfruit of the firstfruits, which the Levites offer as firstfruits to the priests (Num 18:28); for having received the tithes from the nation, they give to the priests, as from their own possessions, a sacred tenth of the tenths.
One might, on further examination, find many other instances bearing on the honor of the number just mentioned in the laws, but for the present purpose what has been said suffices. But if from the hundred you take away a sacred tenth as firstfruit for God, who bears, increases, and fills the soul with fruits, you will leave another perfect number, the ninety. For how is it not perfect, being the boundary between the first and the tenth, by which the Holy of Holies is set apart, in the manner of the middle curtain (Exod 26:33), by which things of the same kind are divided according to the distinctions found within their species.
The good man, then, spoke to his understanding things that were truly good; but the base man sometimes expresses beautiful things most beautifully, yet does the most shameful things shamefully — just like Shechem, the offspring of folly, for his father is Hamor, which when translated means "donkey," while Shechem itself, when interpreted, means "shoulder," a symbol of toil. And wretched and full of misery is the toil that folly begets, just as beneficial is the toil to which quickness of mind is akin.
At any rate, the oracles say that Shechem "spoke to the understanding of the virgin," after first humbling her (Gen 34:2–3). Was it not said with precision, "he spoke to the understanding of the virgin," almost as if to show that he had done the very opposite of what he said? For Dinah is undeceived judgment, Justice enthroned beside God, ever-virgin; for both "judgment" and "justice" are translations of the name Dinah.
This virgin the foolish attempt to corrupt through their daily counsels and practices, and by the fine appearance of their speech they escape refutation. They ought, then, either to act in accordance with what they say, or, while doing wrong, to keep silent; for silence, they say, is half of an evil — just as Moses too, rebuking the one who claimed the birthright of primacy but yielded second place to the imperishable God, says: "you have sinned; be silent" (Gen 4:7).
For to boast loudly of one's evils is a double sin. And this is more or less what happens to most people: they always speak of what is dear and just to the ever-virgin Virtue, but they let slip no occasion on which, having the power, they will not outrage and mistreat her. For what city is not full of those who sing hymns to the ever-virgin Virtue?
They wear out the ears of everyone they meet, rehearsing such things as: prudence is necessary, folly is harmful; self-control is to be chosen, licentiousness is hateful; courage deserves to be endured for, cowardice to be fled; justice is advantageous, injustice disadvantageous; the holy is noble, the unholy shameful; reverence toward God is praiseworthy, irreverence blameworthy; it is most proper to human nature to deliberate, act, and speak well, and most foreign to it to do each of these badly.
Repeating these and similar things endlessly, they deceive the law courts, the councils, the theaters, and every assembly and gathering of human beings, just like those who fit beautiful masks over the ugliest of faces, taking care not to be exposed by those who look on.
But it is of no use; for some will come, thoroughly vigorous and possessed by zeal for virtue, who will strip away these coverings and amulets — all that they have woven together through their evil artistry of words — and will gaze upon the soul itself, naked and alone, and will come to know the secrets of its nature stored away in its inmost recesses. Then, bringing them out into the open, they will display to everyone, in the clear light of the sun, all its shame and disgrace — what sort of thing it really is, how shameful and ridiculous, and what a counterfeit beauty it had put on through its borrowed ornaments.
Those ready to take vengeance on such profane and impure ways are two in number, Simeon and Levi, but one in purpose. Hence too, in the blessings, their father numbered them as one (Gen 49:5), because of the harmony of their concord and their impulse toward one and the same object. But Moses no longer even mentions a pair, but has engraved the whole of Simeon into Levi (Deut 33:8), blending two substances into one, forming out of them a single thing, stamped as it were with one form, uniting hearing with action.
Since, then, the man of worth recognized that the promise, according to his own understanding, spoke of things full of reverence and caution, he experienced both feelings at once: faith toward God and distrust toward what is created. Fittingly, then, he says in his petition, "Let this Ishmael live before you" (Gen 17:18), placing each of the words he uses not at random — "this," "let him live," "before you." For many have been deceived by the ambiguity of names as applied to things.
We must consider what I mean. Ishmael, when interpreted, means "hearing of God," and of those who hear the divine teachings, some hear to their benefit, others to their own harm and that of others. Or do you not see the augur Balaam? He is introduced as one "hearing the sayings of God and possessing knowledge from the Most High" (Num 24:16).
But what did he gain from such hearing, what from such knowledge — he who set out, by deliberate choice, to maim the best eye of the soul, the eye trained to see God alone, yet was unable to do so because of the Savior's unconquerable power? And so he, pierced through by his own derangement of mind, received many wounds and perished among the wounded (Num 31:8), because he had counterfeited God-inspired prophecy with the sophistry of divination.
Rightly, then, does the man of worth pray that this Ishmael alone may be healthy, on account of those who do not listen genuinely to the sacred teachings — men whom Moses expressly forbade to attend the assembly of the All-Ruler.
For those whose generative faculty of thought has been crushed, or wholly cut off — those who exalt their own mind and sense-perception as the sole causes of human affairs, or the lovers of polytheism who have held in honor the many-godded throng, born of a harlot, not knowing the one Man and Father of the virtue-loving soul, God — are they not rightly driven out and banished (Deut 23:1–2)?
Something similar, it seems to me, is done by parents who accuse their son of drunkenness; for they say, "This our son is disobedient" (Deut 21:20), signifying by the addition of the word "this" that there are other children, steadfast and self-controlled, who obey the commands of right reason and instruction. For these are the soul's truest parents, by whom to be accused is most shameful, and to be praised most glorious.
As for the words "This is that Aaron and Moses, to whom God said, Lead out the sons of Israel from Egypt" (Exod 6:26), and "These are they who spoke to Pharaoh the king" (ibid. 27) — let us not suppose these were said carelessly, or that the pointing-out signifies nothing more than the bare names.
For since Moses is the purest mind, and Aaron his reasoned speech, and the mind has been trained to think in a manner befitting God, and speech too to interpret holy things in a holy way, the sophists, mimicking them and counterfeiting this approved coinage, claim that they too think rightly about the best things and speak in a praiseworthy manner (Exod 7:11). So that we might not be deceived by setting the counterfeit beside the genuine because of a similarity in stamp, God gave a test by which the two would be distinguished.
What, then, is the test? To lead the mind that is capable of vision, that loves the sight of God and loves wisdom, out of the region of the body. The one who was able to do this is the true Moses; the one who was unable, who is called by the name only while wrapped in countless empty titles, is an object of ridicule. As for Ishmael, he prays that he may live, not out of concern for the life joined to the body, but so that the divine hearing
may be roused and kindled anew, everlasting upon the soul. The one, then, prays to live as a hearing of words and a learning of sacred teachings, as has been said; but Jacob, the man of practice, prays for good natural endowment. For he says, "Let Reuben live and not die" (Deut 33:6) — is he then praying for immortality and incorruption, a thing impossible for a human being? Surely not. What, then, he wishes to convey must be explained.
All that is heard and all that is learned is built up as upon a foundation already laid — a nature receptive of instruction; but where nature does not first exist, everything is useless. For those without natural aptitude seem to differ not at all from an oak or a deaf stone; nothing adheres and fits itself to them, but everything rebounds and leaps away as from something hard and unyielding.
But the souls of those well-endowed by nature may be seen to resemble smoothed wax, blended in due measure — neither too hard nor too soft — readily receiving all that is heard and seen, and taking the perfect impress of their forms, vivid images stored in memory.
It was necessary, then, for the rational race to pray that this good natural endowment be free from sickness and immortal. For few share in the life lived according to virtue, which is the only truly unerring life — I do not mean the common herd, for none of these has any part in true life — but only those, if any, who have managed to flee the pursuits of ordinary people and to live for God alone.
For this reason the ascetic and courageous one greatly marveled that anyone, carried along in the midst of life's river, is swept away by no current, and is able to withstand even great flowing wealth, to push back the onrush of unmeasured pleasure, and not be snatched up by the storm-wind of empty glory.
It is not Jacob, in fact, but rather the sacred word, that says to Joseph — to every soul that is well conditioned in body and finds itself examined amid an abundance of resources for wealth, and is captured by none of these — "For you are still living" (Gen 46:30), uttering a marvelous saying that outstrips our own life. For we, having caught a small breeze of good fortune, shake out every sail, and puffing ourselves up grandly, blow hard and steadily, run full-sailed toward the enjoyment of the passions, and do not furl our unrestrained, slackened desires until
we run aground and wreck the whole vessel of the soul. Most beautifully, then, does he pray that this Ishmael may live. He adds, therefore, "let him live before God" (Gen 17:18), setting as the goal of happiness that the mind be deemed worthy of the oversight and watchful care of the best of beings.
For if, when a tutor is present, the one led astray would not err; if a guide, being near, benefits the one learning; if a young man, in the presence of an elder, is adorned with reverence and self-control; and if a father or mother, merely by appearing at the right moment, restrains a son who is about to do wrong — to what surpassing degree of blessing do we suppose one attains who always believes himself to be watched by God? For the one who fears and trembles at the dignity of the one present and looking on will flee wrongdoing with all his might.
When he prays that Ishmael may live, he has not, as I said before, despaired of the birth of Isaac. But he has put his trust in God... for it is not possible for a human being to receive the very things it is possible to give to God, since it is easy for God to grant the most and the greatest gifts, but it is not easy for us to receive the gifts held out to us.
For it would be enough for us if we could obtain those good things that are companions of toil and practice, more familiar to us; but of those that come about of themselves, without art or any human contrivance at all, and arise ready-made, there is not even hope of attaining them. For these, being divine, must of necessity be found among natures more divine and undefiled, natures set free from the mortal body.
Moses taught that thanksgiving should be made according to the power of one's hands (Num 6:21): the quick-witted dedicating as an offering his intelligence and prudence; the eloquent consecrating all the virtues found in speech, through both song and prose-hymns to the Existing One; and each according to his kind — the natural philosopher offering the study of nature, the moralist all of moral philosophy, the craftsman and man of science the principles of the arts and sciences.
So too the sailor and the pilot will dedicate a safe voyage, the farmer a rich harvest of crops, the herdsman good breeding among his animals, the physician the health of the sick, the general in war his victory in battle, and the statesman or king his lawful governance and leadership; and, to sum it all up, whatever good things belong to soul, body, or external circumstances, the one who is not self-loving will declare God, the only truly unerring cause, to be their author.
Let none of those who seem more obscure and lowly shrink, out of despair of the better hope, from becoming a grateful suppliant of God; but even if he expects nothing of the greater gifts, let him give thanks, according to his own power, for those things which he has already obtained.
And he has obtained countless things: being, life, nourishment, soul, sense-perception, imagination, impulse, reasoning. Reasoning is a small word, but a most perfect and most divine work, a fragment torn from the soul of the universe — or, to speak more reverently, as those who philosophize according to Moses would say, an impression closely resembling a divine image.
Worthy of praise, too, are those among the spies who attempted to uproot the entire trunk of virtue, root and all, and carry it off, but, since they were unable, at least took a single branch with one cluster of grapes, a sample and portion of the whole, which alone they had strength to carry (Num 13:24).
It is a thing to be prayed for, to dance in company with the whole massed throng of the virtues; but if this is too great for human nature, let us be content if it is granted to someone to encounter even one of them individually — self-control, or courage, or justice, or love of humanity. For let the soul bear and bring forth some one good thing, and not become altogether barren and without fruit.
But you will lay such commands on your own son? If you are not gentle with your servants, nor sociable with your equals; if you are not decorous with your wife, nor respectful toward your parents; if you have contempt for your mother and father, you are impious toward the divine as well. If you delight in pleasure, do not abstain from love of money either. Give yourself over to desire, and be vain as well. For why not?
Do you think it right not to be moderate in some things, if you cannot be so in all? Would not a son then say: What are you saying, father? Do you want your son to be either perfectly good or perfectly bad, and will you not love him if, instead of the extremes, he chooses the middle course?
Is this not why Abraham too, in the matter of the destruction of the Sodomites, beginning from the number fifty, ends at ten (Gen 18:24, 32), imploring and beseeching, so that, if the complete release into freedom should not be found within that generation—of which the sacred fiftieth reckoning is the symbol (Lev 25:10)—the middle education, reckoned alongside the number ten, might be accepted on behalf of the soul that is about to be condemned, toward its release?
Among the unrefined, those who are educated, and among the unmusical and untrained in the arts, those who have taken part in the general round of culture, have more resources for growth, since from childhood they have been steeped in discourses about endurance and self-mastery and virtue of every kind. Hence, even if they have not entirely wiped and washed themselves clean, priding themselves on their brightness, still they have been cleansed moderately and to a middling degree.
Something similar Esau seems to say to his father: "Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me also, father" (Gen 27:38). For different blessings have been allotted to different people: perfect ones to the perfect, middling ones to the imperfect, just as it is with bodies too. For the healthy and the sick have different exercises and different foods, and other matters of regimen are not the same for both; rather, one diet suits the one group, so that they may not fall ill at all, and another suits the other, so that they may change toward better health.
Since there are many good things existing in nature, grant me whichever of them seems to fit me, even if it is the very smallest, taking aim at this alone: whether I shall be able to bear easily what is given, and not, failing at even this, collapse in my misfortune.
What do we suppose is signified by the words, "Is the hand of the Lord not sufficient?" (Num 11:23)? Is it not that the powers of the Existing One reach in every direction to do good, not only to those held in honor but also to those who seem more obscure? To these he grants what is fitting, weighing and measuring, in equal proportion within himself, what is appropriate to each according to the weights and measures of each individual soul.
I am struck no less by the law laid down concerning those who strip off their sins and seem to repent. For it commands that the first offering brought should be an unblemished ewe. "But if," it says, "his hand is not sufficient for a sheep, he shall bring, for the sin he has sinned, two turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a sin offering and one for a whole burnt offering.
And if his hand cannot find a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, he shall bring as his gift a tenth of an ephah of fine flour. He shall not pour oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, because it is for sin. And he shall bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take a full handful of it as a memorial portion and place it on the altar" (Lev 5:7, 11, 12).
So then, by these three means it propitiates repentance: by cattle, or by birds, or by fine white wheat, according to the capacity of the one being purified and, presumably, repenting. For small offerings are not required of the great, nor great offerings of the small, but offerings equal and similar in proportion. It is worth inquiring, then, why purification is by three means.
It happens that sins and right actions alike are, roughly speaking, examined under three heads: thought, speech, and deed. For this reason, in his exhortations Moses, teaching that the acquisition of the good is neither impossible nor hard to attain, says:
"You need not fly up to heaven, nor go to the ends of earth and sea, to grasp it; rather it is near, very near." Then he shows it almost visibly: "Every deed is in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands" (Deut 30:12–14), meaning symbolically: in words, in counsels, in works. For human happiness is constituted from good counsel, good speech, and good action, just as unhappiness is constituted from their opposites.
For right action and sin occur in the very same regions: heart, mouth, and hand. Indeed some people deliberate with the utmost good sense, speak excellently, and do what ought to be done. Of the three, the lightest fault is to deliberate about what one should not; the heaviest is to carry out with the hand what is unfitting; and the middle is to say what one ought not.
Yet it turns out that the lightest is hardest to shake off. For it is difficult to bring the soul's turning to rest, and one could more quickly check the rush of a torrent than the soul's turning as it flows uncontrollably; for countless thoughts, one upon another, sweep over it like breakers, carrying it, churning it, and violently overturning the whole of it.
The best and most complete form of purification, then, is this: not even to entertain in thought anything improper, but to conduct one's civic life in peace and good order, whose leader is justice. The second is not to go wrong in speech, by lying, swearing falsely, deceiving, sophistry, false accusation, or in general by letting loose mouth and tongue for the destruction of others—faults on which it would have been better to fasten a bridle and an unbreakable
bond. Why speaking what is unfitting is a heavier sin than merely thinking it is easier to see. Sometimes a person entertains a thought not by his own will but because he is unwilling; for he is compelled to receive notions he does not wish to take in, and nothing involuntary is culpable.
But one speaks willingly, so that if he does not utter a fitting word, he does wrong out of sheer folly—he who was unwilling to say anything more decent even by chance—when it would have profited him to embrace the safest course, silence; and moreover, one who is not keeping quiet could surely, had he wished, hold his tongue.
But a heavier sin than speaking is an unjust deed. For, as they say, "word is the shadow of deed"; and if the shadow does harm, how is the deed not more harmful still? For this reason Moses exempted mere intention from charges and penalties, since it is subject for the most part to involuntary changes and turnings, and is acted upon by thoughts that come in from outside rather than acting itself; but whatever proceeds out through the mouth he brings to account and to reckoning, on the ground that speaking is within our own power.
But the reckonings for words are more measured, while those for culpable deeds are harsher. For he sets great punishments on those who do great wrong and carry into action, by deed, what they had planned with an unjust mind and blurted out with a rash tongue.
The means of purification for the three—thought, speech, and deed—he has stated: a sheep, and a pair of turtledoves or pigeons, and a tenth measure of sacred fine flour, requiring that thought be purified by the sheep, speech by the birds, and deed by the fine flour. Why?
Because, just as mind is the best thing in us, so too among the irrational animals the sheep is best, being the gentlest of creatures and producing yearly of itself a crop for the benefit and adornment of humankind alike; for its fleece wards off harm from cold and heat and, veiling what nature keeps hidden, serves the decorum of those who wear it.
Let the best of animals, the sheep, then be a symbol of the purification of the best thing, thought; and let the winged creatures be a symbol of speech. For speech too is light and winged by nature, borne faster than an arrow, darting everywhere. For what has once been said cannot be recalled; but once carried out, running with great speed, it strikes the ears, and passing through the whole of hearing, sounds at once.
Speech is twofold: one kind true, the other false; for the sake of this, I think, it has been likened to a pair of turtledoves or pigeons. Of the two birds, he says one must be for sin and the other offered as a whole burnt offering, since the true word turns out to be wholly and entirely sacred and perfect, while the false word has gone astray and needs correction.
The symbol of deed, as I said, is the fine flour. For this too happens to be refined not without skill and forethought, but is sifted by the hands of bakers, men who have made the task their profession. Hence he also says: "The priest, taking a full handful, shall offer up its memorial portion" (Lev 5:12), signifying by the handful the undertaking and the doing.
With great precision he said of the beast of the flock, "if his hand is not sufficient for a sheep" (Lev 5:7), but of the birds, "if he cannot find" (Lev 5:11). Why? Because it takes great strength and surpassing power to overcome the soul's turnings of thought, but not great might to check the sins of speech.
For silence--as I said before--is the remedy for every fault committed through speech, and it is easy for anyone to make use of. But many people, because of their talkativeness and lack of measure in words, cannot find a way to put a limit on their speech.
Having been nurtured and trained in these and similar distinctions and divisions of things, would it not seem reasonable for the man of worth to pray that Ishmael might live, since he is not yet able to conceive Isaac?
What then does the good God do? To one who asks for one thing he gives two, and to one who prays for the lesser he grants the greater. For it says, "God said to Abraham: yes, behold, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son" (Gen 17:19). The symbolic answer "yes" hits the mark precisely. For what is more fitting than that God should nod assent to good things and confess them readily?
But every fool shakes his head in refusal at the things to which the divine nods assent. At any rate the oracles introduce Leah as hated; and that is why she received such a name, for, when interpreted, it means "one who refuses" and "one who grows weary" -- because all of us turn away from virtue and consider its commands wearisome, since they often enjoin things that are not pleasant.
Yet she has been judged worthy of such acceptance by the Ruler of All that her womb, opened by him (Gen 29:31), received the sowing of divine seed for the begetting of noble pursuits and actions. Learn, then, O soul, that not only Hagar, the intermediate education, but also "Sarah," virtue, "shall bear you a son." For her offspring is taught, but the offspring of Sarah is altogether self-taught.
Do not be surprised, if God, who brings forth all things that are excellent, has brought forth this kind too -- rare on earth, but very abundant in heaven. You may learn this from the other faculties of which man is composed. Do the eyes see because they have been taught? Do the nostrils smell by instruction? Do the hands touch, or the feet go forward, at the commands or exhortations of teachers?
And the impulses and impressions -- these being the first motions and states of the soul -- did they come to be by teaching? Did our mind, by attending some sophist's school, learn to think and comprehend? All these things, released from teaching, employ a self-acting nature for their own proper activities.
Why then do you still marvel, if God will also rain down virtue that is free of toil and hardship, needing no oversight, but from the beginning whole and complete? And if you want a testimony more trustworthy still, you will find that of Moses, who says that for other men food comes from the earth, but for the man of vision alone, from heaven.
Now with the foods that come from the earth, human farmers also cooperate; but the foods from heaven, the one self-working God rains down without the collaboration of others. And indeed it is said: "Behold, I rain bread upon you from heaven" (Exod 16:4). What food, then, does he rightly say is rained down from heaven, if not heavenly wisdom?
This wisdom, from above, he who possesses abundance and prosperity of understanding sends down upon souls that have a longing for virtue, watering all things, and especially on the sacred seventh day, which he calls the sabbath (Exod 16:23ff). For then, he says, there will be a bringing forth of good things that come of themselves, not sprouting from any deliberate craft, but budding by a self-generated and self-completing nature and bearing their own proper fruits.
So then virtue will bear you a noble male son (Gen 17:19), freed from every feminine passion, and you shall call the name of the son by the name of the feeling you will feel over him -- and you will altogether feel joy; so that you will also give it a name symbolic of that feeling, laughter.
Just as pain and fear have utterances tinged with venom, which the passion that has done violence and gained the mastery gives a name to, so good counsel and gladness compel the use of natural exclamations, than which one could not find names more proper or more exactly aimed, even if one happened to be wise about names.
That is why it says: "I have blessed him, I will increase him, I will multiply him; he shall father twelve nations" (Gen 17:20) -- the whole circle and chorus of the sophistic preliminary studies -- "but my covenant I will establish with Isaac" (Gen 17:21), so that the race of men might have a share of each virtue, the taught and the self-taught, the weaker being taught, the vigorous being ready-made.
"At this season," he says, "wisdom shall bear you" joy (Gen 17:21). What season, most amazing one, are you pointing to? Is it not the one alone that is undisclosed by any process of becoming? For the true season itself would be the well-doing and the good timing of all things -- of earth, of heaven, of the natures in between, of living beings and plants alike.
That is why Moses too had the courage to say to those who fled and were unwilling to take up the war for virtue against those arrayed against them: "Their season has departed from them, but the Lord is among us" (Num 14:9). For he all but openly confesses that God is the season -- he who stands far off from every impious person, but walks about among souls that are becoming virtuous.
For he says: "I will walk about among you, and I will be your God" (Lev 26:12). Those who say that the seasons of the year are the "seasons" are misusing the word improperly, since they have not at all precisely grasped the natures of things, but partake largely of the arbitrary.
Heightening the beauty of the one to be born, he says he will be born "in the other year" (Gen 17:21), meaning by "other year" not the interval of time that is measured by the cycles of the moon, but that which is truly displaced, strange, and new -- other than the things seen and perceived by sense, examined among things bodiless and intelligible -- which held the pattern and archetype of time, namely eternity. And eternity is recorded as the life of the intelligible cosmos, just as time is the life of the perceptible one.
In which year he also "finds barley yielding a hundredfold" (Gen 26:12) -- he who has sown God's graces for the begetting of a greater number of good things, so that as many as possible of those worthy might come to share in them.
But indeed it is customary for the one who has sown also to reap. Yet he is said to have sown -- displaying the virtue that is hostile to envy and evil -- and to have found, but not to have reaped; for it was another who had made the ear of grain of his benefactions fuller and more abundant, one who, having prepared and made ready greater hopes and more numerous gifts, set them before those who sought to find them.
The phrase "he finished speaking with him" (Gen 17:22) is equivalent to saying that he brought the hearer himself to completion, who before was empty of wisdom, and filled him with immortal words. And when the disciple had become complete, "the Lord went up from Abraham" (ibid.), showing not that he was separated from him -- for by nature the wise man is God's attendant -- but wishing to establish the voluntary character of the disciple, so that what he had learned he might now display of himself, without the teacher any longer standing over him, not by compulsion but employing a willing and self-commanded eagerness, and so act through himself. For the teacher gives to the one who has learned room for voluntary practice without prompting, engraving thereby the surest form of unforgettable memory.

======== On Dreams ========

The treatise before this one dealt with the God-sent dreams that belong to the first class, in which we said that the divine sends the visions in sleep by its own direct initiative. In this treatise we shall show, so far as we can, those dreams that fit the second class.
The second class is that in which our own mind, moved along with the mind of the universe, seems to be possessed and carried by God, so that it becomes capable of anticipating and foreknowing some of the things that are to come. And the first dream proper to this class, of the sort signified, is the vision that appeared upon the ladder set up toward heaven, as follows:
"And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was fixed upon the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it; and the Lord stood firmly upon it, and said: I am the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; do not be afraid. The land on which you are sleeping I will give to you and to your offspring, and your offspring will be as the sand of the earth, and it will spread abroad to the sea and to the south and to the north and to the east; and in you all the tribes of the earth will be blessed, and in your offspring. And behold, I am with you, guarding you on every road on which you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not abandon you until I have done all that I have spoken to you" (Genesis 28:12-15).
There is a necessary preparation for this vision, and if we determine it precisely we shall perhaps also be able easily to grasp what is signified by the vision. What, then, is this preparation? "And Jacob went out," it says, "from the well of the oath and journeyed toward Haran, and he came upon a place, for the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and set it at his head, and he slept in that place" (Genesis 28:10-11). And then immediately comes the dream.
It is worth raising, then, at the outset, these three questions: first, what is the well of the oath, and why was it so named; second, what is Haran, and why, on leaving the well just mentioned, he goes at once to Haran; and third, what is the place, and why, when he comes to it, the sun sets and he himself falls asleep.
Let us examine the first point at once. To me, then, the well seems to be a symbol of knowledge; for its nature is not superficial but very deep, nor does it lie open in plain view, but loves to hide itself somewhere out of sight, nor is it found easily, but only with much labor and scarcely at all. And this holds not only for the disciplines that contain great and ineffable objects of contemplation, but is observed also in the most trivial of them.
Whichever of the crafts you wish to choose, take, not the noblest one for me, but the most obscure of them all, one that perhaps no free person raised in a city would willingly pursue, but that a household slave in the country, wrestling against a difficult and ill-tempered master who compels him to do many unwelcome things, would scarcely take up even unwillingly.
For it will be found to be not simple but complex, not to be captured by hunting, hard to find, hard to master, hostile to hesitation and negligence and idleness, but full of zeal and ambition and sweat and care. For this reason those who dug this well, it is said, did not even find water in it (Genesis 26:32), since it has come about that the ends of the disciplines are not merely hard to find but altogether undiscoverable.
For this reason one person becomes more skilled in grammar and another more skilled in geometry than another, because the possible extensions and increases cannot be bounded by any limits; for the portion still remaining always exceeds what has already been learned and lies in wait for the learner, so that the one supposed to have touched the limits of a discipline is considered by one judge to be only half complete, while before the tribunal of truth he seems to be only now beginning.
"Life is short," someone said, "but the craft is long," and its magnitude is best grasped by the one who genuinely immerses himself in it, digging it out as it were like a well. For this reason it is told that a certain man, dying already gray-haired and extremely old, wept, not out of cowardice from fear of death, but out of longing for learning, as though only now entering upon it, at the very moment he was about to depart from it for the last time.
For the soul flowers toward knowledge just when the body's vigor withers with length of time. It is hard, then, before one has reached maturity and full vigor in the more precise apprehension of things, to be tripped up and cut short. This experience is common to all lovers of learning, for whom new discoveries rise and shine upon the old, many born of the soul itself when it is not barren and unfruitful, and many others shown forth unpredictably and spontaneously by nature to those whose minds see sharply. The well of knowledge, then, having no boundary or end, has been shown to be of this sort.
Now we must say why it was named an oath (Genesis 26:33). Matters that are in doubt are settled by an oath, and things unstable are made firm, and things unbelieved gain belief; from which it follows that one could affirm nothing so confidently as this, that the kind of wisdom is without boundary and without end.
It is a fine thing indeed for one who discourses on these matters, even without swearing, to add his assent; but let one who is not overly ready to agree give his assent only once bound by an oath. Yet let no one shrink from swearing such an oath as this, knowing clearly that he will be inscribed among the pillars of those who keep their oaths well.
Enough, then, on these points. It would follow next to consider why, of the four wells dug by Abraham and Isaac and their households (Genesis 21:25, 26:19-23), the fourth and last was called "oath."
Might it not, then, be that this wishes to indicate, by way of undertones, that since the universe as a whole is composed of four elements, and we ourselves likewise are shaped from an equal number, from which, having been molded, we were formed into human shape, three of these are by nature in some way apprehensible, while the fourth is beyond the grasp of every judge?
In the universe, then, it happens that earth and water and air and heaven are the four elements in all; and of these, while the other three may be hard to discover, they have not been assigned altogether to the lot of the undiscoverable.
For indeed we grasp of earth that it is a heavy body, indissoluble and solid, divided into mountains and level plains, and separated by rivers and sea, so that some parts become islands and others form continents, and that part of it has thin soil and part deep soil, and part is rough and harsh and stony and altogether barren, while part is smooth and soft and most fertile, and countless other things besides these we apprehend.
And again of water, that it has many things in common with what has been said of earth, and other things peculiar to itself; for part of it is sweet, part briny, part marked by other distinguishing qualities; and part is drinkable, part not drinkable — and neither quality belongs to all waters, but where one quality is present, the other is not, and where the one is absent, the other is certainly present — and part is cold, and part is by nature warm —
for there are countless springs in many places that pour out boiling water, not only on land but also in the sea; indeed streams have even been observed sending up boiling water in the midst of the open sea, streams that the vast surrounding expanse of the seas, though flooding over them from age to age, has not been able to quench, nor even to cool down to any degree —
and again, that air has a nature that yields, giving way in exchange with bodies, being the instrument of life, of breathing, of sight, of hearing, and of the other senses, admitting states of density and rarity, of motion and of rest, turning and changing in every kind of alteration and transformation, generating winters and summers and the seasons of autumn and spring, from which the cycle of the year comes by nature to its completion.
Of all these things, then, we have perception; but heaven has a nature beyond our grasp, having sent us no clear mark of itself. For what could we say of it? That it is frozen crystal, as some have claimed? Or that it is the purest fire? Or that it is a fifth, circularly moving body, sharing in none of the four elements? What, again, of the fixed and outermost sphere — does it have depth extending upward, or is it itself only a surface devoid of depth, resembling flat figures? What, again,
of the stars — are they masses of earth full of fire (for some have said they are ravines and glens and glowing lumps of ore, deserving themselves of prison and mill, in which such things are used for the punishment of the impious) — or are they, as someone has said, a continuous and dense harmony, indissoluble compressions of ether? Are they ensouled and possessed of mind, or without share in mind and soul? Do they have motions that are voluntary, or only motions under compulsion? What, again,
of the moon — does it bring a genuine light of its own, or a borrowed one kindled by the rays of the sun, or is it, in itself, neither of these separately, but rather a blend of both, as it were of its own fire and another's? For all these matters, and others of this kind, belonging to the noblest and fourth of the bodies in the universe, heaven, are obscure and beyond grasp, resting upon conjectures and guesses, not upon any firm account of the truth;
so that even if someone were bold enough to swear an oath, that no mortal has ever yet been able to grasp any of these things clearly, the oath would hold true. For this reason the fourth and dry well was named "oath," being the inquiry into the fourth of the elements in the universe,
an inquiry without end and altogether hard to find — the inquiry into heaven. Let us now see in what way the fourth element within ourselves too is by nature exceptionally and in a special sense beyond our grasp. Now the four highest things that concern us are body, sense-perception, reason, and mind; and of these, three are not obscure in every respect, but contain within themselves certain evidences that allow them to be apprehended.
And what do I mean by this? That we know the body is extended in three directions and moves in six ways: it has three dimensions—length, depth, and breadth—and twice that many motions—upward, downward, to the right, to the left, forward, and backward. We are also not ignorant that it is a vessel for the soul, but that it also grows to maturity, wastes away, grows old, dies, and dissolves,
this we know clearly. Nor with regard to sense-perception have we become entirely dull and blind, but we can say that it divides into five, and that each has its own organs fashioned by nature—eyes for sight, ears for hearing, nostrils for smell, and the rest fitted to their proper objects—and that they are messengers of the mind, reporting colors, shapes, sounds, the particular qualities of scents and flavors, and in short bodies and whatever qualities are in them; and that they are the soul's bodyguards, disclosing whatever they see or hear, and, foreseeing and guarding against anything harmful that approaches from outside, keep it from stealing in unnoticed and becoming a cause of irreparable harm to their
mistress. Nor does sound altogether escape our judgment; rather we know that one sound is high, another low, one melodious and harmonious, another discordant and quite unmusical, and again one greater, another lesser; and they differ in countless other ways too—in kind, in color, in intervals, in conjunct and disjunct tunings, in the concords of the fourth, the fifth, and the octave.
And of articulate speech too, which of all living creatures man alone has been allotted, there are things we know—for instance, that it is sent up from the mind, that it is articulated in the mouth, that the tongue, striking with the tension of the voice, stamps it as articulate and makes it speech, not merely bare, inert, and shapeless sound, and that it holds the rank of herald or interpreter before the mind that dictates it.
Is, then, the fourth of the things within us, the mind that governs, also comprehensible? Surely not. For what do we suppose it to be in its essence? Breath, or blood, or body altogether—but no, we must call it incorporeal—or a limit, or a form, or a number, or a continuity, or a harmony, or any other of the things that exist?
When it is born, does it come in at once from outside, or is our inward warm nature tempered by the surrounding air, as iron heated by the smith is tempered by cold water into its hardest state? For this reason it is thought to be called soul (psyche) from cooling (psyxis). And again, at death, is it extinguished and destroyed along with the body, or does it survive for a very long time, or is it altogether imperishable?
And where has the mind taken up its lodging? Has it been allotted a house? Some have consecrated to it the acropolis within us, the head, around which the senses too keep watch, thinking it likely that its bodyguards station themselves nearby, as with a great king; others, holding that it is enshrined beneath the heart, dispute the point. In any case the fourth thing is always incomprehensible,
heaven in the cosmos, set apart from the nature of air, earth, and water, and mind in man, set apart from body, sense-perception, and speech its interpreter. Perhaps it is for this reason that the fourth year is declared "holy and praiseworthy" in the sacred records (Lev. 19:24).
For what is holy among created things is heaven in the cosmos, around which the imperishable and long-lived natures revolve, and in man it is the mind, being a fragment divine—most of all according to Moses, who says, "He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7).
And it seems to me not without purpose that each is called praiseworthy as well; for these are the things capable of proclaiming, as in a tragic chorus, the praises, hymns, and blessings of the Father who begot them—heaven and mind. For man has been allotted a privilege beyond the other creatures, to serve the One who Is, while heaven forever sings, producing through the motions of the beings within it a harmony of all music;
and if it happened that its sound reached our hearing, uncontrollable loves and raging longings and unceasing, maddening frenzies would arise, so that, sustained no longer as mortals by food and drink through the throat, we would be nourished, like those about to be made immortal, through the ears, by songs divine of perfect music. Of these Moses is said to have been a hearer, when, having become incorporeal, for forty days and an equal number of nights he touched neither bread nor water at all (Exod. 24:18).
Heaven, then, the archetypal instrument of music, seems to have been tuned to the height of perfection for no other reason than that the hymns sung in honor of the Father of all might be accompanied musically. And indeed we hear that Virtue, called Leah, at the birth of her fourth son could bear no more, but checked, or was checked in, her childbearing; for she found, I think, that all generation from her was dry and barren once she had brought Judah, confession, the perfect fruit, into flower.
And it makes no difference whether one says that she "ceased bearing" (Gen. 29:35), or that at the fourth well the servants found no water (Gen. 26:32), since by both symbols alike it is shown that all things thirst for God, by whom the generation and nourishment of created things are watered.
Now small-minded citizens of petty towns will perhaps suppose that the lawgiver's lengthy account concerns nothing more than the digging of wells; but those enrolled in the greater fatherland, this cosmos, being of more perfect understanding, will know clearly that the inquiry, for those who are given to seeing and to the contemplation of beauty, concerns not wells but the four parts of the universe—earth, water, air, and heaven.
Going through each of these with utmost care of thought, in three of them they found things comprehensible—and they gave three names to what they found: injustice, enmity, and wide space (Gen. 26:20, 21, 22)—but in the fourth, heaven, nothing at all, as we showed a little earlier; for the fourth well is found to be without water, dry, and is called an oath for the reason stated.
Let us pursue what follows by inquiring who Haran is, and why he, having gone out from the well, comes to her (Gen. 28:10). Haran, then, as it appears to me, is a kind of mother-city of the senses. For it is interpreted sometimes as "dug out," sometimes as "holes," both names disclosing one and the same thing.
For our body has, in a certain manner, been hollowed out into the organs of the senses, and each of the organs has become a kind of hole for each sense, in which it is its nature to lodge. So then, whenever someone puts out from the well called the oath, as from a harbor, he necessarily arrives at once at Haran; for one setting out on a journey away from the best and boundlessly vast region of knowledge is inevitably received by the senses, without any guides.
For our soul is often moved by itself, having stripped off the whole bodily mass and fled the crowd of the senses, and often too clothed with these once more. Its naked motion, then, has been allotted the things comprehensible by thought alone, while its motion in company with the body has been allotted the things perceptible by sense.
If, then, someone is altogether unable to commune by thought alone, he finds sense-perception as a second refuge, and whoever fails of the objects of thought is at once drawn down to the objects of sense; for the second voyage is always toward sense-perception, for those who have not been able to sail well toward the governing mind.
It is good, even once one has arrived here, not to grow old and settle permanently, but, living as in a foreign land like a resident alien, always to seek removal and return to one's native soil. For Laban, knowing nothing at all—no form, no kind, no idea, no concept, none of the things apprehended by thought alone—but hanging upon what is visible, whatever comes to sight and hearing and the kindred faculties, has been judged worthy of Haran as his fatherland, which the virtue-loving Jacob inhabits for a short time as a stranger, remembering his return home.
At any rate the mother, Endurance, that is Rebecca, says to him: "Rise up and flee to Laban my brother, to Haran, and dwell with him some days" (Gen. 27:43-44). Do you understand, then, that the one in training does not endure to spend his life dwelling in the region of the senses, but only a few days and a short time, because of the necessities of the body bound to him, while a long age and life is stored up for him in the intelligible city?
For this reason it seems to me that his grandfather in knowledge as well, Abraham by name, did not endure to linger long in Haran. For it is said that "Abraham was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran" (Gen. 12:4), even though his father Terah, whose name is interpreted as "scouting of scent," lived there until his death,
having spent his life there. It is expressly declared in the sacred records that "Terah died in Haran" (Gen. 11:32); for he was a scout of virtue, not a citizen, and made use of scents but not of the enjoyment of foods, not yet being able to be filled with wisdom, nor even to taste it, but only to catch its scent.
For just as hunting dogs, we are told, sharpened by nature with an especially keen sense of smell, track and find even the most distant carcasses of wild beasts by scent, in the same way the lover of learning tracks the sweet breeze given off by justice and the rest of virtue, and longs to encounter those very sources from which is given off this most admirable brightness; but being unable, he carries his head about idle and futile, merely catching the scent of nobility of character and the most sacred savor of its food—for he does not deny that he is greedy for knowledge and wisdom.
Blessed, then, are those to whom it has been given to enjoy the love-charms of wisdom and to feast upon her contemplations and doctrines, and who, even once well-feasted, still thirst, carried onward by an insatiable and unquenchable longing for knowledge.
Second place, however, will be won by those who could not enjoy the sacred table itself but caught the savor of it, wafted into their own souls; for these will be revived by the breezes of virtue, just as those weakened by illness, unable to take food, are brought scents for their recovery — the saving remedies against fainting that physicians' assistants prepare in advance.
It is said that Terah, having left the land of Chaldea, moved his household to Harran, bringing with him his son Abraham and the other members of his family — not so that we might learn, as from a writer of history, that certain people once migrated, leaving their ancestral land and settling in a foreign one as though it were their homeland, but so that a lesson most useful for life and fitting for a human being should not go unheeded. What is this lesson?
The Chaldeans study astronomy, while the citizens of Harran busy themselves with the region of the senses. The sacred word therefore says to the one who spies out the workings of nature: Why do you inquire about the sun — whether it is a foot wide, whether it is larger than the whole earth, whether it is many times its size? Why do you ask about the illuminations of the moon — whether it has a borrowed light, or uses only its own? Why do you ask about the nature of the other stars, or their revolutions, or their sympathy with one another and with things on earth?
Why, while walking on the earth, do you leap beyond the clouds? Why do you claim to be able to grasp the things in the upper air while your feet are rooted to dry land? Why do you dare to draw conclusions about things that admit of no evidence? Why do you meddle with matters aloft that are not your concern? Why do you stretch the ingenuity you display in your studies all the way to heaven? Why do you practice astronomy, babbling about the sky? Do not, my friend, examine what is above you and beyond you, but consider what is near at hand — rather, examine yourself without flattery.
How then will you examine yourself? Go in mind to Harran, the excavated place, the pits and hollows of the body, and inspect your eyes, ears, nostrils, and all the other organs of sense; and pursue the philosophy most necessary and most fitting for a human being, asking: what is sight, what is hearing, what is taste, what is smell, what is touch, and what, in general, is sensation? And then ask what it is to see and how you see, what it is to hear and how you hear, what it is to smell or taste or touch, and how each of these processes ordinarily comes about.
But before examining one's own household thoroughly, is it not the height of madness to investigate that of the universe? And I am not yet giving you a greater command than this: to see your own soul and your mind, on which you pride yourself so greatly — for you will never be able to comprehend it.
Go up now into heaven and boast about the things there, though you have not yet been able to know, as the poet's verse says, what good and evil are wrought within your own halls. Bring the spy back down from heaven, draw him away from that inquiry, and know yourself; then work diligently at this too, so that you may obtain a share of human happiness.
In this way the Hebrews name him Terah, and the Greeks name him Socrates; for they say that Socrates too grew old in the most exacting inquiry into the precept know yourself, philosophizing about nothing beyond what concerned himself. But he was a man, whereas Terah is the very principle set forth concerning self-knowledge, like a most flourishing tree, so that the lovers of virtue might readily pluck from it the fruit that shapes character and be filled with saving and most pleasant nourishment.
Such, then, are our spies of understanding; but the natures of those who compete and contend for it are more perfect still. For these, having thoroughly mastered the whole account concerning the senses, see fit to proceed to some further and greater object of contemplation, leaving behind the hollows of sensation, which are named Harran.
Among these is Abraham, who attained advances and improvements toward the reception of the highest knowledge; for when he knew most, that was when he most despaired of himself, so that he might come to exact knowledge of the One who truly is. And this is naturally so: whoever comprehends himself thoroughly has thoroughly despaired of himself, having clearly grasped in advance the nothingness in every respect of what is created; and whoever has despaired of himself comes to know the One who is.
We have now shown what Harran is, and why the one who leaves the well of the oath comes to it. We must next consider the third and following point: what is the place he encounters — for it is said, he encountered a place (Gen. 28:11).
Place is conceived in three ways: first, as a region filled by a body; second, in a different sense, as the divine word, which God himself has filled wholly and entirely with incorporeal powers. For it says, I saw the place where the God of Israel stood (Exod. 24:10) — the place, and that place alone, where he permitted sacred rites to be performed, forbidding them elsewhere; for it has been ordained to go up to the place that the Lord God shall choose, and there to sacrifice the whole burnt offerings and the peace offerings, and to bring up the other unblemished sacrifices (Deut. 12:5ff.).
In a third sense, God himself is called place, because he encompasses all things while being encompassed by nothing whatsoever, because he is the refuge of all things, and because he is his own region, having made room for himself and being contained by himself alone.
I, then, am not a place, but am in a place, and so is each of the things that exist; for what is contained differs from what contains it, whereas the divine, being contained by nothing, is of necessity itself its own place. This is confirmed for me by the oracle given concerning Abraham: he came to the place that God had told him of; and lifting up his eyes he saw the place from a distance (Gen. 22:3–4). Tell me, did the one who had already come to the place see it from a distance?
But perhaps there is here an ambiguity between two distinct things, of which the one is the divine Word, and the other is the God who is prior to the Word.
The one, then, who has been guided by wisdom as a stranger arrives at the former place, having found the divine Word as the head and end of his contentment; and having come to be in that Word, he does not yet succeed in coming to God as he is in his being, but sees him from a distance — or rather, he is not even capable of beholding that One even from afar, but sees only this: that God is far removed from all that has come to be, and that the comprehension of him is settled at the furthest remove from every human understanding.
Yet perhaps, in this allegory, he has not now taken place to stand for the Cause at all, but what is meant is rather this: he came to the place, and lifting up his eyes he saw it — that very place to which he had come — as being far from the unnameable, ineffable God who is beyond comprehension under every form.
With this established beforehand, when the one in training comes to Harran, that is, to sense-perception, he encounters a place (Gen. 28:11) — neither the place filled by a mortal body (for all the earthborn share in this, having filled a region and occupying some place, as of necessity), nor the third and best place, of which one could scarcely gain a notion by spending one's time at the well that was called the Oath, where the self-taught race, Isaac, dwells, never departing from faith in God and trust in what is unseen — but rather he encounters the middle, the divine Word, who guides toward what is best and teaches whatever is fitting for the occasion.
For God, not deeming it fitting to come himself into sense-perception, sends his own words to help those who love virtue; and these heal and cure the sicknesses of the soul, setting forth sacred exhortations like unshakable laws, calling souls to their exercises, and, like trainers, implanting in them strength and power and an unconquerable vigor.
Fittingly, then, the one who has come to sense-perception encounters no longer God himself, but the Word of God, just as his grandfather in wisdom, Abraham, did. For it is said, the Lord departed, when he had finished speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place (Gen. 18:33); from which it is gathered that to meet with such sacred words is to meet words from which the God who is prior to all things has withdrawn, no longer extending his own manifestations directly from himself, but those that come from the powers that follow after him.
It is most extraordinary that the text does not say he came to the place, but that he encountered a place; for to come is voluntary, but to encounter is often involuntary, so that the divine Word, appearing suddenly, might offer to the desolate soul an unexpected joy greater than hope, being about to journey with it as its companion. For Moses too leads the people out to the meeting with God (Exod. 19:17), knowing well that God comes invisibly to meet souls that long for him.
He then gives the reason why he encountered the place: for the sun set, it says (Gen. 28:11) — not this visible sun, but the most radiant and most brilliant light of the invisible and greatest God. Whenever this light shines upon the mind, the lesser lights of reasoning set, and still more, all the places of sense-perception are cast into shadow; but whenever it withdraws elsewhere, everything at once rises and comes forth.
Do not be surprised that the sun, by the rules of allegory, is likened to the Father and Ruler of all things; for nothing is truly like God, but among things reckoned so by opinion there are only two — the invisible and the visible: the invisible being the soul, the visible being the sun.
He has shown the soul's likeness to God elsewhere, where he says, God made man, according to the image of God he made him (Gen. 1:27), and again in the law laid down against murderers: whoever sheds a man's blood, his own blood shall be shed in return, because I made man in the image of God (Gen. 9:6); the likeness of the sun, however, he has indicated through symbols.
It is easy to perceive this in another way as well, by inference: first, because God is light — for it is sung in the hymns, the Lord is my light and my salvation (Ps. 27:1) — and not only light, but the archetype of every other light, or rather older and higher than every archetype, holding the relation of a pattern to it. For the pattern was his most complete Word, light — for God said, let there be light (Gen. 1:3) — while he himself is like none of the things that have come to be.
Next: just as the sun distinguishes day from night, so Moses says God built a partition wall between light and darkness—"for God separated the light from the darkness" (Gen. 1:4). And just as the sun, once it has risen, reveals what was hidden among bodies, so also God, having generated all things, not only brought them into visibility but made what previously did not exist, being not merely a craftsman but a founder in his own right.
In the sacred word, understood by way of its deeper meanings, the sun is spoken of in many senses. In one sense it is the human mind, which those build up like a city and construct who are compelled to serve what is generated rather than the unbegotten—those of whom it is said, "they built fortified cities for Pharaoh: Pithom"—the word to which persuasion belongs—"and Ramesses"—perception, by which the soul is eaten away as though by moths, for "seismos" is interpreted as "of a moth"—"and On"—the mind, which he named "City of the Sun" (Exod. 1:11)—since, like the sun, it has assumed leadership over our whole mass and extends its own powers like rays into the whole.
Everyone who has taken up the citizenship of the body claims as father-in-law the priest and attendant of the mind, whose name is Joseph. For it says, "he gave him Aseneth, daughter of Pentephres priest of Heliopolis, as wife" (Gen. 41:45).
In a second sense he calls perception, symbolically, "sun," since all perceptible things are made visible by the intellect. Of this he has spoken thus: "the sun rose upon him, when the form of God had passed by" (Gen. 32:31). For indeed, when we are no longer able to dwell together with the most sacred forms and with the bodiless images of the One who Is, but turn aside and pass elsewhere, we make use of that other light, the light of perception, which differs from sound reason not at all, one might simply say, from darkness.
This light, once risen, arouses sight and hearing, and further taste and smell and touch, as though they were sleeping, but turns prudence and justice and knowledge and wisdom, though wide awake, into sleep.
For this reason the sacred word says that no one can be pure before evening (Lev. 11:24 and elsewhere), since the intellect is still overpowered by the movements that come through perception, as by poisons. And he lays down for the priests too, as at once a law and a maxim from which there is no escape, when he says: "He shall not eat of the holy things, unless he has washed his body with water, and the sun sets, and he becomes clean" (Lev. 22:6-7).
For through these words he shows most clearly that no one is altogether pure enough to make use of the holy and sacred rites, so long as he still values the perceptible splendors of mortal life. But if someone does not accept these, he is, in consequence, illumined by the light of prudence, by which he will be able to wash and cleanse away the stains of empty opinions.
Or do you not see that the sun itself, both rising and setting, produces opposite effects? For whenever it rises, all things on earth are lit up all around, while the things in heaven are hidden; but when it sets, conversely, the stars appear, while the things around the earth are cast into shadow.
In the same way within us too: whenever the light of the senses rises like a sun, it happens that the truly Olympian and heavenly sciences are hidden; but whenever it goes down toward its setting, the most star-like and most divine rays of the virtues shine forth, at which time the pure mind comes to be hidden by nothing perceptible.
In the third sense he calls the divine word "sun"—the archetype, as was said before, of the sun that circles through heaven—of which it is said: "the sun went out over the earth, and Lot entered into Zoar, and the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire" (Gen. 19:23-24).
For the word of God, whenever it arrives at our earthly constitution, comes to the aid and assistance of those who are akin to virtue and incline toward it, so as to provide them with refuge and complete deliverance, but sends upon their adversaries ruin and incurable destruction.
In a fourth sense the "sun" spoken of is the Ruler of the universe himself, as I have already said, through whom the sins that seem to be hidden but are past healing are uncovered.
For all things are known to God just as they are possible for him. This is why he leads to the sun those who, their souls' proper tensions collapsed, consort licentiously and rather lustfully with the daughters of the mind—the senses—like harlots and prostitutes, in order that they may be exposed.
For he says: "and the people encamped in Shittim"—interpreted "thorns," a symbol of the passions that goad and wound the soul—"and it was profaned," he says, "in that it fornicated with the daughters of Moab"—these are the senses, called daughters of the mind, for Moab is interpreted "from the father"—and he adds: "take all the leaders of the people and make an example of them to the Lord before the sun, and the wrath of the Lord shall turn away from Israel" (Num. 25:1, 4).
For not only did he wish the hidden wrongs to become manifest, and so shone the sun's rays upon them, but he also called the Father of the universe "sun" by way of symbol—he to whom all things are plainly visible, even those that are carried out invisibly in the recesses of the mind. And when these are made manifest, he says, the one who alone is gracious will be gracious. Why?
Because, if the intellect, supposing it will escape the notice of the divine while doing wrong—as though God were not able to see everything—goes astray in secret and in hidden recesses, and afterward, whether of itself or guided by another, comes to understand that it is impossible for anything to be unknown to God, and unfolds itself and all its deeds and, bringing them out into the open, displays them as though into the sunlight before the Overseer of the universe, saying that it repents of the things it formerly, in a thankless disposition, wrongly supposed—for nothing is unknown to him, but all things, not only what has been done but even what is hoped for, are known and clear to him in great abundance—then it has been cleansed and benefited, and has made gentle the reproof set over it as chastiser, using a just anger, if indeed repentance, being a younger brother,
is accepted by him next after not sinning at all. He is also seen elsewhere applying "sun" symbolically to the Cause, as in the law written concerning those who lend on pledges. Consider the law: "If you take as a pledge the garment of your neighbor, you shall restore it to him before the sun sets; for this is his only covering, this is the garment of his shame. In what shall he sleep? If then he cries out to me, I will listen to him; for I am compassionate" (Exod. 22:26-27).
Is it not fitting to remind—if not reproach—those who suppose that the lawgiver was so earnestly concerned about a cloak? What are you saying, my good sirs? Does the Founder and Ruler of the universe call himself compassionate over so trivial a matter as a garment not returned by a lender to a debtor?
Such are the suppositions of those who have not once beheld the greatness of the virtue of the God who is great in all things, and who attribute human pettiness, contrary to what is right and just, to the unbegotten and incorruptible nature, full of blessedness and happiness.
For what wrong do lenders do in holding pledges among themselves until they recover what is their own? "The debtors are poor," someone will perhaps say, "and deserve pity." Then would it not have been better to write a law by which they raise funds for them by subscription, rather than either declaring them debtors or forbidding lending on pledges? But the one who permits it could not reasonably be displeased, as though at the impious, with those who do not give back before the time what they received.
But someone who has come, so to speak, to the utmost limits of poverty, wearing one single rag, and brings in new lenders, has abandoned the pity that pours out on every side from those who see such misfortunes befalling people at home, at temples, in the marketplace, everywhere.
But as things stand, even the one covering he had for shame, with which he screened over what nature keeps unspoken, this he brings and holds out. A pledge for what, tell me? For some other, better garment? For no one lacks necessary food, so long as springs gush forth, rivers flood in their season, and the earth yields its yearly crops.
Is the lender then so deeply wealthy, or so utterly cruel, that he is willing to contract with someone for four drachmas, or perhaps even less, and to lend to one so destitute rather than give outright—or to take as a pledge the one garment that was his, which under another name might fairly be called stripping him? For it is the custom of clothes-strippers, in undressing people, to take away their garments and expose them naked, those who had them.
Why did he take care that no one should sleep unclothed at night, but no longer show equal concern that one awake by day should be shamefully naked? Is it not that at night and in darkness all things are hidden, so that one feels less shame or none at all, while by day and in light they are uncovered, so that one is compelled to blush the more?
And why did he command not to "give" the garment but to "give it back"? For giving back applies to what belongs to another, and pledges belong more to the lenders than to the borrowers. But do you not consider this: that he did not command the debtor, once he had received the garment for his night's rest, to rise by day and remove it and carry it back to the lender?
And yet even the slowest reader, given the peculiar character of the wording, would be led to grasp something beyond the bare letter; for the ordinance resembles a definition more than an exhortation. Someone exhorting would have said: "the cloak taken in pledge, if it is the debtor's only garment, return before evening, so that he may have it to wrap himself in at night" — but instead the lawgiver defines it as it actually stands: "for this is his only covering, this is the garment of his shame; in what shall he sleep?" (Exod. 22:27).
This much, and matters like it, let us say to the sophists of the literal exercise, who arch their eyebrows so severely; but let us ourselves, following the laws of allegory, say what is fitting about these things. We say, then, that the garment is a symbol of reason. For just as clothing wards off the harms that cold and heat are wont to inflict on the body, and screens the parts nature keeps hidden, and is an ornament fitted to the body, so too.
in a similar way reason was given to man by God as the most beautiful of gifts — first, as a weapon of defense against those who would rise up against him. For just as nature has armed each of the other animals with defenses of its own, by which it beats off those who attempt to wrong it, so to man too God has given reason as the greatest bulwark and unbreakable guard, wrapped in which as in a suit of armor he will have a companion and champion most his own and closest to him; and using this as his advocate in the front line he will be able to repel the harms brought against him by his enemies. Second, reason is most necessary as a covering against shame and reproach.
— for reason is skilled at concealing and shading over the sins of human beings — and third, as an ornament for the whole of life; for it is reason that makes each thing, and all things, better, and leads them toward what is superior.
But there are certain plagues and banes among human beings, who take reason itself in pledge, stripping it from those who possess it, and, when they ought to help it grow, instead cut off the whole of it — like men who ravage the territory of their enemies and set about destroying the grain and the rest of the crop, which, if left standing, would have been of great benefit to those who used it.
So there are some who wage an implacable, undeclared war on rational nature, cropping its shoots to the very skin and crushing its first growths, rendering it, so to speak, barren and sterile of good pursuits.
For when a soul is sometimes rushing toward education with unrestrained impulse, struck by love of the doctrines of philosophy, these men, in envy and malice, fear that it will breathe mightily, rise to the greatest heights, and flood — like a torrent — their own petty word-splitting and their plausible inventions against the truth; and so they divert its current elsewhere, into their own base contrivances, channeling it off toward vulgar and illiberal crafts. Often, too, having aborted and choked it, they leave its natural greatness idle — like wicked guardians who leave a deep-soiled, fertile land, belonging to orphan children, barren — and, most pitiless of all men, they feel no shame in stripping from a human being his only garment, reason. "For this," it says, "is his only covering" (Exod. 22:27). What else is there besides reason?
For just as neighing is proper to the horse, and barking to the dog, and lowing to the ox, and roaring to the lion, so speaking — reason itself — is proper to man. This is the bulwark, the covering, the panoply, the wall of that creature most beloved of God,
man, who alone of all creatures has reaped it as his own. Hence it goes on to say: "this garment alone is the covering of his shame" (Exod. 22:27). For who else so shades over and conceals the reproaches and shames of life as reason does? Ignorance is a shame kindred to irrational nature, but education is a sister of reason, its own proper ornament.
"In what, then, shall he sleep" — that is, in what shall a man find rest and repose — except in reason? For reason lightens the burden of our most heavily fated race. Just as those pressed down by griefs or fears or other evils have often been healed by the kindness, familiarity, and tact of friends, so — not often, but always — reason alone, the averter of evil, drives off the heaviest weight of all, the weight laid on us both by the necessities of this body bound to us and by the unforeseen mishaps that assail us from without.
For reason is our friend, our acquaintance, our intimate, our companion, bound to us — or rather fitted and united to us — by some indissoluble and invisible glue of nature. For this reason it foretells what will be to our advantage, and, should something unwanted occur, it is present unbidden to help, bringing not merely the one benefit that an idle advisor or a passive ally provides, but both at once.
For it has not practiced a half-finished power, but one whole and complete in all its parts; and if it should fail in the attempt, in the things it has in mind or is carrying out in deed, it arrives at a third resource, consolation. For reason is a remedy, as for wounds, and a saving medicine for the passions of the soul — and the lawgiver says it must be returned "before the sun goes down" (Exod. 22:26), that is, before the most radiant beams of the greatest and most manifest God set, which out of mercy for our race he sends down from heaven into the human mind.
For while that most godlike and bodiless light remains in the soul, we shall return the reason we had taken in pledge, as one returns a garment, so that the one who receives it may cover the shame of his life with what is properly man's own possession, enjoy the divine gift, and rest in peace, in the presence of such a counselor and shield-bearer, who will never abandon the post assigned to him.
So then, while God still makes the sacred light shine upon you, hasten to return the pledge to its owner by day; for once it sets, you will have, like all Egypt (Exod. 10:21), a darkness you can feel, and, struck with blindness and ignorance, you will be stripped of all you thought you controlled, by him who sees Israel — whom you were holding as a pledge though he is by nature free, enslaving him by force.
We have drawn out this long course for no other reason than to teach that the mind in training, moving unevenly between prosperity and its opposite, and in a sense continually rising and descending, when it prospers and is lifted to the heights, is illumined by the archetypal, bodiless rays of the rational spring of the God who brings all to fulfillment; but when it descends and looks downward, it is illumined by the images of those rays — the immortal words, which are customarily called angels.
That is why it now says: "he came upon a place; for the sun had set" (Gen. 28:11). For when the rays of God abandon the soul — the rays through which the clearest apprehensions of things come about — a second and weaker light rises, the light of words, no longer of realities, just as it happens in this world too; for the moon, taking second place after the sun, sends a dimmer light down to the earth once the sun has set.
Indeed, to meet with a "place" or a "word," for those unable to see the God who exists before place and word, is a most sufficient gift, because they were not left utterly without light in their souls; rather, once that unmixed light set from them, they harvested a mixed light instead. "For the sons of Israel had light in all the places where they dwelt," it says in the Exodus narrative (10:23), so that night and darkness were forever banished from among them — unlike those whose souls' eyes are maimed even before their bodies' are, who live without ever knowing the rays of virtue.
Some, however, supposing that what is here called the sun symbolically means sense-perception and mind — the standards of judgment reckoned as ours — and that the "place" means the divine word, have understood it this way: the man in training met the divine word once the mortal and human light had set.
For as long as the mind supposes that sense-perception firmly apprehends both intelligible and sensible things, and roams on high, the divine word stands far off; but once each — mind and sense alike — has confessed its own weakness, and, in a manner of speaking, has set like the sun and hidden itself, then right reason, the guardian ever seated beside the soul in training, comes forward at once in welcome to a soul that has despaired of itself and waits, unseen, for the one who visits it from without.
It says, then, next, that "he took some of the stones of the place and put them at his head, and slept in that place" (Gen. 28:11). One might marvel not only at his treatment of hidden meanings and his natural philosophy, but also at the plain instruction it gives toward the training of endurance and hardship.
For it does not think fit that the man who cares for virtue should live a life of soft luxury and indulgence, emulating the pursuits and ambitions of those called fortunate but in truth full of misfortune, for whom the whole of life, in the words of the most sacred lawgiver, is a sleep and a dream —
men who, by day, once they have gone through their wrongdoing against others in the courts, the council-chambers, the theaters, and everywhere else, come home — wretches that they are — to overturn, not the house built of stone, but the house natural to the soul, the body, pouring in immoderate and unceasing food and drenching it with much unmixed wine, until reason sinks to the bottom and is gone, and the passions born of the belly's excess rise up, and, seized by uncontrollable frenzy, fall upon and entangle themselves with whatever they happen upon, until, having driven off the worst of their frenzy, they subside.
And at night, when the time comes to turn to bed, they prepare costly couches and richly flowered bedding and lie down in the utmost softness, imitating the luxury of women, to whom nature has granted a relaxed way of life, on whose account the artisan who fashions the body has made theirs of the softer material.
No one of this kind is an intimate of the sacred word; rather, those who are truly men, lovers of self-control, good order, and modesty, having laid down self-restraint, contentment with little, and endurance as, so to speak, the foundations of their whole life, safe harbors of the soul in which they will anchor securely and without danger, superior to wealth, pleasure, and reputation, disdainful of food and drink and of anything beyond the bare necessities — so far as hunger does not begin to rebel — are utterly ready to endure hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and all else hard to bear, for the sake of gaining virtue, zealots for whatever is most easily procured, so that they are never ashamed even of a cheap cloak, but on the contrary reckon costly ones a disgrace and a great loss to life.
For these men the lawgiver's ultimate couch is soft ground, their bedding is bushes, grasses, herbs, and a great scattering of leaves, and at their heads are certain stones or small mounds of earth rising a little above the level ground. This life the luxurious call harsh and austere, but those who live for true nobility of character call it most pleasant; for it suits men who are not merely called men, but truly are.
Do you not see that even now he introduces the athlete of noble pursuits, though abounding in royal wealth and provisions, sleeping on the ground and using a stone as a pillow, and a little later, in his prayers, asking for bread and a garment—the wealth of nature (Gen. 28:20)—since he had always mocked the man occupied with empty opinions and derided those who marveled at him? This man is the archetypal model of the ascetic
soul, an enemy to everyone who is effeminate and womanish. The ready praise, then, of the man who loves labor and loves virtue has been stated; but the meaning conveyed through the symbol must be investigated. It is fitting to know now that the divine place and the sacred region is full of bodiless words.
And these words are immortal souls. Taking one of these words, choosing by merit the highest of them, and setting it, as it were, near the head of his own understanding, as the head of a united body (Gen. 28:11)—for this too is in a sense the head of the soul. He does this on the pretext of going to sleep, but in truth in order to rest upon the divine word and to lay upon it the whole of his life as a most light burden.
And the word gladly listens and receives the athlete, at first as one who will become a disciple; then, when he has approved the fitness of his nature, he gives him a hand in the manner of a trainer and calls him to the exercises, and holding him fast compels him to wrestle, until he has built up in him an unconquerable strength, changing his ears by divine inspirations into eyes and calling him, transformed, by the new stamp of Israel, the one who sees. Then he also places on him the crown of victory.
The crown has a strange and foreign name, and perhaps not an auspicious one; for it is called by the president of the games 'numbness.' For it is said, 'the breadth of the thigh grew numb' (Gen. 32:25)—the most admirable prize of all rewards, proclamations, and honors.
For if the soul, having received a share of unconquerable power and been perfected in the contests of the virtues, and having arrived at the very boundary of the good, should not be lifted up in height by arrogance nor, standing on tiptoe, boast as though able to stride far on sound feet, but should instead grow numb and be checked in the breadth it had widened through self-conceit, and then, voluntarily tripping itself, should limp, so as to fall short of the bodiless natures—then, seeming to be defeated, it will win the victory.
For to yield one's primacy by judgment rather than by necessity is, among the better sort, accounted honorable, since even the second prizes set among the contests of this arena surpass by a very great margin, in the greatness of their worth, the first prizes set among others.
Such, then, is the prelude of the God-sent vision; it is now time to turn to it and to examine each of its details precisely. 'He dreamed,' it says, 'and behold, a ladder was fixed on the earth, whose head reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it; and the Lord was fixed above it' (Gen. 28:12-13).
A ladder, then, in the world is symbolically called the air, whose base is earth and whose summit is heaven; for from the sphere of the moon, which those who study the heavens record as the last of the circles in heaven and the first with respect to us, the air, stretched out in every direction, reaches down to the very edge of the earth.
This is the dwelling of bodiless souls, since it seemed good to the Maker that all the parts of the world should be filled with living creatures. For this reason he furnished the earth with land creatures, the seas and rivers with water creatures, and heaven with the stars—for each of these is said to be not only a living creature but also a mind, wholly and entirely most pure—so that in the remaining portion of the universe, the air, there should likewise be living creatures. But if they are not perceptible by sense, what of it? For the soul too is invisible.
And indeed it is likely that the air nurtures living creatures even more than earth and water, since it is the air that has ensouled the creatures in those elements too; for the Craftsman made it the abiding condition of unmoving bodies, and the nature of things moved without conscious impression, and, further, the soul of those able to make use of impulse and impression.
Is it not absurd, then, that the element through which other things were ensouled should itself be without a share of souls? Therefore let no one deprive the noblest kind of living creatures of the noblest of the regions beneath heaven, the air; for this alone, of all things, is not left desolate, but like a populous city has as its citizens imperishable and immortal souls, equal in number to the stars.
Of these souls some descend to be bound to mortal bodies, namely those most drawn toward the earth and fond of the body, while others ascend, being sorted again according to the numbers and periods appointed by nature.
Of these, some, longing for the familiar habits of mortal life, run back down again, while others, having condemned its great foolishness, called the body a prison and a tomb, and, fleeing as though from a jail or a grave, are lifted up on light wings toward the upper air and journey through the ages above.
But there are others, the purest and best, who have obtained a still greater and more divine portion, who have never at all desired anything of the things upon earth, but are lieutenants of the Ruler of all, like the ears and eyes of a great king, watching and hearing everything.
These the other philosophers are accustomed to call daemons, but the sacred word calls them angels, using a more fitting name; for they announce the Father's commands to his offspring, and the offspring's needs to the Father.
For this reason he represented them as ascending and descending, not because God, who reaches everywhere, has need of messengers, but because it was advantageous for us, who are subject to peril, to make use of mediating and arbitrating words, on account of our being awestruck and terrified before the supreme Ruler and the vastness of his sovereign power.
Taking thought of this we once entreated one of the mediators, saying, 'You speak to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die' (Exod. 20:19). For we are unable to bear not only punishments, but even overwhelming and unmixed benefits, such as he himself might bestow directly, without employing other servants.
Most beautifully, then, does he represent the air, fixed on the earth, through the symbol of a ladder; for the vapors given off from the earth, being made fine, happen to be turned wholly into air, so that earth is the base and root of air, and heaven is its head.
It is said, at any rate, that the moon is not an unmixed condensation of ether, as each of the other stars is, but a blend of ethereal and airy substance; and that the dark patch appearing on it, which some call its 'face,' is nothing other than the air mingled within it, which, being by nature dark, extends all the way to heaven.
Such, then, is the ladder spoken of symbolically in the world; and if we examine the one within human beings, we shall find it to be the soul, whose base is, as it were, the earthly part, sense-perception, and whose head is, as it were, the heavenly part, the purest mind.
Up and down through the whole of it the words of God move without interruption: when ascending, drawing the soul up together with them and severing it from what is mortal, displaying to it the vision of the things alone worthy to be seen; and when descending, not casting it down—for neither God nor a divine word is ever the cause of harm—but descending together with it out of love for humankind and pity for our race, for the sake of help and alliance, so that, breathing life-giving breath, they may revive the soul still being carried, as if on a river, in the body.
In the minds of those who have been utterly purified, the Ruler of all things alone walks silently and invisibly—for there is an oracle given to the wise man, in which it is said, 'I will walk among you, and I will be your God' (Lev. 26:12)—but in the minds of those still being washed, who have not yet entirely cleansed away the filthy and defiled life within their heavy bodies, angels, adopted for the task, brighten them with the doctrines of nobility.
As for how great a host of evil inhabitants is being expelled, so that the good one alone may come to dwell there, this is clear. Strive, then, O soul, to become a house of God, a holy sanctuary, a most beautiful dwelling-place; for perhaps, perhaps, as the whole world is his house, you too will have as master of the house one who cares for his own dwelling, so that it may forever be preserved most securely fortified and unharmed.
Perhaps, too, the ascetic pictures his own life as resembling a ladder; for by nature askesis is an uneven thing, at one time advancing to a height, at another turning back to the opposite, and at one time faring, like a ship, with a fair voyage of life, at another with a foul one. For the life of ascetics is, as someone said, lived on alternate days—living and awake at one time, dead or asleep at another.
And perhaps this too is said not without purpose: the wise are allotted to dwell in the Olympian and heavenly region, having learned always to travel upward, while the wicked dwell in the recesses of Hades, practiced from beginning to end in dying, and accustomed from swaddling clothes to old age to corruption.
The practitioners, however — for they occupy the middle ground between the two extremes — often walk up and down as on a ladder, drawn upward by the better portion or dragged back by the worse, until God, the judge of this contest and struggle, awards the prizes to the better rank, utterly abolishing the opposing one.
There appears in the dream yet another image, one not fit to be passed over in silence. Human affairs are naturally like a ladder, because of their uneven motion.
For one day, as someone said, casts one man down from the heights and lifts another up, since nothing among us is by nature disposed to remain in the same state, but all things undergo every kind of change.
Do not rulers constantly arise from private citizens, and private citizens from rulers; the poor from the rich, and from the poor men of great wealth; the honored from the neglected, and the most conspicuous from the obscure; the strong from the weak, and the capable from the incapable; the intelligent from the foolish, and the most sensible from those who were once deranged?
There is indeed a road of human affairs that runs up and down, marked by unstable and unsettled turns of fortune, whose unevenness is proved, by no obscure but by quite clear evidence, by time, the most truthful of witnesses.
Now the dream signified that the one standing firm upon the ladder was the archangel, the Lord; for one must suppose that Being stands above, like a charioteer above a chariot or a helmsman above a ship, over bodies, over souls, over things, over words, over angels, over earth, over air, over heaven, over the powers perceived by sense, over the natures invisible — over everything, visible and invisible alike; for having bound the whole cosmos to himself and suspended it from himself, he drives so vast a nature as a charioteer drives his team.
But let no one, on hearing that he 'stood firm upon it,' suppose that anything cooperates with God so as to make him stand securely; rather let him consider this: that what is meant is equivalent to saying that the support, the prop, the strength, and the stability of all things is the secure God, who stamps immovability upon whatever he wishes. For when he props and supports, the things thus established remain forever indestructible.
Standing, then, upon the ladder of heaven, he says to the one who was seeing this vision in a dream: 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; do not be afraid' (Gen 28:13). This oracle was the goal of the practicing soul and its surest support, teaching it that the Lord and God of all things belonged, by both of these titles, to its own lineage — being inscribed and called both the God of fathers and of grandfathers — so that the whole cosmos and the lover of virtue might have the same inheritance; since it has also been said, 'the Lord himself is his inheritance' (Deut 10:9).
Do not suppose it said carelessly that Abraham is now called both Lord and God, while Isaac's God alone is named. For Isaac is a symbol of knowledge that comes about self-taught, self-heard, and self-learned by nature, while Abraham is a symbol of knowledge acquired by teaching; and it belongs to the one to be a native and homegrown, and to the other to be a migrant and a newcomer.
For having abandoned the foreign and alien Chaldean tongue of those who babble idly about astronomy, he arrived at the language fitting a rational creature — the service of the cause of all things.
This character, then, has need of two powers to attend to him — dominion and beneficence — so that by the might of his ruler he might obey the laws laid down for him, and by his gracious kindness be greatly benefited; while the other has need of the power of grace alone. For he was not made better by an admonishing rule, having possessed the good by nature, but through the gifts rained down upon him from above he was good and perfect from the beginning.
God, then, is the name of the gracious power; Lord is the name of the royal power. What, then, could one call an older good than to obtain unmixed and unadulterated beneficence, and what a younger good than one blended of both dominion and gift? Perceiving this, it seems to me, the practicing soul prayed a most wonderful prayer, that the Lord might become to him God (Gen 28:21); for he wished no longer to fear him as a ruler, but to honor him lovingly as a benefactor.
Is it not likely that by these and similar things even blind minds might sharpen their sight, once made to see by the most sacred oracles, so as to breathe deeply and not merely skim along the surface of the words? But even if we, closing the eye of the soul, are unwilling or unable to look up, do you yourself, O hierophant, prompt us and stand over us, and never cease to anoint our eyes, until, initiating us as mystagogue into the hidden light of the sacred words, you show us what is invisible to the uninitiated.
This indeed is fitting work for you to do; but you souls, as many as have tasted divine longings, rise up as from a deep sleep, scatter the mist, and hasten toward that all-encompassing vision, casting off slow and hesitant delay, that you may perceive all the sights and sounds which the president of the contest has prepared for your benefit.
Countless indeed are the things worthy of display, but one of them is what was said a little before: the oracle called him who was, by birth, the grandfather of the practicing soul, his 'father,' yet did not apply the name of 'father' to the one who had truly begotten him. For it says, 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father' — though this man was in fact his grandfather — and again, 'the God of Isaac' (Gen 28:13), and then does not add 'your father.'
Was it not, then, worth investigating the reason for this? Certainly. Let us then examine, without carelessness, what it is. Scripture says that virtue is acquired either by nature, by practice, or by learning, and therefore recorded all three founders of the nation as wise, though they did not set out from the same starting point, but were hastening toward the same goal.
The eldest of them, Abraham, used teaching as the guide of the road leading to the good, as we shall show elsewhere, so far as is possible; the middle one, Isaac, was guided by a nature that hears and learns of itself; and the third, Jacob, by the practiced exercises through which come the labors of contest and struggle.
Since there are three ways by which wisdom is acquired, it has happened that the two extremes are especially united; for what comes by practice is the offspring of what comes by learning, while what comes by nature is akin to both — for it is laid down as a root beneath them all — and has obtained a prize that is unopposed and ready at hand.
It is fitting, then, that Abraham, who was made better by teaching, is called the father of Jacob, who was forged by exercise — not as man is father of man, but as a faculty of hearing, most ready for learning, is father of a faculty for practice and fit for contest.
If, however, this practicing soul runs vigorously toward the goal and sees clearly, in the full light of day, what before it only dimly dreamed, then, transformed into the better character and addressed as Israel, 'he who sees God,' he no longer inscribes as his father Jacob the supplanter, nor Abraham who learned, but Isaac, the noble one born by nature.
This is not a myth of my own devising, but an oracle recorded upon the sacred tablets. For it says, 'Israel set out, he and all that was his, and came to the well of the oath, and offered a sacrifice to the God of his father Isaac' (Gen 46:1). Do you now perceive that the present discourse is not about perishable men, but, as has been said, about the nature of things? For behold, the very same subject is at one time named Jacob, son of Abraham, and at another time called Israel, son of Isaac, for a precisely determined reason.
Having said, then, 'I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac,' he adds, 'do not be afraid' (Gen 28:13), consistently with what precedes. For how could we still be afraid, holding you, the deliverer from fear and every passion, as our defending shield — you who also gave shape to the archetypal patterns of our education, hidden until then, so that they might become visible, teaching as Abraham, and begetting as Isaac? For you consented to be called the teacher of the one and the father of the other, granting to the one the rank of a disciple, and to the other that of a son.
For this reason you also promise to give the land — I mean virtue, the most all-bearing and most fruitful — upon which the practicing soul lies down to rest, sleeping to the life of sense while being awake to the life of the soul (Gen 28:13), accepting his peaceful rest, which he chose not without war and the hardships of war — not by bearing arms and killing men, far from it, but by destroying the opposing army of the passions and vices of virtue.
And the offspring of wisdom is likened to the sand of the earth (ibid. 14), both because of its countless, unbounded multitude, and because just as the underlying sand beats back the assaults of the sea, so the reasoning of education beats back the assaults of sins and wrongdoings. And this reasoning, according to the divine promises, is extended to the very ends of the universe, and shows the one who possesses it to be heir of all the parts of the world, reaching everywhere — toward the east, toward the west, the regions of the south, the regions of the north; for it is said, 'it shall spread abroad to the sea and to the south and to the north and to the east' (ibid. 14).
The good and noble person is not merely a private good but a common good for all, offering the benefit that flows from him to everyone, freely and without delay. For just as the sun is light for all who have eyes, so too the wise man is light for all who share in rational nature: "for in you all the tribes shall be blessed" (Genesis 28:14).
This oracle applies both to a single person with respect to himself, and to one person with respect to another. For if the mind within me is purified by perfect virtue, the tribes of the earthly element around me are purified together with it — the tribes allotted to the senses and to that greatest reservoir, the body. And if someone, whether in a household or a city or a country or a nation, becomes a lover of wisdom, that household and that city and that country and that nation must necessarily attain a better life.
For just as aromatic substances, when they give off their fragrance, fill with sweetness all who come near them, in the same way all who are neighbors and border on the wise man draw in the breeze that streams from him to the greatest distance and have their characters made better.
The greatest benefit for a soul that toils and struggles is to have as its fellow traveler the God who has already arrived everywhere: "behold," he says, "I am with you" (Genesis 28:15). Of what wealth, then, could we still stand in need, when we have you, the only true wealth, "guarding us on the road" (ibid.) that leads to virtue, at every one of its turnings? For the rational life does not consist of a single part directed toward justice and the rest of virtue, but of countless parts, from which, setting out, one can arrive at practical wisdom.
And it is beautifully said too: "I will bring you back to this land" (ibid.). For it would have been good if reasoning, remaining with itself, had never journeyed out to sense-perception at all; but the second-best voyage is to return again to oneself.
Perhaps this also hints at the doctrine of the soul's immortality. For having left the heavenly place — as was said a little earlier — the body came, as it were, into a foreign land. And he says that the Father who begot it will not overlook it, confined forever; but taking pity, he will loose its bonds and safely escort it, set free, all the way to the mother city, and will not let it go before the promises made in words have been confirmed by deeds of truth. For it is characteristic of God to say, without exception, only what is going to come to pass. And yet what am I saying?
His words differ in no way from his deeds. So the soul in training, stirred and roused to inquire about Being, at first supposed that the Existent was in a place; but pausing a little, and growing fearful at how hard the object of its inquiry was to locate, it begins to change its mind.
"Jacob awoke," it says, "and said, the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it" (Genesis 28:16). And it would have been better, I would say, not to know, than to suppose that God is contained in something — God, who himself contains all things in a circle around him.
Rightly, then, he was afraid and said in wonder: "how fearful is this place" (Genesis 28:17). For truly, among the topics of natural philosophy, this is the most difficult of all: the question where, and whether at all, the Existent is in something. Some say that everything which subsists has taken possession of some region — different thinkers assigning it different regions, either within the cosmos or, outside it, in some space between worlds; others say that the unbegotten is like nothing that has come into being, but surpasses the whole of things, so much so that even the swiftest-running thought must confess itself far outstripped and defeated in the attempt to grasp it.
This is why he cried out at once: "this is not" (ibid.) what "I supposed, that the Lord is in the place" (Genesis 28:16); for he contains, but is not contained — that is the truth. And this visible, perceptible thing that is shown, this sense-perceptible cosmos, is therefore nothing other than the house of God (ibid.), the house of one of the powers of the Existent, the power by which he was good.
He called the cosmos a house, and also named it the gate of the heaven that leads toward truth (Genesis 28:17). And what is this? The cosmos put together out of the forms — the intelligible cosmos, brought into being under the divine bounty — which cannot be grasped in any other way except by passing beyond this perceptible and visible cosmos.
For it is not possible to conceive of anything else among existing things as incorporeal, except by beginning from bodies. For place was conceived from bodies at rest, and time from bodies in motion; points and lines and surfaces, and limits generally, were conceived from the outermost covering, as it were a garment, that surrounds bodies.
By analogy, then, the intelligible cosmos too was conceived from the perceptible cosmos, being a kind of gate to it. For just as those who wish to view cities enter through gates, so all who wish to grasp the invisible cosmos are guided there by the visualization the visible cosmos provides. But the cosmos of intelligible substance, being without any shape visible to sight, will be apprehended solely through the archetypal idea imprinted in it, corresponding to the form it beheld without any shadow, once every wall and every gate has been removed from it, so that it looks at nothing from the outside, but discerns, by itself and through itself, in some ineffable and hard-to-describe act of vision, beauty that admits of no change.
Enough, then, on these matters. Fitting the same category is another dream as well, the one about the multicolored flock, which the visionary, rising up after it, recounts, saying: "the angel of God said to me in my sleep, Jacob. And I said, what is it? And he said, lift up your eyes and see the male goats and the rams mounting the sheep and the she-goats — the streaked, spotted, and speckled with ash-gray. For I have seen everything that Laban is doing to you. I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God, where you anointed a pillar to me and vowed a vow to me. Now therefore rise up and go out from this land and depart to the land of your birth, and I will be with you" (Genesis 31:11–13).
You see that the sacred word records God-sent dreams not only for those that appear directly from the most venerable of causes, but also for those that come through his interpreters and attendant angels, who have been judged worthy of a divine and blessed portion by the Father who begot them. But consider what follows as well.
The sacred word, to some, gives orders like a king, commanding by decree what must be done; to others, as a teacher to disciples, it explains what is beneficial; to others, as a counselor putting forward the best opinions, it greatly benefits those who do not know on their own what is advantageous; and to others still, gently and with persuasion, like a light, it discloses much of what cannot be spoken, which none of the uninitiated may lawfully hear.
And sometimes it also asks questions of certain people, as of Adam: "where are you?" (Genesis 3:9), to which one might properly answer, "nowhere" — because nothing human ever remains in the same state, but is in motion, in soul, in body, and in external things alike. Our reasonings are unstable, receiving from the same objects not the same but opposite impressions; the body too is unstable, as the changes through every stage of life from infancy to old age show; and unstable too are the things
hung up outside us, tossed by the ever-shifting current of fortune. Yet whenever it comes to the council of its friends, it does not begin to speak before calling each of them by name, so that, pricking up their ears and attending in silence, they may hear what is being solemnly declared with a memory that never fades — since it is also said elsewhere: "be silent and listen" (Deuteronomy 27:9).
In this way, at the bush, Moses is called by name — "for when he saw," it says, "that he was drawing near to look, the Lord called to him out of the bush, saying, Moses, Moses. And he said, what is it?" (Exodus 3:4). Abraham likewise, at the wholly-burnt offering of his beloved and only son, both when he began the sacred rite and when, having given proof of piety by being ready to remove from among men that self-taught race called by the name Isaac, he was stopped.
For at the beginning it says: "God was testing Abraham, and said to him, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he said, take your son, your beloved son, whom you loved, Isaac, and offer him up"; and then, once he had already brought the victim up onto the altar, "the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven, saying, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. And he said, do not lay your hand on the boy, and do nothing to him" (Genesis 22:1–2, 9–12).
And the man in training too, being one of that friendly company, is reasonably deemed worthy of the same privilege and is called by name: "for the angel of God said to me in my sleep," he says, "Jacob. And I said, what is it?" (Genesis 31:11).
Once called by name, he pays close attention, trying to grasp precisely the signs that appeared to him — and the signs consist of matings and births among words, as though they were livestock. "For lifting up his eyes," it says, "he saw the male goats and the rams mounting the sheep and the she-goats" (Genesis 31:12).
The male goat leads the herd of goats, and the ram leads the flock of sheep; and these animals are symbols of two perfect forms of reason, of which the one purifies and empties the soul of its sins, while the other nourishes it and fills it with right actions. Such are the leading reasons that guide us, like herdsmen; and the herds — fittingly named after sheep and goats — dart forward and advance eagerly toward justice.
Lifting up his eyes, then — the eye of his understanding, until now closed — he saw the perfect reasonings, comparable to goats and rams, sharpened both to diminish wrongdoing and to increase the doing of what is right; and he saw how they mount the sheep and the goats, souls still young and tender, just come into bloom and adorned with the flower of their prime — not in pursuit of irrational pleasure, but sowing, invisibly, the seed of wisdom's teachings.
For this marriage is blessed with fine children, joining not bodies but perfect virtues to well-formed souls. Come forward, then, all you upright reasonings of wisdom, mount, sow your seed, and whatever soul you see that is deep, fertile, and virgin, do not pass it by; but calling it to intimacy and union with yourselves, bring it to completion and make it pregnant — for it will bear all things noble, a male offspring, "streaked, spotted, and speckled with ash-gray" (Genesis 31:10).
On the power that each of these offspring possesses, we must inquire. The "white-spotted," then, are the most far-shining and conspicuous, since "dia-" is often used to mean "great," from which usage it is customary to call something "diadēlon" and "diasēmon" — that is, "greatly clear" and "greatly notable."
He means, then, that the firstborn offspring of the soul that has received the sacred seed should be "white-spotted," resembling a light that is not dim but a most far-shining radiance, such as might come, unshadowed, from the sun's rays in a clear sky at midday. He also means that they should be "speckled" — not in the manner of the many-shaped, ever-shifting, unclean leprosy, which through instability of judgment produces an unsteady, drifting life, but stamped with letters and diverse seals, all of them genuine, whose distinctive qualities, mingled and blended together, will produce a musical harmony.
For some have supposed the art of embroidery to be so neglected and obscure a thing that they assigned it to weavers. But I am amazed not only at the art itself but at its very name, especially when I look upon the divisions of the earth, the spheres in the heavens, the differences among animals and plants, and this whole altogether variegated fabric — the universe.
For I am compelled at once to conceive of the craftsman of this entire weaving as the discoverer of the art of embroidery, and I revere the discoverer, and I honor the art he discovered, and I am struck with astonishment at the work itself — though I have not been able to see even the smallest fraction of it, and from the part that has appeared to me, if indeed it has appeared, I precisely conjecture the whole by the hope of proportion.
I marvel too at the lover of wisdom, because he has practiced this same art, judging it worthy to gather many differing things from differing sources and weave them into one. For taking from elementary grammar the first two things, writing and reading; from more advanced study, familiarity with the poets and the recollection of ancient history; from arithmetic and geometry, the freedom from deception in matters requiring proportion and calculation; from music, rhythms and measures — the enharmonic, the chromatic, and the diatonic, and again conjunct and disjunct melodies; from rhetoric, invention, style, arrangement, disposition, memory, delivery; and from philosophy, whatever these other arts have left out, along with everything else out of which the whole of human life is composed — he has fitted together one most flourishing work, mixing ease of learning with breadth of learning.
And the craftsman of this web the sacred word called Bezalel (Exod. 31:2ff.), whose name, interpreted, means "in the shadow of God." For this man fashions copies, while Moses is the architect of the patterns themselves; and for this reason the one sketched things as though they were shadows, while the other fashioned not shadows but the archetypal natures themselves.
If, then, even the holy things have been constructed by the art of embroidery, and the wise embroiderer alone is spoken of in the oracles revealed by the hierophants, and the beautiful embroidery of God — this universe — has been brought to perfection by all-wise knowledge, how is it not fitting to welcome embroidery as an instrument of knowledge?
Every house of wisdom, both in heaven and on earth, will carry as its most sacred image a copy of this art, from which the one in training works out forms of varied discourses; for right after the white-spotted he saw the speckled, marked with the stamp of education. Third are the ashen-sprinkled.
Yet who in his right mind would not say that these too, by kind, are speckled? But his concern is not so much with distinctions among cattle as with the road that leads to nobility of character.
For he means that the one setting out on this road should be sprinkled with ash and water, because reason holds that earth and water, mixed and shaped by the molder of man, were separated out to form our body — not a body wrought by hand, but the work of an invisible nature.
The beginning of wisdom, then, is not to forget oneself, but always to keep before one's eyes the elements out of which one was compounded; for in this way one might wash away arrogance, the most God-hated of evils. For who, bearing in mind that ash and water are the origins of his own coming-to-be, would be puffed up by conceit and carried aloft?
For this reason he also judged it right that those about to perform sacred rites be sprinkled with the things just mentioned, considering no one worthy to offer sacrifice who had not first come to know himself and grasped the nothingness of humanity, inferring from the elements out of which he was compounded that he is worth nothing.
These three signs — the white-spotted, the speckled, and the ashen-sprinkled — appear imperfect in the one still in training, who is not yet perfect; but in the perfect man they themselves appear perfect as well.
Let us observe in what manner. The sacred word judged it right that the great high priest, whenever he was about to perform the services enjoined by the law, first be sprinkled with water and ash (Exod. 29:4), as a reminder to himself — for the wise Abraham too, when he was about to entreat God, called himself earth and ashes (Gen. 18:27) — and then that he put on the ankle-length tunic and, over it, what is called the speckled breastplate (Exod. 29:5), a likeness and copy of the light-bearing stars in heaven.
For there are, it seems, two temples of God: one is this universe, in which the high priest is his firstborn, the divine Logos; the other is the rational soul, whose priest is the man who is true in reality, whose sense-perceptible likeness is the man who performs the ancestral prayers and sacrifices, to whom it is entrusted to put on the tunic just described, since it is a counter-copy of the whole of heaven — so that the universe may join man in sacred service, and man join the universe.
Two types, then, he has already shown to be in his possession — the sprinkled and the speckled form; the third and most perfect, called "white-spotted," we shall now indicate. Whenever this same high priest enters into the innermost part of the sanctuary, he strips off the speckled vestment and puts on instead a different linen garment, made of the purest fine linen (Lev. 16:4).
This is a symbol of vigor, incorruptibility, and a most radiant light. For the fabric is unbreakable, comes from nothing that dies, and, unless carelessly cleansed, has a color that is most bright and most light-like.
Through these things he hints at this: that of those who serve the One who Is without guile and in purity, there is none who has not, first, made use of firmness of resolve, having scorned human affairs, which entice, cause corruption, and produce weakness; then aspired to incorruptibility, having laughed at all the things mortals fashion in their vain conceit; and finally been illumined by the unshadowed, all-encompassing light of truth, admitting nothing whatsoever of false opinion, which by its nature belongs to darkness.
Let the great high priest, then, stamped with the three seals we have mentioned — the white-spotted, the speckled, the ashen-sprinkled — be recorded by us as such a man. But the man devoted to the constitution of human society, named Joseph, may be seen laying claim not to the extreme characters, but only to the middle, speckled one.
For it is said that he had a coat of many colors (Gen. 37:3), since he had neither been sprinkled with the sacred purifications by which he might have known himself to be a compound of ash and water, nor was he able to touch the all-white, most light-like garment, virtue; but he clothed himself instead in the altogether variegated fabric of public life, in which the smallest part is mixed with truth, while many great portions consist of plausible, persuasive, likely falsehoods — the very source from which all the sophists of Egypt have sprung: augurs, ventriloquists, portent-readers, men skilled at deceiving, chanting spells, and working sorcery, whose treacherous arts it is a great task to escape.
For this reason Moses fittingly introduces this coat as stained with blood (Gen. 37:31), since the whole life of the man engaged in public affairs is stained — waging war and being warred upon, struck and pierced by the unforeseen mischances that assail him.
Examine, then, the man wholly devoted to the people, upon whom the affairs of the city depend, and do not be overawed by those who admire him, and you will find many diseases lurking within him and many fates hanging over him, each violently gripping his soul by the neck, secretly wrestling with it, seeking to overturn and cast it down — whether because the multitude resents his leadership, or because of a counterattack by some more powerful man.
Envy too is a heavy enemy, hard to shake off, always fastening itself upon what is called good fortune, and it is not easy to escape.
Why then, fastening the embroidered life of public affairs upon ourselves as though it were a costly garment, do we strut about, deceived by the outward comeliness of its visible appearance, failing to perceive its hidden and concealed disgrace — treacherous and precarious as it is?
Let us, then, strip off this flowery coat and put on instead the sacred tunic, woven through with the embroideries of the virtues; for so we shall also escape the ambushes that lack of skill, lack of knowledge, and lack of education set against us — of which Laban is a devotee.
For since the sacred word has cleansed us with the lustral waters prepared for consecration, and has adorned us with the secret teachings of true philosophy, leading us to the test and making us distinguished, conspicuous, and radiant, it now calls to account that treacherous character, provoked to outrage by what has been said.
For it says, 'I have seen all that Laban does to you' (Gen 31:12) — the very opposite, surely, of what I myself have granted: the thing hard to cleanse, the thing disqualified, the thing dark through and through. But one who relies confidently on the hope of divine alliance ought not to cower, since it is also said to him, 'I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God' (Gen 31:13).
It is a very fine boast for a soul, to claim that God appears to it and converses with it. But do not pass over what has been said; examine it carefully — whether there really are two gods. For it says, 'I am the God who appeared to you,' not 'in my place,' but 'in the place of God,' as though of another. What, then, must we say?
The God who exists in truth is one, but those called god by extension of usage are many. This is why the sacred word here signals the true God by using the article, saying 'I am the God,' while it names the one so called by extension without the article, saying 'the one who appeared to you in the place,' not 'of the God,' but simply 'of god.'
Here he calls his eldest Logos 'god' — not out of superstition about the placement of names, but with a single aim in view: to deal with the matter itself. Indeed, elsewhere too, when he examined whether there is any name belonging to the One who Is, he clearly recognized that no proper name exists for him (Exod 6:3); whatever anyone says is said only by extension of usage — for he is not naturally an object of speech, but only of being.
This is confirmed also by the oracle proclaimed to the one who inquired whether he had a name: 'I am the One who Is' (Exod 3:14) — so that, since none of the things it is possible for a human being to grasp apply to God, he might at least come to know his existence.
To the incorporeal souls who serve him, then, it is fitting that he should appear as he truly is, conversing as a friend with friends; but to souls still in the body he appears likened to angels — not changing his own nature, for he is unchangeable, but implanting in those who form the impression a semblance of another shape, so that they suppose the image to be, not a copy, but that archetypal form itself.
There is an old story told, that the divine, taking the likeness of different men at different times, goes about among the cities in a circuit, examining acts of injustice and lawlessness; and perhaps it is not told truthfully, but it is certainly told usefully and beneficially.
But the sacred word, always employing more solemn and holier conceptions concerning the One who Is, while at the same time eager to educate the life of the foolish, likened him to a human being — yet not to any particular individual —
and for this reason attributed to him a face, hands, feet, a mouth and voice, angers and passions, and further weapons of defense, comings in and goings out, and movements upward, downward, and in every direction — referring the main point of these accounts not to the truth, but to the benefit of those who are learning.
For there are some whose natures are so utterly dull that they are incapable of conceiving God at all without a body; there is no way to admonish such people except by telling them, in this manner, that God comes and withdraws like a man, descends and ascends, uses a voice, is displeased at wrongdoing, is implacable in his anger, and has ready in advance, against the unjust, arrows and swords and all the other instruments suited for punishment.
It is enough if they can be brought to their senses by the fear hung over them through such images. And these are, one might say, the only two paths of the whole legislation: one inclines toward the truth, by which it is established that 'God is not like a man' (Num 23:19); the other looks to the opinions of the more sluggish-minded, concerning whom it is said, 'The Lord your God will discipline you, as a man disciplines his son' (Deut 8:5).
Why then should we still be astonished if he is likened to angels, seeing that he is likened even to men, for the sake of helping those in need? So when he says, 'I am the God who appeared to you in the place of God' (Gen 31:13), understand that he occupied, so far as appearance goes, the place of an angel — without changing — for the benefit of one not yet able to see the true God.
For just as those unable to look upon the sun itself see instead the sun's reflected radiance and take it for the sun, and see the halo around the moon and take it for the moon itself, so too they perceive the image of God — his angel, the Logos — as though it were God himself.
Do you not see Hagar, general education, who says to the angel, 'You are the God who watches over me' (Gen 16:13)? For she, being of Egyptian stock, was not capable of seeing the most ancient Cause. But now the mind, as it begins to improve, comes to form an impression of the ruling power over all such powers.
This is why he himself says, 'I am the God whose image you formerly beheld as if it were myself, and to whom, engraving a most sacred inscription, you set up a pillar' (Gen 31:13); and the inscription signified that I alone stand fast (Exod 17:6), and that I have founded the nature of all things, bringing disorder and disarray into cosmos and order, and have set my weight beneath the universe, so that it might be firmly
established, upon my mighty and subsisting Logos. For a pillar is a symbol of three things: standing, dedication, and inscription. Standing and inscription, then, have been explained; but dedication needs to be pointed out—
The whole heaven and the cosmos is a votive offering of God, who made this offering; and likewise, all souls that are citizens of the cosmos and beloved of God consecrate themselves, drawn aside by nothing mortal, and never tire of hallowing and offering up their own incorruptible life as a sacred gift.
But foolish is the one who sets up a pillar not to God but to himself, fixing in place the things of becoming, which are shaken through and through in every part, and deeming them worthy of inscriptions and praises — things which, being full of blame and reproach, it would have been better either never to have written at all, or, once written, to have erased at once.
This is why the sacred word says outright, 'You shall not set up a pillar for yourself' (Deut 16:22); for nothing that pertains to truth is self-standing, even if certain men, lying, should burst themselves declaring otherwise.
But such people not only imagine themselves to be firmly fixed, but also think themselves worthy of honors and inscriptions, having forgotten the one who alone is worthy of honor and truly stands fast. For as they were already destroying themselves and turning aside from the road that leads to virtue, sense-perception, their innate wife, turned them still further astray and forced them to run aground.
And so the whole soul, wrecked like a ship run aground, was set up in the manner of a pillar. For the oracles say that Lot's wife, having turned back to look behind her, became a pillar of salt (Gen 19:26) — and fittingly, appropriately so—
For if someone does not look ahead, at what is worth seeing and hearing — and these are the virtues and the deeds done according to virtue — but instead keeps looking back at what lies behind, at the backward and hindward things, pursuing deaf reputation and blind wealth and senseless bodily bloom and mindless beauty of form and all that is akin to these, that person will be dedicated as a lifeless pillar, collapsed in upon itself; for such pursuits have no stability.
Most excellently, then, the one in training, having learned through continuous practice that what comes into being is of itself subject to movement, while what is uncreated is unchangeable and unmoved, sets up a pillar to God, and having set it up, anoints it; for it is said, 'You have anointed a pillar to me' (Gen 31:13).
But do not suppose that a stone is anointed with oil; rather, understand that the doctrine that God alone stands fast is exercised and trained within the soul, by an art of anointing — not the kind by which bodies are made fat, but the kind by which the mind acquires strength and unconquerable vigor.
For anyone base and fond of exercise who has set out in pursuit of noble pursuits — so that, having naturally practiced the sister art to medicine, the art of anointing, and having anointed and welded together all his arguments concerning virtue and piety, he will dedicate to God the most beautiful and firmest votive offering.
That is why, after the dedication of the pillar, he says, “You have vowed a vow to me” (ibid.). A vow, properly speaking, is a dedication, when a person is said to give to God as a gift not only his own possessions but himself, the possessor, handing himself over as well.
“Holy,” he says, “is the one who lets grow the hair of his head” (Num. 6:5) once he has made his vow. And if he is holy, he is altogether a votive offering, no longer touching anything unconsecrated and profane.
My argument is guaranteed by the prophetess and mother of a prophet, Hannah, whose name, translated, means “grace.” For she says she gives her son Samuel as a gift to the Holy One (1 Kingdoms 1:28) — not so much a human being as a disposition, inspired and possessed by a God-borne frenzy. Samuel, interpreted, means “appointed to God.”
Why then, soul, do you still indulge in vanity and labor in vain, instead of resorting to the ascetic, to learn the weapons and the wrestling holds against passion and empty opinion? For perhaps, once you have learned, you will lead a herd — not an undistinguished, irrational, and unruly one, but a tried and reasoning and richly varied herd.
If you become its leader, you will lament the pitiable human race, but you will never cease turning in supplication to the divine, nor will you fail to bless God's happiness; you will also engrave hymns fit for holy use on pillars, so that you may not only speak fluently but also sing musically of the virtues of the One who Is. For in this way you will also be able to return to your father's house, having escaped the long and endless storm in a foreign land.
In recording the third kind of God-sent dreams, we might fittingly summon Moses to our aid, so that, as he learned without having been taught, he may instruct us as well in our ignorance concerning the signs, illuminating each one. The third kind arises whenever, in sleep, the soul, moved of itself and shaking itself into frenzy, is caught up like a Corybant, and, possessed and inspired with a power of foreknowledge, foretells things to come.
For the first kind occurred when God originated the motion and, invisibly, sounded within us things unclear to us but known to himself; the second, when our own mind was moved along with the soul of the universe and filled with a God-borne madness, by which it is permitted to foretell many things that are to come to pass.
That is why the hierophant disclosed the visions belonging to the first kind of signification very plainly and clearly, since God, through the dreams, was suggesting things resembling clear oracles; but those of the second kind he disclosed neither with full clarity nor in deep obscurity. An example of these is the vision that appeared of the ladder reaching to heaven. For it was enigmatic, yet the enigma was not so thoroughly hidden from those with the power to see keenly.
But the visions belonging to the third kind, being more obscure than the former because their enigma is deep and thoroughgoing, also required the science of dream interpretation. At any rate, all the dreams of this kind recorded by the lawgiver are interpreted by men skilled in the art just mentioned. Whose dreams, then, are these?
Surely it is clear to everyone: they are the dreams of Joseph, those of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and those which the chief baker and the chief cupbearer themselves saw.
It would be fitting always to begin instruction from the first examples. The first are those which Joseph saw, receiving two visions from the two parts of the cosmos, heaven and earth: from earth, the dream about the harvest — which runs thus: “I thought we were binding sheaves in the middle of the field, and my sheaf rose up” (Gen. 37:7) — and, concerning the zodiac circle, the dream: “as though the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me” (ibid. 9).
The response to the first, made with vehement indignation, ran thus: “Will you indeed reign over us? Or will you indeed have dominion over us?” (ibid. 8). And to the second, again a righteous anger: “Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down to you upon the earth?” (ibid. 10).
Let these things, then, be laid down like foundations, and let us build up the rest, following the instructions of that wise master-builder, Allegory, examining each of the two dreams with precision. But there is something that must be heard before both: some have extended the nature of the good over many things, while others have allotted it to the best part alone; and some have mixed it together, while others have left it unmixed.
Those, then, who declared that only the noble is good, keeping it unmixed, assigned it to the most sovereign part within us, reasoning; while those who mixed it fitted it to three things — soul, body, and external goods. The latter belong to the softer, more luxurious way of life, having been raised for the most part from the very cradle in the women's quarters and in the effeminate habits of the women's quarters; the former, by contrast, live a hardy life, having been raised as boys among men, and being themselves manly in their thinking, embracing what is advantageous ahead of what is pleasant, and using athletic regimens aimed at strength and vigor, not at pleasure.
Moses, then, introduces the leaders of two companies: of the noble one, Isaac, self-taught and self-instructed — for he records him as being weaned (Gen. 21:8), a man who did not think it right to make any use at all of soft and milky, infantile and childish forms of nourishment, but rather of vigorous and mature ones, since from infancy he was well suited by nature for strength, ever flourishing and growing young again — and, of the yielding and easily-swayed company, Joseph.
For he does not disregard the virtues of the soul, but he also takes forethought for the stability of the body, and he reaches also for an abundance of external things. Naturally he is pulled in different directions, having set before himself many ends of life, and, dragged this way and that by each of them, he is shaken and thrown into confusion, unable to find a footing.
For indeed his ends do not, like cities bound by treaty, keep the peace... but rather attack one another in turn, so that now one prevails and now is defeated. For often a great impulse, streaming toward wealth and reputation, overpowers the concerns for body and soul; then, forced back again by the resistance of both, it is in turn overcome by the other. And in the same way...
...the pleasures of the body, breaking out all together, flood over and obliterate everything intelligible in their path; then, before long, wisdom, blowing back against them with a violent and forceful breath, slackens the current of the pleasures and calms altogether all the eager pursuits and ambitions that come through the senses.
Such, then, is the cycle of endless war that revolves about the versatile soul. For when one enemy is struck down, another, stronger still, is sure to spring up in its place, after the manner of the many-headed Hydra; for they say that in her case, in place of the head that was cut off, another sprouted up, hinting at the many-shaped and prolific race of undying vice, so hard to capture.
So then, never singling out one thing in answer regarding Joseph, know instead that he is an image of a manifold and blended sort of opinion. For there is displayed in him also the rational form of self-mastery, belonging to the male line, stamped after the pattern of his father Jacob.
There is displayed also the irrational element of sense perception, imaged forth in the maternal line through Rachel; there is displayed also the seed of bodily pleasure, stamped in him by his association with chief cupbearers and chief bakers and chief cooks; there is displayed also the seed of empty opinion, upon which, as upon a chariot, he mounts because of its lightness (Gen. 41:43), puffing himself up and holding himself aloft, to the ruin of equality.
The character of Joseph, then, is sketched out by what has been said. As for each of the dreams, we must examine it with precision, and we must first inquire into the one about the sheaves. “I thought,” he says, “that we were binding sheaves” (Gen. 37:7). The word “I thought” is at once the utterance of someone who is unsure and hesitant and grasps things dimly, not of one who sees firmly and with clear vision.
For it befits those who are rising up out of a deep sleep and are still dreaming to say “I thought,” not those who are fully awake and looking on with clear sight.
But the ascetic Jacob will not say “I thought,” but rather, “Behold, a ladder was set firmly in place, whose head reached to heaven” (Gen. 28:12), and again: “When the flocks were conceiving, I saw them with my own eyes in my sleep, and behold, the he-goats and the rams were mounting the sheep and the goats, streaked white and spotted and speckled with ash-color” (Gen. 31:10-11).
For those who hold that the good is choiceworthy for its own sake find that the impressions received in sleep are necessarily purer and clearer, just as their waking actions, too, prove the more approved.
I admire it, when I hear the man telling his dream, that he supposed himself binding sheaves, not reaping. That is the work of common laborers and servants, but this is the practice of leaders and men most skilled in husbandry.
For to be able to distinguish what is necessary from refuse, and nourishing from unnourishing, and the genuine from the bastard, and the most useful fruit from a useless root -- not among things the earth sprouts, but things the mind produces -- belongs to the most perfect virtue.
At any rate the sacred word represents those who have vision as reaping, and, most paradoxical of all, not reaping barley or wheat but reaping out the harvest itself. For it is said: "When you reap your harvest, you shall not finish off the remainder of the harvest" (Leviticus 19:9).
For it wishes the man of worth to be not only a judge of things that differ, distinguishing the things from which each thing that comes to be, and the offspring themselves, arise, but also to seem to abolish this very capacity to distinguish, reaping the reaping and cutting off his own claim to it, because he trusts and believes Moses when he says that "judgment belongs to God alone" (Deuteronomy 1:17), with whom lie the comparisons and distinctions of all things -- by whom it is a noble thing to confess oneself defeated, more glorious than a victory sung in song.
It is like reaping the harvest to circumcise a second time, which he devised as something new when he found a circumcision of circumcision (Genesis 17:13), the "purifying of purity" (Numbers 6:2), the cleansing of the soul's own cleansing -- yielding to God the office of making bright, and never supposing themselves able, without divine forethought, to wash and cleanse a life crowded with stains.
Of this same kinship is also the double cave (Genesis 23:9), the double and contested opinions -- the one concerning what has come to be, the other concerning its Maker -- in which the man of worth is nourished, contemplating the things in the cosmos, but also longing to know about the Father who begot it.
From these, I think, the double octave was also discovered in music. For it was fitting that both the work and its Maker be blessed with the most perfect melodies -- two melodies, and not the same ones.
For since the things celebrated in song differed, it was necessary that the melodies and harmonies too be kept distinct, assigning the conjunct scale to the conjoined cosmos fitted together out of differing elements, and the disjunct scale to God, who in his being is disjoined from all coming-to-be.
Again the hierophant declares an opinion that loves virtue, saying: "You shall not finish off the remainder of the harvest" (Leviticus 19:9), remembering the original premise, according to which he confessed that "the end belongs to the Lord" (Numbers 31:28ff.), with whom lies the authority and the ratification of these things.
But indeed the man uninitiated in reaping boasts and says: "I supposed we were binding sheaves I had not reaped" (Genesis 37:7), and did not reckon with himself that this is the service of slaves and of men without understanding, as I said a little earlier.
Sheaves, when we read them allegorically, we say are the things which each person, as his own proper food, grasps at, in the confidence that in it he will live and pass his existence for all time,
so he hopes. Now the varieties of sheaves -- I mean of the things that, as it were, nourish -- are countless, and countless too are those who grasp at and choose the sheaves, so that it is impossible either to name or to conceive them all. But it is not out of place to explain a few of them, by way of example, which the very man who tells the dream himself mentions.
For he says to his brothers: "I supposed we were binding sheaves" (Genesis 37:7). Now the brothers are ten by the same father and one by the same mother; and the name of each of them is a token of some most necessary thing. Reuben stands for natural gift -- for he is called "son who sees": as a son, he is not yet perfect, but as one who sees, sharp of sight, he stands for natural gift. Simeon stands for learning -- for the name means "hearkening."
-- Levi for earnest activities and actions and holy services; Judah for songs and hymns to God; Issachar for wages, which are given in return for good works -- though perhaps the works themselves were the perfect wage; Zebulun for light, since his name means "a flowing away of night" -- for when night flows away and departs, light of necessity rises --
Dan for the distinguishing and cutting apart of things; Gad for piratical attack and counter-attack; Asher for natural wealth -- for his name is interpreted "blessing," since wealth is reckoned a blessed possession; Naphtali for peace -- for by peace all things are opened up and made wide, just as they are shut in by war;
and his name, translated, means "a widening" or "a thing opened up" -- Benjamin for time both young and old: for, when interpreted, he is said to be "son of days," and by days and nights this age, at once young and old, is measured out.
Each one, then, grasps at what belongs to him, and having grasped it binds together all its parts: the man of good natural gift binds together quickness of apprehension, persistence, and memory, in which natural gift consists; the man apt to learn binds together attentive hearing, quietness, and close attention; the man of enterprise binds together boldness and venturesome daring;
the grateful man binds together praises, encomiums, hymns, and felicitations, both in speech and in song; the man who desires wages binds together untiring constancy, most enduring steadfastness, and diligence, together with an unrivaled swiftness;
the man who pursues light instead of darkness binds together wakefulness and keenness of sight; the man who is zealous for the cutting and distinguishing of things binds together sharpened arguments, so as not to be deceived by like things as though they were the same, not to speak for favor, and to be incorruptible;
the man who lies in wait more like a pirate against his adversaries binds together deceit, trickery, sorcery, sophistries, pretense, and hypocrisy -- things blameworthy in themselves, but praised when directed against enemies; the man who practices being rich with nature's wealth binds together self-control and being content with little; the man who loves peace binds together good order, justice, freedom from vanity, and equality.
From these the sheaves of the brothers by the same father are bound together, while those of the brother by the same mother are bound from days and time, causes of nothing yet the cause, as it were, of all things.
But the dreamer and interpreter of dreams himself -- for he was both -- grasps at empty opinion as though it were the greatest, most brilliant, and most useful of possessions. Therefore it is first from dreams, things dear to the night, that he becomes known to the king of the region of the body, not from the clear evidence of things plainly visible, which needs daylight for its display.
Then he is proclaimed governor or guardian of all Egypt, destined to carry off second honors after the king's -- honors which, before judging reason, are set down as more obscure and more ridiculous forms of dishonor upon dishonor.
Then he is invested with "a golden collar" (Genesis 41:41-42) -- a conspicuous halter, a circle and wheel of endless necessity -- not the sequence and order that follows in life and the connected chain of nature's affairs, as with Tamar; for hers was not a collar but a necklace, an ornament (Genesis 38:18) -- and also with a royal ring (Genesis 41:42), a gift, a faithless pledge of faith, contrary to the one given back again to Tamar by the king who sees, Israel, by Judah.
For this one gives the soul a seal (Gen. 38:18), a most beautiful gift, teaching that God gave shape to the substance of all things, which was without shape, gave form to what was formless, gave figure to what had no quality, and, having brought the whole cosmos to completion, sealed it with an image and an idea, namely his own Logos.
But that other one climbs up into the second chariot (Gen. 41:43), puffed up by the swaying of his wits and by empty conceit, and he stores grain (ibid. 48), keeping treasure for the body and procuring food for it from every side; and this is a heavy siege-wall raised up against the soul.
His very name testifies, not least, to his choice and his zeal for this way of life; for "Joseph" is interpreted as "addition." And empty opinion is forever adding the bastard to the legitimate, the alien to the proper, the false to the true, the excessive to the sufficient, luxury to life, and vanity to living.
Consider what I mean to show. We are nourished by food and drink, even if it is the plainest barley cake and spring water. What, then, has empty opinion piled on top of this — countless kinds of pastries and honey-cakes, and the elaborate, endlessly varied blendings of innumerable wines, seasoned more for the enjoyment of pleasure than for the sharing of nourishment?
Again, the relishes necessary for eating are wild greens and vegetables, and many kinds of tree-fruit, and besides these, cheese and whatever else is of the same sort; and if you like, for meat-eating people we may add fish and flesh as well.
Would it not have been sufficient to roast these over coals, cooked on the spot over a fire in the manner of truly heroic men, and so partake of them? But the glutton does not confine himself to this; taking empty opinion as his ally, and stirring up the gluttonous passion within him, he searches out and looks around for celebrated cooks and table-arrangers skilled in their craft.
And these men, stirring up the baits that have been devised over long ages against the wretched belly, preparing the peculiar properties of sauces and arranging them in due order, fawn upon the tongue and tame it; then at once they hook the landing-place of the senses, taste, through which, in place of a free man, a slave — a hunter after dinners — before long comes to light.
Who, indeed, does not know that clothing was devised, in the first place, against the harms that come to the body from cold and heat?
It is a windbreak, as the poets somewhere say, against winter's storm... Who, then, is it that fashions the costly purple robes, the transparent, delicate summer garments, the gossamer-fine wraps, the garments flowered either by dyes or by the weaving of those skilled in dyeing or weaving many-colored patterns, and who outdo even the imitation found in painting? Who? Is it not empty opinion?
But indeed we also needed houses, for the same reasons, and so that we might not be harmed by wild beasts, or by men more savage in nature than wild beasts, running in upon us. Why then do we adorn the floors and the walls with costly stones? Why do we range over Asia and Libya and all Europe and the islands, searching out columns chosen for their excellence, and architraves?
And why do we take such trouble and pride ourselves over Doric and Ionic and Corinthian carvings, and all that those who luxuriate in these fashions have further devised, adorning capitals of columns? And why do we construct men's quarters and women's quarters roofed in gold?
Is it not on account of empty opinion? And yet for sleep a soft floor was enough — since even to this day report holds that the Gymnosophists among the Indians, by ancient custom, sleep on the ground — or if not that, then at least a pallet, a couch made of chosen stones or cheap wood.
But no — ivory feet are made for the bed-frames, and couches inlaid with costly shells and richly patterned tortoiseshell, fashioned with great labor and expense over a long time, and some coverlets are of solid silver and solid gold and set with precious stones, adorned with flowered patterns and sprinkled with gold, as if for display and pageantry rather than for daily use — and the craftsman of all these is empty opinion.
What further need is there to seek for ointments beyond the fruit pressed from the olive? For it both softens the skin and relieves the body's weariness and produces good flesh, and if anything has become slack it draws it tight with its firmness, and instils vigor and strength no less than any other substance.
But against these helpful things the pleasant unguents of empty opinion have been raised as a siege-wall — unguents for which perfumers labor and great regions contribute, Syria, Babylon,
India, Scythia, among whom the sources of spices are found. And as for drinking, what was needed more than the cup that nature herself has fashioned with the utmost artistry? That cup is our own hands, which a man, bringing them together and cupping them, and applying them well to his mouth while another pours in the drink, uses not only as a remedy for thirst but acquires an unspeakable pleasure besides.
But if some other vessel was absolutely necessary, would not the farmer's wooden bowl have sufficed, rather than the need to search out the crafts of other, more illustrious makers? Why is an unstinting abundance of silver and gold cups fashioned, if not because of vanity snorting its great pride, and empty opinion carried aloft on its swaying perch?
Whenever certain people think it fit to be crowned not with laurel or ivy, not with violets or lilies or roses, or in general with any fragrant wreath of some flower — passing over the gifts of God, which he sends up through the seasons of the year — but instead hoist above their heads a crown of gold, a most burdensome weight, in the middle of the crowded marketplace, without a trace of shame, what else must we suppose them to be but slaves of empty opinion, though they claim to be not only free men but leaders of many others besides?
The day would fail me were I to go on recounting the corruptions of human life. And yet why should I speak at length? For who has not heard of these things, who has not seen them for himself? Who indeed is not worn smooth and familiar with them? So it was altogether fitting that the sacred word named "addition" the enemy of freedom from vanity and the companion of vanity.
For just as superfluous shoots grow up on trees, great blemishes upon the genuine growth, which farmers, out of care for what is necessary, prune away and cut off, so upon the true and vanity-free life there has grown up alongside it the false and vainglorious life, for which, to this very day, no farmer has yet been found who has cut off the harmful growth at its very roots.
Therefore those who practice wisdom, knowing that this plastered-over thing is first pursued by sense-perception and then chased after by the understanding, cry out plainly: "An evil beast has seized and devoured Joseph" (Gen. 37:33).
But is it not a savage beast — this most tangled life of confused men, shaped by vanity, whose skilled craftsmen are greed and unscrupulousness, feasting upon all who come near it? Therefore, though they are still alive, mourning shall be set before them as though they were dead, since they reap a life worthy of lamentation and dirges; for Jacob too mourns Joseph while he is still alive.
But Moses will not allow the sacred discourse concerning Nadab's companions to be mourned (Lev. 10:6); for they were not seized by an evil beast, but were taken up by a rush of unquenchable and immortal light, because they cut off from their path the hesitation of delay and consecrated in purity that ardent and fiery zeal for piety, ever eager to consume the flesh and swift to move — a zeal that is alien to created being but proper to God — coming to the altar not by steps, for this the law forbids, but wafted by a favorable wind and escorted all the way to the circuits of heaven, as a whole burnt offering and a whole fruit-offering
resolved into rays of upper air. Therefore, O soul that obeys the teacher, you must cut off your own hand and power whenever it begins to lay hold of the pursuits that belong to becoming, to generation, or to merely human concerns.
For often... a hand that has laid hold of the twin parts is to be cut off (Deut. 25:11-12), first because it welcomed the pleasure that it ought to have hated, second because it supposed the act of sowing to belong to us, and third because it ascribed to the thing made the power that belongs to the maker.
Don't you see that when the earthy mass, Adam, touches the twin tree, he dies—having honored the pair above the one, and marveled at the thing made above the one who made it? But you, step outside the smoke and the wave, and flee the ridiculous pursuits of mortal life as you would that fearsome Charybdis, and do not so much as touch it, as the saying goes, with the tip of a finger.
But when you strip for the sacred rites of service, open your whole hand and your whole power, and take a firm grasp of the doctrines of education and wisdom. For there is indeed a commandment of this kind: "If a soul brings forward a gift or a sacrifice, the gift shall be fine flour," and then it adds: "and taking a full handful of the flour with the oil and all the frankincense, he shall place the memorial portion on the altar" (Lev 2:1-2).
Was it not altogether beautifully said, that it is the incorporeal soul that is about to perform this sacred service—not the twin mass composed of the mortal and the immortal? For the thing that prays, the thing that gives thanks, the thing that truly brings up unblemished sacrifices, was after all one thing alone: the soul.
What, then, is the sacrifice of the incorporeal soul? What else but fine flour, a symbol of a judgment purified by the instructions of education, sufficient to produce food free of disease and a life free of blame?
From this flour the priest, grasping with the whole hand—which is to say, with every grip of the understanding—is commanded to bring up the whole soul, having become full of the most sincere and purest doctrines, as the finest sacrificial victim, fat and rich, rejoicing in the divine light and breathed upon by the breezes that rise from justice and the other virtues, so as to enjoy forever the sweetest and gentlest of lives. For the oil and the frankincense, of which the priest takes hold together with the white wheat, hint at these very things.
For this reason Moses also established a special feast for the sheaf—not for every sheaf, but for the one from the sacred land. For he says: "When you enter the land that I am giving you, and you reap its harvest, you shall bring sheaves, the firstfruits of your harvest, to the priest" (Lev 23:10). And this means:
When you enter, O understanding, into the land of virtue—which it is fitting to give to God alone—the well-pastured, the fertile, the fruit-bearing land, and then, having sown good things, reap them grown by the one who brings all to completion, do not first carry the harvest home for yourself—that is, do not dedicate to yourself and write your own name as the cause of what has come to be—until you have offered the firstfruits to the Lord of Wealth, who persuades us also to practice deeds that make for wealth.
It says "the firstfruits of your harvest"—of your own harvest, not of the land's—that we might reap and harvest for ourselves, consecrating all the fine, nourishing, and worthy growths.
But the initiate of dreams, who is at once also their initiator, dares to say that his sheaf rose up and stood erect (Gen 37:7). For truly, just as spirited horses raise their necks aloft, so all who belong to the company of empty opinion set themselves up above everyone—above cities, laws, ancestral customs, the affairs of each community.
Then, advancing from popular leadership to civic office, casting down what belongs to their neighbors while raising up and firmly establishing what belongs to themselves, they contrive to bring under their yoke even those free and unenslaved minds that nature has made so.
For this reason it adds: "and your sheaves turned round and bowed down to my sheaf" (Gen 37:7). For the lover of modesty is struck with awe at the stiff-necked man, the cautious man at the self-willed one, and the man who honors equality at the one who is unequal both to himself and to others—and perhaps not without reason.
For the person of refinement, being an observer not only of human life but of all things in the cosmos, knows how much wind necessity, chance, occasion, force, and dominion are accustomed to blow, and how many undertakings and how great pieces of good fortune, running breathlessly all the way up to heaven, they have shaken down and dashed to ruin.
So he will necessarily take up caution as a shield, a kindred safeguard against suffering anything terrible from a sudden attack. For what a wall is to a city, caution is to each individual, I think.
Are they not, then, out of their minds and mad, all who are eager to display untimely frankness of speech, sometimes daring to speak and act against kings and tyrants, not perceiving that they have been yoked—not only by the neck, as cattle are, but with their whole bodies and souls, and with wives and children and parents and the whole populous circle of kinship and companionship bound over as well—and that it is possible for the charioteer and rider, with perfect ease, to goad, to drive, to rein in, to check, to arrange matters small and great just as he wishes?
And so, branded and scourged and mutilated, enduring all at once, savagely and pitilessly, every hardship that precedes death, they are led away,
and in the end they die. These are the wages of untimely frankness of speech—not frankness at all, in the judgment of sound-minded jurors, but folly and derangement and incurable melancholy through and through. What are you saying? A man sees a storm at its height, a heavy wind blowing against him, a squall bursting forth, and a sea heaving with waves—when he ought to be putting into harbor, does he instead put out to sea and set sail?
What pilot or ship-owner was ever so drunk and so far gone in madness as to wish to sail through all the dangers I have named, so that the sea, poured in from above and swamping the vessel, might swallow it up together with its passengers? For the man who wishes to sail without danger, it was possible to wait for a calm, favorable, and gentle wind. What else?
A man sees a bear or a wild boar or a lion advancing upon him with a rush—when he ought to calm and tame it, does he instead provoke it to greater fury and stir it up, so as to make himself ready as a feast and banquet for merciless, raw-devouring beasts?
Unless one is also to resist spiders and Egyptian asps and all the other creatures whose destructive venom it profits no one to oppose, since they bring inescapable death upon those once bitten—for it is enough, by charming and taming them, to suffer nothing terrible from them.
Are there not, then, some human beings more savage and more treacherous than boars, spiders, and asps? Whose treachery and hostility it is impossible to escape except by employing tameness and conciliation. That is why the wise Abraham did obeisance to the sons of Heth—who are interpreted as "those who stand outside themselves" (Gen 23:7)—since the circumstances of the time persuaded him to act so.
For it was not out of honor for those who are, by nature, birth, and custom, the enemies of reason—who take the soul's coinage, education, and drive it out of its senses and pitifully squander it in small change—that he came to do obeisance, but because he feared their present power and their hard-to-conquer strength, and was on guard against provoking them, so that he might secure by service and by word, rather than by fighting and warring against them, a great and firm possession and prize of virtue, the finest dwelling-place of wise souls—the double cave—which he could not obtain by combat, but could win by yielding and attending to them with reasoned speech. What else?
Do we not ourselves, when we spend time in the marketplace, habitually step aside both for magistrates and for beasts of burden? But from opposite motives, and not the same one: for magistrates, out of honor; for beasts of burden, out of fear that some harm might come to us from them.
And when circumstances allow it, it is good to attack and put an end to the violence of enemies; but when they do not permit this, it is safe to remain quiet; and when we wish to derive some benefit from them, it is fitting to tame them.
For this reason it is worth praising, even now, those who do not yield to the champion of empty opinion, but resist him and say: "Will you indeed be king and reign over us?" (Gen 37:8). For they see that he has not yet grown strong—not yet like a flame kindled and blazing, fed by abundant fuel, but still like a spark smoldering, dreaming of glory, not yet openly pursuing it.
For they lay down good hopes for themselves, as though they might yet avoid being captured. They say beforehand: "Will you reign over us?" As if to say: do you imagine you will hold power while we are alive, existing, strong, and breathing? For should we grow weak, perhaps you will prevail; but while we remain vigorous, you will be ranked among the subjects.
And this is the way things naturally are: whenever right reason is strong in the mind, empty opinion is broken down, but it grows strong once reason has weakened. So then, as long as the soul still has its own power intact and no part of it has been mutilated, let it take courage to shoot and hurl its darts at the vanity opposing it, and let it speak freely, saying: "You shall not reign, nor shall you be lord" (Gen. 37:8), neither over us nor over any others besides us.
"But your threats and menaces we shall rout in a single charge, together with our bodyguards and shield-bearers, the offspring of prudence" — those of whom it is said that "they added still more to their hatred of him because of his dreams and because of his words" (Gen. 37:8).
But are not words and dreams merely the images that vanity fashions, while facts and clear, self-evident realities are all that bears upon a right life and right reason? The former, being falsehoods, deserve hatred; the latter, being full of lovable truth, deserve friendship.
Let no one, then, still dare to accuse men of such virtue as displaying the character of haters of humanity and haters of their own kin. Rather, let him learn that it is not a human being who is now under judgment, but the mad lover of opinion and vanity found among the dispositions in each person's soul, and let him approve of those who take up implacable enmity and irreconcilable hatred against it, and never let him embrace what they have detested, knowing with precision
that such judges of the mind would never have erred from soundness, but, having learned and been trained from the beginning to worship and honor the true King, the Lord, they grow indignant if anyone robs God of his honor and summons God's suppliants over to service of himself instead.
For this reason they will say boldly: "Will you indeed reign as king over us?" (Gen. 37:8). Or do you not know that we are not self-governing, but are ruled by the immortal King, the one and only God? And again: "Will you indeed be lord over us?" (Gen. 37:8). For are we not owned, and have we not had, and shall we not always have for all time, the very same Lord? Serving him, we rejoice as no one else rejoices in freedom; for to be a slave to God is the best of all things that are honored within creation.
I too, then, would pray to be able to remain firmly steadfast in the things known by these men. For watchmen and scouts and overseers of deeds, not of bodies, they are, exact and just, sober through the whole of time, so as never to be deceived by any of the usual lures.
But I myself am still drunk even now, and make use of much obscurity, and need staffs and guides like the blind; for one who leans on a support might perhaps manage neither to stumble nor to slip.
But if some people, knowing themselves to be unexamined and unreflective, are not eager to follow with all exactness and care those who have examined all that must be examined, being ignorant of the road even though others know it, let them understand that, entangled in impassable pits, they will not be able to go forward even if they hasten.
As for those men, whenever I am relieved a little of my drunkenness, I am so much in league with them that I count the very same person both enemy and friend. And even now, no less, I will put forward the dreamer as an object of hatred, since they too did so, and I will detest him; and no one of sound mind would blame me for this, since I always yield to the opinions and votes of the majority.
But when he changes to a better life, and no longer dreams, nor suffers, dragged down by the empty fantasies of those who are empty of true glory, into the mire, nor pictures night and darkness and chance encounters with obscure and inscrutable events,
but rising up out of deep sleep continues wakeful, and welcomes clarity in place of obscurity, and truth in place of false supposition, and day in place of night, and light in place of darkness, and turns away from the wife of the Egyptian — bodily pleasure — who urges him to come in to her and enjoy her company, because of his longing for self-mastery and his unspeakable zeal for piety,
and lays claim again to the portion of goods, kindred and ancestral, from which he had seemed estranged, deeming it right to recover for himself the share of virtue that belongs to him, and, advancing by small increments of improvement, comes at last to be established as at the summit and end of his own life and declares aloud, having learned by precise experience, that he belongs to God (Gen. 50:19), and no longer at all to anything perceptible that belongs to created being,
then his brothers will make reconciling compacts with him, turning their hatred into friendship and their ill will into good will, while I, a follower of these men — for I have learned, as a servant, to obey as masters — will not cease praising him for his change of heart;
since even Moses the hierophant rescues from destruction, as a thing worthy of love and worthy of remembrance, his change of heart, by means of the symbol of the bones which he did not think it right to allow to remain buried forever in Egypt (Exod. 13:19), holding it a most grievous thing that, if anything good had blossomed in the soul, this should be allowed to wither and be drowned and vanish beneath the floods which the Egyptian river of the passions — the body — pours forth continually through all the senses.
The vision, then, that appeared concerning the sheaves has been discussed, and its interpretation, in terms of earth. It is now time to examine the other vision, and how it is distinguished by the art of dream interpretation.
"He saw," it says, "another dream, and related it to his father and his brothers, and said: Behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. And his father rebuked him and said: What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, to bow down to you upon the earth? And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind" (Gen. 37:9–11).
The students of the heavens, then, say that the zodiacal circle, being the greatest of the circles in heaven, has been set with stars in twelve signs, from which it also took its name, and that the sun and moon, ever revolving about it, pass through each of the signs, not at equal speed, but in unequal numbers and times — the sun in thirty days, the moon in about a twelfth part of this, which comes to two and a half days.
It seemed, then, that the one who saw this god-sent vision was being worshiped by eleven stars, ranking himself as the twelfth to complete the circle of the zodiac.
I recall also having heard before from a certain man who approached the subject neither carelessly nor casually, that it is not only human beings who are mad for glory, but the stars too, contending for first place, judge it right that the greater should always be attended by the lesser as their guard of honor.
These matters, then — whether they have any truth or are mere idle talk — must be left for the sky-hunters to examine. But we say this: that the lover of undiscerning eagerness and irrational contentiousness and empty glory, ever puffed up by folly, thinks it right to look down not only upon human beings but upon the very nature of existing things.
And he supposes that all things have come to be for his own sake, and that each thing must bring him tribute as though to a king — earth, water, air, heaven; and he indulges in such an excess of foolishness that he cannot reckon what even a witless child would understand: that no craftsman ever makes the whole for the sake of a part, but makes a part for the sake of the whole; and man is a part of the whole universe, so that, having come into being for the completion of the world, he would rightly himself contribute to it in turn.
But some are so full of such nonsense that they grow indignant if the world does not follow their wishes. For this reason Xerxes, king of the Persians, wishing to strike terror into his enemies, made a display of grandiose deeds, innovating upon nature itself;
for he transformed earth and sea, giving continent in exchange for sea and sea in exchange for continent, yoking the Hellespont with bridges, and breaking open Mount Athos into deep gulfs which, filled with sea, at once became a new, hand-made ocean, nature's ancient order utterly changed;
and having, as it seemed, worked wonders upon the regions of earth, he went up, in his audacious schemes, drawing impiety along with himself even into heaven, wretched man, as though he would move the immovable and overthrow the divine host — and, as the saying goes, he began from the sacred things themselves.
For he shot arrows at the noblest of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the leader of the day — as though he himself were not being wounded by the invisible arrow of madness, not only through his desire for the impossible but also through his desire for the most unholy deeds, either one of which alone would bring great disgrace on anyone who attempted it.
There is a story that the most populous tribe of the Germans — among whom the sea ebbs and flows — at the incoming tides rush forward eagerly, brandishing their swords bared, and run to meet the surging sea as though it were a mass of enemy troops.
It is right to hate them for this — that out of godlessness they dare to take up arms against parts of nature that cannot be enslaved — and right to mock them, because they attempt the impossible as though it were possible, supposing that water, like a living creature, can be stabbed, wounded, killed, and again can feel pain, feel fear, flee in terror before an attacker, and undergo all the other passions of the soul, both pleasures and pains —
— only yesterday, so to speak, I knew a man among the governors who, when he held the administration and oversight of Egypt, resolved to disturb our ancestral customs, and in particular to abolish the most sacred and awe-inspiring law concerning the seventh day, and tried to force people to work on it and to do other things contrary to established custom, thinking this would be the beginning of a wider transgression of all our other customs, if he could succeed in doing away with our ancestral observance of the seventh day.
And when he saw that those he was coercing would not yield to his commands, and that the rest of the populace was far from calm but bore the matter bitterly and harshly, mourning and downcast as though over the enslavement, sacking, and razing of their homeland, he thought fit to argue them into lawbreaking, saying:
‘If an enemy attack should suddenly occur, or a flood should come when the river's flow bursts through the embankments in its rising, or a rush of fire, or a bolt of lightning, or famine, or plague, or earthquake, or any other evil, whether man-made or sent by heaven, will you spend the day quietly at home?’
‘Or will you go out in your customary posture, drawing your right hand in beneath your garment and tucking the other hand under your cloak at your side, so that not even against your will you might do anything toward saving yourselves?’
‘And will you sit in your little synagogues, gathering your usual assembly, safely reading your sacred books, and expounding whatever is not clear, and lingering at leisure over your ancestral philosophy through long discourses?’
‘No — shake off all this, and raise a cry on behalf of your own bodies and those of your parents, children, and other dearest kin, and — if the truth must be told — for your possessions and property too, so that not even these may be destroyed.’
‘Strip off your reverence for the divine.’ And this very man, he said, I myself am all the things I have named — hurricane, war, flood, thunderbolt, famine and plague, the earthquake that shakes and stirs up what stands firmly fixed; I am not the mere name of fated necessity, but a visible power standing near at hand.
What then shall we say of a man who says or thinks such things — merely that he is out of place? Is he not rather some strange new evil from beyond the ocean, or from between the worlds, since a man weighed down by every misfortune has dared to liken himself to the one who is blessed in every way?
This man would go so far as to blaspheme the sun, the moon, and the other stars, whenever something hoped for in its proper season fails to occur at all, or occurs only with difficulty — a scorching heat in summer, or a harsh cold descending in winter, or a spring and autumn, the one barren of good crops, the other all too fruitful in breeding sickness.
So, letting out every rope of an unbridled mouth and a slanderous tongue, he will accuse the stars as though they had failed to pay their accustomed tribute, all but demanding that earthly things be honored and worshipped by the heavenly ones, and himself most of all, inasmuch as, being a man, he is thought to surpass the other living creatures.
Such, then, are the ringleaders enrolled among us in the service of empty opinion; let us now look in turn at the members of their chorus. These are forever plotting against those who practice virtue. Whenever they see such people eager to brighten their lives with undeceiving truth, and to shine as if by the pure light of moon or sun, they hinder them, whether by deceit or by force, driving them into the sunless region of the impious, which deep night holds fast, and endless darkness, and countless throngs of idols, phantoms, and dreams — and having plunged them down there, they force them to worship these as masters.
For we take the one who practices wisdom to be the sun, since as the sun gives light to bodies, this man gives light to the affairs of the soul, and we take the education he employs to be the moon — for it is at night that the use of each is purest and most beneficial — and we take as brothers the refined reasonings born of education and of a soul in training, all of them guiding life along a straight path; but those who have resolved to say and think nothing sound think it right to seize these by the neck with manifold and cunning wrestling-holds, to throw them and break their necks, and to trip them and dash them down.
And this is why the father — not Jacob, but right reason, which is older even than he — gently rebukes such a man, saying, ‘What is this dream you have dreamed?’ (Gen. 37:10).
Did you not see a mere dream? Or did you suppose that things free by nature would, by human compulsion, become slaves, and that the ruling powers would become subject — and, more paradoxical still, subject not to others but to those they rule, enslaved not to other things but to the things enslaved to them? Unless, that is, by the power of God, who alone can do all things, for whom it is lawful both to move what is immovable and to fix in place what is carried along, a reversal of the established order into its opposite should come to be.
For what reason could there be for being angry at, and rebuking, one who has merely seen a vision in sleep? ‘Did I see it willingly?’ he will say. ‘Why do you bring against me the charges due to those who have done wrong deliberately? I have simply recounted what fell upon me from outside and struck my mind suddenly, against my will.’
But in truth the present discussion is not about a dream at all, but about things that resemble dreams — things which seem, to those not fully purified, to be great, splendid, and worth fighting for, but which, in the eyes of the incorruptible judges of truth, are small, dim, and deserving only of mockery.
‘Shall I, then,’ he says — I, right reason — ‘come, and shall the soul of the company of learning also arrive, mother and nurse together, education flourishing in virtue, and shall the offspring of us both also hasten to join us, and, standing opposite in this way, arranged in order, shall we raise our hands in due arrangement and pray, having first put away all vanity?’
‘Then shall we cast ourselves down to the ground, beseeching and attempting to prostrate ourselves?’ But may the sun never shine upon such doings, since deep darkness suits evil, and far-reaching light suits the good. What greater evil could there be than for counterfeit and deceptive vanity to be praised and admired in place of unfeigned and truthful freedom from vanity?
It is beautifully distinguished, the statement that ‘the father kept the matter in mind’ (Gen. 37:11). For it is the work not of a barren and sterile soul, but of one truly mature and capable of bringing forth, to live in continual watchfulness and to despise nothing at all, but to stand in awe before the inescapable and invincible power of God and to look about on every side, wondering what the outcome will finally be for it.
This is also why the oracles say that the sister of Moses — whom we who read allegorically call Hope — watched from a distance (Exod. 2:4), looking, no doubt, toward the end of life, so that a favorable outcome might meet her, sent down from above, from heaven, by the one who brings all things to fulfillment.
For many, often, after crossing unsailable seas and being carried safely and without danger on a long voyage by favorable winds, have suddenly been shipwrecked in the very harbors, just as they were about to make land.
And countless others, after winning heavy wars that lasted many years by main force and coming through unwounded, without even the surface of their skin being grazed, and returning as though from a great public festival and a civic celebration … whole and entire, have come back with cheerful high spirits into their own homes — only to be treacherously attacked there, of all places, where it was least to be expected, and slaughtered, as the saying goes, ‘like oxen at the manger.’
Just as these unexpected and unpredictable misfortunes tend to fall upon us, so too they thrust back the powers of the soul toward their opposites and force them to reverse course, if they can, and try to overturn them. For who, entering the bitter contest of life, has remained unfallen?
Who has not been tripped up? Happy is the one it does not happen to often. On whom has fortune not lain in wait, drawing breath and gathering strength, so that once she has grappled with him she may snatch him away at once, before her opponent even has time to dust himself for the wrestling?
Do we not already know of some who have come from childhood to old age without perceiving any disturbance at all, whether through the good fortune of their nature, or through the diligence of those who reared and educated them, or through both together, and who have been filled with a deep peace within themselves — the peace that is peace in truth, the archetype of the peace found in cities — and who for this reason have been thought fortunate, because they never perceived, even in a dream, the civil war kindled by the passions, the most grievous of all wars — only then, in the very sunset of their life, to run aground and be shipwrecked, either through an unbridled tongue, or an insatiable belly, or an ungoverned lust of the parts below the belly?
For some have set their heart, "on the threshold of old age," on the youthful life of the prodigal — dishonored, disowned, shameful — while others have set it on the life of the villain, the false accuser, the rogue, taking up love of mischief just when it would have been fitting to lay it down, old as it already was.
For this reason we must supplicate God and beseech him earnestly, that our perishable race not be passed over, but that he command his saving mercy toward it to last forever; for it is hard, once we have tasted unmixed peace, to be kept from being sated with it.
But come — is this evil, hunger, a lighter thing than thirst? It has love and longing to comfort it. But when, from another spring, one whose stream is murky and diseased, a man must, through desire to drink, be filled to the full, then of necessity, gorged with a bittersweet pleasure, he must live out an unlivable life, running after harmful things as though they were beneficial, in ignorance of what truly profits him.
The most grievous onset of evils occurs among these, whenever the irrational powers of the soul, having set upon the powers of reason, overcome them.
For as long as either herds of cattle obey their herdsmen, or flocks of sheep their shepherds, or flocks of goats their goatherds, the affairs of the herd go rightly; but whenever those set over them as herd-leaders prove weaker than the beasts themselves, everything goes amiss, and disorder arises out of order, unruliness out of good discipline, turmoil out of stability, and confusion out of discernment, since no lawful authority any longer stands in place — for if it did, the trouble would already have been put down.
What then? Do we not suppose that within ourselves too there is a herd of animals, insofar as the irrational multitude has been cut off from the soul, and that the mind, the ruling part, is the herd-leader? So long as it is strong and capable of leading the herd, everything is accomplished rightly and to advantage.
But whenever some weakness comes upon it, at its very foundation, the subject part too must of necessity suffer along with it; and precisely when it seems most to have been set free, then it becomes most ready as a prize lying open for whoever wishes merely to raise dust against it in the contest. For it is the nature of anarchy to be treacherous, and of rule to be a thing of safety, above all where law and justice are honored — and this is the rule that goes together with reason.
Let this, then, be the precise account of the dreams of empty opinion. As for the forms belonging to gluttony, they are drink and food — though the one requires no great variety, while the other calls for countless seasonings and relishes. These, however, are laid upon two men charged with care for them: the concerns of elaborate drinking upon the chief cupbearer, and those of the more necessary eating upon the chief baker; and, most exactly examined, they are brought forward as men who see their dreams pictured in a single night.
For both press toward the same need, preparing food not simply, but food accompanied by pleasure and delight. And each toils over half of the matter of nourishment, but together the two of them cover the whole.
And moreover each part is drawn along by the other: those who have eaten immediately reach for drink, and those who have drunk immediately for food; so that it is not least for this reason too that the same span of time has been recorded for the appearance of both their visions.
The chief cupbearer, then, was allotted drunkenness with wine, and the chief baker gluttony. And each sees in his vision the things proper to himself: the one, wine and the plant that produces wine, the vine; the other, loaves set out upon baskets, thoroughly cleansed, and himself carrying the baskets on his head (Gen. 40:16–17).
It would be fitting to examine the earlier dream first, and it runs as follows: "In my sleep there was a vine before me; and in the vine were three roots, and it was flourishing, having brought forth shoots; the clusters of grapes were ripe. And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand; and I took the cluster and pressed it out into the cup, and gave the cup into Pharaoh's hands" (Gen. 40:9–11).
How wonderfully, and how truly, he spoke in advance in saying "in my sleep." For in truth, one who pursues drunkenness not so much from wine as from folly, being vexed by uprightness and wakefulness, has, like those who are asleep, been cast down and let go slack and has shut the eyes of his soul, being able neither to see nor to hear anything worth seeing or hearing.
Overcome, he travels through life not by a road but by a blind and unguided pathless waste, impaled on thorns and thistles, and sometimes even rolling down precipices and falling upon others, so that he pitifully destroys both them and himself.
The deep and prolonged sleep, by which every base person is possessed, takes away true perceptions and fills the mind with false images and unstable phantasms, persuading it to accept blameworthy things as praiseworthy. For indeed such a man now dreams of grief as though it were joy, and does not perceive that what belongs to folly and to raving madness ... he sees the plant, the vine.
"There was," he says, "a vine before me" (Gen. 40:9) — the thing desired before the one desiring it, vice before the one given over to vice; a vine which we, unthinking, without realizing it, cultivate against ourselves, whose fruit we both eat and drink, assigning it to each kind of nourishment, and of which, as it seems, we lay claim not to half the harm but to the whole and entire and complete measure of it.
It is fitting not to be ignorant that the intoxicating fruit of the vine affects all who make use of it not alike, but often in opposite ways, so that some are found better than themselves through it, and others worse.
For in some it relaxes the gloom and sullenness, loosens their anxieties, softens their fits of anger and grief, trains their characters toward gentleness, and makes their souls gracious to themselves; but in others, on the contrary, it inflames their tempers, tightens their pains, stirs up their lusts, and rouses their boorishness, producing a mouth unbarred and a tongue unbridled, senses without a door, passions grown rabid and savage, and a mind startled and fluttering at everything.
So that the condition of the former seems to resemble either windless clear air, or a calm, waveless sea, or the most peaceful stability found in cities, while that of the latter resembles either a violent and straining wind, or a stormy and wave-tossed deep, or civil strife — a turmoil more ill-named even than a war fought without truce and without herald.
Of two banquets, then, the one is filled with laughter, play, promises, hopes of good things, acts of favor, good cheer, fair speech, gladness, delight, and freedom from fear;
while the other is filled with gloom, dejection, collisions, insults, wounds, men snarling, glowering, barking, throttling, wrestling each other down with all their might, mutilating ears and noses and whatever part of the body happens to be at hand — men displaying the drunkenness and riotous excess of an entire life, in an unholy contest accompanied by every kind of disgraceful conduct.
It would follow, then, to reckon that the vine too is a symbol of two things, folly and gladness. Each of these, though it could be shown from many examples, we shall demonstrate briefly, through a few, so as not to speak at length.
Next, just as the sun distinguishes day from night, so Moses says that God built a partition between light and darkness: "for God separated the light from the darkness" (Gen. 1:4). And in another sense, just as the sun when it rises reveals the hidden shapes of bodies, so God, having generated all things, not only brought them into visibility but made things that previously did not exist at all -- being not merely a craftsman but a creator.
The sacred word speaks of "sun" in many senses, according to hidden meanings. In one sense it means the human mind, which those who are compelled to serve what is generated rather than the Ungenerated build up and equip like a city -- those of whom it is said that "they built strong cities for Pharaoh: Pithom" -- reason, to which persuasion belongs -- "and Rameses" -- sense-perception, by which the soul is eaten away as though by moths (for "Rameses" is interpreted "the gnawing of a moth") -- "and On" (Exod. 1:11) -- the mind, which he named the City of the Sun, since like the sun it holds the sovereignty over our whole mass and extends its own powers into the whole like rays.
The priest and attendant of the mind is entitled "father-in-law" by everyone who has bound himself to the citizenship of the body -- his name is Joseph. "For he gave him," it says, "Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of the City of the Sun, as wife" (Gen. 41:45).
In a second sense he calls sense-perception symbolically "the sun," since all sensible things are made visible by the intellect. Of this he has spoken thus: "the sun rose upon him, when the form of God had passed by" (Gen. 32:31). For indeed, whenever we can no longer occupy ourselves with the most sacred Ideas and the incorporeal images of Being, but turn elsewhere and pass on, we make use of another light, the light of sense-perception, which differs not at all, plainly, from darkness in comparison with sound reason.
This light, once risen, woke sight and hearing, and taste and smell and touch as well, as though from sleep, but turned prudence and justice and knowledge and wisdom, though wide awake, to sleep.
For this reason the sacred word says that no one can be pure before evening (Lev. 11:24 and elsewhere), since the intellect is still overpowered by the movements that come by way of sense-perception, as by poisons. And he lays down for the priests, in the same breath, both an inescapable law and a maxim, when he says: "He shall not eat of the holy things unless he has washed his body with water, and the sun has gone down, and he has become clean" (Lev. 22:6-7).
For through these words he makes it very clear that no one is wholly pure -- so as to make use of the holy and sacred rites -- for whom it still happens that he honors the sensible splendors of mortal life. But if someone does not accept these, he is, correspondingly, illumined by the light of prudence, by which he will be able to wash and cleanse away the stains of empty opinions.
Or do you not see that the sun itself produces opposite effects both when it rises and when it sets? For when it rises, all things on earth are lit up all around, while the things in heaven are hidden; but when it sets, conversely, the stars shine forth while the things around the earth are darkened.
In the same way within us too: when the light of the senses rises like a sun, the truly Olympian and heavenly sciences happen to be hidden; but when it sets, the most star-like and most divine rays of the virtues appear, at which time the pure mind comes to be, hidden by no sensible thing.
In a third sense he calls the divine Word "sun" -- the model of the sun that circles through heaven, as was said before -- of which it is said: "the sun went forth over the earth, and Lot entered into Zoar, and the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire" (Gen. 19:23-24).
For the Word of God, when it arrives at our earthly constitution, comes to the aid and assistance of those who are akin to virtue and incline toward it, so as to provide them a complete refuge and salvation, but sends upon their adversaries ruin and incurable destruction.
In a fourth sense "sun" refers to the Ruler of the universe himself, as I have already said, through whom the incurable of our sins, though they seem to be hidden in shadow, are uncovered.
For all things are as knowable to God as they are possible for him. Hence he leads, to be exposed before the sun, those whose vigor of soul has been broken down, who consort licentiously and lustfully with the daughters of the mind -- the senses -- as though with streetwalkers and prostitutes.
For it says: "and the people settled in Shittim" -- which is interpreted "thorns," a symbol of the passions that prick and wound the soul -- "and it was profaned," it says, "by fornicating with the daughters of Moab" -- these are the senses, called daughters of the mind, for Moab is interpreted "from the father" -- and he adds: "take all the leaders of the people and make an example of them before the Lord, opposite the sun, and the wrath of the Lord will turn away from Israel" (Num. 25:1, 4).
For not only, wishing hidden wrongdoings to become manifest, did he shine upon them with the sun's rays, but through symbols he also called the Father of the universe "sun," to whom all things are plain, even whatever is accomplished invisibly in the recesses of the mind; and once they have become manifest, he says that the only Merciful One will be merciful. Why?
Because, if the intellect, supposing that it will escape the notice of the divine as it does wrong -- as though God were not able to see all things -- goes astray secretly and in hidden places, and afterward, whether of itself or because someone has guided it, comes to understand that it is impossible for anything to be unknown to God, and lays itself and all its own deeds open, and bringing them out into the open displays them, as though into the light of the sun, to the Overseer of the universe, saying that it repents of the things it formerly judged wrongly through an ungrateful disposition -- for nothing is unknown to him, but all things are known and plain, not only what has been done but even what is hoped for, in great abundance -- then it has been purified and helped, and it has tamed the reproof that stood over it as chastiser, since that reproof employs a just anger, if it accepts repentance as a younger brother
of never sinning at all. He appears, indeed, elsewhere too to take up the sun symbolically for the Cause, as in the law written concerning those who lend on pledges. Let us cite the law: "If you take in pledge your neighbor's garment, you shall return it to him before the sun sets; for this alone is his covering, this is the garment of his shame. In what shall he sleep? So if he cries out to me, I will listen to him; for I am merciful" (Exod. 22:26-27).
Is it not fitting that those who think the lawgiver has such great concern about a cloak -- even if not to reproach them, at least to remind them -- should be asked: what are you saying, noble sirs? Does the Creator and Ruler of the universe call himself merciful over so trifling a matter as a garment not returned by a debtor to a creditor?
This is what it means to suppose such things, and to attribute human pettiness to the ungenerated, incorruptible nature, full of blessedness and happiness, contrary to what is right and just -- all because one has not once beheld the greatness of the virtue of the God who is great in all things.
For what wrong do creditors do in holding the pledges taken by them, until they recover what is their own? The debtors are poor, someone will perhaps say, and deserve pity. Then would it not have been better to write a law by which they would rather raise a collection for them than declare them debtors, or forbid lending on pledges altogether? But he who permits it would not reasonably be indignant, as though they were acting impiously, at those who do not release beforehand the things they have received.
But a man who has come to such an extremity of poverty, so to speak, and wears a single rag, brings in new creditors -- the venom cast at him by onlookers who set aside pity, which lies open before those who suffer such misfortunes, in the home, at the temples, in the marketplace, and everywhere.
But as it is, even the one covering he had for shame, with which he concealed the secret parts of his nature, this he brought and held out. A pledge for what, tell me? For some better garment? For no one lacks necessary food, so long as springs well up, rivers in flood overflow, and the earth yields its yearly fruits.
So then, is the creditor either exceedingly rich or exceedingly cruel, that he should be willing to lend someone four drachmas, or perhaps even less, rather than lend to so poor a man -- or rather give it to him outright -- or that he should take as a pledge the one garment that man had, which by another name could rightly be called stripping a man of his cloak? For it is the custom of cloak-strippers, when they undress people, to take away their clothing and leave those who had it naked.
But why did he take care that no one should sleep unclothed at night, while he was no longer equally concerned that one who is awake by day should be shamefully naked? Or is it not that at night and in darkness all things are hidden, so that one feels shame less or not at all, while by day and in light they are uncovered, so that one is compelled to blush the more?
But why did he command not to "give" the garment but to "return" it? For a return is made of what belongs to another, and pledges belong more to the lenders than to the borrowers. But do you not consider this, that he did not command the debtor, once he had received the garment as bedding, to remove it upon rising the next day and carry it back to the creditor?
But the eunuch who is also Pharaoh's chief cupbearer, having pictured to himself in fantasy the vine, that plant which begets folly, adds to his portrait three roots, so as to signify the furthest extremities of wrongdoing according to the three times —
— for the root is the furthest point. So when folly overshadows the whole soul and takes possession of it, leaving no part of it free or unbound, it compels the soul to commit not only those sins that are curable, but also those that are incurable.
The sins that admit of treatment, then, are written first and are the easiest, while the incurable ones, being extremely difficult, are written last, corresponding to the roots.
And just as, I think, prudence begins by benefiting us in small matters and ends in the greatest achievements of right action, in the same way folly too, forcing the soul from above and gradually separating it from instruction, banishes it far from right reason and drags it down even to the furthest extremities.
The dream showed that after the roots the vine flowered, put forth shoots, and bore fruit — “for it,” he says, “was flourishing, having brought forth shoots; the clusters of grapes were ripe” (Gen. 40:10) — a vine that I wish had instead remained fruitless, never put forth green growth, and withered away entirely for all time.
For what greater evil could there be than folly flourishing and bearing abundant fruit? But also “the cup of Pharaoh” — the reservoir of senselessness, drunken excess, and unceasing intoxication throughout one's whole life — “is in my hand,” he says (Gen. 40:11), which is equivalent to saying it lies within my own undertakings, designs, and powers; for the passion will not prosper of its own accord, apart from my own contrivances.
For just as it is fitting that the reins be in the hands of the charioteer, and the rudder in the hands of the helmsman — since only in this way is the chariot's course and the ship's voyage successfully accomplished — so too the fulfillment of the intemperate man's craving lies in the hand and power of the one who practices the other kind of gluttony, namely drunkenness.
But what happened to him, that he endured boasting of denial rather than confession, in a matter deserving confession? Or would it not have been better not to refuse to acknowledge that he is a teacher of incontinence, than to heap up for the incontinent man the kindling of his passion, as though he were the inventor and craftsman of a shattered and broken, most shameful life?
It is something like this: folly prides itself on things it would be reasonable to hide. As it stands, he glories not only in carrying about in his hands and displaying to everyone the cup, the reservoir of the unrestrained soul, but also in pressing the grape into it — that is, in fashioning the very thing that fulfills the passion and bringing what was hidden out into the light.
For just as infants, longing for nourishment, when about to draw milk, press and squeeze the breast of their nurse, so too the craftsman of incontinence forcefully presses the spring from which the evil of drunkenness pours forth, so that he may make use of the pressed-out drops as the sweetest nourishment.
Let this, then, be our portrait of the man made drunk with strong wine — a drunken, raving evil, and incurable. Now we must in turn examine his kinsman, the glutton, likewise a companion of gorging and voracity, who practices his craft intemperately in matters of eating.
And yet not much effort is needed to hunt him down; for the dream that appeared is a most faithful impression of his likeness. So if we examine it carefully, we shall behold him as a reflection in a mirror.
“I thought,” he says, “that I was carrying three baskets of fine bread on my head” (Gen. 40:16). Now, interpreting allegorically, we say that the head is the ruling mind of the soul, and that everything rests upon it; indeed, he once cried out concerning it: “All these things have come upon me” (Gen. 42:36).
So, having arranged a procession of the things he has devised against his wretched belly, he displays it; and the fool, carrying his baskets, feels no shame at being weighed down by so heavy a threefold burden of baskets — which is to say, by the three divisions of time.
For the devotees of pleasure say that it is composed of the memory of past delights, the enjoyment of present ones, and the hope of those to come.
So the three baskets correspond to the three divisions of time, and the pastries in the baskets correspond to what fits each division — memories for the past, participation for the present, expectations for the future — while the one who bears all this for the pleasure-lover has filled a table that knows no truce and lacks the salt of friendship, drawing not from one kind of intemperance but from nearly every species and kind of licentiousness.
Of this table Pharaoh the king alone partakes, as though at a public feast, since he has cultivated the scattering, dispersal, and destruction of self-restraint — for “Pharaoh” is interpreted as “scattering.” His grandeur and kingliness consist not in glorying, as would be fitting, over the goods of self-control, but in priding himself on the practices of disgusting excess that are unfitting to boast of — a man who has run aground on insatiability, gluttony, and soft living.
Therefore the birds — that is, the unforeseeable chances that fly in from outside — will sweep over everything like fire, set it ablaze, and consume it with their all-devouring power (Gen. 40:17), so that not even a remnant is left for enjoyment to the basket-bearer, who had hoped to carry his inventions and contrivances secure and unassailable for all time.
Thanks be to the victorious God, who renders futile the efforts brought to their utmost pitch by the lover of passion, sending winged creatures invisibly to destroy and ruin them. So the mind, stripped of what it had fashioned, will be found headless and dead, as though its neck had been cut off, nailed fast — like those impaled — to the stake of helpless and destitute lack of instruction.
For as long as none of those sudden, unforeseeable visitations does any damage, the arts devoted to the enjoyment of pleasure seem to prosper; but when they strike unseen, those arts are overturned, and their craftsman is destroyed along with them.
So much, then, for the dreams that have revealed the workshop of taste divided between the two forms of nourishment — drink and food, not the necessary kind but the superfluous and unrestrained kind. Next in order we must at once investigate the dreams of the one who seems to reign over these and all the other faculties of the soul, whose name is Pharaoh.
“In my sleep,” he says, “I thought I was standing by the bank of the river; and behold, seven cows came up out of the river, choice in flesh and beautiful in form, and they grazed in the marsh grass. And behold, seven other cows came up out of the river after them, evil and ugly in form and thin in flesh, the like of which I had never seen, so ugly, in all the land of Egypt.
And the thin, ugly cows ate up the seven first, beautiful and choice cows, and went into their bellies; and it was not evident that they had gone into their bellies, and their appearance was as ugly as at the beginning.”
Then I awoke and fell asleep again, and I saw once more in my sleep: seven ears of grain came up on one stalk, full and good; and seven other ears, thin and blighted by the wind, sprouted after them; and the seven thin ears swallowed up the good and full ears” (Gen. 41:1–24).
You see, then, the prelude of the self-lover, who, though shifting, turning, and changeable in both body and soul, says: “I thought I was standing” — and did not reckon that steadfastness and stability belong properly to God alone, and to anyone who is God's friend.
You see the prelude of self-love, which, being mutable and shifting and changeable in both body and soul, says, "I thought I was standing," not reckoning that steadfastness and fixity belong to God alone, and to whoever is his friend.
The clearest proof of the steadfast power that surrounds him is this world, which is always in the same condition and in the same way -- for if the world is inclined to neither side, how is its craftsman not steadfast? -- and then, further, the most truthful witnesses, the sacred oracles.
For it is said, in the person of God: "Here I stand, there, before you, on the rock at Horeb" (Exodus 17:6), equivalent to: I, the one who appears, being here am also there, and everywhere, having filled all things, standing in the same state and remaining, being unchangeable, before you or anything that exists came into being, established upon the highest and most ancient power and source, from which the coming-into-being of things that exist rained down and the stream of wisdom overflowed.
For "I am he who brought forth a spring of water from the flinty rock" (Deuteronomy 8:15), as it is said elsewhere. And Moses too testifies concerning the unchangeableness of the divine, saying, "I saw the place where the God of Israel stood" (Exodus 24:10), hinting at the immutability of the divine through this standing
and establishment. But so great is the excess of steadfastness that belongs to the divine, that it imparts stability, as the best of possessions, even to the natures it has selected. At once, for instance, he says his covenant, full of graces -- and this covenant is the law and the most ancient reason of all things that exist -- will be established firmly, as upon a foundation, in the soul of the righteous, like a godlike image, when he says to Noah: "I will establish my covenant with you" (Genesis 9:11).
And he intimates two further things besides: first, that righteousness is inseparable from God's covenant; and second, that whereas others bestow gifts that differ from those who receive them, God bestows not only these gifts but the very recipients to themselves -- for he has given me to myself, and each of the things that exist to itself. For "I will establish my covenant with you" is equivalent to "I will give you as a gift to yourself."
And all who love God are eager to flee the storm of restless meddling, in which surge and swell are forever churning, and to find harbor in the calm and most sheltering havens of virtue.
Do you not see what is said of the wise Abraham, that he was "standing before the Lord" (Genesis 18:22)? For when could a mind reasonably be able to stand, unless it is no longer swaying as on a balance-scale, once it stands directly opposite God, both seeing and being seen?
For its steadfastness comes from two sources: from seeing the one beyond compare, in that it is not dragged this way and that by things resembling one another; and from being seen, in that its guide has judged it worthy that his own vision should come to the best part of itself. And to Moses too an oracle of this kind was given: "Stand here with me" (Deuteronomy 5:31), through which both things spoken of are made plain -- both that the virtuous person does not sway, and the steadfastness of the One who is, in respect to all things.
For indeed what draws near to God is made kin to him through its unchangeable self-standing, and the mind, once it has come to rest, clearly recognized what a great good stillness is, and, marveling at its beauty, understood that it belongs either to God alone or to the nature situated between the mortal and the immortal kind.
At any rate he says: "And I stood between the Lord and you" (Deuteronomy 5:5), not meaning by this that he was fixed upon his own feet, but wishing to show this: that the mind of the wise, freed from storms and wars, and enjoying windless calm and deep peace, is greater than a human being, yet less than God.
For the common, herd-like human mind is shaken and stirred up by whatever chance befalls it, while the blessed and happy mind has no share in evils; but the virtuous mind occupies the middle ground, so as to be, properly speaking, neither God himself nor a human being, but touching both extremes -- by its humanity belonging to a mortal race, and by its virtue
to an imperishable one. Something very similar to this is the oracle given concerning the high priest: "Whenever," it says, "he enters the Holy of Holies, he shall not be a human being, until he comes out" (Leviticus 16:17); and if he does not then become a human being, clearly he does not become God either, but a minister of God, belonging by his mortal part to becoming, and by his immortal part made kin to the unbegotten.
He has been allotted the middle rank, until he goes out again to what belongs to his body and flesh. And this is its nature: whenever the mind, seized by divine love, straining itself all the way to the inmost shrine, advances with every impulse and eagerness, being possessed by God it forgets all other things, forgets itself too, and remembers only him to whom it is attached and devoted and whom it serves, to whom, consecrating them, it offers up as incense its sacred and untouchable virtues.
But when it comes to a stop and the great longing relaxes, it runs back from the divine and becomes human again, meeting the human concerns that had been lying in wait in the outer courts,
so that, the moment it peers out from within, they may seize upon it. So then Moses records the perfect person as neither God nor human, but, as I said, on the border between the unbegotten and the perishable nature; while the one who is progressing he places again in the middle region, between the living and the dead, calling those who share their life with wisdom the living, and those who delight in folly the dead.
For it is said of Aaron that "he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was checked" (Numbers 16:48). For he examines the life of virtue neither among the dead, having longing and zeal for the good, nor among those who live in the utmost and perfect happiness -- for something is still lacking with respect to the goal -- but he touches upon both.
And it is said, properly, that "the plague was checked," not that it ceased; for in the case of the perfect, the things that shatter and crush and break the soul cease altogether, but in the case of those making progress they are diminished, being merely held back and restrained.
Since, then, standing and establishment and abiding forever in the same state, in unchangeableness and immutability, belong first to the One who is, and next to the reason of the One who is, which he called a covenant, and third to the wise person, and fourth to the one making progress -- what has happened to the base mind, liable to every curse, that it supposed it alone could stand, though it is carried along, as in a flood, and swept away by the successive eddies of things flowing in through the corpse-bearing body?
For it says, "I thought I was standing on the bank of the river" (Genesis 41:17). We say that speech is symbolically a river, since each of the two is carried outward, and flowing, moves with unremitting speed, and at one time overflows abundantly -- the one with a flood of water, the other with a flood of words and names -- and at another time falls short, slackening and subsiding;
and each is beneficial -- the one watering the fields, the other the souls of those eager to listen -- and there are times when each does harm by swelling up -- the one by flooding the neighboring land, the other by stirring up and confounding the reasoning of those who do not attend to it. This, then, is likened to a river.
But the nature of speech is twofold, the one better, the other worse -- the better being that which benefits, the worse, necessarily, that which harms.
And Moses set forth examples of each, most clearly, for those able to see: "A river," he says, "goes forth out of Eden to water the paradise; from there it is divided into four sources" (Genesis 2:10).
He calls the wisdom of the One who is "Eden," which is interpreted as "delight," because, I think, both the wisdom of God is a delight, and God is the delight of wisdom, since it is also sung in the hymns: "Delight yourself in the Lord" (Psalm 37:4). And as though from a spring of wisdom, the divine reason descends like a river, to water and irrigate the Olympian and heavenly shoots and plants of virtue-loving souls, as though they were a paradise.
And this sacred reason is divided into four sources -- I mean, it is split into the four virtues, each of which is a queen; for to be divided into sources is not like territorial boundaries, but resembles kingship, so that, by displaying the virtues, it may at once declare the one who employs them a wise king, appointed not by human beings but by the truthful and incorruptible and only free nature.
For those who beheld Abraham's nobility say to him: "You are a king from God among us" (Genesis 23:6), laying down as a doctrine for those occupied with philosophy that the wise alone is ruler and king, and that virtue is a rule and kingship answerable to no one.
A companion of Moses, likening this Logos to a river, said in his hymns, "The river of God was filled with water" (Psalm 65:9 [64:10 LXX]). It is unreasonable to suppose that he is speaking literally of one of the streams that flow on earth; rather, it seems, he is representing the divine Logos as full of the stream of wisdom, having no part of itself empty and void — or rather, as he says, poured out whole through the whole and lifted to a height by the continuous and successive flow of that ever-running spring.
There is another such song: "The rush of the river gladdens the city of God" (Psalm 46:4 [45:5 LXX]). What city? For the city now called holy, in which the sacred temple stands, is settled far from both sea and rivers, so it is clear that he wishes to point through hidden meanings to something other than the visible city.
For in truth the current of the divine Logos [ . . . ] and, borne continuously and in order with its rush, pours forth and gladdens all things through all things.
For in one sense he calls the cosmos the city of God, since it received the whole bowl of the divine drink undiluted, and, made radiant, obtained an unfading and everlasting share of gladness for all ages; and in another sense he means the soul of the wise person, in which God is said even to walk about as in a city: for he says, "I will walk among you, and I will be your God" (Leviticus 26:12).
And to the soul of good fortune, when it holds out its own reasoning as the most sacred cup, who pours in the sacred ladles of gladness toward truth, if not the Logos, God's cupbearer and master of the feast (Leviticus 26:36) — the Logos who is not distinct from the drink but is himself the undiluted wine, the radiance, the seasoning, the outpouring, the good cheer, the ambrosia of joy and gladness, to use poetic terms ourselves — the remedy?
The city of God is called by the Hebrews Jerusalem, whose name, translated, is "vision of peace." So do not seek the city of the Existent One among the regions of earth — for it was not built of wood or stone — but in a soul free from war and keen-sighted, one that has set before itself as its goal the contemplative and peaceable life.
For what house could one find among existing things more solemn and more holy for God than a mind that loves to behold, that is eager to see all things and does not desire, even in a dream, faction or disturbance?
Once again the voice that is accustomed to converse with me invisibly and unseen whispers and says: O man, you seem to be ignorant of a great and much-contested matter, which — ungrudgingly, for I have already taught you many other things in season — I will now teach you.
Know then, noble one, that God alone is the most truthful peace, peace in the full sense, while all created and perishable being is unbroken war. For God acts by choice, but being is bound by necessity. So whoever has the strength to leave behind war and necessity and coming-to-be and perishing, and to desert to the unbegotten, to the imperishable, to the willed, to peace, might justly be said to be the dwelling place and city of God.
Let it make no difference to you, then, whether you call the same underlying reality "vision of peace" or "vision of God"; for of the many-named powers of the Existent One, he is not merely an initiate but a leader of the mysteries of peace.
Abraham, moreover, says that he will give the wise man an inheritance of land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18) — not so much a portion of territory as the better lot concerning ourselves. For our body, and the passions that arise in it and through it, is likened to the destiny of Egypt, while the soul and what is akin to it are likened to the Euphrates.
He thereby sets down a doctrine most useful for life and most binding: that the person of worth has received as inheritance the soul and the virtues of the soul, just as, conversely, the base person has received the body and the vices of the body and those that come through the body.
The word "from" signifies two things: one, that which is included together with that from which it is reckoned; the other, that which is apart from it. When we say that from morning to evening there are twelve hours, and from new moon to the thirtieth day thirty days, we reckon the first hour and the new moon together with the rest; but when someone says that a field is three or four stadia from the city, he clearly means apart from the city.
So now too we must understand "from the river of Egypt" as meaning apart from that river. For he wishes, by removing us from bodily things — which are seen in a flux of corruption, both being corrupted and corrupting — that we should receive as inheritance the soul together with the incorruptible virtues worthy of incorruption.
Thus, then, tracking the matter, we have found that the Logos is praiseworthy when likened to a river. But the Egyptian river itself, it turns out, was blameworthy — an untrained and ignorant thing, so to speak, a lifeless logos. For this reason it also turns into blood (Exodus 7:20), being unable to nourish — for the logos of lack of education gives no drink — and it breeds abundantly frogs (Exodus 8:6), bloodless and lifeless, that croak out a strange and harsh noise, a pain to the ear.
It is said, too, that all the fish in it died (Exodus 7:21), fish which symbolically represent thoughts; for these swim and come to be in the logos as in a river, resembling living creatures and giving it life. But in an uneducated logos the reflections of the mind have died; for nothing intelligent is to be found there, but only, as someone has said, disordered and unmeasured cawing sounds.
Let this suffice on these matters. But since he confesses that he saw in a vision not only the standing and the river but also the banks of the river, saying, "I thought I was standing by the bank of the river" (Genesis 41:17), it is necessary also to recall what is timely concerning the bank.
Nature, then, appears to have fitted lips to living creatures, and especially to humans, for the sake of two most necessary things: one, silence — for the lips are a defense and a most secure barrier for the voice — the other, expression; for through them the stream of words is carried, since when the lips are closed the stream is held back, but it is impossible for it to be carried unless they part.
From this, nature trains and disciplines us for both — speaking and keeping silence — as we watch for the fitting occasion of each. Is something worth hearing being said? Pay attention without opposing it in silence, according to the precept of Moses, "Be silent and listen" (Deuteronomy 27:9).
For of those who come to contentious disputes for the sake of rivalry, not one could rightly be considered either to speak or to listen; but for one intent on truth [ . . . ] beneficial.
Again, when you see in the wars and evils of life the gracious hand of God and a power that stands over and shields you, be still; for this helper has no need of an ally. Of this too there is a proof laid up in the sacred records: "The Lord will fight for you, and you shall be silent" (Exodus 14:14).
But if you see the true and firstborn offspring of Egypt perishing (Exodus 11:5) — desire, pleasure, grief, fear, wrongdoing, folly, licentiousness, and all that is akin and related to these — be struck with awe and be still, cowering before the fearsome might of God.
"For not even a dog," he says, "shall growl with its tongue, from man to beast" (Exodus 11:7) — which is equivalent to saying that neither the doglike tongue that barks and shrieks, nor the human within us, the ruling mind, nor the beastlike creature, sense-perception, should exult, when the entire outward alliance on our behalf, unbidden, comes to shield us, once the opposing power has been destroyed.
But many occasions arise that do not suit silence, but instead call for speech set down in words; of these too memorials can be found laid up. How so? Has someone come to share in some good beyond expectation? It is good to give thanks and to hymn the one who sent it. What then is the good?
Has the passion that assails us died and been cast down flat, unburied? Let us not delay, then, but form a chorus and sing a most sacred hymn, urging all to say: "Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously glorified; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea" (Exodus 15:1).
But while the destruction and removal of the passion is a good, it is not the perfect good; the discovery of wisdom is a surpassing beauty. When it has been found, the whole people will sing, not in one mode of music only, but in every one of its harmonies and melodies.
For it says, "Then Israel sang this song at the well" (Num. 21:17) — meaning, at the spring that lay hidden but was sought out again and, in the end, found: the deep knowledge whose nature it is, by law, to irrigate the rational fields in the souls of those who love contemplation.
What then? When we gather in the genuine fruit of the mind, does the sacred word not command us, as if bringing it in a basket (Deut. 26:2, 4), to offer to reason the firstfruits of the abundant yield of all the good things the soul has flowered, budded, and borne fruit in — showing them openly and proclaiming, in praise of the God who brings all to completion, "I have cleared the sacred things out of my house" (ibid. 13), and "I have stored them in the house of God," setting over them as stewards and guardians those chosen by merit for the sacred service?
These are the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows (ibid.) — the Levites as suppliants, the aliens as migrants, and the others as those bereft of birth and widowed of it, who have inscribed God as the true husband and father of the soul that serves him.
This, then, is the most fitting manner both of speaking and of keeping silence. The worthless have practiced the opposite: they have become zealots of a silence that deserves blame and of speech that deserves censure, each cultivated to their own ruin and to the ruin of others.
The greater part of their training lies in saying what ought not to be said. Opening their mouths and letting them go unbridled, they release, like an unchecked torrent, speech that runs on without judgment, as the poets say, dragging along with it countless things of no profit.
And so some have turned to plead the cause of pleasure and desire and every excessive impulse, fortifying the irrational passion as a stronghold against reason its ruler, and have stripped for the contest, grappling as well in quarrelsome disputes, hoping to blind the seeing race and to hurl it down cliffs and chasms from which it could never rise again.
Some have made themselves adversaries not only of human virtue but of the divine as well — to such a pitch of madness did they drive. Now the leader of the passion-loving band is recorded as the king of the land of Egypt, Pharaoh; for it is said to the prophet, "See, he is going out to the water, and you shall stand to meet him at the lip of the river" (Exod. 7:15).
For it is characteristic of him always to go out toward the rush and overflow of irrational passion; but it is characteristic of the wise man to meet the flood of arguments urged in favor of pleasure and desire, not with his feet but with his judgment, firmly and without wavering, at the river's lip — that is, at the mouth and the tongue, which are the instruments of speech. Standing firmly upon these, he will be able to overturn and cast down the persuasions that plead the cause of passion.
The enemy of the seeing race is Pharaoh's people, who did not cease attacking and pursuing and enslaving virtue, and who found a fitting recompense for the evils they inflicted: they were engulfed in a sea of wrongdoings and in the towering waves that the raging passion had stirred up, so that that moment brought a spectacle beyond compare, a victory with no rival, and a joy greater than any hope.
Hence it is said, "Israel saw the Egyptians dead at the lip of the sea" (Exod. 14:30). Great indeed is the hand that fights on our behalf, compelling those who had sharpened these instruments — mouth, lips, and speech — against the truth to fall by mouth, by lips, and by speech, so that those who took them up against others might die not by foreign weapons but by their own.
It brings the soul three most beautiful pieces of good news: first, the destruction of the Egyptian passions; second, that this did not happen in some other place but at the lips of the salty and bitter spring — a kind of sea — through which the sophistic reasoning hostile to virtue had poured forth; and last, the sight of the fallen bodies.
For nothing invisible could be beautiful, but what is fine should be brought forward into the bright sunlight; while evil, on the contrary, deserves to be thrust into deep darkness. And may it never even be seen by chance, while the good is always surveyed with greater eyes. What is so good as to live the beautiful and to see the base put to death?
There were three, then, who stretched the cleverness of their arguments up to heaven. These practiced their art against nature — or rather against their own soul — declaring that only this sensible and visible world exists, that it was never brought into being and will never be destroyed, but is ungenerated, indestructible, without overseer, without pilot, without any ruling providence.
Then, piling argument upon argument, they raised up their disreputable doctrine to a height, like a tower. For it is said, "the whole earth was one lip" (Gen. 11:1) — a harmony of all the parts of the soul that was, in fact, discordant, aimed at unsettling the most sovereign principle among the things that are: the First Cause.
And so, when they hoped to run up to heaven itself by their inventions in order to overthrow the eternal kingdom, the great and undethronable hand cast them down and overturned along with them the doctrine they had built.
The place is called "Confusion," a name fitting the newly devised presumption. For what is more confounding than anarchy? Do not households without a governing head become full of collisions and turmoil? Do not cities left kingless, given over to mob rule — the greatest and most opposite evil — perish?
And have not lands, nations, and regions of the earth, once their governments were dissolved, thrown away ancient and great prosperity? What need is there to speak of merely human affairs?
For not even the other herds of living creatures — of birds, of land animals, of creatures in the water — hold together without some leader of the herd, but they always long for and attend upon their own leader as the sole cause of their good, and in his absence they scatter and perish.
Do we then suppose that for earthly things — the smallest portion of the universe — government is the cause of good and lack of government the cause of evil, but that the cosmos is not filled with the utmost happiness because of the leadership of God who reigns as king?
So they are given a fitting penalty for what they set up: having thrown the sacred realm into confusion through their anarchy, they themselves came to see it — confounded, not confounders. And even before they had yet paid the penalty, puffed up by their derangement of mind, they overthrow the rule of the universe with impious arguments, register themselves instead as rulers and kings, and fasten the undethronable power of God upon a coming-to-be that is ceaselessly perishing and
decaying. Playing the tragedian and boasting, these laughable men are accustomed to say things like this: "We are the leaders, we hold the power; on us everything depends. Who is the cause of good things and their opposites, if not we? To whom does well-being most truly belong, if not to us?" And equally foolish are those who say that everything hangs from some invisible power, which they suppose presides over human and divine affairs throughout the world.
Having boasted so arrogantly, if they sober up as though from drunkenness and come to themselves, and, coming to a sense of the drunken folly in which they indulged, feel shame and reproach themselves for the offenses into which their thoughtless judgment led them — taking as their counselor a repentance that flatters no one and takes no bribes, and propitiating the gracious power of the One who Is with recantations offered in place of their profane songs, now made sacred — they will find complete amnesty.
But if, remaining stiff-necked and unbroken to the end, they leap about as though self-governing, free, and leaders of others, they will learn, by inexorable and uncompromising necessity, their own nothingness in all things, small and great alike.
For the charioteer who has mounted this cosmos as though it were a winged chariot, casting on the bridle, drawing back with force the reins that had gone slack, and tightening the muzzles, will by whip and goad remind them of the master's authority, which they had forgotten because of the kindness and gentleness of the ruler — like bad slaves.
For by turning the mildness of their masters into an occasion for anarchy, they put on a display of having no master at all, until the one who owns them, applying punishments instead of medicines, checks their flowing and abundant disease.
This is why it is said: “a lawless soul, one that opens its lips to do evil or to do well, shall afterward confess its sin” (Lev. 5:4). What do you say, soul so full of pretension? Do you actually know what is truly good, or noble, or just, or holy, or which things fit with which?
The knowledge and the power over these things belong to God alone, and to anyone who is his friend; witness also the oracle, in which it is said: “I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal” (Deut. 32:39).
But the soul that only seems wise did not hold even a superficial dreaming about things beyond itself; rather, this unfortunate soul was so puffed up with empty wind that it even took an oath that the things it had falsely supposed stood firm and fixed.
If, then, the throbbing and boiling of the disease begins to relax, the embers of health, gradually kindled again, will compel it, first, to confess its fault — which is to blame itself — and then to become a suppliant at the altars, imploring with prayers, supplications, and sacrifices, by which alone it is possible to obtain forgetfulness of wrongs.
Next one might reasonably raise the question why it is that Scripture records only the river in Egypt as having “lips,” but no longer does so for the Euphrates or any of the other sacred rivers. For where it says: “you shall stand to meet him by the lip of the river” (Exod. 7:15) — * * *.
And yet some, perhaps mocking, will say that such things ought not to be brought into our inquiries, since they display pettiness of speech rather than any benefit. But I suppose that such details have been seasoned into the sacred writings, like spices, for the improvement of those who read them; and no one who inquires into them should be condemned for excessive word-hunting — rather, the opposite, idleness, should be condemned in those who do not inquire.
For our present concern is not really a study about rivers, but about lives that are compared to the streams of rivers, opposed to one another. For the life of the worthy person is seen in deeds, while the account of the worthless person is seen in words — and “account” belongs to tongue, mouth, and lips, and to * * *.

======== On Abraham ========

Of the sacred laws, recorded in five books, the first is called and entitled Genesis, from the genesis (coming-into-being) of the cosmos, which it contains at its beginning, and from which it took its name -- even though countless other matters are included in it, whatever concerns peace or war, abundance or scarcity, famine or plenty, or the greatest destructions on earth by fire and water, or, on the contrary, the coming-into-being and flourishing of animals and plants through the good tempering of the air and the seasons of the year, and of men who lived their lives, some in virtue
and others in vice. But since some of these things are parts of the cosmos and others are things that happen to it, and since the cosmos is the most complete and fullest thing of all, he dedicated the whole book to it. Now the manner in which the making of the cosmos is ordered we have set out with precision, so far as was possible, in the previous treatise.
Since it is now necessary, in due sequence, to investigate the laws, let us set aside for later those that concern particulars and are, so to speak, images, and first investigate the more universal ones, which are, as it were, the archetypes.
These are the men who lived blamelessly and nobly, whose virtues have been inscribed, as if on pillars, in the most sacred writings -- not only for their own praise, but also to encourage those who read them and lead them on to the same zeal. For those men became living and rational laws, whom Moses glorified for two reasons: first, wishing to show that the ordinances he laid down are not out of harmony with nature,
and second, that it is no great labor for those who wish to live according to the established laws, since even before any particular law had at all been written down, the earliest men made easy and ready use of an unwritten legislation; so that one might fittingly say that the laws later laid down are nothing other than records of the ancients way of life, preserving in writing the deeds and words they used.
For those men were neither disciples nor students of anyone, nor were they taught by teachers what they must do and say; but, hearing and learning for themselves, and embracing the sequence of nature, and supposing nature herself -- which is, in truth, the case -- to be the most venerable ordinance, they lived their whole life under good laws, doing nothing culpable by deliberate choice, and, over what came by chance, calling upon God with prayers and supplications and propitiating him, so as to share in a whole life brought to fulfillment through both what comes by providence and what comes without deliberate choice.
Since, then, the beginning of a share in good things is hope, and since it is hope that the soul which loves virtue cuts open and lays out, like a highway, in its eagerness to attain the good that is true, he addressed the first lover of hope as "man" (anthropos), bestowing on him, as a special favor, the name common to the whole race.
For the Chaldeans call man Enosh, on the ground that the only man who truly is man is the one who looks forward to good things and has settled himself upon good hopes; from which it is clear that he considers the man who lacks good hope not a man but a beast in human form, having been deprived of the thing most proper to a human soul, namely hope.
Hence, wishing to sing the praises, in the most beautiful way, of the man of good hope, after first saying that this man hoped in the Father and Maker of all things (cf. Gen. 4:26), he adds: "This is the book of the generation of men" (Gen. 5:1) -- although fathers and grandfathers had already come into being; but he supposed that those earlier men were the founders of the mixed race, whereas this man was the founder of the purest and most refined race, which is truly rational.
For just as the poet Homer, though there are countless poets, is called "the poet" pre-eminently, and the ink with which we write is called "the black", though there is much else that is not white and hence also black, and the eponymous archon at Athens, best of the nine archons, from whom the years are reckoned -- in the same way Moses named the man who lives by hope pre-eminently "man", setting the multitude of the rest to rest, as unworthy to share the same title.
Well indeed, and not without purpose, did he call the book "the generation" of the man who truly is man, because the man of good hope is worthy of writing and remembrance -- not the writing that is on scraps of paper destined to be destroyed by moths, but the writing that is in nature, which is immortal, in which noble deeds are, as it happens, recorded.
If, however, one were to reckon from the first man, the earth-born one, one will find that the man called by the Chaldeans Enosh, and in the Greek tongue "man", is the fourth.
Among numbers the four has been honored both by other philosophers, all who embraced incorporeal and intelligible realities, and above all by Moses, all-wise, who, in exalting the number four, says that it is "holy and praiseworthy" (Lev. 19:24); the reasons for which this was said have been stated in the previous treatise.
Holy and praiseworthy is the man of good hope, just as, on the contrary, the man of bad hope is unholy and blameworthy, using fear as an evil counselor in everything. For nothing, they say, is so hostile to another thing as hope is to fear and fear to hope; and perhaps this is reasonable, for each is a kind of expectation, but the one is of good things and the other, on the contrary, of evil things, and the natures of these are irreconcilable
and incompatible with one another. Let this much suffice to say about hope, which nature has stationed at the doors, like a gatekeeper, of the royal virtues within, whom it is not possible to meet without first paying court to her.
Many are the labors that lawgivers undertake, and many those that laws everywhere undertake, to fill the souls of the free with good hopes; but the man who becomes a man of good hope without exhortation, without being commanded, has been schooled in this virtue by an unwritten law -- indeed a self-taught one -- which nature herself has laid down.
Second in rank after hope falls repentance for sins committed, and improvement; hence Moses next records the man who changed from a worse life to a better one, who is called among the Hebrews Enoch, and would be called by the Greeks "one who has found favor" -- of whom it is also said that "Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and was not found, because God transposed him" (Gen. 5:24).
For "Transposition" indicates a turning and a change; and the change is for the better, because it comes about through the forethought of God; for everything that is with God is good and altogether advantageous, since even what lacks divine providence is unprofitable.
Well said, too, is "he was not found", of the man who had been transposed, meaning either that his former, reprehensible life had been blotted out and made to vanish and was no longer to be found, as though it had not even existed at the start, or that the man who is transposed and stationed in the better rank is by nature hard to find; for vice is abundant, and hence known to many, but virtue is rare, so that it is grasped by only a few.
And besides, the base man haunts the marketplace and theaters and law-courts and council-chambers and assemblies and every gathering and company of men, since he lives together with meddlesomeness, letting his tongue loose into unmeasured, endless, undiscriminating talk, confusing and jumbling everything together, mixing falsehoods with truths, things unspeakable with things that may be spoken, private matters with public, profane things with sacred, ridiculous things with serious things -- because he has not been trained in the finest thing for the occasion, silence -- and pricking up his ears for the sake of meddlesome curiosity;
for he is eager to learn the affairs of others, whether good or bad, so that he may straightway envy some of them and delight in others; for the base man is by nature malicious and hates what is good
and loves what is wicked. The man of refinement, by contrast, having become a lover of a life free from meddling, withdraws and cherishes solitude, wishing to escape the notice of the many -- not out of hatred for humankind, for he is a lover of humankind if anyone is, but because vice has been thrust in front of him, which the great crowd embraces, rejoicing over what deserves lament and grieving over what it would be good to rejoice in.
For these reasons he shuts himself up and stays at home for the most part, scarcely crossing his own threshold; or, if because of visitors who call too often he goes outside the city, he spends his time in solitary retreat, preferring as companions the best men of the whole human race, whose bodies time has dissolved but whose virtues the writings that survive rekindle, through both poems and prose compositions, by which the soul is naturally made better.
For this reason he said that the transposed man "was not found", being hard to find and hard to track down. He migrates, then, from ignorance to instruction, from folly to wisdom, from cowardice to courage, and from impiety to piety, and again from love of pleasure to self-mastery, and from love of glory to freedom from vanity; and what wealth, or what possession of kingship and power, is worthier or more beneficial than these?
For if one must tell the truth, the wealth that is not blind but sees keenly is the abundance of the virtues, which one must at once suppose to be the genuine and lawful sovereignty, in contrast to spurious and falsely-named dominions, justly governing all things.
One must not fail to recognize that repentance takes second place after perfection, just as the change from sickness to health takes second place after an unafflicted body. Continuity and perfection in the virtues stand nearest to divine power, while improvement that begins at some point in time is the particular good of a well-endowed soul that does not remain in its childish ways but seeks a settled, fair-weather state with the more mature and truly manly frame of mind, and runs after the vision of noble things.
For this reason he fittingly places next after the one who has repented the man who loves God and loves virtue, who in the Hebrew tongue is called Noah, and in Greek 'rest' or 'just' — titles most fitting for the wise man. He is called 'just' quite plainly, for nothing is better than justice, the leading virtue among the virtues, which, like the fairest dancer in a chorus, takes precedence. He is called 'rest' because, on the contrary, unnatural motion happens to be the cause of disturbances and tumults, factions and wars — which the base pursue — while a calm, quiet, and stable life, and moreover a peaceful one, is pursued by those who have honored nobility and goodness.
Following his own pattern, he also names the seventh day, which the Hebrews call Sabbath, 'rest' — not, as some suppose, because for six days the multitude abstained from their customary labors, but because in truth the number seven, both in the cosmos and within ourselves, is always free from faction, free from war, free from strife, and the most peaceable of all numbers.
Witnesses to what has been said are the faculties within us. The six wage the ceaseless and continuous war on land and sea — the five senses and articulate speech — the senses through longing for the objects of sense, which, if they fail to obtain, cause distress; speech through its unbridled mouth, blurting out countless things that ought to be kept silent.
But the seventh faculty is the one that belongs to the ruling mind, which, whenever it becomes stronger than the six and, having mastered them by a more powerful strength, withdraws — embracing solitude and rejoicing in its own converse with itself, as needing nothing else and being wholly sufficient to itself — then, freed from the cares and troublesome affairs of the
mortal kind, embraces a mild and tranquil life. So greatly does he exalt the lover of virtue that in tracing his lineage he does not, as is customary in other cases, draw up a list of grandfathers or great-grandfathers or ancestors, whether on the father's or the mother's side, but rather of virtues — all but crying aloud that no house, no kinship, and no fatherland belongs to the wise man other than the virtues and the deeds done according to virtue. 'These,' he says, 'are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation; he was well-pleasing to God' (Gen. 6:9).
One must not fail to recognize that here he does not use the word 'man' in its common sense for the rational mortal animal, but rather for the man of true excellence, who verifies the name by having driven out the untamed and raging passions and the most bestial vices of the soul. And here is a sign of this:
After 'man' he adds 'just,' saying 'a just man' — as though no man were unjust (or, to speak more properly, no man but rather a beast), but only the one who is a zealot for justice.
He also says that Noah became 'perfect,' establishing by this that he acquired not one virtue but all of them, and having acquired each, continued to exercise it as occasion demanded.
Crowning him as a victorious contestant, he further adorns him with a most splendid proclamation, declaring that 'he was well-pleasing to God.' What could be greater than this in all of nature? What clearer proof of nobility and goodness is there? For if those who displeased God are ill-fated, then those who succeeded in pleasing him are altogether blessed.
Yet it was not without purpose that, having praised the man for so many virtues, he added that 'he was perfect in his generation' (Gen. 6:9), showing that he was good not absolutely, but by comparison with those who lived at that time.
For soon, not long from now, mention will be made of other wise men who possessed virtue beyond rivalry — not because they were tested against wicked men, nor because, being better than their contemporaries, they were judged worthy of approval and preference, but because, having obtained a well-favored nature, they preserved it undistorted, not by fleeing base practices but by never having fallen into them at all from the start, and having become, above all, practitioners of noble deeds and words, they adorned their whole life.
Those men, then, were most admirable, who employed impulses that were free and noble, not in imitation of or opposition to others, but by embracing the good and the just for their own sake. But admirable too is the man who stood apart from his own generation and shared in none of what the many pursued. He will attain the second prize, while nature will award the first prizes to those others.
Yet even the second prizes are themselves great. For what is not great and worth contending for, of the things God offers and grants? The clearest proof is the abundance of graces which this man received.
For since that age brought forth a flood of wrongdoing, and every land, every nation, every city, every household, and each person individually was filled to overflowing with base practices — all competing willingly and deliberately, as though in a contest, for the prize in wrongdoing (for they vied with one another with all eagerness, each hastening to surpass his neighbor in magnitude of vice, and leaving nothing undone that led to
a reprehensible and accursed life) — at this God, reasonably displeased that the creature reputed to be the best, and judged worthy of kinship with him on account of its share in reason, should, though bound to practice virtue, instead have set its heart on vice and every form of vice, determined the fitting penalty: he resolved to destroy by a flood those then living, not only those dwelling in the plain and lower regions but also those inhabiting the very highest mountains.
For the great sea, raised aloft as never before, poured through its outlets in a single mighty rush into the seas around us, and the floodwaters overwhelmed islands and continents, while the successive torrents of ever-flowing springs and of rivers, both native and winter-swollen, joined together, pouring forth and rising to great heights, advanced upon the land.
Nor indeed was the air at rest; for a deep and unbroken cloud covered the whole sky, and there were monstrous winds, and crashes of thunder, and flashes of lightning, and bolts of lightning falling in succession, with unceasing rains bursting forth, so that one would suppose the parts of the universe were hastening to be resolved back into the single nature of water — until, with the rain crashing down from above and the sea rising up from below, the streams were lifted on high, by which not only the plain and all low-lying ground were submerged and vanished, but also the peaks of the highest mountains.
For every part of the earth sank beneath the water, so that the whole was swept away, and the cosmos, mutilated by the loss of a great portion, seemed no longer whole and complete — a thing neither lawful to say nor to conceive — as though it too were straining to appear submerged. But indeed the air as well, apart from a small portion near the moon, was entirely consumed, overwhelmed by the onrush and force of the water, which by main strength took possession of its domain.
Then, then indeed, all crops and trees at once perished — for both scarcity and excess without measure destroy alike — and the countless herds of animals died, both tame and wild together; for it was natural that, when the noblest race, mankind, was being blotted out, nothing of the lesser kinds should be left behind, since these too existed for the sake of serving human needs, in a manner enslaved and subject to their masters' commands.
When so many and so great evils had fallen in a torrent — which that season rained down, for every part of the cosmos, apart from the heavens, was moved contrary to its nature, as though it had fallen ill with a grave and deadly sickness — one household alone survived: that of the just and God-loving man already spoken of, who received two supreme gifts, one, as I said, that he did not perish along with all the rest, and the other, that he became once again the founder of a new sowing of mankind. For God judged him worthy to become both the end of our race and its beginning — the end of those before the flood, and the beginning of those after it.
Such, then, was the best man of his own time, and such were the prizes appointed for him, as the sacred word has shown. Of the three men — or the three dispositions of soul — that have been spoken of, the order is harmonious: the one is perfect and whole from the beginning; the one who changed is half-finished, having devoted the earlier part of his life to vice and the later part to the virtue to which he migrated and resettled; and the one who hopes, as his very name shows, is deficient, ever reaching after the good but not yet able to attain it, resembling sailors who, eager to put in at harbors, sail the sea unable to find anchorage.
The former triad, then, of those who yearned for virtue, has been set forth. But greater is the other, of which we must now speak. For the former resembles the lessons learned at a boy's age, while this one resembles the exercises of athletic men who anoint themselves for truly sacred contests — men who, disdaining the training of the body, cultivate instead the good condition of the soul, striving for victory over the passions that oppose them.
In what respects, then, each of them differs, while all press on toward one and the same goal, we shall state more precisely later. But what must be said briefly in advance about the three together must not be passed over in silence.
These men, then, happen to belong to a single household and a single lineage — for the last is the son of the middle one, and the grandson of the first — and all alike are lovers of God and beloved of God, having loved the true God and having been loved in return by him, who, as the oracles make clear, judged them worthy, on account of the surpassing virtues with which they lived, to share in the very address by his own name.
By fitting his own name to theirs he united it, applying to himself the compound name derived from the three: for "this," he says, "is my eternal name, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" (cf. Exodus 3:15)—a name of relation rather than a single, absolute one. And perhaps this is fitting: God has no need of a name, but though he has no need of one, he nonetheless granted to the human race a name proper to itself, so that having a refuge for supplication and entreaty, they might not be without good hope.
These things, then, seem to have been said about holy men, but they are indications of a nature more hidden, and far better than what belongs to the realm of the senses. For the sacred account seems to be investigating the characters of the soul, all of them noble, one striving after the good through teaching, another through nature, another through practice. For the first, called Abraham, is a symbol of virtue acquired through teaching; the middle one, Isaac, of virtue acquired through nature; and the third, Jacob, of virtue acquired through practice.
But it must not be overlooked that each of the three laid claim to all three powers, and was named from the one that predominated and prevailed in him; for teaching cannot be brought to completion without nature or practice, nor is nature sufficient to reach its goal apart from learning and practicing, nor can practice succeed unless it has first been grounded in both nature and teaching.
Fittingly, then, he joined together the kinship of the three virtues—nature, learning, and practice—belonging in speech to men but in reality, so to speak, to virtues themselves, which people also call by another name, the Graces, equal in number to them; either because God has graciously bestowed the three powers on our race for the perfection of life, or because these powers have given themselves as a gift to the rational soul, a perfect and most beautiful gift, so that the eternal name declared in the oracles as belonging to three might be understood as referring not so much to men as to the powers just named.
For the nature of men is perishable, but that of the virtues is imperishable; and it is more reasonable that the eternal epithet be applied to the imperishable rather than to mortal things, since imperishability is akin to eternity, while death is its enemy.
One ought not, however, to be ignorant of this either: that the first man, the earth-born one, he introduced as the father of all those born up until the flood; and the one alone who was preserved, with his whole household, out of so great a destruction, because of his righteousness and other nobility, as the founder of a new race of men soon to grow young again; but the exceedingly venerable and much-contended-for triad, called by a single title, "a royal house and a priesthood and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6), the oracles so name; and the name itself declares its power.
For in the Hebrew tongue the nation is named Israel, which, translated, means "one who sees God." Now sight through the eyes is the most excellent of all the senses, since through it alone are apprehended the most beautiful of existing things—sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe—while the sight exercised through the soul's governing faculty surpasses all the other powers that belong to it; and this is prudence, the vision of the understanding.
Whoever has attained not only the capacity to apprehend, through knowledge, all the other things in nature, but also to see the Father and Maker of the universe, let him know that he has advanced to the very summit of happiness; for nothing is higher than God, and whoever has stretched the eye of his soul toward him and arrived, let him pray to remain there and stand fast.
For the roads that go uphill are toilsome and slow, while the downward course, which is more of a dragging along than a descent, is swift and very easy. Many things drag downward with force, none of them profitable, except when God, suspending the soul from his own powers, draws it toward himself with a stronger pull.
These things, then, have had to be said first in common concerning the three. Next it must be told what each one, individually, brought forth on his own, taking the beginning from the first. He, then, becoming a zealot for piety, the highest and greatest of virtues, was eager to follow God and to be obedient to what was commanded by him, understanding as commands not only those made known through voice and writing, but also those disclosed through nature by clearer signs, which the truest of the senses apprehends, prior to hearing, which is untrustworthy and unstable.
For one who observes the order in nature, and the constitution—better than any account of it—by which the universe operates, is instructed, though no one speaks a word, to practice a law-abiding and peaceable life, looking toward the likeness of what is noble. And the clearest proofs of piety are those contained in the sacred writings; and the first must be told, since it also stands first in order.
Struck by an oracle to leave his homeland, his kin, and his father's house, and to migrate—as though returning from a foreign land to his own, rather than being about to depart from his own to a foreign one—he hastened, straining every effort, considering it equal to accomplishing the task to carry out swiftly what was commanded.
And yet who else would be likely to become so unbending and unyielding as not to be led captive by the charms of kin and homeland, whose longing has, in a manner, grown up with each person and grown together with him, and has become no less attached than the united parts of the body itself?
Witnesses to this are the lawgivers who have ordained exile as the second penalty after death for those convicted of the greatest crimes—not second, as it seems to me, in the judgment of truth, but far harsher, since death is the end of misfortunes, while exile is not an end but a beginning of new calamities, bringing, instead of a single death free of pain, countless deaths accompanied by full awareness.
Some sail abroad for trade, out of desire for profit, or on an embassy, or to view the sights of a foreign land, out of a love of learning, having powers that drag them toward staying abroad—some by their gains, others by having benefited their city at critical and most necessary and greatest moments, others by the acquiring of knowledge of things formerly unknown to them, providing at once pleasure and benefit to the soul (for those who have not traveled are blind compared to those who see clearly, unacquainted compared to those who have gone abroad)—nevertheless they hasten to see and pay homage to their ancestral soil, and to greet their familiar kin and friends, and to enjoy the sweetest and most longed-for sight of them, and often, seeing the business for whose sake they went abroad being prolonged, they abandoned it, drawn by the most violent longing for their own people.
But this man, with a few companions—indeed alone—migrated the very moment he was commanded, and dispatched his migration in soul before in body, his heavenly love overcoming his longing for mortal things.
Caring nothing, then, for members of his tribe, fellow townsmen, schoolmates, companions, blood relatives on his father's or mother's side, his homeland, ancient customs, shared upbringing, or common life—each of which has a drawing and hard-to-tear-away pull—with free and unrestrained impulses he migrated with the greatest speed: first from the land of the Chaldeans, a prosperous country and at that time flourishing, to the land of Haran (Genesis 12:5); then, not long after, from this land too to another place, of which we shall speak after first saying this.
The migrations just described took place, in the literal sense of the scripture, at the hands of a wise man; but according to the laws of allegory, at the hands of a soul devoted to virtue and seeking the true God.
For the Chaldeans, having labored above all others at astronomy, and having attributed everything to the movements of the stars, supposed that the things in the universe are governed by powers contained in numbers and the proportions of numbers, and revered visible being without grasping any conception of the invisible and intelligible, but, investigating the order among those visible things according to the revolutions of sun and moon and the other planets and fixed stars, and according to the changes of the yearly seasons, and according to the sympathy of heavenly things with earthly ones, supposed that the universe itself was God—impiously making that which came into being equal to that which made it.
Reared, then, in this doctrine, and having practiced Chaldean lore for a long time, as though opening the eye of his soul out of a deep sleep, and beginning to see a pure radiance instead of profound darkness, he followed the light and beheld what he had not seen before: a certain charioteer and pilot set over the universe, safely guiding his own work, exercising care and superintendence over it and over all the parts within it deserving of divine attention.
So that the vision that had appeared might be more firmly established in his understanding, the sacred word says to him again: "Great things, my friend, are often recognized through the sketch of lesser ones, by attending to which one may enlarge one's conception to unbounded magnitudes. Dismiss, then, the bodies revolving in heaven and the Chaldean science, and migrate for a short time from the greatest city, this universe, to a smaller one, through which you will be better able to apprehend the overseer of the whole."
For this reason he is said to have made his first migration from the land of the Chaldeans to that of the Haranites. Now "Haran" in Greek means "holes," symbolically referring to the regions of our senses, through each of which, as through openings, it is natural to peer out toward the apprehension of what belongs to it.
But what use, someone might say, would any of this have been, if an invisible mind, like a puppeteer, had not from within given breath to its own powers, which, now relaxing and slackening, now pulling back and drawing forcibly against, it produced rhythmic motion and again stillness in the marvels? Having this paradigm within yourself, you will easily understand what you so greatly long to grasp knowledge of.
For is it not the case that in you mind is set as ruler, to whom the whole partnership of the body is obedient, and each of the senses follows—while the universe, the most beautiful and greatest and most perfect work, of which all other things happen to be parts, lacks a king who holds it together and justly administers it? And if the king is invisible, do not marvel; for neither is the mind within you visible.
One who reasons on these things, and is instructed not from afar but from close at hand, from himself and from what surrounds him, will know clearly that the universe is not the first God, but the work of the first God and Father of all, who, being himself unseen, makes all things visible, revealing the natures of things both small and great.
Anyone who reasons this out, learning it not from a distance but close at hand, from himself and from the things around him, will know clearly that the cosmos is not the first god, but a work of the first god and father of all things, who, though invisible, makes all things visible, revealing the natures of things both small and great.
For he did not think it fit to be grasped by the eyes of the body, perhaps because it was unholy for a mortal thing to touch an eternal one, and perhaps also because of the weakness of our sight; for it could not have taken in the rays pouring out from That Which Is, since it is not even able to look upon the rays of the sun.
The clearest proof of the migration which the mind made away from astronomy and Chaldean opinion is this: it is said that immediately upon the wise man's relocation, "God appeared to Abraham" (Gen. 12:7) — which makes plain that before this he had not been visible to him, when, practicing Chaldean ways, he attended to the dance of the stars and grasped no nature at all that was harmonious and intelligible beyond the cosmos and sensible substance.
But when he moved on and changed his anchorage, he came of necessity to know that the cosmos is subject and not sovereign, not the one presiding but the one presided over by the cause that made it,
which his mind, looking up for the first time then, saw — for previously a thick mist had been poured over it by the objects of sense-perception, which, having dispersed it with warm and fiery doctrines, it barely managed, as in a clear open sky, to gain a glimpse of the one long hidden and invisible; who, out of love for humankind, did not turn away the soul that came to him, but went out to meet it and showed his own nature, so far as it was possible for the one looking to see.
For this reason it is said, not that the wise man saw God, but that "God was seen" by the wise man; for it was impossible for anyone to grasp on his own the one who truly is, unless that one had let himself be glimpsed and had displayed himself.
The ancient name Abram bears witness to this; he was later called Abraham, a single letter — alpha — being doubled in sound, but by its power indicating the change of a great matter and doctrine.
For Abram, translated, is "exalted father," while Abraham is "elect father of sound"; the former name signifies the one called an astrologer and student of celestial phenomena, so devoted to Chaldean doctrines as a father might devote himself to his offspring, while the latter signifies the wise man.
For through "sound" it hints at the spoken word, and through "father" it hints at the ruling mind — for the father is the one innate by nature, prior to the uttered word and sowing the seeds of what is to be said — while through "elect" it hints at the man of worth; for the base character is random and confused, but the good character is elect, having been judged and chosen out from all as the best.
To the student of celestial phenomena, nothing at all seems greater than the cosmos, to which he also attributes the causes of what comes to be; but the wise man, seeing with more exact eyes something more perfect, intelligible, ruling and governing, by which all else is mastered and steered, found much to blame in his former life, as one who had lived it blind, propping himself upon objects of sense-perception, a thing of unstable and unsettled nature.
So the man of worth, persuaded again by an oracle, undertakes a second migration, no longer from city to city, but into a desert region (Gen. 12:9), in which he continued to wander, not displeased at the wandering and the instability it brought.
And yet who else would not have been distressed, not only at leaving his own home, but at being driven out of every city into pathless and impassable wastes? Who would not have turned back and hurried home again, giving little thought to hopes yet to come, eager instead to escape his present hardship, supposing it foolish to choose acknowledged evils for the sake of uncertain goods?
This man alone, it seems, was affected in the opposite way, holding that the most pleasant life is one lived without the company of the many. And this is natural; for those who seek and long to find God are glad of the solitude that comes with this very pursuit, hastening above all to be made like that blessed and happy nature.
Having given both interpretations, then, the literal one as concerning a man and the one through underlying meanings as concerning a soul, we have shown both the man and the mind to be worthy of love — the man, because, persuaded by oracles, he was drawn away from things hard to tear oneself from; the mind, because, not being deceived to the very end by sensible substance, it did not come to a stop supposing the visible cosmos to be the greatest and first god, but running back up by reasoning, beheld another, better, intelligible nature, and the maker and ruler of both together.
These are the preliminary rites of the man who loves God, and they are followed by deeds not to be despised. Their greatness is not evident to everyone, but only to those who have tasted virtue, who are accustomed to make light of the things admired by the many, because of the greatness of the goods that belong to the soul.
God, then, accepting the deed just described, immediately repays the man of worth with a great gift, preserving his marriage untouched and safe, though it had been in danger of being plotted against by a powerful and unrestrained man.
The cause of the assault had this beginning. There had been a barrenness of crops for a long time, sometimes through excessive and immoderate rainfall, sometimes through drought and scorching winds, and the cities of Syria, pressed by continuous famine, were emptied of their inhabitants, as people scattered here and there in search of food and the necessities of life.
Learning, then, of the abundant plenty and good season in Egypt, where the river's floods had at the proper time turned the plains into standing water, and the sown crops had come up full-eared, nourished by the temperate winds, Abraham set out, bringing his whole household with him.
He had a wife who was best in soul and, in body, the most beautiful of the women of her time; the leading men among the Egyptians, seeing her and struck with admiration at her beauty — for nothing escapes the notice of those in high position — reported her to the king.
The king, having sent for the woman and beheld a most striking sight, gave little thought to reverence and to the laws laid down in honor of strangers, and, yielding to his lack of self-control, planned to take her in marriage in word, but in truth to violate her.
She, being in a foreign land under an unrestrained and savage-hearted ruler, at a loss for anyone to help her — for not even her husband had the strength to ward off the danger threatening from those more powerful, since he too was afraid — took refuge, along with him, in that last alliance, the one that comes from God.
And he, taking pity on the strangers, being gracious and merciful and the champion of the wronged, brought upon the king pains hard to endure and harsh punishments, filling his body and his soul with every kind of evil, hard to heal, so that all his desires leading toward pleasure were cut off, and in their place came the opposite cares, concerned with escaping torments without end, by which, worked upon day and night, he was utterly broken.
And his whole household shared in the punishment along with him, since no one in it had objected to the lawless act, but all, by their mere assent, had all but joined in committing the wrong.
In this way the woman's purity was preserved, and God saw fit to display the man's nobility and piety by granting him the greatest of rewards — a marriage kept unharmed and undishonored, though it had come within a hair's breadth of being destroyed, a marriage that was not to produce a small number of sons or daughters, but a whole nation, and the most God-beloved of nations, which, it seems to me, has received the priesthood and prophetic office on behalf of the whole human race.
I have, however, also heard men versed in natural philosophy allegorize the passage in a manner not beside the point; they said that the man, understood symbolically, stood for the excellent mind, inferring from the meaning given by the interpretation of his name a worthy character in the soul, and that his wife stood for virtue, whose name, in Chaldean, is Sarah, and in Greek, "ruler," because nothing is more fit to rule and to govern than virtue; and marriage —
the marriage that pleasure arranges wins for itself the union of bodies, but the one that wisdom arranges wins the union of reasonings that aim at purification and perfect virtues. And these two marriages just named are the most opposite of each other.
In the union of bodies, the male sows and the female receives the seed; but in the union that takes place in souls it is the reverse—virtue, though it seems to hold the position of the woman, is by nature the one that sows good counsels, earnest words, and instructions in the most beneficial doctrines, while reasoning, though thought to be assigned the man's place, receives the seeds that are sacred and divine. Or perhaps what has just been said is false, owing to a deception of names, since it is the mind that shares the masculine form, and virtue the feminine, in our language.
If someone should wish to strip away the names that cast their shadow over things, and see the realities themselves laid bare, he will know that virtue is by nature male, insofar as it moves and disposes things and instills good conceptions of good deeds and words; while reasoning is female, since it is moved, instructed, and benefited, and is examined, in short, in its capacity to be acted upon—and passion
is for it alone salvation. Now all people, even the most base, honor and admire virtue in word, so far as appearances go, but only the good actually make use of her precepts. This is why the king of Egypt—who symbolically represents the mind that loves the body—play-acting as if on a stage, puts on a counterfeit fellowship with virtue: the intemperate man feigning temperance, the licentious man feigning self-control, the unjust man feigning justice, and calling virtue his own, since he craves the good opinion of the many.
Seeing this—for only God can see into the soul—the overseer hated him, exposed him, and put his counterfeit character to the proof by the harshest torments. And by what instruments were these torments applied? Surely through the parts of virtue, which, when they intrude upon him, cruelly torment and wound him. For frugality is torment to insatiable greed, and self-control is torment to lust; the lover of glory is racked when unpretentiousness flourishes, and the unjust man when justice is praised.
For it is impossible for one soul to house two hostile natures, vice and virtue; hence, whenever they are brought together, irreconcilable factions and wars are stirred up that admit of no settlement—even though virtue's nature is most peaceable, and she is said to take care, whenever she is about to come to blows, to test her own strength beforehand, so that, if she is strong enough to win the contest, she may engage it, but if her strength proves too weak, she may not even venture to enter the contest at all.
For to be defeated is no disgrace for vice, to which ill repute is akin; but for virtue it is a reproach, since good repute is most proper to her of all things, and this is why she is disposed either to win or else to keep herself unconquered,
So much, then, has been said of the inhospitality and licentiousness of the Egyptians. But we must marvel at the humanity of the man who, having himself suffered such things, at midday saw three travelers passing as if they were men—though they were, unbeknownst to him, of a more divine nature—and ran up to beg them earnestly not to pass by his tent, but to come in, as was fitting, and share his hospitality. And they, knowing from his intention rather than from his words that he spoke truly, nodded their assent without any hesitation.
Filled in his soul with joy, he hastened to make every arrangement without delay for their reception, and said to his wife, 'Hurry, and make three measures of cakes baked in the ashes,' while he himself rushed to the herds, brought back a tender, well-fleshed calf, and handed it over to a servant.
He slaughtered it and prepared it with all speed; for in the household of a wise man no one is slow when it comes to hospitality, but women and men, slaves and free alike, are most eager in serving their guests.
And once they had been entertained—won over no less by the host's disposition and by his boundless and unstinting eagerness to honor them than by the fare set before them—they granted him a reward greater than he had hoped for, promising, through the best of the three speaking on behalf of all, the birth of a legitimate son to be confirmed the following year. For it would have been unphilosophical for all three to speak together at once; it was fitting instead that one should speak while the others gave their assent.
Yet even as they made this promise, the couple could not give it their full confidence, because of how incredible the matter was; for having already grown very old, through their long years they had given up all hope of begetting a child.
So he says that when the woman heard this, she laughed at first; but afterward, when they said, 'Is anything too hard for God?', she was ashamed and denied that she had laughed; for she knew that all things are possible for God, having learned this doctrine, one might almost say, from her very swaddling clothes.
It seems to me that it was then, for the first time, that she no longer received the same impression of what she saw, but a more solemn one, once the prophets, or angels, had changed from a spiritual
and soul-like substance into a human-shaped form. We have, then, spoken of the man's love of strangers, which is but a by-product of a greater virtue; and that virtue is piety toward God, of which we have also spoken before, and the clearest proof of it is what has just been told, presented under the guise of strangers.
Now if some have supposed a household to be happy and blessed simply because wise men happened to lodge and stay there—men who would not have thought it worth their while even to glance inside, had they seen some incurable affliction in the souls of its occupants—then I do not know what excess of happiness and blessedness I should ascribe to this house, in which angels consented to lodge and receive hospitality among men: sacred and divine natures, ministers and lieutenants of the first God, through whom, as through ambassadors, he announces beforehand to our race whatever he wishes.
For how would they have consented to enter in the first place, unless they had known that all those within, like the well-ordered crew of a ship, obeyed the single command of the one set over them as if he were their pilot? And how would they have allowed the impression of being feasted and entertained as guests, unless they considered their host a kinsman and fellow servant, one who had taken refuge with their own master? We must suppose, moreover, that at their very entrance every part of the house made still further progress toward the better, breathed upon as it were by a breeze of the most perfect virtue.
And the banquet, as one would expect, was of such a kind that the guests displayed toward their host the simplicity proper to feasts, addressing him with unguarded character and holding the conversation suited to the occasion.
It was indeed a marvel that, without drinking, they gave the impression of drinking, and without eating, of eating. But these are secondary matters; the earlier marvel was the most astonishing of all—that beings without bodies were shaped into the form of men, as a favor to the good man. For to what purpose was this wonder performed, except to give the wise man a perception, through a clearer vision, that his character had not gone unnoticed by the Father?
Let so much be said, then, concerning the literal interpretation; we must now turn to that which proceeds by way of underlying meanings. Words are symbols of things apprehended by the mind alone. So then, whenever the soul is illumined by God as if at midday, and, filled through and through with intelligible light, becomes shadowless amid the rays poured around it on every side, it apprehends a threefold appearance of a single reality—one as truly existing, the other two as though they were shadows cast from it. Something of the sort happens also to those who spend their time in sensible light: whether standing still or moving, they often find two shadows falling together at once.
Let no one, however, suppose that when applied to God 'shadows' is spoken literally; it is only a loose use of the word, meant to give a more vivid impression of the thing being shown, since the truth is not really so.
But rather, as one who stands as close as possible to the truth might put it: the one in the middle is the Father of all, who in the sacred scriptures is called by his proper name 'He who is'; and the powers on either side of him are the eldest and nearest to him who is—the one creative, the other kingly. The creative power is called God, since by it he established and ordered the universe; the kingly power is called Lord, for it is right that what has made a thing should rule and have mastery over what has come to be.
The one in the middle, then, escorted by each of the two powers, presents to the mind endowed with sight sometimes the appearance of one, sometimes of three: of one, whenever the mind, having attained the utmost purification, presses on—having passed beyond not only the multitudes of numbers but even the dyad that neighbors the monad—toward the idea that is unmixed, uncompounded, and in itself in need of nothing whatsoever; of three, when, not yet initiated into the great mysteries, it is still celebrating the lesser rites, and is unable to grasp the Existent by itself alone, apart from anything else, but only through his actions, either as creating or as ruling.
This, then, as the saying goes, is the second-best course, yet it shares no less in an opinion pleasing to God. The former way, however, does not merely share in it, but is itself the God-pleasing opinion—or rather, it is truth, which is older than opinion and more honorable than any mere seeming. But what is meant must be set forth more clearly.
There are three orders of human character, each of which has been allotted one of the appearances just described: the best has been allotted the middle one, that of him who truly exists; the one after it, the power on the right, the beneficent power, whose name is God; and the third, the power on the other side, the ruling power, which is called Lord.
The best characters, then, worship him who exists in himself alone, without anything else, drawn aside by nothing else, since they are stretched, as a unity, solely toward the honoring of the One; but of the rest, some are established and made known to the Father through the beneficent power, and others through the kingly power.
The best of characters worship the One who exists in himself, unmixed with anything else, drawn away by nothing else, because they are stretched singly toward the honor of the One; but of the rest, some are formed and become known to the Father through his beneficent power, others through his kingly power.
What I mean is this. When men perceive that certain people are approaching them under the pretext of friendship, hunting for some advantage, they eye them askance and turn away from their pretended flattery and tameness, fearing it as something deeply harmful.
But God, since he admits no harm, gladly welcomes all who choose to honor him under whatever form, and thinks it right to reject no one whatsoever, but all but openly proclaims this oracle to those who have ears in their soul:
"The first prizes shall be reserved for those who worship me for my own sake, the second for those who do so for their own sake — either hoping to obtain good things or expecting to find release from punishment. For even if the service of these is paid for hire and not disinterested, nonetheless it remains enclosed within the divine precincts and does not stray outside.
The prizes for those who honor me for my own sake will be my very own, but for those who do so out of need, they will not be prizes of friendship — though at least they will not be reckoned as belonging to strangers. For I accept also the one who wishes to share in the good things through my beneficent power, and the one who out of fear propitiates my ruling and masterly authority to avert punishment; for I am not unaware that, besides not becoming worse, they will also become better through the constant exercise of pure and unmixed piety in their service."
For even if characters differ very greatly in the impulses from which they act to please God, one must not find fault, because their aim is one and their end is one: to worship me.
That the threefold appearance is, in its power, of one underlying reality is clear not only from the contemplation found in allegory, but also from the literal text of scripture, which contains the following. For when the sage entreats the three who appear as travelers to be entertained as guests in his home, he converses with them not as with three, but as with one, and says: "Lord, if indeed I have found favor with you, do not pass by your servant" (Gen 18:3); for the words "Lord," and "with you," and "do not pass by," and all such expressions are naturally addressed to one, not to several.
But when, being entertained as guests, they show kindness in return to their host, again one alone promises, as though he alone were present, the begetting of a legitimate son, in these words: "I will return and come to you at this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son" (Gen 18:10).
Most plainly, however, and most elaborately, he reveals what is meant through what follows. The land of the Sodomites, a portion of the land of Canaan which men later named Syro-Palestine, having been filled with countless wrongs, especially those arising from gluttony and lust, and having heaped up the magnitude and multitude of its other pleasures, had already been condemned by the judge of all things.
The cause of the inhabitants' excess in licentiousness was the unbroken abundance of their provisions; for the land, being deep-soiled and well-watered, enjoyed every year a rich yield of crops of every kind. But "the greatest source of evils," as someone aptly said, "is excessive good things."
Unable to bear this surfeit, like cattle kicking free, they threw off the yoke of nature's law, pursuing strong unmixed wine, gluttonous feasting, and unlawful matings. For not only did they, mad for women, corrupt the marriages of others, but also, being men, they mounted other males — the ones who acted showing no shame before the nature they shared with those who were acted upon — and in attempting to beget children were convicted of sowing seed that could bear no fruit; yet the conviction did them no good, since they were mastered by a more violent desire.
Then, by gradually accustoming the males who were born among them to endure what belongs to women, they contrived for them a feminine disease, an evil hard to fight off, not only making their bodies womanish through softness and delicacy, but also rendering their souls more ignoble; and so far as it lay in their power, they were destroying the whole human race. Indeed, if Greeks and barbarians alike had agreed together and taken up such unions in emulation, the cities would in succession have been emptied, as though depopulated by plague.
But God, taking pity, as one who is savior and lover of mankind, increased as much as possible the unions of men and women that occur according to nature for the begetting of children, but the unnatural and unlawful unions he utterly abhorred and extinguished, and against those burning with lust for them he devised punishments that were not among the usual kind, but strange and unprecedented. For he commanded the air, suddenly grown cloudy, to rain down not water but fire, in great abundance.
And as the flame fell in a dense, unceasing, unresting torrent, the fields and meadows and thick groves and dense marshes and deep woodlands were burned; the plain was burned, along with the whole crop of grain and every other sown thing; the wooded part of the hill country was burned as well, the very roots of the tree-trunks catching fire.
Farmsteads and houses and walls and every private and public structure were consumed together in the blaze, and in a single day the once-populous cities became the tomb of their inhabitants, while their structures of stone and wood turned to ash and fine dust.
And when the flame had consumed everything visible above ground, it then began to burn the earth itself, penetrating to its very depths, and destroyed the life-giving power within it to the point of complete barrenness, so that it would never again be able to bear fruit or produce any green growth at all; and it burns even to this day, for the fire from heaven, being scarcely ever quenched, either still feeds there or smolders within.
The clearest proof is what can still be seen: for a memorial of what happened is the smoke that continually rises, and the sulfur that men mine there; and the most vivid remaining evidence of the region's ancient prosperity is a single neighboring city and the land around it — the city populous, the land rich in grass and grain and fruitful in every way — left standing as a rebuke, to prove the justice of the sentence passed by divine judgment.
But it was not for the sake of describing the greatness of the calamities wrought that I have related all this, but because I wished to establish this point: that of the three who appeared to the sage as men, the oracles say that only two came into the land that was to be destroyed, for the ruin of its inhabitants, the third not deeming it right to come—
he who, in my understanding, was the one who truly is, having judged it fitting to bestow good things himself, in person, but to entrust to his powers alone, as ministers, the accomplishing of their opposite, so that he might be regarded as the cause only of good things, and of no evil in the primary sense.
This too, it seems to me, is what kings who imitate the divine nature do: extending favors through themselves, but carrying out punishments through others.
But since of the two powers one is beneficent and the other punitive, each fittingly appeared over the land of the Sodomites, because of the five finest cities in it, four were about to be burned, while one was to be left unharmed by any evil, safe; for it was fitting that destruction come about through the punitive power, but preservation through the beneficent one.
But since even the part that was preserved did not possess whole and complete virtues, it was benefited by the power of him who is, yet was judged unworthy, in the primary sense, to attain a vision of that being itself.
This, then, is the interpretation given openly, for the many; the one given in secret, for the few who search out the characters of souls rather than the shapes of bodies, will now be told. Symbolically, the Five Cities represent the five senses within us, the instruments of pleasures, through which all pleasures, both small and great, are brought to completion.
For either, seeing the varieties of colors and shapes in things both inanimate and animate, we take pleasure, or hearing the most melodious sounds, or in taste amid matters of eating and drinking, or in smell amid the fragrances of vapors, or in touch amid things soft and warm, and also smooth.
Now the most animal-like and most slavish of the five senses are three: taste, smell, and touch; in respect of these, the most gluttonous and most lustful of tame and wild creatures are especially excited, for throughout the whole day and night they either gorge themselves insatiably with food or rush toward mating.
But two are philosophical and ruling: hearing and sight. Ears are somewhat slower and more feminine than eyes, since the eyes, through their boldness, reach out toward visible things and do not wait until those things move them, but go out to meet them and are eager to move toward them in turn. Hearing, then, being slower and more feminine, let it be assigned second rank, but let sight have a certain special privilege; for God declared this to be queen over the others, setting it above them all, and, establishing it as though on an acropolis, made it most intimately akin to the soul. One might find evidence of this from the fact that it changes together with the soul's own changes—
For when grief arises, the eyes fill with gloom and dejection; when joy arises, instead they smile faintly and brighten; when fear prevails, they fill with turbulent disorder, admitting disordered movements, tremblings, and rollings.
But if anger takes hold, the look becomes somewhat harsher and bloodshot; and in reasoning and reflecting on something it grows still and withdraws, all but stretching itself along with the thought, while in relaxations and respites it too relaxes and slackens.
To a friend approaching, it announces in advance, with a serene and calm glance, the feeling of goodwill; but if it should be an enemy, it foretells the soul's displeasure. In boldness the eyes leap forward and run ahead; in shame they rest gently and quietly. In short, to put it briefly, sight, imitated with the utmost skill, presents a vivid image of the soul, a clear likeness, as though reflected in a mirror, of a nature that has no visible form of its own.
But the beauty of the eyes surpasses the other senses not only in this, but also because the functions of the others fail during waking hours — for the inactivity that comes with sleep must not be counted — since whenever nothing external stirs them, they rest; whereas the activities of the open eyes are continuous and unbroken, never sated, and in this too they display the kinship they have with the soul.
But the soul, being ever in motion, rises both day and night, while to the eyes — since they share so greatly in flesh — a sufficient gift was given: to spend fully half of the whole span of time and life carrying out the activities
proper to them. Now what is most necessary about the benefit that comes from the eyes must be stated. For to sight alone among the senses did God cause light to rise, which is both the most beautiful of existing things and was named ‘good’ first of all in the sacred books (Gen. 1:4).
Now the nature of light is twofold: the one comes from useful fire, and being itself perishable, shines forth from what is perishable and admits of extinction; the other is inextinguishable and incorruptible, borne down to us from heaven above, as each of the stars pours out its rays as from ever-flowing springs. With each of these sight has intercourse, and through both it reaches toward visible things for the most exact apprehension.
Shall we still attempt to praise the eyes in words, when God has set up their true praises in heaven — the stars? For the rays of the sun and moon and of the other wandering and fixed stars, for what purpose have they come to be, if not for the service of the eyes’ activity in seeing?
Hence, making use of that best of all gifts, light, the eyes gaze upon the things in the world: earth, plants, animals, fruits, the expanses of the seas, rivers both native-born and torrential, and the differences among springs, of which some pour forth a cold and others a warm stream, and the natures of all things formed in the air — countless are their forms, beyond the grasp of speech — and, above all these, the heaven, which has truly been fashioned as a world within the world, and the beauties in the heavens and the divine images there. Which of the other senses
will ever boast of crossing so great a distance? But let us set aside desire, which fattens in its stalls the creature bred within us, and examine hearing, which lays claim to reason. Its most intense and most perfect course comes to a halt in the air near the earth, whenever the force of winds and the crashes of thunder sound out a great rushing and a harsh, difficult clamor.
But the eyes, from the earth, reach in an instant to heaven and to the ends of the universe — to the rising and the setting alike, to the north and to the south — and having arrived there to contemplate, they draw the mind after what has appeared.
And the mind, having received a like impression, does not rest, but being sleepless and ever in motion, having taken from sight the starting points for its ability to contemplate intelligible things, has come to inquire whether these things that have appeared are without origin or have taken a beginning of generation; and whether they are unlimited or limited; and whether there is one world or several; and whether the four elements are those to which heaven and the things in it, by a more divine nature, have been allotted a portion, and not the same substance as the rest.
And if indeed the world has come to be, by whom has it come to be, and who is its maker in substance or in quality, and with what purpose in mind he made it, and what he does now, and what manner of existence and life is his, and whatever else a mind of surpassing excellence, living together with wisdom, is accustomed to search out.
These things and others like them are devoted to the pursuit of philosophy. From this it is clear that wisdom and philosophy have taken their beginning from none of the other faculties within us but from sight, the leader among the senses — which alone, out of the bodily region, God preserved from among the four that were to perish, because the others were enslaved to flesh and the passions of flesh, while sight had the strength to raise its neck, to look upward, and to discover other delights far better than bodily pleasures, from the contemplation of the world and the things in it.
It was fitting, then, that sight alone, as out of a league of five cities among the five senses, should obtain a special prize and, while the others perish, remain — because it does not, like them, confine itself to mortal things, but claims the right to migrate to the imperishable natures, rejoicing in the sight of these.
For this reason the oracles most beautifully represent this city as both ‘small’ and ‘not small’ (cf. Gen. 19:20), hinting at sight: for it is called small because it is a slight part of what is within us, but great because it reaches after great things, longing to gaze upon the whole heaven and the world.
Concerning, then, the vision that appeared and the celebrated and altogether beautiful gifts of hospitality, in which the host who seemed to be entertaining was himself the one entertained, we have made clear, as far as was possible, an exact account of what pertains to that scene. But we must not pass over in silence the greatest deed worthy to be heard; for I am not far from saying that it surpasses all deeds pleasing to God. We must speak of what is essential concerning it.
A son is born to the sage from his wedded wife, legitimate, beloved, and only — most beautiful in body and best in soul; for already, at his tender age, he was displaying virtues more mature than his years, so that his father was moved not only by the natural affection of a father, but also by judgment, like a judge of character, to a strong tenderness of love.
While he was in this state, suddenly an oracle is pronounced, never hoped for: that he should sacrifice his son upon some very high hill, at a distance of three days’ journey from the city.
But he, though hanging upon his boy with an inexpressible longing, neither changed color nor was bent in soul, but remained unshaken, with unyielding and unwavering resolve, just as he had been before; and, overpowered by a divine love, he conquered utterly all the names and endearments of kinship, and, telling the oracle to none of his household, taking from his many household servants only the two oldest and most devoted to their master, he set out as a fourth with his son, as though for some customary sacred rite.
And having seen the appointed place from far off, as if from a watchtower, he bids the servants remain behind, and gives to his son fire and wood to carry, deeming it right that the victim itself should be burdened with what pertained to the sacrifice — a most light burden, for nothing is less toilsome than piety.
Walking at an equal pace, no more with their bodies than with their minds, along the shortest road, whose end is holiness, they arrive at the appointed place.
Then the father began gathering stones, to build an altar, while the son, seeing everything else made ready for the sacred rite, but no animal, looked at his father and said, ‘Here is the fire and the wood, father — but where is the victim?’
Another man, knowing what he was about to do and darkening it in his soul at what had been said, would have been thrown into confusion, and, filled with tears, would have betrayed, through the intensity of his feeling, by his very calm, a hint of what was to come.
But he, admitting no change either in body or in mind, with a steady gaze and steady reasoning, says in answer to the question: ‘My child, God will see to a victim for himself, even in this great desolation, on account of which perhaps you despair of one being found; but know that all things are possible to God, even those that lie beyond human resource and contrivance.’
And saying this, he quickly snatched up his son, laid him on the altar, drew the sword with his right hand, and brought it down to slay him. But the saving God anticipated the deed, cutting it short with a voice from the air that commanded him to hold back and not touch the boy, calling the father by name twice, so that he might turn and pull back his hand and stop himself from carrying out
the slaughter. And so the son was kept safe, God giving him back as a gift in return, and honoring the one who brought him in the very act by which he had shown his piety. And for the father, the deed itself, even though it was not carried through to its end, has been engraved whole and complete not only in the sacred books but also in the minds of those who read them from that time on.
But to those who love to give offense and find fault with everything, who are in the habit of prizing blame above praise, the deed done does not seem great and marvelous, as we suppose it to be.
For they say that many others too, among men most devoted to their households and their children, have given up their own sons: some to be slaughtered on behalf of their homelands, to serve as ransom against wars or droughts or floods or plagues of disease; others on behalf of some observance held to be pious, even if it was not truly so.
Among the Greeks, the most highly regarded — not private citizens only but kings as well — gave little thought to those they had begotten, and by putting them to death saved great and populous armies drawn up as allies, while on
the enemy's side they destroyed at a single stroke. And barbarian nations for a long time accepted the killing of children as a holy and god-pleasing act — of whose pollution the most holy Moses himself makes mention; for accusing them of this defilement he says that "they burn their sons and their daughters to their gods" (Deut. 12:31).
And among the Indians, the naked sages, to this day, whenever the long and incurable disease of old age begins to take hold, before it has firmly mastered them, heap up a pyre and burn themselves upon it, though they might perhaps still hold out for many more years; and it has happened that women too, when their husbands have died before them, rush gladly to the same pyre and, while still alive, endure being burned along with their husbands' bodies.
One might reasonably admire these acts for their sheer daring, holding death in such utter contempt, as though rushing toward immortality and running to it without pausing for breath. But why should this man be praised as the originator of some newly-invented deed, when private citizens and kings and whole nations do the same at various times?
To the envy and bitterness of such people I will say this: of those who sacrifice a child, some do it out of custom, as I said certain barbarians do; others do it because of unwanted and grave circumstances of cities and countries that cannot be set right in any other way — of whom some give up their own children under compulsion, forced by those more powerful, while others do it out of a craving for reputation and honor, for glory in the present and good report in time to come.
Those, then, who sacrifice by custom do nothing great, it seems; for custom, grown habitual over time, is often equated with nature, so that it lightens even things hard to endure and hard to bear, making the extremes of what is fearful easy to manage.
And for those who give up their children out of fear, there is no praise at all; for praise is recorded for voluntary achievements, while unwilling acts belong to other categories, whether to circumstance or to fortune or to compulsions imposed by other men.
And if someone, reaching for glory, gives up a son or a daughter, he would justly be blamed rather than praised, purchasing honor at the price of death for those most dear to him — an honor which, even once gained, he ought to have thrown away for the sake of saving his children.
We must inquire, then, whether that man was about to sacrifice his son because he was overcome by any of the things just mentioned — custom, honor, or fear. As for custom, Babylon and Mesopotamia and the Chaldean nation do not accept the killing of children, and it was among them that he was raised and lived for most of his life, so that by the constant repetition of such acts he might be thought to have been mastered, his perceptions of what is terrible dulled.
And certainly there was no fear from other men — for no one even knew of the oracle given to him alone — nor had some common disaster overtaken them, one whose remedy required the killing of his most highly esteemed son.
But was it that, hunting for the praise of the many, he rushed toward the deed? And what praise could there be in the wilderness, with no one present who was going to applaud what was to happen — indeed with even the two servants deliberately left far behind, so that he should not seem
to be showing off and putting on display, calling in witnesses of his piety? Let those with unbridled and slanderous mouths, then, shut their doors and moderate the envy that hates the good within them, and let them not injure the virtues of men who have lived well — virtues which it would be fitting to honor with good report instead. And that the deed is in truth praiseworthy and worthy of love is easy to see from many considerations.
First, then, obedience to God, which is held in reverence and eagerly contested for among all who think rightly, he cultivated above all else, so that he never once disregarded any command, without reluctance or displeasure, even when it was full of toil and pain; and this is why he bore what was decreed concerning his son with the utmost nobility and firmness.
Next, since there was no custom in his country — as there perhaps is among some peoples — of sacrificing human beings, a practice which constant repetition tends to weaken one's perception of as something terrible, he himself was about to be the first to begin so novel and extraordinary a deed, one which I think no one would have endured even if his soul had been forged of iron or adamant; for as someone has said, "it is nature's way to resist."
And having made this son alone his legitimate child, he possessed at once in him a legitimate depth of affection as well, surpassing even the most temperate loves and the friendships that come about through mere acquaintance.
And there was added a most compelling charm: that he had begotten the boy not in the prime of life but in old age; for fathers who are wild with affection for children born late in life feel this either because they had longed for the birth through a long stretch of time, or because they no longer expect any others to come, nature having come to a halt there as at its final and utmost limit.
Now to give up one child out of many to God, as a kind of firstfruits of one's children, is nothing extraordinary, since one still has the pleasures found in those who remain, no small comfort and balm for the grief over the one sacrificed; but a man who gives up the only son he holds dear accomplishes a deed greater than any account can capture, granting nothing to kinship, but inclining the whole balance of his soul toward what is pleasing to God.
That, indeed, is exceptional, and something done by this man almost alone; for others, even when they give up their own children to be slaughtered for the safety of their homelands or their armies, either remain at home or stand far off from the altars, or, even if they happen to be present, turn their eyes away, unable to bear watching, while others do the killing.
But he, like a priest, himself began the sacred rite, though he was the most affectionate of fathers toward a son who was in every way the best; and he would perhaps even have cut his son limb from limb according to the law of whole burnt offerings (cf. Lev. 1:6 and elsewhere), performing the sacrifice member by member. So it was not that one part of him inclined toward his child and another toward piety, but that he devoted his whole soul entirely to holiness, giving little thought to the blood of his own kin.
What, then, in what has been said, is common to others? What is not exceptional and beyond all account? So that even one not naturally envious and hostile to what is good would be struck with amazement at his excessive piety, even without taking in all at once everything I have said, but even a single one of these points; for even the impression of a single instance, in a brief sketch — and nothing that is the work of a wise man is brief — is enough to display greatness and loftiness of soul.
But the things said do not stop at their plain and evident meaning; rather they seem to hint at a deeper nature, less clear to most people, which those who value the intelligible above the perceptible, and who are able to see it, recognize.
It is like this: the one who was about to be sacrificed is called in Chaldean Isaac, but when the name is translated into Greek, "laughter"; laughter here does not mean the kind that arises in the body through jesting, but rather the good feeling and joy that belongs to the mind.
This is the offering that the wise man is said, fittingly, to perform for God through a symbol, signifying that rejoicing belongs to God alone as his very own; for the human race is subject to grief and fear, whether from present evils or those expected, so that it is either pained by unwanted things at hand or shaken with turmoil and fear at what is to come; but the nature of God is free from grief and fear and untouched by any passion, alone partaking of perfect happiness and blessedness.
To the one who has made this true confession, God, being kind and benevolent in his way, having driven envy from himself, fittingly gives the gift in return, in proportion to the capacity of the one who is to receive it, and all but proclaims these very words:
"That the kind of joy that is rejoicing belongs to no one but me, the Father of all — this I know clearly; yet though I possess it, I do not begrudge its use to those who are worthy. And who could be worthy, except one who follows me and my purposes? For it will fall to him, least of all, to be pained, and least of all to be afraid, as he travels this road, which is impassable to the passions and vices, but is walked through by good feelings and virtues."
Let no one suppose that unmixed joy, free of all admixture of grief, descends from heaven to earth; rather it is mixed of both, with the better element predominating — just as light in heaven is unmixed and free of darkness, but appears mixed with murky air among things beneath the moon.
For this reason, it seems to me, Sarah — surnamed Virtue — having laughed earlier, denied her laughter to the one who inquired (Gen. 18:15), fearing that she might be appropriating for herself the rejoicing that belongs to no created being but to God alone; and so, to reassure her, the sacred word says:
"Do not be afraid; you did truly laugh, and joy is yours. For the Father did not allow the human race to be swept along wholly by griefs and pains and unbearable burdens, but mixed in something of the better nature too, deeming it right that the soul should at times find fair weather and calm; and he willed that the wise should rejoice and be glad, for the greater part of their lives, in the contemplation of the works of the universe."
Let this much be said about the man's piety, even though there is an abundance of much else that could be told. We must also examine his kindness toward his fellow human beings; for it belongs to the same nature to be pious and to love humanity, and each of these is observed in relation to the same object: holiness toward God, justice toward human beings. To recount all his deeds would take too long, but it is not out of place to recall two or three.
Though he was among the wealthiest in silver and gold, and possessed flocks teeming with many kinds of livestock, and rivaled the natives and the indigenous people who had ample possessions in his abundance, and had become richer than befits a resident alien, he was blamed by none of his hosts, but was praised continually by all who came to know him.
And if ever, as often happens, some rivalry or quarrel arose between his servants and companions and others, he would try to dissolve it quietly, having set before it his weightier character, having driven from his soul all that was contentious, turbulent, and factious.
And it is no wonder that he behaved this way toward strangers, who, joining forces with a heavier and stronger hand, would have retaliated against one who began an unjust affray, when even toward those who were kin by birth but estranged in disposition, isolated and alone and possessing far less than he, he acted with moderation, willingly accepting the lesser share in matters where he could have had the greater.
For he had a nephew who had gone out with him when he left his homeland — unsteady, wavering, leaning now this way now that, at one time fawning with friendly greetings, at another rebelling and throwing off restraint on account of the unevenness of his character.
Hence his household too was quarrelsome and turbulent, having no one to discipline it, and especially the shepherds, who were kept far from their master; being self-willed, like freedmen, they were constantly at odds with the overseers of the wise man's flocks, who mostly yielded on account of their master's gentle disposition. Emboldened by this toward recklessness and shameless insolence, they grew angry, and kept the fire of their implacable resentment burning within themselves, until they forced those who were wronged to rush to defend themselves.
When a very fierce battle had broken out, the good man, hearing of the counter-attack, and knowing that his own side was superior in numbers and strength, would not let the dispute go all the way to victory, so as not to grieve his nephew by the defeat of his own men; but standing on the border, he reconciled the disputants with words of settlement — not only for the present time but for the time to come as well.
For knowing that if they continued to live together and share the same dwelling, they would, out of stubborn rivalry, forever stir up factions and wars against each other, in order to prevent this he judged it advantageous to give up their common life and separate their households; and summoning his nephew, he gave him the choice of the better land, gladly agreeing that whichever portion he chose he should have, for he considered peace itself the greatest gain.
And yet who else, being the stronger, would yield to a weaker man in any matter whatsoever? Who, being able to win, would wish to be defeated, rather than make use of his power? He alone, placing the highest good not in strength and greed for advantage but in a life free of faction and, so far as it depended on him, in tranquility, seemed to all the most admirable of men.
Since, then, this praiseworthy account has been given as concerning a man, and since character-types of the soul are also signified, according to those who proceed from the literal to the intelligible, it would be fitting to search these out as well.
Countless types, indeed, arise from countless starting points, in keeping with all sorts of forms of things, but there are two that are now to be examined, of which one is older and the other younger — the older being the one that honors what is first and ruling by nature, the younger the one that honors what is subordinate and found at the outermost limits.
The older and ruling things, then, are prudence, self-control, justice, courage, and everything belonging to virtue and to actions in accordance with virtue; the younger are wealth, reputation, office, and noble birth — not the true kind, but the kind the many suppose it to be — and whatever else has been assigned the third rank after the things of soul and body, which is immediately also the last.
Each of these two types, then, has what might be called flocks and herds: the one who reaches for external things has silver, gold, garments, and everything that serves as material and equipment for wealth, and again weapons, engines of war, warships, cavalry, infantry, and naval power, the resources for dominion, from which secure mastery results; while the one who loves nobility of character has the doctrines belonging to each virtue and the contemplations of wisdom itself.
Over each of these two there are overseers and caretakers, like shepherds over their flocks: over the external things, those who love money and reputation and aspire to command, and all who delight in holding power over the masses; over the things of the soul, those who love beauty and love virtue, choosing not the spurious goods before the genuine, but the genuine before the spurious.
A kind of natural conflict, then, arises between them, since they agree on nothing, but are ever discordant and at variance concerning the matter that holds together all of life more than any other — namely, the judgment of what is truly good.
For a while, then, the soul was warred upon and went along with this faction, not yet fully purified, but with the passions and diseases still getting the better of the healthy reasonings; but from the time it began to grow stronger and, with a mightier strength, to tear down the fortifications of the opposing opinions, having taken wing and having been filled with high resolve, it walls off and separates from itself the character-type that had marveled at external material things, and, as though addressing a man, it says:
"It is impossible for you to live together and share the same table with one who is a lover of wisdom and virtue; go, then, remove yourself, and be separated far away, having no fellowship with him — indeed, being unable to have any. For whatever you suppose to be on the right hand, he considers to be on the left; and whatever, on the contrary, you suppose to be on the left, is held by him to be on the right."
The good man, then, was not only peaceable and a lover of justice, but courageous and warlike as well — not for the sake of waging war, for he was not quarrelsome or contentious, but for the sake of securing a lasting peace for the future, which his adversaries were destroying. The clearest proof is what he actually did.
Four great kings had been allotted the eastern portion of the inhabited world, and the eastern nations obeyed them, both those beyond the Euphrates and those within it. Everything else remained free of rebellion, submitting to the kings' commands and paying the annual tribute without objection; only the territory of the Sodomites, before it was burned to the ground, began to unsettle the peace, having long been minded to revolt.
For since this land was extremely prosperous, five kings held power over it, having divided the cities and the territory among themselves—not extensive in area, but rich in grain and trees and overflowing with fruit. What great size gave to other lands, virtue gave to Sodom, and this is why its beauty won it so many admirers among rulers who were struck with astonishment at it.
For a long while these five kings paid the tribute imposed on them to the collectors of revenue, honoring and at the same time fearing those who were mightier than themselves, whose governors they were. But when they had their fill of good things—and, as usually happens, satiety bred arrogance—thinking more highly of their own power than was warranted, they first shook off the yoke, and then, like wicked slaves who attack their own masters, they set upon them, trusting in rebellion rather than in strength.
The four kings, remembering their own noble birth and arming themselves with a mightier force, advanced very contemptuously, as though they would prevail with a single shout; and when they engaged, they scattered some at once into flight, while others they cut down as they turned to run, destroying them to the last man of fighting age; and having taken a great crowd of captives together with the rest of the plunder, they divided it among themselves. They also carried off the wise man's nephew, who not long before had moved to one of the cities of the Pentapolis.
When this was reported by one of those who had survived the rout, it distressed him grievously, and he could no longer rest, being thrown into confusion by it, and grieving over him as living was more painful than if he had learned that he was dead. For "the end," as its very name somewhere shows, he knew to be the termination of everything in life, and especially of evils, but countless unwanted things lie in wait for the living.
As he made ready to pursue in order to rescue his nephew, he was at a loss for allies, since he was a foreigner and a resident alien, and no one dared to oppose the irresistible forces of so many kings, kings moreover who had just been victorious.
But he discovered a most novel form of alliance—for a way is found even in the midst of impossibility, whenever a person sets his heart on works of justice and humanity. He gathered together his household servants, and having ordered those he had purchased with money to remain at home—for he feared desertion from among them—he enrolled those born in his household, and dividing them into companies of a hundred he advanced in three divisions, trusting not in these forces (for they were a tiny fraction compared with those of the kings) but in God, the champion and defender who fights on behalf of justice.
So he pressed on, straining every effort and relaxing none of his speed, until, watching for his moment, he fell upon the enemy by night, when they had already dined and were about to turn to sleep; and some he slaughtered in their beds, while those who formed ranks against him he destroyed utterly, and he overpowered them all with vigor, relying more on the courage of his soul than on his equipment.
And he did not relent until he had cut down the opposing army to the last man of fighting age, along with the kings themselves, and had laid them low before their own camp, and had brought his nephew back after a brilliant and most conspicuous victory, taking along with him besides all the cavalry and the multitude of other pack animals and a most abundant plunder.
When the great priest of the greatest God saw him returning, bearing the trophies of victory, safe himself and with his own force safe—for he had lost not one of his companions—he was struck with astonishment at the magnitude of the achievement, and, reflecting as one naturally would that it could not have been accomplished without divine providence and alliance, he lifted up his hands to heaven, honored him with prayers, offered sacrifices for the victory, and gave a splendid feast for all who had shared in the struggle, rejoicing and delighting in it as though it were his own achievement. And in truth it was his own; for, as the proverb has it, "friends hold all things in common," and far more so do good men, whose single aim is to please God.
These, then, are the things the literal scriptures contain. But those who are able to contemplate matters as incorporeal and stripped bare, who live by the soul rather than by the body, will say that of the nine kings, four represent the powers within us of the four passions—pleasure, desire, fear, and grief—while the five represent the equal number of senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.
For in a certain way these hold royal sway and rule over us, having power fastened upon them, though not in the same degree; for the five are subject to the four and pay them the tribute and dues that nature has made obligatory.
For it is from what we see or hear or smell or taste or touch that griefs and pleasures and fears and desires arise, none of the passions having any strength of its own unless it were supplied by the equipment furnished through the senses.
For these are the powers belonging to those passions, whether through colors and shapes, or through the voice in speaking or hearing, or through flavors, or through scents, or through the qualities found in tangible things—soft and hard, or rough and smooth, or hot and cold; for all these are supplied to each of the passions through the senses.
And so long as the tribute mentioned is paid, alliance remains among the kings, but whenever it is no longer rendered in the same measure, factions and wars immediately arise. This is likely to happen when painful old age arrives, in which none of the passions grows any weaker—indeed perhaps even mightier than their former strength—but the eyes grow dim, the ears hard of hearing, and each of the other senses more blunted, no longer able to discern each thing as precisely nor to render judgment, nor to pay tribute equal to what is due. It is reasonable, then, that having grown weak in every way, they are easily overturned by the opposing passions, which incline against them of their own accord.
Most naturally has it been said that of the five kings, two fall into pits, while three set out in flight (Gen. 14:10); for touch and taste reach down to the deepest recesses, conveying what belongs to them into the inward parts for their governance, while the eyes, ears, and smell, mostly moving outward, escape the body's servitude.
Watching over all these, the man of worth, when he saw the allied and friendly powers lately diseased, and war arising in place of peace among the nine kingdoms, with the five contending against the four for supremacy of rule, suddenly seized his moment and attacked, ambitious to establish in the soul democracy, the best of constitutions, in place of tyrannies and dynasties, and lawfulness and justice in place of the lawlessness and injustice that had until then prevailed.
What has been said is no fictional myth, but a matter observed among the truest realities within ourselves. For often the senses maintain harmony with the passions, supplying to them the objects of sense, and often too they fall into faction, no longer willing to pay the same due, or unable to, because reason, the corrective power, is present. Whenever reason takes up its own full armor—the virtues, and the doctrines and contemplations belonging to them, a power that cannot be resisted—it prevails most mightily; for it is not lawful for the perishable to dwell together with the imperishable.
The nine dominions, then, of the four passions and the five senses are perishable and causes of destruction, while reason, which uses the virtues as its base of operations, is truly sacred and divine, ranked in the number of the perfect ten; and when it comes to the contest, employing the mightier power that is according to God, it conquers utterly the dominions just described.
In time, later, his wife died, a woman most agreeable in temper and best in every respect, having given countless proofs of her devotion to her husband: her abandonment of her kinsfolk along with him, her unhesitating removal from her homeland, her continual and repeated wanderings in a foreign land, her want and hunger, her campaigns alongside him in wars.
For always and everywhere she was at his side, leaving no place or occasion, a true partner of his life and of the affairs of that life, claiming an equal share both in good things and in bad; for she was not like some women who flee from misfortune while lying in wait for good fortune, but she embraced with all eagerness whatever portion fell to her in either case, as fitting and proper for a wife.
Though I have many things to relate in praise of this woman, I will call to mind one, which will serve as the clearest proof of the others as well. Being childless and barren, and fearing that the house beloved of God might be left utterly bereft of offspring, she came to her husband and said the following:
"For a long time now we have lived together, well pleased with one another, but the begetting of children, for the sake of which we ourselves came together and for which nature joined the partnership of husband and wife, has not occurred, nor is it to be expected in the future from me, since I am already past the age."
"Do not, then, be deprived, on account of my barrenness, of the benefit that is your due, nor, out of your goodwill toward me, be barred from becoming a father when you are able to be one; for I would feel no jealousy toward another woman, since you would not be taking her out of irrational desire, but in order to fulfill a necessary law of nature."
"For this reason I will not delay to escort a bride to you, one who is to fill up what is lacking in me; and if the prayers for the begetting of children should be answered, the offspring will be legitimately yours, but by adoption entirely mine as well."
For this reason I will not delay to give her to you as a bride, since she is to fulfill what is lacking in me; and if the prayers concerning the begetting of children should be answered, the children born will be yours by nature, but certainly mine by adoption."
And so that there be no suspicion of jealousy on my part, take, if you wish, my own maidservant—a slave in body, but free and noble in mind, whose character I have tested and proved over a long time, from the very day she was first brought into my household: Egyptian by birth, but Hebrew by choice.
We possess much property and abundant wealth, not as resident aliens do—indeed we already surpass the native-born in splendid good fortune—but no heir or successor has yet been appointed, if you will be persuaded by my advice."
And he, moved still more by his wife's ever-active and ardent devotion to her husband, and by her careful forethought concerning the future, took to himself the woman she had approved, continuing with her, as the most accurate accounts say, only until she had conceived; for once she had conceived, not long after, he abstained from her, both out of natural self-restraint and out of the honor he accorded his wedded wife.
So a son is born from the maidservant—though it might have happened at that very time in any case—and, long afterward, a legitimate son is born as well, to a couple who had given up hope of having children of their own, God, who delights in giving, granting a reward for their nobility more complete than any hope.
Let this much suffice as examples told concerning the woman; but there are yet more praises to speak of the sage, some of which I recounted a little earlier. I will also tell of his conduct at his wife's death, a deed not fit to be passed over in silence.
For having lost such a partner in the whole of life as our account has shown and the oracles attest, when grief was already stripping down and covering itself with dust to grapple with his soul, like an athlete he prevailed, strengthening and greatly encouraging reason, the natural opponent of the passions; and using reason as his counselor throughout his whole life, he judged it right at that time above all to be persuaded by it, as it urged upon him what was best and beneficial.
And these were its counsels: neither to thrash about beyond due measure, as though the calamity were utterly novel and unprecedented, nor to display such indifference as though nothing painful had occurred, but to choose the mean between the two extremes and try to moderate one's feelings—not resenting nature for reclaiming what was owed to it, but bearing what had happened calmly
and gently easing it. Testimony to this is recorded in the sacred books, which it is not lawful to convict of false witness; they report that after shedding a few tears over the body, he rose quickly from beside the corpse, evidently considering excessive mourning foreign to wisdom—the wisdom that had taught him to regard death not as the extinction of the soul, but as its separation and release from the body, the soul departing back to the place from which it came; and it came, as has been shown in the treatise On the Creation of the World, from God.
Just as no one would be distressed at repaying a debt or a deposit to the one who lent it, in the same way he thought one ought not to be angry when nature reclaims what belongs to it, but should welcome what is necessary.
When the leading men of the region came to share in his grief, and saw none of the customary displays made for mourners among them—no wailing, no lamentation, no beating of the breast, neither from men nor from women, but a steady and sober dejection pervading the whole household—they were greatly astonished, though they had already been struck with wonder at the rest of the man's life.
Then, unable to contain within themselves the greatness and beauty of his virtue—for everything about it was extraordinary—they came forward and cried out, "You are a king from God among us" (Gen. 23:6), speaking the plain truth. For other kingships are established by men, through wars and campaigns and countless evils, which those who lust after power inflict on one another as they slaughter each other, arraying infantry, cavalry, and naval forces against one another; but the kingship of the sage is bestowed by God, and the excellent man who receives it becomes the cause of harm to no one, while proclaiming to all his subjects peace and good order, together with the acquisition and enjoyment of good things.
There is also a written praise of him, attested in the oracles that Moses was inspired to declare, by which it is revealed that "he believed God" (Gen. 15:6)—a statement briefest to utter, but greatest to confirm in deed. For in whom else ought one to place trust?
Is it in positions of power, or in reputation and honors, or in abundance of wealth and noble birth, or in health and keenness of the senses, or in bodily strength and beauty? But every form of rule is precarious, having countless rivals lying in ambush against it; and even where it is somehow secured, it is secured only along with the countless evils that those in power both inflict and suffer.
Reputation and honors are a most precarious possession, tossed about on the unstable characters and fickle words of thoughtless people; and even if they should endure, they do not by nature contain any genuine good.
Wealth and noble birth belong even to the most worthless people; and even if they belonged only to the excellent, they would be praises of one's ancestors and of fortune, not of those who possess them.
But it is not worth taking pride in bodily qualities either, in which the irrational animals have the advantage. For what man is stronger or mightier than the bull among tame creatures, or the lion among wild ones? Who is sharper-sighted than the hawk or the eagle? Who is so fortunate in hearing as the donkey, the most sluggish of animals? Who is more precise in smell than the dog, which hunters say tracks by scent and runs unerringly toward carcasses far away that it has never seen? For what sight is to others, the nostrils are to hunting and tracking dogs.
Most of the irrational animals are also the healthiest and, as far as possible, the most free from disease. And in the contest of beauty, it seems to me that even some lifeless things can win and surpass the fair forms of both men and women—statues, carved images, and paintings, and in general all the works of painting and sculpture successfully achieved in either art, over which Greeks and barbarians alike take such pains, for the adornment of their cities, setting them up in the most prominent
places. So the only unfailing and secure good is faith toward God: the consolation of life, the fulfillment of good hopes, barrenness of evils and abundance of goods, the renunciation of misfortune, the knowledge of piety, the inheritance of happiness—the improvement of the soul in every respect, once it has fixed and settled itself firmly upon the cause of all things, who is able to do all things and wills only what is best.
For just as those who walk along a slippery road trip and fall, while those who go by a dry and well-traveled highway make their journey without stumbling, so too those who lead the soul by way of bodily things and externals accustom it to nothing but falling—for these things are slippery and the most unstable of all—while those who hasten toward God through the contemplations that concern the virtues keep to a safe and unshaken path; so that it can be said with utmost truth that the one who trusts in those things distrusts God, while the one who distrusts those things has put his trust in God.
But the oracles do not only attest his faith in the Existent One, the queen of virtues; they also declared him the first to be called "elder" (Gen. 24:1), even though those before him had lived three times as many years and more—none of whom, as far as we have learned, was deemed worthy of this title.
And this is surely fitting; for one who is elder in truth is recognized not by length of years but by a praiseworthy and perfect life. Those, then, who have worn away a long span of time in life with the body, without nobility of character, should rightly be called long-lived children, never having learned the lessons worthy of gray hair; whereas one who has come to love wisdom, understanding, and faith in God might justly be called an elder, taking his name alongside "the first."
For in truth the sage is first among the human race, just as the pilot is first on a ship, the ruler first in a city, the general first in war, the soul is first in the body, mind first in the soul, and again heaven is first in the universe, and God is first in heaven.
God, admiring the man's faith toward him, gives faith back to him in return—the confirmation by oath of the gifts he had promised—no longer speaking merely as God to a man, but as a friend conversing with an acquaintance; for he says, "I have sworn by myself" (Gen. 22:16)—he for whom his word is itself an oath—in order that Abraham's mind might be established still more unwaveringly and firmly than before.
The good and excellent man, then, is and should be called elder and first; while every fool is younger and last, pursuing the things that make for novelty and are ranked at the very margins. Let this much, then, be said on this subject.
And setting, as it were, a crowning capstone upon the multitude and greatness of the sage's praises, Moses says that "this man did the divine law and all the divine commandments" (Gen. 26:5)—not having been instructed by written texts, but having taken pains to follow unwritten nature with sound and healthy impulses. And concerning what God himself confesses, what is fitting for men to do but believe most firmly?
Such is the life of the first founder of the nation — a life that some will call lawful, but that my own account has shown to be law itself, an unwritten statute.

======== On Joseph ========

There are three forms through which the finest end is reached—learning, nature, and practice—and there are also three sages, the eldest according to Moses, named for these very things. Having written their lives—the one who learned by instruction, the one who was self-taught, and the one who trained by practice—I shall now write, fourth in sequence, the life of the statesman, whose name in turn is borne by one of the tribal patriarchs, a man formed for statesmanship from his earliest years.
He began, in fact, to be formed for it at about seventeen years of age, through the principles of shepherding, which harmonize with the principles that govern a city. This, I think, is why the poetic tradition is accustomed to call kings "shepherds of the peoples": for the man who has mastered shepherding would also make the best king, having been trained, in matters that seem to deserve less effort, in the care of the finest flock of living creatures, human beings.
And just as for the man who intends to command in war and lead an army, exercises in hunting are most necessary, in the same way, for those whose hope it is to govern a city, shepherding is most fitting, since it is a kind of preliminary training in oversight and command.
His father, then, seeing in him a noble disposition, greater than that of a private man, admired and cherished him, and loved him more than his other sons, both because he was born to him in his old age—which is no less than anything else conducive to affection—and because, being a lover of what is fine, he kindled the boy's nature into flame through special and extraordinary attentions,
so that it might not merely smolder but blaze up all the sooner. But envy, ever the adversary of great prosperity, then set upon a household that was flourishing in every part and turned brother against brother, arming many against one; and they, in a hatred that matched the father's affection for him, showed as much ill will as the measure of the love he was shown. Yet they did not speak their hatred aloud, but stored it up within themselves, and so, naturally enough, it grew all the more troublesome; for passions that are shut in and find no outlet through reasoned words become heavier.
Now the boy, being of guileless character and not perceiving the enmity smoldering beneath the surface among his brothers, saw an auspicious dream and told it to them as though they were well disposed to him. "I thought," he said, "that the season of harvest had come, and that all of us had gone into the field to gather in the crop, and, taking sickles, were reaping; and suddenly my own sheaf rose up and stood erect, lifted on high, while yours, as though at a signal, ran up to it and, struck with awe, did obeisance to it with every mark of honor."
But they, being sharp of understanding and clever at tracking down through signs a matter otherwise hidden, by plausible conjectures, said, "Do you suppose you will become our king and master? For this is what you are hinting at through your invented vision." And their hatred blazed up all the more, ever seizing on some new pretext by which to grow.
He, suspecting nothing, a few days later had another dream, more astonishing than the first, and reported it to his brothers: for he thought that the sun and the moon and eleven stars came and did obeisance to him. His father, marveling at what had happened, laid it up in his mind, storing it away and watching to see what would come of it.
But he admonished the boy gravely, out of fear that he might go wrong in some way, and said: "Shall we indeed be able—I and your mother and your brothers—to do obeisance to you? For by the sun you seem to signify your father, by the moon your mother, and by the eleven stars your eleven brothers. May this never enter your mind, my son; and may even the memory of what has appeared to you slip away and be forgotten. For to hope for and look forward to dominion over one's own kin is, in my judgment, a thing altogether to be shunned—and, I think, in the judgment of all who care for equality and the rights owed to kindred."
The father, being cautious lest some disturbance and discord should arise among the brothers from their living together, since they bore a grudge over the dreams against the one who had seen them, sent the others out to tend the flocks, but kept this one at home, watching over the proper time, knowing that time is said to be the physician of the soul's passions and sicknesses, capable of removing grief, quenching anger, and curing fear; for it eases everything, even those things that are by nature hard to heal.
But when he judged that no hostility any longer lay hidden in their minds, he sent his son both to greet his brothers and, at the same time, to report how they and the flocks of their herds were faring.
This journey came to be the beginning of great evils, and again, beyond all expectation, of great goods for both parties. For he, obeying his father's instructions, went to his brothers; but they, seeing him arriving from a distance, spoke to one another words of ill omen, since they did not even think him worthy to be addressed by name, but called him "the dream-struck one" and "the dreamer" and such names, and worked themselves up to such a pitch of anger that the greater part of them, though not all, plotted his murder, and, in order not to be found out, resolved to kill him and throw him into a very deep pit dug in the earth; for there are many cisterns for rain-water in that region.
And they came close to committing the greatest of impieties, fratricide, had they not, with difficulty, been persuaded by the pleas of the eldest, who urged them not to lay a hand upon this pollution themselves, but only to throw him into one of the pits, having in mind something that might save him: that after their departure he might take him out, unharmed by any evil, and send him back to their father.
When they had agreed, he came up to them and greeted them; but they seized him as though he were an enemy, stripped off his robe, and let him down into deep pits, while the robe, stained with the blood of a kid, they sent to their father, with the pretext that he had been devoured by wild beasts.
That very day, as it happened, some merchants were traveling by, of those accustomed to carry goods from Arabia to Egypt; and to them, drawing their brother up, they sold him, following the judgment of the one who was fourth in age. For this one, I think, fearing that he might be treacherously killed by those who kindled an implacable anger against him, advised that he be sold, exchanging slavery for death—a lighter evil for a greater one.
But the eldest—for he had not been present when he was sold—peered down and, not seeing the one he had left there only a little before, cried out and shouted, and, tearing his garments, was carried this way and that as though out of his mind, clapping his hands and pulling his hair, saying, "What has happened to him?"
"Tell me, does he live, or is he dead? If he is no more, show me his corpse, that I may weep over the fallen body and find relief from my misfortune; seeing him laid out, I shall be consoled. Why should we bear a grudge even against the dead? Toward those who are gone, no envy arises. But if he lives, to what part of the earth has he gone? With whom is he kept? For surely I too am not under suspicion, as he was, that I should be disbelieved."
When they told him that he had been sold, and showed him the price, he said, "A fine piece of business you have transacted! Let us divide the profits! Let us contend with slave-traders for the prize of wickedness, and wear the victor's crown, taking pride in outdoing them in cruelty! They deal so against strangers—but we, against our own closest and dearest kin."
A great reproach has now been freshly created, a notorious disgrace. Our fathers left behind, throughout the whole inhabited world, monuments of nobility of character; and shall we too leave behind incurable slanders of faithlessness and hatred of humankind? For the reports of great deeds outrun everything, everywhere, admired when they concern what is praiseworthy, but meeting blame and accusation when they concern what is culpable.
In what manner, then, will our father receive the news of what has happened? You have made a life not worth living for one who was thrice blessed and thrice fortunate. Will he pity the one who was sold, for his slavery, or those who sold him, for their cruelty? I know well it will be far more for us; since to do wrong is harder to bear than to suffer it. For the one who suffers wrong is helped by two very great things, pity and hope, while the one who does wrong, sharing in neither, is condemned by every judge. But why do I go on lamenting these things uselessly?
It is better to be silent, lest I too suffer some dreadful thing myself; for men are most harsh and implacable when angry, and the passion in each of them still blows fierce and strong.
When the father heard—not the truth, that his son had been sold, but the lie, that he was dead and had been devoured by wild beasts—struck both in his ears by what was said and in his eyes by what was shown him (for the boy's tunic, torn, mutilated, and drenched with much blood, had been brought to him), he was overwhelmed by his suffering and lay speechless for a very long time, unable even to lift his head, so crushed and broken was he by the calamity.
Then, suddenly letting loose a fountain of tears, with bitter wailing he drenched his cheeks, his beard, and his chest, and his garments too, all the while saying such things as these: "It is not his death that grieves me, child, but its manner. If you had been buried in your own land, I would have been consoled; I would have tended you, nursed you in your sickness, shared with you your last embraces as you died, closed your eyes, wept over your body as it lay there, given you a costly funeral, and left out none of the customary rites.
"But even if it had happened in a foreign land, I would have said: nature has only received back what was owed to her; do not grieve, my friend—one's homeland belongs to the living, but for the dead every land is a grave; no man dies too soon, or rather all men do, for even the longest-lived is short-lived when measured against eternity.
"But if indeed he had to die by violence, through a plot, it would have been a lighter evil for me had he been killed by men, who, having slain him, would yet have pitied his corpse, so as to heap up earth and cover the body from sight; and even had they been the cruelest of all men, what more could they have gained than to cast him out unburied and go their way? And perhaps someone passing by on the road might have stopped, and, seeing him, taken pity on our common nature, and thought him worthy of care and burial. But now, as the story goes, you have become a banquet and a feast for savage, flesh-devouring beasts, who have tasted and feasted on my very own flesh and blood."
"If I had to die by violence, by a plot against me, that would have been a lighter evil for me, killed by men who, having slain me, would still have pitied my corpse enough to heap up dust and cover my body. But even if they had become the cruelest of all, what more would they have gained than to fling me down unburied and go their way? Some passer-by on the road might perhaps have stopped, and on seeing me, moved by pity for our common nature, thought me worthy of care and burial. But now, as the story goes, you have become a banquet and feast for savage flesh-eating beasts, who have tasted and feasted on my very own flesh and blood."
"I am an athlete of misfortunes I never chose, trained at random through many hardships—wandering, living as a stranger, serving as a slave, coerced, even plotted against as far as my very life, by those who least should have done so. I have seen much, heard much, and myself suffered countless irreparable things, and though schooled by them to moderate my feelings, I was not bent. But nothing that has now befallen me is more unbearable; it has overturned and demolished the strength of my soul. For what grief is greater, or more pitiable, than this?"
"My son's garment has been brought back to me, his father, but of him not a part, not a limb, not the smallest remnant; he has been utterly and wholly consumed, without even being able to share in burial, while the garment, it seems to me, would not have been sent to me at all, except to remind me of my anguish and renew what I have endured, into griefs unforgettable and unceasing for me." Such were his lamentations. Meanwhile the merchants sold the boy in Egypt to one of the king's eunuchs, the chief cook.
It is worth adding, after the literal narrative, what lies in its hidden meanings; for nearly all, or most, of the legislation is allegorized. Now the character under examination is called, among the Hebrews, Joseph, and among the Greeks, "addition of a lord"—a name most apt and most fitting to the thing signified; for civic administration organized by peoples is an addition to nature, whose authority holds sway over all things.
For this great city, the cosmos, is one, and it employs a single constitution and a single law; and this law is reason, the ordinance of nature, which commands what must be done and forbids what must not be done. But these cities arranged by locality are unbounded in number, and employ differing constitutions and not the same laws; for different peoples have different customs and statutes, devised and added on.
The cause of this is the lack of mixture and community, not only of Greeks toward barbarians or barbarians toward Greeks, but also of each race, taken separately, toward its own kindred. Then, it seems, blaming what is not to blame—unwelcome seasons, failure of crops, poverty of soil, a location that is coastal or inland or on an island or on the mainland, or other such things of like kind—they pass over the truth in silence; but the true cause is greed and mutual distrust, on account of which, not content with the ordinances of nature, they have proclaimed as laws whatever seemed advantageous in common to those of like mind gathered together.
And so it stands to reason that the particular constitutions are additions, each to the one constitution according to nature; for the laws of individual cities are additions to nature's right reason, and
the statesman is an addition to the one who lives according to nature. It is not, then, beside the point that he is said to take up a coat of many colors (Genesis 37:3); for civic administration is many-colored and versatile, admitting countless changes—of persons, of circumstances, of causes, of the particular character of actions, of differences in occasions and places.
For just as a helmsman changes his aids toward good sailing along with the changing winds, steering his vessel by no single method, and a physician employs no single treatment for all who are ill—nor even for one patient, since the ailment does not remain constant, but watching for relaxations, intensifications, fillings, emptyings, changes of cause, varies these remedies toward safety, applying now this and now that—so too, I think,
the statesman must necessarily be a man of many forms and many shapes: one sort in peace, another in war; another again when few or when many combine against him—vigorously rising up against the few, but dealing with the many through persuasion; and where existence involves danger, outstripping others for the common good by his own action, but where the matter calls for deliberation, withdrawing and letting others serve.
It is well said, however, that the man is sold; for the demagogue and public speaker, mounting the platform, becomes, like slaves put up for sale, a slave instead of a free man through the honors he thinks he is receiving, led off by countless masters.
And this same man is also brought in as one caught by wild beasts; for vainglory lying in ambush is an untamed beast, seizing and destroying those who indulge it. And those who have bought him sell him again in turn; for the one who governs is master not of one but of a crowd, one after another in succession and rotation; and these thrice-sold men, in the manner of wretched servants, keep changing their masters, unable to endure their former ones because of the fickle and novelty-loving instability of their characters.
So much, then, for these matters. As for the young man, once he had been brought to Egypt and had come, as was said, into the possession of a eunuch master, within a few days he gave proof of his nobility and good character, and received charge over his fellow slaves and care of the whole household; for by now his owner had confirmed, through many signs, that the young man's every word and deed came not without divine providence.
In appearance, then, he was appointed steward of the household by the one who had bought him; but in fact and in truth, by nature, which was already preparing him for the leadership of cities and a nation and a great country. For the man destined to become a statesman had first to be trained and practiced in matters of household management; for a house is a city compressed and small, and household management a kind of constitution drawn together, just as a city is a great household, and a constitution a kind of common household management.
By these facts it is made especially clear that the same man is both householder and statesman, even though the subjects over which he presides differ in number and magnitude—just as it is in painting and sculpture; for the good sculptor or painter, whether he fashions many colossal figures or few and
smaller ones, displays the same art and is the same man. Now while he was highly esteemed in his management of the household, he became the object of a plot by his master's wife, a plot born of unchaste desire. For she, maddened with passion for the young man's beauty and raging uncontrollably in her affliction, pressed on him proposals of intercourse with all vigor, though he resisted with strength and would not entertain them at all, because of the propriety and self-control that were his by nature and by practice.
But when, though she kept stirring and inflaming her lawless desire, she kept trying again and again and again failing, she resorted at last to force, and, seizing his garment, dragged him vigorously all the way to the bed with mightier strength, her passion lending her power—passion which is accustomed to give sinew even to the weakest.
But he, proving stronger than the present crisis, burst out with words befitting a free man worthy of his lineage: "Why do you use force?" he said. "We, the descendants of the Hebrews, follow distinctive customs and laws.
To others it is permitted, after the fourteenth year of life, to consort with prostitutes and streetwalkers and all who hire out their bodies, with full license; but among us it is not even lawful for a courtesan to live (Deuteronomy 23:17), and against the woman who plays the harlot, death has been fixed as the penalty. Before lawful marriage we know no intercourse with another woman, but chaste, we come to chaste virgins, setting as our goal not pleasure but the begetting of legitimate children.
Having kept myself pure up to this very day, I will not begin to transgress the law with adultery, the greatest of wrongs, since I am obliged—even had I spent the rest of my time dissolutely, driven by the impulses of youth and emulating the luxury of this land—still not to hunt after another man's marriage; and at this what man does not feel murderous rage? For though men are accustomed to disagree about everything else, on this alone, in complete agreement everywhere, all have judged it worthy of countless deaths, handing over the guilty, without trial, to those who have caught them.
But you, lavishly generous, add for me a threefold pollution, bidding me not merely commit adultery, but corrupt a mistress, my master's own wife—unless indeed this is why I came into your household, that, abandoning the services a servant must render, I should grow drunk and behave with the insolence of drunkenness toward the hopes of the man who bought me, adulterating his marriage, his household, his kinship.
But no—I am led to honor him now not only as master but already as benefactor; he has entrusted all his affairs to me, withholding nothing whatever, small or great, apart from you, his wife; in return for this, is it fitting that I repay him with what you urge? Fine gifts, it seems, I would be giving in exchange for the favors already bestowed on me as one of his household!
My master, though I was a captive and a stranger, has by his kindnesses made me, as far as lies in his power, a free man and a citizen; and shall I, the slave, treat my master as though he were the stranger and the captive? With what soul could I take on myself this unholy deed? With what eyes shall I, iron-hearted as I would be, look upon anyone? My own conscience, laying hold of me, will not allow me to look at people with straight eyes, even if I should manage to escape notice; but I shall escape notice in no way at all, for there are countless examiners of deeds done in secret, for whom it is not lawful to keep still.
I say nothing of the fact that, even if no one else perceives it, or perceiving it does not denounce me, I myself will nonetheless become my own informer against myself, through my color, my look, my voice, convicted, as I said a moment ago, by my own conscience; and even if no one else will denounce me, do we neither fear nor feel shame before God's assessor and overseer of all deeds?"
As he wove together many such words and reasoned on, she was deaf to all of it; for desires are terrible things, able to overshadow even the most exact of the senses. Perceiving this, he fled, leaving his garments behind in her hands, which had taken hold of them.
This gave her the material to devise pretexts against the young man, by which she would take revenge on him; for when her husband returned from the marketplace, feigning modesty and propriety and great displeasure at licentious conduct, she said, "You have brought us a Hebrew boy as a servant, who has not only already corrupted your soul, since you entrusted him with the household easily and without scrutiny,"
"But he even dared to violate my body. For it was not enough for him to make use of my fellow slaves alone, having become utterly wanton and lustful — he attempted also to seduce his mistress and to force himself on me. And the proofs of his derangement are clear and evident: for when, overcome with distress, I cried out and called for those inside to help me, he, terrified because of his recklessness, left his garment behind and fled, fearing to be caught." And in displaying this garment she seemed to offer proof of what she said.
His master, believing these things to be true, ordered the man to be led away to prison, erring in two very grave respects: first, that without giving him a chance to defend himself he condemned, without a trial, one who had done no wrong as though he had committed the gravest crime; second, that the garment, which the woman produced as having been left behind by the young man, was proof of violence — not the violence he had committed, but the endurance he had endured at the hands of the woman. For it is the mark of one committing violence to hold fast to the garment of his mistress, but of one suffering violence to have his own garment torn from him.
Perhaps he is to be forgiven for his excessive lack of education, since he made his living in a kitchen full of blood and smoke and ash, where reasoning has no opportunity to find calm and leisure for itself, because he is more caught up in confusion than not, no less than his body is.
He has now sketched three types of the statesman: the pastoral, the domestic, and the self-controlled. Of the first two he has already spoken; the self-controlled type contributes no less than they to statesmanship.
Self-control is profitable and salutary for all the affairs of life, but especially for those of the city, as anyone who wishes to learn may see readily and most plainly.
For who does not know the disasters that incontinence has brought upon nations and lands and whole regions of the inhabited world, on land and sea? For most of the greatest wars have arisen through erotic passions, adulteries, and the deceptions of women, by which the greater and better part both of the Greek and of the barbarian race was consumed, and the youth of the cities destroyed.
But if the products of incontinence are civil strife, wars, and evils upon evils beyond telling, it is clear that the products of self-control are stability and peace and the possession and enjoyment of perfect goods.
It is worthwhile also to set forth, in due order, what is signified through these things. The eunuch who bought the man on trial is said to be the chief judge — fittingly; for the crowd that purchases the statesman is, in truth, a eunuch, possessing the organs of generation in appearance only, but deprived of the powers for generation, just as those whose eyes have been overlaid with cataract, though possessing eyes, are deprived of the function that comes through the eyes, being unable to see.
What then is the resemblance to a crowd of eunuchs? That it is barren of wisdom while seeming to practice virtue; for whenever a mixed and promiscuous multitude of people comes together into one, it says what is fitting, but thinks and does the opposite, accepting the counterfeit before the genuine, for the sake of being overcome by reputation rather than practicing what is truly good.
Hence also — the most absurd thing — a woman lives with this eunuch; for the crowd woos desire as a husband woos a wife, and through her it both speaks and does everything, making her counselor of all things spoken and unspoken, small and great alike, being least accustomed to attend to the dictates of reason.
Most fittingly indeed, he also calls him chief cook; for just as a cook practices nothing else but the endless and excessive pleasures of the belly, in the same way the political crowd practices, through hearing, delights and indulgences, by which the sinews of the mind are relaxed and, in a manner of speaking, the nerves of the soul are unstrung. And who does not know the difference between doctors and cooks?
The former prepare with all diligence only what is healthful, even if it should not happen to be pleasant, while the latter, on the contrary, take no account of what is beneficial, considering only what is pleasant.
Laws among a people, then, resemble doctors, and so do the magistrates who govern according to the laws — councillors and judges — who care for the safety and security of the common good without flattery; but the numerous throngs of the young resemble sauce-makers; for what concerns them is not what will be advantageous, but only how
they may reap pleasure in the present moment alone. And the desire of the crowds for the statesman is amorous, like an unchaste woman, and it says to him: "Come now, sir, into the crowd with which I live, and forget all your own habits, pursuits, words, and deeds, in which you were raised; obey me instead, attend to me, and do all the things that are pleasurable to me.
For a companion who is austere and outspoken and truthful and scrupulously just, who behaves with gravity and solemnity toward everyone and yields to nothing, holding fast always to the advantageous alone, without flattering his listeners — such a one I cannot bear.
I will heap countless slanders against you before my husband, the crowd, your master; for up till now you seem to me to be playing the freedman, and you are altogether ignorant that you have become the slave of a tyrannical master. But if you knew that acting on one's own initiative is most proper to the free man, but foreign to the household slave, you would have learned to set aside your self-will and look instead to his wife — that is, desire — and to do what pleases me, by which above all you will give satisfaction."
But the true statesman is not ignorant that the people hold despotic power, yet he will not confess himself a slave but a free man ... the satisfaction of the soul. Rather he will say outright: "I neither learned nor will I ever practice flattering the populace; but having been entrusted with the leadership and care of the city, I will exercise it as a good guardian or a well-disposed father ..., without deceit and purely, without hostile pretense.
Holding these convictions I will be put to the test, concealing and hiding nothing, in the manner of a thief, but making my conscience shine as in sunlight and daylight; for truth is light. And I will fear nothing that anyone may threaten, even if death is the threat; for to me there is no evil more grievous than death — namely, the pretense of such men. For whose sake should I endure it?
For even if the people is my master, I am not a slave, but well-born if anyone is, aspiring to enrollment as a citizen in the greatest and best commonwealth — this cosmos.
For when neither gifts nor entreaties nor love of honors nor desire for office nor boastfulness nor the longing for appearances nor licentiousness nor cowardice nor injustice nor anything else that comes from passion or vice can sway me, of what mastery shall I still be afraid? Clearly only that which comes from men.
But these men lay claim only to lordship over the body, not over what belongs to me; for I derive my standing from what is superior — the understanding within myself — according to which I have prepared myself to live, caring little for my mortal body, which, clinging to me like a shell to an oyster, may be maltreated by some, yet, being released from the harsh masters and mistresses within, I shall not be grieved, having escaped the heaviest necessity.
If, then, I must judge, I shall judge neither favoring the rich because of his wealth nor the poor because of pity for his misfortunes, but, veiling the rank and outward show of the litigants, I shall award without deceit whatever shall appear to be just.
And if I must give counsel, I shall propose opinions that serve the common good, even if they are not pleasing; and if I must address the assembly, I shall leave flattering speeches to others and shall use words that are salutary and beneficial, rebuking, admonishing, correcting — having practiced not raving and frenzied self-will, but sober frankness of speech.
But if someone takes no pleasure in these improvements, let him rebuke also parents and guardians and teachers and all who have the care of others, because they speak ill of their legitimate children and orphan wards and pupils, and sometimes even strike them — acts to which it is not right to attach the name of insult or outrage, but rather, on the contrary, the names of friendship and goodwill.
For it would be utterly unworthy that I, a statesman entrusted with all the affairs of the people, should prove inferior, in reasonings concerning the common good, to someone practicing the art of medicine.
That man, after all, gave no thought to the outward splendor of his patient in what people call good fortune -- not that he was well-born, or wealthy, or the most illustrious king or ruler of his time -- but held to one thing alone, saving him as far as he could, and if cutting or cauterizing was needed, the subject and so-called slave burns and cuts his ruler and master.
But I, taking in hand not one man but a whole city sick with more grievous diseases -- diseases that its own inborn desires had produced -- what ought I to do? Should I let go of what benefits everyone in common and instead tend this or that person's ears with servile and thoroughly slavish flattery? I would rather die than conceal the truth by saying something for the sake of pleasure, and neglect what is advantageous.
"Against this," as the tragic poet says, "let fire come, let the sword come" -- "burn, scorch my flesh, drink your fill of my dark blood; sooner shall the stars go down beneath the earth and the earth rise up into the sky, than a flattering word from me shall come to meet you."
So then, when a resolve has become manly in this way and stands outside all the passions -- pleasure, fear, grief, desire -- the sovereign populace cannot endure the statesman who possesses it; instead it seizes him as an enemy and punishes the man who is well-disposed and a friend, and in doing so punishes itself first, with the greatest of punishments, namely ignorance, on account of which it never learned to be ruled -- the finest and most beneficial thing, from which the capacity to rule itself also arises.
Having now discussed these matters sufficiently, let us look at what follows. The young man, slandered by the woman he loved -- who had fabricated to his master charges that reversed the truth, charges of which she herself was guilty -- was led away to prison without even obtaining a defense. And once in the jail he displayed such greatness of virtue that even the most depraved of those there were struck with wonder and amazement, and supposed they had found in the man a remedy against evils, a comfort for their misfortunes.
No one is ignorant of how much inhumanity and savagery jailers are full of. By nature they are pitiless, and by practice they are hardened, growing more brutish every day toward savagery, seeing and saying and doing nothing decent, not even by chance, but only what is most violent and harsh.
For just as men who are well built in body, when they add athletic training, gain an invincible strength and an outstanding condition, in the same way, when an untamed and unsociable nature adds training toward savagery, it becomes doubly unreachable and inaccessible to pity -- to that good and humane feeling.
For just as those who keep company with good people improve their characters by delighting in their companions, so too those who live with wicked people take on something of their vice; for habit has a terrible power to make one like its object and to force one against nature. Do jailers, then, spend their time with cloak-snatchers, thieves?
With house-breakers, violent men, the brutal, seducers, murderers, adulterers, temple-robbers -- and from each of these they draw off some portion of depravity and gather it together, and out of the promiscuous mixture produce one single evil, utterly confused and utterly polluted.
But even such a man was tamed by the young man's nobility of character, and not only granted him safety and a truce, but even authority over all the prisoners, so that in name only, for the sake of appearance, did he remain the jailer, while in actual practice he had yielded his office to the young man -- through whom no small benefit came to those who had been led away to prison.
Indeed, they no longer thought it fitting even to call the place a prison, but a house of correction; for instead of the tortures and punishments which they used to endure night and day -- being beaten and bound and suffering every kind of evil -- they were filled with the words and doctrines of philosophy, and with deeds more effective than any argument on the part of the one who taught them.
For he set his own life in their midst, like a well-crafted archetype of self-control and every virtue, and turned around even those who seemed altogether incurable, whose long-standing diseases of the soul now abated; and they reproached themselves for what they had done, repented, and cried out such things as this: "Where, then, was so great a good all this time, at which we stumbled from the start? For now that it has shone upon us, we see our own disorder as in a mirror, and are ashamed."
While men were being improved in this way, two eunuchs of the king were brought in -- the chief cupbearer and the chief baker -- accused and condemned in the matters entrusted to them. He took the same care of these men as of the others, praying that he might be able to make those under him no worse than men beyond reproach.
When not much time had passed, going about among the prisoners he saw the eunuchs full of gloom and dejection more than before, and, conjecturing from the intensity of their grief that something new had befallen them, he inquired the cause.
When they answered that they had seen dreams and were filled with distress and anguish, there being no one to interpret them, he said, "Take courage and tell them, for they will become known, if God so wills; and God wills to uncover things that are hidden, for those who long for the truth." Then the chief cupbearer spoke first.
"I dreamed that a great vine had grown up from three roots, a single, most flourishing stock, in full leaf and bearing clusters as at the height of the fruit season; and as the grape was beginning to ripen I picked the clusters and pressed them into the royal cup, which held enough to bring undiluted wine to the king."
He, pausing a little, said, "Your vision proclaims good fortune to you, and the recovery of your former office; for the three roots of the vine signify three days, after which the king will remember you and, sending for you from here, will grant you amnesty, and will allow you to resume the same position; and to confirm your restoration to office you will pour wine for him, handing the cup to your master." And the man rejoiced
to hear this. But the chief baker, having welcomed the interpretation, since he too had seen a fortunate-seeming dream -- though it was in fact quite the reverse -- was deceived by the good hopes given the other man, and said, "I too dreamed that I was carrying baskets, and bore on my head three baskets full of pastries, the topmost one full of every kind that the king is accustomed to use -- for the elaborate arts of bakers catering to the royal diet are varied -- and birds swooped down and snatched from my head and gorged themselves insatiably, until they had consumed everything and left nothing of what had been prepared."
He said, "I could have wished that this vision had not appeared to you at all, or, once it had appeared, that it had been kept quiet -- or, if someone had to tell it, that the telling had at least stayed far from my ears, so that I would not have heard it. For I am reluctant, if anyone is, to be a messenger of evil, and I share the suffering of those in misfortune, being pained on account of my humanity no less than those who must endure it.
But since it is necessary for interpreters of dreams to speak truly, as they explain and prophesy divine oracles, I will speak, holding nothing back; for to be truthful is best in all things, but concerning divine pronouncements it is also the most sacred duty.
The three baskets are a symbol of three days; after these have passed the king will order that you be impaled and your head cut off, and birds swooping down will feast on your flesh, until you are entirely consumed."
And the man, as one might expect, was thrown into confusion and overturned, anxiously awaiting the appointed time and receiving in his mind, in advance, all its distress. When the three days had passed, the king's birthday arrived, on which everyone throughout the land held festival, and above all those attached to the palace.
So while those in office were feasting and the household staff were making merry as at a public banquet, he remembered the eunuchs in the prison and ordered them brought, and having observed what came of the interpretation of the dreams he set his seal upon it, commanding that the one be impaled after his head was cut off, and that to the other the office he had formerly administered be restored.
But once restored, the chief cupbearer forgot the one who had foretold his restoration and had lightened each of the misfortunes that had befallen him -- perhaps because every ungrateful person is forgetful of benefactors, but perhaps also because God, in his providence, willed that the young man's good fortune should come about not through a human being but through himself.
For after two years had passed, the good and evil things destined to befall the land were foretold to the king through a dream in twin visions signifying the same thing, for the sake of a more certain conviction.
For it seemed that seven cows came up out of the river, fat and very well-fleshed and beautiful to see, and grazed beside the banks; after them, an equal number of others, somehow fleshless and shriveled to skeletons and utterly repulsive, came up and grazed alongside the first; then suddenly the worse cows devoured the better ones, and their bellies gained nothing at all — not even the slightest bit — in bulk from having gorged themselves, but were left just as thin, or even thinner.
Rising up again and falling back asleep, he was struck by another vision: he thought seven ears of wheat grew up from a single stalk, exactly equal in size, and, growing and flourishing, rose to a very sturdy height; then seven other ears, thin and weak, sprouted up nearby, and these, running upon the fine-eared stalk, swallowed it up.
Having seen this vision, he spent the rest of the night sleepless — for his anxieties kept goading and wounding him — and at daybreak he summoned the sages and related the vision to them.
Since no one was able to track down the truth by likely conjecture, the chief cupbearer came forward and said: 'Master, there is hope of finding the man you seek. When you were angry with me and the chief baker, you ordered us led away to the prison, where there was a Hebrew, servant of the chief cook, to whom both he and I related the dreams that had appeared to us; and he interpreted them so aptly and so accurately that everything he foretold for each of us came to pass — for him, the punishment he suffered, and for me, the finding of your favor and goodwill.'
On hearing this the king ordered them to hurry and summon the young man. So they cut his hair — for it had grown thick and long, both head and beard, during his confinement — and gave him bright clothing in place of filthy rags, and after grooming him in other ways they brought him in before the king.
The king, judging from his appearance that he was a free man of noble birth — for certain marks appear on the bodies of those we see that are not visible to everyone, but only to those whose mind's eye sees keenly — said: 'My soul divines that the dreams will not remain wholly overshadowed in obscurity; for this young man shows a sign of wisdom, and he will uncover the truth, and, like light dispelling darkness, will scatter through his knowledge the ignorance of the sages we have here.'
And he related the dreams. And the man, in no way overawed by the dignity of the speaker, as though he were king and the king were not, spoke with candor mixed with respect, and said: 'Whatever God is about to do in the land, he has already announced to you beforehand. But do not suppose that the two visions are two separate dreams; it is one dream, its doubling not superfluous but meant, for greater certainty, to confirm belief.'
For the seven fat cows and the well-grown, flourishing seven ears of grain signify seven years of abundance and prosperity, and the seven other years of famine are signified by the seven lean and repulsive cows that came up afterward, and by the withered and blighted seven ears of grain.
So there will come first a seven-year period bringing great and abundant fruitfulness, the river flooding the fields every year, and the plains yielding a harvest such as never before; and after this there will come, in turn, another seven-year period, the opposite of the first, bringing harsh want and scarcity of necessities, the river neither rising nor the earth growing rich, so that the former abundance will be forgotten, and whatever remnant of the old prosperity there was will be consumed. Such, then, is the meaning of the interpretation.
But the divine whispers within me and speaks aloud, suggesting remedies fitting for what is, in effect, a sickness; and the heaviest sickness of cities and lands is famine, against which a weakening must be contrived, lest, growing to its full strength, it devour the inhabitants.
How, then, will it be weakened? Of the produce of the seven years of plenty, the surplus left over after feeding the people sufficiently — it will perhaps be a fifth part — must be stored up in city and villages, not transporting the harvests from afar, but keeping them, in whatever district they are grown, for the relief of those who live there;
and the grain should be gathered in with its very sheaves, neither threshed nor winnowed at all, for four reasons: first, so that, kept under cover, it may remain uncorrupted for a longer time; second, so that each year, when threshed and winnowed, it may serve as a reminder of the abundance — for the imitation of true goods was bound to produce a second pleasure;
third, so that it may not even be reduced to a reckoning, the amount of grain in ear and sheaf remaining unclear and beyond written account, lest the minds of the local people despair as they calculate the sum being consumed, but rather, keeping up their spirits through the better nourishment of grain — for hope above all sustains — they may lighten the heavy sickness of want; and fourth, so that fodder may be stored up for the cattle as well, from the chaff and husks separated out in the cleaning of the grain.
And a man must be appointed overseer of these things who is exceedingly prudent and intelligent and approved in every respect, one able to carry out what has been prescribed without provoking hatred or friction, giving the people no sense at all of the coming famine; for it is a hard thing for souls already worn down by toil to collapse into despair.
And if anyone asks the reason, he will say that just as in peacetime one must provide beforehand for the preparations needed in war, so in times of plenty one must provide for what comes with want; for wars and famines, and in general the seasons of misfortune, are unforeseeable, and one must of necessity be prepared to meet them, rather than seek the remedy only once they have arrived, when it is of no use.'
When the king heard both the interpretation of the dreams — aimed so aptly and accurately at the truth — and the advice, which seemed most beneficial in providing for an unknown future, he ordered those present to draw nearer, so that no one else might overhear, and said: 'Shall we find, men, such a man as this, who has a divine spirit within him?'
When they all joined in approving and praising this, he looked at the one standing near him and said: 'The man you urge me to seek is near; the prudent and intelligent man you bid me look for, according to your own account, is not far off — you yourself happen to be he; for it does not seem to me that you could say these things without God. Come, then, and take charge of the oversight of my household and the governance of all Egypt.'
And no one will accuse me of rashness, as though I acted out of self-love, that incurable passion; for great natures are not proven by long stretches of time — the very weight of their power compels immediate recognition — and affairs of state do not tolerate delay and procrastination, when the times press for the necessary preparations.
Then he made him successor to the kingship — or rather, to speak the truth, king, keeping for himself only the name of the office while yielding to him the actual conduct of rule in practice, and doing everything else that concerned the young man's honor,
the honor of the young man. So he gave him a royal seal and sacred robes and a golden chain for his neck, and, having set him in the second chariot, ordered him to be driven around the city, a herald going ahead and proclaiming his appointment to those who did not know of it.
And he renamed him, addressing him in the local tongue by a name recalling his skill in dream-interpretation, and betrothed to him in marriage the most illustrious woman in Egypt, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis. This happened when he was already about thirty years old.
Such are the endings that await the pious: even if they fall, they do not fall utterly, but rise up again and stand firm and secure, so as never again to be tripped up.
For who would have expected that the same man, in a single day, would pass from slave to master, from prisoner to the most honored of all; that the underling of the prison-keeper would become deputy of the king, and would dwell in the palace instead of the prison, carried to the highest place of honor instead of the lowest depths of disgrace? Yet this has happened, and will happen many times again, whenever it seems good to God;
only let some spark of true goodness smolder in the soul, which, when fanned, must at some point inevitably burst into flame.
Since it is now proposed, after the literal exposition, to examine the more figurative sense as well, we must say what is fitting about that too. Perhaps some of the more frivolous will laugh when they hear this; but I will say without holding back that the true statesman is, in every respect, an interpreter of dreams — not one of the buffoons, nor of those who babble and play the sophist for hire and make the interpretation of nighttime visions a matter of profit, but one accustomed to give a precise account of the great dream, common to all and shared by the whole people, belonging not only to those asleep but also to those awake.
This dream, to put it with complete honesty, is the life of human beings. For just as in the visions we see during sleep we look but do not see, hear but do not hear, taste or touch without either tasting or touching, speak without speaking, walk without walking, and seem to make use of all our other movements and postures while making use of none of them at all -- our minds being empty, picturing to themselves and forming images of things that are not, as though they were real, with nothing genuine underlying them -- so too the impressions of us who are awake resemble dreams: they come, they go, they appear, they vanish; before they can be firmly grasped, they have already flown away.
Let each of us examine himself, and he will know the proof of this from his own experience, without needing any arguments of mine -- especially anyone who has already reached an advanced age. This man was once an infant, and after that a child, then a boy, then a youth, then a young man again, then a man, and finally an old man.
But where are all those former selves now? Did not the infant slip away within the child, the child within the boy just past childhood, the boy within the youth, the youth within the young man, the young man within the man, and the man within the old man -- and does not death follow upon old age?
Perhaps, indeed, perhaps each of the ages, yielding its dominance to the one that follows, dies before it, nature quietly teaching us not to fear the death that comes at the end of all things, since we have borne the earlier deaths so easily -- the death of the boy who became a youth, of the youth who became a young man, of the young man who became
a man -- none of whom any longer exists once old age has set in. And all the other things that concern the body, are they not dreams as well? Is not beauty a thing of a day, withering before it has even flowered? Is not health unstable, beset by the illnesses that lie in wait for it? Is not strength easily overtaken by disease from countless causes? And the precision of the senses -- is it not, far from being fixed, overturned by the onset of even a slight discharge?
And who does not know the obscurity of external things? In a single day great fortunes have often drained away. Countless people, having carried off the first prizes among the highest honors, have changed places with the neglected and the obscure, falling into disgrace. The greatest kingships of kings have been overthrown in a brief turn of fortune.
Dionysius of Corinth vouches for what I say -- he who was tyrant of Sicily, but on being cast out of his rule fled to Corinth, and this great ruler became a schoolmaster.
Croesus, king of Lydia, joins him as a witness -- the richest of kings, who, hoping to destroy the empire of the Persians, not only lost his own besides, but was also taken captive and came close to being burned alive.
Witnesses to these dreams are not only individual men but also cities, nations, and lands -- Greece, the barbarian world, the mainland peoples, the islanders, Europe, Asia, west and east. For nothing anywhere has remained utterly the same; everything, throughout everything, has undergone reversals and changes.
Egypt once held dominion over many nations, but now it is enslaved. The Macedonians flourished for a time to such a degree that they fastened the mastery of the whole inhabited world upon themselves, but now they pay the yearly tribute imposed by their masters to the tax collectors.
Where now is the house of the Ptolemies, and the splendor of each successive king that blazed out to the ends of land and sea? Where are the freedoms of the self-governing nations and cities? And where, in turn, are the servitudes of subject peoples? Did not the Persians once rule over Parthia, while now, because of the reversals of human affairs and their moves up and down and shifts back and forth like pieces on a game board, the Parthians rule over the Persians?
Some people fashion for themselves long and unending prosperities, yet these very beginnings are the sources of great evils; and hastening toward what they think will be an inheritance of good things, they find terrible misfortunes instead, while others, expecting the opposite -- misfortune -- meet with good things.
Athletes who pride themselves greatly on their powers, their strength, and the good condition of their bodies, and who expect an undoubted victory, have often been disqualified from the contest without even being tested, or have entered the contest and been defeated, while others who despaired of winning even second prize have taken up the first of the prizes and worn the victor's crown.
Some who put out to sea in summer -- for that is the season for safe sailing -- have been shipwrecked, while others who expected to be capsized in winter have been carried safely through to harbor without danger. Some merchants strain after gains they consider certain, unaware of the losses lying in wait for them, while others, reckoning that they would suffer harm, have instead enjoyed great profits.
So uncertain are our fortunes in either direction, and human affairs, as if on a scale, are weighed down or lightened by unequal weights; a terrible obscurity and thick darkness is poured over events. As in deep sleep we wander unable to grasp anything with precision of reasoning, nor to lay hold of anything firmly and securely, for our experience resembles shadows and phantoms.
And just as in processions the first participants pass by, escaping our sight, and in mountain torrents the moving current outruns our grasp by the swiftness of its flow, so too the affairs of life, being carried along and passing by, present the appearance of standing still, yet do not remain even for an instant, but are forever swept away.
And those who are awake, insofar as concerns the instability of what they grasp, differ in no way from those who are asleep, yet in deceiving themselves they think themselves capable of seeing the natures of things with unerring reasoning -- though each of the senses is an obstacle to knowledge, being bribed by sights, sounds, the qualities of flavors, and the peculiarities of odors, toward which it inclines and is dragged along, not allowing the whole soul to stand upright and to proceed without stumbling, as though along a highway; instead it produces the high made low and the great made small and everything akin to inequality and irregularity, and it forces the mind to reel
and induces great dizziness. Since life, then, is so full of confusion, disorder, and obscurity, the statesman must come forward like a kind of sage in the art of dream-interpretation, distinguishing the daylight dreams and phantoms of those who only seem to be awake, by likely conjectures and reasonable probabilities, teaching about each thing that this is noble, that shameful; this good, that bad; this just, the opposite unjust; and so with the rest -- the prudent, the courageous, the pious, the holy, the advantageous, the beneficial, and again the unprofitable, the irrational, the ignoble, the impious, the unholy, the disadvantageous, the harmful, the self-loving.
And besides these, he must teach: this belongs to another, do not desire it; this is your own, use it without misusing it; you have more than enough, share it -- for the beauty of wealth lies not in money bags but in the relief of those in need; you possess little, do not envy those who have more, for no one would pity a envious poor man; you enjoy a good reputation and have been honored, do not grow arrogant; you are humbled by fortune, but do not let your spirit collapse; everything is proceeding according to your mind, be on guard against change; you stumble often, hope for good things -- for the turns of human affairs run toward their opposites.
For the moon and the sun and the whole heaven possess clear and manifest brightness, since everything within it remains alike and is measured by the standards of truth itself, in harmonious order and the finest concords, whereas earthly things are full of much disorder and confusion, discordant and unattuned -- so that one might most properly say that deep darkness has taken hold of these earthly things, while those heavenly things move within the most far-shining light, or rather are themselves the purest and cleanest light.
If, then, one should wish to look within into the nature of things, he will find that heaven is an eternal day, having no share in night or in any shadow, since it is illumined all through by unquenchable and undefiled radiance without interruption.
And by as much as those of us who are awake differ from those who are asleep, by that much do the heavenly things differ from the earthly things in the whole cosmos: the heavenly things enjoy an unsleeping wakefulness because of their unerring, unstumbling activities that succeed in everything, while the earthly things are held fast by sleep, and even if they rouse themselves briefly, they are again dragged down and fall back asleep, because they are unable to look straight ahead with the soul, but wander and stumble; for they are darkened by false opinions, under whose influence they are compelled to dream, and, lagging behind the realities,
are unable to grasp anything firmly and securely. Symbolically, then, he is said to mount to the second of the royal chariots, for the following reason: the statesman carries off the second prize after the king; for he is neither a private citizen nor a king, but stands on the border between the two -- superior to the private citizen, yet inferior to the king in the exercise of unrestricted authority, since he makes use of the people as his king, on whose behalf he has chosen to do everything with pure and utterly guileless loyalty.
He is borne aloft as if upon a chariot's seat, lifted on high by both affairs and crowds, and especially whenever each matter, small and great, proceeds according to his mind, with nothing blowing against him or standing in opposition, but as in fair sailing, with all things being safely piloted by God. And the ring that the king gives is the clearest proof of the trust which the king's people have placed in the statesman, and which the statesman has placed in the ruling people.
And the golden circlet about his neck seems to signify at once glory and punishment. For as long as the affairs of his statesmanship prosper for him, he is proud and dignified, being honored by the crowds; but whenever a misfortune occurs -- not one arising from deliberate choice, for that would be culpable, but one due to chance, which is pardonable -- he is nonetheless dragged down and humbled by that same ornament about his neck, as though his master were all but saying to him: "This circlet about your neck I gave you both as an adornment when my affairs prosper, and as a noose when they fail."
I heard, however, from those who study these matters more allegorically, another account of this kind: they said that the king of Egypt was our mind, the ruler of the bodily territory belonging to each of us, who like a king holds the power.
This mind, once it becomes a lover of the body, labors over three things held in the greatest regard—food, delicacies, and drink—and for this reason employs three so-called overseers of these: a chief baker, a chief cupbearer, and a chief cook. One presides over eating, another over drinking, and the third is appointed over the seasonings that go with the delicacies themselves.
All of these are eunuchs, since the lover of pleasure is barren of the most necessary things: self-control, modesty, self-mastery, justice, virtue entire. For nothing is so hostile to anything else as pleasure is to virtue, on account of which most people take no account of the one thing they alone ought to be concerned about, indulging their unrestrained desires and yielding to whatever these command.
The chief cook, then, is neither led away to prison nor falls into any disgrace, because seasonings are not among the strictly necessary things—they are not pleasures themselves but only easily-quenched kindlings of pleasure. But of the two who labor over the wretched belly, the chief baker and the chief cupbearer, since eating and drinking are the most essential of life's necessities, when these are properly attended to those in charge naturally receive praise, but when neglected they are held worthy of anger and punishment.
There is a difference too in the punishments, because the need is different: food is most necessary, wine not nearly so useful—indeed people live without strong drink, using spring water as their only drink.
For this reason there comes reconciliation and settlement with the chief cupbearer, as one who erred in the lesser matter, but the case against the chief baker is irreconcilable and unappeasable, receiving anger that reaches even to death, as one who wronged in the greatest matter; for death follows upon scarcity of food. This is why the one who sinned in this matter fittingly dies by hanging, suffering an evil like the one he inflicted—for he too had, as it were, hanged and stretched out on a rack the man made to hunger by famine.
So much for this man. As for the one appointed viceroy of the king, who took charge and oversight of Egypt, he went out to make himself known to all the people of the country, and as he passed through the districts called nomes, city by city, he stirred in all who saw him an immense longing for himself—not only through the benefits he provided to each, but also through the ineffable and extraordinary graces that attended his appearance and all his other dealings with them.
When, according to the interpretation of the dreams, the seven years of abundance began first, he gathered a fifth of the produce every year, through the governors and the others who served him for the public needs, and amassed so vast a multitude of sheaves as no one before could remember ever having occurred; the clearest proof of this is that it could not even be counted, though countless men whose task it was labored with officious diligence to number it.
When the seven years had passed, in which the plain yielded abundant harvest, the famine began, and as it advanced and grew, Egypt could not contain it; for spreading out and ever seizing the cities and lands in succession, it reached at last to the very ends, both east and west, and overtook the whole inhabited world in a circle.
It is said, indeed, that no common disease of such magnitude ever struck before—like the one the sons of physicians call "herpes": for this too, visiting every part, spreads the contagion of ulcerated flesh wholly through the whole body, step by step, in the manner of fire.
So people chose from each place their most reputable men as grain-buyers and sent them to Egypt; for already the foresight of the young man, who had stored up abundant food against the time of want, was being reported everywhere.
He first ordered all the granaries to be opened, supposing that he would make those who saw them more cheerful, and would in a sense nourish their souls even before their bodies with good hopes; then, through those he had entrusted with the task, he sold the grain rations to those who had the means to buy, always aiming at the future and seeing what was to come more precisely than what was present.
Meanwhile the father too, since necessities were already growing scarce, not knowing of his son's good fortune, sent ten of his sons to buy grain, keeping at home the youngest, who was the full brother of the king's viceroy.
And they, on coming to Egypt, approached their brother as a stranger, and astonished at the dignity surrounding him, bowed down to him according to ancient custom—his dreams already receiving their confirmation.
But he, on seeing those who had sold him, recognized them all at once, while being recognized by none of them at all, since God did not yet wish the truth to come to light, for certain necessary reasons which it was then better to keep quiet—but rather he had either changed the appearance of the one entrusted with the land into a more majestic form, or had diverted the accurate perceptions of the minds of those who saw him.
Then—did he not, like a young man and successor to so great a rule, having assumed the office ranking first after the king, on whom east and west looked, exalted by the prime of his age and the greatness of his authority, having opportunity for vengeance—bear a grudge? No; rather, mastering the passion and storing it within his own soul with great forethought, he feigned estrangement, both in his looks and his voice and everything else, playing the part of one displeased, and said, "You have nothing peaceable in mind, you men, but some enemy of the king has sent you as spies, to whom, having agreed to render evil services, you thought you would go undetected—but nothing done in ambush escapes notice, even if it is shrouded in deep darkness."
When they tried to defend themselves and explained that they were being accused of things that had never happened—that they had not come from enemies, nor were they themselves at odds with the local people, nor would they ever submit to such a service, for they were peaceable by nature and had learned almost from earliest childhood to honor stability, under a most holy and God-beloved father, who, having twelve sons, kept at home the youngest, not yet of age for travel, while the ten of us present here were before his eyes, and the remaining one had disappeared—when he heard this, as though it concerned himself dead at the hands of those who had sold him, what must his soul have felt?
For even if the passion that came over him then did not burst into speech, still, smoldering and rekindled by these words, his insides were altogether ablaze; yet with a deep composure he said to them, "If you really have come here not to spy out the land, then as proof of my trust, stay here yourselves a short while, and let your youngest brother come, summoned by letter.
But if you are in haste to leave for your father's sake, fearing perhaps your long separation from him, let all the rest of you depart, but let one remain as a hostage until you return with the youngest; the penalty against those who disobey shall be set at the highest—death."
Having uttered such threats, and looking at them askance, and giving every outward proof of heavy anger, he withdrew. But they, filled with anxious thought and dejection, reproached themselves for their plot against their brother, saying, "That crime is the cause of our present troubles, the overseeing justice of human affairs already contriving something against us; for having rested quietly a short while, it rises again, displaying its own implacable and inexorable nature toward those who deserve punishment. And how are we not deserving?
We, merciless as we were, disregarded our brother when he begged and implored, though he had done no wrong, but had only, out of family affection, reported to us as to familiars the visions he had in his sleep—because of which we, most savage and wildest of all, in our displeasure did unholy things—for one must not lie.
Therefore we expect to suffer these things, and worse still, we who alone, of almost all mankind, called well-born on account of the surpassing virtues of our fathers and grandfathers and ancestors, have disgraced our lineage, having been eager to acquire a notorious reproach."
But the eldest of the brothers, who at the beginning too, when they were plotting together, had opposed the scheme, said, "Now that the deed is done, regrets are useless. I urged you, I entreated you, weighing how great the wickedness was, not to indulge your anger; but when you ought to have agreed with me, you yielded instead to your own rash counsels.
Therefore we now reap the wages of our willfulness and impiety; the plot devised against him is being sought out, and the one who seeks it is no man,
but God, or reason, or divine law." These things the brother who had been sold heard them murmuring quietly among themselves, with an interpreter standing between; and overcome by emotion, and about to weep, he turned away so as not to be discovered, and having poured out hot, unceasing tears, and finding some relief, he wiped his face, turned back, and ordered the second eldest of the brothers to be bound before the eyes of them all—the one corresponding to himself in order (for the second among several corresponds to the second-to-last, just as the first corresponds to the last)—
"but rather God, or reason, or divine law." The brother who had been sold heard these words as the men spoke quietly among themselves, with an interpreter standing between them. Overcome by feeling, and about to weep, he turned away so as not to be discovered, and poured out hot tears one after another; and when he had found a little relief, he wiped his face and turned back, and ordered that the second-oldest of his brothers be bound before the eyes of all the others -- the one who matched his own position. For among several brothers, the second from the end corresponds to the first, just as the last corresponds to the first.
Perhaps too it was because this brother seemed to have contributed the greatest share of the wrongdoing, all but marshaling the others and inciting them to hostility. For if he had joined the eldest brother, who was counseling kindly and humane action, then -- being younger than him but older than the rest -- the wrong might well have been checked, since the two of highest rank and honor would have been of one mind and one purpose about a matter which, on its own weight, carried great influence.
But as it was, he abandoned the gentler and better course and deserted to the savage and harsh one, and once set up as its leader, he so emboldened his partners in the crime that they carried the reprehensible contest through without flinching. For these reasons he alone, of all of them, seemed to me the one who deserved to be bound.
Meanwhile the others were already preparing for the journey home, since the steward of the country had ordered the grain-sellers to fill all the brothers' sacks as though for strangers, and secretly to place the money they had received at the mouths of the sacks, without telling those to whom they gave it back, and further to add a third thing besides -- provisions sufficient for the road, set apart so that the grain they were bringing back might be delivered undiminished.
As they journeyed, naturally pitying the brother left in bonds, and no less downcast about their father, wondering whether he would again hear of a disaster diminishing and cutting away at his blessing of many children with each new road -- and saying, "but he will not even believe he has been imprisoned; he will suppose the chains are merely a pretext for his death, since those once struck tend to stumble against the same thing again" -- evening overtook them, and after unloading the burdens from the pack animals they set some down to lighten them, but they themselves took on heavier cares in their souls. For it is the way of the mind, in the body's times of rest, to seize upon more vivid images of what one does not wish to see, and to be crushed and weighed down all the more grievously.
One of them, untying a single sack, saw beside its mouth a purse full of silver, and counting it out, found that the very price he had paid for the grain had been given back to him; and struck with astonishment he reported it to his brothers.
But they, suspecting not a kindness but a trap, lost heart, and wishing to search through all the sacks, yet fearing pursuit, they set out and pressed on as fast as they could, running almost without pausing to breathe, and cut short a journey of many days.
Then, one after another, they embraced their father, not without tears, kissing him as he clung to and poured himself out upon each one in turn -- though his soul was already divining something unwelcome. For he noticed those who came forward to greet him, and he found fault with the son who was missing for lagging behind, and he kept looking toward the doorway, eager to see the full number of his children.
But when no one else came in from outside, they saw him thrown into alarm at what he did not wish to believe, and they said: "Father, uncertainty is more painful than knowledge. For the one who learns has found a path to safety, but doubtful ignorance is the cause of a hard road and helplessness. So hear a story that is very painful, but necessary to tell."
"The brother who was sent with us to buy grain and has not returned is alive -- for we must first free you of the greater fear, that he is as good as dead -- and living, he remains in Egypt with the steward of the country, who, whether from some slander or from a suspicion of his own, brought against us the charge that we were spies.
"When we defended ourselves as the moment allowed, telling him about you, our father, and about the brothers left behind -- one dead, and the other staying with you, whom we said we had left at home because he was still young on account of his age -- stripping bare and laying open everything about our kinship so as to remove suspicion, we accomplished nothing. Rather, he said the only proof of a truthful account would be for the youngest boy to come to him, and that this was why he had detained the second brother, as security and pledge for him."
"This demand is the most painful of all, but the moment, more than the one who commands, is what imposes it -- and we must of necessity obey it for the sake of provisions, since only compliance will supply them to those pressed by famine."
But he, groaning most heavily, said: "Which shall I mourn first? The last-remaining son, who did not draw the last place but the first in the ranking of misfortunes? Or the second son, who took the second prize among evils, chains before death? Or the youngest, who will set out on the most dreaded of journeys, if indeed he goes, having learned no caution from his brothers' misfortunes? As for me, torn apart limb from limb and part from part -- for children are parts of their parents -- I am in danger of ending up utterly childless, I who until just now was accounted a father rich and blessed in sons."
But the eldest said: "I give you my two sons as hostages, the only ones I have fathered. Kill them if I do not bring back safe the brother entrusted to me, who, once he comes to Egypt, will secure two very great things for us: first, clear proof that we are not spies or enemies, and second, the power to recover our brother from his bonds."
The father was greatly distressed and said he was not unaware that, of the two sons born of the same mother, one was already dead, and the other, left bereft and alone, would dread the road, and would die in effect from fear even while still living, remembering those terrible things that had happened to befall the first. While he was saying this, they put forward the boldest of them, one naturally suited to command and skilled in speech -- he was fourth in age from the firstborn -- and persuaded him to convey to their father what they had all agreed upon.
It seemed best, since necessities were running low -- for the grain brought back before had already given out -- and since need was pressing and gaining the upper hand, that they should go to buy more; but that they would not go if the youngest stayed behind, since the steward of the country had forbidden them to appear without him. So, reasoning like a wise man, he said to them:
"It is better to give up one son to an uncertain and doubtful future than to face the acknowledged destruction of so many, which every household will suffer once pressed by want, an incurable disease." He said to them:
"But if the demands of necessity are stronger than my own will, I must yield; for perhaps -- perhaps -- nature is arranging something better, which she does not yet think fit to reveal to our minds."
"Take the youngest, then, as you have resolved, and go -- but not in the same manner as before. Formerly, silver alone was needed to buy grain, when you were unknown men who had suffered nothing irreparable; but now gifts are needed as well, for three reasons: to win the favor of the governor and grain-master, by whom you say you are recognized; to recover our brother from his bonds all the more quickly by paying a large ransom for him; and to heal, as far as possible, the suspicion of spying."
"Take, then, of all that our land produces, and carry it to the man as a kind of first-fruits, along with double the silver -- both what was returned to you before, which was perhaps returned through someone's oversight, and another sum sufficient to buy the grain."
"Carry with you also our prayers, which we offer to God our savior, that you may find favor with the people of that land while you sojourn there as strangers, and return safely, restoring to your father the precious deposits entrusted to you -- your sons: the one left behind before in bonds, and the youngest one, whom you are now taking with you, still inexperienced in affairs." So they set out and pressed on toward Egypt.
Then, a few days later, the steward of the country saw them arrive and was greatly pleased, and ordered the man in charge of his household to prepare a lavish meal and to bring the men in to share salt and table with him.
When they were brought in, not understanding why, they were thrown into alarm, and in their confusion supposed they were about to be falsely charged with theft, as though they had made off with the price of the grain, which they had earlier found in their sacks. So they approached the steward of the household and began defending themselves against a charge no one had dared to bring, trying to heal their own guilty conscience, and at the same time bringing out and displaying the silver to give it back.
But he, with kind and humane words, put them more at ease, saying: "No one is so impious as to malign the graces of God -- may he be gracious to you! For he has rained treasures down into your sacks, giving you freely not only food but wealth as well."
Comforted by this, they set out in order the gifts they had brought from home, and offered them when the master of the household arrived. When he asked how they were faring, and whether their father was still alive -- the one they had spoken of before -- they answered nothing about themselves, but concerning their father, that he was alive
and well. Having invoked a blessing on him and called him most dear to God, he looked around for his brother born of the same mother; and when he saw him, unable to restrain himself and now overcome by feeling, before he could be discovered he turned away and, running off on the pretext of some urgent matter -- for it was not the moment to blurt out the truth -- he wept in some inner chamber of the house.
he let the flood of tears pour out. Then, having washed his face, he mastered his grief by reasoning, and came forward and gave a feast for the strangers, first restoring the one who had been held as a hostage in place of the youngest. Others among the eminent Egyptians also joined the banquet.
The seating was arranged for each according to their own ancestral customs, since he considered it a serious matter to disregard time-honored laws, especially at a banquet, where the pleasures ought to outweigh the discomforts.
Next, when he ordered them to be seated in order of age -- people at that time not yet using reclining couches at their banquets -- the brothers marveled that Egyptians should be zealous for the same customs as the Hebrews, mindful of proper order and skilled at distinguishing the honors due to elder and younger.
Perhaps, they said, in earlier times the country had been rather uninstructed in matters of diet, but this man, once set over public affairs, had brought good order not only to the great matters through which the successes of peace and war are naturally achieved, but also to what seem the more trivial things, most of which belong to amusements; for banquets seek out cheerfulness, and have little patience for a companion who is too solemn and severe.
While they quietly strung together praises of this kind, tables not especially lavish were brought in, since their host, because of the famine, did not think it right to indulge in luxury amid the misfortunes of others. And they, being men of exact judgment, took this too into their praises, saying that he had turned away from vulgar ostentation, a thing that provokes envy, and that in this way he preserved both the bearing of one who shares the suffering of the needy and the bearing of a generous host, placing himself on the border between the two and escaping the blame that attaches to each.
So the preparations, being suited to the occasion, gave no grounds for reproach; and what they lacked in abundance was made up for by continual marks of goodwill -- toasts, wishes, and words of encouragement meant to restore the spirit -- things more pleasant to free people of cultivated character than all the elaborate arrangements of food and drink which lovers of feasting and lovers of dinners, men of shallow mind, parade for display, though such things are worth no serious attention.
The next day, at dawn, he sent for the steward of his household and ordered him to fill the men's sacks with grain, and again to place the payment in purses at the mouths of the sacks, and in the sack of the youngest to place also the finest of the silver cups, the one he himself was accustomed to drink from.
He carried out his instructions eagerly, taking no one as witness; and the brothers, knowing nothing of what had been done in secret, set out on their journey, rejoicing in all the good things that had come to them beyond their hopes.
For this is what they had expected: that they would face a false charge over the money that had been returned to them, as though they had stolen it; that they would not get back the brother held as hostage; and that they might, in addition, lose the youngest as well, forcibly detained by the very man who had been so eager to have him brought.
But what actually happened surpassed even their most favorable hopes: beyond escaping false accusation, they had shared in table and salt, which have been discovered by human beings as tokens of genuine friendship; they had recovered their brother unharmed, without anyone having interceded or pleaded on his behalf; they had brought the youngest back to their father safe, having escaped the suspicion of being spies, and were bringing home an abundant supply of food, and could reckon good things for the future as well. For, they said, if their provisions should run short again, they would no longer travel in fear as before, but with joy, as to a governor of the country who was now their own rather than a stranger --
-- that they would journey to. But while they were in this frame of mind and turning over such thoughts in their souls, a sudden and unexpected disturbance overtook them. For the steward of the household, acting under orders and bringing with him no small number of servants, came running after them, waving his hands and signaling them to stop.
Straining forward, out of breath, he said, 'You have sealed your former guilt upon yourselves once again. Repaying good with evil, you have turned back to the same path of wrongdoing; having secretly taken back the price of the grain, you have gone on to do something still worse -- for wickedness, once it meets with impunity, only grows bolder.'
'You have stolen the finest and most precious cup of my master, the one from which he drank your health -- you, so very grateful, so very peaceable, you who do not even know the word "spy," you who brought back double the money to repay what was owed before -- a trap, it seems, and a bait set for the hunting and seizing of still more. But wickedness does not prosper forever; forever scheming to escape notice, it is at last caught out.'
As he strung these words together, they were struck speechless, grief and fear -- the most grievous of afflictions -- having fallen upon them all at once, so that they could not even open their mouths; for the onset of unexpected misfortunes brings speechlessness even upon those most skilled in speech.
Yet, though overcome, they would not remain silent, for fear of seeming to be caught by their own guilty conscience, and said, 'How shall we defend ourselves, and before whom? For you, the accuser, are about to be the judge as well, though you ought rather, from your own experience of us, to speak in our defense even against the accusations of others. Did we not bring back, unbidden and though no one had detected it, the money found earlier in our sacks, meaning to repay it? And have we now undergone such a change of character as to repay our host with damages and theft? No -- this has not happened, nor would it ever enter our minds.'
'Whichever of our brothers is found in possession of the cup, let him die; for we ourselves would judge this wrongdoing, if it has truly happened, worthy of death, for many reasons: first, because greed and the desire for what belongs to another are utterly lawless; second, because to attempt to harm one's benefactor is the height of impiety; third, because for those who pride themselves greatly on noble birth to dare, by shameful deeds, to tear down the dignity of their ancestors is the most disgraceful reproach of all. If any of us is guilty of all these things, having done deeds worthy of a thousand deaths, let him die.'
And as they spoke, they took down the loads from their pack animals and urged the steward to search with every care. He, knowing well that it lay in the sack of the youngest, since he himself had secretly placed it there, played his part cunningly: beginning with the eldest, he examined each sack in turn following the order of their ages, as each man brought his sack forward and displayed it, until he came to the last, in whose sack the sought-for object was indeed found -- so that, seeing it all together, they cried out and tore their garments and wept and groaned aloud, mourning in advance for their brother while he was still alive, and no less for themselves and for their father, who had foretold the misfortunes that would befall this son, on account of which he had refused, though they wished it, to let his brother travel with them.
Downcast and in utter confusion, they turned back along the same road to the city, thunderstruck at what had happened, believing the whole affair to be some plot rather than their brother's greed for money. Then, brought before the governor of the country, they displayed a brotherly devotion springing from genuine feeling.
For falling all together at his knees, as though every one of them were guilty of the theft -- a thing it is not even right to say of them -- they wept in streams, they begged, they gave themselves up, they promised voluntary slavery, they addressed him as master, and, leaving out no name applied to household slaves, they called themselves outcasts, home-bred servants, men bought with silver.
But he, testing them still further, said to them with the gravest manner: 'Far be it from me to do such a thing, as to carry off so many for the fault of one. For what reason would justify calling to share in the punishment those who did not share in the wrongdoing? Let that one alone be punished, since he alone committed the act.'
'I understand, in fact, that before you reached the city you yourselves decreed death for whoever should be found guilty; but I, weighing everything by fairness and a gentler measure, lighten the penalty, appointing slavery instead of'
'death.' While they bore the threat with distress and shrank down under the false charge they faced, the fourth in order of age -- a man bold yet reverent, courageous, and practiced in a frankness of speech free from shamelessness -- came forward and said, 'I beg you, master, do not indulge your anger, nor, because you hold the rank second only to the king, condemn us in advance before we have made our defense.'
'When you asked us, on your former visit, about our brother and our father, we answered you. Our father is an old man, aged not so much by the passage of time as by one misfortune after another, under whose discipline, like an athlete, he has continued in labors and hardships scarcely endurable. Our brother is quite young, extraordinarily beloved by our father, since he was born late in his life and, of the two sons born of the same mother, he alone remains, the elder having died a violent death.'
'When you ordered us to bring our brother here, and threatened that unless he came we would not be permitted to come into your presence again, we departed downcast, and, scarcely able to bear it, returned home and reported to our father what you had said.'
'At first he refused, being greatly afraid for the boy; but when our provisions ran short, and none of us dared come to buy grain without the youngest, because of your threats, he was at last persuaded to send him with us, blaming us a thousand times over for having admitted that we had another brother, and lamenting a thousand times over the prospect of being parted from him; for he is still a child, inexperienced in affairs, not only those of a foreign land, but even those of his own city.'
How then could we return to our father in this state of mind? With what eyes could we bear to look at him without this boy? He will meet the most pitiable end the moment he hears that the boy has not come back; and then everyone who bears us ill will and delights in such misfortunes will call us murderers of a man, killers of our own father.
The greater part of the accusation will fall on me. For I made many promises to my father, undertaking to bring back a deposit I was receiving, one I would restore whenever it was demanded of me. But how could I restore it, unless you yourself become gracious? I beg you to take pity on the old man and to consider the miseries with which he will be afflicted if he fails to recover the one he entrusted to me against his better judgment.
But as for you, exact whatever penalty you think fitting for the wrongs you believe you have suffered. I will give myself up willingly. Enroll me as a slave from this very day; I will gladly endure the lot of the newly bought, if only you will consent to let the boy go.
And it is not I myself who will receive the favor, if indeed you grant it, but the one who is absent, relieved of his cares, the father of all of us who are suppliants here. For we are suppliants who have taken refuge at your most gracious right hand, of which may we never fail.
Let pity, then, enter into you for an old man who has toiled through the contests of virtue at every stage of his life. He turned the cities of Syria to receive and honor him, even though he practiced customs and laws quite foreign to them and far removed from their own, not estranged in any small measure from the ways of the country. But the nobility of his life, and the harmony and agreement between his deeds and his words and between his words and his deeds, prevailed, so that even those unfavorably disposed toward him on account of his ancestral customs were won over.
Such is the favor you are about to bestow, one than which no one could receive a greater; for what gift could be greater to a father than to recover a son given up for lost?"
All this, and what had gone before, were tests, by which the governor of the land was observing their disposition toward their brother by the same mother; for he feared they might harbor some natural estrangement toward him, as sometimes happens with sons of a stepmother toward the household of another wife held in equal honor.
For this reason he had accused them as spies and inquired about their family, using this as a pretext to learn whether his brother was still alive, and had not been destroyed through some plot; and he detained one of them, letting the others depart on their undertaking to bring back the youngest, whom he longed above all to see and by whose presence he wished to be freed from the harsh and heaviest grief he felt on his account.
And when he had arrived and he beheld his brother, relieved a little of his anxiety, he invited him to be his guest and, feasting him, entertained his brother by the same mother with more lavish preparations, watching each of the others closely and judging from their faces whether any envy lurked hidden within them.
And when he saw them rejoicing and warming with pleasure at the honor shown the youngest, having already noted from two proofs that no hidden hostility smoldered, he devised a third: he laid on the youngest the charge of having stolen the cup that seemed to be missing. For this was bound to become the clearest test of each one's mind and of his attachment to the brother now falsely accused.
From all this he was now persuaded that no faction or plot was being raised against the household of his mother, and he drew the reasonable conclusion also about what had happened to himself: that he had suffered these things not so much through the plotting of his brothers as through the providence of God, who looks far ahead and sees the future no less than the present.
Then he moved toward reconciliation and agreement, overcome by affection for his own family; and so that he might cast no reproach upon his brothers for what they had done, he thought it right that none of the Egyptians should be present at the first disclosure.
Instead, having ordered the whole retinue to withdraw, he suddenly let loose a fountain of tears, and signaling with his right hand for them to come nearer, so that not even by chance could anyone else overhear, he said to them: "A matter that has lain in shadow and seemed hidden for a long time, I am now about to uncover; alone, to you alone, I unveil it: the brother whom you sold into Egypt, that man whom you now see standing before you, I am he."
And when they were struck with astonishment beyond all hope and thrown into confusion, and had, as if by some violent force, cast their eyes down to the ground and stood fixed, speechless and open-mouthed, he said, "Do not be downcast; I grant an amnesty for everything done against me, you need no other advocate.
Of my own accord and by my own free judgment I have come willingly to a reconciliation, taking as my two counselors reverence for our father, to whom I attribute the greatest part of this favor, and natural love of humanity, which I show toward all, but especially toward those of my own blood.
And I consider that not you but God has been the cause of what has happened, since he willed that I should become the servant and minister of his own graces and gifts, which in the times of greatest need he saw fit to grant to the human race.
You can take clear proof of this from what you see: I have been entrusted with the whole of Egypt, and I hold the first place of honor with the king, and though I am young he, though older, honors me as a father; and I am attended not only by the people of this land but by very many other nations besides, both those subject to Egypt and those independent of it. For everyone has need of one who presides, because of the scarcity.
Silver and gold, and, more necessary than these, food, are stored up in my keeping alone, to be distributed and portioned out for the necessary needs of each who is in want, so that nothing is left over for luxury, and nothing is lacking for the fulfillment of need.
But I have not gone through all this out of vanity or self-importance, but so that you might perceive that no man of such stature was destined to become responsible for one who had been a slave and afterward a prisoner—for indeed I was once bound, falsely accused—but rather that he who transformed the utmost misfortunes and misadventures into the highest and first successes was God, to whom all things are possible.
Since this is my thinking, be no longer anxious; put your distress out of the way and change over to cheerful good spirits. And it would be well to hasten to our father and be the first to bring him the good news of my having been found; for rumors outrun everything, everywhere."
And they, taking up his praises one after another in unbroken succession, sang his praises with unbridled mouths, each dwelling on some different point: one on his freedom from resentment, another on his love of family, another on his understanding, and all together on his piety in referring to God the outcome of his successes, and no longer resenting the unwelcome beginnings and first difficulties of what had not turned out according to his own will, and his surpassing, modest endurance.
He who, amid so many changes of fortune, neither, while a slave, spoke any evil against his brothers as men who had sold him, nor, when led away to prison in despondency, blurted out any of the secret matters, nor, remaining there a long time, stripped bare, as prisoners are wont to do, the reckoning of his own misfortunes;
but as though he knew nothing of what had happened to him—not even when he interpreted the dreams for the eunuchs or for the king, though he had a fitting occasion to disclose it, did he utter a word about his own noble birth; nor when he was appointed viceroy of the king and took over the charge and oversight of the whole of Egypt, so that he should not seem to be one of the neglected and obscure, but in truth well-born, by nature not a slave, but one who had endured irreparable plots and misfortunes at the hands of those from whom he least deserved them.
Beyond this, great praise was also poured out for his fairness and tact; for knowing the arrogance and lack of education of other rulers, they marveled at his lack of ostentation and freedom from theatrical display, and at how, though he might, on seeing them the first time, have had them put to death, or at the very least, since they were starving, have refused to supply them with food, besides not punishing them, he gave them provisions as a free gift, as though they deserved gratitude, and ordered that their money be returned to them.
So thoroughly, indeed, was the matter of the plot and the sale kept unknown and hidden, that the leading men of Egypt rejoiced together, as though the brothers of their governor had only now for the first time arrived, and invited them to be their guests, and hastened to bring the good news to the king, and everything everywhere was filled with joy no less than if...
The plain yielded abundantly, and the famine turned to plenty. And when the king learned that Joseph had a father, and that his family was numerous, he urged him to move his whole household, promising that he had granted to those who came the richest region of Egypt. So he gave the brothers wagons and carriages and a great number of pack animals loaded with provisions, and an ample retinue of attendants, so that they might bring their father back in safety.
When they arrived and told their unbelievable story about their brother, more wonderful than they had ever hoped, Jacob would not quite believe it; for however trustworthy the tellers, the sheer enormity of the thing would not easily allow him to assent.
But the old man, seeing the abundant provisions and supplies furnished for such an occasion, all in keeping with the good fortune reported to him, praised God, because the part of his household that seemed to have been lost he had restored in full.
But his joy at once gave birth to fear in his soul, over the prospect of leaving his ancestral ways behind; for he knew that youth is by nature prone to slip, and that a foreign land grants a kind of license to sin, especially since Egypt is blind concerning the true God, on account of its habit of fashioning gods out of things generated and mortal, and because, besides, attacks of wealth and reputation are laid upon feeble minds; and he feared that his son, left behind with none of the disciplined guardians of his father's house to accompany him, alone and bereft of good teachers, would be ready to be changed by foreign ways.
Seeing him disposed in this way — he to whom alone it is possible to see the invisible soul — God took pity on him, and appearing to him in a dream by night said, "Have no fear about your journey to Egypt; I myself will guide the way, making the journey safe and pleasant; and I will restore to you, too, the son you have longed for, who once was thought dead after so many years, and now is revealed not only alive but ruler of so great a land." Filled with good hope, rejoicing at the break of day, he hastened on.
And when the son heard — for scouts and messengers had reported the whole journey to him — that his father was not far from the borders, he went quickly to meet him; and meeting at the place called Heroönpolis, they fell upon each other, resting their heads on one another's shoulders, and drenching their garments with tears, they took their fill, insatiably, of long embraces, and when at last they could stop, they pressed on together as far as the royal residence.
And the king, seeing him, and struck with awe at the dignity of his appearance, received him with all reverence and honor, as though he were not another's father but his own; and after the customary and also extraordinary tokens of friendship, he gave him a portion of land that was fertile and very productive; and learning that Joseph's sons were herdsmen, possessed of great wealth in livestock, he set them in charge of his own flocks and herds, entrusting to them his goat-herds and cattle-herds and sheep-flocks and countless other droves.
And the young man made use of such an excess of faithfulness that, although the times and circumstances offered him the greatest possible occasions for enriching himself, and though he could, in a short while, have become the wealthiest man of his generation, he admired the truly genuine wealth above the counterfeit, and the seeing wealth above the blind, and so he deposited in the king's treasuries all the silver and gold that he had gathered from the sale of the grain, appropriating not a single drachma for himself, but content with the gifts alone which the king, in exchange, bestowed on him.
And as though Egypt and, along with it, the other lands and peoples oppressed by famine were one single household, this man administered them beyond all telling, distributing the food fittingly, and looking not only to present advantage but also to future benefit.
When, at any rate, the seventh year of the scarcity had come — for by now there was hope of abundance and plenty — he summoned the farmers and gave them barley and wheat for seed, taking care that no one should misappropriate what he received but should deposit it in the fields, having chosen inspectors and overseers by merit, who would watch over the sowing.
After the famine, a long time later, when their father had died, the brothers were struck with suspicion, and fearing they might suffer something harsh in reprisal for the old wrong, came to him and begged earnestly, bringing with them their wives and children.
But he, with tears, said: "The occasion is enough to produce suspicion in those who have done unbearable things and are convicted by nothing so much as by their own conscience; for the death of our father has renewed the old fear you had before our reconciliation, as though I had granted the amnesty only for our father's sake, so as not to grieve him.
But I do not change my character with the passing of time, nor, having professed to be at peace, will I ever do what breaks the peace; for I was not merely biding my time in reserve for vengeance, but I was granting you, for all time, release from punishment, assigning it partly, I must be honest, to honor for our father, and partly to the goodwill that was owed to you.
And if I did all these kind and humane things for our father's sake, I will keep them even now that our father is dead; for in my judgment no good man has died, but he will live forever, ageless, in an immortal nature, his soul no longer bound by the constraints of the body.
But why should we remember only our begotten father? We have the Unbegotten, the Imperishable, the Eternal, "who oversees all things and hears all things," even those done in silence, who ever sees even what is hidden in the recesses of the mind — him I call to witness my conscience, that our reconciliation is without deceit.
For I — and do not marvel at my words — belong to God (Gen. 50:19), who transformed your evil designs into an abundance of good things. So have no fear, and you will share in more useful things for the future than you enjoyed while our father was still living."
Having encouraged his brothers with such words, he confirmed his promises still more by his deeds, omitting nothing that concerned their care. After the famine, when the inhabitants of the land were already rejoicing in its abundance and prosperity, he was honored by all, who repaid him in return for the good he had done them in the years of misfortune.
And the report of it, spreading, filled the neighboring cities with his renown. He lived a hundred and ten years and died in a good old age, having reached the very summit of beauty, wisdom, and eloquence.
To his bodily beauty, the passion that drove a woman mad for him bears witness; to his understanding, the evenness that, amid the countless irregularities of his life, produced harmony out of what was discordant and concord out of what was in itself unconcordant; to the power of his words, both his interpretation of dreams and the eloquence of his conversation and the persuasiveness that attended it, on account of which none of those under his rule obeyed him more from necessity than from willingness.
Of these years, he spent seventeen, up to adolescence, in his father's house; thirteen amid unwanted misfortunes — plotted against, sold, enslaved, falsely accused, bound in prison; and the remaining eighty in rule and every kind of prosperity, as overseer of famine and plenty and best steward of both, most capable of managing affairs fittingly for either season.

======== On the Life of Moses I ========

I have resolved to write the life of Moses, whom some call the lawgiver of the Jews, others the interpreter of sacred laws—a man in every way the greatest and most perfect, and to make him known to those who deserve not to be ignorant of him.
For while the fame of the laws he left behind has traveled through the whole inhabited world and reached even the ends of the earth, not many know who he truly was, in the truth of the matter—perhaps out of envy, and also because in many cases the lawgivers appointed by the various cities were unwilling, out of opposition, to consider him worthy of mention among the sayings honored by the Greeks.
Most of these lawgivers abused the powers they gained through education, composing in both poetry and prose comedies and tales of Sybaritic licentiousness—a notorious disgrace—when they ought instead to have put their natural gifts to use in setting forth good men and good lives, so that nothing noble, whether ancient or new, capable of shining forth, might be abandoned to obscurity through neglect, and so that, by passing over the better subjects, they might not seem to prefer, in their eagerness, those unworthy of a hearing, merely in order to make evil things appear splendid and thereby put reproaches on display.
But I, for my part, shall pass over their malice and set forth the facts concerning this man, having learned them both from the sacred books, which he left behind as wondrous monuments of his own wisdom, and from certain elders of the nation; for I always wove together what was said with what I read, and for this reason I believe I have achieved a more exact account of his life than others.
I will begin from the point at which it is necessary to begin. Moses was Chaldean by descent, but he was born and raised in Egypt, because his ancestors, on account of a long famine that oppressed Babylon and the surrounding region, had migrated with their whole household to Egypt in search of food—a land level and deep-soiled and most fertile in everything that human nature requires, and especially in the fruit of grain.
For the river of that land, at the height of summer, when the other rivers—both the winter torrents and those fed from native springs—are said to shrink, rises and overflows, flooding and turning the fields into marshland; and these fields, needing no rain, supply every year an abundance of every good thing, unless the wrath of God should at some point intervene on account of the prevailing impiety of the inhabitants.
He was allotted a father and mother who were the best of their contemporaries, people whom likeness of mind united to one another even more than kinship, for they belonged to the same tribe. He was the seventh generation from the man who, though himself a newcomer, became the founder of the whole nation of the Jews.
He was thought worthy of royal nurture for the following reason. The king of the country, since the nation kept increasing in numbers, grew afraid that the settlers, becoming more numerous, might contend with the native population, by force of a stronger hand, for supremacy of rule; and he schemed with unholy devices to sap their strength, ordering that the female infants born to them be reared—since a woman, through the weakness of her nature, is reluctant for war—but that the males be destroyed, so that they might not increase throughout the cities; for a population strong in fighting men is a stronghold hard to capture and hard to overthrow.
So then, when the child was born, he at once displayed a countenance more refined than that of an ordinary person, so that his parents, so far as they were able, disregarded the tyrant's proclamations; at any rate, they say he was nursed at home on milk for three consecutive months, without the knowledge of most people.
But when, as tends to happen under monarchies, some began searching into private matters, always eager to bring some new report to the king, the parents, fearing that in seeking the safety of one child they, being many, might perish along with him, tearfully exposed the child by the banks of the river and went away groaning, lamenting their own compulsion and calling themselves murderers and child-killers with their own hands, and lamenting also the child's utterly unreasonable destruction.
Then, as is natural in so strange a situation, they accused themselves of being the cause of an even greater calamity. "Why," they said, "did we not expose him the moment he was born? A child who has not yet had a share of gentle nourishment, most people do not even consider a human being; but we, in our excess, reared him a full three months, providing more abundant grief for ourselves and, for him, providing punishment, so that, being able to partake to the fullest of both pleasures and pains,
he might perish with a keener sense of harsher evils." And so they went away, gripped by pitiable grief, in ignorance of what was to come; but the sister of the exposed infant, still a young girl, moved by family affection, watched from a little distance to see what would happen. All this, it seems to me, came about through the providence of God, who was taking care of the child.
The king of the country had a beloved and only daughter. It is said that, though married for a long time, she had not conceived children, though she desired them, as was natural, and especially a male child, who would inherit the fortunate lot of his father's rule, which was in danger of being left without grandsons; and she, being in the habit of remaining at home and never crossing the threshold, was moved by the weight of her cares to set out one day with her handmaids to the river, where the child lay exposed—
and then, intending to use the baths and lustral waters, she caught sight of him in the thickest part of the marsh and ordered him brought to her.
Then, surveying him from head to foot, she was struck by his beauty and vigor, and, seeing him in tears, she pitied him, her soul already turning toward maternal affection as though toward her own true child; but recognizing that he was one of the Hebrews, since they feared the king's decree, she began deliberating about his upbringing; for she thought it was not yet safe to bring him at once into the palace.
While she was still in perplexity, the child's sister, as though from a watchtower divining her hesitation, ran up and asked whether she wished the child to be nursed on milk by one of the Hebrew women, one who had not long before given birth.
When she said she wished it, the girl brought forward her own mother, and the infant's, as though she were a stranger, and the mother, gladly and all the more readily, promised to nurse him under the pretext of payment—by the design of God, who was thereby providing the child's first, genuine nourishment. Then she gave him the name Moses, fittingly, because she had drawn him out of the water; for the Egyptians call water "mou."
But when, growing by leaps and increases beyond the ordinary course of time, he was weaned rather quickly, his mother, who was at once both mother and nurse, brought him back to the one who had given him to her, since he no longer needed to be nursed on milk, so that he might be seen as noble and refined.
And when she saw him, now more fully grown, and drew even more affection from his appearance than before, she made him her son, having first arranged matters concerning the appearance of pregnancy, so that he might be thought her true child and not a substitute; for God makes everything easy that he wishes, even things hard to accomplish.
Being now thought worthy of royal nurture and attendance, he did not, like an ordinary infant, delight in mockery, laughter, and childish games, even though those entrusted with his care allowed him freedom and showed nothing severe toward him; instead, displaying modesty and dignity, he attended to what he heard and saw, insofar as it would benefit his soul.
Teachers at once came to him from various places—some from the neighboring regions and the districts of Egypt, coming of their own accord, others summoned from Greece with great rewards. In no long time he surpassed their abilities, through the excellence of his nature, outstripping their instructions, so that it seemed to be recollection rather than learning, and he even devised for himself solutions to what was difficult to perceive.
For great natures innovate much in the realm of knowledge; and just as bodies in good condition, with all their parts agile, free their trainers from concern, since they require little or no attention, and as farmers are freed by trees of good growth and noble stock which improve of themselves, in the same way a well-endowed soul, anticipating what is said, is helped more by itself than by its teachers, and once it has grasped some starting point of knowledge, rushes forward, as the proverb says, "like a horse into the open field."
As for numbers and geometry, and the theory of rhythm and harmony and meter, and music in its entirety, through the use of instruments and the accounts given in the arts and their applications, the learned men among the Egyptians instructed him in these; and further, in the philosophy conveyed through symbols, which they display in what are called the sacred writings and through the veneration of animals, which they even honor with divine honors; while the rest of general education the Greeks taught him, and those from the neighboring regions taught him the Assyrian script and the Chaldean science of the heavens.
This science of mathematics he also acquired from the Egyptians, who cultivate it most especially; and having accurately learned, from both parties, the points on which they agree and disagree, he set aside contentiousness and sought the truth without love of strife, since his mind could not admit any falsehood—unlike those who fight over mere opinions, who support whatever doctrines happen to be set before them without examining whether they are sound, doing the same thing as those who plead for pay and give no thought at all to justice.
And now, passing beyond the bounds of childhood, he intensified his self-mastery, not, like some, allowing his youthful desires to run unbridled, even though they had countless incitements from the lavish provisions that royal courts supply, but restraining their forward rush by force, as though with reins, by means of self-control and endurance.
And each of the other passions too, though by nature raging and rabid, he tamed and gentled; but if ever it stirred even slightly and fluttered, he administered heavier chastisements than mere verbal reproof. And in general he watched over the soul's first impulses and onsets as one watches an unbroken horse, fearing lest, outrunning reason (whose duty is to hold the reins), they throw everything into confusion. For these are the causes both of good things and of bad: good, whenever they obey reason as their leader; the opposite, whenever they run loose into anarchy.
As was to be expected, then, both his companions and everyone else were astonished, struck as if by some strange spectacle, and asked themselves what kind of mind dwelt within him and was carried about like a statue in his body - whether human, or divine, or a mixture of both - since he had nothing resembling the many, but rose above them and was lifted up toward something greater.
To his belly he allotted nothing beyond the necessary tribute that nature has appointed, and of the pleasures below the belly he gave no thought at all, except so far as was needed for begetting legitimate children.
Having become, beyond all others, a devoted practitioner of contentment with little, and having mocked the life of soft luxury as no one else had - for he longed to live by soul alone, not by body - he displayed the doctrines of philosophy through his daily deeds, saying what he thought and doing what accorded with what he said, so as to bring speech and life into harmony, that his speech might be examined as being such as his life, and his life such as his speech, sounding together as on a musical instrument.
Most people, if but a slight breath of some good fortune falls upon them, puff themselves up and breathe great things, and in their arrogance call those less conspicuous than themselves refuse, nuisances, and burdens on the earth, and other such names - as if they had sealed the unshaken permanence of their prosperity securely to themselves, though they will perhaps not remain in the same state even until the next day.
For nothing is less stable than fortune, which tosses human affairs up and down like pieces on a board, often in a single day casting down the exalted and raising the lowly on high. And though they see this happening always, and know it clearly, still they look down on their own kin and friends, transgress the laws under which they were born and raised, and set in motion their ancestral customs - customs deserving of no just blame - having become dissolute, and through their acceptance of the present, take no further thought for anything of the past.
But he, having already reached the very summit of human good fortune, considered the grandson of so great a king, and being, in everyone's expectation, all but the successor to his grandfather's realm - indeed, what else was he but the one addressed as the young king? - nevertheless emulated the education proper to his own kin and ancestors, holding that the good things of those who had adopted him, however more brilliant for the moment, were spurious, while those of his parents by nature, even if for a while less conspicuous, were at any rate his own and genuine.
And like an incorruptible judge between those who had begotten him and those who had adopted him, he repaid the one with goodwill and ardent love, the other with gratitude for the benefits received, and would have gone on repaying them to the end, had he not observed a great and unprecedented act of impiety newly perpetrated in the land by the king.
For the Jews were strangers, as I said before, since the leaders of the nation had migrated from Babylon and the upper satrapies into Egypt because of famine and lack of food, and had in a sense come as suppliants fleeing to an inviolable sanctuary, seeking both the king's good faith and the mercy of its inhabitants.
'Let strangers,' he said, 'be registered before me as judge as suppliants of their hosts, and resident aliens as being both suppliants and friends, hastening toward equal honor with citizens and already neighbors to them, differing but little from the native-born.'
These, then, who had left their own homeland and come to Egypt to dwell securely as in a second fatherland, the ruler of the country enslaved, and, as though he had taken them captive by right of war, or bought them from masters to whom they were house-born slaves, subjugated and made slaves - not merely the free, but even strangers, suppliants, and resident aliens - neither respecting nor fearing the god of freedom, of hospitality, of suppliants, and of the hearth, who is overseer of such things.
Then he imposed commands heavier than their strength could bear, piling one labor upon another, and the lash followed close upon those who cried off from weakness; for he chose as overseers of the works the most pitiless and savage men, who granted no one any pardon, men whom, from what befell under them, people called 'taskmasters' (Exod. 3:7).
Some labored shaping clay into brick, others gathering straw from every quarter - for straw is the binding of brick - while others were assigned to the building of houses, walls, and cities, and to the cutting of canals, themselves hauling timber by day and by night without relief, having no rest, not even being allowed so much as to lie down and sleep. Forced to do the work both of skilled craftsmen and of laborers, their bodies gave out within a short time, since their souls too had already collapsed beforehand.
Some, indeed, died one after another as if from some pestilential ravage, and these they threw out unburied beyond the borders, not even allowing kinsmen or friends to heap earth over the bodies or to weep for those so pitiably destroyed. But the impious men threatened with mastery even the unenslaveable passions of the soul, the only things that nature has released free from virtually everything else, oppressing them with a more powerful weight of necessity, unbearable to endure.
Over these things he continued in grief and distress, being unable either to punish the wrongdoers or to help the wronged; but what he could do, he did by word, exhorting those set over the work to moderate themselves and relax and slacken the severity of their commands, and urging the laborers to bear present hardships nobly, to be men in their resolve, and not to let their souls grow weary along with their bodies, but to expect good things out of evil.
For everything in the cosmos changes into its opposite - clouds into clear sky, violent winds into still air, the surge of the sea into calm and stillness - and human affairs even more so, inasmuch as they are still less stable.
With such incantations, like a good physician, he thought to lighten their sufferings, heavy as they were; but whenever these eased, they attacked again in turn, bringing with them, out of that brief respite, some new evil always harsher than what came before.
For among those set in authority were some exceedingly untamed and rabid men, no different in savagery from venomous, flesh-devouring beasts - wild animals in human shape, who put forward the form of their bodies as a pretense of gentleness, for the purpose of hunting and deceit.
More unyielding than iron and adamant, one of these, the most violent of them, when - far from giving way - he only grew the more savage at appeals made to him, would strike those who did not perform what was commanded without pause and with quick hands, abuse them to the point of death, inflict every kind of outrage upon them, and kill them, deeming the deed a pious one; and pious it was held to be, that a man living for others' destruction should himself perish.
When the king heard this, he grew indignant, considering it a terrible thing - not that someone had died, or had killed either justly or unjustly, but that his grandson did not think as he did, nor held the same people as friends and enemies, but hated those whom he himself loved, and loved and pitied those toward whom he himself was immovable and implacable.
Once they had seized this opening, the men in power, who already eyed the young man with suspicion - for they knew he would remember their impious deeds against him and take vengeance when opportunity offered - poured countless slanders into his grandfather's open ears, some from one side, some from another, so as to instill fear even about the loss of his throne, saying: 'He will attack; he thinks nothing small; he is always contriving something further; he desires kingship before his time; he flatters some, threatens others, kills without trial, and has put forward as his favorites those most loyal to you. Why do you delay, instead of cutting short what he intends to do? Great is the advantage delay gives to those who plot, against those who are the object of the plot.'
As they went on speaking such things, he withdrew into neighboring Arabia, where it was safe to stay, at the same time entreating God to deliver the innocent from their desperate misfortunes and to punish as they deserved those who had left nothing undone in their outrages, and to grant him to witness both of these things, doubling the favor. And God heeded his prayers, admiring his love of the good and hatred of evil, and before long, as befits a god, gave judgment on the affairs of that land.
And while judgment was still pending, Moses kept contending in the contests of virtue, having within himself as his trainer a noble reasoning, by which, exercised toward the best of lives, both the contemplative and the practical, he labored on, ever unrolling the doctrines of philosophy, discerning them readily with his soul and storing them in memory so as never to forget them, and at once fitting his own actions to them, all of them praiseworthy, aiming not at seeming but at truth, because he had set before himself one single goal, the right reason of nature, which alone is the source and spring of the virtues.
Now another man, fleeing the implacable anger of a king, and having just arrived for the first time in a foreign land, not yet familiar with the customs of the natives nor precisely knowing what pleased or displeased them, would either have been eager, by keeping quiet, to live more obscurely, escaping the notice of the many, or, if wishing to come forward into public view, would at least have sought to win over by assiduous attentions the powerful and those of greatest influence, from whom some benefit and help might be expected, should anyone come and try to drag him off by force.
But he drove along the path contrary to what was to be expected, following the healthy impulses of his soul and allowing none of them to be tripped up; wherefore, sometimes he even played the bold youth beyond his actual power, holding justice to be an invincible power, by which impelled, self-summoned, he rushed to the aid of the weaker.
I will also tell what he did at that time, small though it might appear, yet not the product of a small mind. The Arabs raise cattle and pasture their flocks -- not only the men, but the women too, both young girls and virgins among them, and this not only among the neglected and undistinguished but also among the highly eminent.
Seven girls, daughters of a priestly father, were leading their flock and had come to a certain spring; drawing water with buckets tied to ropes, taking turns from one another so as to share the labor equally, they were filling, with great eagerness, the troughs that lay nearby.
But other shepherds arrived and, looking down on the girls' weakness, tried to drive them off along with their flock, while bringing up their own animals to the water that had been made ready, intending to reap the fruit of another's labor.
Seeing what was happening -- for he was not far off -- Moses ran at full speed, and standing close by said, "Will you not stop your wrongdoing, thinking that solitude gives you license for greed? Are you not ashamed, keeping your arms and forearms idle? You are thick hair and flesh, not men. The girls act with youthful vigor, shrinking from none of the tasks that need doing, while you young men already live in luxury like girls. Will you not go on your way?"
"Will you not withdraw before those who came first, to whom the water belongs? Having drawn it out for them so that the water might be more abundant, is it right that you now hasten to take away what has been made ready? But no -- by the heavenly eye of Justice, which looks even into the most desolate places, you shall not take it away."
"I, at any rate, have been appointed their champion, though unlooked for; for I am an ally to those who suffer wrong, with a great hand which it is not lawful for the greedy to see; you will perceive it, though unseen, wounding you, unless you change your ways."
As he spoke these things -- for even as he spoke he seemed inspired, transformed into a prophet -- they grew afraid that he might be uttering oracles and pronouncements, and became obedient; and they led the virgins' flock to the troughs, having first moved their own animals aside.
The girls returned home greatly rejoicing and recounted what had happened, beyond their hopes, so that they roused in their father a great longing to meet the stranger. Indeed he reproached them for their ingratitude, saying such things as this: "What has come over you, that you let him go, when you ought to have brought him at once, and even if he held back, to have pressed him? Or have you judged me guilty of some hatred of humankind? Or do you not expect to fall in with wrongdoers a second time? Those who forget favors are bound to be at a loss for helpers when they need them. But even now -- for the fault is still curable -- hurry back and invite him, first to be our guest, and then also to share in some return of thanks, for gratitude is owed to him."
Hastening back, they found him not far from the spring, and having made known their father's wishes, they persuaded him to come home. And the father, struck with amazement -- first by his appearance, and a little later by his purpose, for great natures are conspicuous and are not recognized only after a long time -- gave him the fairest of his daughters as wife, bearing witness by this one act to all the qualities that make for nobility of character, and to the truth that only what is beautiful is worthy of love, needing no recommendation from another but carrying its own credentials within itself.
After the marriage, he took charge of the flocks and pastured them, being trained in advance for leadership; for shepherding is a rehearsal and preliminary exercise in kingship for one who is going to govern the gentlest of all flocks, mankind, just as hunting trains natures suited for war; for those who are being prepared for military command practice beforehand in the chase, the irrational animals being set before them as a kind of raw material for the exercise of authority in either season, that of war and that of peace.
For the hunting of wild animals is a general's exercise against enemies, while the care and oversight of tame ones is a king's contest with his subjects; and this is why kings are called "shepherds of the peoples" -- not as a reproach, but as a supreme honor.
And it seems to me, examining the matter not by the opinions of the many but by the truth -- let whoever wishes laugh -- that only the man who is skilled in the science of shepherding could become a perfect king, having been trained in lesser creatures for the government of the greater; for it is impossible for great things to be brought to completion before small ones.
Having become the best of the herdsmen of his time, and, through never shirking any task but employing a willing and self-directed eagerness wherever the oversight of the flocks required it, together with a pure and guileless fidelity, capable of supplying all that contributed to the animals' benefit, he made his flocks increase,
so much so that he was already envied by the other herdsmen, who saw nothing comparable in their own flocks -- flocks for which it seemed good fortune merely to remain as they were, whereas for his, failure to improve daily would have counted as a loss, so accustomed had they become to receiving great increases, in beauty from good flesh and fatness, and in number from prolific breeding and healthy conditions of life.
Leading his flock to a place well-watered and rich in pasture, where it happened that much grass suitable for grazing sheep grew abundantly, he came near a certain wooded ravine and saw a most astonishing sight. There was a thornbush, a plant altogether weak and thorny; this, though no one had brought fire to it, suddenly burst into flame, and though wholly enveloped from root to branch-tip in a great blaze, as though from some fountain pouring it forth, it remained unharmed, not consumed, as if it were some substance immune to suffering and not itself the fuel of the fire, but rather using the fire as its own nourishment.
In the midst of the flame there was a form of surpassing beauty, unlike anything visible, a most god-like image, flashing forth a light more radiant than fire -- one might have suspected it to be an image of Being itself. Let it be called an angel, since it announced, almost in words, through the stillness of a voice clearer than any sound, the things that were about to come to pass, by means of the vision that had been wrought.
For the burning thornbush was a symbol of those who suffer wrong, and the blazing fire a symbol of those who do the wrong, while the fact that what was burning was not consumed signified that those who suffer injustice would not be destroyed by their assailants, but that the attack of the one side would prove ineffective and unprofitable, and the scheme of the other would go unpunished; and the angel signified the providence of God, which, in great stillness, brings ease to what is most terrifying, beyond all human expectation.
The thornbush, as has been said, is a plant most weak, yet not without its thorns, so that if one merely touches it, it wounds; and it was neither consumed by the fire, which by nature devours, but on the contrary was protected by it, and remaining just as it was before it caught flame, having lost nothing whatever, it gained in addition a radiance of light.
All this is a kind of sketch of the condition of the nation, which prevailed at that time, all but crying aloud to those in distress: "Do not lose heart; your weakness is your strength, which will prick and wound countless foes. By those who long to destroy your race utterly, you will, against their will, be preserved rather than perish; you will not be harmed by their evils, but precisely when someone thinks to ravage you most, then above all you will shine forth into glory."
Again, the fire, a destructive substance, was refuting those of savage temper: "Do not be lifted up by your own strength; seeing irresistible powers brought low, be brought to your senses. The burning power of the flame is consumed as though it were mere wood, while wood, which by nature can be burned, plainly burns like fire."
Having shown this marvel and wonder to Moses as the clearest exhortation of things soon to be accomplished, God begins, through his pronouncements, to urge him on to hasten his care for the nation, declaring that he would soon become not only the agent of its freedom but also the leader of its migration from that place, and promising to assist in everything.
"For they have long been mistreated," he says, "and have endured outrages hard to bear, with no human being lightening or pitying their misfortunes; I myself have taken pity on them. For I know each one individually, and I know that all of them, turning together with one accord to supplication and entreaty, hope for help from me; and I am by nature gentle and merciful to genuine suppliants."
"Go, then, to the king of the country, with no fear whatsoever -- for the former king has died, the one from whom you fled for fear of his plot, and another has been entrusted with the country, who bears you no grudge for anything that has happened -- and, taking with you the elders of the nation, tell him that the nation has been summoned by me through an oracle, so that it may go out, according to its ancestral custom, a three days' journey beyond the borders of the country, to offer sacrifice."
But he, well aware that both his own kinsmen and everyone else would disbelieve what he said, replied: "If, then, they ask what is the name of the one who sent me, and I myself am not able to say, will I not seem to be deceiving them?"
And he said: "Tell them first that I am He Who Is, so that, learning the difference between what exists and what does not exist, they may also be further taught that no name at all can properly be used of me, to whom alone being belongs."
He said, "Tell them first that I am the One who is, so that, learning the difference between what is and what is not, they may be further taught that no name at all properly belongs to me, to whom alone being belongs."
But if they are weaker in nature and seek an appellation, make known to them not only this — that I am God — but also that I am the God of three men named for virtue: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, of whom one is the standard of learned wisdom, another of natural wisdom, and the third of practiced wisdom. And if they still disbelieve, they will be won over by three signs, taught by things which no one has ever before seen or heard of among men.
The signs were of this kind. He bids him throw the rod he was carrying down onto the ground. It immediately came to life, crept along, and — most commanding of footless creatures — became a serpent of enormous size, utterly perfect. Quickly withdrawing from the creature and now rushing to flee out of fear, he is called back, and, at God's command and with courage instilled in him at the same time, he seizes it by the tail.
The serpent, still writhing at the touch, stood still, and stretching itself out lengthwise, was immediately changed back into the very same staff, so that both transformations caused amazement, and one could not judge which was the more astonishing, the soul being struck by an equally balanced impression.
This, then, was the first sign; a second was worked not long after. He commands him to hide one of his hands in his bosom and bring it out again a little later. When he did as commanded, the hand suddenly appeared whiter than snow; but when he put it back into his bosom and brought it out again, it returned to its own color, recovering its natural appearance.
These things, then, he was taught by God alone, alone, as a disciple by a teacher, having with him the instruments of the wonders — the hand and the staff — with which he had been equipped beforehand.
A third sign could not be carried with him or taught beforehand, but was destined to astonish no less, and it took its beginning in Egypt. It was of this kind: "Whatever river water," he says, "you draw and pour out on the ground will become blood, the reddest of blood, changed in color and in substance into a complete alteration."
This too, it seems, appeared credible, not only because of the truthfulness of the one speaking, but also because of the wonders already displayed beforehand with the hand and the staff.
Yet, believing, he nonetheless tried to decline the commission, saying that he was slow of speech and slow of tongue, and not eloquent — especially now that he had heard God himself speaking. For, judging human eloquence, by comparison with the divine, to be speechlessness, and being at the same time cautious by nature, he shrank from things too great for him, judging matters of such magnitude not to be within his own capacity, and he begged that another be chosen who would be able to carry out easily each of the tasks assigned.
But God, accepting his modesty, said: "Do you not know who gave man a mouth, and fashioned his tongue and windpipe and the whole instrumentality of articulate speech? It is I. Fear nothing, then; for at my nod everything will be jointed together and will change to what is fitting, so that nothing will any longer hinder the stream of words from flowing smoothly and evenly from a pure spring. But if there is need of an interpreter, you will have your brother as a subordinate mouth, so that he may report to the multitude what comes from you, and you may report to him the things of God."
Having heard this — for it was not altogether safe or free from danger to keep objecting — he set out and journeyed with his wife and children on the road to Egypt, and on the way, meeting his brother, he persuaded him to accompany him by telling him the divine oracles; and indeed his brother's soul had already been prepared beforehand by God's forethought for obedience, so that he agreed without hesitation and followed readily.
Arriving in Egypt with one mind and one soul, they first gathered the elders of the nation together in secret and disclosed the oracles, and how God, taking pity and compassion on them, promised to grant them freedom and a migration from there to a better country, declaring that he himself would be the guide of the journey.
After this they now boldly conversed also with the king about sending the people beyond the borders to perform sacred rites, saying that it was necessary for the ancestral sacrifices to be carried out in the desert, not performed in the same manner as those of other peoples, but in a way and by a law that escaped commonality because of the special peculiarities of their customs.
But he, his soul oppressed from swaddling clothes by ancestral arrogance, and believing there was no intelligible god at all beyond the visible ones, answered insolently, saying: "Who is this whom I must obey? I do not know this so-called new lord. I will not send the nation away on the pretext of a festival and sacrifices, to run wild" (cf. Exodus 5:2).
Then, being harsh and heavy in wrath and implacable in anger, he commands that those set over the works be abused, as granting relaxation and leisure, saying that it belongs to relaxation and leisure to deliberate about sacrifices and festivals; for those under compulsion do not even remember such things, but only those whose life is spent in great comfort and luxury.
So then, as they endured heavier misfortunes than before, and grew indignant at Moses and his companions as deceivers, reviling them, some secretly and some openly, and charging them with impiety for seeming to have lied falsely about God, Moses begins to display the wonders he had been taught beforehand, thinking that those who witnessed them would change from the disbelief that possessed them to belief in what had been said.
The demonstration of the wonders took place before the king and the Egyptian officials as well, with great eagerness. So when all the powerful men had flocked together into the palace, Moses' brother took the staff, and shaking it very demonstratively, threw it down onto the ground; it immediately became a serpent, and those standing around watched, and, filled with astonishment, withdrew in fear and fled.
But as many sophists and magicians as were present said, "Why are you so astounded? We too are not unpracticed in such things, but we employ a craft that produces the like." Then, each throwing down the staff he held, there was a multitude of serpents, and they coiled around the first one.
But that one, rising up to a great height far beyond the rest, widened its chest, and, opening its mouth, with a most violent rush of drawing breath, gathered them all in as in a fisherman's net cast around a shoal of fish, drew them in, swallowed them, and then changed back into the original nature of a staff.
By now the spectacle wrought on so grand a scale had exposed the suspicion lurking in the soul of each of those willfully doing wrong, so that they no longer thought what was happening to be the sophistries and crafts of men, fabricated for deception, but rather that a more divine power was the cause of these things, for which all is easy to accomplish.
But when, though compelled to admit as much by the manifest clarity of what had occurred, they were nonetheless no less emboldened, clinging to the same inhumanity and impiety as though to some most secure good, neither pitying those unjustly enslaved nor doing what was commanded through words, since he who had made his will clear through the more distinct proofs of oracles worked by signs and wonders now had need of a heavier threat and a swarm of blows, by which the senseless are admonished — those whom reason did not educate.
Ten punishments are brought upon the land, a perfect number of chastisement against those who had sinned perfectly; and the punishment was unlike customary ones. For the elements of the universe — earth, water, air, and fire — are set upon them, God having judged it just that the land of the impious should be destroyed by the very things out of which the world was completed, as a demonstration of the power of the rule he wields, the same elements which he shapes and turns, whenever he wishes, toward salvation for the generation of the universe, and toward destruction for the ruin of the impious.
He distributes the punishments: the ones from the coarser elements, earth and water, from which the bodily qualities were completed, he entrusts to Moses' brother as priest; the equal number from air and fire, the elements most productive of soul, to Moses alone; one, common to both, the seventh, he assigns to them jointly; and the remaining three, to complete the number ten, he reserves for himself.
And he begins by bringing first the plagues from water; for since the Egyptians had honored water above all else, believing it to be the origin of the generation of the universe, he thought it right to summon this element first, for the rebuke and admonition of those who revered it. What, then, happened not long after?
At the divine command, Moses' brother brought the staff down upon the river, and at once, from Ethiopia all the way to the sea, it turned to blood; and along with it the lakes, canals, springs, wells, and fountains all turned to blood together — the entire body of water throughout Egypt — so that for lack of anything to drink, people had to hold back from the water at the banks, while the opened veins, as in cases of hemorrhage, shot forth streams of blood like pipes, with not a single clear trickle to be seen anywhere. And the whole race of fish died too, since the life-giving power had turned destructive, so that a foul stench filled everything throughout, so many bodies decaying all at once; and a great crowd of people, destroyed by thirst, lay in heaps at the crossroads, since their kin had no strength left to carry the dead out to the tombs.
For seven days the calamity held its grip, until the Egyptians begged Moses and his companions, and these in turn begged God, to take pity on those who were perishing. And God, relenting in his nature, changed the blood into drinkable water, giving the river back its ancient streams, pure and life-giving.
But no sooner had they been granted a brief respite than they rushed back into the same cruelty and lawlessness, as though justice had vanished from the world entirely, or as though those who had already endured one punishment were not liable to a second chastisement. But by suffering they were taught, like young children, not to be contemptuous; for the punishment that follows close on their heels was slow to catch those who merely intended wrong, but overtook at a run those who were running toward wrongdoing.
For again Moses' brother, at God's command, stretched out his rod over the canals, pools, and marshes and brought on the plague. At the stretching out of the rod so vast a multitude of frogs crept up that not only the marketplaces and every open space, but also the farmsteads, houses, and temples, every private and public place, were filled with them - as if nature had decided to send out one whole species of water creatures as a colony into the opposite land, for dry land is the opposite of water.
So the people could neither go outdoors, since the streets were already occupied, nor stay indoors - for the frogs had already taken over the inner rooms as well, crawling up even to the highest points - and they were in the direst straits, having despaired of any deliverance.
So again they took refuge in entreaties, the king promising to permit the Hebrews' departure, while they won God over with supplications. And when he consented, some of the frogs withdrew into the river, while others died on the spot, and there were heaps of them piled up at the crossroads; people even carried out their own dead from their homes because of the unbearable stench that rose from the corpses of creatures which, even while alive, had produced great disgust
to the senses. But having gained a brief respite from the punishment, like athletes in a contest gathering their strength so as to commit wrong with more robust vigor, they ran back again to their habitual wickedness, forgetting the evils they had just endured.
God, having withheld the punishments from the water, now brought on those from the earth, appointing the same man as its instrument; and he, again at the command given, struck the ground with his staff, and a swarm of gnats poured out and, spreading like a cloud, covered the whole of Egypt.
Though the creature is very tiny, it is nonetheless most troublesome; for it does not merely damage the surface of the skin, causing unpleasant and most harmful itching, but also forces its way inside through the nostrils and ears; and flying into the pupils of the eyes it does damage there too, unless one is on guard - but what guard could there be against so great a swarm, especially when God is inflicting the punishment?
Perhaps someone might ask why he punished the Egyptians by means of creatures so insignificant and disregarded, passing over bears and lions and leopards and the other kinds of untamed beasts that prey on human flesh, or if not these, at least the Egyptian asps, whose bites are naturally lethal without delay.
But if he really does not know, let him learn: first, that God wished to admonish the inhabitants of the land rather than to destroy them; for had he wished to wipe them out entirely, he would not have used animals as allies, so to speak, for his assaults, but rather the god-sent scourges of famine and plague.
After this let him also be taught a further lesson, necessary for the whole of life. What is it? When human beings go to war, they seek out the most powerful ally to reinforce their weakness; but God, being the highest and greatest power, has need of nothing. Yet if he chooses to use certain things as instruments of punishment, he does not select the strongest and greatest, caring nothing at all for their might, but by fitting out cheap and tiny creatures with invincible and unconquerable powers, he wards off wrongdoers through them - as indeed now. For what is cheaper than a gnat?
Yet it had such force that all Egypt was compelled to give up and cry out, "this is the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19); for not even the whole inhabited world, from end to end, could withstand that hand, much less the whole cosmos.
Such, then, were the punishments worked through Moses' brother. But we must next examine, in due order, those which Moses himself administered, and from which parts of nature they were composed. Air and heaven, the purest portions of the substance of the universe, take up after water and earth the task of admonishing Egypt, a province over which Moses was appointed steward.
He began first by disturbing the air; for Egypt alone, almost uniquely among the countries lying in the southern climate, does not receive one of the yearly seasons, namely winter - perhaps, as the account goes, because it is not far from the scorched zone, the fiery element flowing invisibly from there and warming everything around it; or perhaps because the river, flooding at the summer solstice, uses up the cloud formations beforehand -
for it begins to rise at the start of summer and subsides as summer ends, at which time the etesian winds also come rushing down against the mouths of the Nile; through these, still prevented from pouring out - since the sea, raised to a height by the force of the winds, extends its triple waves like a long wall - the river is held back within, and then, as the streams collide, the one coming down from the springs above and the one that ought to flow out to sea being turned back by the obstruction and unable to spread wide, for the banks on either side squeeze it in, it rises, as one would expect, and mounts up -
or perhaps also because it was needless for winter to occur in Egypt at all; for that for which rainfall is useful, the river also supplies, flooding the fields for the yearly production of crops.
But nature does nothing in vain, so as to furnish rain to land that has no need of it; and at the same time she delights in the manifold and diverse harmony of her works of skill, having fitted the concord of the whole together out of opposites; and for this reason she supplies to some the benefit of water from above, out of heaven, and to others from below, out of springs and rivers.
So then, with the country thus disposed - its winter behaving like spring, the regions near the sea moistened only by scant sprinklings, while those above Memphis, the royal seat of Egypt, receive no snow at all - the air suddenly turned so revolutionary that everything which, in harsh winters, falls all at once elsewhere befell it together: downpours of rain, hail heavy and abundant, the violence of winds colliding and clashing against one another, the bursting of clouds, unceasing flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, continuous thunderbolts, which produced a most monstrous spectacle; for running through the hail, a substance at war with fire, they neither melted it nor were quenched by it, but remained unchanged, coursing up and down and preserving the hail intact.
But it was not only the extraordinary abundance of everything that drove the inhabitants to excessive despair, but also the strangeness of the event; for they supposed - as was indeed the case - that what had happened was a novel work wrought from divine wrath, the air having turned revolutionary as never before, to the ruin and destruction of trees and crops, together with which no small number of animals also perished, some by the cold, others crushed as if stoned by the weight of the falling hail, others consumed by fire; and some remained half-burnt, bearing the marks of wounds from the thunderbolts as a warning
to those who saw them. When the disaster abated, and once again the king and his court grew bold, Moses stretched out his rod toward the sky, at God's command. Then a wind came rushing down, a most violent south wind, growing in force and intensity throughout the whole day and night - itself, on its own, a great affliction; for it is a dry wind, causing headaches and dullness of hearing, and capable of producing nausea and distress, especially in Egypt, which lies toward the south, the region through which the light-bearing stars make their circuits, so that as soon as the wind is stirred up, the blaze driven from the sun travels with it and burns everything.
But together with it there also came an irresistible multitude of creatures destructive to plants - locusts, which, pouring out ceaselessly like a stream and filling the whole air, devoured whatever the thunderbolts and the hail had left, so that nothing green was any longer to be seen growing anywhere in that vast land.
Then at last, coming to a most exact realization of their own situation, the leading men, overwhelmed by the disasters, went to the king and said: "How long will you refuse to let the men go? Or do you still not learn from what is happening, that Egypt is ruined?" And he agreed to all that seemed necessary, once the calamity had let up. But when Moses prayed again, a wind rising from the sea scattered the locusts.
And when they had been scattered, and the king was still in his death-throes over releasing the nation, a greater evil than the earlier ones came upon them; for though it was a bright day, darkness suddenly poured over everything - perhaps an eclipse of the sun more complete than those usually seen, or perhaps because the continuous, unbroken density and the most violent compression of the clouds cut off the passage of the rays, so that day was indistinguishable from night, and indeed a single night was reckoned as long as three days and as many nights together.
Then, they say, some lay flung on their beds and did not dare to rise, while others, whenever some natural need pressed them, groped along the walls or whatever else was near, like the blind, and made their way forward with difficulty; for the light of the fire needed for daily use was in some places put out by the storm that held sway, and in other places obscured and rendered invisible by the depth of the darkness, so that the most essential of the senses, sight, though sound in itself, was rendered blind, unable to see anything, and the other senses were also turned aside, like subjects obedient to their ruling sense once it had fallen.
For no one could bear to speak or to listen or to take food, but they wasted away in silence and hunger, giving leisure to none of their senses, but wholly seized by their suffering - until Moses, again taking pity, entreated God; and God brought about light instead of darkness and day instead of night, together with a great clearness of sky.
They say the blows worked by Moses alone were of this same kind — the one of hail and thunderbolts, the one of the locust, and the one of darkness, which admitted no form of light at all. But there was one plague the two brothers were jointly commissioned to bring, which I will now describe.
At God's command they took ashes from a furnace in their hands, which Moses scattered little by little into the air. Then a sudden cloud of dust, falling upon both human beings and irrational animals, produced a savage and agonizing ulceration over the whole surface of the skin, and their bodies at once broke out in eruptions, swelling with festering blisters, which one might have guessed were secretly boiling up from beneath.
Racked by pains and agonies, as was natural from the ulceration and inflammation, they suffered in soul no less than in body, and were worn out with distress — for one would have seen a single continuous sore stretching from head to foot, all the separate wounds on the various limbs and parts having merged into one and the same form — until, once more through the lawgiver's supplications on behalf of the sufferers, the disease grew milder.
This chastisement, fittingly, the two of them were commissioned to bring jointly: the brother because of the dust that was cast up, since the care of what happens from the earth had fallen to his lot; Moses because of the air, which changed for the affliction of the inhabitants — for he was the minister of the blows that came from air and heaven.
Three punishments remain, wrought by God's own hand alone, without any human agency; I will describe each of them as best I can. The first came through a creature the boldest of all in nature, the dog-fly, which those who first assigned names — for they were wise — called by its true name, compounding it from the two most shameless of creatures, the fly and the dog, the boldest of land animals and of winged ones respectively. For these creatures come and rush upon one fearlessly, and even if one tries to drive them off, they contend to the last against being beaten back, until they have gorged themselves on blood and flesh.
The dog-fly, having taken on the daring of both, is a biting and treacherous creature; for it darts from far off with a whirring sound like an arrow shot, and falling violently upon its target fastens itself in deep.
But at that time the assault was also driven by God, so that the malice it worked was doubled, no longer relying only on its natural advantages but also on those from divine contrivance, which armed the creature and roused it to force against the inhabitants of the land.
After the dog-fly there followed another punishment, again without human collaboration: the death of the livestock. Herds of cattle, flocks of goats and sheep, and every kind of beast of burden and other animal, perished in droves all on a single day, as though at one signal — foreshadowing the destruction of human beings that was soon to come, just as happens in plague epidemics; for it is said that the sudden death of dumb animals is often a forerunner of epidemic illness.
After this came the tenth and final judgment, surpassing all that went before: the death of the Egyptians — not of all of them, for God did not intend to lay the land waste but only to give warning, nor of most of the men and women together of every age, but, letting the rest live, he passed sentence of death on the firstborn alone, beginning with the eldest of the king's children and ending with that of the meanest slave-girl at the mill.
For around midnight those who had first called others father and mother, and had first in turn been called sons by them, all healthy and sound of body, were suddenly cut down in the prime of life for no apparent cause, and they say that no household was left without a share in the calamity at that hour.
At daybreak, as was natural, each family, on seeing their dearest ones unexpectedly dead — those with whom they had shared their home and table until evening — were seized by the heaviest grief and filled everything with wailing, so that, because the suffering was common to all, when everyone cried out together with one voice, a single lament resounded from one end of the land to the other.
And as long as people stayed within their houses, each, ignorant of his neighbor's misfortune, grieved only over his own; but once he went out and learned of the others' losses, he immediately took on a double grief in addition to his own — the shared grief now weighing heavier and harder than the lesser, lighter one he had felt before — since he was also robbed of any hope of consolation. For who was going to comfort another while himself in need of the same comfort?
And, as is usual in such circumstances, thinking that what had happened was only the beginning of worse to come, and fearing for the destruction of those still living, they ran together to the palace in tears, their garments torn, and cried out against the king as the cause of all the calamities that had befallen them.
For, they said, if at the very outset, when Moses had made his request, he had let the nation go, none of what had happened would have been experienced at all; but since he had yielded to his customary stubbornness, he had reaped, ready-made, the wages of his ill-timed contentiousness. Then one urged another to drive the people out of the whole land with all speed, counting even the delay of a single day — or rather a single hour — as grounds for irreparable punishment.
Those who were being driven out and expelled, coming to a recognition of their own noble birth, ventured a bold act, such as was natural for free people not forgetful of the wrongs unjustly plotted against them.
For, carrying off much spoil, they loaded some of it upon themselves and put the rest upon their beasts of burden — not out of greed for money, or, as an accuser might say, out of desire for what belonged to others (far from it), but first as recovering the wages owed them of necessity for all the time they had served, and second as requiting, in lesser and unequal measure, what they had suffered in their enslavement. For where is there any equivalence between the loss of money and the deprivation of freedom, for which those who have sense are willing not only to give up their possessions but even to die?
In both respects, then, they were in the right — whether one takes it that they were receiving wages, as in peacetime, of which they had long been unjustly deprived by those unwilling to pay them, or that they were, as in war, taking the property of enemies by the law of the victors. For the Egyptians had begun with unjust deeds, enslaving strangers and suppliants, as I said before, in the manner of captives, while the Hebrews, when the opportunity arose, defended themselves without recourse to arms, with justice itself as their shield and the hand that upheld them.
With so many blows and punishments was Egypt chastised, and not one of them touched the Hebrews, even though they lived together in the very same cities, villages, and houses, when earth, water, air, and fire — the very elements of nature, which it is impossible to escape — were turned against the land. And this was the most paradoxical thing of all: that by the same agents, in the same place and at the same time, some were destroyed while others were kept safe.
The river turned to blood, but not for the Hebrews; for whenever they wished to draw water, it changed back to drinkable water for them. The frog crept up out of the waters onto dry land and filled the marketplaces, farmyards, and houses, but it withdrew only from the houses of the Hebrews, as though it knew how to distinguish who deserved punishment and who did not.
No gnats, no dog-fly, no locust — which did great damage to plants, crops, animals, and human beings — came flying against them; no continuous downpours of rain, hail, or thunderbolts reached as far as them. Of the most agonizing ulceration they felt not even a trace, not even in a dream. While the deepest darkness was poured out upon everyone else, they passed their time in clear light, the daylight shining upon them. While the firstborn among the Egyptians were being taken, not a single Hebrew died; nor was this surprising, since even the destruction of countless livestock had not carried off a single herd belonging to them.
And it seems to me that anyone who had been present at what happened at that time would have thought the Hebrews nothing other than spectators of the sufferings that others were enduring — and not only that, but that they were being taught the finest and most beneficial of all lessons, piety. For never before had the judgment between good and evil come so plainly into view, bringing destruction to some and deliverance to others.
Of those who went out and migrated, the men of military age numbered above six hundred thousand, while the rest of the throng — old men, children, women — was not easy to count. There went out with them also a mixed crowd of stragglers and servants, like a mass of the illegitimate mingled with the genuine multitude. These were the children born to Egyptian women by Hebrew fathers and reckoned into their paternal line, together with all who had come over as converts out of admiration for the piety of the men, and any others who, by the magnitude and repetition of the successive punishments, had been brought to their senses and had changed their ways.
Over all these Moses was appointed leader, receiving his rule and kingship not as some do who force their way to power by arms and engines of war, with forces of cavalry, infantry, and fleets, but for the sake of his virtue and nobility of character and the goodwill toward all which he had always shown without fail — and further, because God, who loves virtue and loves what is noble, bestowed on him this worthy prize.
For when he left behind his rule in Egypt — being grandson of the king then reigning — bidding a hearty farewell, because of the wrongs being done in the land, to the hopes those who had adopted him had placed in him, on account of the nobility of his soul, the greatness of his purpose, and his natural hatred of wickedness, it seemed good to him who governs and cares for the universe to repay him with the kingship of a more numerous and greater nation, one destined, above all others, to serve as priest, forever offering prayers on behalf of the whole human race, for the averting of evils and for a share in blessings.
On taking up his rule, he did not, as some do, strive to increase his own household and advance his sons — for he had two — to great power, so as to make them, for the present, his partners and, later, his successors; for in guileless and pure judgment, applied to all matters small and great alike, he mastered his natural affection for his children, like a good judge unmoved by bribes in his reasoning.
There was one goal that lay before him, an absolutely necessary one: to benefit his subjects and to labor by deed and by word for their advantage, letting no opportunity pass that might contribute to the common good.
Alone among all who have ever governed, he did not treasure up gold or silver, did not collect tribute, acquired no houses, no estates, no livestock, no household service, no revenues, nothing else conducive to luxury and abundance, and yet he could have had a superabundance of everything.
Instead, holding that it is the mark of a soul's poverty to embrace wealth that consists in material things, he honored the man of blind wealth as a fool, but esteemed the one who sees the wealth of nature, and became, I think, as great an emulator of it as anyone has ever been. In clothing, food, and the other matters of daily life he practiced, without any tragic pretension to grander pomp, the plainness and simplicity of a private citizen, but genuinely royal magnificence in those things where it was noble for the ruler to have the advantage; and these were self-mastery, endurance, temperance, and quickness of mind,
understanding, knowledge, labors, hardships endured, contempt for pleasures, acts of justice, exhortations to what is best, blame and lawful punishment of wrongdoers, and, again, praise and honors, according to law, for those who do right.
And so, having bidden a hearty farewell to the accumulation of money and to wealth that inspires such pride among men, God rewards him by giving him in return the greatest and most perfect wealth of all: this is the wealth of the whole earth and sea and rivers and all the other elements and their compounds. For deeming him worthy to appear as a partner of his own portion, he released the whole cosmos to him as a possession fitting for an heir.
And so each element obeyed him as its master, changing the power it had and yielding to his commands. Nor is this perhaps surprising: for if, according to the proverb, "what belongs to friends is held in common," and the prophet has been called a friend of God (cf. Exodus 33:11), then it would follow that he shares also in God's possessions, so far as that is useful.
For God, possessing everything, needs nothing, while the good man, though he possesses nothing in the strict sense, not even himself, nevertheless partakes, so far as he is able, of the treasures of God. And this is perhaps fitting: for he is a citizen of the world, for which reason he was not enrolled as a citizen of any one of the cities of the inhabited earth, since he had received, as was proper, not a portion of a country but the whole cosmos as his portion. What then?
Did he not also enjoy an even greater partnership, being deemed worthy of the very same title as the father and maker of all things? For he was named god and king of the whole nation, and is said to have entered into the darkness where God was (Exodus 20:21), that is, into the invisible, unseen, and bodiless archetypal being of existing things, contemplating things unseen by mortal nature; and having brought himself and his own life into the open, like a well-crafted painting, he set himself up as a supremely beautiful and godlike work, a model for those who wish to imitate it.
Happy are those who have stamped that pattern upon their own souls, or who have striven to stamp it there. For let the mind bear, at the very least, the perfect form of virtue, or, failing that, an unwavering longing to acquire that form.
And indeed no one is unaware of this either, that the obscure are emulators of the illustrious, and direct their own impulses toward whatever those illustrious ones seem most to desire. So whenever a ruler begins to live in soft indulgence and inclines toward a luxurious way of life, nearly the whole of his subjects break out into desires beyond what is necessary, for the belly and for what comes after the belly, unless some, by a stroke of good fortune, come to possess a nature whose soul is not treacherous but kindly and gracious.
But if he chooses a more austere and dignified course, then even those most lacking in self-control among them change over to self-restraint, either out of fear or out of a sense of shame, being eager to create the impression that they too are emulators of the same qualities; and those who are worse would never reject the ways of their betters, unless they had actually gone mad.
Perhaps, indeed, since he was destined to become a lawgiver, he became long before, by divine providence, himself a living and rational law, a providence that, without his knowing it, had already appointed him to be a lawgiver.
When, then, he had received the leadership with the people's willing consent, God directing and approving, he set the colony moving toward Phoenicia and Coele-Syria and Palestine, which was then called the land of the Canaanites, whose borders lay a three-day journey from Egypt.
Then he led them, not by the shortest route, partly out of caution, lest, if the inhabitants should meet them in fear of being displaced and enslaved and war should break out, they might turn back along the same road into Egypt, from enemies into the hands of other enemies, from the new into the old, and become a laughingstock and a mockery, enduring things worse and harder than before; and partly also because he wanted, by leading them through a long and desolate region, to test how they stood with regard to obedience when their supplies were not abundant but grew gradually scarcer.
Turning aside, then, from the straight road, he found a slanting path, and, thinking that it led all the way to the Red Sea, began to travel along it. And they say that a portentous and mighty work of nature occurred at that time, the like of which no one remembers ever having happened before.
For a cloud, shaped into a column of great size, went on ahead of the multitude, by day shining with a sunlike brightness, by night with a fiery one, so that they might not wander astray on the journey but might follow the most unerring guide of the way. Perhaps, indeed, it was even one of the ministers of the great King, an invisible messenger, enfolded within the cloud as a guide before them, whom it is not lawful to see with bodily eyes.
Now the king of Egypt, seeing them travel, as he supposed, off the roads, going through a rough and untrodden wilderness, was pleased at their misstep along the way, thinking that they were shut in with no way out; but repenting of having let them go, he set out to pursue them, intending either to force the multitude back through fear and enslave them again, or to kill them, down to the youths, since they were in open revolt.
Then, taking his whole cavalry force, javelin-throwers, slingers, mounted archers, and all the other light-armed troops, and giving the finest of his scythe-bearing chariots, six hundred of them, to his officers of rank, so that they might follow with fitting dignity and take part in the campaign, he set out at full speed, sparing no haste, hurrying on because he wanted to fall upon them suddenly, before they could foresee it; for an unexpected evil is always harder to bear than one that has been anticipated, in the same proportion as a thing held in contempt is easier to attack than one guarded with care.
And he, with this plan in mind, pursued them, thinking he would overcome them at the first onset, while they by now happened to be encamped by the shores of the sea. As they were about to take their meal, first a great commotion resounded, since so many men and pack animals were being driven together in haste, so that people poured out of their tents, looking about and straining to listen, standing on tiptoe; then, a little later, the opposing force came into view, high up on a ridge, drawn up in arms for battle.
Terrified at this strange and unexpected sight, and neither prepared to defend themselves for lack of weapons — for they had set out not for war but for a colony — nor able to flee — for behind them was the sea, ahead of them the enemy, and on either side deep and untrodden desert — they writhed in anguish, worn down by the magnitude of their troubles, and, as often happens in such misfortunes, blamed their leader, saying:
"Was it because there were no graves in Egypt in which we might be buried when we died, that you brought us out here to bury us after killing us? Or is not any slavery a lighter evil than death? By luring the multitude with the hope of freedom, you have hung over our lives a far harsher danger.
Did you not know our simplicity and the bitterness of the Egyptians and the depth of their wrath? Do you not see the magnitude of these inescapable troubles? What is to be done? Shall we fight unarmed against armed men? Or shall we flee, hemmed in as we are like animals in nets by merciless enemies, by impassable deserts, by unnavigable seas?
But even if the sea could be sailed, what abundance of boats do we have for crossing it?" He, hearing these things, sympathized with them, but he remembered the oracles; and dividing his mind and his speech at the very same time, with the one he silently entreated God, that he might rescue them from their helpless troubles, and with the other he encouraged and comforted those who were crying out, saying, "Do not lose heart. God does not defend in the same way a man does.
Why do you place your trust only in what is reasonable and plausible? God, our helper, has no need of any preparation; to find a way where there is no way is the special work of God; the impossible for every created thing is possible, and close at hand, for him alone."
This he related while still in his ordinary state; but after pausing a little, he becomes inspired, breathed upon by the spirit that was accustomed to visit him, and he prophesies, speaking these oracles: "The army you now see, well armed, arrayed against you, you will see no longer; for it will fall in headlong rout, all of it, and be swallowed up in the depths, so that not even a remnant of it will appear any more above the ground,
And this was not long in coming, but on the very next night. So he declared. And when the sun had set, a south wind at once began to blow with tremendous force; under it the sea drew back—it was accustomed to ebb, but now, pushed still further, the water along the shore was swept away as into a ravine or a Charybdis. No star appeared beforehand, but a thick black cloud covered the whole sky, and the night was murky, to the terror of the pursuers.
Moses, at God's command, struck the sea with his staff. It was torn apart and separated, and of its divided portions the part nearest the breach was lifted up on high and, standing fast like a wall, remained firm and still, while the part drawn back behind was reined in, as if held by invisible bridles, from surging forward; and the middle part, where the breach had occurred, dried up and became a broad and open highway. Seeing this, Moses was amazed and rejoiced, and filled with joy he encouraged his own people and urged them to break camp as quickly as possible.
As they were about to cross, a most portentous sign appeared. The guiding cloud, which had always gone before them until that time, now turned back to the rear of the multitude, so as to serve as a rearguard; and stationed between the pursuers and the pursued, it drove the one people on safely and securely, while it held back and beat off the others, eager as they were to press the attack. Seeing this, the Egyptians were filled with tumult and confusion; their ranks were thrown into disorder by fear, as men fell upon one another and sought at last to flee, when it was of no use.
For the Hebrews crossed by the dry path, deep in the early dawn, together with their wives and children—even those still quite infants. But the divided portions of the sea, rolling in from both sides and joining together, drowned the Egyptians with their chariots and horses, as the returning tide was released by northern winds and lofty triple waves rushed in, so that not even a torch-bearer was left to report to those in Egypt the sudden disaster.
Astounded by this great and marvelous deed, the Hebrews won, without bloodshed, a victory they had not hoped for; and seeing in an instant the massed destruction of their enemies, they formed two choruses on the shore, one of men and one of women, and sang hymns of thanksgiving to God, Moses leading the men and his sister leading the women; for these two had become the leaders of the choruses.
Setting out from the sea, they journeyed on for some time, no longer dreading fear from their enemies. But when their drinking water ran short for three days, they again fell into despair from thirst and began once more to complain, as though they had received no benefit at all; for the onset of a present evil always robs one of the pleasure taken in past goods. Seeing springs, they ran to them as though to draw water, brimming with joy.
But they were deceived through ignorance of the truth, for the water was bitter. Then, having tasted it, bent low by this disappointment of their hope, their bodies gave way and their souls sank, groaning not so much for themselves as for their infant children, whom they could not bear to see asking for drink without tears.
Some of the more faint-hearted, unsteady in piety, even found fault with what had gone before, saying it had happened not for their benefit but rather as a share in still harsher misfortunes, and declaring it better to die three times over at the hands of enemies than to perish once by thirst; for an effortless and swift departure from life, they said, differs in nothing from immortality to those who think rightly, but the truly fearful death is the slow one accompanied by pain—the terror lying not in being dead but only in the process of dying.
While they were giving vent to such lamentations, Moses again besought God, who knows the weakness of living creatures, and especially of man's, and the necessities of the body, which depends on nourishment and is yoked to harsh mistresses, food and drink—he asked God to forgive those who were despondent, and to fill the want of all, not after a long time, but by a gift immediate and swift, since mortal nature's inherent impatience longs for help at the very moment of urgency.
God, in his graciousness, sent forth his power even before the request was finished, and, opening the sleepless eye of the suppliant's soul, showed him a piece of wood, which he commanded him to take up and cast into the springs—perhaps a wood already endowed by nature with a power that had until then gone unrecognized, or perhaps a power created then for the first time for the very use it was about to serve.
When the command was carried out, the springs turned sweet and became drinkable, so that one could not tell they had ever been bitter at all, since not even a trace or spark of their former harshness was left to be remembered.
Having quenched their thirst with double pleasure—since an unhoped-for good delights enjoyment all the more—they also filled their water-jars and set out again, as though feasted and made merry from a banquet and joyous festivity, drunk not with the drunkenness of wine but with the sober drunkenness which they had drawn as their first draught from the piety of their leader.
They came to a second station, well-watered and well-wooded—it was named Elim (Exod. 15:27)—where twelve springs flowed, beside which stood seventy young and flourishing palm trunks, clear signs and tokens, to those able to see keenly with the mind, of unfailing goods.
For the tribes of the nation are twelve, each of which shall keep account of a spring, if it lives piously, since piety supplies unfailing and unfaltering good deeds; and the patriarchs of the whole nation, seventy in number, were fittingly likened to the palm, the finest of trees, which is most beautiful both to look upon and in the fruit it bears, and which has its life-force not buried in roots as other trees do, but rising upward, seated like a heart in the very middle of its branches, by which, as by a true sovereign, it is guarded round about.
Such is also the nature of the mind of those who have tasted holiness; for it has learned to look upward and to travel there, and, ever soaring aloft and searching out the beauties of the divine, it holds earthly things in contempt, counting these as mere play and those alone as truly worthy of serious pursuit.
Not long after this, they began to suffer hunger for lack of food, as though the necessities of life were attacking them in succession, one after another. For harsh and heavy mistresses, hunger and thirst, dividing their afflictions by lot, pressed upon them in turn, and it happened that as relief came from the one, the other set in—which was most unbearable for the sufferers, since, just when they thought themselves freed from thirst, they found hunger lying in wait as the next evil.
Nor was the present scarcity the only hardship; there was also despair over provisions for the time to come. For seeing a deep and vast wilderness, utterly barren of fruit, they fell into deep discouragement; for everything was either rough, broken rock, or salt-encrusted plain, or the stoniest of mountains, or deep sands stretching up to sheer heights, and moreover there was no river, no native stream, no torrent, no spring at all, nothing sown, no tree, whether cultivated or wild, no bird or land creature, except venomous reptiles bent on the destruction of men—serpents and scorpions.
Then, remembering the abundance and prosperity of Egypt, and setting the plenty of everything there against the want of everything here, they took it hard, and one after another they spoke such words as these: "We migrated in hope of freedom, and yet we have not even the assurance of life—we who were made prosperous by our leader's promises, but who are, in the actual outcome, the most miserable of all men.
What end will there be to this endless and so long a journey? For all who travel, whether by sea or by land, a goal is set before them at which they will arrive—for some, ports and harbors, for others some city or country; for us alone lies a trackless wilderness, impassable roads, and grievous despair. For as we advance, a vast and deep sea, impossible to cross, seems to appear before us, widening more with every day.
He has lifted us up and puffed us up with words, and filled our ears with empty hopes, while he stretches our bellies with famine, not even providing the necessary food. Under the name of a colony he has deceived so great a multitude, leading them first out of the inhabited world into an uninhabitable place, and now sending them on to Hades, the last road of life."
Reproached in this way, he was not so much distressed by the abuse directed at him personally, as by the instability of their thinking; for having experienced countless things that had come to pass contrary to expectation and against established custom, they ought no longer to be swayed by any merely plausible reasoning, but ought rather to have come to trust him, having received the clearest proofs that he spoke no falsehood in anything.
Again, when he came to reflect on their want—than which no evil is greater for men—he made allowance for them, knowing that a crowd is by nature an unstable thing and is moved by whatever is immediately at hand, which brings about forgetfulness of what has gone before,
and despair as to what is to come. Since they were all, then, in unbearable distress, and expecting the worst misfortunes, believing them to be lying in wait and very close at hand—partly out of his inborn gentleness and love of humankind, and partly wishing to honor the one he had appointed as leader, and still more to establish, in matters both visible and hidden, how great his piety and holiness truly were—God, taking pity on their suffering, healed it.
So he devised strange and unprecedented acts of kindness, so that by clearer manifestations they might now be taught not to lose heart if something did not turn out at once as they wished, but to endure patiently, expecting good things concerning the future.
What, then, came to pass? On the following day, around dawn, a deep and abundant dew lay all around the whole camp, which fell upon them gently, an unaccustomed and strange kind of rain—not water, not hail, not snow, not ice, for these are what the transformations of clouds produce at the winter solstices—but something very small and very white, like millet, which, falling one layer upon another, was poured out in heaps before the tents, an incredible sight. Astounded at it, they asked their leader what this rain was, which no man had ever before seen, and for what purpose it had come.
Moses, inspired by the breath that came upon him, became possessed by God and prophesied as follows: "To mortals the deep-soiled plain is granted, which they cut into furrows, plow, sow, and work in every other way that farming requires, thereby securing yearly crops in abundance for their necessities. But to God not one portion of the universe but the whole cosmos is subject, and its parts serve him for every need he wishes, as slaves serve a master.
"Now, therefore, it has seemed good to him to bring air as nourishment in place of water, since even earth has often brought rain; for the river in Egypt, when each year it floods and waters the fields with its risings, is nothing other than a rain that falls from below." A paradoxical work indeed, even had it stopped there;
but now still more paradoxical wonders were performed. For people brought vessels from every quarter and gathered the food, some loading it on pack animals, others carrying it burdened on their own shoulders, in their forethought to store up provisions for a longer time.
But it turned out that it could not be stored or hoarded, since God had determined always to grant fresh gifts; for what they prepared sufficient for use at the time they consumed with pleasure, but of what was left over until the next day they found nothing still sound—it had changed, grown foul-smelling, and become full of the kind of creatures that are wont to be bred from putrefaction. This, then, as was fitting, they threw away, and found other food ready, which, together with the dew, happened to fall as snow each day.
The sacred seventh day held a special privilege: since nothing was permitted to be done on it, and it was ordained to abstain from all works, small and great alike, God rained down a double portion the day before, since they could not gather provisions on the Sabbath itself, and commanded them to bring in enough food to last two days; and what had been gathered remained sound, none of it spoiling at all as it had before.
But I will tell of something still more wonderful than this: for forty years—so great a span of time—the supplies of what was necessary journeyed along with them in the order described, apportioned as in a measured ration, according to the distributions due to each.
At the same time they were also taught the thrice-longed-for day—for having sought for a long time to know what the birthday of the cosmos was, on which this universe was completed, and having inherited the question unresolved from their fathers and their fathers' fathers, they were scarcely able to discover it—not only instructed by oracles, but also by a wholly clear proof; for whereas the excess on the other days, as has been said, spoiled, what fell as rain before the seventh day not only did not change but also held a double measure.
The manner of using it was this: gathering at dawn what had fallen as snow, they ground it or crushed it, then boiled it and ate a very sweet food, like honey cakes, needing no elaborate work of bakers.
But indeed they were also, before long, well supplied with things that make for a luxurious life, as many as God, willing to furnish abundance without stint even in the wilderness, as in an inhabited and prosperous land, provided. For each evening a continuous cloud of quails, borne in from the sea, would overshadow the whole camp, flying as close to the ground as possible for ease of capture; so, catching and preparing them each as he pleased, they enjoyed the sweetest meat, and at the same time relieved their diet with this necessary relish.
Of these, then, they had great abundance without any failing; but of water again a terrible scarcity pressed upon them; and when they had already turned to despair of deliverance, Moses took that sacred staff by which he had performed the signs in Egypt, and, filled with God, struck the flint-hard rock.
The rock—whether the vein of a spring already lying beneath it was cut open at the critical point, or whether water then for the first time flowed together into it all at once through invisible underground channels and was forced out under great pressure—burst open under the force of the flow and poured out in gushing streams, so as not only to provide relief from thirst at that moment but also abundant drink for so many tens of thousands for a long time after; for they filled all their water-jars, just as before from the springs which were by nature bitter but had changed, by divine providence, to sweetness.
If anyone disbelieves these things, he neither knows God nor has ever sought him; for he would have recognized at once, recognized with firm apprehension, that these paradoxical and irrational-seeming things are God's playthings, once he had turned his gaze to the things that are truly great and worthy of earnest attention: the birth of heaven, the choral dance of the planets and fixed stars, the kindling of light—by day the sun's, by night the moon's—and the fixing of earth in the very middle of the universe, the surpassing sizes of continents and islands, the untold forms of animals and plants, and further the outpourings of the seas, the courses of native rivers and winter torrents, the streams of everflowing springs, some of which pour forth cold water and others hot, the manifold changes of the air, the distinctions of the yearly seasons, and countless other beauties besides.
A lifetime would fail anyone who wished to recount each of these in detail—or rather, even one of the more general parts of the cosmos—even if he were to be the longest-lived of all men. But these things, though truly wondrous, are held in contempt through familiarity, while things not customary, however small, we marvel at, giving way to strange impressions through our love of novelty.
Having now traveled through much trackless country, certain boundaries of an inhabited land began to appear, and the outskirts of a country to which they were shifting course; it was inhabited by the Phoenicians. Hoping that a calm and untroubled life awaited them there, they were mistaken in their judgment.
For the king presiding there, fearing plunder, called up the young men from the cities, and met them, wishing above all to hold them off, but if they should use force, to defend himself by arms with troops fresh and just then coming freshly into the contest, against men worn out by travel and by lack of food and drink, which he had in turn withheld from them piece by piece.
But Moses, learning from his scouts that the enemy army was encamped not far off, enrolled the young men of fighting age, chose one of his officers, Joshua, as general, and himself hastened to the greater alliance; for, having sprinkled himself with the customary purifications, he ran up in haste to the nearby hill and implored God to shield the Hebrews and grant them victory and mastery—the Hebrews whom he had already rescued from harsher wars of other evils, not only scattering the calamities hanging over them from men, but also those which the upheaval of the elements had newly wrought in Egypt, and the unrelenting famine on their journeys.
And now, when they were about to engage in battle, a most portentous thing happened concerning his hands: they became by turns lightest and heaviest; and whenever they were lifted, made light, and raised on high, the allied force grew strong and, showing valor, gained the greater glory, but whenever they sank down, the opponents grew strong—God signaling through these signs that to the one side belongs the earth and the outermost regions of the universe as their proper portion, but to the other the most sacred ether, and that just as in the universe heaven reigns and holds sway over earth, so too this nation would prevail over those warring against it.
For a while, then, his hands, like the pans of a balance, were lightened in turn and inclined downward in turn, and during that time the contest too was evenly matched; but suddenly, becoming weightless, using his fingers as if they were wings, they were lifted aloft on high, like winged creatures coursing through the air, and remained there unmoving until the Hebrews won an unopposed victory, the enemy being slaughtered down to the youth, having suffered in just measure for what they had improperly ventured to do.
Then Moses also set up an altar, which from what had happened he named "the refuge of God" (Exodus 17:15), on which he offered the victory sacrifices, rendering thanksgiving prayers.
After this battle he judged it necessary to survey the land into which the nation was being resettled—it was now the second year of their journeying—wishing that they should not, as tends to happen, contend in ignorance over what they did not know, but rather, having learned of it beforehand by report and possessing sure knowledge of the conditions there, reckon out what was to be done.
He chose twelve men, equal in number to the tribes, one head of tribe from each, selecting the most highly esteemed by merit, so that no portion should have contributed more or less and thereby cause dissension, but all alike, through their leading men, might learn the truth about the inhabitants, if those sent should be willing to report without deceit.
Having chosen them, he spoke as follows: "The prize of the struggles and dangers which we have undergone and still endure to this day is the allotted portions of land; may we not be disappointed of that hope, as we escort so vast a nation to its new settlement. Knowledge of places, people, and affairs is most useful, just as ignorance of them is harmful.
"We have therefore chosen you by vote, so that through your eyes and minds we may view what is there; become, then, the ears and eyes of so many tens of thousands, for the clear grasp of what it is necessary to know.
"What we long to know is these three things: the number and strength of the inhabitants; the position of the cities, whether favorably situated, and the strength or otherwise of their fortifications; and whether the land is deep-soiled and rich, good for producing crops of every kind, both sown and grown on trees, or, on the contrary, thin-soiled—so that against the strength and number of the inhabitants we may arm ourselves with matching forces, and against the natural strength of their positions, with siege engines and machines; and it is also necessary to know whether the land is fertile or not, for it is folly to undergo voluntary dangers for a barren country.
"But our weapons and engines and our whole strength lie in this alone: trust in God. Possessing this equipment, we shall yield to nothing fearsome; for it is sufficient, by a great margin, to overpower with irresistible might through good condition, daring, experience, and numbers—that power through which, even in the deep desert, there are provisions of everything that exists in the prosperity of cities."
Our weapons and siege-engines and all our strength lie in one thing alone: trust in God. Armed with this equipment, we will yield to nothing that seems fearsome, for it is enough to overpower forces that seem irresistible in vigor, daring, experience, and numbers, with a great margin to spare — the very power by which, even in the depths of the desert, we have had abundant supply of everything that a prosperous city could offer.
The season in which the excellence of a land is best put to the test is spring, which is now upon us. In the season of spring the sown crops come to fruit, and the natures of the trees are just beginning. It would be better still to wait until summer is in full bloom and to bring back
fruits as samples, so to speak, of a blessed land." Hearing this, they went out on their reconnaissance, escorted by the whole people, who were afraid that they might be captured and killed, and that two of the most terrible things might happen at once: the deaths of men who were the very image of each tribe, and ignorance of what lay in store from the enemies lying in wait — knowledge that would have been of great use.
Taking guides and leaders of the way, they followed as they advanced; and when they came near, they climbed to the highest mountain in the region and surveyed the land, much of whose plain was rich in barley and wheat and good pasture, while the hill country was no less full of vines and other stocks, entirely well-wooded, thick with growth, and girded with rivers and springs for abundant water, so that from the foothills to the peaks the whole slopes of the mountains were woven together with shady trees, and especially the ridges and all the deep ravines.
They also surveyed the cities, which were exceedingly well fortified in two respects — by the natural advantage of their sites and by the strength of their walls. And examining the inhabitants, they saw that they were countless in number, giants of enormous height, or men whose bodily proportions, in size and strength, were gigantic.
Having observed these things, they stayed on for a more exact grasp of them — for first impressions are slippery things, and are only fixed with time, and hardly at that — and at the same time they made haste to pick some of the tree-fruits, not those just now beginning to harden but already turning ripe, so as to display to the whole people fruits that would not easily spoil.
What amazed them most of all was the fruit of the vine, for the clusters of grapes were enormous, stretching out alongside the branches and young shoots — an unbelievable sight. Indeed, when they cut off a single cluster and hung it from the middle of a carrying-pole, putting the two ends on two young men, one on this side and one on that, they had to relieve each other in turn, since the one bearing it grew tired — for it was a very heavy load —
and so they carried it, though they did not agree among themselves about the necessities of the matter. They had countless disputes even before they got back on the road home, but these were milder ones, meant to keep the different men from clashing in their judgments and reporting contrary things, which might have caused a riot among the people; but the disputes grew harsher after their return.
For some of them, describing the strength of the cities and how populous each one was, and magnifying everything in their account to the point of exaggeration, instilled fear in their hearers; while others, diminishing the sheer scale of all they had seen, urged the people not to lose heart but to hold fast to the colony, since they would prevail without even a fight — for no city, they said, would hold out against the onslaught of so great a force converging all at once, but would be crushed by its sheer weight and fall. Each side, moreover, added their own private feelings to the souls of their hearers: the cowardly instilled cowardice, the undaunted instilled courage joined with good hope.
But these latter were only a fifth part of those who had turned cowardly, while the noble-minded were, conversely, five times as many as the cowards. Yet a small measure of courage is swallowed up by an abundance of timidity, as indeed is said to have happened then: for against the two who described the best course, there were ten who said the opposite, and they prevailed to such a degree that they won over the entire multitude, estranging it from the two and making it their own.
About the land itself, however, all gave the same report with one accord, describing the beauty of both the plain and the hill country. "But what use to us," they cried out at once, "are goods belonging to others, and goods, moreover, guarded by a mighty hand so that they cannot be taken away?" And they rushed upon the two men and very nearly stoned them, having preferred the pleasure of hearing what was expedient to the truth that deceived them.
At this the leader was indignant, and at the same time fearful that some god-sent calamity might fall upon people so vehemently disbelieving the oracles — which is exactly what happened. For of the spies, the ten cowardly ones perished by a plague, along with those of the multitude who had shared their folly, while only the two who had advised them not to be afraid but to press on for the colony were saved, because they had trusted the divine sayings, receiving as their special reward the privilege of not perishing with the rest.
This was the reason they did not arrive sooner in the land to which they were migrating. For though they could have taken possession of the cities of Syria and their allotted territories in the second year after their departure from Egypt, they turned aside from the direct and short road and wandered, discovering one impassable and long trackless waste after another, to an endless weariness of both soul and body, undergoing the necessary penalties for their excessive impiety.
For thirty-eight years, apart from the time already passed — the span of a human generation — they were worn out wandering up and down and measuring out the trackless wilderness, and only in the fortieth year did they at last arrive at the borders of the land, the very borders they had reached before.
Near the entrances to the land dwelt others, kinsmen of theirs among them, whom they expected either to join in fighting the war against their neighbors and to cooperate fully in the colonizing effort, or, if they should shrink from that, at least to stand aside from both sides with hands raised in truce.
For the ancestors of both nations, the Hebrew nation and the nation that dwelt in the surrounding country, were two brothers, sharing the same father and the same mother, and twins besides. From them, as their households increased in number of children and their descendants enjoyed a certain fruitfulness, each house grew into a great and populous nation. But the one loved its own land and stayed, while the other, as was said before, migrated to Egypt because of famine and, after a long time, was now returning.
One house kept faith with their kinship, even though separated for so long a time, toward those who no longer preserved any of their ancestral ways but had abandoned everything belonging to the old way of life, judging it fitting for gentle natures to give and grant something in the name of kinship;
the other, by contrast, turned all friendly feeling into hostility, in disposition, in speech, in counsel, and in deeds admitting no truce and no reconciliation, rekindling an ancestral enmity — for the founder of that nation had himself sold his birthright to his brother, and shortly afterward claimed back what he had given up, breaking the agreement and threatening murder if it were not returned — and this ancient enmity of one man against one man, that nation renewed after so many generations had passed.
Now Moses, the leader of the Hebrews, though he could have taken the cities by storm without even a battle, did not think it right to do so, because of the kinship mentioned, but asked only to use the road through their land, promising to do everything according to the treaty: not to cut down any land, not to seize any livestock, not to carry off any plunder, to pay for water if there should be a shortage of drink, and for anything else needed that was not otherwise supplied. But they, in the face of such peaceful overtures, resisted with all their might, threatening war if they so much as perceived them setting foot on or touching their borders.
When the answers were received with indignation and the people were already rushing to take vengeance, he stood where all could hear and said: "Men, your indignation is reasonable and just; for when we offered good things from a gentle disposition, they answered with evil things from a malicious mind. But it is not...
"...because those men deserve to pay the penalty for their cruelty that it is fitting for us to rush to take vengeance on them; rather, for the sake of honoring our own nation, so that in this too we may show ourselves good in the face of wickedness, we must consider not only whether some deserve punishment, but whether it is fitting for us to be the ones who inflict it."
Then, turning aside, he led the people by another route, since he saw that all the roads through that land were girded with garrisons — not by men who would suffer any harm, but out of envy and malice, refusing to let them pass by the short way.
This was the clearest proof of the distress they felt at the nation's coming to freedom — distress that plainly showed they had rejoiced when it endured its bitter slavery in Egypt. For it is inevitable that those for whom the good fortune of their neighbors brings pain should also rejoice at their neighbors' misfortunes, even if they do not admit it.
For it happened that they had reported both their painful experiences and their pleasant ones to these kinsmen as though to people of like mind who wished them well, not knowing that they had gone so far in wickedness, and were so given to enmity and quarrelsomeness, that they were bound to groan over their good fortunes and rejoice over the opposite.
But when the ill will of these kinsmen was uncovered, the people were kept from coming to blows by their leader, who displayed at once the two finest qualities, prudence and goodness together: prudence, in guarding against suffering any harm; goodness, in refusing to take vengeance even though they were kinsmen —
and so he passed by the cities of these people. But a certain king of the neighboring land of Canaan, when his scouts reported that the marching army was not very far off, supposing that it was in disarray and that he could easily defeat it if he struck first, set out with his own well-armed young men, attacked the vanguard, who were not prepared for battle, and routed them; and having taken captives, puffed up by his unexpected success, he advanced, thinking that he would subdue all the rest as well.
But they were not bent by the defeat of the force that had gone before them; instead they drew on still greater daring than before, and, eager to make up in eagerness what they lacked from having lost that engagement, they rallied one another not to grow faint, saying, “Let us take heart. We are only now entering this land: let us be undaunted, holding fast to our confidence. Outcomes are often decided by beginnings. Since we stand at the point of entry, let us strike fear into the inhabitants, as men who possess the abundance of their cities in prospect, in exchange for the scarcity of necessities we have brought with us out of the wilderness.”
By such words they spurred themselves on, and at the same time vowed that they would dedicate to God, as firstfruits of the land, the king's cities and the citizens in each of them. God assented to their prayers, and by breathing courage into the Hebrews he brought it about that the opposing army was captured.
Having taken the cities by main force, they carried out their vows of thanksgiving, appropriating nothing for themselves from the plunder, but consecrating the cities, with the very men and treasures in them, to God; and from what had happened they named the whole kingdom “Anathema” [a dedicated offering].
For just as each individual pious person offers the firstfruits of the annual crops he gathers in from his own possessions, in the same way the whole nation, of the great land into which it was migrating, dedicated a great portion—the kingdom it had just captured—as a kind of firstfruits of its colonization. For they did not think it right to divide up the land or settle in its cities before offering the firstfruits of both the land and the cities.
A little later they discovered a spring of good water, which supplied drink for the whole multitude—the spring was in a well, at the very borders of the country—and, as though they had drunk not water but unmixed wine, their souls were unloosed in gladness; and out of joy and delight those beloved of God formed choruses around the well in a circle and sang a new song to the God who had allotted them their portion, the true leader of their colonization, because, on first setting foot in the inhabited world after their long journey through the wilderness, they had found, in the very land they were about to occupy, water in abundance—and they judged it fitting not to let the spring pass unmarked.
For it happened that the well had been dug not by the hands of common men but by kings, who had vied with one another, as the story goes, not only over the finding of the water but also over the construction of the well itself, so that from its costliness the work might appear worthy of kings, and might display the sovereignty and grandeur of mind of those who had built it.
Moses, rejoicing in the unexpected blessings that kept continually befalling them, advanced further, having assigned the young men to the vanguard and the rearguard, and stationed the elderly, the women, and the children in the middle, so that they might be under guard from both sides, whether an enemy host should attack from in front or from behind.
A few days later, having invaded the country of the Amorites, he sent envoys to their king—his name was Sihon—urging on him the same terms he had previously urged on his kinsman. But Sihon not only answered the envoys with insolence and very nearly put them to death, had not the law governing ambassadors stood in his way, but also gathered his whole army and rushed to attack, thinking he would immediately prevail by war.
In grappling with them Sihon discovered that he was engaging not untrained and unexercised men, but athletes truly unconquered in war, who not long before had performed many great feats of courage, displaying strength of body, resolve of mind, and a height of virtue, by which they had overcome, with great superiority, all who had opposed them, yet had touched nothing of the spoil, being eager to dedicate the first of their prizes to God.
These same men now, having likewise fortified themselves resolutely with the same counsels and preparations, met the attack, and at the same time enjoyed the unfailing alliance of justice, through which they became bolder still and eager combatants.
Clear proof of this is that a second battle was not needed; the first and only one sufficed, in which the whole opposing force was routed and, overturned, vanished at once, root and branch.
At the same time the cities became both empty and full: empty of their former inhabitants, full of their conquerors; and in the same way the farmsteads scattered through the countryside, left desolate of their former occupants, received in their place men altogether better.
This war struck terror into all the peoples of Asia, and especially into their neighbors, in proportion as the danger was expected to come nearer to them. Now one of the neighboring kings, named Balak, who held sway over a great and populous portion of the East, having renounced any thought of coming to blows before it happened, did not venture to meet the Hebrews openly, shunning a war of conquest fought with weapons; instead he turned to omens and divination, believing that by certain curses he could bring down the invincible strength of the Hebrews.
There was at that time a man renowned for divination, living in Mesopotamia, who had been initiated into every kind of prophetic art but had made himself especially expert, and was admired, in the reading of omens from birds, having given many demonstrations, many times, of things scarcely credible and of great import.
For he had foretold to some heavy rains at the height of summer, to others drought and scorching heat in the depth of winter, to others famine after abundance and, conversely, abundance after famine, and to some the flooding of rivers and their subsiding, and cures for pestilential diseases and countless other things; and for each of these, the man who was thought to foretell them was most celebrated, advancing to great renown through the report, which always ran ahead of him and reached every place before he did.
To this man Balak sent some of his companions, urging him to come; some gifts he offered at once, and promised to give others, making clear the need for which he was summoning him. But the man, not from any noble or steadfast resolve, but for the most part out of affectation, as though he had indeed become one of the notable prophets and were accustomed never to act at all without oracles, held back, saying that the divine did not permit him to go.
So those who had come returned to the king empty-handed, but others among the more distinguished men were at once chosen for the same task, bringing more money and promising still greater gifts.
Enticed both by what was already offered and by the hopes held out for the future, and abashed by the standing of those who urged him, he gave way, though again, to no wholesome purpose, alleging the divine. On the next day, then, he made ready to set out, relating dreams by which he said he had been struck with vivid visions and was compelled no longer to remain, but
to follow the envoys. But already, as he went forward, there occurred to him along the road a sign, plain enough, that the errand on which he was bent was one condemned in advance. For the beast of burden on which he happened to be riding, though it had been going straight ahead, suddenly came to a halt for the first time;
then, as though something were pushing it back or holding it in check by force from in front, it gave way underfoot, and again, carried now to the right and now to the left, wandering this way and that, it would not stay still—as though heavy-headed with wine and drunkenness—and though struck repeatedly it took no notice of the blows, so that it very nearly threw its rider, and, even while he sat on it, still caused him distress.
For on either side of the road there were enclosures and fences nearby; so whenever the animal, carried along, was driven against these, its master's knee, shin, and foot were bruised and scraped as it was pressed and crushed against them.
It was, it seems, a divine apparition, which the animal, seeing it approach from far off, cowered before, while the man did not see it at all—a proof of his lack of perception. For he who boasted that he could see not only the world but even the maker of the world was outdone in his powers of sight by an irrational creature.
At last, when he did see the angel standing in his way—not because he was worthy of such a sight, but so that he might grasp his own dishonor and worthlessness—he turned to entreaty and supplication, begging forgiveness for having sinned through ignorance and not by deliberate intent.
At that point, since he ought to have turned back, he asked the vision that had appeared to him whether he should retrace his steps homeward; but the vision, perceiving his irony and indignant—for why should he need to ask about a matter so plain, one that carried its own proof and needed no confirmation from words, unless indeed ears are more truthful than eyes, and deeds than speech?—said, “Go on the road you are hastening toward; you will gain nothing by it, for I shall prompt the words that must be said, without any thought of your own, and shall turn the very organs of your voice as is right and expedient; for I myself shall guide your speech, pronouncing through your tongue, though you understand none of it, whatever I ordain.”
When the king heard that he was already near, he went out with his bodyguard to meet him, and when they met, as one would expect, there were at first greetings and courtesies, then a brief reproach for his slowness in not coming more promptly; after this came feasting and lavish banquets and all else that custom prepares for the reception of guests, everything made to outdo itself in magnificence and solemn grandeur through royal displays of honor.
The next day, at dawn, Balak took the seer and led him up onto a hill, where there stood a monument to some spirit, which the local people worshipped; from there part of the Hebrews' encampment could be seen, displayed to the magician as though from a watchtower.
Seeing this, he said, "Build seven altars, O king, and sacrifice a calf and a ram on each. I will go aside and inquire of God what must be said." Going outside, he immediately became inspired, as a prophetic spirit descended upon him, which drove all his skilled divination into exile — for it was not right for magical sophistry to dwell together with the most sacred possession. Then he turned back, and seeing the sacrifices and the altars ablaze, like an interpreter prompted by another, he pronounced this oracle:
"Balak summoned me from Mesopotamia, sending me on a long journey from the east, so that I might curse the Hebrews. But how shall I curse those whom God has not cursed? I will see them with my eyes from the highest mountains and grasp them with my mind, but I could not harm a people who alone will dwell apart, not counted among other nations — not by allotment of place or division of territory, but by the distinctiveness of their special customs, not mingling with others in the abandonment of their ancestral ways.
"Who has found with precision the first foundation of their origin? Their bodies were formed from human seed, but their souls grew from divine seed; hence they are close kin to God. May my soul die the bodily life, that it may be numbered among the souls of the righteous, such as theirs have proven to be."
Hearing this, Balak was in labor within himself. When Balaam paused, unable to contain his feeling, Balak said, "Summoned to curse enemies, do you not blush to offer prayers on their behalf? It seems I did not notice that I had, unknowingly, stationed you as though on the side of a friend — in fact on behalf of my enemies, a fact now made plain. Perhaps you even made your delays in coming here because of a hidden affinity in your soul toward them, and an estrangement toward me and mine; for, as the old saying goes, visible things are the proof of things unseen."
Released from his trance, Balaam said, "I am enduring a most unjust accusation, being slandered; for I say nothing of my own, but only what the divine prompts — and this is not the first time. I spoke and you heard, but also before, when you sent the envoys, to whom I gave the very same answer."
The king, supposing that either the seer was deceiving him or that the divine changed its mind and altered its firm intent along with changes of place, led him away to another spot, and from a very long ridge showed him a part of the opposing army; then again he set up seven altars, sacrificed the same victims as before, and sent the seer out to observe omens and favorable utterances.
Left alone, Balaam suddenly became possessed by god, and, understanding nothing — as though his reasoning had departed — he blurted out in prophecy what was suggested to him: "Rise up and listen, O king, turning your ears attentively. God is not like man, that he can be deceived, nor like a son of man, that he changes his mind; having once spoken, he does not fail to abide by it. He will utter nothing at all that will not be firmly fulfilled, since for him word is deed. I was brought here for blessings, not curses — I.
"There will be no toil or hardship among the Hebrews. Their God shields them manifestly — he who scattered the onrush of Egyptian evils, leading up so many myriads as though a single man. And so, disregarding omens and everything to do with divination, trusting in the one ruler of the universe alone, I see a people rising up like a lion's cub and exulting like a lion. It will not turn to sleep, but wide awake will sing the song of victory."
Bearing it badly that the results of the divination fell out against his hopes, Balak said, "Man, neither pronounce curses nor make blessings; silence free of risk is better than words that give no pleasure." And having said this, as though forgetting what he had said, because of his unsteady judgment, he led the seer away to another place, from which, pointing out a part of the Hebrew army, he urged him to curse it.
Balaam, since he was subordinate to that god, though he had one true defense against the accusations brought against him — that he said nothing of his own, but, possessed and inspired, was interpreting another's words — even though he ought no longer to have followed along but to have gone home, ran ahead more eagerly than the one escorting him, pressed both by self-conceit, a great evil, and also by a longing to curse them in his mind, even if in speech
he was prevented. Arriving at a mountain greater than the previous ones and stretching a long way, he ordered the same sacrifice to be performed, seven altars again constructed and fourteen victims brought — a calf and a ram to each altar. But he himself no longer, as one might expect, resorted to omens and auguries, having much reviled his own art as having become, with time, like a picture faded, its accurate conjectures dimmed; and besides, he scarcely realized that the intention of the king who had hired him did not accord with the will of God.
Turning then toward the desert, he saw the Hebrews encamped by tribes, and, struck by their multitude and order, as of a city rather than a camp, he became inspired and cried out as follows:
"Thus speaks the man who truly sees, who in sleep saw a clear vision of God with the sleepless eyes of his soul. How beautiful are your houses, army of the Hebrews, your tents like shaded glens, like a garden by a river, like a cedar beside the waters.
"There will one day come forth from you a man who will rule over many nations, and his kingdom, advancing day by day, will be raised to the heights. This people has taken God as guide for the whole journey from Egypt, leading the multitude with a single horn.
"Therefore it will devour many nations of enemies and take all their fat, even to the marrow, and with its far-reaching shots destroy the hostile. It will rest, lying down like a lion or a lion's cub, utterly contemptuous, fearing no one, having instilled fear in others; wretched is he who rouses it by provoking it. Those who bless you deserve praise, and those who curse you, curses."
Greatly angered at this, the king said, "Summoned to pronounce curses on my enemies, you have now made three sets of blessings on their behalf. Flee at once — anger is a swift passion — lest I be driven to do something even more severe.
"How much wealth, you utter fool, and how many gifts, how much honor and glory have you deprived yourself of, being out of your mind! You will return from abroad to your own land bringing nothing good, but reproach and, it seems, great shame, since your claims to expertise, on which you previously prided yourself, have been laughed to scorn."
Balaam said, "Everything said before were oracles and divine utterances, but what is now going to be said are conjectures of my own judgment." And taking him by the right hand, alone with him alone, he advised him by what means, so far as possible, he might guard against the opposing army — thereby accusing himself of the greatest impiety; for, one might ask, why do you take him aside privately and advise the opposite of what the oracles laid down, unless indeed
your own counsels are more powerful than the oracles? Come, then, let us examine his fine advice, devised as it was to bring about the acknowledged defeat of those who are always able to win. For knowing that the one path to the Hebrews' capture was lawlessness, he was eager to lead them, through licentiousness and self-indulgence — a great evil — toward a greater evil, impiety, setting pleasure as bait.
"There are," he said, "women of this country, O king, surpassing others in beauty; and no man is more easily captured than by a woman's beauty. So if you allow the most beautiful of them to hire themselves out and offer themselves publicly, they will hook the youth of the opposing side.
"They must be instructed not to yield their charms at once to those who desire them; for coyness, by irritating desire, arouses impulses all the more and inflames passion; and men, driven headlong by their appetites, will endure doing and suffering anything.
"To a lover so disposed, let one of the women anointed for the hunt say haughtily, 'It is not right for you to enjoy intimacy with me until you abandon your ancestral customs and, having changed, honor what I honor. Proof of your firm conversion would become clear to me, were you willing to share in the same libations and sacrifices that we perform to images, statues, and other such objects.'"
"He, caught in manifold snares — by beauty and by the guiding hand of flattering talk — with no reply, his reason pinioned, will wretchedly serve what is commanded, enrolled as a slave of passion."
Such was his counsel. And the king, thinking what had been said not beside the mark, veiled over the law against adulterers and did away with those laws set against seduction and prostitution, as though they had never been written at all, permitting the women, without restraint, to consort with whomever they wished.
Once the license had been granted, they set about seducing the great mass of young men, deceiving their minds and turning them by their sorceries toward impiety, until Phinehas, son of the high priest, roused to fierce anger at what was happening—for it seemed to him a monstrous thing that at one and the same moment both bodies and souls had surrendered themselves, the former to pleasures, the latter to lawbreaking and impiety—performed a young man's exploit worthy of a noble and good man.
For seeing one of his own people sacrificing and then going in to a prostitute, not bowing his head to the ground, not trying to escape the notice of the crowd, not stealing his way in as is usual, but with shameless boldness displaying his disorder and swaggering as if over some solemn matter, when it was in fact laughable, Phinehas, embittered and filled with righteous anger, rushed in on them as they still lay together on the bed, and killed both the lover and the courtesan, cutting through their generative organs as well, because they had lent themselves to unlawful begetting.
Some who witnessed this example of men zealous for self-mastery and reverence toward God imitated it at Moses' command, and rising up in a body they killed all who had been initiated into the man-made gods, together with their kinsmen and friends, thereby cleansing the nation's pollution through the relentless punishment of the original offenders, and by this providing the clearest possible defense of their own piety for the rest. They pitied none of their blood relations who stood condemned, nor let mercy pass over their crimes, but judged those who did the killing to be pure; hence they granted no one an appeal, and thereby won for those who did the deed praise beyond all dispute.
They say that twenty-four thousand were killed in a single day, and along with them the common pollution that had defiled the whole army was destroyed at once. When the rites of purification had been completed, Moses sought to bestow a prize worthy of his valor upon the son of the high priest, who had been first to rush to vengeance. But God anticipated him, granting Phinehas by oracle the greatest of goods—peace, which no man is able to bestow—and besides peace, the supreme authority of the priesthood as well, an inalienable inheritance for himself and his line.
Since none of the internal evils any longer remained, and all who were suspected of desertion or betrayal had perished, it seemed the fittest moment for the campaign against Balak, a man who had contrived countless evils and had also carried them out—contrived them through the seer, by whose curses he hoped to be able to bring down the power of the Hebrews, and carried them out through the licentiousness and intemperance of the women, who corrupted the bodies of those who consorted with them through lust and their souls through impiety.
Moses did not think it wise to make war with the whole army, knowing that such excessive numbers would only get in each other's way, and that a reserve of allies would also be advantageous as support for those who wearied first. So he chose by merit those in their prime, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand in all—for there were that many tribes—and having chosen as general of the war Phinehas, who had already given proof of a general's boldness, he sent the armed men forth over splendid sacrifices, and encouraged them with words to this effect:
"The present contest is not for supremacy of rule, nor to acquire the possessions of others, the aims for which wars are fought either solely or chiefly, but for piety and holiness, from which our enemies have alienated our kinsmen and friends, becoming the accessory cause of the grievous ruin of those they led astray.
It is therefore absurd that we should have become the slayers with our own hands of our own people when they broke the law, yet hold back from those who did us far graver wrong—that we should have killed those who merely learned to do wrong, yet leave unpunished those who compelled and taught it, who are in fact responsible for everything, whatever those others did or suffered."
So strengthened by his exhortations, and rekindling whatever nobility already lay in their souls, they rushed to the contest with unconquerable resolve, as toward a victory already agreed upon; and when they engaged, they showed such an abundance of strength and daring that they slaughtered their opponents like sacrificial victims, while they themselves all returned safe, no one having died, nor even been wounded.
Anyone unaware of what had happened, seeing them return, would have supposed they were coming not from war and battle but rather from the kind of exhibition displays made under arms, which it is customary to hold in time of peace—exercises and drills carried out among friends in imitation of what is done against enemies.
The cities they destroyed, either razing or burning them, so that one could not even say they had originally been settled; and having led away a countless number of captive persons, they judged it right to kill the men and the women—the men because they had begun the unjust plots and deeds, the women because they had bewitched the young men of the Hebrews, becoming the accessory cause of licentiousness and impiety for them and, in the end, of death. But quite young children and virgins they spared, their age drawing forth an amnesty.
And having gained an abundance of plunder from the palaces and from private houses, and also from the farmsteads in the countryside—for the wealth in the rural areas was no less than that in the cities—they came to the camp laden with all the riches taken from the enemy.
Moses praised the general Phinehas and those who had fought in the line, both for their successes and because they had not rushed upon the spoils intending to appropriate the booty for themselves alone, but had brought it out into the open, so that those who had remained in the tents might also share in it. He then ordered those who had fought to remain outside the camp for some days, and directed the high priest to purify from bloodshed those of the allies who had come from the battle line.
For even if killings of enemies are lawful, still the one who kills a man—even justly, in self-defense, and under compulsion—seems to bear some guilt, because of the highest and universal kinship of all mankind; and for this reason those who had done the killing needed purification rites, to be released from what was regarded as pollution.
Not long afterward he also distributed the spoils, giving half to those who had gone to war—and they were few compared to those who had stayed behind—and the other half to those who had remained in the camp. For he judged it right that these too should share in the gain, since even if not with their bodies, at least with their souls they had shared the struggle; for those held in reserve, being no less eager than the combatants, fall short of them only in time, and only because the others got there first.
Since the few had taken more, because they had risked danger first, and the many had taken less, because they had stayed behind, he judged it necessary to consecrate the firstfruits of all the spoil: those held in reserve contributed a fiftieth, and those who had fought in the front contributed a five-hundredth part. Of these firstfruits, he ordered that those from the combatants be given to the high priest, and those from the men who had stayed in the camp to the temple attendants, who are called Levites.
The commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and the whole company of captains and officers, on behalf of their own safety and that of their fellow soldiers, and of a victory beyond all reckoning, voluntarily brought choice firstfruits—all the gold ornaments that each had found among the spoil, and the most costly vessels, whose material again was gold. These Moses took, and admiring the piety of those who brought them, dedicated them in the consecrated tabernacle as a memorial of the men's gratitude.
Most beautiful was the distribution of the firstfruits: the offerings of those who had not fought, who had shown only their eagerness apart from any deed—half of virtue, so to speak—he assigned to the temple attendants; the offerings of those who had struggled, who had risked body and soul and displayed complete manly excellence, he assigned to the high priest who presided over the temple attendants; and the offerings of the captains, since these were fit for leaders, he assigned to God, the leader of all.
All these wars were fought before they had yet crossed the Jordan, the river of that region, against the inhabitants of the land on the far side, a land prosperous and deep-soiled, in which there was a broad plain rich in grain and good for producing fodder for cattle.
When the two tribes that raised cattle, a sixth part of the whole army, saw this land, they begged Moses to allow them to take their allotments there and settle at once, saying that the place was most suitable for pasturing and grazing livestock, being well-watered and rich in grass, and producing of its own accord an abundance of herbage fit for flocks.
But Moses, supposing that they were either demanding, by a kind of precedence, to receive their rewards before the proper time, or shrinking back from the wars still to come—since more kings still lay in wait, who had divided among themselves the land within the river—was thoroughly displeased, and answered in anger, saying:
"So you will sit here at your ease, having leisure when you ought not and idleness, while wars yet unresolved will fall heavy on the necks of your kinsmen and friends whom you leave behind; and shall the rewards be given to you alone, as though all had been achieved by you, while battles and toils and hardships and the very gravest dangers await others?
But it is not just that you should enjoy peace and the good things that come from peace, while the rest struggle in wars and untold evils, nor that the whole should count as merely an addition to a part; on the contrary, it is for the sake of the whole that the parts are deemed worthy of their inheritance.
You are all of equal honor, one people, the same fathers, one household, the same customs, a shared community of laws, and countless other things, each of which binds your kinship together and disposes you toward goodwill. Why then, having been judged worthy of equal shares in the greatest and most essential matters, will you claim more than your share in the distributions, as though you were rulers despising subjects, or masters despising slaves?
You ought to have been instructed by the blows others suffered; for it is the mark of prudent men not to wait until terrors come upon themselves. But now, though you have before you as household examples your own fathers, who spied out this land, and the disasters that befell them and those who shared their folly—for all of them perished except two—instead of refusing to be implicated in any similar wrongdoing, you are emulating their cowardice, you empty-minded men, as though you yourselves would not be just as easily overcome, and you are tripping up the eagerness of those who are resolved to act with manly courage, unstringing and relaxing their resolve. So then, in your haste to do wrong, you will hasten also toward your punishment."
For justice is accustomed to move slowly, but once it has been set in motion it overtakes and catches those who are fleeing.
So then, whenever all the enemies have been laid low and no further war is expected to threaten, and in the final review the allies are found blameless — guilty of no desertion of post or of the field, nor of any other conduct tending to defeat, but shown to have remained steadfast from beginning to end, both in body and in spirit — and the whole land has been emptied of its former inhabitants, then the prizes and rewards of valor will be given to the tribes in equal measure."
They took this admonition mildly, as true sons of a father who wished them very well — for they knew that he did not lord it over them with the arrogance of power, but cared beforehand for all, honoring justice and equality, and never turned his hatred of wickedness into reproach, but always used it to correct those capable of being made better — and they said, "You are right to be indignant, if you have supposed this: that by abandoning the alliance we are hurrying to seize our allotments before the proper time.
But you should know clearly that nothing which comes bound up with virtue frightens us, however burdensome it may prove to be. We judge it a work of virtue both to obey a leader such as you and not to lag behind in dangers, and to be found taking our place in all the campaigns yet to come, until our affairs reach a happy conclusion.
We ourselves, then, drawn up as before, will cross the Jordan under full arms, giving none of the soldiers any pretext for staying behind. But our infant sons and daughters, our wives, and the multitude of our livestock will, if you allow it, be left behind, once we have built houses for the children and the wives and folds for the animals, so that they suffer no harm from a raid, caught unprepared in places without walls or guards."
And he, with a gracious look and a gentler voice, said, "Since you do not deceive me, the allotments you have asked for will remain secured to you. Leave behind your wives and children and livestock, as you wish, but cross over yourselves by companies with the rest, armed and drawn up for battle, ready to fight at a moment's notice, should the need arise.
And afterward, when all the enemies have been laid low, and peace has come, and the conquerors have divided the land, you too will return to your own households, to enjoy the good things that fall to you and to reap the portion you have chosen."
When he had said this and given his promise, filled with good cheer and joy, they settled their families together with their livestock safely within strongholds difficult to capture, most of them built by hand, and then, taking up their weapons, they rushed out ahead of the other allies more eagerly than any, as though they alone were going to fight, or would lead the contest for all; for a man who has received a gift in advance is more eager for the alliance, since he counts it a debt he must repay, not a favor he is doing.
Such, then, are the deeds recounted that were accomplished by him in his kingship. Next must be told all that he achieved through the high priesthood and through lawgiving, for he acquired these offices too as being most fitting for a king.

======== On the Life of Moses II ========

For some say, not unreasonably, that cities can improve only in this way—if either kings become philosophers or philosophers become kings. But Moses will be shown to have exhibited not merely these two abilities together, the royal and the philosophical, but three others besides: one devoted to legislation, one to the high priesthood, and the last to prophecy.
It is about these that I have now chosen to speak, taking it as necessary that all of them fit together in one man. For by the providence of God he became king, lawgiver, high priest, and prophet, and in each office he carried off the highest honors. I must show why all these fit together in the same person.
It belongs to a king to command what must be done and to forbid what must not be done; and the commanding of what is to be done and the forbidding of what is not to be done is the peculiar function of law, so that a king is straightway a living law, and law a just king.
A king and lawgiver ought to oversee not only human affairs but divine ones as well; for the affairs of kings and their subjects are not set right without divine forethought. For this reason such a man needed the highest priesthood as well, so that, having perfect rites and perfect knowledge of the service of God, he might ask, both for himself and for his subjects, the turning away of evils and a share in good things, from one who is gracious and assents to prayers. For how could he fail to bring prayers to fulfillment, being by nature benevolent and holding those who serve him genuinely worthy of special favor?
But since countless things, both human and divine, are unclear even to a king, lawgiver, and high priest—for he is no less a created and mortal being, however great and abundant a portion of good fortune has been thrown about him—he necessarily obtained prophecy as well, so that whatever reasoning cannot grasp, he might find through the providence of God. For where the mind falls short, there prophecy arrives.
A fine partnership indeed, and a wholly harmonious one, this of the four powers; for, interwoven and clinging to one another, they dance together in a chorus, receiving benefits from each other and repaying them in turn, imitating the maiden Graces, whom the unshakable law of nature does not allow to be parted. Of these it would be fitting to say what is customarily said of the virtues: that whoever has one has them all.
First I must speak of the qualities pertaining to the capacity for lawgiving. I am not unaware that the man who is to become the best possible lawgiver ought to possess all the virtues in their fullness and completeness. But since even within families some are nearest of kin, others more distant, though all are related to one another, so too some virtues must be considered more closely attached to particular matters, others less intimately connected.
To the lawgiving capacity these four are especially akin and kindred: love of humanity, love of justice, love of the good, and hatred of wickedness. For by each of these every man is roused who feels the zeal for lawgiving—by love of humanity, to set forth publicly the judgments that benefit the community; by justice, to honor equality and to render to each what is due according to worth; by love of the good, to welcome what is naturally noble and to offer it to all who are worthy, without stint, for the most generous use; by hatred of wickedness, to stand guard against those who dishonor virtue and to regard them with suspicion as common enemies of the human race.
It is a great thing, then, if anyone should manage to acquire even one of the qualities named; but it is astonishing, it seems, that one should be able to grasp all of them together, which Moses alone appears to have achieved, expressing the aforesaid virtues with the utmost clarity in the ordinances he laid down. Those who study the sacred books know this well—books which he would not
have composed, had he not been a man of this nature, but composed under the guidance of God and handed down for the worthy to use—the finest of possessions, likenesses and copies of the patterns carried like statues in the soul, which the aforementioned laws have indeed become, displaying most clearly the virtues already named.
That he himself, as lawgiver, is the best of all who ever arose anywhere, among Greeks or barbarians, and that his laws are the finest and truly divine, omitting nothing that is needed—here is the clearest proof.
If one examines with reason the legal customs of other peoples, one will find that they have been shaken by countless causes—by wars, by tyrannies, or by other unwanted circumstances that fall upon them through the shifting of fortune. Often, too, excessive luxury, swelling through abundant supplies and unstinted resources, has overturned laws, since the majority cannot bear "too much of a good thing," but through satiety fall into wanton excess.
And wanton excess is the enemy of law. But the laws of this man alone remain firm, unshaken, unmoved, sealed as it were with the very seals of nature itself, abiding steadfastly from the day they were written until now, and it is hoped that they will remain for all future time as well, as though immortal, for as long as the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe exist.
For although the nation has undergone so many changes, both in prosperity and its opposite, not the smallest part of what was ordained has been disturbed, since all, it seems, have held their solemnity and their fitness for God in the highest honor.
But those laws which no famine, plague, or war, no king or tyrant, no uprising of soul or body, of passions or of vices, nor any other calamity, whether sent by God or by man, has ever dissolved—how are these not worthy to be fought for, and
found superior to every argument? Yet this is not the most astonishing thing, though it would rightly be considered great in itself—that the laws have been preserved secure through the whole of time. Rather, more astonishing still, it seems, is this: that not only Jews but nearly all other peoples as well, and especially those who value virtue most highly, have come to hold them in reverence and honor. For this is the special privilege they have won, one that belongs to no other laws.
Here is the proof: among the cities of Greece and of the barbarian world, one might almost say there is not a single one that honors the customs of another; indeed, each barely holds fast even to its own, as it adapts them to the shifting demands of circumstance and occasion.
The Athenians have rejected the customs and laws of the Lacedaemonians, and the Lacedaemonians those of the Athenians; nor, among the barbarian nations, do the Egyptians keep the laws of the Scythians, or the Scythians those of the Egyptians; nor, to put it briefly, do the peoples of Asia keep the laws of those in Europe, or the peoples of Europe those of the Asian nations. Rather, virtually everyone from the rising of the sun to its setting—every country, nation, and city—turns away from foreign customs, and imagines that it will increase acceptance of its own laws by dishonoring those of others.
But our own case is not so; for it draws in and turns toward itself all peoples—barbarians, Greeks, mainlanders, islanders, nations of the east and of the west, Europe, Asia, the whole inhabited world from one end to the other.
For who has not honored that sacred seventh day, granting relief from toil and rest to himself and to those near him, not only the free but slaves as well?
Or rather, granting it even to beasts of burden? For the truce reaches every herd, and everything created for the service of man, which like slaves attend upon their natural master; it reaches also to every kind of tree and plant. For it is not permitted to cut a shoot or a branch, no, not even a leaf, nor to pluck any fruit whatsoever, since all things are released on that day and, as it were, keep a kind of freedom, none being touched, in accordance with a common proclamation.
And who has not marveled at, and reverenced, the fast that is observed, kept yearly with a stricter and more solemn form of that sacred season? For at other times there is much unmixed wine and costly tables and all manner of abundance in food and drink, through which the insatiable pleasures of the belly are increased, further inflaming the desires below it.
But on that day it is not permitted to partake of any food or drink, so that with minds made pure, with no bodily passion troubling or hindering them, of the sort that tends to arise from satiety, they may keep festival, propitiating the Father of the universe with auspicious prayers, through which they are accustomed to ask for forgetfulness of past sins and the acquisition and enjoyment of new blessings.
That the solemn sanctity of this legislation has been admired not only among the Jews but among all other peoples as well is clear both from what has already been said and from what is about to be said.
In ancient times the laws were written in the Chaldean language, and for a long time they remained in that same form, not changing their dialect, until they had not yet revealed their beauty to the rest of mankind.
Once these men had, through their daily continuous study and practice, come to be perceived by others as well, and their fame traveled everywhere -- for beautiful things, even if envy overshadows them for a little while, shine out again in due season by nature's kindness -- some people thought it a grave thing that the laws should be examined by only half of the human race, the barbarian half, while the Greek half would have no share in them at all, and so they turned to translating them.
Since the undertaking was both great and of common benefit, it was entrusted not to private persons, nor to rulers, of whom there is a great number, but to kings, and to the most highly esteemed of kings.
Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, was the third from Alexander, who had taken possession of Egypt, and in the virtues of leadership he was the best not only of his own contemporaries but of all who had ever lived before, so that even now, so many generations later, his fame is sung, since he left behind in cities and lands many proofs and monuments of his greatness of spirit -- so much so that already, as a kind of proverb, extravagant ambitions and grand constructions are called "Philadelphian" after him.
Taken as a whole, the house of the Ptolemies flourished more than other royal houses, and among the Ptolemies, Philadelphus flourished most: for whatever praiseworthy things this one man accomplished, all the rest together could scarcely match, since he became, as it were, the head that rules in a living body, in a certain sense the head of the kings.
This man, then, having conceived a zeal and longing for our legislation, resolved to have it turned from the Chaldean tongue into Greek, and at once sent envoys to the high priest and king of Judea -- for he was one and the same person -- making known his wish and urging him to choose, on the basis of merit, men who would translate the law.
The high priest, delighted, as was natural, and believing that the king had set his heart on such a task not without divine guidance, examined the most highly esteemed of the Hebrews among his people, men who, besides their ancestral education, had also been trained in Greek learning, and gladly sent them off.
When they arrived, they were invited to be his guests, and with witty and earnest words they entertained their host in return, matching him course for course: he tested the wisdom of each by putting forward novel questions rather than the customary ones, and they, aptly and unerringly -- since the occasion did not allow for long speeches -- resolved the problems set before them as if delivering oracles.
Once approved, they set at once to carrying out the tasks of their honorable embassy, and, reckoning among themselves how great a thing it was to translate laws that had been divinely proclaimed by means of human utterance, being able neither to take anything away nor to add anything nor to alter anything, but preserving the original form and pattern of the laws, they looked about for the purest of the places in that region, outside the city; for the places within the walls, being full of all kinds of living creatures because of illnesses and deaths and the unclean practices even of the healthy, were suspect.
The island of Pharos lies off Alexandria; a narrow strip stretches from it toward the city, enclosed by a sea that is not sheer and deep but for the most part shallow, so that the great noise and crash of the waves' onrush dies away long before it reaches the shore.
Judging this, out of all the places round about, to be the most suitable for finding quiet and stillness, and for the soul alone to hold converse with the laws alone, they settled there, and taking the sacred books they lifted up, along with the books, their hands to heaven, asking God that they might not fail of their purpose. And he assented to their prayers, so that the greater part, or even the whole, of the human race might be helped by making use, for the amendment of life, of philosophical and altogether beautiful
decrees. Sitting apart, with no one present except the elements of nature -- earth, water, air, heaven -- concerning whose coming-into-being they were first to prophesy as sacred interpreters (for the making of the cosmos is the beginning of the laws), they, as though inspired, prophesied, not different things, different men, but the very same words and phrases, all of them, as though an unseen prompter were speaking into the ear of each.
And yet who does not know that every language, and Greek especially, abounds in words, and that the same thought can be given many different shapes by translating it now this way, now that, fitting different expressions to it at different times? This, they say, did not happen in the case of this legislation, but proper words came together to match proper words, the Greek matching the Chaldean, each fitted exactly to the things signified.
For just as, I think, in geometry and in logic the things signified do not admit variety of expression, but what was laid down from the beginning remains unaltered, so too, it seems, these men in the same way discovered the words that ran in exact accord with the things themselves, words that alone, or most of all, were bound to make plain, with full clarity, the things signified.
The clearest proof of this is this: if Chaldeans learn Greek, or Greeks learn the language of the Chaldeans, and come upon both texts, the Chaldean and the translated one, they marvel at them and revere them as sisters, or rather as one and the same, both in their matter and in their wording, and they call the translators not interpreters but hierophants and prophets, since it was granted to them, with minds of pure reasoning, to run together with the utterly pure spirit of Moses.
This is why, even to this day, every year a feast and a general assembly is held on the island of Pharos, to which not only Jews but a great multitude of others sail across, both to honor the place where the light of that translation first shone out, and to give thanks to God for a benefaction that, old as it is, is always young again.
After the prayers and the thanksgivings, some pitch tents on the shore, while others, reclining on the sand of the beach in the open air with their households and friends, feast there, considering the shore at that time more luxurious than any furnishing found in palaces.
In this way the laws show themselves to be objects of envy and of contention for all, both private persons and rulers, and this even though the nation has for a long time now not been prosperous -- for the affairs of those not at their peak tend somehow to be overshadowed.
But if some opportunity should arise for something more splendid, how great an advance is it reasonable to expect? I think that people would abandon their own ways, and, bidding a hearty farewell to their ancestral customs, each nation would change over to honoring these laws alone; for once the nation's good fortune causes the laws to shine forth together with it, they will dim all the others, just as the risen sun dims the stars.
What has been said, then, is enough to constitute great praise of the lawgiver. But there is another and greater praise, contained in the most sacred books themselves, to which we must now turn, as a demonstration of the virtue of their author.
Of these books, one part is the historical, and the other concerns commands and prohibitions; of this latter part we shall speak second, having first given a precise account of the part that comes first in order.
Of the historical part, one portion concerns the coming-into-being of the cosmos, the other is genealogical; and of the genealogical portion, one concerns the punishment of the impious, the other, in turn, the honoring of the righteous. We must explain for what reason he began the legislation from this point, placing the part on commands and prohibitions second.
For he did not, like some historian, make it his business to leave behind for those who came after him records of ancient deeds, for the profitless delight of the soul; rather, he engaged in this account of origins by beginning from on high, from the coming-into-being of the universe, in order to demonstrate two most necessary things: first, that the same being is both the father and maker of the cosmos and, in truth, its lawgiver; and second, that the one who is to make use of the laws will embrace the order of nature and will live in accordance with the arrangement of the whole, in harmony and concord between deeds and words and between words and deeds.
Now of the other lawgivers, some straightway laid down what one must do and what one must not, and fixed penalties against transgressors, while others, thought to be better, did not begin from this point, but first founded and established in speech the city they considered most fitting and appropriate to the constitution they had founded, and then fitted the constitution to it by the enactment of laws.
But our lawgiver, holding the first of these methods to be, as it indeed was, tyrannical and despotic -- giving commands without persuasion, as to slaves rather than to free men -- and the second, though harmonious, still not entirely praiseworthy in the judgment of all critics, as it seems, differed from both of the methods just described.
For in his commands and prohibitions he mostly lays a foundation and offers persuasion rather than issuing orders outright, attempting, by means of prefaces and epilogues, to guide his hearers in most of the most necessary matters, for the sake of exhortation rather than because he considered it beneath the dignity of the laws to write in this fashion; for, looking with the most precise vision of the mind upon the magnitude and beauty of the whole legislation, and judging it to be too great and too divine to be bounded within any circle drawn upon the earth, he introduced the coming-into-being of the great city, the laws being a most faithful image of the constitution of the cosmos.
This he judged to be the case, for anyone willing to examine closely the powers of the individual provisions laid down will find that they aim at the harmony of the universe and are in accord with the reason of eternal nature.
Therefore, those who were granted goods in abundance—everything that makes for bodily health, wealth, reputation, and the other external strokes of fortune—but who rebelled against virtue, and, not by necessity but by deliberate choice, pursued cunning, injustice, and the other vices as though they were the greatest gain when in fact they were the greatest loss, treating them as enemies not merely of other men but of the whole heaven and cosmos—these, he says, did not undergo the customary punishments, but altogether novel and extraordinary ones, which Justice, seated beside God and hating wickedness, brought about on a grand scale, when the most active elements of the universe, water and fire, attacked them, so that in the cycle of the seasons some were destroyed by floods and others perished by burning.
Seas were lifted up, and rivers, both those already existing and sudden torrents, swelled and overflowed, sweeping away all the cities on the plain; while those in the hill country were destroyed by the continuous and unrelenting downpours of rain, day and night alike.
But afterward, in time, when the race had grown again from those who survived and had increased into a great multitude, since the descendants did not make the suffering of their ancestors into a lesson in self-control, but turned instead to license, becoming zealots for still harsher practices, God resolved to consume them with fire.
Then, as the sacred sayings report, lightning bolts poured down from heaven and burned up the impious and their cities; and to this day the memorials of that unspeakable disaster are shown in Syria—ruins, ash, sulfur, smoke, and a faint flame still rising, as though from a fire still smoldering.
And in this same event it happened both that the impious were punished with the penalties just described, and that those who excelled in nobility of character fared well, receiving rewards worthy of their virtue.
For while the fiery bolt was falling and the whole land was ablaze together with its inhabitants, one man alone, a resident foreigner, was saved by divine forethought, because he had embraced none of the local transgressions—though resident foreigners are accustomed, for the sake of their own safety, to honor the customs of the land, since danger from the native population follows those who dishonor them. And yet he had not attained to the summit of wisdom, such that he was judged worthy of so great a reward through the perfection of his own nature; rather, he alone had refused to go along with the many, who had turned toward soft living and had kindled every pleasure and every desire with lavish supply, as though feeding a flame with a mass of dense fuel.
And at the great flood, when nearly the whole human race perished, one household alone, tradition says, remained untouched by any evil—the eldest and head of the house, since it happened that he had never laid hold of any wrongdoing by his own will. The manner of his deliverance, as the sacred books record it, deserves to be told, both for its greatness and for the improvement of character it teaches.
For being judged fit not only to escape the common disaster but himself to become the beginning of a second generation of mankind, by divine commands which the oracles set forth, he built a great work of wood, three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty in height, joined together, and fitted inside it with level chambers and upper stories—three and four stories high—and having prepared provisions, he brought in from every kind of animal, both those that walk on land and those that fly, breeding pairs of male and female, so as to leave seed for the renewal of times yet to come.
For he knew that God's nature is gracious, and that even if particular forms should perish, the imperishability residing in the kinds themselves remains, on account of their likeness to him and because nothing that has come to be by his purpose is ever utterly dissolved. For this reason all the animals obeyed, and even those that until then had been thoroughly wild grew tame, and, like beasts broken in by a herdsman or shepherd, followed along.
After the entrance of them all, anyone who beheld the fullness within would not have been wrong to say that it carried in itself a replica of the whole earth, bearing all the countless kinds of living things which the whole earth had produced before and would perhaps produce again.
And what had been foreshadowed came to pass not long afterward. For the suffering abated, and the force of the flood diminished day by day, as the rains were held back and the water that had been poured out over the whole earth was in part consumed by the burning of the sun and in part receded into ravines, gorges, and the other hollow places of the earth. For, as though at God's command, each nature took back what it had lent, as it were, on necessary loan—sea, springs, and rivers; for every stream returned to its own proper place.
And after the purification of the region beneath the moon, when the earth had been washed clean and appeared new, such as it is reasonable to suppose it was when in the beginning it was created together with the whole cosmos, he came forth from the wooden structure—himself, his wife, his sons, and their wives—and together with the household, the kinds of animals that had gathered there came out in herds, for the sowing and generation of their own likenesses.
These are the prizes and rewards of good men, through which not only did they themselves and their kin obtain deliverance, escaping the greatest dangers that beset all people everywhere at the upheaval of the elements, but they also became the leaders of a new birth and the founders of a second cycle—left behind like sparks kept alive of the best kind of living things, mankind, which alone was allotted dominion over all earthly creatures, having become a replica of God's power, a visible image of the invisible nature, an eternal thing that has come into being.
We have now gone through two parts of the life of Moses—that concerning kingship and that concerning lawgiving; a third remains to be rendered, that concerning priesthood. Now the greatest and most necessary quality that must belong to a high priest is piety, and this above all Moses practiced, having also been blessed with a fortunate nature, which philosophy, taking it up like good soil, improved through the contemplation of the noblest doctrines, and did not let go until the fruits of virtue had come to full ripeness through both words and deeds.
And so, along with a few others, he became a lover of God and beloved by God, inspired by a heavenly love, and having honored above all the ruler of the universe, he was honored in return by him; and the honor fitting for a wise man is to serve that which truly is, and the priesthood has made it its practice to serve God. Of this reward, than which there is no greater good among existing things, he was judged worthy, being instructed in each particular by oracles
for the liturgies and sacred services. But first it was necessary that, like the soul, the body too be made pure, touched by no passion, but purified from everything belonging to mortal nature—food, drink, and intercourse with women.
The last of these he had already despised for a long time, indeed almost from the moment he first began to prophesy and to be possessed by God, considering it fitting to keep himself always ready to receive the oracles; and he disregarded food and drink altogether for forty days in succession, clearly because he had better nourishment, that which comes through contemplation, by which, inspired from above out of heaven, first his mind and then, through the soul, his body as well was made better, improving in both strength and vigor in each respect, so that those who saw him afterward could scarcely believe it.
For having gone up, by divine commands, onto the highest and most sacred of the mountains in that region—one that was inaccessible and untrodden—he is said to have remained there that whole time, taking with him nothing needed for the necessary enjoyment of food; and after, as has been said, forty days, he came down more beautiful in appearance than when he had gone up, so that those who saw him were awestruck and astonished, and could no longer bear to fix their eyes upon him because of the sunlike radiance that flashed from him.
While still lingering above, he was initiated, being taught all the matters concerning the priesthood, and first, in the order of things, those first in importance—the matters concerning the construction of the sanctuary and everything within it.
Now if they had already taken possession of the land into which they were migrating, it would have been necessary to establish a most conspicuous temple, built of the purest stone and costly materials, and around it to build great walls and countless houses for the temple attendants, naming the place a holy city.
But since they were still wandering in the wilderness, not yet settled permanently, it was fitting for them to have a portable sanctuary, so that on their journeys and encampments they might offer sacrifices and perform all the other rites of worship, lacking nothing that those who dwell in cities ought to have.
He resolved, then, to construct a tabernacle, a most sacred work, the design of which Moses was taught on the mountain through divinely given oracles, beholding in his soul the incorporeal patterns of the bodies that were to be made, according to which, as from an archetypal drawing and intelligible models, the perceptible copies were to be fashioned.
For it was fitting that to the true high priest should also be entrusted the construction of the sanctuary, so that out of his great abundance he might render the services in the priesthood harmonious and in accord with what had been fashioned
in the exercise of the priesthood. So the pattern of the model was sealed upon the mind of the prophet, sketched out and shaped in advance invisibly, without matter, in forms unseen; and the finished work was fashioned to match the pattern, the craftsman impressing the seals upon the appropriate material substances for each part.
This was how it was constructed: forty-eight pillars of the most incorruptible cedar, cut from the finest-grown trunks, were overlaid with thick gold; then under each two silver bases were set, and at the top of the pillar a golden capital was fitted.
In length the craftsman arranged forty pillars, twenty on each half, leaving no gap between them but fitting and joining them in sequence, so that a single continuous face might appear, like a wall; and for the innermost width the remaining eight — six along the middle space, and two at the corners on either side of the middle, one on the right and one on the left; and at the entrance four more, like the others in all respects except that one base took the place of two of those opposite; and after these, five furthest out, differing only in their bases, for these were of bronze.
So that the pillars of the tabernacle in all amounted — apart from the two hidden ones at the corners — to fifty-five visible, completing the number that runs from the unit up to the ten of perfection. But if one wished to set apart, separately, the five in the forecourt that join the open space,
which he has called the courtyard, there will remain the most sacred number of fifty, which is the power of the right-angled triangle — the very principle of the coming-to-be of the universe — completed from the pillars within: forty of those along each side, twenty on each, six of those in the middle apart from the ones hidden at the corners, and four of those opposite, on which the veil hangs.
I will explain the reason why I place the five together with the fifty and yet set them apart from them. Five is the number of the senses, and sense-perception in a human being inclines partly toward external things and partly bends back toward the mind, being a servant of the mind under nature's laws.
For this reason he assigned the borderland to the five: for what is within them inclines toward the innermost sanctuary of the tabernacle, which stands symbolically for the realm of the mind, while what is outside inclines toward the open space and the courtyard, which are the realm of the senses; and this is also why they differ in their bases, for these are of bronze; and since, of the sense-perception within us, the mind is the head and ruling part, while the extremity and, as it were, base is the object of sense, he likened the mind to gold and the object of sense to bronze.
These are the measurements of the pillars: ten cubits in length, one and a half in width, so that the tabernacle might appear equal in all its parts.
He clothed it in beautiful and varied woven fabrics, using hyacinth-blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen in the weaving. For he fashioned ten curtains — so named in the sacred writings — from the kinds just mentioned, each twenty-eight cubits in length and extending to four cubits in width, so that they might have both the ten of perfection and the four that is the substance of the ten, and the number twenty-eight, which is perfect, equal to its own parts, and the forty, most productive of life, in which they say a human being is shaped in nature's workshop.
The twenty-eight cubits of the curtains, then, are divided as follows: ten along the roof — for that is the width of the tabernacle — and the rest along the sides, nine on each, extending to cover the pillars, with one cubit left short of the ground, so that the beautiful fabric might not drag.
Of the forty cubits reckoned from the width of the ten curtains, thirty are taken up by the length — for that is also the length of the tabernacle — nine by the rear chamber, and the remainder at the forecourt, so that it forms a binding for the whole enclosure; and over the forecourt hangs the veil.
In a sense the curtains themselves are also veils, not only because they cover the roof and the walls, but also because they are woven of the same kinds — hyacinth-blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen. From these same materials both the veil and what is called the covering were made: the one within, at the four pillars, so that the innermost sanctuary might be concealed; the other outside, at the five pillars, so that no one could
of the unconsecrated behold from a distance the holy things. He chose the materials of the fabrics by the finest selection, out of the countless materials available, selecting those equal in number to the elements out of which the universe was fashioned, and having a proportion corresponding to them — earth, water, air, and fire: for fine linen is likened to earth, purple to water, hyacinth-blue to air (for this is by nature dark), and scarlet to fire, since both are flame-colored; for it was necessary, in constructing a hand-made sanctuary for the Father and Ruler of the universe, to take substances resembling those out of which he fashioned the whole.
The tabernacle, then, was constructed in the manner described, like a sacred temple. Around it a sacred precinct was set, a hundred cubits in length and fifty in width, having pillars standing an equal distance of five cubits apart, so that they numbered sixty in all, distributed as forty along the length and twenty along the width, half on each side.
The material of the columns was cedar within, silver on the surface, and the bases of all of them bronze, and the height equal to five cubits; for it seemed fitting to the craftsman to make the height of the so-called courtyard exactly half, so that the tabernacle, raised aloft, might appear twice as high. Fine linen curtains, like sails, were fitted along the length and width to the pillars, so that none of the impure
might enter. The arrangement was as follows: the tabernacle stood in the middle, thirty cubits in length and ten in width including the depth of the pillars, standing apart from the courtyard on three sides at an equal distance — two along the sides and one at the rear chamber — the distance being measured at twenty cubits; but at the forecourt, naturally, because of the crowds entering, the distance was greater, fifty cubits: for in this way the hundred cubits of the courtyard were to be filled out, the twenty at the rear chamber and the thirty taken up by the tabernacle being combined with the fifty at the entrances.
For the forecourt of the tabernacle stood, as it were, at the middle boundary of a double fifty — the one toward the east, where the entrances are, the other toward the west, where both the length of the tabernacle and the enclosure behind it lie.
Another forecourt, most beautiful and greatest, was constructed at the beginning of the entrance into the courtyard, by means of four pillars, across which was stretched a varied fabric, made in the same manner and from the same material as those within, by the tabernacle.
Along with these, sacred vessels were also made: the ark, the lampstand, the table, the incense altar, and the altar. The altar was set up in the open air, opposite the entrances of the tabernacle, at a distance sufficient for the ministers to perform the sacrifices offered daily.
The ark stood in the innermost, inaccessible sanctuary within the veils, gilded richly both within and without; its lid, as it were a cover, is what the sacred books call the mercy seat.
The length and width of this are given, but no depth, since it is made most nearly like a geometrical plane surface — which seems to be a symbol, in a more natural sense, of the propitious power of God, and in a more ethical sense, of the mind's disposition when it is propitious to itself: that it ought to lower and bring down, out of love for freedom from vanity joined with knowledge, the irrational conceit that lifts itself up and swells with pride.
The ark, then, is a vessel for the laws, for in it are deposited the oracles that were given; and the lid, called the mercy seat, is the base for two winged beings, which in the ancestral tongue are called Cherubim, but which, as the Greeks would say, mean 'full knowledge and much understanding.'
Some say that these are symbols of the two hemispheres set facing one another, the one beneath the earth and the one above it; for the whole heaven is winged.
But I would say that what is disclosed through these, by way of hidden meaning, are the two most ancient and highest powers of the One who Is — the creative and the kingly. The creative power is named God, by which he set in place and made and ordered this universe; the kingly is named Lord, by which he rules over what has come to be and holds sway over it firmly and with justice.
For he alone, being truly real, is also truly a maker without falsehood, since he brought into being what did not exist, and he is by nature a king, because none of the things that have come to be
could rule more justly than the one who made them. In the space between the four and five pillars — which, properly speaking, is the forecourt, closed off by two hangings, the inner one called the veil and the outer one called the covering — the remaining three of the vessels mentioned above were set up: in the middle the incense altar, a symbol of the thanksgiving owed to earth and water for what comes from each of them; for this occupies the middle place of the cosmos.
As for the lampstand: since the moon and the other planets, being far removed from the northern region, make their circuits toward the south, six branches, three on each side, grow out from the middle lamp, making a total of seven.
Above them all are seven lamps and lights, symbols of what the natural philosophers call the planets. For the sun, like the lampstand's central branch, is stationed in the fourth place among the six and gives light to the three above it and to the equal number below it, tuning what is truly a musical and divine instrument.
The table is set toward the north, bearing bread and salt, since the northern winds are the most nourishing, and because nourishment comes from heaven and earth alike — heaven by sending rain, earth by bringing seeds to maturity through the inflow of waters.
The symbols of heaven and earth stand beside one another, as our argument has shown: of heaven, the lampstand; of the regions around the earth, from which the vapors rise, the altar rightly called the altar of incense.
The altar standing in the open air he is accustomed to call the altar of sacrifice, as though it were something that preserves and guards sacrifices rather than consumes them — hinting thereby not at the limbs and parts of what is offered, which by nature are consumed by fire, but at the intention of the one who makes the offering.
For if he is thankless and unjust, the sacrifices are unsacrificed, the rites unholy, and the prayers ill-omened, admitting total ruin; for even when they seem to occur, they produce not release from sins but a reminder of them.
But if he is devout and just, the sacrifice remains secure even though the meat is consumed — or rather, even if no victim at all is brought. For what could true sacrifice be, other than the piety of a soul that loves God? Its gratitude is made immortal, and, inscribed as on a monument, it is enrolled before God, enduring forever together with the sun and the moon and the whole universe.
Next the craftsman fashioned a sacred garment for the man who was to be established as high priest, altogether beautiful and most admirable, with an intricate weave in its fabrics. The woven pieces were of two kinds: the undergarment, and the one called the ephod.
The undergarment, then, was made of simpler, unmixed material; for it was ornamented with golden pomegranates, bells, and floral wreaths.
The ephod, a most distinguished and skillfully wrought work, was made with the most perfect craftsmanship from the materials already named — violet, purple, fine linen, and scarlet — with gold interwoven; for sheets of gold, cut into fine threads, were woven together with every strand.
On the shoulder-pieces were set two most precious stones of costly emerald, on which were engraved the names of the tribal leaders, six on each — twelve in all. And on the breast were placed twelve other precious stones, differing in color, resembling seals, arranged in four rows of three; these were fitted onto what is called the oracle.
The oracle was made square and doubled, as it were a base, so that it might bear the image of two virtues, manifestation and truth. The whole was hung by golden chains from the ephod, fastened firmly to it so that it should never come loose.
A golden plate, like a crown, was made bearing four engraved letters of a name which only those whose ears and tongue have been purified by wisdom may lawfully hear and speak in the holy places, and by no one else at all, anywhere.
The theologian says the name is of four letters, perhaps setting these down as symbols of the first numbers — one, two, three, and four — since all things consist in four: the point, the line, the surface, and the solid, which are the measures of everything; and likewise the finest harmonies in music: the fourth in the ratio of four to three, the fifth in the ratio of three to two, the octave in the ratio of two to one, and the double octave in the ratio of four to one. The number four has countless other virtues too, most of which we have set out precisely in our treatise On Numbers.
Beneath it was a turban, so that the plate should not touch the head. In addition a headdress was made; for the kings of the East are accustomed to use a headdress in place of a diadem.
Such, then, was the garment of the high priest. But the meaning it carries, both as a whole and in its parts, must not be passed over in silence. As a whole it became an image and likeness of the world, and its parts are likenesses of the world's individual parts.
We must begin with the ankle-length robe. This entire garment is violet, an impression of the air; for by nature the air is dark and, in a sense, reaches to the feet, stretching from the region beneath the moon down to the boundaries of the earth, poured out in every direction. Hence the robe too is poured out over the whole body, from the chest down to the feet.
From it, at the ankles, hang pomegranates, flowers, and bells: the flowers are a symbol of earth, for all things flower and sprout from it; the pomegranates are a symbol of water, aptly named from their flowing; and the bells are a symbol of the harmony and concord between the two — for earth is not sufficient for generation without water, nor water without the substance of earth, but only the union and blending of both.
The very placement bears the clearest witness to this meaning: for just as the pomegranates, flowers, and bells are at the lowest part of the robe, so too the things of which they are symbols, earth and water, have been allotted the lowest region in the world, and, sounding in harmony with the whole, display their own powers at fixed periods of time and at the seasons proper to them.
Of the three elements, then, out of which and within which all mortal and perishable kinds exist — air, water, earth — the robe together with the ornaments hanging at the ankles has fittingly been shown to be a symbol. For just as the robe is one, the three elements named are also of a single kind, since everything below the moon undergoes change and alteration; and just as the pomegranates and flowers hang from the robe, so in a sense earth and water are suspended from air, for air is their vehicle.
The ephod, our argument will show by plausible conjectures, is a symbol of heaven. First, the two round emerald stones on the shoulder-pieces indicate, as some suppose, the two stars that govern day and night, the sun and the moon; but as one would say who comes nearer the truth, they indicate each of the two hemispheres — for, like the stones, the part above the earth and the part below it are equal, and neither by nature waxes and wanes as the moon does.
The color too bears further witness; for the appearance of the whole sky, as it strikes the sight, resembles emerald. And necessarily on each of the two stones six names are engraved, because each of the two hemispheres, cutting the zodiac in half, takes in six constellations.
Then the twelve stones on the breast, unlike one another in color, distributed into four rows of three — of what else are these tokens than the zodiac circle? For this too, divided fourfold out of three signs each, produces the seasons of the year — spring, summer, autumn, winter — four turnings, each bounded by three signs, made known through the revolutions of the sun according to that unshaken, most steadfast, and truly divine principle found in numbers.
Hence they were also fitted onto what is fittingly called the oracle; for the turnings and yearly seasons are constituted by a fixed and settled principle — the most paradoxical thing — displaying, through their timely change, their own perpetual permanence.
It is well, and altogether fitting, that the twelve stones differ in color and that none is like another; for each of the signs in the zodiac produces its own proper effect upon air, earth, and water and their affections, and further upon all the kinds of animals and plants.
The oracle is doubled, and not without reason: for reason is twofold, both in the universe as a whole and in human nature. In the universe as a whole there is the reason concerned with the incorporeal, paradigmatic Forms out of which the intelligible cosmos was framed, and the reason concerned with visible things, which are imitations and likenesses of those Forms, out of which this perceptible cosmos was fashioned; while in a human being one reason is internal, the other uttered — the one like a spring, the other its outward flow issuing from it. The seat of the one is the ruling faculty of the soul; the seat of the other, in its utterance, is the tongue and mouth and all the rest of the apparatus of the voice.
The craftsman gave the oracle a square shape, hinting very beautifully that both the reason of nature and the reason of man must stand firm on every side and be shaken by nothing whatsoever. For this reason he also assigned to it the two virtues already named, Manifestation and Truth: for the reason of nature is true and manifests all things, and the reason of the sage, in imitating it, ought fittingly to be utterly truthful, honoring truth, and to overshadow nothing out of envy — since the disclosure of these things will benefit those who are thereby instructed.
Moreover, to the two reasons within each of us — the uttered and the internal — he assigned two virtues proper to each: to the uttered, Manifestation; to the one according to the mind, Truth. For it befits the mind to admit no falsehood, and the expression of it to hinder nothing that belongs to the most exact manifestation.
There is no benefit in a reason that speaks solemnly of noble and serious things but is unaccompanied by a corresponding sequence of proper deeds; hence he hung the oracle from the shoulder-piece, so that it should not hang loose, refusing to allow reason to be uncoupled from deeds — for he makes the shoulder a symbol of activity and action.
Such, then, are the things hinted at through the sacred vestment. In place of a diadem he sets the tiara on the head, judging that the one consecrated to God, for as long as he holds the priesthood, should take precedence over everyone — not only private citizens but kings as well.
Above it is the golden plate, on which the engravings of the four letters were stamped, letters from which, they say, the name of the One who is is signified — since it is not possible for anything among beings to come to be without the invocation of God; for goodness and his gracious power are the harmony of all things.
In this manner the high priest, thus arrayed, sets out for the sacred rites, so that when he enters to offer the ancestral prayers and sacrifices, the whole cosmos may enter with him through the imitations he bears: of air, the ankle-length robe; of water, the pomegranate; of earth, the flower; of fire, the scarlet; of heaven, the shoulder-piece; and, in the likeness of the two hemispheres, the round emeralds on the shoulder-clasps, on each of which are six engravings; of the zodiac, the twelve stones on the breast in four rows of three; and of that which holds together and governs the universe, the oracle itself.
For it was necessary that the one consecrated to the Father of the cosmos should employ as intercessor a son most perfect in virtue, both for the forgetting of sins and for the provision of the most abundant goods.
Perhaps, too, he thereby instructs beforehand the servant of God that, even if he cannot be the maker of the cosmos, he ought at least to strive continually to be worthy of the cosmos — since, by putting on its likeness, he must in his mind straightway carry about the pattern, and himself, in a manner, be transposed from a man into the nature of the cosmos and — if it is permitted to say so, and it is permitted, since one speaks the truth — be a miniature cosmos.
Outside the forecourt, by the entrances, stands a bronze basin, made by the craftsman not from raw, unworked material — as commonly happens — but from vessels carefully wrought for another use, which the women brought forward with all zeal and eagerness, vying with the men in piety, having resolved to undertake a noble contest and striving, so far as their power allowed, not to fall short of the men's devotion.
For their mirrors, with which they were accustomed to adorn their beauty, they offered up — no one having commanded it, but of their own spontaneous eagerness — as the most fitting firstfruits of self-control, of chastity in marriage, and, one might say, of the beauty of the soul.
The craftsman resolved to take these and melt them down, and to fashion from them nothing else but the basin, so that the priests who were to enter the sanctuary, in order to perform the appointed services, might use it for their ablutions, washing above all their hands and feet — a symbol of a blameless life and of a manner of living pure in praiseworthy deeds, directing itself not along the rough road of vice — or, more properly, the pathless waste — but along the highway that leads through virtue.
'Let him who is about to be sprinkled be reminded,' it says, 'that the material of this vessel was mirrors, so that he too may gaze, as into a mirror, upon his own mind, and if any disgrace appears there arising from irrational passion — whether from pleasure exalting and lifting it beyond due measure, or, conversely, from grief compressing and casting it down, or from fear turning it back and deflecting its onward impulse, or from desire dragging and straining it violently toward things not present — he may attend to this and heal it, laying claim instead to genuine and unadulterated beauty.'
For the beauty of the body lies in symmetry of parts, in good complexion and good flesh, and has but a brief season of bloom; but the beauty of the mind lies in harmony of doctrines and concord of virtues, which does not wither with length of time but, the longer it endures, the more it is renewed and grows young, adorned with the surpassing color of truth and of the agreement of deeds with words, of words with deeds, and further of counsels with both.
When he had been taught the patterns of the sacred tabernacle, and had in turn taught those who were keen in mind and naturally suited for undertaking and bringing to completion the works that necessarily had to be made — since, once the sanctuary had fittingly been constructed, it was necessary also that the fittest priests be chosen and instructed beforehand in the manner in which they ought to offer up the sacrifices and perform the sacred rites.
His brother, then, he judged by merit above all others and appointed high priest, and ordained that brother's sons as priests, granting the privilege not to his own kin as such, but to the piety and holiness which he discerned present in these men. Clear proof of this: he deemed neither of his own two sons worthy of this honor — though he would necessarily have chosen both, had he assigned any honor out of favoritism to his own family.
He instituted this, with the assent of the whole nation, in a wholly novel manner, as the sacred oracles relate it to have been done: first he washes them with the purest and most life-giving water from a spring, and then hands over the sacred vestments — to his brother the ankle-length robe and the shoulder-piece, like a breastplate, the many-colored fabric that is an image of the universe; to his nephews, linen tunics, girdles, and drawers for all.
The tunics, so that they might be unimpeded and readier for the sacred services, the loose folds being girded up; the drawers, so that nothing that ought to be hidden should be exposed, especially as they went up to the altar or came down from it and performed everything with haste and urgency.
For if the vesture had not been made this precise, as a safeguard against the uncertainty of what was to come, then, on account of the intense swiftness required in the services, they would have been stripped of the propriety
owed to sacred things and sacred persons, unable to preserve it. When he had trained them in their vestments, he took the sweetest-smelling ointment, prepared by the perfumer's art, and first anointed, out in the open, the altar and the basin, sprinkling them seven times; then the tabernacle and each of the sacred vessels — the ark, the lampstand, the incense altar, the table, the libation vessels, the bowls, and everything else necessary and useful for the sacrifices; and finally, bringing the high priest forward, he anointed his head with abundant oil.
Having accomplished this in due form, he commanded that a calf and two rams be brought — the calf, so that he might sacrifice it for the remission of sins, hinting that for everything that comes into being, however excellent it may be, insofar as it has entered into becoming, sinning is innate, on whose behalf it is necessary that the divine be propitiated with prayers and sacrifices, lest it be provoked to anger;
and of the rams, the one for a whole burnt offering of thanksgiving for the governance of the universe, in which each part has its allotted share, enjoying the benefit that comes from the elements: of earth, for dwelling and the nourishment it yields; of water, for drink, for washing, and for sailing; of air, for breath and for the perceptions received through the senses — since air is the instrument of them all — and further for the seasons of the year; of fire, the useful kind for cooking and warming, and the heavenly kind for light and for all visible things;
and the other ram for the complete consecration of those made priests through purifying cleansing, which he fittingly called 'of perfection' (Exod. 29:26; Lev. 8:22), since they were about to be initiated into the rites befitting servants and ministers of God.
Of its blood he takes some and pours it around the altar, and, holding out a bowl, receives some in it, and with this anoints three parts of the body of the priests being consecrated — the tip of the ear, the tip of the hand, the tip of the foot, all on the right side — hinting that the perfect man must be pure in word, in deed, and in the whole conduct of life; for the ear judges word, the hand is a symbol of deed, and the foot of the course of one's life.
And since each of these parts is both an extremity and on the right side, we must understand this to signify progress in each of them carried out with dexterity — a progress that reaches after the summit of happiness and after the end toward which it is necessary to press on and to refer all our actions, taking aim, as in archery, at the target set for our life.
In earlier times he anointed the three parts just mentioned on the priests with the unmixed blood of a single victim, the one called the offering "of consecration." But now, taking blood from that portion by the altar which came from all the victims that had been sacrificed, and mixing it with the oil of the anointing already described, which the perfumers had prepared, he sprinkled the resulting compound on the priests and on their garments. His purpose was that they should share not only in the purification proper to the outer, open-air precinct, but also in that of the innermost sanctuary, since they were about to minister there as well; for everything within had been anointed with oil.
Once other sacrifices had been offered in addition to the earlier ones—some by the priests on their own behalf, others by the council of elders on behalf of the whole nation—Moses entered the tabernacle, bringing his brother with him. It was the eighth day of the rite of consecration, and the last, for on the seven preceding days he had performed the sacred initiation of Aaron and his nephews. Having gone in, he instructed him, as a good teacher instructs an apt pupil, in what manner the high priest must perform the services within.
Then both came out, and, raising their hands before their heads, offered on behalf of the nation the prayers that were fitting, from a pure and most reverent disposition. And while they were still praying, something utterly astonishing occurred: out of the inner sanctuary—whether it was a portion torn from the purest ether, or air resolved into fire through the natural transformation of the elements—a sudden, unbroken flame burst forth and rushed with concentrated force upon the altar, consuming everything on it. This was, I think, the clearest possible demonstration that nothing was accomplished there without divine providence.
For it was fitting that an extraordinary gift be granted to holy things, not only among those that human craftsmen produce, but also from the purest fire of all being—so that the fire used for ordinary human purposes should not touch the altar among us, since it is mingled, perhaps, with countless forms of defilement.
For that fire touches not only the flesh of irrational animals roasted or boiled to satisfy the unjust gluttony of the wretched belly, but also human beings destroyed by treachery—not three or four of them, but whole crowded gatherings of people.
Indeed, before now, great fleets full of marines have been consumed by fire-bearing arrows shot against them, and whole cities have been utterly destroyed, smoldering down to their foundations and reduced to ash, so that not even a trace was left of the settlement that had once stood there.
For this reason, it seems to me, he drove the fire used for ordinary purposes away from the most holy and purest altar as something defiled, and in its place rained down from heaven an ethereal flame, to mark the distinction between the holy and the profane, between what belongs to humankind and what belongs to God. For it was fitting that a more incorruptible substance than the fire that serves the needs of daily life should be allotted to the sacrifices.
Since many sacrifices were necessarily brought each day, and especially at festivals and gatherings, both privately on behalf of each individual and communally on behalf of everyone, for countless and varied reasons—the nation being extremely numerous and devout—a multitude of temple attendants was also required for the sacred services.
The selection of these came about once again in an entirely novel manner, not the customary one. He set apart one of the twelve tribes and appointed it by merit, proposing prizes and rewards of excellence for a task pleasing to God.
The occasion for this was as follows. When Moses had gone up onto the mountain nearby and spent many days there alone with God, those of unsteady character judged his absence a fitting opportunity, as though anarchy had set in; released from restraint, they rushed headlong into impiety, and, forgetting the reverence due to Him who is, became zealous devotees of Egyptian fabrications.
They fashioned a golden bull, an imitation of the animal held most sacred in that country, and offered sacrifices that were no sacrifices, set up dances that were no dances, and sang hymns indistinguishable from dirges. Gorged with unmixed wine, they were overcome by a double drunkenness, one from the wine itself, the other from folly, reveling and carousing through the night, blind to what was coming, living amid pleasant evils while Justice lay in wait, seeing them though they could not see, and seeing too the punishments they deserved.
Since the continual outcries in the camp, from the crowded throngs gathering together, carried a great distance—so far that the echo reached even the mountain ridge—Moses, his ears struck by the din, was at a loss, being at once devoted to God and a lover of humankind. He could not bear to cut short his converse with God, which he held alone with the Alone in private, nor could he disregard the multitude, filled as they were with the evils born of lawlessness; for, being keen of perception, he recognized from the noise—
—even though the sound was inarticulate and indistinct—the particular character of feelings hidden and invisible to others in the soul: that the disturbance holding them was the disturbance of drunken revelry, since intemperance breeds satiety, and satiety breeds insolence.
Torn and pulled this way and that between the two considerations, he was at a loss what to do. But as he was weighing the matter, this oracle was given to him: "Go down from here quickly; the people have rushed into lawlessness. Having made a bull-shaped god, a work of human hands and no god, they worship and sacrifice to it, forgetting everything they saw and heard that leads to true piety."
Struck with amazement and compelled to believe deeds scarcely credible, he did not, as a mediator and reconciler might, leap into action at once; rather, he first offered supplications and entreaties on behalf of the nation, begging forgiveness for their transgressions. Then, once he, their guardian and advocate, had propitiated the Ruler, he went back up, rejoicing and downcast at the same time: rejoicing, because God had accepted his supplication; downcast and swollen with grief, because of the people's lawlessness.
Coming into the midst of the camp, and marveling at the sudden derangement of the multitude and at how much falsehood they had exchanged for how much truth, he perceived that the disease had not spread to everyone, but that some remained sound, still moved by a hatred of wickedness. Wishing to distinguish those who were incurably afflicted from those who were distressed at what had been done, and to discover whether any who had sinned were repenting, he issued a proclamation—which was in fact a precise test of each person's mind, of where it stood with respect to reverence and its opposite. "Whoever is for the Lord," he said, "let him come to me."
The words spoken were brief, but their significance was great; for what was meant was this: whoever considers nothing made by human hands, nor anything that has come into being, to be gods, but holds that there is one Ruler of all things, let him come to me.
Of the rest, some, out of their zeal for the Egyptian delusion, refused to listen to what was said and would not comply; others, perhaps out of fear of punishment, did not dare to come nearer, dreading either retribution from Moses or an uprising from the multitude, for the many always turn against those who will not join in their madness.
But one tribe out of all of them, the one called Levitical, on hearing the proclamation, ran with eager haste as though at a single signal, displaying by the swiftness of their feet the readiness and keenness of their soul's impulse toward reverence.
When Moses saw them racing as though from a starting line, he said, "If you hasten to come to us not only with your bodies but with your minds as well, this will be proven at once. Let each of you take up a sword and kill those who have committed deeds deserving countless deaths—those who, abandoning the true God, fashioned falsely named gods and applied to corruptible and created substances the title belonging to the incorruptible and uncreated one—kill your kinsmen and friends, holding that the only true kinship and friendship is the reverence of good men."
They outran even the exhortation in their readiness, since their minds had already become estranged from those men almost from the moment they saw the transgression committed. In one sweep they killed about three thousand of those who, just a little before, had been dearest to them. As the bodies lay in the middle of the marketplace, the crowd, seeing them, felt pity for the slain, but, terrified by the still-burning, wrath-filled resolve of the killers, was brought to its senses by fear.
Moses, approving this act of valor, devised a reward and confirmed it by an act appropriate to the deed: for it was fitting that those who had taken up a voluntary war on behalf of God's honor, and who had succeeded in a brief span of time, should be found worthy of His service and allotted the priesthood.
Since the ranks of those consecrated to the priesthood were not all one—some being entrusted with the prayers, sacrifices, and other sacred rites, going even into the innermost sanctuary, while others had none of this but only the daytime and nighttime care and guarding of the sanctuary and its contents, whom some call temple attendants—the strife over primacy, the cause of countless troubles for many people in many places, broke out here as well, when the temple attendants attacked the priests, intending to seize their honor for themselves; and they hoped this would easily succeed, since they were many times more numerous.
So that they should not appear to be introducing this innovation on their own private judgment, they persuaded the eldest of the twelve tribes to join their cause; and many of the more thoughtless people followed that tribe, supposing it capable of holding the privilege of leadership.
Moses recognized that this great fortification was being built up against him; for he had chosen his brother as high priest in accordance with the oracles delivered to him, yet there were slanders that he had falsified the oracles and made the choice out of family favoritism and affection for his brother.
Reasonably distressed by all this - not only was he disbelieved even after demonstrating his own fidelity through so many proofs, but disbelieved also in matters that concern the honor of God, matters in which alone a man whose character had been falsely maligned in everything else was bound to be found truthful, for truth is the attendant of God - Moses did not think it right to teach them otherwise by mere words, knowing that it is a hard thing to attempt to change the minds of those already gripped by opposing opinions. Instead he beseeched God to furnish them with a visible demonstration that nothing false lay behind his choice of the priesthood.
God commanded him to take twelve rods, equal in number to the tribes, and to inscribe on eleven of them the names of the other tribal leaders, and on the remaining one the name of his brother, the high priest, and then to bring them into the temple as far as the inner sanctuary. Moses did as he was commanded and waited anxiously to see what would come of it.
On the next day, struck by an oracle, with the whole nation standing by, he went in and brought out the rods. All the others were unchanged, but the one on which his brother's name had been inscribed had been made a wonder: for like some noble plant it had put forth fresh
shoots and, from the abundance of its fruit, hung heavy. The fruits were nuts, which have a nature opposite to that of other fruits: in most - the grape, the olive, the apple - the seed and the edible part are distinct, and being distinct they are also separated in place, the edible part lying outside and the seed enclosed within. But in the nut the seed and the edible part are one and the same, both resolved into a single form, and there is one place, the interior, fortified and guarded by a double wall, one of very deep bark, the other in no way inferior to a structure of wood.
By this he hints at perfect virtue. For just as in the nut the beginning and the end are the same thing - the beginning insofar as it is seed, the end insofar as it is fruit - so it is also with the virtues. Each of them happens to be both a beginning and an end: a beginning, because it grows not from some other power but from itself; an end, because it is toward this that the life lived according to nature strains.
This is one explanation, but another is given, more vivid still than the first: the outer husk of the nut is bitter, and what lies within it is like a wooden wall, very hard and strong, and by both of these the fruit is shut in and is not easily seized.
This he makes a symbol of the soul in training, from which he thinks it right to draw the lesson that one must first encounter toil - toil is bitter, resistant, and hard - out of which the good is born, and for the sake of which one must not grow soft.
For the one who flees toil flees also the good things, while the one who endures the hard-to-bear with fortitude and courage presses on toward blessedness. Virtue is not disposed to dwell among those who live delicately, whose souls have been made effeminate and whose bodies dissolve through the unbroken indulgence of every day; when ill-treated it departs, having first served notice of its abandonment on right reason, its ruler.
But if the truth must be told, the most sacred company of prudence, self-control, courage, and justice pursues those in training and all who, with frugality and contentment with little, emulate the austere and hard life, self-mastery and endurance, through which reasoning, the most sovereign faculty within us, is brought to unfailing health and good condition, having thrown down the heavy siege-wall of the body, which drunkenness, gluttony, lechery, and the other insatiable desires have built up together, giving birth to the corpulence that stands opposed to keenness of mind.
It is said, moreover, that among the trees accustomed to bud in spring, the almond both flowers first, announcing good news of a harvest of fruit, and sheds its leaves last, extending the good old age of its yearly foliage to the greatest length. Each of these facts Moses makes a symbol of the priestly tribe, hinting that it will flower both first and last of the whole human race, at whatever time it seems good to God to liken our life to the turning of spring, having done away with covetousness, that scheming source of misery.
Since, then, we said that four things must belong to the most perfect leader - kingship, the disposition of a lawgiver, priesthood, and prophecy - so that through his lawgiving he may command what must be done and forbid what must not, through his priesthood he may administer not only human affairs but divine ones as well, and through his prophecy he may declare by oracle whatever is not grasped by reasoning; and since I have already discussed the first three and shown Moses to be the best of kings, lawgivers, and high priests, I come at last to show that he also became a prophet of the highest repute.
I am not unaware that everything written in the sacred books is oracular, delivered through him; but I will speak of what is peculiarly his own, first stating this: of the oracles, some are spoken in the person of God, through the interpretation of his divine prophet; others were declared through question and answer; and others in the person of Moses himself, when he had become inspired and was possessed by God.
The first, then, are through and through demonstrations of divine virtues, the merciful and the beneficent, through which he anoints all men toward nobility of character, and especially his own suppliant people, for whom he lays open the road leading to happiness.
The second class has a mixture and a partnership: the prophet inquiring about what he seeks, and God answering and teaching. The third class is assigned to the lawgiver himself, God having imparted to him the power of foreknowledge by which he foretells what is to come.
The first class, then, must be set aside, for these are too great to be praised by any human being - they could scarcely be worthily celebrated even by heaven, the cosmos, and the nature of the whole - and besides, they are spoken as though through an interpreter; and interpretation and prophecy are different things. Of the second class I will try at once to give an account, weaving into it also the third form, in which the inspired ecstasy of the speaker is most clearly displayed, the form by which, above all and properly, one is deemed a prophet.
The fulfillment of this promise must begin here. There are four instances in which the law was given by oracles through question and answer, oracles of mixed power: in one part the prophet, in a state of inspiration, inquires; in the other the Father declares by oracle, imparting speech and answer. The first is one which provoked to anger not only Moses, the most devout man who ever lived, but even one who had tasted piety only slightly.
A man of mixed descent, born of an Egyptian father and a Jewish mother, disregarded the ancestral customs of his mother's people and inclined, it is said, toward Egyptian impiety, emulating the godlessness of that people.
For the Egyptians, alone of almost all nations, have fortified earth against heaven, deeming earth worthy of honors equal to the gods while assigning to heaven no special prerogative - as though the outlying province ought to be cared for ahead of the royal palace. For in the cosmos, heaven is the most sacred royal seat, and earth the outlying province - worthy of regard in itself, but falling as short of the ether, when brought into comparison, as darkness falls short of light, night of day, corruption of incorruption, and the mortal of God.
For since their land is not watered by rain as other lands are, but is accustomed every year to be flooded by the risings of the river, the Egyptians, in their account, deify the Nile as a rival image of heaven, and speak of their land in solemn terms.
This man of mixed blood, then, having quarreled with one of the race gifted with vision and knowledge, and being unable to master himself through anger, and at the same time an emulator of Egyptian godlessness, extended his impiety from earth to heaven, cursing with an accursed, polluted, and defiled soul and tongue and every instrument of voice - through an excess of wickedness - him whom it is not lawful for all to bless, but only for the best, those who have received the perfect purifications.
Moses, then, marveling at the man's derangement and the excess of his recklessness - though full of noble spirit and eager to put the man to death with his own hand - feared that he might thereby exact too light a punishment; for no human being could devise a penalty equal in weight to so great an impiety.
And since irreverence toward God is followed also by failure to honor parents, homeland, and benefactors, what excess of depravity is left for one who, not content with irreverence, dares also to revile? And yet reviling is the lesser offense in comparison with cursing; but when loose talk and an unbridled mouth are put in the service of lawless folly, some new outrage against the sacred is always devised. O man, does anyone curse God?
Calling on what other god to confirm his curse? Or is it not plain that he calls on God himself, against God himself? Away with such profane and unholy thoughts! It would be well to wash clean the wretched soul that has been assailed by mere sound, using its ears as servants, with blind perception.
And was the tongue of the man who uttered so great an impiety not paralyzed? Were the ears of those about to hear it not stopped up? Unless indeed this happened by the providence of justice, which thinks it right that neither surpassing good nor greatest evil should be kept in shadow, but brought to the clearest proof, whether of virtue or of vice, so that it may deem the one worthy of acceptance and the other of punishment.
For this reason Moses commanded that the man be led away to prison and bound, while he himself besought God, seeking to propitiate him for the compulsions of the senses through which we see things it is not lawful to see and hear things it is not lawful to hear, to declare what ought to befall the man who had devised so strange and outlandish an act of impiety and sacrilege.
He ordered him to be stoned—a punishment fitting, I think, for a man with a stony and unyielding soul—and at the same time he wanted everyone from the nation to have a share in the punishment, since he knew they had reacted very harshly and were murderous with rage; and it seemed that only stoning could give so many tens of thousands a part in it.
After the punishment of the impious and accursed man, a new decree was written, one that had never before been thought worthy of being put in writing; but unexpected innovations call for new laws to check offenses. And so the following was at once legislated: whoever curses God shall be guilty of sin, but whoever names the name of the Lord shall die (Lev. 24:15–16).
Well said, all-wise one—you alone have partaken of unmixed wisdom! Did you really suppose that naming is worse than cursing? Surely you would not lighten the penalty for the man who committed the gravest impiety, treating him more leniently than those who genuinely sinned, while for the one who seemed to have done a lesser wrong you fixed
the highest penalty, death. But it seems that “God” is here meant not of the first and uncreated God of the universe, but of the gods in the cities; and these are falsely so named, fashioned by the arts of painters and sculptors. For the inhabited world has become full of carved images and statues and fabrications of that kind, and it was necessary to restrain blasphemy against them, so that none of Moses's disciples might grow accustomed to disregarding the address to God altogether; for the title is one most worthy to be won and most worthy of love.
But if anyone—I will not say blasphemes against the God of men and gods, but even dares to utter his name at an improper time—let him submit to death as his punishment.
For not even those who have been begotten, mortal though they are, do people whose care is for their parents' honor speak by name; rather, out of reverence for them, they keep silent about their given names and address them by the titles that belong to nature, calling them father and mother, by which they immediately hint at the surpassing benefits received from them and at their own grateful disposition.
Shall those who thoughtlessly, by the mere sliding of the tongue, treat as filler for their speech the most holy and divine name, still be thought deserving of forgiveness?
After the honor paid to the begetter of all things, the prophet also hallowed the sacred seventh day, having seen with keener eyes its extraordinary beauty, stamped upon heaven and the whole cosmos and borne along, like a statue, by nature herself.
For he found it, first, motherless, having no part in the female line of descent, sown by the father alone without seed and begotten without conception; and then he perceived not only this, that it was altogether beautiful and motherless, but also that it was ever a virgin—neither born of a mother nor herself a mother, neither born of corruption nor destined for corruption; and thirdly, examining it further, he recognized it also as the birthday of the cosmos, which heaven celebrates, and earth celebrates, and all things on earth that rejoice and delight in the all-harmonious seventh.
For this reason the truly great Moses judged it right that those enrolled in his sacred constitution, following the ordinances of nature, should keep festival, passing their time in cheerful good spirits: refraining in practice from the arts and occupations pursued for profit and from business dealings connected with the search for a livelihood, and observing a holiday, released from every toilsome and wearisome care, at leisure not, as some are, for laughter or games or the displays of mimes or dancers—over which theater-mad people waste away and suffer a lingering death, and by means of the poisons of the most authoritative senses, sight and hearing, enslave the soul that is by nature a queen—but at leisure for philosophy alone,
not the kind that word-hunters and sophists contrive, selling doctrines and arguments in the marketplace as if they were some other kind of merchandise—people who use philosophy against philosophy (O healer and sun!) throughout their lives without blushing—but the philosophy that is truly philosophy, which is woven together out of three things: intentions, words, and deeds, harmonized into a single form for the acquisition and enjoyment of happiness.
Now someone, disregarding this decree, though he still had ringing in his ears the oracles concerning the sacred seventh day—which God had proclaimed without a prophet, through a voice (the most paradoxical thing) that was visible, and which aroused the eyes of those present more than their ears—went out to gather sticks through the middle of the camp, knowing that everyone was resting quietly in their tents, and, caught in the very act of wrongdoing, was exposed so that it could not escape notice.
For some people, having gone out beyond the gates into the wilderness in order to pray in the purest and quietest place, saw the lawless sight of him gathering a supply of wood, and, indignant, were on the point of killing him themselves; but, restraining by reasoning the stirring of their anger, so that they might not appear to be private individuals punishing someone ahead of the rulers—and that too without trial, however evident the transgression otherwise was—nor might they, even in the most just case, bring upon that holy day the pollution of murder, they seized him instead and brought him before the ruler, before whom the priests were sitting in council, while the whole multitude stood by to listen.
For it was the custom, always as opportunity allowed but chiefly on the seventh days, as I have shown before, to practice philosophy, with the leader expounding and teaching what ought to be done and said, while the others advanced toward nobility and were improved in both character and manner of life.
From that time on, even now, the Jews philosophize on the seventh days, devoting that time to the knowledge and contemplation of the things of nature; for what else are the houses of prayer in the various cities but schools of prudence, courage, temperance, justice, piety, holiness, and every virtue, by which both human and
divine matters are understood and set right? At that time, then, the man who had committed so great an impiety was led away to prison. But Moses, at a loss as to what should be done with the man—for he knew that his deeds deserved death, but what manner of punishment would be fitting?—approached the invisible tribunal with his invisible soul and inquired of the judge who knew everything even before hearing it, what had been decided.
And he declared his knowledge, that the man must die, and in no other way than by stoning, since in this case, as in the former one, the mind had been turned into a deaf stone by working the most complete transgression, in which nearly all the other things legislated concerning the reverence due the seventh day are included. Why is this?
Because not only the vulgar crafts but also the other arts and occupations, and especially those concerned with earning a livelihood, either involve fire or are not carried on without things that involve fire; hence he often forbids the kindling of fire on the seventh days, as being the most primary cause and the oldest of works, since when it rests it was thought likely that the particular activities dependent on it would rest along with it.
The material of fire is wood, so that the man who gathered wood was committing an offense akin and related to the man who kindles fire, doubling the transgression: in one respect, because though ordered to remain still he was gathering material together, and in another, because what he was gathering together was precisely the material of fire, the origin of the arts.
Both of the cases mentioned, then, involve punishments of the impious confirmed by inquiry and answer. There are two others, not of the same kind but of a different sort, of which one concerns the succession to an inheritance, and the other concerns matters where a sacred rite appeared to be performed out of its proper time—about which I must speak first.
Moses records the beginning of the vernal equinox as the first month in the cycles of the year, giving precedence not, as some do, according to mere chronological order, but according to the graces of nature, which she caused to rise for humankind; for at this time the sown crops, our necessary food, come to full growth, while the fruit of the trees, only now coming into their prime, is produced in a second rank, and is accordingly later-born; for in nature the things that are not so strictly necessary always come second to the things that are utterly necessary.
Wheat and barley, then, and the other kinds of food without which it is impossible to live, are utterly necessary; but oil and wine and tree-fruits are not among the necessities, since even without them people live on to the most advanced old age, extending their lives through many years.
In this month, then, around the fourteenth day, when the lunar cycle is about to become full, the Crossing-Feast is celebrated, a festival open to all the people, called in Chaldean Pascha, in which it is not that private individuals bring the victims to the altar while the priests do the sacrificing, but by the ordinance of the law the whole nation acts as priests, each person individually bringing forward and performing with his own hands the sacrifices on his own behalf.
Now all the rest of the people were rejoicing and cheerful, each one considering himself honored with a priesthood; but certain others went about in tears and groaning, since relatives of theirs had recently died, and, mourning them, they were held fast by a double grief, having added to the grief for their dead kin the grief of being deprived of the pleasure and honor connected with the sacred rite—and it was not even possible for them to purify themselves and be sprinkled on that day, since the period of mourning had not yet run its course and expired.
These men, after the festival, came to the ruler full of dejection and gloom, and related what had happened—the recent death of their relatives, the mourning they had been compelled to observe, and their consequent inability to take part in the sacrifice of the Crossing-Feast.
These men came to the leader after the festival, full of gloom and dejection, and told him what had happened: the recent death of their relatives, the mourning this required of them, and their consequent inability to take part in the sacrifice of the Passover.
Then they asked that they not receive less than everyone else, and that their misfortune in losing family members not be reckoned as a wrongdoing that earns punishment rather than pity. They thought they would suffer worse than the dead themselves, if those who died no longer had any share in things they had not wished for, while the living, though they still had feeling, would seem to have died along with them.
On hearing this, Moses saw that their plea was not unreasonable, that their excuse for not having performed the sacred rite was likewise a compelling one, and that a natural sympathy was mixed in with all this. Yet his judgment wavered, tipping first one way and then the other as on a scale — on one side pity and justice weighed down, on the other the law of the Passover sacrifice pressed back, which had specified both the first month and the fourteenth day for the rite. Carried between denial and assent, he begged God to become the judge and to reveal the decision by an oracle.
And God, hearing him, pronounced an oracle not only about the matter he had been asked, but also about cases that would arise later, should the same circumstances recur; and he went further still, extending his generosity even to those unable, for other reasons, to perform the sacrifice with the whole nation, and gave a further oracle about them.
What, then, were the oracles given about these people must be told. "Mourning for kin," he said, "is a necessary grief for blood relations, and it is not written down among offenses.
So then, as long as it remains within the appointed time, let the mourner be kept outside the sacred precincts, which must be kept pure from every pollution, not only the involuntary kind but also that which is not deliberate. But once the appointed time has passed, let them not be deprived of equal participation in the sacred rites, so that the living are not treated as mere appendages of the dead. Let them go as being second, in the second month, again on the fourteenth day, and let them sacrifice according to the same rules as the first group, and use the victim as they did, by the same law and in like manner.
The same provision is granted also to those kept, not by mourning, but by a long journey abroad, from joining in the sacrifice with the whole nation together; for those living abroad or dwelling elsewhere do no wrong such that they should be deprived of equal honor — especially since the nation, because of its great numbers, could not be contained within a single land, but has sent out colonies in every direction."
Having said this much about those who, through unwanted circumstances, were late in offering the Passover sacrifice with the multitude but were eager, even though late, to make up of necessity what had been lacking, I now turn to the last enactment, concerning the succession of inheritances, which likewise arose in mixed fashion, from a question and an answer.
There was a man named Zelophehad, a man of standing and of no undistinguished tribe. To him were born five daughters, but no son. After their father's death, suspecting they would be deprived of their father's portion because inheritances were given to males, they approached the leader with the modesty befitting young women — not in pursuit of wealth, but eager to preserve their father's name and standing — and said:
"Our father has died, and he died having taken part in none of the rebellions in which thousands perished, but pursued a peaceable, private life — unless indeed it should be counted a fault that he lacked male offspring. We stand here seemingly orphans, but in truth we shall have you as a father; for the lawful ruler is closer kin to his subjects than the one who begot them."
Moses, admiring the good sense of the young women and their devotion to the one who had begotten them, was nonetheless held back, drawn by another consideration: that inheritances were owed to men who were to receive them as a reward for the campaigns and wars they had endured, whereas nature, by exempting women from such struggles, plainly withholds from them also a share in the prizes set for them.
So it was reasonable that, his mind being pulled both ways and torn between opposing claims, he referred the perplexity to God, whom alone he knew to distinguish even the smallest differences by criteria that never lie and never err, in order to display truth and justice.
But the maker of all things, the father of the universe, who holds together and governs earth and heaven, water and air, and all that is composed of each of these, the ruler of gods and men, did not disdain to give an oracle to orphaned girls. And in giving it, he granted something even greater than a judge would: being gracious and merciful, he who has filled all things through all things with his beneficent power delivered a eulogy of the young women.
"O Master, how could anyone hymn you — with what mouth, what tongue, what instrument of voice, what governing faculty of the soul? Could the stars, joined into a single choir, sing any song worthy of you? Could the whole heaven, dissolved into a single voice, be able to recount any part of your virtues? 'Rightly,' he says, 'have the daughters of Zelophehad spoken.'"
How great a eulogy this is, coming from the testimony of God, who does not know? Come forward now, you boasters, you who breathe great things over your own good fortune, who raise your necks beyond what nature allows and arch your eyebrows — you among whom the widowhood of women is mocked as laughable, a pitiable evil, and the desolation of orphaned children is jeered at as more pitiable still.
And seeing that those who seem so lowly and unfortunate are not classed by God among the despised and obscure — he whose most dishonored possession is the kingdoms scattered everywhere across the inhabited world, since the whole circuit of the earth is but the furthest edge of his works — receive this necessary admonition.
Yet, though he praised the petition of the young women, he neither left them without reward nor brought them to equal honor with the men who had fought; rather, to the men he assigned the inheritances as prizes proper to their own valorous deeds, while to the women he granted them as a matter of grace and kindness, not as a reward — which he makes perfectly clear through the words "gift" and "you shall give" (Num. 27:7), and not "repayment" or "you shall repay"; for the latter belong properly to those who receive what is owed, the former to those who bestow a favor.
Having given his oracle concerning what the orphaned young women had petitioned, he also lays down a more general law about the succession of inheritances: first, sons are called to share the father's goods; if there are no sons, then daughters come second, and to them, he says, the inheritance must be attached as an outward adornment, not as an inherited possession belonging to them by nature; for what is merely attached has no intrinsic kinship with what it adorns, being foreign to its harmony and unity.
After daughters, he calls brothers third, and assigns fourth rank to paternal uncles, hinting thereby that fathers too could become heirs of their sons; for it would be quite foolish to suppose that, in assigning an inheritance to a father's brother on account of his kinship with the father, he thereby excluded the father himself from succession.
But since it is the law of nature for parents to be inherited by their children, and not for parents to inherit from them, he passed over in silence that which is unwished for and ill-omened, so that father and mother should not seem to be profiting from the inconsolable grief over children who died before their time; instead, he called upon them obliquely, by naming the uncles, so as to aim at both what is fitting and at preventing the estate from passing to strangers. After the uncles comes the fifth rank, the nearest relatives, to whom he always gives the inheritance if none of those before them remain.
Having necessarily gone through these oracles concerning inheritances of a mixed character, I will next set forth the oracles pronounced through the prophet's inspiration alone; for this is what I promised to show. The beginning, then, of his divinely possessed rapture is also the beginning of the nation's good fortune, when it set out from Egypt for the cities of Syria in a migration of many tens of thousands.
For men and women together, having crossed a vast, untrodden wilderness, arrived at the sea called the Red Sea. Then, as was likely, they found themselves at a loss, unable to cross for want of boats, and not considering it safe to turn back the same way.
While they were in this state, a still greater evil fell upon them: the king of the Egyptians, having taken a considerable force, both cavalry and infantry, set out in pursuit, hastening to overtake them, so as to punish them for the departure he had permitted them to make under clear divine warnings. But, as it seems, the disposition of wicked men is unstable, swaying to opposite extremes on the slightest pretext, as on a small scale.
Caught between enemies and the sea, they despaired of their own safety: some thought the most pitiable destruction a thing to be wished for; others resolved it would be better to throw themselves into the sea, and, loading themselves with something heavy, waited at the shore so that, when they saw the enemy drawing near, they might leap down and be more easily carried into the depths.
But while they were terrified at the helplessness of their plight, dying a thousand deaths, the prophet, seeing in his amazement the whole nation caught as in a fisherman's net, was no longer himself; he became possessed by God and uttered these oracles:
"Fear is inevitable; the danger near and great. Before us lies a gaping sea, no refuge to flee to, no boats to be had; behind us press the ranks of the enemy, advancing without pause in pursuit. Which way can one turn, which way escape? Everything, from every side, has suddenly assailed us — earth, sea, men, the elements of nature."
"But take courage, do not despair. Stand firm in your minds and do not waver — expect the invincible help that comes from God. It will arrive of its own accord, and unseen it will fight for you before you even engage; you have already experienced it many times, defending you invisibly. I see it now, already raising dust, throwing nooses around the necks of your adversaries; it is dragging them down into the sea. Like lead they are sinking to the depths. You perceive them still living, but I already have a vision of them as dead men. And today you too will see them as corpses."
So he uttered these words, greater than any hope could conceive, and the people found by experience the truth of that oracle. For what came to pass through divine power turned out to be more incredible than any fable: the splitting of the sea, the withdrawal of each of its two divided masses, the congealing of the waves along the whole depth of the breach on either side, so as to form walls of the greatest strength, and the straight-cut incision of the road wrought so mightily, which ran between the frozen walls —
the nation's journey, walking through the sea on foot without danger, as on a dry path and a rocky floor (for the sand had been dried hard and its scattered substance fused into one) — the enemy's headlong pursuit without pause, as they rushed to their own destruction — the guidance of the cloud bringing up the rear, in which there was a certain divine sight, a flash of fire gleaming out — the returning surge of the waters that had until then stood apart, held back — the sudden re-flooding of the section that had been split open and dried — the enemy's destruction,
whom the frozen walls, now overturned, lulled to their end, and the floodwaters of the sea, sweeping down upon the road as into a ravine, engulfed; the display of their destruction through the bodies that floated to the surface and covered the face of the sea; and the violent surging of the waves, by which all the corpses were cast up in heaps onto the shores opposite, providing a spectacle that those who had been saved needed to see — for it fell to them not only to escape the dangers but also to look upon their enemies punished, beyond all telling, by powers not human but divine.
For this reason he rightly honors his benefactor with hymns of thanksgiving. Dividing the nation into two choirs, one of men and one of women, he himself leads the men, and he appoints his sister to lead the women as well, so that they might sing hymns to their Father and Maker, sounding together in responsive harmonies, through a blending of both character and melody — the two choirs pursuing the same refrain in turn, the harmony being built on the concord of low pitch with high; for the voices of the men are deep, and those of the women are high, and when their blending is proportioned rightly, the result is a melody most sweet and wholly harmonious.
And he persuaded so many tens of thousands to think as one and to join together in singing the same hymn about those astonishing, mighty works which I recounted a little earlier. At this the prophet rejoiced, and seeing the nation's own great joy, no longer able to contain his own delight, he led off the song, and those who heard it, gathered into two choirs, sang back what he had sung.
This is the beginning and prelude of the prophecy of Moses that came by inspired possession. Next he prophesies about the first and most necessary thing, food — which the earth did not bear, for it was barren and unfruitful, but heaven rained down, not once, but every day for forty years before dawn, an ethereal fruit in the dew, resembling millet.
Seeing this, Moses commands them to gather it, and, moved by inspiration, declares: "Those who have experienced God's beneficence in matters beyond all hope must trust him. Let there be no storing, no hoarding of this food; let no one leave over any part of it until morning."
Hearing this, some of those with no ballast of piety, supposing perhaps that what was said was not an oracle but merely a ruler's advice, left some of it over until the next day. But what putrefied filled the circuit of the camp first with a foul stench, then turned into worms, whose generation comes from decay.
Seeing this, Moses was naturally embittered against the disobedient. For how could he not be? After witnessing such great and manifold things — things impossible to accomplish by any plausible or reasonable expectation, yet brought to completion with ease by divine forethought — how could the most obtuse of all men not merely hesitate but actually disbelieve?
But the Father established the prophet's oracle by two most evident proofs, of which he immediately displayed the first through the decay and foul smell of what was left over and its transformation into worms, the most contemptible of creatures; the second he displayed later — for whatever surplus remained from what had been gathered, in whatever abundance, was always dissolved by the sun's
rays and, melting, wasted away entirely. Second, not long after, moved by inspiration, he pronounced an oracle concerning the sacred seventh day. For humankind had been ignorant that this day possessed a privilege in nature — not merely from the time the world was fashioned, but even before the coming-to-be of heaven and every object of sense-perception — perhaps because of the continuous and successive destructions that occurred by water and by fire, which prevented earlier generations from handing down to later ones the memory of the sequence and order that unfolds through the ages. What was thus hidden he revealed, moved by inspiration, in an oracle attested by a clear sign.
The sign was this: the food that came down from the air was less abundant on the earlier days, but on that day it was double; and whatever remained over from the earlier days would melt away, dissolving until it was entirely wasted away into moisture, but on that day, admitting of no such change, it stayed the same. Struck by these things, both announced and seen, Moses did not merely conjecture but, carried by God, pronounced the sanctity of the seventh day.
I need not say that such inferences too are akin to prophecy; for the mind could not have hit its mark so unerringly had there not also been a divine spirit guiding it toward the truth itself.
The marvel was made plain not only by the doubling of the food, nor merely by its remaining uncorrupted contrary to established practice, but also by the fact that both these things occurred on the sixth day, from which the food began to be supplied from the air, after which the seventh day, most sacred of numbers, was about to rise. So that one who reasons rightly would find that the heavenly food given corresponds to the order of the world's own creation; for he began to fashion the world too on the first day of the six,
and to rain down the food I have mentioned. The image is most exact: just as he brought forth out of not-being into being the most perfect work, the world, so in the same manner he transformed the elements to meet the pressing need, providing abundance in the wilderness, so that instead of the earth, the air might bring nourishment without labor and without toil, for those who had no way to withdraw and prepare provisions at their leisure.
After this he utters, third, a most portentous oracle, declaring that on the seventh day the air will not furnish its accustomed food, and that nothing, not even the smallest amount, will be brought down to earth as usual.
This was confirmed by what actually happened. For on the day before he had proclaimed this, yet some of unsteady character set out to gather food, and, disappointed in their hope, returned empty-handed, reproaching themselves for their lack of faith and calling the prophet a true seer, one who speaks the word of God and alone foresees what is hidden.
Such, then, are the things he prophesied, possessed by God, concerning the heavenly food. Next come other necessary things, which might seem to resemble exhortations more than oracles. Among them is what was declared during the greatest defection from ancestral ways, of which I spoke earlier — when they fashioned a golden bull, an imitation of Egyptian arrogance, and set up choruses and built altars and offered sacrifices, forgetting the true God and casting down the nobility of their ancestors, which had been built up through piety and holiness.
At this Moses was overwhelmed with grief — first, that the whole people had suddenly become blind, they who until just before had been the keenest-sighted of all nations; and second, that a fabricated, false invention had had the power to extinguish so great a light of truth, a light which neither the eclipsing of the sun nor the whole chorus of stars could ever overshadow — for it is illumined by its own light, intelligible and incorporeal, in comparison with which the light perceived by the senses might be reckoned as night compared to day —
and for this reason, no longer remaining the same man, he was transformed in both appearance and thought, and, moved by inspiration, he declared: "Who is he who has not been swept along by the error, nor ascribed authority to what has none? Let every such person come to me."
When one tribe came forward, no less in mind than in body — men who had long burned with hatred against the godless and unholy, and who sought to find a leader and commander who would justly show them the occasion and manner of vengeance — finding them eager and full of daring and resolve, he, carried by God even more than before, said: "Let each of you take up his sword and rush through the whole camp, and let him kill, not only strangers, but also his nearest and dearest among friends and kin, one after another, judging this deed most righteous, done on behalf of truth and the honor of God, for whom to fight and to strive is the lightest of labors."
And they, killing on the spot three thousand men, who had been the chief instigators of the impiety, not only cleared themselves of any complicity in that outrage, but were also enrolled among the noblest of the brave, and were deemed worthy of the prize most fitting to their deeds — the priesthood. For it was right that those who had shown valor and fought in the front rank on behalf of holiness should become its ministers.
I have another oracle to disclose, more significant still, which I also related earlier, when I was recounting the matters of the prophet's high priesthood — one which he himself, again possessed, uttered, and which was fulfilled not long afterward, but immediately, at the very moment it was prophesied.
Among those who minister about the temple there are two ranks: the higher, that of priests, the lesser, that of temple-attendants. At that time there were three priests, but many thousands of temple-attendants.
These men, puffed up by the superior number of their own following, held the priests' small numbers in contempt, and wove together two crimes at once: the pulling down of their betters and the raising up of their inferiors -- the sort of thing that happens when subjects set themselves against their leaders, to the ruin of that order which is best and most useful to the people.
Then they gathered together and formed a faction, and shouted against the prophet, claiming that out of favoritism toward his brother and his nephews he had granted them the priesthood, and had lied about their being chosen "by divine appointment," as we have already related -- events that never happened.
Distressed and deeply pained by this, though he was the gentlest and mildest of men, he was so sharpened toward righteous anger by a passion that hates wickedness that he begged God to turn away from their sacrifice -- not because the most just Judge was ever going to accept the sacred rites of impious men, but because the soul of one beloved of God does not, for its own part, stay silent, but presses eagerly that unholy men should not prosper, but should always fail of their purpose.
Still boiling and inflamed with righteous indignation, he fell into inspiration, was changed into a prophet, and pronounced this oracle: "A hard thing is unbelief, but only for the unbelieving; these men are schooled not by argument but by deeds; once they have suffered, they will know that my word is not false, since though they were taught, they did not understand.
This will be decided by the end of their lives. For if they meet the death that is according to nature, then my oracles are fabrications; but if some strange and altered death, then my love of truth will stand as my witness. I see chasms of earth opening and widening to their utmost extent, populous clans perishing, whole households with all their people being swept down and swallowed up, living men descending into Hades."
When he had fallen silent, the earth was shaken by an earthquake and split open, and it split open precisely where the tents of the impious stood, so that they were carried down all together and hidden from sight; for the parted portions of earth came together again once the purpose for which they had been divided was accomplished.
A little later, thunderbolts fell suddenly upon the leaders of the faction, two hundred and fifty men, and consumed them all together, leaving behind no part of their bodies to receive burial.
The succession of these punishments, one upon another, and the magnitude of each, made clear and famous the piety of the prophet, who had made God his witness to the truth of his oracles.
It is worth not passing over this too: that earth and heaven, the first principles of the universe, divided between themselves by lot the punishments against the impious. For these men had rooted their wickedness in the earth, but had stretched it up into the upper air, raising it to so great a height.
Hence each of the elements supplied its own punishment: the earth, splitting apart and gaping open, so as to drag down and swallow those who at that time were weighing upon her; and heaven, so as to burn up and destroy them, pouring down a most strange rain -- a downpour of abundant fire.
And the end was the same both for those who were swallowed up and for those destroyed by the thunderbolts: neither group was ever seen again. The former were hidden within the earth, when the chasm's parted sides came together and were made level once more; the latter were consumed entirely, through and through, by the fire of the thunderbolt.
Some time later, when he was about to make his migration from here to heaven, and, leaving behind his mortal life, to be made immortal at the summons of the Father, who transformed him, a duality of body and soul, wholly and entirely into the nature of a single unity, remolding him into a mind like the sun in its brightness -- then, possessed by God, he no longer appeared to prophesy collectively to the whole nation gathered together, but to each tribe separately, concerning what would happen to it and what its outcome would be. Some of these things have already come to pass, and others are still awaited, since the fulfillment of what has already happened is the guarantee of what is still to come.
For it was fitting, since the tribes differed even in their manner of birth, especially in their maternal lines, and in the manifold forms of their counsels, and in the untold differences of their pursuits in life, that they should also obtain, as if by a kind of lot,
an apportionment of oracles and prophecies suited to each. These things, then, are marvelous; but most marvelous of all is the end of the sacred writings, which, like the head in a living creature, stands at the summit of the whole legislation.
For already being taken up, and standing at the very starting-line from which he was to take his winged course to heaven, inspired and possessed by God, while still alive he prophesies concerning himself as though already dead, with unerring accuracy: how he died without yet having died; how he was buried with no one present -- clearly by hands not mortal but immortal; how he was not laid to rest in the tomb of his forefathers, but obtained a tomb all his own, which no human being has ever seen; how the whole nation mourned him, weeping for an entire month, displaying a grief both private and public because of the ineffable goodwill and care he had shown to each one and to all together.
Such was his life, and such also was the end of Moses, king and lawgiver and high priest and prophet, as it is recorded in the sacred writings.

======== The Decalogue ========

Having in my earlier treatises set out the lives of the wise men according to Moses, whom the sacred books present as founders of our nation and as living unwritten laws, I shall now, in due sequence, give a precise account of the forms of the laws that were recorded in writing—not passing over any way of allegory that may present itself, for the sake of that love of learning proper to the understanding, whose custom is to seek what is hidden before what is manifest.
To those who are puzzled as to why on earth he set out the laws not in cities but in the depths of the wilderness, it must be said, first, that most cities are full of countless evils, both impious acts against the divine and wrongs committed against one another.
For there is nothing that has not been counterfeited: genuine things are outstripped by spurious ones, and truths by plausibilities, which are false by nature but suggest persuasive appearances in order to deceive.
In cities, then, there grows up that most treacherous thing of all, vanity, which some people gape at and bow down to, dignifying empty opinions with golden crowns and purple robes and crowds of attendants and carriages, on which those called blessed and fortunate are borne aloft, yoking sometimes mules or horses and sometimes even men, who carry the litters on their necks, weighing down the soul
beneath the body through an excess of arrogance. Vanity is also the maker of many other evils—boastfulness, contempt, inequality; and these are the origins of foreign and civil wars, leaving no part, common or private, on land or on sea, at rest. But why need one recall the wrongs people commit against one another?
For through vanity even things divine have been utterly despised, though they are supposed to receive the highest honor; and what honor could there be without the presence of truth, which alone has both a name and a work that are honorable, since falsehood, conversely, is by nature dishonorable?
This disregard of things divine is plain to those who see with sharper sight; for having shaped countless forms through painting and sculpture, they surrounded these with shrines and temples, and having built altars, they assigned to statues and carved images and other such objects honors equal to Olympus and equal to God—honors given to things wholly without soul.
These the sacred writings, with unerring aim, liken to the children of a prostitute: not knowing the one who truly and really is God, they have deified countless multitudes of falsely-named gods.
Then, since different peoples honor different gods, the resulting disagreement over what is best has also produced differences over everything else.
Looking first to these things, he chose to legislate outside the cities. And he considered, second, that the soul of one who was to receive the sacred laws must necessarily be washed and purified of the stains, hard to wash out, which the mingled and promiscuous crowd of humanity rubs off onto people in the cities.
And this could not possibly come about for one who had not been removed to a separate dwelling, and not at once but only a long time afterward, until the imprints of the ancient transgressions, stamped upon the soul, should gradually be dimmed and fade away until they vanished.
This is the very way in which good physicians preserve their patients: they do not think it right to administer food and drink before first removing the causes of the diseases; for as long as these remain, nourishment is not only useless but even harmful, becoming fuel for the disease.
It was fitting, then, that he should lead the people away from the most harmful habits of the cities into the wilderness, so as to empty their souls of wrongdoing, and only then begin to offer nourishment to their minds; and what could this nourishment be, but laws and divine words?
There is a third reason, as follows. Just as those setting out on a long voyage do not begin to fit out sails and rudders and steering-oars once they have boarded ship and put out from harbor, but while still on land make ready each of the things that bear on the voyage, in the same way he thought it right that the people should not, once they had received allotments of land and settled in cities, then begin to seek laws by which to conduct their civic life, but rather that, having first prepared the rules of their constitution and having been trained in the practices by which the people were to be safely governed, they should then take up residence, ready at once to make use of these provisions for justice in concord and community and in the distribution to each of what falls to him.
And some say there is a fourth reason, not out of tune with the truth but very close to it. Since it was necessary that conviction should arise in people's minds that the laws were not inventions of a man but the most clear-cut oracles of God, he led the nation very far from the cities, into a deep and barren wilderness, barren not only of cultivated fruits but even of drinkable water, so that,
if, having come into want of necessities and expecting to perish of thirst and hunger, they should suddenly find an abundance of provisions arising as if of themselves—heaven raining down food, the so-called manna, and, as a relish for their food, a flight of quails borne from the air, and bitter water sweetened into drinkable water, and a hewn rock pouring forth springs—they might no longer wonder that the laws too should turn out to be oracles of God, having received the clearest proof from the provisions they obtained, unhoped for, out of their want.
For he who gave them abundance for mere living was also granting them the means for living well: for living, they needed food and drink, which they found without having prepared them; for living well, they needed laws and ordinances, by which their souls were to be made better.
These, then, are the reasons given, among plausible conjectures, concerning the matter in question; for the true reasons God alone knows. Having said what was fitting on these points, I shall next give a precise account of the laws themselves, first announcing this necessary fact: that of the laws, some God saw fit to proclaim through himself alone, without using anyone else, while others he gave through the prophet Moses, whom he chose out of all as, by merit, the fittest hierophant.
Those, then, that were proclaimed in his own person, through himself alone, turn out to be both laws and, at the same time, the summary headings of the particular laws, while
all those given through the prophet are referred back to those headings. I shall speak, as best I am able, of each in turn, and first of the more summary ones, whose number is straightaway worthy of wonder, being bounded by the perfect number ten, which contains all the varieties of numbers—even, odd, and even-odd (two even, three odd, five even-odd)—and all the ratios of multiples and superparticulars and sub-superparticulars found among numbers, and all the proportions,
the arithmetic proportion, in which the middle term exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount, as in the case of one and two and three; and the geometric, according to which the ratio of the first term to the second is the same as that of the second to the third, as holds in the case of one and two and four, and in double and triple ratios and multiples generally, and again in ratios of one-and-a-half and one-and-a-third and the like; and further the harmonic proportion, according to which the middle term exceeds and is exceeded by an equal fraction of the extremes, as holds in the case of three and four and six.
The number ten also contains the properties revealed in triangular and square numbers and the other polygonal numbers, and those of the musical concords: the fourth, in the ratio of one-and-a-third, that of four to three; the fifth, in the ratio of one-and-a-half, that of three to two; the octave, in the double ratio, that of two to one; and the double octave, in the quadruple ratio, that of eight to two.
For this reason it seems to me that those who first assigned names to things—for they were wise—fittingly called it "ten" (deka), as though it were "receiver" (dechas), from its receiving and having made room for all the classes of numbers and of ratios expressed in number
and of proportions, and again of harmonies and concords. One might well wonder, too, that the number ten, besides what has been said, and on account of it, contains both the dimensionless nature and the extended: the dimensionless is ordered according to the point alone, while the extended falls under three forms—line, surface, and solid.
For that which is bounded by two points is a line; that which is extended in two dimensions, a line having flowed out into breadth, is a surface; and that which is extended in three, length and breadth having taken on depth as well, is a solid—on which nature comes to rest, for she has produced no more than three dimensions.
The archetypal numbers of these are: one for the point without extension, two for the line, three for the surface, and four for the solid; and the sum of one, two, three, and four produces the decad, which displays to those capable of seeing it both these and other beauties.
For virtually the infinity of numbers is measured by this, since the terms that constitute it are four — one, two, three, and four — and equal terms produce the hundred out of tens (for ten, twenty, thirty, and forty make a hundred), and likewise a thousand out of hundreds and ten thousand out of thousands; the unit, the ten, the hundred, and the thousand are the four terms that generate the decad.
This decad, apart from what has already been said, also reveals other differences among numbers: the first order, which is measured by the unit alone, exemplified by three, five, and seven; the square, exemplified by four, which is equal times equal; and indeed the cube, exemplified by eight, which is equal times equal times equal; and the perfect number, exemplified by six, which is equal to its own parts — three, two, and one.
What need is there to list the virtues of the decad, which are infinite in number, making a mere byproduct of the greatest work, which in itself has proven to be a most sufficient subject for those occupied with mathematics? The rest, then, must be passed over, but it is perhaps not out of place to mention one example.
For those versed in the doctrines of philosophy say that the categories spoken of in nature are ten alone: substance, quality, quantity, relation, action, passion, possession, position, and — the things apart from which nothing at all exists — time and place.
For nothing is without a share in these. For instance, I myself share in substance, having borrowed from each of the elements from which this world was completed — earth, water, air, and fire, which most sufficiently make up my constitution. I also share in quality, by virtue of which I am a human being, and in quantity, by which I am of a certain size. I become an object of relation whenever someone stands at my right or my left. I also act, when I rub or cut something, and I am acted upon, when I am cut or rubbed by others. I am examined in respect of possession too, whether clothed or armed, and in respect of position, whether more or less seated or reclining. And I am altogether in place and in time as well, since none of the things already mentioned can exist apart from both.
Let this much be said adequately; but it is necessary to weave in what follows. The ten words, or oracles, laws or ordinances that are truly such, the Father of all pronounced when the nation, men and women together, had been assembled into an assembly. Did he then utter them himself, in the manner of a voice? Far from it — may such a thought never enter our mind. For God is not like a human being, in need of mouth and tongue and windpipe.
Rather, it seems to me that at that time he wrought a most sacred wonder, commanding an invisible sound to be fashioned in the air, more marvelous than any instrument, tuned to perfect harmonies — not soulless, yet not composed of body and soul in the manner of a living creature, but a rational soul filled with clarity and distinctness, which shaped and stretched the air and turned it into flame-like fire, and like a breath through a trumpet sounded out so great and articulate a voice that those nearest seemed to hear it just as well as those farthest away.
For the voices of human beings, as they stretch out over the greatest distance, naturally grow weak, so that their reception does not become clear to those standing far off, since it grows dim by degrees as it extends, because the organs too are perishable.
But the newly wrought voice, God's power breathing upon it, roused and kindled it, and pouring it out everywhere made the end of it appear as bright and clear as the beginning, implanting in the souls of each a hearing far better than that through the ears. For the sense of hearing, being somewhat slower, remains at rest until it is struck and set in motion by the air, whereas the perception of the divinely inspired understanding runs ahead with the sharpest speed to meet the words being spoken.
So much, then, for the divine Voice. But one might reasonably ask why, when so many tens of thousands had been gathered together into a single place, he saw fit to proclaim each of the ten oracles not as though to many but as to one, saying, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not steal' (Exodus 20:13ff.), and the rest in the same way.
One must say, then, first, that he wishes to teach those who encounter the sacred scriptures a most excellent lesson: that each individual by himself, when he is law-abiding and obedient to God, is of equal worth to an entire nation, however populous — or rather, to all nations, and if one must go further still, to the whole world.
This is why elsewhere, praising a certain righteous man, he says, 'I am your God' (Genesis 17); yet this same one was also God of the world, so that its subjects, being assigned the same rank and equally pleasing to their Commander, might receive an equal share of acceptance and honor.
Second, that one who addresses a crowd in common does not necessarily converse with any one person, whereas when giving a command or a prohibition, addressing each one privately as an individual, he would seem at once to be prescribing what must be done, both individually and collectively to all assembled together; and the one who receives exhortations in his own person is more readily persuaded, whereas the one who is addressed collectively along with others has, as it were, gone deaf, making the crowd a screen for his own unruliness.
Third, so that no king or tyrant might ever look down upon some obscure private person, puffed up with arrogance and disdain, but rather, having attended the schools of the sacred laws, might relax his brow, unlearning conceit through reasonable, or rather true, reckoning.
For if the Unbegotten, the Imperishable, the Eternal, who is in need of nothing, the Maker of all things and their Benefactor, the King of kings and God of gods, did not disdain even the lowliest, but saw fit to feast even him with oracles and sacred ordinances, as though he were about to entertain him alone and the banquet were being prepared for him alone, for the outpouring of a soul undergoing sacred initiation, to whom it is granted to be initiated into the great mysteries — what is it fitting for me, a mortal, to hold my neck high and be puffed up, snorting at my equals, who, though allotted unequal fortunes, share an equal and like kinship, inscribing as their one mother the nature common to all human beings?
I will therefore show myself accessible and easy to approach, even should I gain mastery over land and sea, to those most destitute and disreputable and bereft of any close alliance — orphans of both parents, women enduring widowhood, and old men who either have had no children at all or have lost the short-lived ones they begot.
For being human, I will not think it right to admit pomp and theatrically inflated solemnity, but will remain within the bounds of nature, not overstepping her limits, but accustoming my own mind to feel as a human being feels — not only because of the unforeseeable reversals into their opposites, both for those faring well and those in misfortune, but also because it is fitting, even should good fortune remain unchanging and secure, that one not forget oneself. For these reasons, it seems to me, he wished to proclaim the oracles in the singular, as though addressing a single person.
And, as was fitting, all the surroundings of the place were filled with wonders: the crashes of thunder greater than ears could contain, the most brilliant flashes of lightning, the sound of an invisible trumpet stretching out to the greatest distance, the descent of a cloud which, like a pillar, had its base fixed upon the earth while the rest of its body stretched up to an ethereal height, as the movement of heavenly fire overshadowed the surrounding area with thick smoke. For it was necessary that, as the power of God arrived, no part of the world should remain at rest, but that all things should be set in motion together in service.
And the people stood by, having purified themselves from relations with women and having abstained from all pleasures except those necessary for nourishment, having cleansed themselves with washings and sprinklings for three days, having also washed their garments, clothed in white in the highest degree, standing on tiptoe and with ears raised upright, since Moses had announced in advance that they should prepare themselves for the assembly; for he knew it was to take place, at the time when, called up alone, he was receiving the oracle.
And a voice sounded out from the midst of the fire that had streamed down from heaven, most awe-inspiring, the flame being articulated into a dialect familiar to the hearers, by which the things spoken were made so vividly distinct that they seemed to be seen rather than heard.
The Law vouches for my account, in which it is written: 'All the people saw the voice' (Exodus 20:18) — most emphatically; for it is the case that the voice of human beings is something heard, but the voice of God is truly something seen. Why? Because whatever God says is not words but deeds, which the eyes judge in preference to the ears.
It has, moreover, been said most beautifully and in a manner befitting God, that the voice proceeded out of the fire; for the oracles of God have been refined and tested like gold in fire. And it also signifies something further through this symbol:
since it is the nature of fire both to give light and to burn, those who see fit to be obedient to the oracles will live all their days as in unshadowed light, having the laws themselves as stars shining in their souls, whereas those who are rebellious continue to be burned and consumed by the desires within them, which, like a flame, will ravage the whole life of those who possess them.
These, then, are the things that had to be set forth in advance. We must now turn to the oracles themselves and examine all the distinctions among them. Being ten, then, he divided them into two sets of five, which he inscribed on two tablets; and the former set of five obtained the primacy, while the other was accorded second place — yet both are beautiful and beneficial to life, opening up broad and public roads that lead to a single goal, for the soul's unstumbling journey as it ever reaches for what is best.
These, then, are the things it was necessary to explain in advance. Now we must turn to the oracles themselves and investigate every point of difference in them. Being ten, he divided them into two sets of five, which he engraved on two tablets. The first five received the primacy, and the second was deemed worthy of second place. Both are excellent and beneficial to life, holding open broad and public roads that end in a single goal, meant for the unstumbling journey of a soul that always reaches for the best.
The better five were of this kind: concerning sole sovereignty, by which the world is ruled by one; concerning carved images and statues and, in general, hand-made representations; concerning not taking the name of God in vain; concerning keeping the sacred seventh day in a manner befitting its holiness; concerning honor for parents, both for each separately and for both together — so that the beginning of the one table is God, the Father and Maker of the universe, and its end is parents, who by imitating his nature beget particular beings. The other five contains all the prohibitions: against adultery, murder, theft, false witness, and desire.
Each of the oracles must be examined with complete precision, treating none of them as incidental. The best beginning of all things is God, and of the virtues, piety; concerning these it is most necessary to go through first. No small error has gripped the greater part of the human race concerning a matter which, alone or above all, it was likely should stand most free from error, firmly fixed in the understanding of each person.
For some have deified the four elements — earth, water, air, and fire — others the sun and moon and the rest of the planets and fixed stars, others only the heaven, others the entire universe. But the highest and eldest, the begetter, the ruler of the great city, the commander of the invincible army, the pilot who always steers the universe to safety — this one they concealed, applying to those other things false names, different names by different people.
For some call the earth Kore, Demeter, Pluto; the sea Poseidon, fashioning for him sea-deities as subordinates and great throngs of attendants both male and female; the air Hera; fire Hephaestus; the sun Apollo; the moon Artemis; the morning star Aphrodite; and the shining one Hermes.
And the mythographers have handed down names for each of the other stars, having woven together cleverly-crafted fictions for the deceiving of the ear, and they think themselves to have shown elegance in the assigning of names.
Dividing the heaven in their account into two hemispheres, the one above the earth and the other below it, they called them the Dioscuri, adding the monstrous tale of their alternating-day existence.
For since the heaven revolves continuously and unceasingly in a circle, each of the hemispheres must necessarily change places day by day, becoming above and below only in appearance; for in a sphere there is in truth no above or below, but relative to our own position it is customary to call only the region over our head "above," and the opposite "below."
To one who has resolved to philosophize without adulteration and who lays claim to guileless and pure piety, this most excellent and most holy precept is given: to suppose that no part of the cosmos is God in its own right and self-ruling. For it too has come into being, and coming-into-being is the beginning of destruction, even if by the providence of its maker it is made deathless; and there was once a time when it was not. But to say that God once did not exist and came into being from
some point in time, and does not endure forever, is not permitted. Yet some have reached such a pitch of madness in their judgments that they not only regard the things named as gods, but each one of them as the greatest and first god — the one who truly exists — either not knowing him, by a nature untaught, or not taking the trouble to learn him, because they suppose that nothing invisible and intelligible beyond the objects of sense could be a cause, even though the clearest proof of it lies close at hand.
For though living by the soul, and taking counsel, and doing everything that belongs to human life, they have never been able to see the soul with the eyes of the body, even though they would have striven with every ambition, if it were somehow possible, to see that most sacred of all images, from which, by a transition, it would have been natural to gain a conception of the unbegotten and eternal one, who, holding the reins of the whole cosmos, invisible as he is, guides it safely.
Just as, if someone gave to subordinate satraps the honors due to the Great King, he would seem not merely most senseless but most reckless of all, granting to slaves what belongs to their master — in the same way, if anyone gives the same honors to the things that have come into being as to the one who made them, let him know that he is of all men the most senseless and unjust, giving equal things to unequal, not to honor the lowlier but to bring down the greater.
There are some who go still further in impiety, not even rendering equal honor, but granting to created things everything belonging to honor, while assigning to him nothing — not even memory, the most common thing of all. For they forget the very one whom alone it was fitting to remember, these wretched men cultivating a deliberate forgetfulness.
And some, gripped by a raving frenzy of the tongue, bring the proofs of their deep-rooted impiety into the open and attempt to blaspheme the divine, having sharpened a slanderous tongue, wishing at the same time to grieve the pious, upon whom an unspeakable and inconsolable grief immediately descends, setting the whole soul aflame through the ears. For this is the siege-engine of the unholy, by which alone they silence the God-loving, who think it best, in order not to provoke them further for the present, to keep silence.
Rejecting, then, all such foolery, let us not bow down to our brothers by nature, even if they have received a purer and more immortal substance — for all created things are brothers to one another, insofar as they have come into being, since the maker of all is one father of the universe — but rather let us strive with mind and reason and all our strength toward the service of the unbegotten, eternal cause of all things, vigorously and firmly, not yielding or submitting to the favor-currying of the multitude, by which even those capable of being saved are corrupted.
Let us, then, engrave upon ourselves as the first commandment, and the most sacred of commandments, to believe in and honor the one supreme God; and let the doctrine of many gods not so much as touch the ears of a man accustomed to seek truth purely and without guile.
But as for those who are ministers and servants of the sun and moon and the whole heaven and cosmos and the most essential parts within them, regarding these as gods, they err — how could they not? — in glorifying subjects above their ruler; yet they do less wrong than those who have fashioned wood and stone, silver and gold, and similar materials into shapes as each pleased, then regarded as gods the statues and carved images and other hand-made things, whose makers, sculpture and painting, have done great harm to human life, filling the inhabited world with them.
For these have cut away the finest support of the soul, the proper conception of the ever-living God; and like unballasted ships they are tossed here and there throughout their whole life, never able to put in at harbor or anchor firmly in truth, blind to the one thing worth seeing, toward which alone it was necessary to have sharp sight.
And they seem to me to live more wretchedly than those deprived of bodily sight; for the latter were harmed unwillingly, either suffering a grievous disease of the eyes or being schemed against by enemies, whereas the former, by their own deliberate choice, not only dimmed the eye of the soul but saw fit to cast it away entirely.
Hence pity justly follows the one group, as unfortunate, and punishment the other, as wicked — men who, among their other failures, did not grasp even the most obvious thing, which "even a child could know": that the craftsman is better than the thing crafted, both in time — for he is older, and in a sense the father of what is made — and in power; for the one who acts is more glorious than the one acted upon.
And though, if indeed they were bound to err at all, they ought to have deified the painters and sculptors themselves with excessive honors, they instead left these men in obscurity, giving them nothing further, while regarding the figures and paintings crafted by them as gods.
And the craftsmen themselves often grew old in poverty and obscurity, dying amid one misfortune after another, while the things they crafted are made solemn and worshipped with purple and gold and the other extravagances that wealth provides, not only among free men but among men of noble birth and finest bodily form — for even the lineage of priests is examined with complete precision, whether it is beyond reproach, and likewise the wholeness of every part of the body, whether it is entirely complete.
And this is not yet the worst of it, terrible as it is; but this is utterly grievous: I know of some who have prayed to and sacrificed to the things made by their own hands, when it would have been far better for them to bow down to either of their own hands — or, if they wished to avoid the appearance of self-love, at least to the hammers and anvils and chisels and pincers and the other tools by which the materials were shaped.
Yet it is worth speaking frankly to men who have reached such a pitch of madness: the best of prayers, noble sirs, and the goal of happiness, is likeness to God.
Pray, then, that you too may become like your images, so that you may reap the highest happiness — with eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, nostrils that neither breathe nor smell, a mouth that does not speak or taste, hands that neither take nor give nor do anything, feet that do not walk, nor any other part that functions — but, guarded and kept as though in a prison, that is, in the shrine, day and night drawing in the smoke that ever rises from the sacrifices; for this alone is the good thing you attribute further to your images.
But I for my part think that on hearing this they would be indignant, not as at a prayer but as at a curse, and would turn to retaliating with abuse, countering with accusations — which would be the greatest proof of the impiety now prevailing among men who regard as gods things
Let no one who possesses a soul, then, bow down to anything soulless; for it is altogether absurd that the works of nature should be turned to the service of things fashioned by hand. Against the Egyptians a special charge applies, distinct from the one common to every land: for beside their carved images and statues they have led irrational animals up to the honors of gods—bulls and rams and goats—fabricating for each some fantastic myth.
These, perhaps, have some rationale, for they are the gentlest and most useful animals to life. The ox cuts the furrows at seed-time and, when the grain must be threshed, is again the most capable. The ram provides the finest of coverings, clothing; for bodies left bare would easily perish, whether from heat or from immoderate cold, at one time from the sun's scorching, at another from the chill of the air.
But now they go still further and honor, with sacred precincts, temples, sacrifices, festivals, processions, and the like, the wildest and most untamable of the savage beasts—lions and crocodiles and the poison-fanged asp among reptiles. For having searched through each of the two elements given to men for use by God, earth and water, they found among land creatures none more savage than the lion, nor among water creatures any wilder than the crocodile—and these they revere and honor.
Many other animals besides they have deified: dogs, cats, wolves; among birds, ibises and hawks; and again, of fish, either whole bodies or parts of them.
What could be more ridiculous than this? Indeed, foreigners who first arrive in Egypt, before the native delusion has settled into their minds, die laughing at it in mockery; but those who have tasted true education, struck with amazement at the solemn pomp attached to such shameful matters, pity those who practice it, supposing them—as is likely—more wretched than the very creatures they honor, their souls having migrated, as it were, into those animals, so that they seem to wander about as beasts in human shape.
Having, then, removed from the sacred legislation every such deification, he called men to the honor of the God who truly is—he who has no need of honor for himself, for he who is most self-sufficient stood in need of nothing else—but wishing to lead the human race, wandering as it was on trackless paths, onto the one road free from error, so that by following nature it might find the best end, namely the knowledge of that which truly is, which is the first and most perfect good, from which, as from a spring, the particular goods that belong to the cosmos and to the beings within it are watered.
Having discussed as fully as possible the second exhortation, let us examine with precision the one that follows in order. It is this: not to take the name of God in vain (Exodus 20:7). The reasoning behind this order is plain to those whose minds see keenly: a name is always secondary to the thing that underlies it, like a shadow that clings to a body.
Having first spoken, then, of the existence and honor of the One who exists eternally, following the natural sequence of thought he next gave fitting instruction concerning invocation of the name; for the sins men commit in this matter are many and varied in kind.
The finest thing, most beneficial to life, and most fitting to a rational nature, is to swear no oaths at all—trained to speak the truth in every matter so consistently that one's very words are trusted as if they were oaths. A second-best course, as they say, is to swear truly.
For the man who swears is already suspected of unreliability. Let him be reluctant, then, and slow, if by any postponement he can put off the oath; but if some necessity compels him, he must examine with care, not carelessly, each of the matters involved.
For the matter is no small one, even if custom has made it seem trivial. An oath is God's testimony concerning matters in dispute; and to call God as witness to a falsehood is the most impious thing of all. Come, then, if you will, look with reason into the mind of one about to swear falsely: you will see it not at rest but full of tumult and confusion, self-accusing, enduring every kind of outrage and blasphemy against itself.
For the conscience innate in and dwelling together with every soul, which never accepts what is blameworthy, being by nature always a hater of evil and a lover of virtue, is at once accuser and judge in one; stirred to action, as accuser it charges, accuses, and puts to shame, and again as judge it instructs, admonishes, and urges a change of course. If it succeeds in persuading, it is reconciled with joy; but if it fails, it wages relentless war, never withdrawing by day or by night, but goading and wounding incurably, until it has broken the wretched and accursed life.
What are you saying, I would say to the perjurer—will you dare to go up to one of your acquaintances and say: friend, come and bear witness for me to things you neither saw nor heard, as though you had seen, as though you had heard, as though you had followed the whole matter? I think not.
For that would be the act of incurable madness. Since with what eyes, sober and in your right mind, will you look your friend in the face and say: for the sake of our friendship, join me in wrongdoing, join me in transgression, join me in impiety? For it is clear that, were he to hear such words, he would bid a hearty farewell to the friendship supposedly between you, reproach himself for ever having shared friendship with such a man in the first place, and flee as from a savage, rabid beast.
Then, to a thing you would not dare bring even before a friend, do you not blush to call God as witness—the Father and Ruler of the cosmos? Is it because you know that he sees and hears all things, or because you are ignorant of this?
If you are ignorant, then you are godless in some sense—and godlessness is the source of every wrongdoing. And beyond your godlessness, you also outmaneuver the oath itself, swearing by one you take to have no care, as though he were attentive to human affairs. But if you know clearly that he exercises providence, then you have left no room beyond your impiety, saying—if not with mouth and tongue, then at least in your inmost awareness before God—bear me false witness, join in my wickedness, join in my villainy; my only hope of gaining repute among men is that you conceal the truth; become wicked for another's sake, the better man for the worse, and all this for the sake of a corrupt human being—you who are God, best of all.
There are some, moreover, who, with no gain whatever in view, swear from sheer habit of wickedness, carelessly and without examination, over the most trivial matters, though nothing at all is in dispute, padding out their speech with oaths, as though it were not better to endure a curtailment of words—indeed, complete silence—rather than this. For from an excess of swearing grows perjury, and from perjury, impiety.
Therefore the man who is about to swear must examine everything carefully and with great precision: whether the matter is of real weight, whether it has actually occurred, and whether, once done, it has been firmly established; and he must examine himself, whether he is pure in soul, body, and tongue—the soul free from transgression, the body from defilement, the tongue from blasphemy. For it is not holy that the mouth through which one utters the most sacred name should also give voice to anything shameful.
Let him search out, too, a fitting place and time; for I know—indeed I know—of some who, in profane and unclean places, where it would not be worthy even to mention a father or a mother, or indeed any elder of good life among strangers, take oaths and string together whole speeches full of them, misusing the many-named title of God where it ought never to be brought, to the point of impiety.
Let the man who holds these matters in low regard know that, first of all, he is defiled and unclean, and further, that the greatest punishments always lie in wait for him, since the justice that oversees human affairs remains unyielding and inexorable toward wrongs of such magnitude. And whenever it does not see fit to punish at once, it seems only to be lending out the penalties on credit, penalties which, when the time comes, it exacts together with what serves the common good.
The fourth commandment concerns the sacred seventh day, that it be observed with reverence and holiness. Some cities celebrate this once a month, reckoning from the new moon according to God's ordinance, but the nation of the Jews observes it continually, every six days without interruption.
There is an account recorded in the writings on the creation of the cosmos which contains the necessary reason for this: for it says that the cosmos was created in six days, and that on the seventh God, having ceased from his works, began to contemplate what had been so beautifully made.
He commanded, then, that those who were to live under this constitution should, in this matter too, follow God as in all others—turning to labor for six days, but resting on the seventh, given over to philosophy and devoting themselves to the contemplation of the things of nature, and examining also whether anything had been done impurely in the previous days, giving an account to themselves and a reckoning of what they had said or done, in the council-chamber of the soul, with the laws sitting in session and joining in the inquiry, both for the correction of what had been overlooked and as a safeguard against ever erring again.
But God made use of the six days only once, to bring the cosmos to completion, having no need of any length of time; whereas every human being, sharing as he does in a mortal nature and standing in need of countless things for the necessities of life, ought never to grow weary of providing what is needful, all the way to the end of life, resting only on the sacred seventh days.
Is this not a most excellent exhortation, most capable of urging one on to every virtue, and above all to piety? Be always, he says, like God. Let the single six-day period in which he fashioned the cosmos be for you a model sufficient for the appointed limit of your works; and let the seventh day, on which he is said to look over what he had made, be a model of the need to practice philosophy, so that you too may study closely the things of nature, and all that is your own that contributes to happiness.
Let us not pass by such an archetype of the best lives, the practical and the contemplative, but always looking to it, let us engrave clear images and impressions on our own minds, likening our mortal nature, so far as is possible, to the immortal, in speaking and doing what we ought. As for how the world is said to have come into being in six days by God, who needed no time at all to make it, this has been explained through what was allegorized
elsewhere. But the special privilege that the number seven has been granted among existing things is shown by those who have devoted themselves to the mathematical sciences, who have traced it out most carefully and attentively. For this is the virgin among numbers, the motherless nature, the number most akin to the monad and to the origin, the form of the planets—since the fixed sphere too is a monad. For from the monad and the hebdomad comes the incorporeal heaven, the model of the visible one.
The heaven is composed of the undivided nature and the divided. The undivided nature possesses the first, the highest, and the fixed revolution, over which the monad presides; the divided nature possesses the second, both in power and in order, over which the hebdomad has charge—the hebdomad which, divided sixfold, produced the seven so-called planets.
Not that any of the heavenly bodies that share in a divine, blessed, and happy nature has actually gone astray—for fixity is most proper to all of them, since they run through the ages preserving an unvarying sameness, admitting no turning or change—but they are called “wanderers” because they revolve in the opposite direction to the undivided and outermost sphere; and the name was applied to them, not properly, by rather careless people, who ascribed their own wandering to the heavenly bodies, which never abandon the order of the divine army.
For these reasons, then, and for others besides, the number seven has been honored; but it has received no privilege so great as this, that through it the Maker and Father of all things is most clearly revealed. For it is as through a mirror that the mind forms an image of God acting, fashioning the world, and governing all things.
After the commandments about the seventh day, he lays down the fifth commandment, concerning the honor due to parents, giving it the position at the border between the two sets of five. For being the last of the first set, in which the most sacred matters are commanded, it also joins the second set, which contains the duties of justice toward other people.
The reason, I think, is this: the nature of parents seems to stand at the border between mortal and immortal being—mortal, because of their kinship with human beings and the other animals in the perishability of the body; immortal, because in begetting they are made like God, the begetter of all things.
Now some, having allotted themselves to the one portion, have seemed to neglect the other; for having drunk deep of an unmixed longing for piety, and having bid farewell to all other pursuits, they have devoted their entire life to the service of God.
Others, supposing that there is no good outside the requirements of justice toward other people, have embraced only fellowship with others, sharing the use of good things equally with all out of a longing for community, and thinking it right to lighten hardships as far as they are able.
One might justly call the latter lovers of humanity and the former lovers of God, but both are only half-complete in virtue; for those who are esteemed in both respects are whole. But whoever qualifies for neither group—not counted among those who deal justly with other people, rejoicing over the common good and grieving over its opposite, nor among those who hold to piety and holiness—would seem to have been transformed into the nature of wild beasts. And of the savagery of these, the prize for cruelty goes to those who show no regard for their parents, being enemies of both portions, both the portion
toward God and the portion toward human beings. Let them not fail to realize that they stand convicted in the two courts that alone exist in nature: of impiety, in the divine court, because they do not honor those who brought them from non-being into being and in this imitated God; and of hatred of humanity, in the human court.
For whom else will those do good who neglect their nearest kin, the very people who have given them the greatest gifts—gifts so far beyond measure that some do not even admit of repayment? For how could the one who was begotten beget in return those who sowed him, since nature has granted parents, in relation to their children, a special allotment that cannot come round again in exchange? Hence it is altogether fitting to be indignant if such people, though unable to give everything in return, are not even willing to offer the lightest of gifts.
To such people I would rightly say: even wild beasts must be tamed toward human beings; and I have often known lions, bears, and leopards that have been tamed—not only toward those who feed them, out of gratitude for necessities, but also toward others, because, I think, of their resemblance to their keepers. For it is always good for the lesser to follow the better, in hope of improvement.
But now I shall be forced to say the opposite: become imitators, you human beings, of certain beasts. For those creatures know, and have been trained, to return benefit for benefit. Watchdogs guard their masters and die before them, whenever some sudden danger overtakes them; and they say that the dogs that fight in defense of the flocks stand their ground, even to victory or death, in order to keep their shepherds unharmed.
Is it not then the most shameful of shameful things, for a human being—the tamest of animals—to be outdone by a dog, the boldest of beasts, in the repayment of favors? But if we will not be taught by land animals, let us turn to the winged, air-traveling creatures, to learn from them what we must.
Among storks, the aged ones remain in their nests, unable to fly, while their offspring, flying over what I might almost call the whole earth and sea, bring in food for their parents from every quarter.
And the elders, resting as befits their age, spend their whole time in unstinting abundance, while the young, easing the hardships of foraging by their piety and by the expectation that they will suffer the same in old age at the hands of their own offspring, repay a necessary debt—receiving it and repaying it each at the right season, when neither party is able to feed itself: the young at the beginning of life, the parents at the end of it. So it is that, having been fed as chicks by self-taught nature, they gladly feed their parents in old age.
Is it not fitting, then, that human beings who neglect their parents should hide their faces in shame at this and reproach themselves, for having disregarded the one thing—or at least the foremost thing—they were bound to care for, and that not even by giving but merely by giving back? For children have nothing of their own that does not belong to their parents, either given from the parents' own household or made possible by them as the cause of its acquisition.
As for piety and holiness, the leading virtues—do such people really keep them within the boundaries of their souls? No, they have driven them beyond the borders and exiled them; for parents are God's servants for the begetting of children, and whoever dishonors the servant dishonors, along with him, the master as well.
Some of the bolder thinkers, exalting the name of parents, say that a father and a mother are visible gods, imitating the Unbegotten in the shaping of living creatures—except that he is God of the universe, while they are gods only of the children they have begotten. But it is impossible for the invisible God to be honored by those who are impious toward the visible ones who are close at hand.
Having philosophized so extensively on the honor due to parents, he brings the other, more divine set of five to its close. Then, setting down the second set, which contains the prohibitions concerning our duties to other people, he begins with adultery, judging this to be the greatest of wrongs.
For, in the first place, it has as its source the love of pleasure, which both enervates the bodies of those possessed by it and slackens the sinews of the soul, and destroys estates—burning up, like an unquenchable fire, everything it touches, and leaving nothing in human life unscathed.
Next, it persuades the adulterer not only to do wrong himself but to teach another to join in the wrongdoing, establishing a partnership in matters that admit no partnership. For once the frenzy has taken hold, it is impossible for desire to reach its end through one person alone; two must always act together, one taking the role of instructor and the other of pupil, to confirm incontinence and lust, the most shameful of evils.
Nor is it even possible to say that only the body of the adulterous woman is corrupted; rather, if the truth must be told, it is her soul, even before her body, that is accustomed to estrangement, being taught in every way to turn away from and hate her husband.
And it would be a lesser evil if this hatred showed itself openly—for what is plain to see is easier to guard against—but as it is, it is hard to suspect and hard to detect, being screened by cunning devices, and sometimes even creating, through certain enchantments and deceptions, the opposite impression of love.
Indeed, they show three households utterly overturned: that of the man wronged by the breaking of the marriage covenant, who is cut off from his hopes at the wedding and his hopes for legitimate children; and two others besides, that of the adulterer and that of the woman. For each of these is filled with outrage, dishonor, and the gravest reproaches.
And if the families involved happen to be numerous, through intermarriages and other mutual connections, the wrong will spread in a circle and touch the whole city.
Utterly grievous too is the doubt cast over children: when a woman does not keep herself pure, it becomes uncertain and unclear whose child, in truth, the one she bears actually is. Then, since the matter goes undetected, children of adultery usurp the place of the legitimate and falsify a lineage not their own, inheriting, under the guise of a father's estate, a portion to which they have no right at all.
And the adulterer, having indulged his outrage and vented his passion, having sown a seed liable to prosecution, once he has had his fill of desire, goes off and abandons it, treating the ignorance of the wronged husband as a joke; while the husband, blind to what has gone on in secret, will be forced to cherish, as his own dearest offspring, children born of his bitterest enemy.
But if the wrong should come to light, the most wretched of all would be the unfortunate children, who have done no wrong, yet can be reckoned to belong to neither family — neither that of the husband nor that of the adulterer.
Since unlawful union produces such calamities, adultery — a thing rightly loathed and hated by God — was fittingly recorded as the first of the offenses.
The second commandment is not to murder. For nature, having brought forth the most gentle of animals, man, as a creature suited to flock and community, called him to concord and fellowship, giving him reason as a means to bind together harmony and blending of characters. Whoever kills another, then, should not be ignorant that he is overturning the laws and ordinances of nature, laws written well and for the benefit of all.
Let him know, too, that he is guilty of sacrilege, for he has plundered the most sacred of God's possessions. For what dedicated object is more solemn or holy than a human being? Gold and silver and precious stones and all the other most valuable materials are but ornament for buildings — lifeless things suited to lifeless things.
But a human being — the best of living creatures with respect to the better part within him, the soul — is most closely akin to heaven, the purest part of reality, and, as most hold, to the Father of the universe, since he has received the mind as the most fitting image and likeness of the eternal and blessed Form of all things on earth.
The third command of the second set of five is not to steal. For whoever gapes after what belongs to others is a common enemy of the city, in intention taking what belongs to everyone though in practice only what belongs to some, because while his greed extends as far as possible, his weakness lags behind and is confined to little, reaching only a few.
As many thieves, then, as have gained power plunder entire cities, disregarding the penalties, because they are thought to stand above the laws. These are the men oligarchic by nature, who lust after tyrannies and dominations, who commit great thefts, concealing under solemn names of rule and leadership what is, in truth, banditry.
From earliest childhood, then, let a person be taught to take nothing belonging to others in secret, however small, because habit, given time, becomes stronger than nature, and small things, if not checked, grow and increase toward greater size.
Having forbidden theft, he next prohibits false witness, knowing that false witnesses are liable for many great and altogether grievous offenses. First, they corrupt solemn truth, than which there is no more sacred possession in life, since it clothes affairs with light like the sun's, so that nothing in them lies in shadow.
Second, besides lying, they wrap matters in what amounts to night and deep darkness, and they collaborate with wrongdoers while attacking the wronged, affirming with absolute certainty things they neither saw nor heard nor can know for sure.
They also commit a third transgression, more troublesome than the previous ones: when there is a shortage of proof through speech or documents, those with disputes take refuge in witnesses, whose words become the standards by which judges must render their verdicts; for judges are compelled to rely on these alone, there being nothing else available for scrutiny. The result is that those falsely accused, though truly wronged, are unable to prevail, while the judges who attend to them write down unjust and unlawful verdicts instead of lawful and just ones.
Yet this piece of villainy reaches even to impiety; for it is not customary to give judgment without oaths, but with the most fearsome oaths, which the deceivers transgress before those they are deceiving, since the fault of the latter is unintentional, while the former plot with knowledge, erring deliberately and persuading those in authority over the verdict to share in their wrongdoing, unaware of what they are doing, to the punishment of people who deserve no penalty at all. For these reasons, then, it seems to me, he forbade false witness.
Last, he forbids desiring, knowing that desire is revolutionary and scheming. For all the passions of the soul are troublesome, moving and shaking it contrary to nature and not allowing it to be healthy, but desire is the most troublesome of all; for while each of the others seems to come from outside and befall the soul involuntarily, desire alone takes its origin from within ourselves and is voluntary.
What do I mean by this? The appearance of a present and supposed good stirs and rouses the soul from its rest and lifts it up, exceedingly aloft, just as light flashing up rouses the eyes; and this passion of the soul is called pleasure.
The opposite of the good is evil, and when it forces its way in and delivers a decisive blow, it immediately fills the soul, against its will, with dejection and gloom.
The name for this passion is grief. But when the evil, not yet settled in, presses upon the soul while still only about to arrive and being made ready, it sends ahead panic and anguish as ill-omened messengers to strike terror; and this passion is called fear.
But whenever someone, having conceived a notion of a good not present, longs to attain it, driving the soul onward to the greatest possible extent, stretching it out as far as it will go, straining to touch the object of desire, he is stretched as if upon a wheel, eager to grasp it yet unable to reach it, suffering the same fate as those who chase someone withdrawing before them — with less speed, but with an eagerness that cannot be matched.
Something similar seems to happen also with the senses. The eyes, often straining to grasp some visible object situated very far away, stretching themselves and being carried well beyond their capacity, slip as it were into a void, failing to gain accurate knowledge of the object, and moreover their sight grows weak and dim from the violent strain of the fixed effort.
And again, when an indistinct noise comes from a great distance, the ears, roused and pricked up, strain and hasten to draw as near as possible, longing for the sound to become clear to the hearing; but it —
— for it still falls upon them faint, it seems — yields nothing clearer for perception, so that the yearning to grasp it, endless and impossible to satisfy, is only further intensified, desire bringing with it a punishment worthy of Tantalus. For just as Tantalus, whenever he was about to touch whatever he reached for, failed to obtain it, so too the person mastered by desire, forever thirsting for what is absent, is never filled, but writhes about an emptiness of longing.
And just as creeping diseases, unless checked beforehand by incisions or cauterizations, spread in a circle and overtake the whole community of the body, leaving no part unaffected, so too, unless reason — acting according to philosophy, like a good physician — checks the flow of desire, all the affairs of life will necessarily be moved contrary to nature; for there is nothing set apart that escapes this passion, but once it gains license and free rein, it ranges over and ravages everything through everything.
Perhaps it is foolish to speak at length about things so obvious, which what man or city does not recognize, not merely every day but almost every hour, presenting clear proof? Is desire for money, or for a woman, or for reputation, or for anything else that produces pleasure, really the cause of small and ordinary evils?
Is it not because of this that kinship ties are estranged, their natural goodwill transformed into implacable hostility, and great and populous countries are laid waste by civil strife, while land and sea are filled with ever-renewed disasters through naval battles and land campaigns?
For all the wars, tragic in their telling, that Greeks and barbarians have waged both among themselves and against each other, have flowed from a single source: desire -- whether of money, reputation, or pleasure. It is over these things that the human race wastes away.
Enough on this subject. But one must not fail to recognize this too: that the ten pronouncements are the summary headings of the particular laws recorded throughout the whole legislation in the sacred books.
The first concerns sole sovereignty: these words make clear that there is one cause of the cosmos, one ruler and king, who alone guides and steers the universe to its safety -- having driven oligarchy and mob-rule, conspiratorial forms of government that spring up among the worst of men out of disorder and greed, out of heaven, the purest part of being.
The second is the summary heading of all that was legislated concerning things made by hand: images, carved idols, and images set up generally -- for painting and sculpture are harmful craftsmen -- forbidding their manufacture and forbidding also the acceptance of any fictions of myth, the marriages and births of gods, and the countless and most grievous calamities that attend both.
The third restrains all unsworn matters, and lays down on what one must swear, and when, and where, and in what state of soul and body, and all that pertains to lawful oaths and, on the other hand, to their abuse.
The fourth, concerning the Sabbath, must be regarded as nothing other than the summary heading of the festivals and of the prayers and complete sacrifices that answer to them, by which worship was carried out.
By ‘seventh’ I mean both the one joined to the most fertile six, and the one without the six, which stands before it, resembling the unit; and to each of these he assigns in turn the festivals: to the unit, the sacred new-moon festival, which they signal with trumpets, and the fast, in which abstinence from food and drink is prescribed, and the festival that the Hebrews in their ancestral tongue call Passover, at which each of them sacrifices on behalf of the whole people, not waiting for their priests, since the law granted the entire nation, for one special day each year, the privilege of priesthood for the performance of sacrifices with their own hands;
and further, the day on which the sheaf is offered in thanksgiving for the fertility and yield of the plain, filled out through the ripening of the ears; and, reckoned from that day by seven weeks, the fiftieth day, on which it is customary to bring loaves called, quite properly, of the first-fruits, since they are the first-fruits of the produce and crops of cultivated food, which God has apportioned to man, the most cultivated of living things.
To the seven he assigned the greatest and most extended festivals, according to the equinoxes of the year, spring and autumn, devoting two of seven days each to the two seasons -- the one in spring, for the completion of the sowing, the autumn one for the ingathering of all the crops, including those the trees bore. Seven days were fittingly apportioned to each of the seven months of the equinoxes, so that each month might receive its own special prize, one sacred, festal day, for cheerfulness and enjoyment of leisure.
There are also included other laws, very finely established, that call men to gentleness, community, freedom from arrogance, and equality. Of these, some concern what is called the sabbatical, according to which it is prescribed to let the land lie fallow every seventh year, neither sowing nor plowing nor pruning trees nor cutting them nor performing any of the other tasks of agriculture;
for after six years of labor, in which the plain and the hill country have been worked for the production of crops and the yearly bearing of tribute, he judged them worthy of release, so that they might breathe and be set free by enjoying, unbidden, their own nature.
Others concern the fiftieth year, in which what has just been described is carried out and -- the most necessary thing -- the restoration of allotments to those who received them at the beginning by lot, a matter full of humanity and justice.
The fifth, concerning the honor due to parents, hints at many necessary laws, those recorded concerning the old and the young, those concerning rulers and subjects, those concerning benefactors and beneficiaries, those concerning slaves and masters.
For parents belong to the superior rank among those named -- the rank of elders, rulers, benefactors, masters -- while children belong to the lesser rank, that of the younger, the subjects, the beneficiaries, the slaves.
Many other things besides have been enjoined: for the young, the acceptance of old age; for the old, care for youth; for subjects, obedience to their rulers; for rulers, benefit to those they govern; for those who have received benefits, the return of gratitude; for those who conferred gifts, not to seek repayment as though for loans; for servants, service devoted to their masters; for masters, gentleness and mildness, through which inequality is made equal.
In these the first set of five comes to its completion, containing a summary pattern, while the particular laws are not few in number. Of the second set, the first heading concerns adulterers, under which very many ordinances are ranged: that against seducers, that against those who commit acts with boys, that against those who live too lasciviously, indulging in unlawful and unrestrained relations and unions.
He has set down these various forms not in order to publicize the manifold and varied character of licentiousness, but in order to shame most plainly those who live indecently, pouring into their ears all at once a mass of reproaches, at which they will blush.
The second heading is the prohibition against murder, under which fall all the necessary and thoroughly beneficial laws concerning acts of violence, outrage, assault, wounds, and maiming.
The third is the prohibition against theft, under which are ranged the ordinances concerning fraudulent debt-cancellations, denial of deposits, partnerships that share nothing in common, shameless plundering, and greed in general -- through which some are persuaded to appropriate what belongs to others, whether openly or in secret.
The fourth is the prohibition against false witness, under which many things are comprised: not to deceive, not to bring false accusations, not to collaborate with wrongdoers, not to make trust a cloak for faithlessness -- for all of which fitting laws have been established.
The fifth is the one that restrains the source of injustices, desire, from which flow the most lawless acts, private and public, small and great, sacred and profane, concerning bodies, souls, and what are called external things; for nothing escapes desire, as was said before, but like a flame in timber it ranges about, consuming and destroying everything.
Many provisions have also been laid down concerning those who fall under its power, both for the correction of those who admit of admonition, and for the punishment of the intractable, who have surrendered their whole life to passion.
So much, then, has been said adequately about the second set of five, for the completion of the ten oracles, which God himself pronounced in a manner befitting his holiness. For it was fitting to his nature to proclaim in his own person the summary headings of the particular laws, but to give the particular laws themselves through the most perfect of the prophets, whom he selected for his excellence and, having filled him with the divine spirit, chose as interpreter of the oracles pronounced.
After this, let us state the reason why he declared the ten words, or laws, in bare commands and prohibitions against those who would transgress them, as lawgivers customarily do, without fixing any penalty. He was God, and moreover a good Lord, the cause of good things alone, and of no evil.
Since, then, he supposed it most fitting to his own nature to command the saving precepts unmixed with, and having no share in, punishment—so that no one, using irrational fear as counselor, might choose the best things unwillingly, but rather by sound reasoning, according to a voluntary judgment—he did not see fit to proclaim them together with chastisement; not that he granted impunity to wrongdoers, but because he knew that justice, seated beside him and overseer of human affairs, would never rest, since by nature she hates wickedness and, as though it were a task belonging to her own kin, would undertake vengeance against those who sin.
For it befits the servants and lieutenants of God—like generals in war against deserters who abandon the ranks of justice—to employ instruments of punishment; but it befits the great King to have inscribed upon himself the common security of the whole universe, as guardian of peace and supplier of all the goods of peace, richly and ungrudgingly, always, to all people everywhere. For in truth God is president of peace, while his subordinates are commanders of wars.

======== The Special Laws I ========

The classes of the particular laws — the so-called Ten Words — have been treated with precision in the previous treatise; now the individual statutes must be examined in the order the scripture follows. I will begin with the one that most people laugh at.
What draws the laughter is the circumcision of the male generative organ, though it is a practice taken seriously by other nations too, and especially by the Egyptians, a people thought to be the most populous, the most ancient, and the most philosophical.
For this reason it would have been more sensible and more dignified to set aside childish mockery and investigate instead the reasons that have kept this custom in force, rather than rushing to condemn the thoughtlessness of great nations — considering, as one reasonably should, that so many tens of thousands undergo this cutting in every generation, mutilating, with great pain, their own bodies and those of their nearest kin. Many considerations recommend preserving and carrying out what the ancients instituted, but the highest are four.
One is relief from a harsh and hard-to-cure disease of the foreskin, which they call anthrax — taking its name, I think, from its smoldering and burning — an ailment that arises more easily in those who retain the foreskin.
Second is cleanliness of the whole body, fitting for a consecrated order; this is why the priests in Egypt go so far as to shave their bodies entirely, since impurity collects there too.
Some things that need purifying are covered over by both hair and foreskin. Third is the resemblance of the excised part to the heart: both organs are prepared for generation — the one, the breath centered in the heart, generates thoughts; the other, the generative organ, generates living creatures. For the men of old thought it right to make the visible and perceptible part, from which perceptible things naturally come to be, resemble the invisible and superior part, through which intelligible things are constituted.
Fourth, and most necessary of all, is its usefulness for abundant offspring; for it is said that the seed travels more successfully when it neither scatters nor pools in the folds of the foreskin. Hence the circumcised among the nations are held to be the most fertile and the most populous.
These reasons, then, have come to our ears, handed down as ancient lore among inspired men who examined the writings of Moses with no casual attention. But beyond what has been said, I hold that circumcision is also a symbol of two of the most necessary things.
One is the excision of pleasures — all the pleasures that bewitch the understanding. Since the union of man and woman carries off the prize among all the enchantments that pleasure works, the lawgivers thought it right to maim the organ that serves such intercourse, hinting thereby that circumcision means the excision of excessive and overflowing pleasure — not of one pleasure only, but through that one, the most compelling of all, of every other pleasure as well.
The other reason is that a person should come to know himself and cast off that grave disease of the soul, self-conceit. For some, priding themselves as if they were skilled molders of living things, have boasted that they are able to fashion man, the most beautiful of all creatures, and, puffed up with arrogance, have deified themselves, veiling over the God who is truly the cause of generation — though they could have corrected this deception from the evidence right in front of them.
For among them there are many men who are sterile and many women who are barren, whose unions remain fruitless and who grow old childless. This wicked opinion of the mind, then, must be excised, along with every other opinion that is not devoted to God.
So much, then, for these matters. We must now turn to the particular laws, and first to those from which it is fitting to begin — the laws laid down concerning monarchy. THE LAWS CONCERNING MONARCHY.
Some have supposed the sun and moon and the other stars to be independent, sovereign gods, and have attributed to them the causes of everything that happens. But to Moses the world seemed to be both a created thing and, as it were, the greatest city, having rulers and subjects — rulers being all the heavenly bodies, both the planets and the fixed stars, and subjects being the natures beneath the moon, in the air and around the earth.
These so-called rulers, however, are not autonomous, but are lieutenants of the one Father of all, and in imitating his oversight they succeed in governing, each in accordance with justice and law, everything that has come into being. But those who do not perceive the charioteer mounted above and directing them, as it were self-acting agents of what happens in the world, fasten the causes upon the yoked animals themselves.
This ignorance the most sacred lawgiver corrects into knowledge, saying: "Lest, having seen the sun and the moon and the stars and the whole array of heaven, you go astray and worship them" (Deut. 4:19). Very aptly and rightly he called the acceptance of these things as gods a going astray.
For those who saw the seasons of the year established by the sun's advances and withdrawals, seasons within which the generation of animals and plants and fruits is brought to completion according to fixed cycles of time, and the moon serving as the sun's attendant and successor, taking up by night the care and oversight of what the sun tends by day, and the other stars, through their sympathetic bond with things on earth, working and producing countless effects for the preservation of the whole — these people went astray in an endless wandering, supposing that these bodies alone were gods.
But had they been eager to walk the unwandering road, they would immediately have recognized that just as sensation has become the subordinate servant of mind, in the same way all perceptible things have been established as servants of the intelligible — and they would have been content to attain second prize.
For it is utterly absurd to think that the mind within us, though smallest and invisible, is the leader of our organs of sensation, while the mind of the universe, the greatest and most perfect of all, is not by nature king of kings — seen by nothing, though it sees all that is seen.
All the gods of heaven, then, whom sensation surveys, must be considered not sovereign in their own right but as having received the rank that belongs to them — brought under authority by their very nature, though on account of their virtue they will not be called to account.
So then, transcending in our reasoning the whole of visible being, let us go on to honor the one who is formless and invisible and apprehensible by thought alone — who is not only god of the gods perceived by intellect and by sense, but also craftsman of them all. And if anyone assigns the worship due to the eternal Maker to some other, younger, created thing, let him be recorded as deranged and guilty of the gravest impiety.
There are some who have handed gold and silver over to sculptors as capable of fashioning gods. These, taking the inert material and using a mortal model — most absurd of all — have shaped what merely appear to be gods; and having built temples and set up altars, they honor them with sacrifices and processions and all the other rites and consecrations, performed with the utmost care and deliberation, while priests and priestesses lend the utmost solemnity to the delusion surrounding them.
To these the Father of all proclaims in advance, saying: "You shall not make gods of silver and gold along with me" (Exod. 20:23) — all but openly teaching that you shall fashion no god at all as handiwork out of any other material either, being barred from the finest materials; for silver and gold hold the first rank among all materials.
Apart from this explicit prohibition, it seems to me he is also hinting at something else, bearing directly on the formation of character, and censuring with no small force those who love money — who procure silver and gold from every quarter, and then guard what they have procured in inner vaults like a divine image, believing it to be the cause of all good things and of happiness entire.
And all those among the poor who are gripped by that harsh disease, love of money, having no wealth of their own worthy of such devotion, gape in awe at their neighbor's wealth and, bowing before it, arrive at the houses of the rich at dawn as if at the greatest temples, to pray and to beg good things from their masters as though from gods.
It is to these that he says elsewhere too: "You shall not follow idols, and you shall not make molten gods" (Lev. 19:4), teaching by way of symbols that it is not fitting to render honors equal to God's to wealth; for the notorious materials of wealth are, by nature, gold and silver, which the many follow, believing them to be the sole or chief causes of what is called blind happiness.
These are what he calls “idols”: they resemble shadows and phantoms, hung on nothing strong or stable. They are carried about like an unsteady wind, taking on every kind of turn and change. Here is clear proof of this: sometimes, before people have taken hold of them, wealth flies to them all at once, and just when they think they have it firmly in their grasp, it leaps away again — and even when it is present, it appears, like the images in mirrors, deceiving and bewitching the senses, seeming to stand there while having no real existence at all.
And what need is there to show that human wealth, or rather the vain conceit that empty opinions paint up, is unstable? Some have said that all other living things and plants too, which come into being and perish, are constantly and unceasingly flowing away, but that the flux is too faint for perception, since the keenness of our sight is always overtaken by the swiftness of the flow before it can register an exact impression.
But it is not only wealth and reputation and things of that kind that are idols and feeble shadows — so too are all the beings the myth-makers fashioned and inflated with false conceit, fortifying their lying opinions against the truth, bringing in new gods as if from a stage machine, so that the eternal God who truly exists might be delivered over to forgetfulness. And to make their falsehood easier to swallow, they set it to melodies, rhythms, and meters, thinking thereby to bewitch with ease those who encountered it.
Beyond this, they also enlisted sculpture and painting as accomplices in the deception, so that, through forms well crafted in colors, shapes, and qualities, they might lead astray those who looked upon them, luring the two ruling senses — sight and hearing — the one with lifeless beauties, the other with poetic euphony, and so seize the soul, rendering it unstable and unmoored.
Knowing this — that this vain conceit had advanced to great power, escorted by the greater part of humankind, not by compulsion but by their own free choice — he was on guard lest even the zealots of true and uncorrupted piety be swept away by it as by a torrent, and so he stamps deep impressions on their minds, engraving there the marks of holiness, so that these might never be blurred, worn smooth, or dimmed by time. And he continually chants the same refrain, saying now that God is one and is the founder and maker of all things, now that he is lord of everything that has come to be, since stability, permanence, and true authority belong, in reality, to him alone.
It has been said: “All who cling to the God who truly is, live” (Deut. 4:4). Is not this the thrice-blessed and thrice-happy life — to hold fast in love to the service of the most venerable cause of all things, and not to think it fitting to serve the underlings and gatekeepers ahead of the king? This life is immortal and long-lasting, inscribed on the very pillars of nature; and these letters must endure as long as the world itself endures.
The Father and ruler of the universe is, then, hard to conceive and hard to grasp, but that is no reason to shrink from the search for him. In inquiries about God the mind of the genuine philosopher runs into two supreme difficulties: first, whether the divine exists at all — on account of those who have practiced atheism, the greatest of vices — and second, what he is in his essence. The first is not too laborious to see; the second is not only difficult but perhaps even impossible. Both must be examined.
Now, the things that are made are always in some way marks of recognition of those who made them. Who, on seeing statues or paintings, has not at once thought of a sculptor or a painter? Who, on seeing clothing, or ships, or houses, has not conceived a notion of a weaver, a shipwright, a builder? And someone who enters a well-governed city, where the arrangements of the constitution are set in excellent order, what else will he suppose than that this city is overseen by good rulers?
So then, whoever arrives at this truly great city, the world, and beholds the mountains and the plains teeming with animals and plants, with rivers native to the land and the rush of winter torrents, the spreading expanse of the seas, the tempering of the air, and the turning of the seasons of the year, and then the sun and moon, the rulers of day and night, and the circuits and dances of the other planets and of the fixed stars and of the whole heaven — must he not, reasonably — indeed of necessity — form a conception of its maker and father and, further, its ruler?
For none of the works of skill comes into being of itself; and this world is the most skillfully and most scientifically made of all things, so that it must have been fashioned by one whose knowledge was altogether good and most perfect. In this way we arrive at a conception of the existence of God.
As for his essence, even though it turns out to be hard to track down and hard to grasp, it must nonetheless be searched out as far as possible. For nothing is better than seeking the true God, even if the finding of him escapes human power, since the very eagerness to wish to learn produces, in itself, unspeakable pleasures and joys.
Witnesses to this are those who have tasted philosophy not merely with the tips of their lips but have feasted more fully on its arguments and doctrines. For the reasoning of such people, lifted up on high from the earth, walks the upper air and travels round together with the sun and moon and the whole heaven, longing to see everything there — yet its impressions grow fainter, since a pure and abundant light is being poured out, so that the eye of the soul grows dizzy at the flashing brilliance.
But even so, worn out by the effort, it does not give up; with unconquered resolve it presses on toward whatever vision is possible, as though competing in a contest for second prize, since it has failed to win the first. Second to true perception come conjecture and inference, and whatever else belongs to the class of the reasonable and the plausible.
Just as, though we neither know nor are able to determine clearly what each of the stars is in its essence, we are nonetheless eager to inquire, taking delight in plausible accounts for the sake of our natural love of learning — in the same way,
even if we have no share in a clear perception of God who truly exists, we ought not to abandon the search for him, since the very inquiry, even without discovery, is in itself deeply to be desired. No one blames his own bodily eyes because, unable to look upon the sun itself, they see the streaming radiance of its rays falling on the earth, the furthest reach of the sun's own
light. It was with an eye to this that the hierophant, Moses, most beloved of God, besought God, saying, “Show yourself to me” (Exod. 33:13), all but seized and crying aloud outright: that this world has become for me a teacher and guide to the fact that you are and exist, teaching me, as a son teaches of a father, and as a work teaches of its craftsman; but as for what you are in your essence, though I long to know it, I find no guide to this lesson in any part of the universe.
Therefore I beg and implore you to accept the supplication of a man who is a suppliant and a lover of God, and who asks to serve you alone. For just as light, unrecognized by another, is its own mark of recognition, so too you alone could reveal yourself. Therefore I ask to find pardon, if, for want of a teacher, I have dared to take refuge in you, in my eagerness to learn about you.”
And he says: “Your eagerness I accept as praiseworthy, but your request fits nothing that belongs to created being. What is my own I grant freely to whoever is to receive it; for it is not the case that everything easy for me to give is also possible for a human being to receive. Hence I extend to the one worthy of grace every gift that he is capable of receiving.
But my own comprehension not even the nature of a human being, nor indeed the whole heaven and the world, will be able to contain. Know yourself, then, and do not be carried away by impulses and desires beyond your power, and do not let a passion for the unattainable seize and lift you off your feet; for of the things attainable you will lack none.”
Hearing this, he came with a second supplication, and says: “I am persuaded by your instruction that I would not have had the strength to receive the clear vision of your own appearance. But I beg to behold, at least, the glory that surrounds you” (Exod. 33:18). “And I think your glory to be the powers that stand guard about you, the comprehension of which, escaping me until now, works in me no small longing to know them.”
And he answers and says: the powers you seek are invisible and wholly intelligible, belonging to me who am invisible and intelligible. And when I call them intelligible, I do not mean those already grasped and swallowed up by mind, but that, were they capable of being grasped at all, it would not be sense-perception but the purest mind that would grasp them.
Though by nature ungraspable in their essence, they nevertheless display a certain impression and image of their own activity — like the seals among you: when wax, or some similar material, is applied to them, they stamp countless impressions without losing any part of themselves, remaining just as they were. In the same way one must suppose that the powers around me endow qualities upon what has no quality and shapes upon what is shapeless, without themselves being altered or diminished in any part of their eternal nature.
And some among those skilled in etymology among you name them not without purpose as “Ideas,” since they give form to each of the things that exist, setting in order what is disordered, bringing limit and boundary to what is unbounded and undefined and shapeless, giving it shape, and in general transforming the worse into the better.
So then, hope never that you will be able to grasp, in its essence, either me or any of my powers; but of the things attainable, as I have said, I readily and eagerly grant a share. These consist in the invitation to behold the world and the things within it, a vision that comes about not through the eyes of the body but through the sleepless eyes of the mind.
Only let the longing for wisdom be constant and unbroken — wisdom which fills those who study under her and come to know her with doctrines celebrated in song and of the utmost beauty.” Hearing this, he did not cease from his desire, but kindled all the more his longing for the things unseen.
And he welcomes all who resemble these men, whether they were such from the beginning or have become better by changing to the superior order—the former because they have not abandoned their nobility of birth, the latter because they have thought fit to migrate toward piety—and these he calls proselytes, from their having come over to a new and God-loving commonwealth, men who disregard mythical fictions and hold fast to unadulterated truth.
At any rate, granting equal honor to all newcomers, and anointing them with the same privileges he urges upon the native-born, the well-born, he bids the latter honor the former not only with marks of esteem but with a special friendship and exceptional goodwill. And rightly so, no doubt: "having left," he says, "fatherland and friends and kinsmen for the sake of virtue and holiness, let them not go without other cities, other households, other friends, but let there be places of refuge standing ready for those who desert to piety. For the honor paid to the one God is the most effective of love-charms and an unbreakable bond of unifying goodwill."
But he does not command—though he grants newcomers equality before the law and equal taxation, on the ground that they have condemned their ancestral and inherited delusion—that they should use unbridled speech and an unchecked tongue in blaspheming those whom others believe to be gods, lest those others, provoked, be stirred to utter what is not lawful against him who truly is. For through ignorance of the difference—since from childhood they have been taught the falsehood as truth and have grown up familiar with it—they would fall into sin.
But as for those of the nation itself, if any relax their honor of the One, since they have abandoned the most essential rank of piety and holiness, they ought to be punished with the utmost penalties, choosing darkness before the most radiant light and rendering blind a mind that was capable of keen sight.
And it is a fine thing to have been entrusted, all who have zeal for virtue, with exacting punishments by their own hand without delay, bringing the offenders neither to a courtroom nor to a council-chamber nor to any authority at all, but employing the passion at hand—hatred of evil and love of God—to inflict inexorable chastisement on the impious, considering themselves, for that moment, everything: councilors, judges, generals, assemblymen, accusers, witnesses, laws, people—so that, with nothing standing in the way, they might fight fearlessly and with full confidence
for holiness. There is recorded in the laws a man who dared this noble deed of daring. For when he saw certain men consorting with foreign women and, on account of their passion for them, disregarding their ancestral ways and being initiated into the mythical rites, and saw the one who was ringleader and chief of this transgression already growing bold enough to display his impious act openly, publicly offering sacrifices, unlawful sacrifices, to images and carved idols, in plain view of the whole crowd in its frenzy, he shut off from the spectacle those who had gathered on either side, and without hesitation slew him together with the woman—the man because it was profitable that others unlearn what he had taught, the woman because she had become a teacher of evils.
This deed, done suddenly in the heat of the moment, admonished countless others who were preparing to do the same. God, then, praising this feat of valor, performed with self-commanded and voluntary zeal, crowns him with a double gift, peace and priesthood—with the one, judging that a man who had taken up the contests on behalf of God's honor deserved to lay claim to a life free of war; with the other, because priesthood, the most fitting prize for a pious man, promises the service of the Father, to whom to be a slave is not merely better than freedom but better even than sovereignty itself.
But some men have carried their madness to such an excess that, leaving themselves no room even for a change of heart, they rush headlong into slavery to things made by hand, confessing that slavery in writing—not on scraps of paper, as is the custom with purchased slaves, but branding it upon their own bodies with heated iron, for permanent retention; for not even time can dim marks like these.
A like resolve the most sacred Moses evidently strives to preserve in absolutely every other matter as well, being a lover of truth and its teacher, a truth which he desires to engrave and stamp upon all his disciples, banishing false opinions far from their understanding.
Knowing, at any rate, that divination cooperates not a little with the wandering life of the many, leading them astray, he permits no use of any of its forms, and drives out of his own commonwealth all who court its favor—sacrificers, purifiers, bird-watchers, interpreters of portents, enchanters, those who put their trust in omens.
For all these are mere guessers at what is plausible and probable, catching different impressions at different times from the same phenomena, because the things underlying their art possess no fixed nature, nor has their reasoning acquired any exact test by which what is credible might be tested. All these practices are preparations for impiety. Why?
Because the one who attends to them and is persuaded by them disregards the Cause of all things, supposing that these alone are the causes of good and evil, and does not perceive that he is fastening the cares of his life to the most unstable of moorings—birds and feathers and their flight this way and that through the air, and creeping things that crawl low on the ground, which creep up from their burrows in search of food, and further, entrails and blood and dead bodies, which, deprived of soul, at once decay and are confounded, and, being altered, exchange their proper natures for a change to the worse.
For he requires that the one enrolled in the commonwealth governed by the laws be "perfect"—not in the things in which the many have been trained, divinations and omens and plausible conjectures, but in matters concerning God that admit of no ambiguity or doubt, but only undoubting and naked truth.
But since in all men there is implanted a longing for knowledge of the future, and because of this longing they turn to the sacrificial art and the other forms of divination, as though through them they would discover what is clear, while these arts are full of much obscurity and are ever refuted by their own inconsistencies, he forbids them to pursue these very earnestly, but says that if they are unswervingly pious they shall not go without foreknowledge of things to come,
but rather that some prophet, suddenly appearing, possessed by God, will speak oracles and prophesy, saying nothing of his own—for he who is truly possessed and in a frenzy cannot even comprehend what he is saying—but whatever is sounded within him he will utter, as though another were prompting him. For prophets are interpreters of God, who makes use of their organs of speech to reveal whatever he wishes. Having said this and things akin to it concerning the conception of the one God, who truly is, he goes on to describe the manner in which honor must be rendered to him. Concerning the sanctuary.
The highest and, in very truth, the sanctuary of God one must consider to be the whole universe, having as its shrine the most holy part of existing reality, heaven, as its votive offerings the stars, and as its priests the angels, his ministering powers, incorporeal souls—not compounds of rational and irrational nature, as ours happen to be, but wholly and entirely intellectual, pure reasonings, made like unto the monad.
But there is also the sanctuary made by hands. For it was necessary not to check the impulses of men who contribute to piety and wish either to give thanks by sacrifices for the good things that befall them, or to ask pardon and forgiveness for their sins. He took forethought, too, that many sanctuaries should not be built in many places, nor many in the same place, judging that, since God is one, there should be only one sanctuary.
Then, to those who wish to perform sacred rites in their own homes, he does not permit it, but bids them rise up from the ends of the earth and journey to this one place, at the same time taking from this the most necessary test of character. For a man who is not going to sacrifice in a devout manner would never endure to leave fatherland and friends and kinsmen to live as a stranger abroad; rather, it seems that a man is drawn by a pull stronger than any other, that toward piety, and so endures to be torn away from his most familiar and dearest things, as though from limbs joined to his own body.
And the clearest proof of this is what actually happens. For countless people from countless cities, some by land, some by sea, from east and west and north and south, put in at the sanctuary on each feast, as though at some common harbor and safe haven from the meddling and most turbulent life, seeking to find fair weather and to be released, for a brief span, from the cares by which they have been yoked and pressed down from their earliest age, so as to pass their time in cheerful good spirits;
and, filled with good hopes, they devote this most necessary leisure to holiness and the honoring of God, forming friendships also with those till then unknown, and through sacrifices and libations bringing about a blending of characters into the surest pledge of concord.
Of this sanctuary the outermost enclosure, being greatest in both length and breadth, is fortified with four porticoes worked to the utmost costliness; and each of these is double, constructed with an unstinting supply of timber and stone, with the skill of craftsmen and the diligence of those set over the work, a most perfect piece of work; while the inner porticoes are shorter, though of a more austere construction.
In the very center stands the shrine itself, surpassing all description, as one may conjecture from what appears outwardly; for the things within are invisible to everyone except the one high priest, and even to him it is granted to enter only once a year, and all is unseen even then; for he carries in a firepan full of coals and incense, and since much vapor naturally rises, everything round about is enveloped, and the sight is darkened and checked, unable to penetrate further.
And though it stands on lower ground, being the greatest and loftiest of structures, it falls short of none of the tallest mountains. Now works that exceed all bounds in their architecture are conspicuous and admired by onlookers, especially by visiting foreigners, who, comparing them with the constructions of public buildings in their own cities, are struck with amazement at their beauty together with their costliness.
But there is no sacred grove within the enclosure, by the ordinance of the law, for many reasons: first, because the true sanctuary seeks not pleasure and agreeable diversion but austere sanctity; second, because it is not lawful to bring in the things that nourish the greenery of trees, namely the refuse of men and irrational animals; and third, because the timber of wild growth is of no use whatever, but is, as the poets say, "a burden upon the earth," while that of cultivated trees, bearing cultivated fruit, would seduce the shallow-minded away from the solemnity proper to sacred rites.
Besides this, thickly wooded places and deep groves are the haunts of evildoers, who find safety in being screened from view and the chance to make sudden ambushed attacks on whomever they wish; whereas open spaces, spread out and unobstructed on every side, with nothing to block the view, are most fitting for a sanctuary, allowing an exact view of those who enter and linger within.
In addition, thickets and dense woodlands are dens for wrongdoers, who gain security from being hidden in shade and can launch sudden attacks from ambush against whomever they wish; whereas open spaces, spread out and unobstructed on every side, with nothing blocking the view, are most fitting for a temple, allowing an exact view of those who enter and remain within it.
The temple has revenues not only from allotments of land but also from other, far greater sources that will never be destroyed by any length of time; for as long as the human race endures—and it will endure forever—the temple's revenues will likewise be preserved, lasting on together with the whole world.
For it has been ordained that each person, beginning at twenty years of age, bring in first-fruits every year. These contributions are called "ransoms," and for this reason people make their first-fruits offerings most eagerly, bright and joyful, since they expect that, along with the deposit, they will find release from slavery or a cure for diseases, and will reap both the most secure freedom and safety for all time.
Since the nation is exceedingly populous, it follows naturally that its first-fruits are also most abundant. Indeed, in practically every city there are treasuries for the sacred funds, to which it is customary for people to come and offer their first-fruits; and at set times, sacred envoys are chosen by vote from the best men in each place, selected for excellence, to convey the safe hopes of each community; for in these lawful first-fruits lie the hopes of the pious. Concerning Priests.
The nation has twelve tribes, and one out of all of them, chosen for excellence, holds the priesthood—a prize for its manly virtue and its zeal for God, granted at the time when the multitude seemed to have sinned by following the foolish opinions of some, who persuaded them to emulate the Egyptian folly and the native delusion that fabricates myths about irrational animals, and especially about bulls. For when that tribe, of its own accord, killed all the leaders of that madness down to the young men, they were judged to have performed a holy act, having fought through the contests on behalf of piety.
These are the laws concerning priests. It is ordained that the priest be whole and complete in every part, having no defect in his body, neither from some part lacking or having been amputated, nor from some excess part that grew along with his birth or was later added through disease, nor from a change of complexion into leprosy or savage lichen-sores or warty growths or any other eruptions of rashes; all of which seem to me to be symbols of the perfection that concerns the soul.
For if the priest's body, mortal by nature, must be inspected so that it suffer no misfortune in any part, much more must the immortal soul be inspected, which they say was formed after the image of the Existing One; and reason is the image of God, through which the whole world was fashioned.
After the requirement of noble birth from patrician stock, and perfection in body and in soul, there is next legislated the matter of the vestments, which the priest must put on when he is about to perform the sacred ministrations.
The vestment is a linen tunic and a loincloth—the latter for covering the private parts, which it is not lawful to bare beside the altar, the former for the sake of swiftness in service; for it is in tunics alone, ungirded by any outer robe, that the priests, trained for the utmost speed, bring forward the sacrificial victims and the prayers and libations and everything else useful for the sacrifices.
The high priest, too, has been directed to put on a similar vestment whenever he goes into the inner sanctuary to burn incense, since the linen, unlike wool, is not produced from anything that dies; but he has also been ordained to wear another vestment, of very elaborate workmanship, so as to seem a likeness and representation of the cosmos. Its construction is clear proof of this.
For first there is a rounded garment, entirely of hyacinth-blue throughout, a tunic reaching to the feet, a symbol of air, since air too is by nature dark and in a sense reaches to the feet, stretching from the regions beneath the moon above down to the lowest recesses of the earth.
Then, over this, a woven piece shaped like a breastplate, a symbol of heaven; for on the shoulder-pieces are two stones of emerald, the most precious material, one on each side, round, representations of the two hemispheres, of which the one is above the earth and the other beneath it.
Then, upon the breast, twelve costly stones of differing colors, arranged in three rows of four, fashioned after the model of the zodiac; for that circle too, consisting of twelve signs, produces the four seasons of the year, allotting three signs to each.
The whole place is aptly called the "oracle," since everything in heaven has been fashioned and set in order by reasons and by proportions; for of the things there, nothing at all is without reason. And upon the oracle he weaves in two ornaments of contrasting color, calling the one Manifestation and the other Truth.
By Truth he hints that no falsehood at all may set foot in heaven, but the whole of it has been banished into the region around the earth, where it takes up residence in the souls of polluted men; and by Manifestation, that the natures in heaven make manifest each of the things among us, which by themselves would be entirely unknowable.
The clearest proof of this: if the sun, that unfailing sun, did not shine forth, how could the innumerable qualities of bodies have become visible, and how the manifold forms of colors and shapes? And who has revealed days and nights, months and years, and time altogether, if not the harmonious revolutions—beyond all reckoning—of the moon, the sun, and the other stars?
And who has revealed the nature of number, if not what has been said, according to the combinations of the divisions of time? And who has cut open and revealed to sailors the paths across the sea and its many expanses, if not the turnings and circuits of the stars?
Wise men, too, having observed countless other things, have recorded them, taking their signs from the heavens for calms and violent winds, abundance and scarcity of crops, mild and blazing-hot summers, extraordinary winters and springlike ones, droughts and heavy rains, fruitfulness of animals and plants and, conversely, barrenness of both, and all such things; for the signs of everything on earth are inscribed in heaven.
At the lowest parts of the foot-length robe hang golden pomegranates, bells, and flower ornaments; these are symbols of earth and water—the flowers of earth, inasmuch as everything sprouts and blooms from it, and the pomegranates, so named appropriately from their "flowing" (rhysis), of water; while the bells represent the harmony, concord, and unison of the parts of the cosmos.
The arrangement, too, is well conceived: highest, where the stones are, is what is called the breastpiece, a likeness of heaven, since heaven too is highest; below it is the foot-length robe, entirely hyacinth-blue throughout, since the air, being dark, has been allotted the rank second after heaven; while the flowers and pomegranates are at the very lowest edge, since earth and water have obtained the lowest portion of the whole.
Such is the construction of the sacred vestment—an outfit, a representation of the universe—a marvelous work both to look upon and to contemplate; for it presents an appearance most striking, such as no woven fabric among us can match for elaborateness combined with costliness, and it offers a philosophical understanding of the meaning of its several parts.
For its purpose is, first, that the high priest have a visible image of the universe upon himself, so that from the continual sight of it he may render his own life worthy of the nature of the whole; and second, that in the sacred rites the whole cosmos may join him in ministering; for it is most fitting that the one consecrated to the Father of the cosmos should also bring with him the Son, namely the All, for the service of the One who fashioned and begot it.
There is also a third symbolism of the sacred vestment that must not pass unmentioned: whereas the priests of other peoples are accustomed to offer their prayers and sacrifices only on behalf of their own kin, friends, and fellow citizens, the high priest of the Jews offers prayers and thanksgivings not only on behalf of the whole human race but also on behalf of the parts of nature—earth, water, air, fire—considering the cosmos, which in truth it is, to be his own homeland, on whose behalf he is accustomed to propitiate the Ruler with supplications and entreaties, imploring him to share his gracious and merciful nature with what he has made.
Having said this beforehand, he goes on to legislate further, commanding that whoever approaches the altar and touches the sacrifices, during the time appointed for him to carry out the sacred ministrations, drink neither wine nor any other intoxicating drink, for four most necessary reasons: hesitation, forgetfulness, sleep, and folly.
For unmixed wine, by relaxing the powers of the body, makes the limbs more sluggish to move and renders them more hesitant, and forces one into sleep by compulsion; and by loosening the sinews of the soul, it becomes the cause of both forgetfulness and folly; whereas in the sober man the parts of the body, lightened, are more readily moved, the senses are purer and clearer, and the mind is sharper-sighted, so that he is able both to foresee events and to recall what he has previously seen.
In general, then, the use of wine must be considered most unprofitable for all in the conduct of life, since it oppresses the soul, dulls the senses, and weighs down the body—for it leaves nothing in us free and unconstrained, but stands as a hindrance to each faculty in the exercise of its natural function—but in sacred rites and holy ministrations the harm is more grievous still, inasmuch as sinning against God is more unbearable than sinning against man. Hence it has fittingly been ordained that they sacrifice while sober, "for the distinguishing and discerning of holy and profane, of clean and unclean," and of lawful and unlawful.
Since the priest is a man well before he is a priest, and must of necessity make use of the impulses toward intercourse, the law arranges for him a marriage with a pure virgin, one born of pure parents, grandparents, and ancestors who have been judged, by the standard of excellence, for their nobility and good birth.
For it does not allow him to approach, in body or in soul, a prostitute or a profaned woman, even if she has laid aside her trade and puts on a decent and modest appearance, because her original choice has made her unholy. Toward other men let her have the pardon due to one who has taken pains to be cleansed of her defilements—for repentance for wrongdoing is praiseworthy—and let no one else be forbidden to marry her; but let her not come near a priest. For the special privileges of the priesthood require a consistency unimpeachable from birth all the way to the end of life.
For it would be foolish that scars left on the body by wounds should bar some men from the priesthood—scars that are a token of misfortune, not of wickedness—while women who have sold their own bloom not only under compulsion but sometimes even by their own free choice, since they have repented late and reluctantly, should be joined to priests straight from their lovers, and moved from brothels into sacred precincts. For the scars and imprints of their former wrongdoings remain in the souls of those who repent no less than scars remain on bodies.
It is finely and beautifully said elsewhere, "Do not bring the wage of a prostitute into the sanctuary" (Deut. 23:18). And yet the coin itself is not guilty, but only through the woman who received it and the act for which it was given. Much less, then, should one admit into partnership with priests women whose very money is profane and counterfeit, even if in material and stamp it passes as genuine.
So exact is the law's precision about marriage for the high priest that it does not even permit him to marry a widow, whether she has been left alone by her husband's death or separated from him while he still lives, so that, first, the sacred seed may go into untrodden and pure soil, and his offspring may take on no admixture from another household; and second, so that in coming together with souls most guileless and unwarped, priests may easily mold their characters and manners. For the minds of virgins are pliant and easily led toward virtue, and most ready to be taught—
whereas a woman who has had experience of another man is naturally more resistant to instruction, since her soul is not utterly unmarked, like a smoothed wax ready for the clarity of doctrines to be inscribed on it, but roughened by imprints already stamped upon it, imprints that, remaining hard to erase, either refuse to admit other seals or, admitting them, confuse them with their own irregularities.
Let the high priest, then, marry a virgin, pure of any previous union; and by "virgin" I mean not only one whom no other man has known, but one about whom no other man has even been named through some betrothal, even if she remains bodily chaste.
For the priests of lesser rank the other rules about marriage are laid down the same as for him who holds the highest priesthood, but they are permitted to marry not only virgins but also widows—not all widows, but those whose husbands have died—without fear. For the law thinks it right to remove rivalries and factions from the priests' life. Toward living rivals there might arise quarrels from a woman's passion, jealousy; but with the dead, the hostility toward second husbands dies as well.
Besides, the law has judged the high priest worthy of a greater sanctity and purification, as in all else, so also in the partnership of marriage, allowing him to take only a maiden; but to those of the second rank it relaxed the rules concerning unions with women, permitting them to betroth even women who have had experience of other men.
In addition, the law was exact also about the lineage of those about to be married, instructing the high priest to court not merely a virgin but a priestess, one of priestly family, so that bridegroom and bride might come from one household and, in a manner, of the same blood, displaying throughout their whole life the most stable blending of characters for harmony.
But the others were permitted to marry daughters of men who were not priests, partly because the purifications required of these are slight, and partly because the nation did not wish to be altogether without kinship with, and entirely severed from, a priestly line. For this reason it did not prevent the other priests from making intermarriages with those of the nation, which are a second kind of kinship; for sons-in-law stand to fathers-in-law in place of sons, and fathers-in-law to sons-in-law in place of fathers.
These, then, and matters like them, concern marriage, for the sake of the begetting of children. But since corruption follows begetting, Moses also wrote laws for the priests concerning the dead, commanding that they not defile themselves for everyone joined to them in any way, whether by friendship or by kinship, but only for fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and virgin sisters.
But the high priest he exempted from all mourning whatsoever—and rightly so, perhaps. For the services of the other priests can be performed by one in place of another, so that even if some are in mourning, nothing of the customary rites falls short; but no one is permitted to perform the high priest's duties in his place. For this reason let him remain forever undefiled, never touching a dead body, so that, being always ready, he may perform without hindrance the prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the nation at their appointed times.
For besides, having been allotted to God and having become, as it were, the field-marshal of the sacred order, he ought to be estranged from everything that belongs to the realm of becoming, not so overcome by affection for parents, children, or brothers as to pass over or postpone any sacred duty which it is altogether better to perform at once.
He commands, then, that the high priest neither tear his garments over the death of his closest kin, nor remove from his head the insignia of the priesthood, nor go out of the sanctuary at all on the pretext of mourning, so that, showing reverence for the place and for the adornments with which he is crowned, and overcoming pity, he may remain forever free of grief.
For the law wills that he should have been allotted a nature greater than man's, one that draws nearer to the divine—a border-being, if the truth must be told, between the two natures—so that through some intermediary men may propitiate God, and God, using a kind of subordinate minister, may extend and supply his graces to men.
Having said this, Moses next legislates immediately about those who shall partake of the first-fruits. If, then, he says, any of the priests is maimed in his eyes, hands, feet, or any other part of the body, or has received some blemish, let him refrain from ministrations because of the defects that have befallen him, but let him still enjoy the common privileges of the priests, on account of his unimpeachable noble birth.
If, however, some outbreak of leprosy takes hold of one, or one of the priests becomes subject to a discharge, let him touch neither the sacred table nor the prizes set out for his kin, until the flux ceases and the leprosy, having changed, comes to resemble the color of healthy flesh.
And if a priest touches anything unclean whatsoever, or even, as often happens, has a nocturnal emission, let him partake of none of the consecrated things that day; but once evening has come and he has bathed, let him not be prevented from partaking.
Let the resident alien of a priest and his hired servant be barred from the first-fruits—the resident alien, since neighbors for the most part share hearth and table; for there is fear that someone, using this as a pretext, might give away the consecrated things out of an untimely kindness, thereby committing impiety. For not all things are to be shared with all people, but only with those fitted to receive them; otherwise the finest and most beneficial thing in life, order, will be destroyed, overtaken by the most harmful thing, confusion.
For if in merchant ships sailors were to receive an equal share with pilots, and in long triremes rowers and marines an equal share with trierarchs and admirals, and in armies cavalrymen an equal share with cavalry-commanders, infantrymen with company-commanders, captains with generals, and in cities private citizens on trial an equal share with judges, and councilmen with presiding officers and with rulers generally, then disturbances and factions would arise, and equality in words would breed inequality in deeds. For to assign equal things to those unequal in rank is itself inequality, and inequality is a spring of evils.
For this reason the privileges of the priests are not to be given, as to others, even to resident aliens who, because of mere neighborliness, would lay hold of what is not lawful for them; for the honor belongs not to the household but to the lineage.
In like manner let no one give to a hired servant either wages or recompense for service in the form of a sacred privilege; for the one who receives it will sometimes put it to improper uses, making the prizes of noble birth and of ministry at the temple profane.
For this reason the law does not permit even a foreigner in general to partake of the holy things, even if he happens to be of noble birth among the natives and beyond reproach in the eyes of both men and women, so that the honors may not be counterfeited, but may remain firmly guarded within the priestly order.
For it would indeed be absurd that the sacrifices and sacred rites and everything else consecrated about the altar should be entrusted not to all but to the priests alone, while the prizes given in return for these become common property, available even to chance comers—as though it were fitting to wear out the priests with many labors and toils and cares by day and by night, yet to declare the prizes common even to those who do nothing.
"To the household slave and the one bought with silver," it says, "let the priest who is master give a share of food and drink from the first fruits." First, because for a servant his master is his one resource, and the master's allotment is the sacred acts of kindness from which the slave is bound to be fed;
second, because whatever is going to happen must in every case be done willingly by us; but household servants, even if we do not wish it, since they are always present with us and share our daily life, standing by at the food, drink, and delicacies and tables of their masters and carrying away the leftovers, even if they do not take openly will at any rate steal them secretly, driven to theft by necessity — so that instead of one charge, if it is even a wrong to be fed from a master's goods, a second is added on top, theft, so that like thieves they enjoy the things that have been consecrated ahead of those who live blamelessly, which is most absurd;
third, one must also reckon this, that the portion of the first fruits allotted to the household servants will not be diminished on account of the master's watchfulness; for this is sufficient to check the carelessness of some, not permitting them to grow slack.
Having added this, he next records a law full of humanity. "If a priest's daughter," he says, "who has married, is widowed from one who is not a priest, whether her husband has died or is still living, and she is left without children, let her return again to her father's house to share once more in the first fruits, in which she also had a part when she was a virgin; for in a sense she is now, in effect, again a virgin, she who is bereft of both husband and children, having no other refuge but her father."
But if she has sons or daughters, the mother must remain joined to her children; for sons and daughters, belonging to the house of the one who begot them, draw their mother along with them into it. The privileges of the priests.
The law assigned the priests no allotted portion of land, so that, unlike others who reap their livelihood from the earth, they might have an abundance of necessities; instead, using an excess of honor, he said that God himself was their portion, by a reference made for two reasons: the highest honor, since they thereby become partners with God in the things offered to him in thanksgiving, and also so that they should occupy themselves with only one business, the sacred rites, as though they were stewards of God's allotment.
The prizes and rewards he sets before them are these. First, food that is ready, effortless, and free of toil; for he bids those who bake bread take from every batch of dough and every kneading a loaf as first fruits for the priests' use, at the same time providing, by this lawful instruction to those who set the portion aside, for a path leading to piety.
For by growing accustomed always to offer first fruits even from their necessary food, they will keep an unforgettable memory of God, than whom no greater good can be found. And since the nation is exceedingly populous, the first fruits too must necessarily be abundant, so that even the poorest of the priests, through this abundance of provisions, seems to be among the most well-supplied.
Second, he ordains that first fruits be offered also from every other kind of possession: from every wine-press, wine; from every threshing floor, wheat and barley; likewise oil from the olives, and cultivated fruits from the other orchard trees, so that the priests, having not merely the bare necessities, might not live out a rather harsh existence, but, well supplied also with what belongs to a life of comfort, might live more cheerfully in abundance, with fitting adornment.
The third privilege is this: all the firstborn males of land animals that serve human use and service. For he bids that these be given over to the priests — of oxen, sheep, and goats, the young themselves, calves, rams, and kids, since these are and are reckoned clean both for food and for sacrifice — but for the others, horses, donkeys, camels, and the like, that a ransom be paid instead, without lessening their value.
And these too are exceedingly numerous; for those of this nation are among the foremost breeders of cattle and other livestock, pasturing goat-flocks, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and countless other herds of animals of every kind.
Indeed the law, going further still, commands that first fruits be offered not only from possessions of each kind, but also from one's own souls and bodies; for children are divisible parts of their parents — or rather, to speak truly, indivisible parts, fitted to their offspring by kindred blood, by the accounts of their ancestors, by unseen forms, by the bonds of unifying affection and by nature's unbreakable ties.
Yet even so, he consecrates the firstborn males of these too, in a manner of first fruits, as thank-offerings for the good children already born and hoped for, and at the same time wishing that marriages be not merely blameless but altogether praiseworthy, marriages from which the first fruit that springs up is consecrated — which men and women ought to bear in mind, and so hold fast to self-mastery, care for the household, and concord, breathing together with one another in word and deed, firmly confirming in truth what is called their partnership.
As for the consecration of firstborn sons, so that neither parents may be severed from children nor children from parents, he honors this first fruit with a fixed sum of silver, ordaining that poor and rich alike contribute an equal amount, having regard neither to the standing of those who contribute nor to the health and beauty of those born, but weighing what even the very poor is able to bring.
For since the birth of children happens equally among the most distinguished and the most obscure alike, he judged it right to legislate an equal contribution as well,
aiming, as I said, chiefly at what is possible for all. After this he also allots to the priests another resource, not a small one, bidding that first fruits be offered from each source of income — from grain, wine, and oil, and further from the increase of livestock, by flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, herds of goats, and the other herds. And how great an abundance there is of these too, one might reckon from the great populousness of the nation.
From all this it is clear that the law confers upon the priests the dignity and honor of kings; at any rate, just as tribute is commanded to be given to rulers from every kind of possession, so it is given here too, but in the opposite manner from that in which cities pay tribute to their rulers;
for cities pay it out of necessity and reluctantly, groaning, eyeing the collectors of money as common plunderers, pleading now this excuse and now that, and disregarding the appointed deadlines as they lay down the fixed taxes and tributes;
but those of the nation, rejoicing and delighted over the priestly dues, anticipating those who ask, cutting short the deadlines, thinking that they are receiving rather than giving, make their contributions with words of praise and thanksgiving at each of the yearly seasons, men and women alike, with a self-prompted eagerness, readiness, and zeal beyond all description.
These, then, are the portions allotted from each person's possessions; but there are other special revenues, most fitting for priests, from the sacrifices that are brought up to the altar. For it is ordained that from every sacrificial victim two things be given to the priests from two limbs, the shoulder from the right foreleg, and from the breast whatever is fat — the one a symbol of strength, manliness, and every lawful action in giving, receiving, and doing, the other a symbol of the gracious gentleness that tempers the passions.
For there is an account that this passion resides in the breast, since nature has assigned the chest as the most fitting place for spirited passion to dwell, and has fitted it around, like a soldier, with a most secure and hard-to-capture fence, the so-called breastplate, which she fashioned out of many close-set and exceedingly strong bones, binding it very firmly with unbreakable sinews.
From the animals slaughtered outside the altar for the eating of meat, three things are ordained to be given to the priest: the shoulder, the jaws, and what is called the fourth stomach — the shoulder for the reason stated a little before, the jaws because they belong both to the head, the most authoritative of the limbs, and to speech uttered aloud, of which they are the first fruit, since without their motion the stream of speech could not flow forth; for when they are shaken — from which they also get their fitting name — struck by the tongue, the whole instrument of the voice resounds together.
The fourth stomach is an outgrowth of the belly; and the belly, it turns out, is the manger of an irrational creature, desire, which, watered by wine-drinking and gluttony, is forever flooded with successive intakes of food and drink together, and delights, like a pig, to live in filth; for this reason the region of the body's waste has been allotted as most fitting to this unrestrained and most unseemly creature.
The opponent of desire is self-mastery, which one must practice, labor at, and strive by every means to acquire, as the greatest and most perfect good, of benefit both privately and in common.
Desire, then, being profane, impure, and unholy, has rightly been driven beyond the bounds of virtue and banished; but self-mastery, a pure and unstained virtue, disregarding all matters of food and drink and claiming to stand above the pleasures of the belly, may it touch the sacred altars, bringing with it the attachment of the belly as a reminder to hold in contempt insatiable greed and gluttony
Desire, then, being profane, unclean, and unholy, has been driven and banished beyond the boundaries of virtue, and rightly so. Self-control, by contrast, a pure and unstained virtue, holding all matters of food and drink beneath its notice and claiming to stand above the pleasures of the belly, may touch the sacred altars and bring with it the clinging attachment of the stomach as a reminder of its contempt for insatiability and gluttony,
and for everything that inflames desires. Above all this, however, he commands the priests who minister at the sacrifices to take the hides of the whole burnt offerings—these are countless—not a small but an especially lucrative gift. From this it is clear that, by not assigning to the priestly tribe a single allotment as he did to the others, he gave it a more august and holier resource, under the guise of first-fruits taken from every kind of sacrifice.
So that none of those who give should reproach those who receive, he orders that the first-fruits be brought to the temple first, and only then that the priests take them from there; for it was fitting that those who received benefits in every part of life should offer thank-offerings of first-fruits to God, and that God, since he lacks nothing, should instead grant them, with all dignity and honor, to the attendants and ministers who serve around the temple; for a gift that seems to be received not from men but from the universal benefactor carries an obligation that cannot be disowned.
Since such great prizes are laid out, if any of the priests who live orderly and blameless lives are in want, they stand as accusers of our lawlessness, even if they say nothing; for if we obeyed what was commanded and made the first-fruit offerings as prescribed, not only would they have an ample supply of necessities, but they would also be filled with all else that supplies a life of comfort.
And if ever again the priestly tribe were found in possession of all the abundance that life affords, this would become a great proof of the common piety of the people and of their exact observance of the laws in every particular. But the negligence of some—for it is not safe to accuse everyone—has become the cause of poverty for the priesthood, and, to tell the truth, for the people themselves as well.
For lawlessness is costly to the lawless, even if it entices for a short time; while following the laws of nature is most beneficial, even if it seems harsh for the moment and shows nothing pleasant.
Having granted the priests so many sources of income, he did not neglect those in the second rank either; these are the temple attendants. Of these, some are stationed at the doors as gatekeepers right at the entrances; others are within, at the forecourt, to prevent anyone—whether willingly or unwillingly—from stepping where it is not permitted; others patrol in a circuit, having drawn lots in turn for night and day, serving as day-watchmen and night-watchmen; and others sweep the porticoes and the open courts and carry out the sweepings, attending to cleanliness. To all of these the tithes were appointed as wages, for this is the allotted portion of the temple attendants.
The law, at any rate, did not allow those who received the tithes to use them until they had, in turn, offered other tithes as though from their own possessions and given them to the priests of the higher rank; only then did it permit them to enjoy their portion, but not before.
He also assigned to them forty-eight cities, and around each one suburbs extending two thousand cubits in a circle, for the pasturing of livestock and for the other services that are necessary to cities. Of these, six were set apart by lot, three on each side of the river Jordan, as places of refuge for those who commit involuntary manslaughter.
For since it was not lawful for one who had in any way become the cause of a person's death to pass within the sprinkling-vessels, using the temple as a refuge for his safety, he set aside the cities just mentioned as secondary sanctuaries, possessing great inviolability because of the special privilege and honor accorded to their inhabitants, who were to preserve their suppliants safe, should some stronger force try to compel their surrender—not by preparations for war, but by the dignities and privileges which they held under the laws on account of the sanctity of the priesthood.
Let the exile be confined within the boundaries of the city to which he has fled, on account of the avengers lying in wait, who, being relatives of the dead man, out of longing for their kinsman, thirst for the blood of the killer even if the killing was unintentional, the private passion overpowering the exact reckoning of justice. And let him know that if he goes outside, he will proceed toward certain destruction; for he will escape the notice of none of the blood-relatives, by whom he will at once be caught, as in nets and snares, and done away with.
Let the term of his exile be the lifetime of the high priest, at whose death he may return, having been granted amnesty. Having legislated these and similar matters concerning the priests, he next teaches about the animals suitable for sacrifices. Concerning the animals fit for sacred rites, and what the kinds of sacrifices are.
Of the animals used for sacred rites, some are land animals and some travel through the air. Passing over the countless tribes of birds, he chose only two out of all of them, the dove and the turtledove, because the dove is the tamest of those creatures that are by nature tame and gregarious, while the turtledove is the tamest of the solitary ones.
As for the countless herds of land animals, whose very number is not easy to find, passing over the rest he selected three by preference—cattle, sheep, and goats—for these are the tamest and most manageable; indeed, great herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and droves of goats are led by any chance person, not only a grown man but even quite a small child, both going out to pasture and, when it is time, returning again in order to their folds.
Of their tameness there are many other signs, but these are the clearest: that they all feed on grass, and none of them eats flesh; and that they have neither hooked claws nor a complete set of teeth—for the upper jaw grows no teeth in front, but only those cutting teeth that are lacking there.
Besides this, they are also the most useful of animals for life: rams provide wool for clothing, the most necessary covering of the body; oxen serve to plow the earth, to prepare it for sowing, and to thresh the resulting crop so that it may be shared in and enjoyed as food; while the hair and hides of goats, woven and stitched together, have become portable dwellings for travelers, especially for those on campaign, whom necessity often compels to spend much of their time outdoors, away from any city.
All must be whole, unblemished in any part of the body, entirely sound throughout, without share in defect; so great, indeed, is the forethought exercised, not only by those who bring the sacrifices but also by the priests, that the most highly esteemed of the priests, chosen by preference for the task of examining for blemishes, search from head to the very tips of the feet, both what is visible and what is hidden beneath the belly and thighs, lest some slight defect escape notice.
This exactness and superabundance of examination is undertaken not for the sake of the animals being sacrificed, but for the blamelessness of those who offer the sacrifice; for the law wishes to teach them, through symbols, that whenever they approach the altars, whether to pray or to give thanks, they should bring no infirmity, disease, or passion upon the soul, but should strive to sanctify it wholly and entirely without stain, so that God, seeing it, may not turn away.
Since some sacrifices are offered on behalf of the whole nation—or rather, to speak the truth, on behalf of the whole human race—while others are offered on behalf of each individual who wishes to perform a sacred rite, we must first speak of the common ones. Wonderful is their order: some are offered every single day, others on the seventh days, others at new moons and sacred months, others at fasts, and others at the three seasons of the festivals.
Every day, then, it is prescribed that two lambs be offered, one at dawn and the other in the late evening, each in thanksgiving—the one for the mercies of the day, the other for the mercies of the night, which God unceasingly and without interruption supplies to the human race.
On the sevenths he doubles the number of victims, adding equal to equal, considering the seventh day to be of equal honor to eternity, which he also recorded as the birthday of the whole world; for this reason he intended the sacrifice of the seventh day to be made equal to the 'continuity' of the daily lambs.
Twice each day the most fragrant of all incenses is burned within the veil, at sunrise and at sunset, before the morning sacrifice and after the evening one, so that the blood-offerings serve as thanksgiving on behalf of us who have blood, while the incense-offerings serve on behalf of the ruling faculty, the rational spirit within us, which was shaped after the archetypal form of the divine image.
Loaves of bread are set out on the sevenths upon the sacred table, equal in number to the months of the year, in two rows of six each, corresponding to the reckoning of the equinoxes—for there are two in every year, the spring and the autumn equinox, each reckoned by six months. For this reason... at the spring equinox all sown crops come to full growth, at the time when the trees begin to bear, while at the autumn equinox the fruit of the trees is brought to completion, and at that same season sowing begins again. Thus nature, running the long course of eternity, exchanges one gift for another for the human race, of which the two rows of six loaves set out are symbols.
They also hint at the most beneficial of virtues, self-control, which is escorted by frugality, contentment, and the desire for little, on account of the most harmful assault mounted by intemperance and greed; for bread is the lasting nourishment for the lover of wisdom, providing bodies free of disease and a reasoning faculty that is healthy and, above all, sober;
whereas delicacies and honey-cakes and seasonings, and all that the elaborate skill of bakers and cooks contrives to bewitch the unrefined, unphilosophical, and utterly servile sense of taste—serving no fine sight or sound, but only the desires of the wretched belly—often produce incurable diseases of body and soul.
Together with the loaves are placed frankincense and salt, the frankincense as a symbol that, in the judgment of wisdom, no seasoning is more fragrant than the desire for little and self-control, and the salt as a symbol of the preservation of all things—for the things that are seasoned with it are kept preserved—and of a sufficient relish.
I know that people occupied with banquets and feasts, who chase after extravagant tables — those wretched slaves to birds and fish and meats and similar nonsense, who cannot even taste true freedom in a dream — will make this a subject of laughter and mockery. But those who have resolved to live according to God and for the pleasure of the truly existent need give little thought to such people; trained to disregard the pleasures of the flesh, they pursue instead the joys and good states of the mind, exercised in the contemplation of nature.
Having ordained these things concerning the seventh day, he says that on the new moons ten whole burnt offerings must be sacrificed in all: two bull calves, one ram, seven lambs. For since the month is complete when the moon completes its own cycle, he deemed it right that a complete number of animals be offered in sacrifice.
Ten is a perfect number, which he distributed carefully among what has been said: the two bull calves, since the moon has two motions as it perpetually runs its double course, one of waxing until it is full, the other of waning until conjunction; the one ram, since there is one single principle by which it waxes and wanes through equal intervals, both when it is being lit and when it is failing; and the seven lambs, because it undergoes its complete transformations in periods of seven days — in the first week from conjunction, the half-moon; in the second, the full moon; and when it turns back again, first to the half-moon, and then it comes to an end at conjunction.
Along with the victims he prescribes bringing fine flour soaked in oil, and wine for libations, in fixed measures, because these too are brought to completion by the cycles of the moon through the yearly seasons, which especially ripen the crops; and grain, wine, and oil, the substances most beneficial to life and most necessary for human use, are fittingly consecrated together with all the sacrifices.
To the sacred month a double offering is fittingly brought, since there is also a double account of it: one as a new moon, the other as a sacred month. As a new moon, it has been ordained that the same offerings be sacrificed as on the other new moons; but as a sacred month as well, the gifts are doubled, except for the bull calves — for one is brought instead of two, since the arbiter judged it right to use, at the beginning of the year, the indivisible nature of the unit rather than the divisible pair.
In the first season — and he calls the spring season and the equinox the first season — having prescribed that a seven-day festival be kept, called the festival of unleavened bread, he made all the days equal in honor as regards the sacrifices; for he commands that the same ten whole burnt offerings be sacrificed each day as on the new moons, apart from the offerings for transgression, amounting in all to seventy.
For he thought that the seven days of the festival held the same relation to the new-moon month as the equinox, which occurs in the seventh month, holds to it, so that he might show both the beginning of each month to be sacred, and the days equal in number to the new moons taken all together as seven.
In the middle of spring the harvest begins, at which time thank offerings are brought up to God of the plain for having borne its fruit to fullness and for the ingathering of the crops; and a festival most public of all is kept, called, fittingly, the festival of first fruits, from what actually happens, since then the first of the produce, the firstfruits, are consecrated.
It is prescribed to bring as sacrifices two bull calves, one ram, and seven lambs — these ten victims as whole burnt offerings — and two lambs for the priests to eat, which he calls offerings of deliverance, because human food has been preserved safe from many and varied dangers of destruction; for ruin is accustomed to overtake crops, sometimes through excessive rain, sometimes through drought, sometimes through other countless disturbances, and sometimes through man-made calamities, when enemies undertake to ravage their neighbors' land by invasion.
It is fitting, then, that thank offerings for deliverance be brought up to him who has scattered all such plots, offerings brought up together with loaves of bread, which they bring to the altar and lift up toward heaven, and then distribute to the priests along with the meat of the deliverance-offering, for a most sacred feast.
When the third season arrives, in the seventh month at the autumn equinox, at its beginning a sacred month is kept, called the festival of trumpets, of which I spoke earlier; and on the tenth day comes the fast, which is earnestly observed not only by those who are zealous for piety and holiness, but also by those whose whole life is otherwise entirely without reverence; for all, overcome by the sanctity surrounding it, are struck with awe, and even the worse sort then at least vie with the better in self-restraint and virtue.
The dignity of the day has a double account: one as of a festival, the other as of purification and flight from sins, for which amnesty is granted by the favor of a merciful God, who honors repentance as equal to not having sinned at all.
The sacrifices as of a festival he made equal in number to those of the sacred months — a bull calf, a ram, and seven lambs — blending the unit with the seven and directing the end back toward the beginning (for seven has been allotted as the completion of works, and the unit as the beginning); and the sacrifices as of purification — for he prescribes that two goats and a ram be brought, and then says that one goat must be wholly burned, while the he-goats are to be allotted by lot, and the one that falls to God is to be sacrificed, while the other is to be sent away into a trackless and untrodden wilderness, bearing on itself the curses laid upon those who transgressed, who through their change for the better have been purified, washing away their old lawlessness with new right conduct.
On the fifteenth day, when the moon is full, the festival called Tabernacles is kept, during which the provisions of sacrifices are more numerous; for over the seven days there are sacrificed in all seventy bull calves, fourteen rams, and ninety-eight lambs, all as whole burnt offerings. It has also been prescribed to regard the eighth day as sacred, concerning which precision must be given when the whole account of the festivals is examined, on which the same offerings are brought as on the sacred months.
The common whole burnt offerings on behalf of the nation, or more properly speaking on behalf of the entire human race, have now been described to the best of my ability. Alongside the whole burnt offerings, on each day of the festival there also accompanies a he-goat, which is called the offering for sin, and is sacrificed for the remission of transgressions, whose meat is allotted to the priests for food. What, then, is the reason for this?
Is it not that a festival is a time of gladness, and true gladness, gladness according to reality, is wisdom firmly established in the soul, and one cannot attain unwavering wisdom without healing of one's transgressions and the excision of the passions? For it would be absurd that each of the animals offered as a whole burnt offering should be found unblemished and unharmed before being consecrated, while the mind of the one sacrificing has not been purified in every way and made bright through washings and sprinklings, which the right reason of nature pours, through healthy and uncorrupted ears, upon souls that love God.
In addition to this, the following point might also fittingly be made: these festive relaxations and periods of truce have already, on countless occasions, opened up innumerable paths to sin. For unmixed wine and gluttonous feasting, arousing the belly's insatiable desires, further inflame the desires below the belly as well, and, flowing and pouring out in every direction, produce a flood of countless evils, since they have the fearless license of the festival as their base of operations and a refuge for suffering no consequence.
Perceiving this, he did not permit people to keep festival in the same manner as others do, but at the very time of gladness he first commanded them to keep themselves pure, curbing their impulses toward pleasure; then he called them into the sanctuary to share in hymns and prayers and sacrifices, so that from the place itself, and from what is seen and said, through the most authoritative senses, sight and hearing, they might come to love self-restraint together with piety; and then, above all, he reminded them not to sin, through the sacrifice for sin; for the one who asks for amnesty for what he has done wrong is not so wretched in spirit as to commit further new offenses at the very time he is asking release from his old wrongs.
Having discoursed at such length on these matters, he begins to divide the kinds of sacrifices, and cutting them into three highest classes, he calls the one the whole burnt offering, the second the deliverance offering, and the third the offering for sin; then he adorns each with what is fitting, aiming, not without care, at what is both proper and free of impurity.
The division is altogether excellent and fitting to the matters at hand, having sequence and coherence; for if one wished to examine precisely the reasons for which the first human beings decided to come to thanksgivings together with supplications through sacrifices, one would find two supreme reasons: one, the honor due to God, rendered for his own sake alone and for no other reason, as a necessary good; the other, that which chiefly concerns those who sacrifice, and this is twofold — one for sharing in good things, the other for release from evils.
To the honor rendered according to God and for his sake alone, the law assigned the fitting sacrifice, the whole burnt offering, which brings nothing of mortal self-love, being whole and complete for what is whole and complete; but as for gratitude toward men, since this notion admitted of division, he himself, defining the sacrifice for sharing in good things, named it the deliverance offering, and assigning to the flight from evils the offering for sin, so that there are rightly three offerings corresponding to three purposes,
the whole burnt offering for God alone himself, whom it is right to honor, and for no other reason; the others for our own sake — the deliverance offering for the safety and improvement of human affairs, and the offering for sin for the healing of what the soul has done wrong.
We must now speak of what has been legislated concerning each, beginning with the best. The best, he says, is, first, that the victim be male, chosen out from among the animals as the finest of its kind, a bull calf or a lamb; and the one bringing it, having washed his hands, is to lay them upon the head of the victim.
And after this, one of the priests is to take it and slaughter it, and another, holding out a bowl and receiving the blood, is to go around the altar and sprinkle it on every side; and the victim, having been flayed, is to be divided into whole limbs, the belly and the feet being washed; then the whole is to be handed over to the sacred fire on the altar, having become many from one and one from many.
This is what the express command contains. But another meaning is also indicated, one carrying a riddling account expressed through symbols; and symbols are the visible things spoken, of things unseen and hidden. The whole burnt offering victim is immediately made male, since the male is more complete than the female, more governing, and more akin to the active cause; for the female is incomplete, subordinate, and characterized more by being acted upon than by acting.
This is what the explicit command contains. But another meaning is also indicated, one that speaks an enigmatic message through symbols; for what has been stated openly are symbols of things hidden and unseen. The whole-burnt sacrificial victim is male from the start, since the male is both more perfect and more commanding than the female, and more akin to the active cause; for the female is imperfect, subordinate, and characterized by being acted upon rather than by acting.
Our soul is composed of two elements, the rational and the irrational: the rational belongs to the male line, and it is this that has been allotted mind and reasoning; the irrational belongs to the side of women, and it is this that has received sense-perception as its portion. Mind stands to sense-perception as a husband to a wife, superior in kind as a whole; and mind, when it is without blemish and purified by the purifications of perfect virtue, is itself the most acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God wholly and in every part.
The laying of hands upon the head of the animal turns out to be a perfectly clear token of blameless actions and of a life that brings nothing liable to accusation, but is in harmony with the laws and ordinances of nature.
For the law wishes, first, that the mind of the one sacrificing be consecrated, trained in good and profitable judgments, and next, that his life be composed of the best actions, so that at the very moment of the laying on of hands he may be able, speaking freely out of a clean conscience, to say something like this:
“These hands have taken no gift for unjust ends, have had no part in distributions gained by plunder or greed, have not touched innocent blood; they have brought about no maiming, no outrage, no wound, no violence, have served nothing whatsoever that carries blame or reproach, but have become the ministers of all that is good and beneficial, all that is honored among wisdom and laws and wise and law-abiding men.”
The blood is poured all around the altar, because the circle is the most perfect of shapes, and because no part of the soul's libation should be left destitute and empty; for, properly speaking, blood is the libation of the soul. Symbolically, then, it teaches the understanding to display, in a circling dance around the whole of itself, its pleasing of God in every kind of word, purpose, and deed.
It is prescribed, quite symbolically, that the belly and the feet be washed. By the belly is intimated desire, which it is profitable to wash clean, since it is full of stains and pollutions, of drunkenness and drunken violence, an evil most harmful when it is fostered and cultivated to the ruin of human life.
By the washing of the feet is meant that one should no longer walk upon the earth but tread the upper air; for the soul that loves God truly leaps up from earth to heaven, and, taking wing, roams the heights, longing to fall into rank and to dance together with the sun and the moon and the most sacred and perfectly harmonious host of the other stars, under the command and leadership of God, who holds the unchallenged and inalienable kingship through which all things are justly governed.
The distribution of the animal into its members shows either that all things are one, or that all proceed from one and return to one - what some have called satiety and want, others conflagration and ordering-anew: conflagration, according to the mastery of heat when it prevails over the other elements; ordering-anew, according to the equal distribution among the four elements, which they exchange with one another.
To my mind, on a more accurate view, this is what is shown: the soul that honors Being for the sake of Being itself must honor it not irrationally or ignorantly, but with knowledge and reason. The account concerning God admits of division and distinction according to each of the divine powers and virtues; for God is good, and is the maker and begetter of all things, and provident over what he has begotten, and savior and benefactor, filled with blessedness and every happiness - each of which qualities is itself venerable and praiseworthy, both taken alone and examined together with its kindred qualities.
The same holds for the rest. Whenever you wish, O understanding, to give thanks to God for the coming-to-be of the cosmos, you should offer your thanksgiving both for the whole and for its most comprehensive parts, as though for the limbs of the most perfect living creature - I mean heaven and sun and moon, the wandering and the fixed stars, then earth and the animals and plants upon it, then seas and rivers, both those fed from their own springs and the winter torrents, and the creatures in them, and then air and the changes that occur in it - for winter and summer, spring and autumn, the yearly seasons most beneficial to life, are conditions of the air as it turns, for the preservation of all that lies beneath the moon.
And if ever you give thanks concerning human beings, do not give thanks only for the race as a whole, but also for its kinds and its most essential parts - men, women, Greeks, barbarians, those on the continents, those allotted the islands; and if it is for a single man, divide your thanksgiving by reason, not down to the finest details, all the way to the last particulars, but into the most fundamental components: body and soul first, of which he is composed, and then reason, mind, and sense-perception; for thanksgiving for each of these, taken by itself, could never be unworthy of God's hearing.
Let this suffice as said concerning the whole-burnt sacrifice. Next we must examine the sacrifice called the peace-offering. In this case it makes no difference whether the victim is male or female. Once it has been slaughtered, three parts are set aside for the altar: the fat, the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys; the rest is a feast for the one who has offered the sacrifice.
Why these particular internal parts are consecrated must be examined carefully, without passing it by. Reasoning this over with myself many times and searching it out, I was puzzled as to why the law set aside, as first-fruits of the animals sacrificed, the lobe of the liver, the kidneys, and the fat, but neither the heart nor the brain, though the ruling faculty resides in one or the other of these.
I think that not a few others, too, who approach the sacred writings with the understanding rather than with the eyes, will raise the same question. If, then, upon inquiry they discover a more persuasive reason, they will benefit both themselves and us; but if not, let them weigh the explanation I have devised, to see whether it is sound. It is this: of all that is in us, the ruling faculty alone receives and gives room to folly, injustice, cowardice, and the other vices; and the house of this faculty is one or the other of the two organs mentioned, the brain or the heart.
The sacred word therefore judged it right not to bring to God's altar - through which release from every sin and transgression comes, and full remission - any vessel in which the mind, once having lurked, went astray onto the trackless road of injustice and impiety, turning aside from the road leading to virtue and true nobility; for it would be foolish to make sacrifices a reminder of sins rather than an oblivion of them. This, it seems to me, is the reason why neither of the organs holding the ruling power, brain or heart, is offered.
But the parts that are set apart have a fitting rationale. The fat, because it is both the richest part and a guardian of the inner organs - for it wraps and enriches them, and by the softness of its touch does them good. The kidneys, because of the adjacent glands and the organs of generation, next to which they lie like good neighbors, helping and cooperating so that nature's sowing may go forward well, with nothing nearby standing in the way - for the kidneys are themselves blood-colored receptacles, into which the fluid purging of waste matter is separated off, while the glands lie close by, through which the seed is watered. And the lobe of the liver is the first-fruit of the most authoritative of the inner organs, through which nourishment is turned into blood and, channeled to the heart, is carried through the veins for the preservation of the whole body.
For the gullet, lying next to the passage of swallowing, receives the food already cut by the teeth and ground fine, and works on it further, handing it to the belly; the belly, taking over this second service from the gullet, performs the task to which nature has appointed it, reducing the food to chyle; and two pipes, like channels, grow out of the belly and pour it into the liver, into the receptacles formed within it.
The liver has a twofold power, one of separation and one for the making of blood. The power of separation sifts off everything hard and indigestible into the neighboring vessel of bile, while the other power turns what is pure and strained, by the heat surrounding it, into the most life-giving blood, and presses it out toward the heart, from which, as has been said, channeled through the veins, it circulates through the whole body, becoming its nourishment.
This, too, belongs with what has been said: the liver, being suspended aloft and perfectly smooth, has, on account of that smoothness, the character of a most radiant mirror, so that whenever the mind, withdrawing from the concerns of the day, with the body relaxed in sleep and none of the senses standing in its way, begins to circle back upon itself and to survey its own thoughts purely by itself, it may, gazing as into a mirror - the liver - behold each of the objects of thought with perfect clarity, and, looking all around at the images reflected in a circle, see whether any disgrace attaches to them, so as to flee the one and choose its opposite, and, having taken pleasure in all its visions, may prophesy the future through dreams.
The law permits the use of the peace-offering for only two days, leaving nothing over into the third, for many reasons. One is that everything belonging to the sacred table must be consumed promptly, with care taken that it not spoil through length of time; for the nature of stale meat is quick to putrefy, even if it has been seasoned with spices.
Another is that sacrifices ought not to be hoarded but set out openly for all who are in need; for they no longer belong to the one who sacrificed but to the one to whom the victim has been sacrificed, who, being a benefactor and generous giver, has made the company of those celebrating the sacrifice partakers of his altar and guests at his own table, and instructs them not to think of themselves as hosts; for they are stewards of the feast, not hosts - the host is the one to whom the provision itself belongs, which it is not right to hide away out of stinginess, an ignoble vice, when one ought to prefer generosity, the mark of noble virtue.
The last reason is that the peace-offering is brought on behalf of two things, soul and body, and to each of these one day was allotted for the feasting on the meat; for it was fitting that an equal span of time be set for those parts of us naturally disposed to be preserved, so that on the first day, together with the eating, one might receive a reminder of the soul's preservation, and on the second, of the body's health.
But since there was nothing third that could, properly speaking, receive preservation, the law forbade absolutely the use of it on the third day, ordaining that even if something happened to be left over through ignorance or forgetfulness, it should at once be consumed by fire. It declares the one who tastes of it alone guilty, and says to him: “You imagine you have sacrificed, ridiculous man, but you have not sacrificed; I have not accepted these unholy, unconsecrated, profane, unclean meats you have cooked, you glutton, for you have not so much as dreamed of true sacrifices.”
Included as a species of the peace-offering is the one called the offering of praise, whose rationale is this: the person who has met with nothing at all unwanted, neither in body nor in outward circumstance, but leads a life free of struggle and at peace, tested amid comforts and good fortunes, unharmed and unstumbling, steering the long sea of life in fair weather and calm waters, with good fortune ever blowing favorably at the stern - such a person is bound of necessity to repay, in a manner fitting to piety, with hymns and words of blessing, with prayers, sacrifices, and other acts of thanksgiving, the God who steers him and grants him health and preservation, unharmed benefits, and, in short, good things unmixed with evil; and all these together, taken as one, have received the single name “praise.”
So much for that offering. Next in order we must examine the third kind, which is called the sin offering. It is divided in many ways, both by the persons involved and by the kinds of victims: the persons are the high priest, the whole nation, a ruler acting individually, and a private person; the victims are a bull calf, a male goat, a female goat, or a ewe lamb.
A distinction is drawn, and it was above all necessary that it be drawn, between voluntary and involuntary offenses, since those who consider that they have sinned undergo a change for the better, blaming themselves for their transgressions and steering their course toward a blameless life.
Now the offenses of the high priest and of the nation are purified by a victim of equal honor, while those of the ruler are purified by a lesser one, though still male—for the victim is a male goat—and those of the private person by a still lower kind—for the sacrifice offered is not a male but a female, a female goat.
For it was fitting that the ruler should carry more weight than the private person even in matters of sacrifice, and the nation more than the ruler, since the whole must always outweigh the part; yet the high priest was judged worthy of the same privilege as the nation in his purification, and in seeking amnesty for wrongdoing from God's gracious power. This equality of honor he enjoys not so much for his own sake, it seems, as because he is the servant of the nation, offering the common thanksgivings on behalf of all in the most sacred prayers and the most reverent sacrifices.
Solemn and wondrous, too, is the ordinance concerning these matters. "If," it says, "the high priest should sin unwillingly," and it adds, "so that the people sin" (cf. Lev. 4:3), all but openly teaching that the high priest who is such in truth, and not falsely named, has no part in sins; but if he should ever slip, he will suffer this not on his own account but through a fault common to the nation—a fault, moreover, that is not incurable but readily admits of healing.
When the calf has been slaughtered, he commands that the blood be sprinkled seven times with the finger opposite the veil before the inner sanctuary, further within than in the previous case, in the place where the most sacred vessels are set; and then that the four horns of the incense altar—for it is square—be smeared and anointed, and that the rest of the blood be poured out beside the base of the altar in the open court.
Onto this altar he directs that three things be brought up: the fat, the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys, following the same arrangement as for the peace offering; but the hide and the flesh, and the whole of the rest of the calf's body from head to foot together with the entrails, are to be carried outside and burned in a clean place, where it is customary for the sacred ashes to be removed from the altar.
He legislates the same procedure also for the case when the whole nation sins. But if a ruler should transgress, purification is made with a male goat, as I said; if a private person, with a female goat or a ewe lamb—for to the ruler he assigned a male animal, to the private person a female—while in all other respects he ordained the same procedure for both: to smear the horns of the altar in the open court with the blood, to bring up the fat, the lobe of the liver, and the two kidneys, and to give the rest to the priests for food.
Since some offenses are committed against human beings and others against sacred and holy things, he has already discussed the case of unwilling offenses against human beings; but for the purification of offenses against sacred things he legislates propitiation by a ram, after the guilty party has first repaid the value of the object in respect of which the wrong was done, adding a fifth part over and above its worth.
Having legislated these and similar matters concerning involuntary offenses, he next lays down rules concerning voluntary ones. If someone, he says, lies about a partnership, or a deposit, or something plundered, or something found that another had lost, and having come under suspicion, is put under oath and swears—and though he seems to have escaped conviction by his accusers, becomes his own accuser, convicted within by his own conscience—and blames himself for what he denied and for perjuring himself, and, openly confessing the wrong he committed, asks for forgiveness, he commands that amnesty be granted to such a person,
provided he proves his repentance genuine not by promise but by deed: by restoring the deposit, and whatever he plundered or found or in any way appropriated from his neighbor, adding also a fifth part in payment as consolation for the wrong done.
And when he has first made propitiation to the one he wronged, let him go, he says, thereafter to the sanctuary as well, to ask forgiveness for his sin, bringing as his advocate the unimpeachable witness within the soul, which has rescued him from an incurable disaster by releasing the deadly disease and restoring him to complete health.
For this case too the victim prescribed is a ram, just as for the one who has transgressed against sacred things; for the unwilling offense against sacred things he made equal in value to the willing offense against human affairs—unless indeed this too is in some sense a sacred matter, since an oath has entered into it, an oath which, though it was not made in soundness, he set right again by a turn toward what is better.
It should be observed that the parts brought to the altar from the sin offering are the same as in the peace offering: the lobe of the liver, the fat, and the kidneys. For in a sense the one who repents is also saved, having turned away from the disease of the soul, which is harder to bear than the passions of the body.
The remaining parts of the animal are set apart for food, but with a distinct treatment. The difference lies in three things: place, time, and those who receive it. The place is the sanctuary; the time, one day instead of two; and those who share in it are the priests, not those on whose behalf the sacrifice is offered, and among priests, only the males.
He does not permit it to be carried outside the sanctuary, wishing that if the repentant person has previously sinned, this should not become notorious, handed over to the ungracious judgments and unbridled tongues of the envious and the quarrelsome for reproach and slander, but should remain within the sacred bounds, where the purification itself has taken place.
He commands that the priests feast on the sacrifice for many reasons. First, so that he may honor those who have offered it, for the esteem shown to the guests adds honor to their hosts. Second, so that they may be most firmly persuaded that those into whom remorse for their sins has entered have God gracious toward them; for he would not have called his attendants and servants to share such a table had the amnesty not been complete. Third, because no one is permitted to minister among the priests who is not whole in body, for he is rejected on account of blemish.
He thus offers comfort to those who no longer walk the path of wrongdoing, on the ground that, for the sake of belonging to the priestly line, they have received a share in purity of purpose and have been raised to equal honor with the priests. This is why the sin offering, too, is consumed within a single day, since it is fitting that those who are about to sin should always delay and be slow to do so, but that in doing what is right they should act with hastened speed.
But the offerings slaughtered on behalf of the high priest or the nation for their transgression are not prepared for food; instead they are burned upon the sacred ashes, as has been said. For no one is greater than the high priest or the nation to serve as an intercessor for those who have sinned.
It is fitting, then, that the flesh be consumed by fire, in imitation of the whole burnt offerings, out of honor for the persons involved—not because the sacred judgments are made according to rank, but because the offenses of those who are great in virtue and truly holy are of such a kind as to be reckoned the achievements of others.
For just as deep and fertile plowland, even if it should sometimes fail to bear, still yields more fruit than land poor by nature, in the same way it happens that the failures of the good and God-loving in the pursuit of nobility are better than the successes that the base achieve by chance; for these latter cannot endure to do anything sound by deliberate purpose.
Having laid down these regulations concerning each kind of sacrifice individually—the whole burnt offering, the peace offering, and the sin offering—he now adds legislation for another kind common to all three, so as to show that these are friendly and akin to one another; and the offering that gathers them together is called the great vow.
Why it received this name must be explained. When people offer first fruits from every part of their possessions—wheat, barley, oil, wine, the finest of the tree fruits—and then the firstborn males of their animals, consecrating the clean ones and paying the assessed value for the unclean, and, having no more material with which to express their piety, dedicate and consecrate themselves, they display an ineffable holiness and a certain excess of God-loving purpose. That is why it is fittingly called the great vow: for the greatest of a person's possessions is one's own self, and this is what he yields up and relinquishes.
Having made the vow, he prescribes the following: first, that the person not partake of unmixed wine, nor of "anything produced from the grape," nor drink any other intoxicant that would impair the reasoning faculty, considering that time to be a period of priestly service; for even the ministers among the priests, when thirsty, are forbidden anything touching on drunkenness and must quench their thirst with water alone.
Second, that he not cut the hair of his head, providing onlookers with a clear symbol that he is not debasing the currency of his vow; third, that he keep his body clean and undefiled, so as not to go in to his dead parents or brothers, since piety overcomes the natural affection and sympathy toward one's own kin and dearest ones—a victory that it is always good to win, both...
When the appointed time has elapsed, the law commands three animals to be brought forward for the release of the vow: a male lamb, a ewe lamb, and a ram — the male lamb for a whole burnt offering, the ewe lamb as a sin offering, and the ram as a sacrifice of salvation.
For in all these the one who made the vow is somehow represented: in the whole burnt sacrifice, because he yields not only the firstfruits of other things but of himself; in the sin offering, because he is human — for even the perfect man, insofar as he is a created being, cannot escape falling into error; and in the sacrifice of salvation, because he has inscribed the true Savior, God, as the cause of his salvation, and not physicians and their powers. For physicians are frail and mortal, unable even to provide health for themselves, and their powers benefit neither everyone nor always the same people, but sometimes even do great harm, since authority over both the powers and those who use them belongs to another.
What astonishes me is that although the three animals are brought forward for different sacrifices, none of them differs in kind — all belong to the same genus: ram, male lamb, and ewe lamb. For the law wishes, as I said a little earlier, to establish through this that the three forms of sacrifice are sisters and kin, since the one who repents is saved, and the one who is saved from the sicknesses of the soul repents, and each hastens toward a whole and complete disposition, of which the whole burnt offering is the symbol.
Since he had vowed to offer up himself, but it is not lawful for the sacred altar to be polluted with human blood, and yet some part had absolutely to be consecrated, he was eager to take a part which, when removed, causes neither pain nor disfigurement. For of the plant-like growth of the body, like the superfluous branches of a tree, he shaved off the hair of his head and handed it over to the fire on which the flesh of the sacrifice of salvation is boiled — fittingly, so that some part belonging to the one who made the vow, which is not permitted on the altar, might at least be mingled in with the sacrifice, becoming fuel for the sacred flame.
These, then, are common to all others. But the priests too were required to offer some firstfruits to the altar, so that they would not suppose that the services and ministries to which they had been appointed had won them exemption. The firstfruits fitting for priests come from none of the blood offerings, but from the purest of human food.
For their continual sacrifice is fine wheat flour, a tenth of the sacred measure each day, half of it offered in the morning and half in the evening, fried in oil, with none of it left over for eating. For there is an oracle that every sacrifice of a priest must be wholly burnt, and none of it allotted for food. Having spoken, as far as was possible, about sacrifices, we shall next speak about those who offer sacrifice. On those who sacrifice.
The law wishes the one who brings sacrifices to be pure in body and soul — the soul pure from passions and diseases and sicknesses and vices in both word and deed, and the body pure from whatever it is customary
to be defiled by. He devised the fitting purification for each: for the soul, through the animals prepared for sacrifices as remedies; for the body, through washings and sprinklings, about which we shall speak a little later. For it is right to grant the seat of honor in matters of reason to the better and more governing part within us, the soul. What, then, is its purification?
"Look," he says, "my friend, at the victim you bring forward — how it is whole and entirely without blemish, judged best from among many by the incorruptible judgment of the priests and by their eyes, sharpened by continual practice, for blameless inspection. For if you do not see this more with your eyes than with your reasoning, you will wash away your sins and all the stains you have contracted throughout your whole life, some by involuntary circumstance, some by deliberate choice."
For you will find that such precision concerning the animal hints, through a symbol, at the improvement of your own character. For the law is not concerned with irrational creatures, but with those who possess mind and reason; so it is not the victims that are its care, that they should have no blemish, but those who sacrifice, that they should be sick with no passion.
As for the body, as I said, he purifies it with washings and sprinklings, and does not allow one who has been sprinkled or washed once to enter straightway within the sacred precincts; instead he commands him to spend seven days outside and to be sprinkled twice, on the third and seventh days, and after this, once washed, grants him fearless entry and access to the sacred rites.
How much foresight and philosophy there is even in this must be examined. Almost all other peoples are sprinkled with unmixed water — most with sea water, some with river water, others drawing it in jars from springs. But Moses, having first prepared ashes left over from a sacred fire — the manner of which will be shown presently — says that one must take from these, and, casting them into a vessel, pour water on top, and then, dipping sprigs of hyssop into the mixture, sprinkle those being purified.
The reason for this, one might say, is not beside the point: he wishes those who approach the service of the Existing One to know themselves first, and their own being. For how could one ignorant of himself be able to grasp the supreme power of God, which surpasses all things?
Our being, as far as the body is concerned, is earth and water, of which he reminds us through the purification, supposing this very thing to be the most beneficial purification: that one should know oneself, and from what things — worthy of no esteem, ash and water — one has been compounded.
For once he has recognized this, he will immediately turn away from treacherous self-conceit, and, having cast down his arrogance, will be well-pleasing to God and will exchange his insolence for God's gracious power. For it has been well said somewhere that the one who undertakes haughty words or deeds provokes not only human beings but also "God," the maker of equality and of everything most excellent. (Num. 15:30)
So, when they are sprinkled and struck and roused, it is as though the very elements, earth and water, cry out and say: We are the substance of your body; nature, blending us by divine art, shaped us into human form; compacted out of us when you came into being, you will again be resolved into us when it is time to die. For nothing that exists is by nature destroyed into non-being, but the end returns to that from which the beginning came.
Now it is necessary to redeem the promise concerning the peculiar property of this ash. For it is not merely wood consumed by fire, but also an animal fit for such a purification.
For he commands that a red heifer, unyoked and unblemished, be brought and slaughtered outside the city, and that the high priest, taking of its blood, sprinkle it seven times facing the temple, and then burn the whole of it with its hide, flesh, blood, and belly full of its contents. And as the flame dies down, he commands that three things be thrown into the very middle of it: cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool. Then, once it has gone out, a clean man is to gather the ashes and deposit them again outside the city in a clean place.
What these things hint at, as through symbols, we have set out precisely elsewhere through allegory. It is necessary that those who are about to frequent the temple to share in sacrifice should brighten both the body and, before the body, the soul; for the soul is mistress and queen and superior in all things, since it has been allotted a more divine nature. What brightens the mind is wisdom, and the doctrines of wisdom that guide one toward contemplation of the cosmos and the things in it, and the sacred choir of the other virtues, and the fine and highly praised actions done in accordance with virtue.
Let the man adorned with these things, then, go forward with confidence into the temple most akin to him, the finest dwelling place of all, ready to show himself as the sacrificial victim. But whoever harbors and lies in wait for greed and desires for injustice, let him cover himself and keep his shameless recklessness and excessive boldness quiet, restraining them where caution is profitable; for the sanctuary of the truly Existing One is inaccessible to unholy sacrifices.
I would say: noble sir, God does not rejoice even if one brings up hecatombs; for all things are his possessions, yet, possessing them, he needs nothing. He rejoices in god-loving minds and in men who practice holiness, from whom he gladly receives cakes and barley and the cheapest offerings as though they were the most precious, ahead of the costliest.
And indeed, even if they bring nothing else, but bring themselves as the most perfect fulfillment of nobility, they offer the best sacrifice, honoring the benefactor and savior God with hymns and thanksgivings — some through vocal instruments, others without tongue or mouth, making their intelligible processions and outcries with the soul alone, of which only the divine ear takes hold; for the hearing of human beings cannot perceive them.
That this account is not false, and not mine but nature's own, is attested somehow by clear evidence itself, which offers plain proof to those who do not practice disbelief out of love of contention; and it is attested also by the law, which ordained that two altars be constructed, differing in materials, in locations, and in uses.
For the one has been built of unhewn, selected stones and stands in the open air near the approaches to the temple, and has come to be for the use of blood offerings; the other has been constructed of the purest gold and stands within the inner sanctuary, behind the first curtain, visible to none of the others except the priests who are purified, and has come to be for the use of incense.
From this it is clear that God considers even the smallest grain of frankincense from a holy man more precious than countless herds of cattle, whatever a man not truly noble might sacrifice. For just as, I think, gold is better than random stones, and things within the inner sanctuary are more sacred than those outside, by so much is thanksgiving through incense offerings superior to that through blood offerings.
From this it is clear that God considers even the smallest pinch of frankincense more precious than the sacrifice of countless victims offered by a man who is not truly good; for I think that, just as gold is better than ordinary stones, and the things within the inner sanctuary are holier than those outside it, so by that same measure thanksgiving offered through incense is superior to thanksgiving offered through blood sacrifices.
For this reason the altar of incense is honored not only by the costliness and craftsmanship of its material and by its location, but also by the fact that it is the first to be served each day with the thank offerings that human beings bring to God; for it is not permitted to bring forward the whole burnt offering outside until the incense has been offered within, at deep dawn.
And this is a symbol of nothing other than the truth that, in God's sight, it is not the multitude of victims sacrificed that is precious, but the purest rational spirit of the one sacrificing. For if a judge, who cares about a holy verdict, would not take gifts from one of the parties on trial—or if he took them would be guilty of bribery—nor would a good man take gifts from some wicked person, one human being from another wealthy human being, even if he himself were in need, would you really suppose that God can be bribed—God, who is entirely self-sufficient and in need of nothing that has come into being, who, being the first good, the most perfect, the ever-flowing spring of wisdom and justice and all virtue, turns away the gifts of the unjust?
And the one who brings such gifts—is he not the most shameless of all, since he offers, from what he has stolen or seized or denied or taken by fraud, a portion, as though making God a partner in his own wickedness and greed? Most wretched of all men, I would say to such a person, you expect one of two things: either that you will escape notice, or that you will be found out.
If you suppose you will escape notice, you are ignorant of God's power, by which he sees all things and hears all things at once; and if you think you will be exposed and still bring the offering, you are utterly reckless. For instead of hiding what you did wrong, as you ought, you bring out into the open the very evidence of the wrongs you have committed, and, giving yourself airs, you distribute it to God, bringing him unholy first fruits, without ever reckoning that neither does law admit lawlessness, nor does the light of the sun admit darkness. But God is both the archetypal pattern of laws and the sun of the sun, the intelligible sun of the sensible one, who from invisible springs supplies visible light to what is seen. M. On not bringing the wages of a prostitute into the temple.
It is a very fine thing that this too has been inscribed on the sacred tablets of the law: that the wages of a prostitute must not be brought into the sanctuary, from a woman who has sold her own bloom of youth, choosing, for the sake of shameful gain, a life open to reproach.
But if the gifts from a woman who has played the harlot are unholy, how much more so are the gifts from a soul that has prostituted itself—a soul that has flung itself into shame and the utmost outrages: drunkenness, gluttony, love of money, love of glory, love of pleasure, and countless other forms of passion, sickness, and vice? What length of time could wash away those stains? I, for one, do not know of any.
For old age often puts an end to the trade of courtesans, since once they have passed their prime no one approaches them any longer, their bloom having withered like that of certain flowers; but what age could ever turn the prostitution of a soul—trained and habituated in a licentiousness that has grown up with it—toward good order? No age at all; only God, for whom what is impossible for us is possible.
The one who is about to sacrifice must examine, not whether the victim is unblemished, but whether his own understanding is whole and complete in every part. Let him also search out the reasons for which he thinks fit to bring sacrifices: whether he is giving thanks for benefits already received, or asking for the securing of present goods or the acquisition of future ones, or for the averting of present or expected evils. In all these cases he must furnish his reasoning with health and soundness.
For if he gives thanks for benefits already received, let him not prove ungrateful by becoming base—for favors were given to a person of worth—and if he is seeking confirmation of present goods while hoping for good things to come, let him make himself worthy of good fortune by being a person of true worth; and if he is asking for escape from certain evils, let him not do things deserving of punishments and penalties. Other matters concerning the altar.
"Fire," it says, "shall burn continually on the altar and never be extinguished"; and rightly and fittingly so, I think. For since the graces of God are ever-flowing, unfailing, and uninterrupted, which human beings receive by day and by night, so too the symbol of thanksgiving, the sacred flame, must be kept alive and never allowed to go out.
Perhaps too it is his wish, by this means, to join the old sacrifices to the new and unite them through the permanence and presence of the same fire, by which all are consecrated, as a sign that thanksgiving must be complete, whatever the countless occasions from which the offerings come, whether out of abundant plenty or, on the contrary, out of the scarcity of what is brought.
These, then, are the literal meanings [symbols of things perceived by the intellect]; but the matters bearing on the understanding must be examined by the rules of allegory. In truth, the altar of God is the grateful soul of the wise man, established out of complete, undivided, and indivisible virtues; for no part of virtue is useless.
On this altar the sacred light is forever kindled, kept unextinguished; and the light of the understanding is wisdom, since the opposite darkness of the soul is folly. For what perceptible light is to the eyes for the apprehension of bodies, knowledge is to reasoning for the contemplation of things incorporeal and intelligible—and its brightness shines forever, never dimmed.
After this he says: "upon every offering you shall bring salt," by which, as I said before, he hints at permanence extending to everything; for salt is a preservative of bodies, honored with second place after the soul. For just as the soul is the cause of bodies not decaying, so too salt, holding bodies together for the greatest length of time, in a certain way makes them immortal.
This is why he has called it "altar," giving it a name of its own and distinct, evidently derived from its preserving the sacrifices—even though the meat is in fact consumed by fire—so that it is the clearest proof that God supposes the sacrifice to consist not in the victims but in the understanding and eagerness of the one offering, in which alone lies the stability and firmness that comes from virtue.
Moreover he further legislates, commanding that every sacrifice be brought without leaven and without honey, deeming neither fit to be offered up on the altar. Honey, perhaps, because its producer, the bee, is not a pure creature, being generated—so the account goes—from the decay and corruption of dead oxen, just as wasps are generated from the bodies of horses.
Or perhaps it is a symbol that all excessive pleasure is unholy, sweetening what is swallowed but afterward bringing bitter and hard-to-cure pains, by which the soul is inevitably shaken and disturbed, unable to establish itself firmly.
And leaven, because of the swelling it produces—again symbolically—so that no one approaching the altar should ever be puffed up, inflated by arrogance, but rather, looking toward the greatness of God, should perceive his own weakness as a created being, even if he surpasses others in good fortune, and, making the fitting calculation, should curb the overweening height of his pride, destroying the treacherous conceit within him.
For if the founder and maker of all things, in need of nothing that he has generated, does not look to the excesses of his own power and authority but to your weakness, and shares with you his gracious power, filling up the deficiencies you suffer from—what is it fitting for you to do toward other people, your kin by nature, sown from the same elements, you who have contributed nothing to the world, not even yourself?
For you came naked, marvelous man, and naked again you will depart, having received from God for your use the time between birth and death, in which it was fitting to do nothing other than to attend to fellowship, concord, equality, kindness to your fellow man, and every other virtue, casting away that unequal, unjust, and unsociable vice which makes the gentlest creature by nature, man, savage and untamed.
Again, he commands that lamps be kept burning on the sacred lampstand within the veil from evening until morning, for many reasons. One is so that, in succession to the light of day, the holy place, always untouched by darkness, may be illuminated in the likeness of the stars; for these too, when the sun sets, display their own light, never abandoning the position assigned to them in the universe.
Another reason is that even by night something akin and related to the daytime sacrifices should be carried out, for God's pleasure, so that no time or occasion for thanksgiving may be left out; and the sacrifice most fitting and most suited to the night for thanksgiving—for it deserves to be called a sacrifice—is the radiance of the most sacred light within the inner sanctuary.
A third reason, and a very necessary one: since we are well cared for not only while awake but also while asleep, God, in his love of giving, has provided sleep as a great assistance to the mortal race, for the benefit of both body and soul—the body being released from its daytime labors, and the soul being relieved of its cares and withdrawing into itself, away from the crowd and clamor of the senses, able then, at least, to be alone and to converse with itself. It was fitting, then, that the law should apportion thanksgivings accordingly: for waking hours, through the victims that are brought, and for sleep and its benefits, through the kindling of the sacred lamps.
These, then, are the things legislated for piety, by way of commands and prohibitions, together with matters like them; but as for what belongs to philosophical instructions and exhortations, this must be said: God, it says, O understanding, asks nothing burdensome, complicated, or difficult of you, but something entirely simple and easy.
And this is: to love him as a benefactor, or, failing that, at least to fear him as ruler and lord, and to walk in every path that leads to pleasing him, and to serve him not carelessly but with the whole soul, filled with a disposition devoted to God, and to hold fast to his commandments and to honor justice. As a result of all this, he himself remains in the same unchanging nature, while everything else in the universe attains improvement—sun or moon or the multitude of the other stars or the whole heaven. And of the earth too, the mountains rise to their utmost height, while the plain, like substances that have been poured out, spreads to its greatest breadth, and the sea changes to fresh water, or the rivers become equal in size to the open seas. But no—each of these things is fixed within the same bounds in which it was set from the very beginning, when God made it; whereas you will become better by living blamelessly. What, then, of all this, is burdensome or laborious?
We need not cross unnavigable seas, tossed up and down at the height of winter by the swell and the force of contrary winds, nor tramp rough and untrodden wilds instead of roads, forever cowering before the attacks of bandits or wild beasts, nor keep watch on walls, camping in the open at night while enemies lie in wait and threaten the gravest dangers — no, let nothing unpleasant be said of what is good; we must speak only well of things that so benefit us.
The soul need only give its assent, and everything is at hand, ready. Or do you not know that both the sensible heaven and the intelligible heaven belong to God — the intelligible heaven being, one might properly say, “the heaven of heaven” — and likewise the earth and everything in it, and the whole cosmos, both the visible and the invisible and incorporeal, the model of the visible heaven?
Yet even so, from the whole human race he chose out, by merit, those who are truly human, and judged them worthy of every privilege, calling them to the service of himself, the ever-flowing fountain of good things, from which he also rained down the other virtues and poured them out for the most beneficial enjoyment — a draught that makes immortal no less than, or even more than, nectar.
Pitiable and unfortunate are all who have not feasted on the drink of virtue, and most unfortunate of all are those who have never once tasted nobility of character, when it was possible to rejoice and delight in justice and holiness. Instead they are uncircumcised in heart, as the Law says, and through the hardness of their disposition are rebellious, kicking wilfully and stiffening their necks;
them he admonishes, saying, “Circumcise the hardness of your heart” (Deut. 10:16) — that is, cut away with all diligence the excess growths of the ruling faculty, which the unmeasured impulses of the passions have sown and made to flourish, and which folly, that evil farmer of the soul, has planted.
“And let your neck,” he says, “not be stiff” — that is, let the mind not be unbending and utterly self-willed, nor let it cultivate, out of excessive obstinacy, the most harmful ignorance; rather, having laid aside its naturally difficult and intractable temper as an enemy, let it change over to gentleness, in obedience to the laws of nature.
Or do you not see that the first and greatest of the powers surrounding Being are the beneficent and the punitive? And the beneficent has been called God, since it was by this power that he established and ordered the universe, while the other is called Lord, since by it he holds fast the mastery over all things. And God is God not only of men but also of gods, and ruler not only of private persons but also of rulers, being truly great and mighty and
powerful. And yet he who is so great in virtues and powers takes pity and compassion on those most destitute in their want, not disdaining to become a judge for converts, orphans, or widows, but looking past kings and tyrants and those in great positions of power, he deems worthy of his providence the lowliness of the ones just named.
For converts, for this reason: having left behind the ancestral ways in which they were reared, ways full of false fictions and vanity, and having become genuine lovers of truth free from vanity, they have moved over to piety; being suppliants and worshippers of the truly Existent, worthy as they are, they receive a fitting share of providence, finding as the fruit of their taking refuge in God the help that comes from him.
For orphans and widows, since they have been deprived of their protectors — the former of parents, the latter of husbands — and no refuge from among men remains for those left so utterly alone; therefore they are not without a share in the greatest hope, that of God, who, because of his gracious nature, does not turn away his providence and care from those so bereft.
“Let God alone,” he says, “be your boast and your greatest glory, and do not pride yourself on wealth or reputation or rule or bodily beauty or strength or anything of that kind, on which the empty-minded are wont to be puffed up, considering first that these things have no share in the nature of the good, and second that they have a swift season for change, withering in a sense before they have securely bloomed.”
Let us instead pursue that good which is fixed, unchangeable, and immutable, and hold fast to supplication and service of it, and let us not, even when we have conquered our enemies, emulate their impieties, which they think of as acts of piety — burning their sons and daughters to their own gods — not
because it is the custom of all barbarians to burn their children in fire (for their natures have not grown so savage as to endure doing in peace, to their dearest and closest kin, what they would not even do to enemies and irreconcilable foes in war), but because they truly scorch and destroy the souls of those they have begotten, by failing, from the very swaddling clothes, while their souls are still tender, to engrave upon them true beliefs about the one and truly existing God — let us not, then, be overcome and give way, led astray by their good fortunes as though they had conquered through piety;
for immediate successes often come upon many as a snare, being the bait of severe and incurable evils; and it is likely too that unworthy men should prosper, not for their own sake, but so that we, who were born into a God-loving commonwealth and reared under laws that train us toward every virtue, and who from our earliest years have been taught the noblest things by divinely inspired men, may be pained and grieved all the more severely when we act impiously — we who neglect the one and cling to what truly deserves neglect, counting serious things as play and things worthy only of play as serious.
And if anyone, assuming the name and guise of a prophet, seeming to be inspired and possessed, should lead people to the worship of the gods customarily recognized in various cities, one ought not heed him, deceived by the name of prophet; for such a man is a charlatan, not a prophet, since in his falsehood he has fabricated oracles and pronouncements.
And if a brother, or a son, or a daughter, or a wife who keeps the house, or a genuine friend, or anyone else who seems to be well disposed, should urge one toward the same things, pressing one to join in festivity with the crowd and to go to the same temples and the same libations and sacrifices, such a person must be punished as a public executioner and common enemy, with little regard paid to kinship; and his exhortations must be reported to all lovers of piety, who will rush without delay to take vengeance on the unholy man, judging it a righteous act to slay him.
Let there be for us one kinship and one token of friendship: pleasing God, and saying and doing everything for the sake of piety. As for those other kinships said to come from ancestry by blood, and those relations arising through marriage or other similar causes, let them be cast aside, if they do not press toward the same end — the honor of God, which is the indissoluble bond of all unifying goodwill; for such people will lay hold of a more venerable and more sacred kinship.
My promise is confirmed by the Law itself, which says that those who do “what is pleasing” to nature and “what is good” are sons of God; for it says, “You are sons to the Lord your God” (Deut. 14:1) — clearly meaning that they will be deemed worthy of providence and care as from a father; and this care will differ from that of men just as much, I think, as the one who provides the care differs.
Beyond this, he also removes from the sacred legislation everything concerning initiations and mysteries and all such charlatanry and buffoonery, judging it unfitting that those reared in such a commonwealth should hold orgiastic rites, and, hanging upon mystic fabrications, neglect the truth, and pursue what has been allotted to night and darkness, abandoning what belongs to day and light. Let none of the disciples and associates of Moses, then, either perform initiations or be initiated; for both teaching and learning such rites is no small act of impiety.
For what is the good, O initiates, if these things are noble and beneficial, of shutting yourselves up in deep darkness and benefiting only three or four people, when it was possible instead to set forth their benefit for all mankind in the middle of the marketplace, so that all without fear might share in a better and more fortunate life? For envy has no part in virtue.
Let those who do harmful deeds feel shame, seeking out hiding places and the recesses of the earth and deep darkness in which to conceal themselves, casting a shadow over their great lawlessness so that no one may see it; but let those who do things beneficial to the community have freedom of speech, and let them walk by day through the middle of the marketplace, meeting crowds of people, reflecting their own life in the clear sunlight, and benefiting their gatherings through the most authoritative senses — offering sights at once most pleasant and most striking to see, and words, sweet as drink, to hear and feast on, words that are wont to gladden the minds of those not utterly without taste. Or do you not
see that nature too has hidden none of her own celebrated and altogether beautiful works, but has displayed the stars and the whole heaven both for the delight of sight and for the desire of philosophy, and the seas and springs and rivers and the temperate blending of the air through winds and breezes for the yearly seasons, and countless forms of plants and animals and, further, of fruits, for the use and enjoyment of mankind?
Should we not, then, following her purposes, likewise set before all who are worthy everything necessary and useful, for their benefit? But as things now stand, it often happens that none of the good men are initiated, while sometimes bandits and pirates and bands of loathsome and unrestrained women are, once they have provided money to those who perform the initiations and officiate as hierophants. Let all such people be banished, as outsiders, from the city and the constitution in which the noble and the true are honored for their own sake. So much, then, for this.
Being in the highest degree an advocate of community and humanity, the Law has preserved the dignity and solemnity of each of these virtues, allowing none of those in an incurable state to take refuge in them, but driving them off to the greatest possible distance.
Knowing, at any rate, that in the assemblies not a few base persons slip in unnoticed thanks to the size of the gathered crowd, in order that this should not happen he bars in advance all who are unworthy of the sacred assembly, beginning with those afflicted with the female disease, effeminate men, who counterfeit the coinage of nature and force themselves into the passions and shapes of unrestrained women; for he drives out eunuchs and those whose generative organs have been cut off, men who store up the bloom of youth so that it may not easily wither, and who alter the male stamp into a womanish form. And he drives out not only prostitutes but also the offspring of a prostitute,
Bringing upon themselves their mother's shame, because their first sowing and begetting has been adulterated and confused on account of the multitude of men who have had intercourse with their mothers, so that they cannot recognize and distinguish who is their true father.
This passage, if any other, admits of allegory, being full of philosophical theory. For the impious and unholy do not have one manner but many and different kinds. Some say that the incorporeal Forms are an empty name having no share in real existence, thereby doing away with the most necessary of all substances, which is the archetypal pattern of all the things that are qualities of substance, according to which each thing was given its form and measured out.
These men the sacred pillars of the law denote as “crushed” (thladias): for just as a crushed thing has no quality, no form, and is nothing else than, properly speaking, formless matter, so too the opinion that does away with the Forms confuses everything and drags it down to that higher substance of the elements which is formless and without quality.
What could be more absurd than this? For God begot all things out of that formless matter, not touching it himself — for it was not right for the blessed and happy one to touch boundless and confused matter — but he made use of the incorporeal powers, whose proper name is the Forms, so that each kind might receive its fitting shape. But this opinion introduces much disorder and confusion; for in doing away with the things through which qualities exist, it does away with qualities as well.
Others, as though striving in a contest of vice to carry off the prize of impiety, go even further, and along with the Forms conceal also the existence of God, saying that he does not exist but is said to exist for the sake of human advantage — so that men, out of reverence for one who seems to be present everywhere and to see everything with sleepless eyes, might restrain themselves from wrongdoing. These the law rightly calls “cut off,” since they have cut away the very notion of him who begets all things, barren of wisdom and practicing the greatest of vices, atheism.
Third are those who cut in the opposite direction, introducing a multitude of gods, male and female, elder and younger, filling the universe, as it were, with talk of many governments, so that they might excise from human thought the conception of the One who truly is.
These are the ones the law symbolically calls “sons of a harlot.” For just as those whose mothers are harlots neither know their true father nor can register him, but have many — almost all — of their mother's lovers and consorts, in the same way those who are ignorant of the one true God, fashioning many false-named gods, are blind concerning the most necessary of all realities — the very thing it would have been fitting to be taught, alone or first of all, from the very cradle; for what teaching is nobler than that of the God who truly is?
A fourth and a fifth group he drives out, pressing toward the same end, though not by the same reasoning. Both are zealots of the great evil, self-love, and have, as it were, divided between themselves as common property the whole soul, which is composed of a rational and an irrational part: the one group has taken as their portion the rational part, which is mind, the other the irrational part, which is divided among the senses.
Now the champions of mind ascribe to it dominion and kingship over human affairs, and say that it is capable both of preserving the past by memory, vigorously grasping the present, and picturing and reasoning about the future by plausible conjecture.
For it is mind that sowed and planted the deep and fertile earth of both mountain and plain, and discovered agriculture, most beneficial to life; it is mind that built the ship and, by inventions surpassing all reckoning, made the nature of dry land navigable, cutting through the sea in many branching highways as far as the harbors and roadsteads of cities, and made known to one another mainlanders and islanders who would never have come together had a vessel not been built; it is mind, too, that is the discoverer of the menial as well as the more refined arts.
It is mind that devised letters and numbers and music and all general education, and increased them and brought them to fulfillment; it is mind, too, that begot the greatest good, philosophy, and through each of its parts benefited human life — through the logical part toward interpretation free from deception, through the ethical part toward the correction of character, through the physical part toward knowledge of heaven and the universe. And they recount, besides, a vast multitude of other praises of mind, heaping and gathering them together, all bearing on what has already been said, which it is not the occasion to trouble over.
The champions of the senses, for their part, dignify their own praise quite solemnly, apportioning to reason the benefits that arise from the senses, and say that there are two causes of living — smell and taste — and two of living well — sight and hearing.
Through taste, then, the nourishment of food is conveyed; through the nostrils, air, on which every living creature depends; and this too is a food, continuous and unceasing, which sustains and preserves not only the waking but also the sleeping. Clear proof of this: if the passage of breath were checked for even the briefest moment by cutting off the stream of air that naturally flows in from outside, death would inevitably and inescapably follow.
Of the philosophical senses, however, through which the good life is attained, sight beholds light, the most beautiful of existing things, and through light it beholds all else — sun, moon, stars, heaven, earth, sea, the countless varieties of plants and animals, and, in sum, all bodies, shapes, colors, and magnitudes, the contemplation of which has produced extraordinary understanding and given birth to a great longing for knowledge.
Sight also affords us, apart from these, the greatest of benefits: the distinguishing of kin from strangers and friends from enemies, the avoidance of what is harmful, and the choice of what is beneficial. Each of the other parts of the body, too, has come to be for fitting and quite necessary uses — feet for walking and running and all else accomplished through the legs, hands for doing, giving, and receiving; but the eyes, as if some common good, furnish to these and to all the others the cause of their being able to succeed.
Most truthful witnesses are those deprived of sight, who can use neither hands nor feet for the better, thereby confirming the very name — which those who first named the disabled meant to set not so much in reproach as in pity; for along with the destruction of the eyes, the powers of the body are not merely tripped up but destroyed. Hearing, too, is a most wonderful thing, through which melodies and meters and rhythms—
—and further, harmonies and concords and the transitions of genera and systems, and all that is judged according to music, and, in matters of speech, through its many channels, the countless forms of forensic, deliberative, and celebratory oratory; and further, those found in histories and dialogues, and those in the necessary conversations about the affairs of life with whomever one happens to meet. For, in sum, since the voice has a twofold power, both for speaking and for singing, hearing distinguishes each of these to the soul's benefit.
For song and speech are healthy and saving remedies: the one charms away the passions and checks in us with rhythms what is unrhythmic, with melodies what is discordant, with measures what is unmeasured — and each of these is varied and manifold, as musicians and poets attest, whom the well-educated must trust as a matter of necessary practice — while speech, restraining and beating back the impulses toward vice and nursing back to health those overpowered by folly and unpleasantness, treating more gently those who yield and more forcefully those who resist, becomes the cause of the greatest benefits.
Weaving together such arguments, both the devotees of mind and the devotees of the senses — the one deifying mind, the other the senses — out of self-love forget the God who truly exists in reality. For this reason he rightly banished from the sacred assembly all these: those who do away with the Forms, whom he called, as we said, “crushed”; those who are utterly atheist, to whom he gave the fitting name “cut off”; those who, in the opposite direction, introduce a begetting of gods, whom he called “sons of a harlot”; and, besides all these, the self-lovers, of whom some deified reason and others each of the senses. For all these press toward the same end, even though setting out from different plans, in silencing the one who alone truly is God.
But we, the disciples and familiars of the prophet Moses, will not give up the search for him who is, believing that knowledge of him is the goal of happiness and of long life, just as the law also says that all who cleave to God live (Deut. 4:4), laying down a doctrine both necessary and philosophical; for in truth the atheists are dead in soul, while those who have been assigned their place beside the God who truly is live an immortal life.

======== The Special Laws II ========

In the treatise before this one, two chapters were treated with precision, out of the ten commandments: the one concerning not believing there are other gods with sovereign power, and the one concerning not fashioning any handmade image as a god. And we also stated the particular laws that fit each of these. Now let us discuss, in turn, the three commandments that come next in order, again fitting the particular laws that belong to each.
The first of the three is not to take the name of God in vain. "Let the word of the virtuous person," it says, "be an oath" — firm, unwavering, utterly truthful, grounded in truth. But if need should compel someone to swear, then let one swear by the health and good fortune of one's father or mother while they are living, or by their memory once they have died; for these are likenesses and imitations of the divine power, since they have brought into being those who did not exist.
It is recorded in the laws that one of the patriarchs, a man especially admired for wisdom, swore "by the fear of his father" (Gen. 31:53) — for the benefit, I think, and the necessary instruction of those who would come after, so that they might honor their parents in the proper manner, cherishing them as benefactors and revering them as rulers established by nature, and not readily attempt to name God.
Worthy of praise, too, are those who, if ever compelled to swear, instill fear not only in onlookers but even in those who provoke them to the oath, by their hesitation, their delay, their reluctance; for they are accustomed to utter only the words "by him" or "no, by him," adding nothing further, and by the very abruptness of the break they make plain that no oath has actually been sworn.
But one may also, if one wishes, add something further — not, however, straightaway naming the highest and most venerable cause, but rather the earth, the sun, the stars, the heaven, the whole universe; for these are most worthy of regard, being older than our own coming into being and
moreover ageless, enduring forever by the will of their Maker. But some display such recklessness and carelessness that, passing over all these things that belong to the realm of becoming, they dare in their speech to run straight up to the Maker and Father of all, without first examining whether the places are profane or sacred, whether the times are fitting, whether they themselves are pure in body and soul, whether the matters are weighty, whether the needs are urgent — but, as the saying goes, muddying everything "with unwashed hands," as though, because nature gave them a tongue, they must use it loosed and unbridled toward things that are not permitted.
They ought instead to have used the finest of instruments — the one by which voice and speech, the most beneficial of things and the causes of human fellowship, are articulated — for the honor and reverence and blessed praise of the cause of all things.
But as it is, through excessive impiety, they utter the most horrifying invocations concerning whatever chance matter comes up, and heaping name upon name without shame, they think that by the sheer frequency and continuous piling-up of successive oaths they will prevail in what they have in mind — being altogether foolish, since among people of sound judgment, a multitude of oaths is not evidence of trustworthiness but of untrustworthiness.
But if someone, under compulsion, swears about any matter whatever that the law has not forbidden, let him confirm the oath with all his strength and by every means, placing no obstacle in the way of fulfilling what he has resolved — especially when it is not untamed anger, or raging passions, or uncontrollable desires that have driven his reason to madness, so that he no longer knows what he is saying or doing, but rather he makes the oath with sober reckoning and clear judgment.
For what is better than to be free of falsehood throughout one's whole life, and this while using God as one's witness? For an oath is nothing other than God's testimony concerning a disputed matter; and to call upon God when the matter is not true is the most impious thing of all.
For the one who does this all but cries aloud, even if he seems to keep silent: "I am using you as a screen for my wrongdoing. Since I am ashamed to appear to be doing wrong, help me in this; take on the blame in place of me who am acting wickedly, for I care about not being thought base while I do wrong — but you have no regard for reputation among the many, and are not concerned at all for a good name." To say or even to think such things is utterly impious; for not only would God, who has no share in any evil, be indignant, but even a father, or a stranger not wholly untouched by virtue, would be indignant to hear such things.
All oaths, then, as I have said, must be kept firm — all those that concern noble and beneficial things, made for the correction of private or public affairs, under the guidance of prudence, justice, and piety (and along with these belong also the most lawful of prayers, made because of an abundance of good things, whether present or hoped for) — but it is not a holy thing to ratify oaths made for the opposite ends.
For there are some who swear, as it may happen, that they will commit thefts and temple robberies, or seductions and adulteries, or woundings and murders, or some other such evil, and they carry these out without delay, making their claim to keep their oath a pretext — as though doing no wrong were not better and more pleasing to God than the confirming of oaths, since justice and every virtue is an ancestral law and an ancient ordinance; and what else are laws and ordinances but the sacred words of nature, having from themselves their firmness and stability, so that they differ not at all from oaths?
Let everyone who does wrong under oath know this: he does not keep his oath well, but rather overturns the oath — which deserves great care and guarding, since it seals what is noble and just — for he adds guilty acts to guilty acts, since the oaths themselves, sworn where they should not have been, would have been far better left unspoken, and now he adds to them unlawful deeds.
Let the one, then, who abstains from wrongdoing implore God, so that God may grant a share of his gracious power, forgiving him for what he swore in his lack of forethought; for to choose double evils, when one is able to unload half of them, is madness and derangement hard to cure.
There are some who, by nature unsociable and unable to share in common life, either because of an excess of hatred for humankind, or because compelled by anger — as by a harsh mistress — confirm the savagery of their character with an oath: they declare that they will not share table or roof with so-and-so, or so-and-so, nor ever again provide any benefit to a certain person or receive anything from him, even until death. And sometimes they preserve this irreconcilability even after death, not even permitting, in their wills, that the customary rites be given to the dead bodies.
To these I would give the same advice as to the previous group: to propitiate God with prayers and sacrifices, so that they may find some necessary healing for the sicknesses of the soul, which no human being is capable of curing.
There are others who are boastful, puffed up with vanity, who, starving for reputation, think it beneath them to make use of any of the most beneficial forms of restraint in desire; rather, even if someone urges them, for the sake of curbing the unruliness of their appetites, they regard the admonition as an insult, and, pressing on toward a life of soft luxury, they pay no heed to those who would correct them, treating the noble and altogether most profitable teachings of prudence as objects of laughter and mockery.
And if such a person happens to have abundance and plenty in the affairs of life, they seal with oaths their use and enjoyment of extravagance. Here is the sort of thing I mean: recently one of those who possess no small wealth, having embraced a loose and dissolute way of living, when an elderly relative — or, I suppose, a friend of his father's — who was present admonished him, urging him to change his manner of life to something more dignified and austere, took great offense at the advice and, out of contentiousness, swore that as long as he had his resources and his supplies, he would make use of nothing that belonged to frugality, neither in the city nor in the countryside, neither sailing nor traveling on foot, but would always and everywhere make a display of his wealth. But this, it seems, is a display not so much of wealth as of vanity and lack of self-control.
And yet, among those in the great positions of power, there are even now not a few who, though they possess vast supplies and resources without limit, as though wealth flowed to them ceaselessly from some ever-running spring, nevertheless turn at times to the very things we poor people also turn to: earthenware cups, and loaves baked on a spit, and olives, or cheese, or vegetables as a relish; in summer, a loincloth and light linen, in winter a thick, sturdy cloak, and sometimes, for their bed, simply the bare ground — bidding a hearty farewell to couches made of ivory, or tortoiseshell, or gold, and coverlets dyed with flowers, and purple-dyed garments, and the elaborate confections of honeyed cakes, and the extravagance of well-laden tables.
The cause of this, I think, is not only that they were allotted a fortunate nature, but also that from their earliest years they laid hold of a right education, one which taught them, before all positions of rule, to honor what is human; an education which, dwelling in the soul, reminds them almost daily of their common humanity, drawing them back and reining them in from what is lofty and overblown, and healing inequality with equality.
Therefore they have filled their cities with abundance, prosperity, good order, and peace, keeping back none of the good for themselves but bestowing everything ungrudgingly and without stint. These, then, are the deeds of the truly well-born and truly ruling, and all that resembles them.
But the deeds of the newly rich are quite different — those who have arrived at great wealth by some wandering stroke of fortune, who know not even in a dream the true and seeing wealth that is composed of perfect virtues and the actions that accord with virtue, but have stumbled against the blind kind of wealth, and, leaning on it of necessity, unable to see the road that leads onward, turn aside into pathless places, admiring what deserves no serious regard and laughing at what is honorable by nature. It is these whom the sacred word rebukes and reproaches without restraint, for swearing oaths at times when they should not; for they are hard to cleanse and hard to cure, so that not even before God, whose nature is gracious, are they deemed worthy of pardon.
From young unmarried women and from married women, God took away full authority over their own vows, appointing the fathers of unmarried women, and the husbands of married women, as the ones with authority to confirm or annul their oaths; and not without reason. For the former, because of their youth, do not understand the force of oaths, so that they need those who will judge for them; while the latter often swear, out of thoughtlessness, things that will not be to their husbands' advantage. For this reason he entrusted to the men the authority either to let stand what has been sworn, or the opposite.
But let widows not swear readily — for they have no one to appeal to on their behalf, neither the husbands from whom they have been separated, nor the fathers from whose homes they departed when they set out on the journey of marriage — since it is necessary that their oaths remain in force, confirmed by the very absence of anyone to care for them.
Let widows not swear oaths lightly — for they have no one to release them from their vows, neither the husbands from whom they were separated nor the fathers from whose homes they departed when they set out on marriage's migration — since their oaths must necessarily stand, confirmed by the very absence of anyone to care for them.
If anyone, knowing that another is committing perjury, fails to denounce or expose him, giving more weight to friendship, shame, or fear than to piety, let him be liable to the same penalties; for to add one's signature alongside a wrongdoer's is no different from doing wrong oneself.
Penalties against perjurers are of two kinds: some belong to God, others to human beings. To God belong the highest and greatest — for he does not become gracious to those who commit such impiety, but lets them remain forever difficult to purify, justly, I think, and fittingly; for what is so terrible if the one who has been neglectful is himself neglected in return, reaping the same measure he has given?
But those from human beings vary: death or blows. The better, those exceptional in piety, confirm the penalty of death; those who deal with their anger more leniently strike the offender openly in public with the public whip. And for those not of servile character, blows are no lesser penalty than death.
This, then, is what the explicit commandments contain. But it is also possible to allegorize this subject, which admits of contemplation through symbols. It is fitting to know, then, that the right reason of nature has the power of both father and husband, under different conceptions: of a husband, because it sows the seed of the virtues into the soul as into good farmland; of a father, because it is by nature able to beget good counsels and noble, serious actions, and having begotten them, to nurture them with wholesome doctrines, which education and wisdom supply.
The mind is likened at one time to a virgin, at another to a woman who is either widowed or still joined to a husband. The mind as virgin is one that keeps itself pure and uncorrupted from pleasures and desires, and also from griefs and fears, those treacherous passions, and its protection is undertaken by the begetting father. But for the mind that lives as a wife, in cultivated reason, according to virtue, this same reason promises its care, sowing, in the manner of a husband, the best thoughts.
But the soul that is orphaned both of offspring according to prudence and of marriage according to right reason, being widowed of the noblest things and bereft of wisdom, having chosen a blameworthy life, let it be liable for what it has determined against itself, having as physician for its errors neither reason-according-to-wisdom as a cohabiting husband nor as a begetting father.
For those who, in their vows, make an offering not only of their possessions or parts of them but of themselves, he fixed valuations, looking not to beauty or stature or anything of that kind, but to an equal reckoning, distinguishing men from women alone, and infants from adults.
For he commands that from twenty years to sixty years the valuation of a man be two hundred drachmas in coin of pure silver, and of a woman one hundred and twenty; from five years to twenty years, eighty drachmas for the male and forty for the female; from infancy to five years, twenty drachmas for the male and twelve for the female; and for those who have lived beyond sixty years, sixty drachmas for old men and forty for old women.
He set the same amounts for males of each age and likewise for females, for three most necessary reasons: first, because the worth of a vow is equal and alike whether it is made by someone great or someone of little account; second, because it was not fitting for those who make vows to be subjected to the fortunes of slaves — for slaves are valued according to bodily condition and good looks, or conversely undervalued for the opposite; and third, which is also the most necessary, because inequality is prized among us, but equality is prized with God.
This applies to human beings; but for cattle the following is legislated: if someone sets apart an animal, and it is clean, of one of the three kinds assigned for sacrifice — ox, sheep, or goat — let him sacrifice that very animal, not exchanging a worse one for a better or a better for a worse; for God does not delight in the bulk and fatness of animals, but in the blameless disposition of the one who vows. But if he does exchange it, let him consecrate two instead of one, both the original and the one substituted for it.
But if someone vows one of the unclean animals, let him bring it to the most reputable of the priests; and let the priest set its value without exceeding its worth, adding also a fifth to the valuation, so that, should it be necessary to sacrifice a clean animal in its place, the price should fall no short of its proper value — and also, for another reason, to shame the one who made the vow, on the ground that he made his vow without reasoning it through, having supposed at the time, I think, through a wandering of mind, that the unclean animal was clean, overpowered as he was by passion.
But if a house becomes a votive offering, let it likewise have a priest to appraise it; and let those who wish to buy it back not pay the same amount — rather, if the one who made the vow chooses to reclaim it, let him pay generously beyond, adding the fifth, thereby penalizing both his rashness and his desire, a twofold evil: rashness in the making of the vow, and desire in now craving what he had earlier renounced. But if it is someone else buying it, let him pay no more than its worth.
Let the one who has made a vow not create long delays before fulfilling what he vowed; for it is absurd to try to shorten agreements made with human beings, while allowing those made with God — who needs nothing and lacks nothing — to run past their due time, convicting oneself by hesitation and slowness of the greatest of wrongs, namely disregard toward him, whose service must be reckoned the beginning and end of happiness. Let this suffice, then, concerning oaths and vows. On the Seventh Day.
The next chapter concerns the sacred seventh day, in which countless necessary matters are treated: the kinds of festivals; the manumissions, in the seventh year, of those who are free by nature but have been serving as laborers on account of unwanted circumstances; the acts of kindness shown by creditors toward their debtors, who forgive loans to their kinsmen in the seventh year; the rest given to the deep-soiled plain and to the hill country, which occur every six years; and the laws laid down concerning the fiftieth year. Even a plain account of these things, without effort, is enough to bring the naturally gifted to perfection in virtue, and to render the unruly and hard of character more compliant.
Now the properties of seven as a number have already been discussed at greater length earlier — the nature it has within the decad, its kinship both with the decad itself and with the tetrad, the beginning and source of the decad; how, when the numbers from one are added together in sequence, it generates the perfect number twenty-eight, equal to the sum of its own parts; and how, when brought into proportion, it produces both a cube and a square at once; and how it displays countless other beauties of theory from itself, matters which it is not the occasion to discuss at length. We must now examine each of the topics proposed and included, beginning from the first. The first was concerning the festivals. On the Ten Festivals.
There are, then, ten festivals in number, which the law records. The first, which one might perhaps be surprised to hear, is every single day. The second is the seventh day that comes every six days, which the Hebrews call in their ancestral tongue the Sabbath. The third is the new moon, following the conjunction according to the moon. The fourth is the festival of the Crossing, called Passover. The fifth is the first fruits of the ears of grain, the sacred sheaf. The sixth is Unleavened Bread. After this comes the truly seventh of the weeks. The eighth is the sacred month. The ninth is the Fast. The tenth is the festival of Tabernacles, which is the conclusion of the yearly festivals, ending in the perfect number, ten. We must begin from the first.
The law records every single day as a festival, fitting it to the blameless life of holy people who follow nature and its ordinances. And if the vices had not gained the upper hand, overpowering the reasonings about what is beneficial and driving them out of each person's soul, but the powers of the virtues had remained wholly unconquered, then the entire span of time from birth to death would be one uninterrupted festival, and houses and cities alike would be full of all good things, living in security and truce, enjoying fair weather in their affairs.
But as things now stand, the acts of greed and mutual aggression that men and women alike contrive, against themselves and against one another, have cut off the continuity of cheerful good spirits. And there is clear proof of what has been said.
For all those, whether among Greeks or barbarians, who practice wisdom, living blamelessly and irreproachably, choosing neither to suffer wrong nor to return it, avoid the company of meddlesome people and have shut themselves off from the places where such people spend their time — courts, council chambers, marketplaces, assemblies, and in general wherever there is any gathering or association of more frivolous people —
such men, having devoted themselves to a peaceable and untroubled life, are the finest observers of nature and of everything within it, investigating earth and sea, air and heaven and the natures found in them, journeying in their thoughts alongside the moon and sun and the circling dance of the other stars, both wandering and fixed, their bodies settled below on solid ground but their souls made winged, so that, walking the upper air, they may survey closely the powers found there — truly good citizens of the world, who have considered the cosmos to be a city, and its citizens to be the companions of wisdom, enrolled by virtue, which is entrusted with presiding over that common constitution.
Full, then, of nobility of character, accustomed to disregard the evils of the body and of external things, practicing indifference toward the truly indifferent, trained against pleasures and desires, and altogether always striving to stand above the passions and being taught to demolish, with every power, the fortress the passions raise against them, and not bent by the assaults of fortune, because they have already reckoned out its attacks in advance — for anticipation lightens even the heaviest of unwanted events, since the mind no longer takes what happens as anything new, but treats its perception of it as already dulled, as if by something old and stale — such people, reasonably rejoicing in the virtues, keep their entire life as a festival.
These, then, are few in number, a smoldering ember of wisdom kept alight in the cities, so that virtue should not be wholly extinguished and vanish from our race.
But if people everywhere came to share the same mind as these few, and all became what nature wishes them to be — blameless and irreproachable, lovers of prudence, rejoicing in the noble for its own sake and holding this alone to be good, with everything else obedient and enslaved to them as though they were rulers — then the cities would be filled with happiness, having no share in whatever causes grief or fear, but full of what produces joy and true well-being, so that no occasion would be lacking
for a cheerful life, and the whole cycle of the year would be a festival. For this reason, when truth sits in judgment, not one of the base ever celebrates a festival, not even for the briefest time, being throttled by consciousness of his own wrongdoings and downcast in soul, even if he feigns a smile on his face. For where would a man of the worst counsel find occasion for unfeigned gladness, living as he does with folly and misusing every opportunity — with tongue, belly, and the organs of generation?
For this reason Moses, who was great in all things, saw that the surpassing beauty belonging to the true festival was too perfect to fit human nature, and so dedicated it to God, speaking in these very words:
"The feasts of the Lord" (Lev. 23:2). For considering how sorrowful and fearful our race is, and how full of countless evils—evils bred by the soul's own excesses, bred too by the body's afflictions, and inflicted by the irregularities of fortune and the counterattacks of those around us, who do and suffer a thousand ills—he reasonably wondered whether anyone, carried along on so vast a sea of circumstances both willed and unwilled, never able to find rest nor to anchor in a life free of danger and secure, could truly keep the festival that is not merely so called but is one in reality: rejoicing and delighting in the contemplation of the world and its contents, in following nature, and in the harmony of deeds with words and words with deeds.
Hence he was compelled to say that the feasts belong to God alone. For God alone is happy and blessed, partaking of no evil, full of perfect goods—or rather, to speak the truth, himself being the Good—who rained down upon heaven and earth their several good things.
For this reason a certain mind of virtue in ancient times, when its passions had grown calm within it, smiled, pregnant with joy and filled to overflowing; and reflecting within herself that perhaps rejoicing belongs to God alone, and that she erred in appropriating to herself pleasures beyond what is human, she grew cautious and denied her inward laughter until she was reassured.
For the gracious God lightened her fear by an oracle bidding her to confess that she had laughed, so as to teach us that what is created is not utterly deprived of joy, but that there is one joy unmixed and perfectly pure, admitting nothing of the opposite nature, reserved for God alone, and another that flows from that one, mixed, blended with a small measure of pain—a joy already given as the greatest gift to the wise man, in whom such a mixture contains more of the pleasant than the unpleasant. So much on this subject.
After the continuous, unbroken, and everlasting festival comes the second, the sacred seventh day observed every six days. Some have called it "virgin," looking to its surpassing purity, and the same writers have also called it "motherless," as sown from the Father of all alone, an image of the male generation with no share in that from women; for the number seven is most manly and vigorous, well suited by nature for rule and leadership. Others have named it "season," inferring its intelligible essence from things perceived by sense.
For whatever is best among perceptible things, through which the yearly seasons and the cycles of the times are accomplished in due order, has a share in the number seven—I mean the seven planets, the Bear, the Pleiades, the recurring cycles of the waxing and waning moon, and the harmonious revolutions of the others, which surpass all reckoning.
But Moses, from a more solemn consideration, called it "completion" and "consummation," attributing to the number six the coming-into-being of the parts of the world, and to the number seven their perfecting. For six is an even-odd number, formed from twice three, having the odd as male and the even as female, from which come births according to nature's unshakable laws.
But seven is utterly unmixed, and is, to speak the truth, the light of six; for what six generated, seven displayed as brought to completion. For this reason it might fittingly be called the world's birthday, on which the Father's work appeared perfect, made of perfect parts, on which day all works have been commanded to cease—
not because the law is a teacher of idleness—for it always accustoms one to endure hardship and anoints one for toil, and it drives away those who wish to be idle and at leisure, since it has in fact ordained that one work for six days—but so that it might release people from continuous and unrelenting labors and, by restoring their bodies through measured periods of rest, renew them again for the same tasks. For those who take a breath, not only ordinary people but athletes too, gather strength, and from a more vigorous power they endure without delay, with fortitude, each of the tasks that must be done.
Yet in commanding that bodies not toil on the sabbath days, he allowed the better activities to be carried out; and these are the activities that come through words and doctrines concerning virtue. For he urges people at that time to practice philosophy, improving the soul and the governing mind.
On the sabbath days, at any rate, countless schoolrooms of prudence, self-control, courage, justice, and the other virtues stand open in every city, in which some sit in order, in silence, with ears pricked up in full attention, out of thirst for words that refresh like drink, while one of the most experienced men rises and expounds what is best and most beneficial, teachings by which the whole of life will be improved.
There are, so to speak, two chief headings among the countless particular words and doctrines: that which concerns God, through piety and holiness, and that which concerns human beings, through love of humanity and justice; and each of these divides into many-branched forms, all of them praiseworthy.
From this it is clear that Moses leaves no season unproductive for those who follow his sacred teachings; but since we are composed of soul and body, he assigned to the body its proper tasks and to the soul what falls to it, and took care that each should watch over the other in turn, so that while the body labors the soul may find its rest, and while the soul enjoys rest the body may labor, and that the best of lives—the contemplative and the active—might alternate, yielding place to one another: the active life receiving the six days for the body's service, and the contemplative life the seventh day for knowledge and the perfecting of the mind.
On this day it is forbidden to kindle fire, as being the beginning and seed of the business of life, since without fire nothing can be accomplished among the necessary requirements for living; so that, by forbidding this one thing—the highest and most venerable cause employed in the arts, especially the manual crafts—the particular services dependent on it are also thereby prevented.
But it seems that, because of those more disobedient people who pay least attention to what is commanded, he added further legislation on other points as well, not only requiring that free persons cease from work on the sabbath days, but also granting the same to menservants and maidservants, proclaiming to them freedom from constraint—almost liberty itself—every six days, so as to teach both parties a most excellent lesson:
that masters should accustom themselves to do things with their own hands, not waiting upon the services and ministrations of their household servants, so that, should some unwanted occasion arise amid the changes of human affairs, they might not, worn out by unfamiliarity with working for themselves, give up under such demands, but rather, using the more agile parts of their bodies, might act with ease and without difficulty; and that the household servants should not give up hope of better things, but, having their release every six days, might look forward—as to a spark and kindling ember of freedom—to complete release, should they continue to be good and devoted to their masters.
And from the fact that the free sometimes endure the services of slaves, and that household servants come to share in this freedom from constraint, it will follow that human life advances toward the most perfect virtue, as both those who seem eminent and those more obscure are reminded of equality and pay back to one another the debt that is due.
But indeed the law granted rest on the sabbath days not to servants alone but to cattle as well; and yet servants have by nature been born free—for no human being is by nature a slave—while irrational animals, prepared for the use and service of human beings, hold the rank of slaves; but nevertheless, though they are bound to carry burdens and to bear the toils and labors undertaken for their owners' sake, they find rest on the sabbath days.
And why need we recall the rest? Not even the ox, born for the most necessary and useful tasks in life—plowing the earth in preparation for sowing, and again threshing the sheaves once gathered in, for the cleansing of the grain—is yoked on that day, keeping instead the world's birthday festival. So thoroughly, then, has its sanctity spread through all things.
So great is the reverence he requires for the seventh day that whatever else partakes of it is likewise honored by him. Thus every seventh year he always introduces a cancellation of debts, assisting the poor and calling the wealthy to love of humanity, so that by sharing their own goods with those in need they may also have good expectations for themselves, should some misfortune befall them; for human affairs are many, and life does not rest fixed on the same footing but shifts to its opposite like an unstable wind.
It would be good, then, for the kindness shown by lenders to extend to all debtors; but since not all are by nature disposed to magnanimity, and some are weaker where money is concerned, or not especially well off, he judged it right that even these should be required to contribute only what will not grieve them to give.
For not allowing debts to be exacted from fellow countrymen, he permitted collection from others, rightly calling the former "brothers," so that no one should begrudge his own kin, as being by nature joint heirs with his brothers, while he named those not of the same nation, as was fitting, "strangers."
But this strangeness admits no fellowship, unless someone should transform it, through surpassing acts of virtue, into a kinship as of one's own family; for altogether the true commonwealth and its laws lie in the virtues, which introduce only the beautiful as good. But lending at interest is culpable; for a man borrows not because he lives in abundance but plainly because he is in need, and being compelled to pay interest on top of the principal, he is of necessity reduced to the utmost poverty, and though he thinks he is being helped, he is being harmed all the more—like those senseless animals lured by the bait set before them.
But to you I would say, O moneylender: why do you cloak an unsociable manner under the name of partnership? Why do you pretend to be kind and humane in appearance, while in your actions you display inhumanity and a terrible harshness, exacting more than you gave—sometimes even double—and making the poor man poorer still?
So no one shares his suffering when he has coveted more and swallowed up another's property as well as his own; everyone rather takes pleasure in it, calling him a usurer and a money-grubber and names of that sort, since he sits in wait for other people's misfortunes and counts another man's calamity his own good luck.
But, as someone has said, vice is blind, and so is the man who lends at interest: he does not see the time of repayment, in which he will barely obtain, or will not obtain at all, what he expected to gain through his greed.
Let this man, then, pay the penalty for his love of money, recovering only what he actually advanced, so that he may not, by drawing profit from what was not his due, work misfortune for other people. But let debtors be judged worthy of the humanity the laws provide, paying no interest or additional charges, but repaying only the principal itself; for in due season they in turn will repay the same benefit, requiting with equal services those who first showed them kindness.
Having ordained such things, Moses next records a law full of gentleness and humanity. If, he says, one of your brothers is sold to you, let him serve six years, and in the seventh let him be set free without payment.
Again he called the fellow countryman a "brother," sowing in the soul of the owner, through this form of address, a sense of kinship with his subject, so that he should not disregard him as a stranger, toward whom no affection of goodwill exists, but rather, having already conceived through this teaching—which the sacred word whispers into him—a feeling of family affection, should not be vexed when the man is about to be set free.
For it happens that such people are called slaves, but in reality they are hired workers rendering service out of necessity, even if some threaten them ten thousand times with absolute mastery and lordship over them.
They must be tamed by having those good precepts of the law repeated to them: the one called a slave, my good man, is a hired laborer, and he too is a human being, having with you the very highest kinship, and moreover being of the same nation, and perhaps even of the same tribe and township, brought down to this condition only through want.
Root out, then, from your soul that treacherous evil, arrogance, and treat him as a hired worker, both giving and receiving in turn; for he will render his services most readily, always and everywhere, delaying nothing, but anticipating your commands with speed and eagerness. And you, for your part, give him in return food and clothing and the rest of his care; do not yoke him like an irrational animal, nor crush him with burdens heavier than his strength, nor treat him insolently, nor drive him by threats and menaces into harsh despondency, but grant him periods of respite and measured relaxation; for "nothing in excess" is best in all things, and above all for masters toward their household servants.
When he has served you for a term that is fully sufficient, six years, and the most sacred number, the seventh year, is about to begin, release him free—one who is free by nature—without any hesitation, but rather, noble sir, grant the favor with joy, since you have received the opportunity to confer the greatest benefit upon the finest of living creatures, a human being; for there is no greater good for a slave than freedom.
So, rejoicing, add something further of your own out of every part of your property, providing for the man you have benefited; for it redounds to your credit if he leaves your house not as a poor man, but well supplied with the resources he needs, so that he may not again, through want, be reduced to his former misfortune, forced by scarcity of the necessities of life to serve as a slave once more, and so your kindness be undone. So much, then, concerning the poor.
Next he commands that the land be left fallow in the seventh year, for many reasons. First, so that it may honor the number seven throughout all periods of time, of days, months, and years; for every seventh day is sacred, what is called among the Hebrews the Sabbath, and the seventh month has, throughout every year, been allotted the greatest of the festivals, so that reasonably the seventh year too, receiving its share of the reverence paid to that number, has been honored.
And here is the second reason: do not, he says, count everything as gain, but willingly endure loss as well, so that you may bear with ease any unintended damage, should it ever occur, and not be dispirited, as if it were something strange and unfamiliar, and lose heart. For some of the rich are so unfortunate in their outlook that, when a shortage arises, they groan and grow downcast no less than if they had been stripped of their entire fortune.
But those among Moses' companions who are genuine disciples, trained from their earliest years in fine customs, are accustomed to bear want with ease, precisely through the practice of leaving the fertile land fallow; at the same time they are taught magnanimity, and learn to let go, almost out of their own hands, of income that is undeniably due to them, and to do so of their own free will.
And a third point too seems to me to be hinted at here: that it is not fitting for anyone at all to weigh people down and oppress them with burdens. For if a share of rest must be given even to portions of the earth, which by nature can partake of neither pleasure nor pain, how much more should it be given to human beings, who possess not only the perception common to irrational animals as well, but also a distinguished reasoning faculty, by which the painful effects of toil and exhaustion are impressed upon them with sharper images?
Let those called masters, then, put a stop to the harsh and scarcely bearable commands they lay upon their slaves, which break their bodies by force and compel their souls to give out even before their bodies do.
For there is no grudging in prescribing moderate tasks, through which you yourselves will enjoy the service that is fitting, and your attendants will perform what is ordered without strain, and will endure their duties not for a short time only—if I must speak the truth, growing old at their labors—but for a very long time, renewed like athletes, not those who fatten themselves into excessive flesh, but those accustomed to train through dry sweat toward the acquisition of what is necessary and useful for life.
Let the governors of cities too put a stop to breaking their citizens' necks with continual and heavy tributes and taxes, men who fill their own private coffers, and along with the money store up as well their own base and servile vices, which defile their whole life.
For they deliberately choose as tax collectors men utterly without pity and full of inhumanity, giving them thereby the means for their own greed; and these men, having in addition to their natural crudeness the license granted by their masters' orders, and having resolved to do everything to please them, leave out none of the harshest measures, knowing not even in a dream what fairness and gentleness are.
And so they throw everything into turmoil and confusion in their extortion of money, exacting it not only from people's property but from their very bodies, with outrages, assaults, and tortures devised for extreme cruelty; indeed, I hear that some do not even spare the dead, through savagery and a monstrous frenzy, men so brutalized that they even dare to strike the dead with whips.
And when someone reproached them for such excessive cruelty, saying that not even death, the release from all evils and the true end of life, would secure for the departed freedom from outrage, but that instead of burial and the customary rites they would undergo further abuse, they used a defense worse than the accusation, claiming that they insult the dead not in order to outrage senseless and unfeeling dust—for that would serve no purpose—but in order to move to pity those connected to the deceased by family or by friendship, and to induce them to pay a ransom for the bodies, granting this as a final favor.
Then, most base of all men, I would say to them: have you not learned beforehand what you teach others? To call others to pity, even though you yourselves have been carved out of the cruelest stock? And this when you are not at a loss for good instructors, above all our own laws, which even released the land from its yearly tributes and granted it relief and rest?
And the land, though it seems to be lifeless, stands ready to make a return and repay the favor, hastening to give back as a gift what it has received; for having obtained immunity in the seventh year and not been worked, but having been set wholly free through the entire cycle of the year, in the years that follow it bears, out of its abundance, double crops, and sometimes even many times over.
One can see something similar too in what trainers do with athletes; for when they have driven them hard with repeated and continuous exercises, before they reach the point of utter exhaustion, they restore them, granting relief not only from the toils of the contest but also from strict regimens of food and drink, relaxing the hard discipline for the good spirits of the soul and the well-being of the body.
And surely those whose profession is to train men for hardship are not teachers of idleness and self-indulgence; rather, by method and skill, they build up strength stronger than strength and powers more vigorous than powers, increasing the athlete's vigor, as if tuning a harmony, through alternating relaxation and exertion.
I learned this from all-wise nature, which, knowing the toil and weariness of our race, divided time into day and night, granting waking to the one and sleep to the other.
For a concern like that of a most solicitous mother came over her, that her offspring should not be worn down: by day she rouses bodies and stirs them to all the uses and services of life, chiding those who grow accustomed to a life of idleness and soft living; but at night, sounding the recall as in war, she calls them back to rest and to the care of their bodies.
And people, setting down the great weight of business with which they had been laden from morning to evening, and returning home, turn to quiet, and falling into deep sleep, nurse away the day's toil, and becoming fresh and untired once more, hurry each to their own accustomed pursuits.
This long course nature has apportioned to human beings through sleep and waking, so that in one part they may be active, and in the other, being at rest, may keep the parts of the body more ready and more agile.
With this in view, the man who prophesied our laws proclaimed a release for the land, holding back its farmers every six years. But he introduced this not only for the reasons I have mentioned, but also out of that habitual kindness to humanity which he thinks fit to weave into every part of his legislation, stamping sociable and gracious character on those who come to the sacred writings.
For he commands that in the seventh year no plot of ground be enclosed, but that all vineyards and olive groves be left open, and all other possessions of sown land or of trees, so that the poor may use the self-grown fruits without fear, no less than those who own the land.
Hence he did not permit the owners themselves to work the land, aiming at this: that he should not become the cause of any grief to them, since they would be providing the expenses but not receiving the revenues in return; while he thought it right to release the poor, as though the produce were their own, since for that time at least what belonged to others was considered common, freeing them from a humbled posture and from the reproaches attached to begging.
Is it not fitting to fall in love with these laws, so full of such gentleness? Through them the rich are taught to share and hold in common what they have, while the poor are consoled, not being compelled to haunt the houses of the well-off at all times to make up what they lack, but sometimes even drawing an income, as though from their own possessions, from the fruits that grow of themselves, as I have said.
Widows and orphaned children, and all the others among the neglected and unregarded, because they possess nothing, at that time come to possess much, suddenly grown rich through the gifts of God, who has called them to share in the possessions of the landowners in the number of the sacred seventh.
And all who keep herds, too, lead their own animals to graze without fear, choosing fields rich in grass and most suitable for pasture, taking full advantage of the license of the truce; and no resentment at all is met with from the owners, since they are mastered by a most ancient custom which, having become their companion over long ages, has overcome nature itself.
Laying this as a foundation stone, so to speak, of fairness and love of humanity, he combined seven weeks of years and declared the whole fiftieth year sacred, legislating for it distinctions and excellences beyond all the others that share in this fellowship.
First, this: he holds that estates which have passed to others must be given back to their original owners, so that the allotments may be preserved for the families, and none of those who were assigned a portion should be deprived of the gift forever.
For since unwanted circumstances often fall upon people, forcing some to sell their own property, he took thought also for the proper use of these transactions, and prevented buyers from being deceived, permitting some to sell while instructing the others very clearly about the terms on which they were to buy.
"Do not," he says, "give the price as for outright possession, but only for a fixed number of years, those within the fifty-year period. For sales ought to be of fruits, not of properties, for two most necessary reasons: one, that the whole land is called a possession of God, and it is not holy for others to have themselves inscribed as masters of God's possessions; the other, that a portion has been allotted to each of the heirs, and the law did not think it right that one who had drawn a lot should be deprived of it."
So then, whoever is able within the fifty years to recover his own property, or one of his nearest kin by blood, is called upon by every means to pay back the price he received, and not to become the cause of loss to the purchaser who had been of service at the proper time.
But to the one in poverty he showed compassion, and granted him a share of mercy, restoring to him again his original substance, apart from the fields consecrated by vow and placed in the category of dedications; for it is not holy for a dedication to be annulled by time. Therefore it has been ordained to select their fair value, giving no favor at the expense of the one who made the dedication.
These, then, are the ordinances concerning the distribution and allotment of land; but there are others concerning houses. Since some of these are within city walls, and others are farmhouses in the fields outside the walls, the law permitted those in the countryside always to be redeemed, and those not redeemed by the fiftieth year to be given back without payment to their former owners, just as with landed property; for farmhouses are a portion of one's estate.
But those within walls have a right of return to the sellers only up to a year; after the year they are confirmed forever to the purchasers, the release of the fiftieth year doing no harm at all to the buyers.
The reason is his wish to give even to newcomers a firm foundation for settling there; for since they have no share in the land, not having been numbered among the allotments, the law assigned to them the possession of houses, taking care that the suppliants and refugees of the laws should not become homeless wanderers.
For the cities, when the land was allotted by tribe, were not themselves divided up, nor indeed had they even been built from the start, since the inhabitants made their homes in farmhouses in the fields; from these, later rising up and coming together, as fellowship and friendship naturally grew over a long time, they built houses together and cities as well, in which, as I said, they also gave a share to the newcomers, so that these should not be lacking in either the country dwellings or those in the cities.
Concerning the priestly tribe the following is legislated: the law assigned no allotted portion of land to the temple attendants, judging the firstfruits to be sufficient income for them, but allotted forty-eight cities for their dwelling, and to each two thousand cubits of surrounding suburb.
As for the houses in these cities, the law did not treat them in the same way as the others within walls, where those who bought them, if the sellers were unable to redeem them within a year, kept them permanently; instead he allowed these to be redeemed at any time, just as with the farmhouses belonging to the rest of the nation, to which they are equivalent, since out of so vast a territory they were allotted only these houses, of which he did not think those who received them ought to be deprived, any more than the heirs of the farmhouses. So much, then, concerning houses.
Concerning debtors and their creditors, and servants and their masters, he legislates in the same way as before: that creditors should not exact interest from their fellow countrymen, but should be content to recover only what they had advanced; and that masters should treat those bought with silver not as slaves by nature but as hired workers, granting them the freedom to go, at once to those able to pay the price of their own ransom, and later to those without means, either when the seventh year from the beginning of their servitude arrives, or when the fiftieth year comes, even if one happens to have been brought into servitude the day before; for that time is, and is reckoned to be, a release, since all things run their course back, as on a double track, and return to their original good fortune.
He permits the acquiring of household servants from those not of the same people, [that is, those from other nations,] wishing first that there be a distinction between one's own and what belongs to others, and second, that he should not shut out from his own commonwealth altogether the most necessary of possessions, servants; for countless matters in life require the services of slaves.
Let sons be heirs of their parents, and if there are none, daughters. For just as in the nature of women men take precedence, so also in matters of kinship let them hold the privilege, succeeding to the estates and fulfilling the place of the deceased, since they are held fast by the law of necessity, which makes nothing born of earth immortal.
But if unmarried daughters are left behind, their dowry not having been fixed while their parents were still alive, let them share equally with the males. And let the presiding authority take care for the protection of those left behind, and for their upbringing, and for the expenses needed for the diet and education fitting for girls, and, when the time comes, for a suitable marriage, with men of proven worth in every respect chosen by merit.
These heirs should above all be relatives, or failing that, at least fellow demesmen and fellow tribesmen, so that the dowry allotments not be alienated by intermarriage but remain within the portions assigned from the beginning according to tribes.
If a man happens to die without offspring, his brothers should come forward to the succession; for after sons and daughters, the next rank in kinship belongs to brothers. If a man dying has no brother, his paternal uncles should inherit the estate; and if there are no uncles, his aunts, then the nearest of his other household members and relatives.
But if such a scarcity of kin should occur that nothing is left from the bloodline, the tribe should be the heir; for the tribe too is a kind of kinship, only marked out on a larger and more complete scale.
It is worth pausing over a question some have raised: why, after mentioning all relatives, demesmen, and tribesmen in the successions to estates, does the law pass over parents alone in silence, when it would seem reasonable that, just as they are inherited from, they should inherit what belongs to their children? The reason, good sir, is this: being divine and always looking to the sequence of nature, the law thought it should never introduce anything that runs counter to nature's order. For it is the prayer of parents to leave behind them, while still living, the children they begot, who will inherit their name, their line, and their property; whereas it is the curse of implacable enemies that the opposite should happen — that sons and daughters should die before their parents.
So then, in order that nothing discordant or out of tune should sound within the harmony and concord by which the whole universe is governed, the law — recognizing that children die and parents survive them — did not, out of both necessity and propriety, command mothers and fathers to inherit from their sons and daughters, knowing that such a thing does not accord with life or with nature.
Guarding, then, against naming parents outright as heirs to the estates of their deceased children — lest, by assigning them a benefit they would pray never to need, it should seem to reproach mourners or remind them of their misfortunes — the law apportioned the estates to them by another route, a slight consolation for a great evil. What, then, is this route?
The law names a father's brother as heir to his brother's children, honoring, no doubt, the father through the uncle — unless someone is foolish enough to suppose that in honoring one person he thereby chooses to dishonor another. Do people who look after the acquaintances of their friends thereby neglect their friends? Or do those who care for everyone connected with people they esteem also welcome those people as companions? In just the same way, the law, by naming a father's brother to a share in the inheritance for the father's sake, calls upon the father himself far more directly — not in so many words, for the reasons stated, but by a meaning more recognizable than any spoken word, one that makes plain the lawgiver's intention.
The eldest of the children does not receive an equal share with those born after him, but is deemed worthy of double, first because the man and woman, who had until then simply been husband and wife, became father and mother through the one born first, and because this firstborn was the one who began to call his parents by these names; and — the most essential reason — because a household previously without offspring became rich in children for the continuance of the human race, whose sowing is marriage and whose fruit is the birth of children, of which the eldest is the beginning.
For this reason, I think, the firstborn of implacable enemies who had acted without any pity — as the sacred writings show — were all destroyed together in a single night, in the full flower of their youth, while the firstborn of the nation were consecrated and dedicated to God as a thank-offering; for it was fitting that the one people be weighed down with the heaviest and most inconsolable grief, through the destruction of those who stood at the front rank of their households, while the saving God be honored by the other with firstfruits, which by lot hold the position of leadership among children.
Since there are some who, after marriage and the begetting of children, in later life unlearn self-control and run aground on incontinence, and, becoming infatuated with other women, mistreat their former wives and no longer treat the children of those wives as a father but as a stepfather, imitating the impiety of stepmothers toward stepchildren, and altogether hand themselves and all that is theirs over to their second wives and to the children of these — overcome by pleasure, the most shameful of passions — the law would not have hesitated, if it were somehow possible, to put a rein upon their desires so that they might not leap up still further.
But since it is difficult, or rather impossible, to cure a madness driven wild by such a goad, the law left the man himself, as one held fast by an incurable disease, but did not overlook the son of the wife who had been wronged on account of his father's later infatuations, ordering that he receive double the share in the distribution among the brothers.
There are many reasons for this. First, the law punishes the guilty party by imposing on him the necessity of benefiting the very person he has chosen to treat badly, and it renders his ungracious intention void, in that through the very means by which he means to injure the one at risk, he is instead penalized himself, being placed in the same rank the true father left for the eldest child.
Second, the law shows pity and compassion for those who have been wronged, lightening their heaviest grief through a share in this favor and gift; for it was reasonable that the mother should take no less pleasure than the inheriting son in the double portion, being consoled by the law's humanity, which did not allow her and her offspring to be utterly diminished in the eyes of their enemies.
Third, the law, being a good arbiter of what is just, reasoned within itself that the father had lavished provisions upon the children of the wife he loved, out of longing for her, while he considered the children of the wife he had come to hate worthy of nothing at all, out of hatred for their mother — so that the former had, even while he still lived, already received more than an equal share in advance, while the latter risked being deprived of their entire paternal inheritance even after his death. In order, then, to equalize the distribution between the children of both wives, the law fixed the double portion as the birthright of the child of the wife who had been put aside. So much, then, for this matter.
Following the order, we now record a third kind of festival, which we shall explain. It is the new moon, reckoned by the moon's course, the period from one conjunction to the next, which the disciples of mathematics have calculated with great precision. The new moon holds its rank among the festivals for many reasons: first, because it is the beginning of the month, and the beginning of both number and time is honorable; next, because on that day nothing in heaven is without light. For at the conjunction, when the moon runs beneath the sun, the side of it facing earth is darkened, but at the new moon it naturally begins to shine again.
Third, because at that time the greater and more powerful body shares a necessary benefit with the lesser and weaker; for at the new moon the sun begins to illuminate the moon with perceptible brightness, and the moon in turn displays its own beauty to those who behold it. This is, it seems, a clear lesson in kindness and humanity, teaching that human beings should never begrudge others their own goods, but, imitating the blessed and happy natures in heaven, should drive envy far from the soul, bringing what belongs to them out into the open, sharing it in common, and giving freely to those who deserve it.
Fourth, because the moon, of all the bodies in heaven, traverses the zodiac in the shortest time, completing its circuit within the span of a month. For this reason the law has honored the completion of this cycle — when the moon, ending its course, returns to the point from which it began to move — by calling that day a festival, so as to teach us once again a most excellent lesson: that in the actions of our life we should make our endings harmonious with our beginnings. And this will come about if we guide our first impulses by reason, not allowing them to run wild and leap about like cattle that have no herdsman.
As for the benefits the moon provides to all things upon the earth, why should I dwell on them at length in the telling? The evidence is plain for all to see. Is it not by the moon's waxing that rivers and springs swell, and by its waning that they diminish again? Do not the seas at times withdraw and, ebbing, draw back, and at other times suddenly rush in with the returning tide? Does not the air, through clear skies and clouds and its other changes, undergo transformations of every kind? Do not the fruits of crops and trees grow and reach fulfillment, nourished through the moon's cycles, each thing that grows being ripened by its dews and gentlest breezes?
But this is not the occasion, as I said, to speak at length in praise of the moon, cataloguing all the benefits it provides to living things and to everything upon the earth. For these reasons, then, and others like them, the new moon has been honored and has taken its place among the festivals.
After the new moon comes the fourth festival, the Crossing-Feast, which the Hebrews call by that name in their ancestral tongue. On this day the whole people sacrifice, offering countless myriads of victims from midday until evening — the entire nation, old and young alike, honored on that day with the dignity of the priesthood. For at other times the priests perform both the public sacrifices and each individual's private ones, according to the prescriptions of the laws, but on this day the whole nation, with full license, performs the sacred rite and serves as priests with pure hands.
The reason is this: the festival is a memorial and thank-offering for the greatest of migrations, which was set out from Egypt by more than two hundred myriads of men and women together, in accordance with the oracles that had been given. At that time, then, as was natural, having left behind a land teeming with inhumanity and hostility to strangers, and — the harshest thing of all — a land that assigned the honors due to God to irrational animals, not only tame ones but wild ones as well, the people themselves, overcome with sheer joy, sacrificed out of unspeakable eagerness and hurried haste, not waiting for the priests. And what was then done under an impulse that was self-prompted and freely willed, the law has since permitted to be done once each year, as a reminder for giving thanks. This much is recorded according to ancient tradition.
But for those whose custom it is to turn the literal text toward allegory, the Crossing-Feast hints at the purification of the soul; for they say that the lover of wisdom pursues nothing other than the crossing away from the body and the passions, each of which floods over him like a mountain torrent, unless one holds back and checks its rush with the doctrines of virtue.
At that time each household takes on the appearance and solemnity of a temple, as the victim that has been slaughtered is made ready for the fitting feast, and those gathered for the common meal have been purified with sanctifying lustral rites — people who have come not, as to other banquets, to gratify the belly with wine and food, but to fulfill an ancestral custom with prayers and hymns.
It is worth noting also the day of this feast celebrated by the whole nation, for it is held on the fourteenth of the month, a number made up of two sevens, so that it should not lack any of the honor due to the number seven, but that this number should preside over the whole occasion with its distinction and solemnity.
Following the Crossing-Feast comes a festival with a distinctive character and an unaccustomed use of food: Unleavened Bread, from which it takes its name. There is a twofold account of it: one particular to the nation, on account of the migration already mentioned; the other general, according to the sequence of nature and the harmony of the whole universe. That this claim is no falsehood must now be examined. This month, seventh in number and order according to the solar cycle, is first in importance, and for this reason it is recorded first in the sacred books.
The reason, I think, is this: the vernal equinox has come to be a kind of image and imitation of that beginning at which this world was fashioned. For then, as the elements were being separated out and taking on their harmonious order in relation both to themselves and to one another, the heaven was being adorned with the sun and moon and the choruses and cycles of the other planets and fixed stars, and the earth too was being adorned with every kind of plant, and all the rich and deep soil of both the hill country and the plain was in flower and putting forth green growth.
So each year, by way of reminding us of the world's coming-into-being, God brings forth the spring, in which everything blooms and buds. It is therefore not without purpose that this month is recorded first among the laws, since it is in a way an impression of that first beginning, stamped from it as from an archetypal seal.
But the month that falls at the autumnal equinox, though it too is first in the solar cycles, is not called first in the Law, because at that time, once all the crops have been gathered in, the trees shed their leaves, and everything that the flourishing spring had brought forth withers and dries up under the dry winds of the air, which turn parched from the sun's scorching.
To designate as first, then, a month in which both the hill country and the plain are barren and unfruitful he judged to be altogether discordant and unfitting; for what has been allotted the first and leading rank must be attended by the most beautiful and desirable things, those through which living creatures, crops, and plants come into being and grow, and not by the ill-omened processes of decay.
The festival begins at the mid-month, the fifteenth day, when the moon becomes full, by the providential design that on that day there should be no darkness at all, but everything filled with light through and through — the sun shining from morning until evening, and the moon from evening until morning giving the same... , the two lights
yielding their place to one another in unshadowed brightness. The festival is then kept for seven days, since the number seven has been allotted preeminence and honor in the world, so that nothing that belongs to good cheer, to the joy and thanksgiving of the whole people toward God, should be missing from the sacred week, which he intended to be the beginning and source of all good things for humankind.
Of the seven days he called two, the first and the last, "holy," giving distinction, as is fitting, to the end as well, and at the same time wishing, as in a musical instrument, to bring the boundary notes into harmony with one another — and perhaps also wanting to make both the time past and the time to come concordant with the festival, joining the past to the first day and the future to the last, each of which has taken on the force of the other. For the first day is the beginning of the festival but the end of the time that has gone by, while the seventh is the end of the festival but the beginning of the time to come, so that, as I said before, the whole life of the virtuous person may be reckoned a festival of equal honor, once it has driven out grief, fear, desire, and the other passions and sicknesses of the soul.
The bread is unleavened, either because our ancestors, when by divine escort they were setting out on that migration, in their utmost haste carried with them dough made without leaven, or because at that season — I mean the season of spring, in which it happens that the festival is kept — the crop of grain is not yet complete, the fields bearing ears but not yet ready for the harvest. It was to the crop still incomplete but soon, a little later, to reach completion, that he judged it right to liken this unleavened food — for it too is incomplete — as a reminder of a good hope, since nature is already preparing her yearly gifts to the human race in the abundance and plenty of what is needed.
It is also said by the expositors of the sacred writings that unleavened food is a gift of nature, while leavened food is a work of art; for through the pursuit of pleasure, striving to mix the pleasant with the necessary, men have by art rendered smooth what by nature was austere.
Since, then, the spring festival is, as I have shown, a memorial of the world's coming-into-being, and since the most ancient people, born of the earth and from earth-born parents, necessarily made use of the world's gifts unaltered, pleasure not yet having gained the upper hand, he ordained as the food proper to that season, wishing every year to kindle afresh the embers of a solemn and austere way of life, and at the same time, in the truce of the festival, to marvel at and honor the ancient life of frugality and simplicity, and to make our own life, so far as possible, resemble that ancient one.
What has been said is confirmed above all by the setting out, on the sacred table, of twelve loaves equal in number to the tribes; for all of them are unleavened, a most evident sign of food unmixed, prepared not by art for pleasure but by nature for necessary use. So much, then, on this.
There is a festival within the festival, the one that falls immediately after the first day, which is named, from what is done, the Sheaf; for this is brought to the altar as a firstfruit both of the land which the nation has been allotted to inhabit and of the whole earth, so that the firstfruit is at once the nation's own and common on behalf of the whole human race.
The reason is that the relation a priest bears to a city, the nation of the Jews bears to the whole inhabited world. For it acts as priest, if the truth must be told, employing all the purifications proper to holiness, both of body and of soul, under the guidance of divine laws which have restrained the pleasures of the belly and those below it, and have bridled the unruly mass of the soul, giving reason as charioteer over the irrational senses, and have checked and reined in the soul's unjudged and excessive impulses, some by gentler instruction and philosophical exhortation, others by weightier and sterner rebukes and by fear of the punishment they hold in store.
Apart from the fact that the legislation is, in a sense, a teaching in priesthood, and that whoever lives according to the laws is at once a priest, or rather a high priest, in the judgment of truth, there is this further distinguished point: unbounded and uncontainable has proved to be the multitude of gods honored city by city, male and female, whom the race of poets and the mass of men have fashioned into myths — men for whom the search for truth is impassable and unexplored; and indeed not all honor the same gods, but different peoples hold different ones in reverence and worship, so that they do not even recognize as gods those of a foreign land, but treat the acceptance given them as a laughing matter and mockery, and condemn as great folly those who honor them, as men who have missed a sound judgment.
But if there exists — as with one accord all agree, both Greeks and barbarians together — one who is the highest Father of gods and men and the maker of the whole universe, whose nature, being invisible and hard to conceive, all who occupy themselves with the sciences and the rest of philosophy long to search out, not only to see but even to comprehend by thought, leaving nothing undone toward its discovery and its worship, then all men ought to have been bound fast to him, and not, as though summoned in from a stage machine, to induct others into equal honors.
But since they stumbled in the most necessary part, the nation of the Jews — to speak in the most proper terms — set right the failure of the rest, passing over everything that has come into being, as generated and by nature perishable, and choosing the worship of that alone which is ungenerated and eternal; first because it is noble, and then because it is also profitable, to honor the elder before the younger, the ruler before the ruled, and the maker before what has come into being —
these are truths that stand and are to be held fast. Hence it occurs to me to marvel how some dare to accuse this nation of misanthropy, when it makes use of such an excess of fellowship and goodwill toward all people everywhere, that it offers prayers, festivals, and firstfruits on behalf of the common race of men, and worships the truly existent God both for itself and for the others, who have run away from the service they owe.
This, then, is on behalf of the whole human race. But privately, again, they give thanks for many things: first, because they do not go on wandering scattered over land and sea, and, as strangers without a settled place, are not reproached for occupying the goods of others and lying in wait for what belongs to other men, having borrowed no portion of so much land in order to be resettled, but having acquired territory and cities, they possess for a long time now their own allotted portion, out of which it is a holy duty to offer firstfruits.
Second, because the land they were allotted is not a rejected or ordinary one, but good and all-bearing, suited both for the fruitful breeding of tame animals and for the boundless abundance of crops; for in it there is no poor soil, but even what seems rocky and hard is girded with soft and very deep veins, which, because of their richness, are good for nurturing life.
Furthermore, they did not receive a deserted land, but one in which there was a populous nation and great cities thriving with men; yet these cities were emptied of their inhabitants, and the whole nation, apart from a small remnant, was destroyed, in part by wars, in part by god-sent visitations, on account of the strange and monstrous practices of wrongdoing and the impieties they committed in their great undertakings against the ordinances of nature, so that those who came to settle in their place might be schooled by the evils of others, taught by the facts themselves that those who become zealots of the works of wickedness will suffer the same fate, while those who honor virtue will possess the allotted portion given them, examined not as resident aliens but as native-born.
That the Sheaf, then, is a firstfruit both of the nation's own land and of the whole earth, offered in thanksgiving for the prosperity and good harvest which the nation and the whole human race longed to enjoy, has now been shown. But one should not fail to note that many, and most beneficial, things present themselves through the firstfruit: first, remembrance of God, than which no more perfect good can be found, and then, a most just recompense to him who is, in truth, the cause of the good harvest.
For what comes from the farmer's art is little, or rather nothing — to open furrows or dig round a plant and mound it, or deepen a trench, or cut away superfluous growths, or do some other such task — whereas everything necessary and useful comes from nature: the most fertile soil, regions well watered by native springs and rivers, by winter torrents and the yearly rains, a good tempering of the air breathing with its most life-giving breezes, and the countless forms of seed-crops and plants. Which of these has man either discovered or produced?
Nature, then, who gave birth to these, has not begrudged man her own good things, but, deeming him the most commanding of mortal creatures because he has a share in reason and understanding, chose him as of the highest merit and called him to partake in what is her own; for which the host, God, deserves to be praised and marveled at, who provides the earth, the truest hearth, always full not only of what is necessary but also of what belongs to a life of refined ease.
Besides this, there is the duty not to be unreasoning: for he who has grown accustomed to gratitude toward God, who lacks nothing and is full in himself, will surely have become accustomed to it toward men too, who are in need of countless things.
The sheaf of the firstfruit is of barley, for the blameless use of those of lesser station; for since it was not pure and holy to offer firstfruits from everything — most things having come into being more for pleasure than for necessary use — nor was it lawful to enjoy and partake of any food meant for eating without having first given thanks in the manner that is fitting and right, the Law ordained that the offering of firstfruits be made from the kind of food honored with second place, barley; for the crop of wheat has won the seniority, and its firstfruit, being the more distinguished, he assigns to a more fitting season, not sending it forth prematurely but storing it up for the present time, so that acts of thanksgiving might be fitted to their appointed periods of time.
Possessing so many privileges as the law has shown, the festal gathering held over the sheaf is, if we are to speak the truth, a festival preliminary to another and greater festival. For from that day the fiftieth day is reckoned by seven weeks, the unit that seals a sacred number of release, which is the bodiless image of God, to whom it is made like through its solitary oneness. This, then, is the first beauty that the number fifty displays.
Another point must be mentioned. The nature of this number is marvelous and worth contending for, among other reasons because it is composed of the most elemental and most venerable of the things comprised within substances, as the mathematicians say — the right-angled triangle. For the sides of this triangle, being three, four, and five in length, complete the number twelve, the model of the zodiacal circle, by the doubling of the six, the most fruitful number, which is the beginning of perfection, being completed out of its own parts, to which it is equal. But in power, it seems, they beget the fiftieth, through three times three and four times four and five times five, so that one must necessarily say that the fifty is as much greater than the twelve as the power is greater than the length.
But if the fairest of the spheres in heaven, the zodiacal, is the image of the lesser number, of what could the greater number, the fifty, be the model, if not altogether of some better nature? Of this it is not the occasion to speak; for the present it is enough to have noted the difference, so as not to treat as incidental a matter that ought to take the lead.
The festival that falls on the fiftieth number has received the name of first-fruits, on which it is customary to offer two leavened loaves made of wheat as the first-fruits of grain, the finest of foods. It was named 'of first-fruits' either because, before the year's crop comes into use for human beings, the first offspring of the new grain and the first crop to appear are brought as a first-fruit offering —
for it is just and pious that those who have received from God the greatest gift — abundance of food that is at once most necessary, most beneficial, and also most pleasant — should neither enjoy it nor taste it at all before offering first-fruits to its provider, giving him nothing (for all things, both possessions and gifts, are his), but through a small token displaying a grateful and God-loving disposition toward him who, needing no favors himself, waters us with continuous and unfailing favors —
or because the crop of wheat is, above all, the first and best offspring, the other sown crops being ranked in second place. For just as a ruler is said to be first in a city, and a pilot first on a ship, because the one leads and takes precedence in the city, the other on the ship, in the same way the crop of wheat too was named by a compound word 'first-offspring,' because it is best of all things sown; for it had to be food for the best of living creatures as well.
The loaves are leavened, since the law forbids bringing leaven up to the altar, not so that there might be some conflict among its commands, but so that in a certain way, through a single kind of offering, one might both receive and give: receive the thanksgiving from those who bring it, and give back at once, without delay, the offerings to those who brought them — yet not so that they might make ordinary use of them;
for they will make use of things once they have been consecrated, of what it is lawful and permitted to use — and it is lawful for the priests, who have received a share in whatever is brought to the altar and not consumed by the unquenchable fire, a share given by the law's kindness to humanity, either as wages for their services, or as a prize for the contests they undertake on behalf of piety, or as a sacred allotment, since in the land they did not, like the other tribes, receive by lot the portion falling to them.
Leaven is also a symbol of two other things: one, of the most complete and whole nourishment, than which none better or more useful can be found in daily use; and the crop of wheat is likewise the strongest among sown crops, so that it is fitting that the best first-fruit be made from the best food.
There is another, more symbolic reason: everything leavened is raised up; and joy is a reasonable raising up of the soul. Man by nature rejoices at nothing more than abundance and plenty of necessities; for these it is right to give thanks while rejoicing, making the invisible well-being of the mind perceptible through the thanksgiving of the leavened loaves.
The first-fruit offering consists of loaves, not of wheat itself, because nothing further is lacking for the enjoyment of food once the wheat has been made into bread; for it is said that of all sown crops wheat by nature is the last to be produced and the last to come to harvest.
There are two best forms of thanksgiving for two periods of time: for the past, in which we did not experience the evils of want and famine, but passed our days in prosperity; and for the future, because we have made ready the provisions and preparations for it and, full of good hopes, we store up the gifts of God, bringing them forward each day for our daily sustenance, as much as is needed according to the laws of household management as a virtue.
Next comes the sacred-month festival, during which, together with the sacrifices offered, it is customary to sound trumpets in the temple. From this it is properly called the Feast of Trumpets, and it has a twofold meaning, one particular to the nation, the other common to all mankind. The particular meaning is a reminder of a portentous and mighty deed, at the time when the oracles of the laws were being proclaimed;
for then a voice of a trumpet sounded from heaven, which was likely to reach even to the ends of the universe, so that even those not present, dwelling almost at the very extremities, might be turned by the awe caused by that event, reasoning, as was likely, that things so great are signs of great accomplishments. And what could come to mankind greater or more beneficial than the general laws, which God proclaimed as a prophet, not through an interpreter, as he did the particular ordinances?
This is the meaning peculiar to the nation; but that which is common to all mankind is this: the trumpet is an instrument of war, both for the charge against enemies, whenever it is time to engage in combat, and for recall, whenever armies returning to their own camps need to be distinguished from the enemy. But there is also another war, driven by God, whenever nature is in strife within herself, her parts set against one another, when the most lawful equality is overpowered by the greed of inequality.
By both these wars the things of earth are destroyed: by enemies, through the cutting down of trees, ravaging, and burning of crops and grain-bearing fields; by the workings of nature, through droughts, floods, the violence of south winds, scorching by the sun, and freezing snow, when the harmony of the yearly seasons turns into disharmony — because of, I think, the impiety that spreads not little by little but pours out in a sudden flood, wherever such things occur among men.
For this reason the law appointed a festival named after the trumpet, an instrument of war, as an act of thanksgiving to the God who makes and guards peace, who, by removing the factions both in cities and among the parts of the universe, has produced prosperity and abundance and plenty of other good things, allowing no spark of destruction to the crops to be kindled into flame.
After the Feast of Trumpets comes the fast, a festival. Perhaps someone of those who hold different views, and are not ashamed to disparage what is good, might ask: what kind of festival is it in which there are no banquets, no common meals, no gathering of hosts and guests, no abundance of unmixed wine, no lavish tables, no supplies and preparations for a public feast, no merriment and revels with games and jesting, no play accompanied by flute and lyre and drums and cymbals and all the other things which, belonging to the effeminate and softened kind of music, stir up unrestrained desires through the ears?
In these things and through these, it seems, people set their idea of rejoicing, in ignorance of true joy. This the all-wise Moses, seeing with the sharpest of eyes, declared the fast to be a festival, and the greatest of festivals, calling it in his ancestral tongue 'Sabbath of Sabbaths,' or as the Greeks would say, a week of weeks and holier than the holy, for many reasons:
first, on account of self-mastery, which he always commands us to display in all matters of life, in what concerns the tongue and the belly and what is below the belly, but now bids us observe with special care, having set apart an exceptional day for it. For anyone who has learned to disregard food and drink, things so necessary, would he not look down on any of the superfluous things which have come to be not for the sake of survival and preservation but for the sake of the most harmful pleasure?
Second, because the whole day is devoted to prayers and supplications, people from dawn to dusk having leisure for nothing else but the most earnest prayers, by which they strive to make God gracious, asking pardon for sins both willing and unwilling, and hoping for good things, not on their own account but because of the merciful nature of him who sets forgiveness before punishment.
Third, because of the season in which the fast happens to be held; for by this time everything that the earth has produced through the year has already been gathered in. To gorge oneself at once on what has been produced he considered a work of insatiable greed, but to fast and abstain from food entirely a work of complete piety, which teaches the mind not to trust in what has been prepared and made ready as the cause of health or life; for these things, even when present, have often done harm, and, when absent, have done good.
Nearly as if speaking outright, even if they utter no sound at all, those who abstain from food and drink after the gathering of the crops cry out with their souls and say this: we have received the gifts of nature gladly and we store them up, but we never ascribe to anything perishable the cause of our survival, but to the begetter and father and savior of both the cosmos and the things within it, God, whom it is right to thank, both through these things and apart from them, for nourishing and preserving us.
Behold, indeed, our own ancestors too, in their many tens of thousands, passing their life through a trackless and utterly barren desert for forty years, he nourished as though in the deepest and most fertile land, cutting open springs then for the first time for abundant use of drink, and raining down food from heaven neither more nor less than sufficed for each day, so that, using necessities that could not be stored up, they might not sell for lifeless things — whatever they might have hoarded up — their good hopes, but, caring little for the things provided, might marvel at and worship the provider, and honor him with fitting hymns and proclamations of blessedness.
The day of the fast is held, by the law's command, always on the tenth of the month. And why on the tenth? As we have set out precisely in the discourses concerning it, it is called by wise men 'complete perfection,' for it contains within itself all the proportions — the arithmetical, the harmonic, and the geometric — and moreover the harmonies: the fourth in the ratio of four to three, the fifth in the ratio of three to two, the octave in the ratio of two to one, and the double octave in the ratio of four to one; it also has the ratio of nine to eight, so that it is the most perfect fulfillment of the principles of music, from which it has also been named 'complete perfection.'
So the law's command is that the abstinence which is fasting must be observed each year on the tenth day of the month, always at the sacred food-taking. He has prescribed that the deprivation of food and drink take place according to the perfect and complete number of ten, for the sake of the best nourishments of the best part in us, so that no one should suppose that the high priest is introducing famine, the most unbearable of all evils, but rather a brief check on the influx that streams toward the body's receptacles.
For in this way the stream from the rational spring was meant to flow smoothly into the soul, clear and pure, since continual and successive feedings, flooding the body, drag down reasoning along with it; whereas if they are held back, the soul, firmly grounded as on a dry and open road, will be able to make its journey without stumbling, reaching after the things worthy of sight and hearing.
It was fitting, besides, that once all things had gone according to plan toward abundance, arriving at perfect and complete goods, people should take, amid prosperity and plenty of supplies, a reminder of want, through abstaining from food and drink, and should offer prayers and supplications — both so as not to come to a genuine trial of need for necessities, and also in thanksgiving, because in the midst of abundant goods they remember evils that never came to be. So much, then, for this.
The last of the yearly festivals is the one called Tabernacles, whose season is that of the autumn equinox; from which two things follow: that those who hate inequality must honor equality — for equality is the origin of justice, while inequality is the origin and source of injustice, and the one is kin to unshadowed light, the other to darkness — and that, after the completion of all the fruits, it is fitting to give thanks to the God who brings all things to completion and is the cause of every good.
For autumn, as indeed its very name shows, is the season after the ripe fruit has already been gathered in, and after the seeded crops and all the produce the earth has yielded for the countless kinds of living creatures, tame and wild, have brought in their yearly tribute and their necessary due, abundantly supplied not only for present and momentary enjoyment but also for the future, owing to the forethought of a nature that loves living things.
And indeed the command is to spend the time of this festival dwelling in tabernacles, either because there is no longer any need to live out in the open working the fields, since nothing has been left outside, but all the fruits are stored away in pits and places of that kind against the usual damages that follow from the sun's scorching and the onrush of rains —
for when the crops that sustain you are still in the fields, you must not shut yourself away like a woman confined to her chamber, but go out as their overseer and guard of what is necessary; and if, while you remain in the open, cold and heat assail you, there are the leafy shade trees standing by, under whose cover you can easily escape harm from either extreme; but when all the fruits have been brought in, you go indoors too, to reach a more sheltered way of living, for rest from the labors you endured while working the land — or else the command is meant as a reminder of the ancestors' long journey, which they made through a vast wilderness, dwelling in tents for many years at each stopping place.
It is fitting, too, to remember poverty in the midst of wealth, and obscurity in the midst of fame, and a private station in the midst of positions of rule, and the dangers of war in time of peace, and storms at sea while on land, and desolation while in the midst of cities; for there is no greater pleasure than to keep, in the midst of great prosperity, a recollection of former misfortunes.
And beyond the pleasure, no small benefit for the practice of virtue arises as well; for having set before their eyes both the better and the worse condition, and having thrust away the one while enjoying the fruit of the better, people necessarily become grateful in disposition and are spurred on toward piety by fear of a change to the opposite state. Hence, even in the midst of present goods, they honor God with songs and words, and beg that they may never again be tried by evils, and win his favor with supplications.
Again, the beginning of this festival falls on the fifteenth of the month, for the same reason given in the case of the spring season, so that the world may be full, not only by day but also at night, of light that is by nature altogether beautiful, sun and moon on that day rising opposite each other with unbroken rays, between which no darkness draws a dividing line.
After seven days he seals it with an eighth, which he calls the 'closing festival' — not, it seems, of that festival alone, but of all the yearly festivals he has numbered and gone through; for it is the last of the year, and its conclusion.
Perhaps, too, the first cube, the number eight, was assigned to this festival for the following reason: it is, in its potential, the beginning of solid substance according to the transition from things incorporeal, but the conclusion of the intelligible; and the intelligible realities, by their successive increases, move toward solid nature * * *.
And indeed the autumn festival, as I said, appears to be a kind of fulfillment and conclusion of all the festivals within the year, more settled and stable than the rest, since people have already received the produce of the land and no longer wander in uncertainty and fear over whether the harvest will fail or succeed; for the anxieties of farmers remain unfixed until the crops have been gathered in, on account of the losses that lie in wait from countless quarters, affecting both people and livestock.
I have dwelt on these matters at greater length because I wished to show, with regard to the sacred seventh, that all the yearly festivals turn out to be, so to speak, offspring of the seven-day period as a mother * * * follies and joys, and because in festal gatherings and a cheerful life there arise delights untouched by gloom and dejection, which relax both bodies and souls — the bodies through luxurious living, the souls through the practice of philosophy.
There is, alongside these, a certain gathering that is not exactly a festival of God, but a festal assembly connected to a festival, which they call the 'Basket,' from what happens at it, as I shall shortly explain. That it does not have the rank and order of a festival is clear from many considerations: it does not belong to the whole nation in common, as does each of the others, nor is anything brought or offered at it consecrated on the altar and given over to the undying and sacred fire,
nor has any number of days been fixed on which it must be kept as a festival. Yet one could easily see that it has a festal character and stands close to the license of a festal gathering. For each person who owns fields and property, having filled vessels — which, as I said, they call 'baskets' — with each kind of tree fruit, brings the firstfruits of the good harvest to the temple in joy, and standing before the altar gives them to the priest, reciting the beautiful and wonderful song, or, if he happens not to remember it, listening to it from the priest with the closest attention.
The song runs as follows: 'The founders of our race left Syria and moved to Egypt. Being few in number, they grew into a multitude of a nation. Their descendants, suffering countless wrongs at the hands of the local people, with no help any longer appearing from human quarter, became suppliants of God, taking refuge in the help that comes from him.'
He who is kindly disposed toward all who suffer injustice accepted their supplication, struck those who attacked them with terror through signs and wonders and apparitions and all the other marvels wrought at that time, and rescued those who were being maltreated and who endured every kind of plot, not only choosing them out into freedom but also giving them a land bearing every kind of produce.
'From the fruits of this land, O Benefactor, we bring you the firstfruits, if indeed it is right to say that one brings anything to the one who is the giver; for yours, Master, are the graces and the gifts, all of them, in which we take pride and rejoice, being counted worthy of unlooked-for goods'
'which you gave us though we had not hoped for them.' This song is sung, without interruption, by one group after another, from roughly the beginning of summer to the end of autumn, over two seasons together making up a whole half of the year, because it is not possible for everyone all at once, by a fixed deadline, to bring in the ripe produce, but different people do so at different times, and sometimes even the same people from the same places.
For since some fruits ripen sooner and others later, and this is so both because of differences in locality — some being warmer, some colder — and for countless other reasons, it is reasonable that the time for the firstfruit-offering of tree fruits is undefined and unbounded, extending over a very long span.
The use of these offerings has been entrusted to the priests, since they were allotted no portion of land nor any revenue-bearing property, but their inheritance is the firstfruits from the nation, in place of the services they perform by day and by night.
So much, then, have I set out concerning the seven-day period and the things connected to it in days, months, and years, and concerning the festivals that have kinship with the number seven, following the sequence of the topics laid out at the start, in the order the discussion requires. I shall next examine the topic that comes after, which has been written concerning the honor due to parents. On the Honor Due to Parents.
Having first spoken of four kinds, which were truly first in both order and power — that concerning the sole rule by which the world is ruled as a monarchy, and that concerning the making of no image or likeness of God, and that concerning not swearing falsely or, in general, swearing in vain, and that concerning the sacred seventh day, all of which tend toward piety and holiness — I now pass on to the fifth, concerning the honor due to parents, which, as I showed in my separate treatise on the subject, stands on the boundary between things human and things divine.
For parents occupy a place between divine and human nature, partaking of both: of human nature, clearly, in that they have come into being and will perish; of divine nature, in that they have begotten and have brought what did not exist into existence. For what God is to the world, this, I think, parents are to their children, since just as he brought existence out of what did not exist, so too parents, imitating his power so far as they are able, immortalize the race.
Father and mother are worthy of honor not only for this reason but for several others. Wherever virtue is valued, the older are ranked above the younger, teachers above their pupils, benefactors above those who have benefited from them, rulers above the ruled, and masters above slaves.
Parents, then, are placed in the higher rank, for they are elders, guides, benefactors, rulers, and masters, while sons and daughters occupy the lower one, being younger, pupils, recipients of benefits, and subjects and servants. That none of this is a false claim is evident from plain experience, and the arguments from reason set an even stronger seal upon the truth.
I say, then, that the maker is always older than the thing made, and the cause older than that of which it is the cause. Parents are, in a sense, the causes and craftsmen of their children. Some of them also hold the rank of teachers, insofar as they happen to have the knowledge to instruct their children from the very beginning of life, imprinting reasoning upon young minds not only in the sciences but also, most essentially, in the choosing and avoiding that matters most — choosing the virtues, avoiding the vices and their corresponding acts.
Who could be greater benefactors than a child's own parents, who brought them out of nonexistence, then thought them worthy of nourishment, and after that of an education for both body and soul, so that they might not merely live, but live well?
The body they benefited through gymnastic and athletic training, giving it strength, good condition, and ease of movement and posture, never without rhythm and propriety. The soul they benefited through letters and numbers, geometry and music, and philosophy as a whole, which lifts the mind, housed though it is in a mortal body, up on high and carries it as far as heaven, displaying there the blessed and happy natures it contains, and instilling at the same time both zeal and longing for that changeless, harmonious order which never departs from obedience to its commander.
Beyond these benefits, parents also received the authority they hold over those they begot not as officials in cities receive theirs, by lot or by vote — so that one might blame chance for a slip made without reasoning, and the other blame the drift of the crowd, a thing never examined or considered — but by the finest and most perfect judgment of the higher nature, by which both divine and human affairs are administered with justice.
For this reason parents are permitted both to reproach their children and to admonish them, and, if they do not yield to threats spoken aloud, to strike them, to humiliate them, and to bind them. But if, even against this, they turn stubborn, throwing off restraint under the impulse of an incurable depravity, the law allows punishment even to the point of death — though no longer at the hands of the father alone or the mother alone, because of the magnitude of the penalty, which ought to be judged not by one but by both together. For it is not likely that both parents would agree on the destruction of their child unless the wrongs weighed on them and dragged them down with some fixed, overpowering force that overcame the settled goodwill implanted by nature.
Parents received not only authority and headship over their children but also outright mastery, corresponding to both of the highest categories by which servants are acquired — those born in the household and those bought with money. For parents lay out sums many times the ordinary value, for their children and on their children's behalf, to nurses, tutors, and teachers, quite apart from what is spent on clothing, food, and every other kind of care in health and in sickness, from earliest age to full maturity. And those born in the household would be not only those actually born there but also those whom the household's masters have, by contributing what is needed for their birth, brought into being under nature's ordinances,
as a necessary contribution. Given so many grounds, then, those who honor their parents do nothing that deserves praise, since even one of the things mentioned would be enough by itself to call for reverence toward them. But blame, accusation, and the highest penalty of justice fall on those who show no respect for them as elders, no acceptance of them as guides, no gratitude toward them as benefactors, no obedience toward them as rulers, and no wariness toward them as masters.
"Honor your father," it says, "and your mother, next after God," binding them with the second-place honors that nature itself has assigned them in setting the contest's prizes. And you will honor them best of all by striving to be good, and not merely to seem good — the one aim seeking virtue itself, unadorned and unfeigned, the other seeking a good reputation and the praise of those around you.
For parents who care little for their own advantage regard their children's nobility of character as the very goal of happiness — a nobility through which their children will also be willing to obey what is commanded of them and to be persuaded in everything just and beneficial. For a true father will never guide his child toward anything foreign to virtue.
One might find evidence of reverence toward parents not only in what has been said, but also in the respect shown to people of their age. For whoever reveres an old man or an old woman with no family connection to him seems, in some sense, to be reminded of his own father and mother, looking to them as archetypes and setting these others up as their images.
For this reason it is prescribed in the sacred writings not only that the young must yield the seat of honor to the old, but that they must also rise when their elders pass by, honoring gray hair out of reverence for old age — a state which those who claim this privilege hope one day to reach themselves.
It also seems to me an excellent piece of legislation where it says, "Let each person fear his father and his mother" (Lev. 19:3), placing fear before goodwill — not as the better of the two, but as more useful and more advantageous for the present occasion. First, because those still being educated and admonished are necessarily still foolish, and folly is cured by nothing so well as fear. Second, it would not have suited a lawgiver's precepts to teach children the goodwill they owe their parents, since nature demands this of its own accord, unbidden, and implants it in the souls of those so joined by birth from the very cradle.
Therefore he left the affection owed to one's parents alone, as something self-taught and needing no command, but he does command fear, on account of those who tend toward carelessness. For when parents, moved by excessive affection, indulge their children and lavish good things on them from every side, sparing them every hardship and danger, bound as they are by the compelling forces of goodwill, some children do not receive this excessive affection to their benefit; instead, having grown fond of luxury and softness, admiring a soft life while wasting away in body and soul, and letting no part of their own powers stand upright, they trip up and unstring those powers without shame, precisely because they no longer fear the correcting hand of father or mother, giving way and slackening the reins to their own desires.
It is therefore necessary to counsel these parents as well, that they use firmer and weightier admonitions to check the current of their children's ways, and to counsel the children too, that they hold their parents in fear and awe as rulers and, by nature, as masters; for only in this way will they hesitate to do wrong.
I have now gone through the five headings of laws contained in the first tablet, and the particular laws referable to each of them. It remains also to set out the punishments established for their transgression.
Death is the common penalty across all these offenses, on account of the kinship the wrongs bear to one another, though the grounds for the sentence differ. Let us begin with the last of them, the offense against parents, since discussion of it is already fresh in mind. "If anyone strikes his father or his mother," it says, "let him be stoned" — and quite justly, for it is not right that one who abuses those responsible for his life should himself go on living.
But some fine-robed lawgivers, looking more to reputation than to truth, have made a show of refinement by prescribing, for those who strike their parents, the amputation of their hands, thinking it fitting — so as to win applause from the more careless and unreflective — that the very limbs with which they struck their parents should be mutilated.
It is foolish to be angry at the instruments of service rather than at those responsible for the act. For it is not hands that commit the outrage, but the outrageous men who act through their hands, and it is they who must be punished — unless we are also to acquit murderers who used a sword, and instead throw the sword itself beyond the border, and, conversely, refuse honors to those who distinguished themselves in war, giving them instead to the lifeless suits of armor by which they performed their brave deeds.
Or will they also attempt, for those who win the stadion, the double-course, or the long-distance race, or the boxing match or the pankration, to crown only the legs and hands, passing over the athletes' whole bodies? It would be laughable to introduce such practices, punishing or honoring parts apart from the whole to which they belong — for we do not, when someone displays skill on flute or lyre and performs superbly, pass over the instruments and yet still think the player worthy of proclamation and honors.
Why, then, noble lawgivers, would you need to cut off the hands of those who strike their fathers? So that, besides being wholly useless from then on, they might also exact from those they wronged a levy — not annual but daily — of the food they need, being now unable to provide for themselves? For no father is so hard of heart as to look on while his son dies of hunger, especially once time has dimmed his anger.
Even if such a person does not raise his hands but merely reviles those he is bound to speak well of, or in some other way does something dishonoring his parents, let him die. For he is a common enemy and, to speak the truth, an executioner of all mankind — since who else could he ever treat with kindness, when he shows none even to those responsible for his life, to whom he owes his very existence, being, as it were, an addition to them?
Again, whoever profanes the sacred seventh day shall, so far as it depends on him, be liable to death. For, on the contrary, profane matters and profane persons must be given abundant means of purification toward a better change, since, as someone has said, "Envy stands outside the divine chorus." But to dare to falsify and adulterate what has been consecrated shows overwhelming impiety.
In that ancient migration out of Egypt, when the whole multitude was journeying through a trackless wilderness, and the seventh day came, those many tens of thousands I mentioned earlier stayed quietly in their tents; but one man, not among the neglected or the unnoticed, giving little thought to what had been ordained and mocking those who kept watch, went out to gather sticks — an act that in effect amounted to a demonstration of lawlessness.
So he turned back with his arms full, but the people who had poured out of their tents, though they were already provoked, did nothing rash on account of the sacred character of the day; instead they brought the impious man to the ruler and reported the offense. He put him under guard, and when an oracle came forth ordering the man to be stoned, he handed him over for destruction to those who had first seen him. For, I think, just as it is not permitted to kindle fire on the seventh day—for the reason I gave earlier—so too it is not permitted to gather fuel for fire.
For those who call God to witness to something untrue, the penalty fixed is death, and rightly so. For not even a decent human being would ever tolerate being asked to co-sign a falsehood; rather, he would, I think, regard as a faithless enemy the one who urged him to do such a thing.
Hence it must be said: the one who swears falsely for an unjust cause will never be released from his guilt by God, who is by nature gracious, for he remains defiled and impure, even if he escapes punishment at human hands. But he will never escape it; for there are countless overseers, zealots for the laws, most exact guardians of ancestral custom, who act mercilessly to see that such a man is stoned—unless perhaps, while dishonoring one's father or mother is worthy of death, dishonoring, at the hands of the impious, a name more venerable even than that dignity should be treated more leniently.
But no one is so foolish as to kill for lesser offenses while letting the guilty go free for greater ones; and greater than the impiety committed against parents who are slandered and insulted is that committed, through false swearing, against the sacred title of God.
But if the one who swears improperly is culpable, how great a punishment does the one deserve who denies the God who truly exists, and honors the things that have come into being above the one who made them, and thinks it right to worship not only earth or water or air or fire—the elements of the universe—or again sun and moon and planets and fixed stars, or the whole heaven and cosmos, but even the wood and stone that mortal craftsmen have fashioned, shaped into human-like forms?
Therefore let him make himself like the things wrought by hand; for it is right that the one who has honored soulless things should himself have no share in soul—especially if he has become a disciple of Moses, from whom he has often heard, spoken and prophesied, those most sacred and heaven-sent instructions: "You shall not admit the name of other gods into your soul for remembrance, nor interpret it with your voice; rather, having separated both, mind and speech, far from all else, turn them toward the Father and Maker of all things, so that you may think the best and finest thoughts about his sole sovereignty, and speak what is fitting and most beneficial both for yourself and for those who will hear you."
The punishments for those who transgress the five oracles have now been set forth. As for the rewards laid up for those who keep them, even if the law has not announced them in explicit commands, still they are shown by way of implication.
Now, not believing in other gods, not fashioning gods of wrought material, and not swearing falsely have no need of any other reward; for the very practice of these things is itself, I think, the best and most perfect reward. For on what could a lover of truth take greater delight than in devoting himself to the one God and clinging, without deceit and in purity, to his service?
And I call as witnesses not those who worship vanity, but those who have pursued unerring zeal, among whom truth is honored; for wisdom's own reward is wisdom itself, and justice and each of the other virtues is its own reward. But piety, which, as in a chorus, is the most beautiful and leads all the rest, is far more than its own contest and prize, for it grants to those who practice it happiness, and to their children and descendants blessings that cannot be taken away.
Again, those who keep the sacred seventh day happen to be benefited in the two most essential things, body and soul: the body by rest from continuous and unwearied labors, the soul by the best conceptions of God as the maker of the world who cares for what he has begotten; for indeed he brought all things to completion in seven days. It is clear from this, then, that the one who honors the seventh day is found to be honoring the Maker himself.
In like manner, let the one who honors his parents not go hunting for anything further; for he will find, on examining the deed itself, that it carries its own reward. Nevertheless, since this fifth commandment, because it touches on mortal things, falls short of the first four, which were allotted a more divine portion, he offered consolation by saying: "Honor your father, so that it may go well with you and that you may live long" (Exodus 20:12), setting down two rewards.
One is a share in virtue, for to fare well is virtue, or is not apart from virtue; the other, if the truth must be told, is a kind of immortality achieved through a long span of years and a lifetime of many days, which you will nourish, even while still in the body, with a soul that has been purified by a perfect purification. This, then, has been said sufficiently; the matters in the second tablet after these we shall examine when opportunity allows.

======== The Special Laws III ========

There was a time once when, at leisure for philosophy and for the contemplation of the world and the things in it, I enjoyed a mind that was truly beautiful, deeply longed-for, and blessed, always keeping company with divine words and doctrines, in which I rejoiced with an insatiable and unquenchable delight, thinking nothing low or groveling, nor grubbing about after reputation or wealth or the comforts of the body, but seeming always to be borne aloft on high by a kind of divine possession of the soul, and to travel in the company of the sun and moon and the whole of heaven and the cosmos.
It was then, then indeed, that peering down from above, from the aether, and stretching out the eye of my understanding as though from a watchtower, I used to survey the untold spectacles of everything on earth, and I counted myself blessed for having, with all my strength, escaped the calamities of mortal life.
But it seems that the most grievous of evils was lying in wait for me: envy, the hater of the good, which fell upon me suddenly and did not stop dragging me down by force until it had thrown me into the great sea of the cares of public life, in which I am carried along, unable even to swim to the surface.
Yet, groaning, I hold fast, for I have a longing for learning fixed in my soul since my earliest years, and this longing, ever taking pity and compassion on me, lifts me up and gives me relief. Because of it there are times when I raise my head and, with the eyes of my soul—dimly, for the mist of alien affairs has clouded their sharpness—still, out of sheer necessity, I look about me on every side, yearning to draw in a life that is pure and unmixed with evils.
And if, even unexpectedly, a brief calm and fair weather comes to me amid the tumults of public life, I am borne up on wings, all but flying through the air, wafted by the breezes of knowledge, which often persuades me to run away and spend my days with her, as though escaping from harsh masters—not only men, but also affairs pouring in from every direction like a torrent, one upon another.
But indeed, even for these things it is fitting to give thanks to God, that although I am submerged I am not swallowed down into the depths; rather, the eyes of my soul, which I had already supposed to be blinded through despair of any good hope, I now open, and I am illumined by the light of wisdom, not having been surrendered for my whole life to darkness. See, then, I dare not only to engage with the sacred interpretations of Moses, but also, out of love of knowledge, to peer into each of them and to unfold and bring to light whatever is not familiar to the many.
Since, of the ten oracles which God himself pronounced without prophet or interpreter, five have already been discussed—those engraved on the first tablet, together with whatever particular laws bore upon them—it is necessary at present to weave together, as well as I am able, the remaining commandments on the other tablet as well; I shall attempt again to fit the particular laws to each of the general categories.
The first commandment on the second tablet is this: "You shall not commit adultery," because, I think, everywhere in the inhabited world pleasure blows mightily, and no part has escaped its dominion—not on land, not on sea, not in the air; for creatures of the land, the winged creatures, and those in the water, all of them without exception, are dumbstruck by it and attend to it and yield to its commands at a single glance and nod, and even if it should bristle with arrogance they welcome it gladly and all but anticipate its bidding with the swiftness and unhesitating speed of their service.
Now natural pleasure, too, incurs much and frequent blame, whenever someone uses it without measure and without restraint, like those who are insatiable for food, even if they partake of nothing forbidden, and like the lovers of women who are mad for intercourse and consort more lasciviously than they should even with women who are not another's but their own.
The blame in this, according to most people, belongs to the body rather than to the soul, since the body has within it a great flame, which, having consumed the food thrown to it, soon seeks out more, and a great fluid, whose flowing stream, channeled through the generative organs, produces itchings and gnawings and ceaseless ticklings.
But as for those who are mad for the wives of others, and sometimes even of their own relatives and friends, and who live for the ruin of their neighbors, attempting to corrupt whole populous families, rendering void both the prayers made at weddings and the hopes placed in children—these suffer from an incurable disease of the soul, and as common enemies of the whole human race they must be punished with death, so that they may not, by living on with impunity, destroy still more households, nor become teachers to others who are eager to imitate wicked practices.
Indeed, the law has also made excellent provision for other matters concerning intercourse. For it commands abstention not only from the wives of others, but also from widowed stepmothers, with whom it is not lawful to come together.
The Persian custom he turned away from at once and, abhorring it, rejected it as the greatest impiety; for the leading men among the Persians marry their own mothers, and consider the children born of such unions to be of the noblest birth and, so the story goes, worthy of the greatest kingship.
What impiety could be more unholy than this? To defile a dead father's marriage bed, which ought to have been kept untouched as sacred; to feel no shame before old age or before a mother; for the same man to become both son and husband of the same woman, and, in turn, for the same woman to become both wife and mother of the same man; and for the children of both to be, on the father's side, his brothers, and on the mother's side, her grandchildren; and for the woman who bore them to be both their mother and their grandmother, while the man who begot them is, in the same breath, both their father and their brother by the same mother—
such things were done long ago also among the Greeks, at Thebes, in the case of Oedipus the son of Laius, and were done in ignorance, not by deliberate choice, and yet the marriage brought such a flood of evils that nothing was lacking to complete the utmost depth of misfortune.
For successions of civil and foreign wars were left behind, like an inheritance, to children and descendants from fathers and forebears, and the greatest cities of Greece were sacked, and there were destructions of military forces, both native and those coming as allies, and repeated destructions of the best commanders on each side, and, on account of irreconcilable hatreds over power and rule, fratricides, through which not only families and homelands but the greatest part of the entire Greek nation was utterly ruined; for cities once flourishing with men were left empty of inhabitants, memorials of Greece's disasters—an unhappy sight for those who beheld it.
Nor indeed are the Persians, among whom these practices are followed, free of similar evils; for they are always engaged in campaigns and battles, killing and being killed, at one time overrunning their neighbors, at another warding off those who rise up against them; and many rise up from many quarters, since the barbarian nature is not disposed to remain at rest; at any rate, before the conflict at hand has been settled, another springs up, so that no season of the year is exempted for peace, but they bear arms both summer and winter, by day and by night, spending more time suffering hardship in camps under the open sky than dwelling in their cities, for want of peace.
I say nothing of the great and monstrous prosperity of their kings, for whom the first contest, straightaway upon assuming the rule, is the greatest pollution of all—fratricide—since they divine the attack that may come from their brothers, in order to seem to kill them with good reason.
All this, it seems to me, results from the disordered unions of sons with mothers, since Justice, the overseer of human affairs, avenges these unholy acts upon the impious; and impious are not only those who commit them, but also all who, by deliberate consent, join in complicity with those who do.
So great a safeguard has our law made concerning this matter that it has not even permitted a stepson, after his father's death, to marry his stepmother, both out of honor for the father and because the name of stepmother is akin to that of mother, even if the feeling in the soul is not in harmony with it.
For the man who has been taught to abstain from a woman who is not his own kin, simply because she was called stepmother, will abstain far more from his mother by nature; and if anyone, out of remembrance of his father, respects the woman who was once his father's wife, it is clear that, for the honor owed to both parents, he will contemplate nothing untoward regarding his mother, since it would be quite foolish to seem to show favor to half of one's lineage while neglecting the whole and complete family.
Next comes the commandment that one must not take a sister in marriage—a very serious rule, contributing both to self-mastery and to good order. Now the Athenian Solon permitted marriage with sisters who shared the same father, but forbade it with those who shared the same mother, while the Spartan lawgiver, prophesying the opposite, turned toward marriage with sisters of the same womb, and forbade it with those of the same father.
But the lawgiver of the Egyptians, making a mockery of the caution shown by both, as though they were making only half-hearted regulations in the interest of license, lavishly indulging a hard-to-cure disease of bodies and souls—incontinence—granted permission to marry all sisters: those belonging to one parent only, whichever it might be, and those from both parents, and not only younger ones but also older ones and those of the same age; for twins, too, were often born, whom nature at their very birth separated and set apart, but whom licentiousness and love of pleasure called into a union that ought not to be shared, and into a harmony that is discordant.
These practices the most sacred Moses abhorred as alien and hostile to a blameless commonwealth, and as inciting and priming people toward the most shameful practices, and he forbade with all his strength coming together with a sister, whether she was born of both parents or of only one.
For why must one shame the beauty of modesty? Why make colorless the young women who ought naturally to blush? And why should one restrict fellowship and intercourse with other people, crowding each household into a small space, when a great and splendid family is capable of extending and spreading over continents and islands and the whole inhabited world? For marriages with those outside the family produce new kinships that are in no way inferior to those of blood—
and do not fall short of blood-relations. For this reason he forbade many other unions as well, ordering that a man must not marry his granddaughter, whether through a son or a daughter, nor his aunt on his father's or his mother's side, nor a woman who has been the wife of his uncle or his son or his brother; nor again his stepdaughter, whether while his wife still lives — far be it — or even after she has died. For in effect a father-in-law counts as a father, and must therefore reckon his wife's daughter in the rank of his own daughter.
Again, he does not permit the same man to take two sisters, whether at the same time or at different times, even if it should happen that he has divorced the one he married first. For while the woman he lives with is still alive, or even if she has been separated from him, whether she remains a widow or is married to another, he judged it unholy for him to proceed to the sister of the unfortunate woman, teaching in advance that the rights of kinship must not be dissolved, nor should one trample on the misfortunes of a woman so united to oneself by birth, nor plume oneself and revel in being courted by that woman's enemies while courting them in return.
For from such things arise harsh jealousies and implacable rivalries that bring on countless swarms of evils. It is like the parts of a body that, departing from their natural harmony and fellowship, should war against one another, which produces incurable diseases and corruption. Sisters, even though they have become divided parts, are nevertheless fitted together and united by nature and by a single kinship. But jealousy, that most grievous passion,
breaking this apart, contrives harsh evils that are hard to cure. "Nor, again," he says, "contract a marriage-union with a foreigner, lest, led astray by conflicting customs, you give way and unknowingly wander off the road toward piety, turned aside onto a trackless path." Perhaps you yourself, having been schooled from earliest youth in the best precepts, which your parents were forever chanting into you as they taught the sacred laws, will hold firm. But there is no small fear concerning sons and daughters, for they may well be enticed by foreign customs in preference to their own and run the risk of unlearning the honor due to the one God, which is the beginning and end of the deepest misery.
"And if," he says, "a woman, separated from her husband on whatever pretext it may happen, marries another and is again widowed, whether the second husband is alive or has died, let her not return to her former husband, but let her be bound in truce with all others rather than become his again, since she has transgressed the ancient ordinances by choosing new attachments in place of the old and forgetting them."
And if any man is willing to come to terms with such a woman, let him be branded with a reputation for softness and unmanliness, having had cut away from his soul that most useful of passions, hatred of wrongdoing, by which the affairs both of households and of cities are set right; and let him be understood as having easily wiped away two of the greatest offenses, adultery and pandering — for a reconciliation of this kind a second time is proof of both. Let him pay the penalty of death, together with the woman.
When the flow of a woman's monthly courses occurs, let her husband not touch her, but let him hold back from intercourse for that time, out of reverence for the law of nature, and at the same time being taught in advance not to sow imperfect seed for the sake of untimely and unmusical pleasure. For it is like a farmer who, out of drunkenness or derangement, should sow wheat and barley into pools and torrents instead of onto plowland; for it is into dry fields that seed must be cast, so that it may bear good fruit.
Nature too purges the womb each month, as though it were some wondrous plowland, and the good farmer must watch closely for its season, so that while it is still being flooded he holds back the seed — for otherwise he will unknowingly be swept away by the flow of moisture, having not merely relaxed the generative forces but utterly dissolved them (these are the forces that in the womb, nature's workshop, mold living things and bring each part, of body and of soul alike, to completion with the utmost artistry) — but if the monthly flow should hold back, then let him with confidence sow seed capable of generation, no longer fearing the destruction of what is cast down.
Blame is also due to those who plow hard and stony ground; and who could these be but men who couple with barren women? For merely in the hunt for unrestrained pleasure, like the most lecherous of men, they destroy the seed by deliberate intent. For what other reason would they marry such women? Certainly not in hope of children, which they know will inevitably come to nothing, but out of excessive lust and incurable intemperance.
Now those who marry girls in ignorance of their condition, and find good or, on the contrary, poor fruitfulness at once, but who, when after a long time they perceive from their barrenness that the women are sterile, do not send them away — these deserve pardon, overcome by habit, that most compelling of forces, and unable to break the old affections stamped upon their souls by long companionship.
But those who court women already proven barren by other husbands, mounting them merely like pigs or goats, let them be inscribed on the pillars of the impious, as adversaries of God. For to him, since he loves living things and loves mankind, it belongs, through all his providence, to bring about safety and continuance for every kind of creature; whereas those who, at the very moment of insemination, contrive extinction for the seed, are admittedly enemies of nature.
But another evil, far greater than the one just described, has come revelling into our cities: pederasty. This, which formerly was accounted a great disgrace even to speak of, is now a boast, not only to those who commit it but also to those who suffer it, who, growing accustomed to enduring the feminine disease, waste away in both soul and body, allowing no ember of the male stock to smolder on within them, so conspicuously do they braid and adorn the hair of their heads, and rub and paint their faces with white lead and rouge and similar things, and anoint themselves richly with fragrant perfumes — for a sweet scent above all else is what attracts in men so trained toward outward elegance — and, contriving by artifice to change their male nature into a female one, they do not blush.
Against these it is right to be enraged, obeying the law which commands that the man-woman who falsifies the coinage of nature be put to death without atonement, not to be allowed to live a single day or even an hour, since he is a disgrace to himself, to his household, to his homeland, and to the whole human race.
And let the pederast know that he will undergo the same penalty, since he pursues a pleasure contrary to nature and, for his part, renders the cities desolate and empty of inhabitants by destroying the seed, and moreover claims to become the guide and teacher of the young in the two greatest evils, unmanliness and softness, by beautifying them and feminizing the flower of their prime, which ought rather to have been trained toward vigor and strength; and finally, like a bad farmer, he lets the deep and fertile fields lie fallow, contriving barrenness upon them, while he labors day and night upon those from which no growth whatsoever is to be expected.
The cause, I think, is that among many peoples prizes are set up for intemperance and softness. One can see the man-women forever strutting through the crowded marketplace, leading processions at festivals, allotted charge of sacred rites though themselves unholy, presiding over mysteries and initiations, and celebrating the rites of Demeter.
And some of them, straining their fine youthfulness still further, have reached out for a complete transformation into women, and have even cut off their generative organs, going about clothed in purple robes like men responsible for great benefits to their homelands, escorted by a bodyguard, turning the heads of those they pass.
But if there were the same indignation as prevails among our own lawgiver against those who dare such things, and if such men were removed without pardon as common pollutions and defilements of their homelands, many others would in consequence be brought to their senses; for the inexorable punishments of those condemned beforehand produce no small check upon those who are zealous for similar practices.
But indeed, some, emulating the appetites of the Sybarites and of men even more lecherous still, at first trained themselves in gluttony and drunkenness and the other pleasures of the belly and what lies beneath the belly, and then, once sated, ran riot — for satiety is by nature apt to breed wanton excess — so that, through derangement of mind, they raged and grew mad, no longer for human beings, whether male or female, but even for irrational animals, just as they say that, long ago in Crete, the wife of King Minos, named Pasiphaë,
having fallen in love with a bull and writhing under the affliction because of her despair of intercourse with it — for love, when it fails of its object, is intensified beyond measure — reported the misfortune that possessed her to Daedalus, who was the finest craftsman of his time; and he, being extremely clever in devising means of hunting the unhuntable, constructed a wooden cow and placed Pasiphaë inside through an opening in its side, and the bull, rushing at it as at a creature of its own kind, mounted it; and she, having conceived, in due time gave birth to the mixed creature called the Minotaur.
It is likely that there will be other Pasiphaës as well, if the passions are left unbridled, and that not only women but men too will go mad for beasts, from which monstrosities of ill repute will come to be — evidence of mankind's surpassing foulness; on account of which, perhaps, even the natures of the Hippocentaurs and Chimeras and the like, which never existed and are mere myth, will come to be.
So great, it seems, is the foresight shown in the sacred laws that, to prevent men from admitting any unlawful union, it is even ordained that no beast be allowed to be mounted by one of a different kind. No Jewish shepherd will allow a he-goat to mount a ewe, nor a ram a she-goat, nor a bull a mare; and if he does, he will pay the penalty as one who dissolves an ordinance of nature, whose concern it is to preserve the highest kinds undebased.
Some prize mules above all other beasts of burden, because their bodies are compact and exceedingly well-sinewed, and in their horse-studs and stables they rear oversized donkeys, which they call jackasses, so that these may mount the female foals, which give birth to the mixed creature, the mule; and Moses, knowing that its generation is contrary to nature, forbade it outright by a still more general command, not permitting creatures of unlike kind to mount or be mounted.
He took forethought, then, in proportion to what is fitting and consonant with nature, and, as though from a watchtower far off, brought men to their senses, so that, being instructed beforehand by these examples, men and women together might restrain themselves from lawless unions.
"If, then, a man mounts a four-footed beast, or a woman is mounted by a four-footed beast, let both the human beings and the four-footed beasts die" — the humans because they drove beyond the bounds of self-control itself, becoming inventors of perverse desires, and because they devised pleasures most unpleasant, whose very telling is most shameful; the beasts because they served such disgraces, and so that nothing of ill repute might be borne or begotten, as would likely come from such pollutions.
Besides, those who care even a little for what is fitting would no longer make use of such creatures for any service of life, loathing and turning away from them and finding even the sight of them distasteful, and thinking that whatever they touch immediately becomes unclean; and to live with no use whatever to life, even if it costs nothing, is nonetheless a superfluous "burden of the earth," as someone has said.
Again, the constitution ordained by Moses does not admit the prostitute, that woman alien to modesty and reverence and self-control and the other virtues, who fills the souls of men and women alike with licentiousness, shaming the deathless beauty of the mind while prizing the short-lived comeliness of the body, throwing herself at any man who happens along, selling her prime like some article for sale in the marketplace, saying and doing everything to hunt young men, and setting the lovers against each other, offering herself as the basest prize to whoever brings the most money. Let her be stoned as a plague and a ruin and a common defilement, for she has corrupted the graces of nature which it was fitting to adorn further with true nobility of character.
As for adultery, the law declared guilty those cases confirmed either by being caught in the act or by clear proof, but it did not think it right that those based on mere suspicion should be examined before men; instead it brought them before the tribunal of nature, since men are judges only of what is visible, but God is judge also of what is hidden, he alone being able to see the soul clearly.
So the law says to the man who suspects his wife: write out a summons, go to the holy city with your wife, and standing before the judges, lay bare the feeling of suspicion that has come upon you — not as a slanderer or a schemer bent on winning at all costs, but as a strict examiner of the truth, free of sophistry.
Let the woman, facing two dangers, one for her life and one for the shame of her whole existence — a thing more grievous than any death — weigh the matter within herself; and if she is pure, let her defend herself boldly, but if she is convicted by her own conscience, let her be humbled, making modesty a veil for her wrongs; for to remain shameless to the end is the height of wickedness.
But if what has been said is disputed and neither side prevails, let them go to the temple, and the husband, standing opposite the altar in the presence of whoever is serving as priest that day, shall declare his suspicion, bringing at the same time barley meal, a kind of sacrifice on behalf of his wife, as a sign that he brings the accusation not out of malice but from a sound mind, on reasonable grounds of doubt.
The priest, taking it, shall hold it out to the woman, and having removed her head-covering — so that she may be judged with head bared, stripped of the symbol of modesty which it is customary for the wholly innocent to wear at all times. Neither oil nor frankincense shall be present as in other sacrifices, because this sacrifice is to be carried out not for a joyful occasion but for one exceedingly painful.
The meal is of barley, perhaps because barley food is of doubtful standing, fitting both for irrational animals and for unfortunate men — a symbol that the adulteress is no different from beasts, whose matings occur indiscriminately and without oversight, while the woman who is free of the charge has aspired to the way of life proper to human beings.
The priest, it says, taking an earthenware vessel, shall pour into it pure water drawn from a spring, and shall add a clod of earth from the floor of the temple. These things too, I think, contribute toward the search for truth by way of symbols: the earthenware vessel points to adultery, because of its fragility — for death is the penalty against adulterers — while the earth and water point to being cleared of the charge, since it is through both of these that the coming-to-be, growth, and completion of all things occur.
Hence he has fittingly adorned each with its name: he says the water must be taken 'pure' and 'living,' since if the woman is not guilty she is pure in her life and ought to live; and the earth not from any chance place but from the holy ground, which represents virtue, as does the self-controlled woman herself.
When these things have been made ready, the woman, with head uncovered, shall come forward bringing the barley meal, as has been said, and the priest, facing her, shall hold the earthenware vessel in which are the water and the earth,
and shall say the following: 'If you have not transgressed the laws of marriage, nor has another man had intercourse with you in violation of the rights owed to the man joined to you by law, be free of guilt and unharmed. But if you have disregarded your husband and pursued strange desires, whether being the one who loved or yielding to one who loved you, betraying and adulterating the most necessary and dearest bonds, know that you have become subject to every curse, the proof of which you will show forth on your body.'
'Come then, drink the drink of testing, which will now strip bare and expose what is hidden and undisclosed.' Having written these words on a small papyrus and washed them off into the water in the vessel, he shall hold it out to the woman; and having drunk it she shall depart, expecting either the prize of self-control or the utmost punishment of licentiousness. For if she has been slandered, let her look forward to the sowing and begetting of children, free from fears and anxieties over barrenness and childlessness; but if she is guilty, let her know that a swelling and distended womb awaits her, and a terrible affliction of the womb, since she did not see fit to keep it pure for the husband who married her according to ancestral custom.
So great is the law's forethought regarding the sanctity of marriage that it does not even allow men and women who come together as husband and wife under the ordinances of marriage, when they rise from the marriage bed, to touch anyone before using washings and purifying rites — warding off adultery, and the charges that attend it, from far off.
If someone forces and shames a widow whose husband has died, or a woman otherwise divorced, he commits a lighter offense than adultery, roughly half as grave; let him be spared the penalty of death, but let him be accused for violence and outrage and licentiousness and shamelessness — regarding the basest acts as though they were the finest — and let the court determine what he must suffer or pay for them. Concerning seduction.
Seduction is a sister offense, akin to adultery, born, as it were, from the same mother, licentiousness — a thing some who are accustomed to dress up shameful acts with fine names call 'love,' blushing to admit the truth. Yet even though it is akin, it is not altogether the same, in that the wrong does not extend into several households, as happens with adultery, but is confined to a single one, that of the young woman.
So one must say to the man who desires a citizen girl: turn away, sir, from rashness and shameless boldness, or from traps laid in ambush, or anything of that kind, so that you may not be found wicked either openly or in secret.
But if you truly feel something proper toward the girl in your soul, go to her parents, if they happen to be living, or otherwise to her brothers or guardians or other persons in authority, and having laid bare your own feeling, as a free man should, ask for her in marriage and entreat that you not be judged unworthy.
For no one who cares for the girl could be so churlish as to oppose such earnest pleas, especially once he has examined the matter and found the feeling not to be feigned or superficial but genuine and firmly rooted.
But if someone, raging and maddened, having bid a hearty farewell to every consideration of reason, taking his frenzy and desire as sovereign, and setting the violence of passion — as some call it — above the law, seizes and violates free women as though they were slave-girls, doing in peacetime the deeds of war, let him be brought before the judges.
And if the violated woman has a father, let him deliberate about a betrothal to the one who violated her; then if he refuses, let the seducer pay a dowry for the girl, being punished with money in another way, but if the father consents and agrees to it, let him marry her without delay, acknowledging an equal dowry in return, and let him have neither the power to draw back nor to decline — both for his own sake, so that he not seem to have violated her more for lust than for lawful love, and for the girl's sake, so that the misfortune of her first union may be consoled by the most secure of marriages, one which nothing but death shall dissolve.
But if she happens to be an orphan without a father, let her be asked by the judges whether she wishes to live with him or not; and whether she consents or refuses, let the same terms hold as would have been agreed while her father was living. Concerning betrothal.
Some suppose that an offense committed between betrothal and marriage is a borderline case between seduction and adultery, namely when the agreements of betrothal have already been made but the marriage has not yet been completed, and another man, deceiving her or forcing her, comes to have intercourse with her. But in my judgment this too is a kind of adultery; for the agreements of betrothal are equivalent in force to marriage, since in them the names of the man and the woman and the other terms of the union are recorded in writing.
For this reason the law has ordered that both be stoned, provided they set upon their wrongdoing from one and the same intention, acting in concert; for it is not possible for those who did not set out from the same design to be considered as sharing in the wrongdoing, since they did not truly share in it.
Indeed, the offense is found to increase or diminish according to the difference of place; for it is, as one would expect, greater if it is committed within the city, but lesser if it is done outside the walls in a deserted place. For there no one at all is present to help the girl, whatever she may say or do to keep her virginity untouched and unassailed, whereas in the city there are councils, courts, crowds of generals, market officials, city officials, and other magistrates, and along with them the whole populace.
For indeed there exists in the soul of every person, even if he happens to be a private individual, a hatred of wrongdoing, which, once stirred, shows the one who has it, at that moment, to be a champion and self-appointed defender on behalf of the one who seems to have been wronged.
For the doer of violence, there follows justice everywhere, since he can find nothing in the difference of place to serve as a defense of his outrage and lawlessness; but for the girl, as I said, sometimes pity and pardon will attend her, and sometimes inexorable punishment.
And concerning this the judge must inquire carefully, not referring everything to the place; for it is possible for a woman to be violated against her will in the middle of the city, and, outside the city, to yield willingly to an unlawful union. This is why the law, in a most careful and admirable defense of the girl who is ravished in the wilderness, says: "The young woman cried out, and there was no one to help her" (Deuteronomy 22:27), so that if she neither cried out nor resisted, but went along willingly, she would be guilty, having used the place as a pretext to make it appear that she was violated.
And indeed, of what use could it be, in a city, to a woman who is willing to do everything for her own honor but is powerless because of the strength of the one who outrages her? For what benefit would come from those living nearby, if, along with everything else, he bound her or stopped up her mouth so that she could not even utter a cry? For in a sense, a woman who dwells in a city but has no one to help her is as though in a wilderness, deprived as she is of any who might come to her aid; and the other woman, even if no one happens to be present, if she is said to have gone along willingly, would be no different from the one in the city.
There are some men who are fickle in their intimacies, mad for women and yet women-haters at the same time, full of jumbled and mixed characters, who yield at once to their first impulses, whatever they happen to be, letting them run unbridled when they ought to be reining them in, and who fall recklessly and blindly, like blind men, into bodies and affairs alike, so that by the rush and violent force with which they push and overturn, they suffer no less than what they inflict.
Concerning these men the following is legislated: if men take girls in lawful marriage, and after the wedding sacrifices and feasting, retaining no proper affection for their wives, but abusing them and treating them like common women though they are citizens, contrive a divorce, finding no honest ground for separation, and then turn to slander, and for lack of any manifest charge turn their accusations to what is hidden, coming forward to charge that, though they supposed they had married virgins, they discovered on the first union that they were dealing with women who were not virgins — then the whole council of elders must assemble for judgment, and the parents of the accused women must come forward to make their defense, since the danger concerns them jointly.
For the danger touches not only the daughters, as regards the purity of their bodies, but also their guardians, not only because they failed to keep watch over the most critical time of their maturity, but also because they gave in marriage, as virgins, women who had already been corrupted by others, deceiving and cheating the men who received them.
Then, if the parents prevail in the just cause, the judges must penalize those who fabricated the false charge with fines of money, and with the outrages inflicted through blows upon the bodies, and — the most unpleasant thing of all for such men — the confirmation of the marriage, if the wives are still willing to live with such husbands; for the law permits the wives, if they wish, either to remain or to be released, but declares that the husbands have authority over neither option, in return for their slanderous accusation. Against murderers.
The name "manslaughter" is applied to one who kills a human being, but the true deed is sacrilege, and the greatest of all sacrileges, because among the possessions and treasures in the world there is nothing more sacred, nothing more godlike, than a human being.
…a most beautiful impression of a most beautiful image, stamped after the pattern of the archetypal rational Idea. The murderer, then, must at once be regarded as impious and unholy, committing the greatest of unholy and impious acts, one who, having done what admits of no communion with others, must be destroyed, since, though deserving countless deaths, he undergoes only one, because punishment, though undying, is not by nature able to be multiplied along with the number of his victims; yet there is nothing harsh in his suffering the very thing that he inflicted on another.
And yet how is it the same thing, if it differs in time, in action, in intention, and in persons? Is it not true that to begin unjust violence is one thing, and to repel it is another, coming later? And is not murder the most lawless of acts, while the punishment of murderers is the most lawful? And has not the killer fulfilled his desire by destroying the one he had chosen to destroy, while the one who has suffered, having been removed from among the living, is unable either to retaliate or to feel any satisfaction in return? And is it not natural that the one plots with his own hand by himself, while for the other the pursuit of justice remains incomplete unless kinsmen or friends come forward to fight on his behalf, moved by pity for his suffering?
If someone brandishes a sword with intent to kill, even if he does not carry out the killing, let him be held guilty of murder by intention, even though the outcome did not accord with his purpose. And let the same penalty be suffered by one who, through cunning, from ambush, not daring to make a direct attempt, plots and contrives murder by deceit; for he too is impure, even if not yet in his hands, then certainly in his…
…soul. For just as, I think, we regard as enemies not only those who are already fighting at sea or on land, but also those who have made ready for either kind of combat and are bringing up siege-engines with arrows against our harbors and walls, even if they have not yet killed anyone but are merely doing everything toward destruction, whether openly or in secret, even if they have not yet accomplished the wrong.
But if, out of cowardice or recklessness — passions that fight against each other and lead men astray — they dare to take refuge in the sanctuary, hoping to find asylum there, they must be prevented; and if they are discovered slipping in, they must be handed over for execution, with these words added: that the sanctuary grants no asylum to the unholy. For everyone who does what is incurable is an enemy to God; and murderers do what is incurable, since those who are murdered have suffered what is incurable.
For if, to those who have committed no wrong, the temple is forbidden until they have washed themselves and been purified with the customary rites of purification by sprinkling, is it not fitting that those guilty of unwashable pollutions — whose stains no length of time will ever cleanse — should be barred from haunting and lingering about the sacred precincts, precincts which not even a household of respectable men who care for holy things would receive them into?
Adding wrongdoing to wrongdoing, then — to murder, lawlessness and impiety — it is necessary to lead away for punishment those who, as I said, have committed deeds deserving countless deaths, not one; especially since, for the kinsmen and friends of the man treacherously murdered, the sanctuary will be shut off, if the murderer lingers within it, since they would not endure to come to the same place as he; and it is absurd that, for the sake of one man, and the most lawless one at that, the many who have been wronged should be driven out — men who, besides having done no wrong, have also taken on a premature grief.
Perhaps too, being by nature able to look with keen discernment even upon distant things, he took thought in advance that murder should not occur in the sanctuary itself, on occasion of the visits of the friends of the murdered man, whom natural affection — a passion that cannot be enslaved — would provoke, as it does those possessed and inspired, to come very near to killing the murderer with their own hands; and if that were to happen, one of the most unholy things would occur, for the blood of murderers would be mingled with the blood of sacrifices, the blood of things consecrated mingling with what is unclean. For these reasons, then, he commands that the murderer be handed over for punishment even from the very altars.
But those who kill with swords or spears or missiles or clubs or stones or similar things can do so without premeditation, without having reasoned out the crime within themselves for a long time beforehand, moved on the spur of the moment and overcome by anger stronger than reason, so that the deed of murder is, so to speak, only half accomplished, since the mind has not been possessed beforehand, over a long time, by the pollution.
But there are others most wicked, defiled in hand and in purpose alike: sorcerers and poisoners. They give themselves leisure and withdrawal to devise timely attacks, and they discover all manner of arts and contrivances against the misfortunes of their neighbors.
For this reason he commands that poisoners, both men and women, should not survive a single day, not even a single hour, but should die the very moment they are caught, with no pretext allowed for any postponement or deferral of the punishment; for one can guard against those who plot openly, but it is not easy to detect the arts of those who secretly compose and contrive their attacks by means of poisons.
It is necessary, then, that the perpetrators be made to suffer beforehand what others were going to suffer because of them. For besides, one who kills openly with a sword or some similar weapon will destroy only a few people at a time, but with deadly poisons he can destroy countless numbers who have no forewarning of the plot, mixing and blending the poison into various foods.
Indeed, before now, when great numbers gathered at common meals in fellowship, sharing the same salt and the same table, they suffered, amid libations, things worthy of no libation, being suddenly destroyed, and exchanged death for what should have been a feast. For this reason it is fitting that, against such men, even the most reasonable and the most even-tempered should become bloodthirsty, all but becoming executioners themselves, and thinking it a holy thing not to entrust the punishment to others but to take it upon themselves.
For how is it not utterly monstrous, to contrive death by means of food, which is the cause of life, and to work a destructive change in things that are by nature nourishing, so that some, driven by natural necessity to eat and drink, not foreseeing the ambush, take as if they were saving remedies the very things that cause utter ruin?
Let the same punishment be endured also by those who, even without composing deadly mixtures, administer substances by which prolonged illnesses are brought on; for death is often preferable to sickness, and especially to sicknesses of this kind, which stretch out over long periods of time and have no fortunate end; for the ailments produced by poisons are hard to cure, and altogether beyond remedy.
More grievous things, however, tend to befall the body, and derangements and unbearable madnesses fall upon it, through which the mind — the greatest gift that God bestowed upon the human race — being afflicted with every kind of harm, when it despairs of any means of preservation, migrates and moves elsewhere, leaving behind in the body the inferior form of the soul, the irrational part, which even beasts share in; since everyone bereft of reason, the better part of the soul, has been changed into the nature of a wild beast, even if
the outward features of the body still remain human in shape. As for the true magic, which is a science of vision, by which the works of nature are illumined with clearer visions, it seems a venerable and much-contested art, and not only private individuals but also kings, and the greatest of kings, especially the kings of the Persians, so devote themselves to it that they say no one among them can be sent forward to kingship unless he has first shared in the race of the Magi.
Magic of this counterfeit kind, or more accurately vile craft, is practiced by begging priests of Cybele and buffoons, and by the most worthless of little women and slaves. They profess to purify and cleanse people, and promise, by means of love-charms and certain incantations, to turn those who are affectionate toward each other into implacable enemies, and those who hate each other into overflowing goodwill. Then they deceive and hook those of simple and utterly guileless character, until these have taken on the greatest calamities — calamities through which whole large and populous circles of household and kin, gradually draining away without a sound, are swiftly destroyed.
It was with all this in view, I think, that our lawgiver did not allow lawsuits against sorcerers to be postponed to a later time, but ordered that the penalties be exacted at once. For delays incite the guilty to seize further opportunities for the same wrongdoing, since they are already courting death anyway, while they fill those under suspicion of being victims with an even more terrible dread, since they consider the sorcerers' continued life to be their own death.
Just as, when we see scorpions and other venomous creatures, before they bite or wound or even attack at all, we kill them on sight without delay, guarding in advance against suffering any harm because of the evil inherent in them — in the same way it is right to punish also those human beings who, though they have been allotted by nature a gentle rational soul because of their fellowship with the rest of humankind, have through their own practice changed themselves into the savagery of untamed beasts, placing all their pleasure and profit in doing harm to as many as they can.
Let this suffice for the present concerning sorcerers. It is proper, however, not to be ignorant of this either: that unintended occasions often arise in which someone commits homicide without having set out to do so or having made preparation for it, but is suddenly seized by anger — an incurable and treacherous passion, which does the greatest harm both to the one who feels it and to the one against whom it is directed.
For sometimes a man goes out to the marketplace on some pressing business, and meeting someone too quick-tempered who tries to abuse or strike him, or himself starting the quarrel with that person, comes to blows with him; and in order to break free and escape more quickly, he strikes him with his hand, or picks up a stone and throws it.
If the blow lands in a vital spot and the victim dies at once, then the one who struck him must die too, suffering in exact measure what he inflicted. But if the victim does not die immediately from the blow, but falls ill and is confined to bed, and then, after receiving proper care, rises again and goes about, even if he is not able to walk on sound feet but only with others supporting him or leaning on a staff, then the one who struck him must pay a double penalty: one for the loss of his time from work, the other to cover the cost of his medical treatment.
Having paid this, let him be released from the penalty of death, even if the one who received the blow should later die; for perhaps his death came not from the blow — since he had recovered enough to go out walking — but from other causes, which often suddenly attack and destroy even the healthiest of bodies.
But if a man grappling with a pregnant woman deals her a blow to the belly, and she miscarries, then, if the child that was miscarried was still without shape or form, he is to be fined, both for the outrage and because he obstructed nature, which was fashioning and crafting that most beautiful of living creatures, a human being, so as to prevent it from coming to life. But if the child was already formed, with all its limbs having taken on their proper arrangement and qualities, he must die.
For such a being is indeed a human being, one whom the craftsman slew while it still lay in nature's workshop, since nature did not yet judge it time to bring it forth into the light — like a statue lying in a sculptor's studio, needing nothing further but to be brought out and released.
By this same command another, still greater thing is also forbidden: the exposure of infants, which among many of the other nations has become, through their natural inhumanity, a tame and habitual impiety.
For if we must take thought for the child not yet brought forth at its appointed time of birth, so that it may suffer no terrible harm through a plot against it, how much more must we take thought for the child already fully born and, as it were, sent forth into the settlement allotted to human beings, so that it may share in nature's gifts — the gifts she sends up from earth and water and air and heaven, granting the sight of heavenly things and mastery and dominion over earthly things, supplying to every one of the senses an abundance of all things, and to the mind, as to a great king, some things through the senses, as through bodyguards, namely all that is perceptible, and other things without their aid, namely all that is grasped by reason?
Those, then, who deprive their children of so many good things, giving them no share in any of these from the moment of their birth, the parents who abandon them — let them know that they are overturning the laws of nature and accusing themselves of the gravest charges: love of pleasure, hatred of humankind, murder, and — the most terrible pollution of all — the killing of one's own children.
Lovers of pleasure they are, since it is not for the sake of begetting children and perpetuating their line that they come together with women, but pursuing, after the manner of pigs or goats, the enjoyment that comes from intercourse. And who could be haters of humankind more than those who are enemies and implacable foes to their own offspring? Unless one is so foolish as to suppose that men who have declared war on those united to them by blood could ever be at peace with strangers.
As for the murders and the killing of their own children, they establish these by the clearest proofs: some become murderers with their own hands, choking and crushing the infants' first breath through savagery and terrible lack of feeling; others cast them into a river or the depths of the sea, having first hung a weight on them so that it might drag them down the more quickly by its heaviness.
Still others carry them off to expose in some desert place, in the hope, so they themselves say, that they may be saved, but in truth, as it really is, to the most grievous of calamities. For all the wild beasts that feed on human flesh, with no one to stop them, come and feast upon the infants — a fine banquet, laid out by the very ones who alone should have cared for them and who, before all others, ought to have kept them safe: father and mother. And the flesh-eating birds too, swooping down, lick up what remains, when they have not sensed the danger in time; but if they do sense it, they contend for the whole carcass with the beasts of the land.
Suppose, then, that some passersby, moved by a gentle feeling, take pity and compassion on the exposed children, so as to pick them up, give them food, and see to their care in every other way — what are we to think of such kindly deeds? Are they not a condemnation of the parents, if strangers have practiced toward another's children the goodwill that the parents themselves did not practice even toward the children of strangers? It was for this reason, then, that the law long ago, and by clear implication, forbade the exposure of infants as a form of death,
having defined, as I said, the crime against those who cause miscarriage as applying to children already formed in women already pregnant. And yet what is still attached to the womb, contained within the belly of a pregnant woman, is said, both by natural philosophers who devote themselves to the contemplative life and by the most reputable of physicians — those who have carefully investigated the structure of the human being, examining with precision, through dissection, both what is visible and what is hidden — to be a part of the mother, so that, should some need for treatment arise, nothing might be overlooked through ignorance and become the cause of great danger.
But what has been brought forth is severed from that natural union, and, released, has become a living being in its own right, lacking nothing of what completes human nature, so that it is beyond doubt murder to kill an infant, since the law is displeased not on the ground of age but on the ground that a member of the human race has been wronged.
If, however, age too had to be taken into account, it seems to me that one would rightly be even more indignant at those who kill infants; for against grown men there are countless plausible pretexts for quarrels and disputes, but against those who are utterly infant, only just having come forth into the light and into human life, it is not even possible to invent a charge, since they are utterly incapable of wrongdoing. For this reason those who strip for the attack against such helpless victims would be judged the most savage and merciless of all, men whom the sacred law, hating them, has declared guilty.
Concerning the man killed not by the deliberate intent of the one who killed him, the sacred law says that he was delivered by God into the hands of the killer (Exodus 21:13) — on the one hand defending the man who seems to have killed him, as one who killed a man already guilty —
for the God who is gracious and forgiving would never, in a case of killing, hand over the innocent man; rather, it is the man who, though he cleverly escapes the judgments of men because of his many resources, when brought before the unseen tribunal of nature is caught — the tribunal in which alone the most unadulterated truth is seen, not overshadowed by the arts of rhetoric, since it does not admit speeches at all, but strips bare men's intentions and brings their hidden purposes into the open. On the other hand, the law does not make the man who killed him liable for murder, on the ground that he seems to have served a divine judgment, but only for a pollution that is obscure and altogether slight, one that is pardonable and forgivable.
For God uses those who err in small and remediable matters as instruments of punishment against those who have committed the greatest and incurable wrongs, not approving of the former, but taking them up, as it were, as fitting tools for retribution, so that no one, however righteous, who has remained pure his whole life and comes from pure stock, should ever lay hold of murder.
He therefore prescribed flight for the man who kills unintentionally, not just anywhere and not forever; for he assigned six cities — an eighth portion of those allotted to the consecrated tribe — to those convicted, cities which, from what befalls the men who dwell there, he named "places of refuge"; and as the length of the exile he further legislated the lifetime of the high priest, permitting return after that man's death.
The prior reason for this is as follows: the tribe mentioned received these cities as a prize for a homicide that was pure and holy, one which must be reckoned the most illustrious and greatest of all acts of valor that have ever occurred.
For when the prophet had been called up to the loftiest and most sacred of the mountains in that region and was there proclaiming the several kinds of particular laws, and was invisible for many days, those whose natures were not peaceable filled everything with the evils that spring from anarchy, and crowned it all with impiety: mocking the best and noblest instructions concerning the honor due to the God who truly is, they fashioned a golden bull — an imitation of Egyptian vanity — and offered unholy sacrifices, celebrated unfestive festivals, and performed danceless dances, accompanied by songs and hymns that were really dirges.
For when the prophet, summoned up onto the loftiest and most sacred of the mountains in that region, was uttering oracles concerning the various kinds of particular laws, and had been invisible for many days, those whose natures were not peaceable filled everything with the vices of anarchy, and crowned it all with impiety: mocking the best and noblest instructions concerning the honor due to him who truly is God, they fashioned a golden bull, an imitation of Egyptian delusion, and offered sacrifices that were no sacrifices, kept festivals that were no festivals, and performed dances that were no dances, accompanied by songs and hymns in place of dirges.
The tribe I have mentioned, bearing very badly this sudden change of way of life and set ablaze with zeal through a passion that hated wickedness, all brimming with anger, frenzied, possessed, as though at a single signal armed themselves, and in utter contempt went about slaying, one after another, those drunk with a double intoxication—the one of impiety, the other of wine—beginning with their nearest and dearest, since they reckoned that friendship and kinship consisted in nothing but being beloved of God. And in a small part of a single day twenty-four thousand were slain, and their calamities admonished those who were about to share in the same madness, through fear of suffering the like.
This campaign, undertaken voluntarily and self-commanded on behalf of piety and holiness toward him who truly is God, not without great dangers for those who took up the struggle, the Father of all himself approved; and having judged, in his own presence, that those who did the slaying were pure of all defilement and pollution, he bestows on them, in return for their manly courage, the office of priesthood.
The one, then, who commits an unwilling homicide, he commands to flee to certain of the cities allotted to these men, for the sake of consolation and so that he need not utterly despair of his safety forever, being reminded by the place itself of freedom from fear, and reckoning that if to those who kill deliberately not only amnesty but also great and contested prizes and much good fortune have been granted, much more should this hold for those who kill without premeditation—even if none of the honors, at least this last thing, that they not be put to death in turn. By this it is made clear that not every killing of a man is culpable, but only that which is joined with injustice; and that among the rest, killing out of longing and zeal for virtue is praiseworthy, while the unwilling kind is not blameworthy.
Let this, then, be stated as the first reason; the second must now at once be disclosed. The law wishes to preserve the one who has killed unwillingly, knowing that he is not guilty in intention, though his hands have served the justice that oversees human affairs; for the dead man's nearest kinsmen lie in wait, murderous enemies, who through excessive grief and inconsolable mourning rush to vengeance in an irrational impulse, without examining the truth and what is just by nature.
He permitted, then, such a man to take refuge neither in a temple, since he is not yet purified, nor in some neglected and obscure place, lest he be handed over easily, held in contempt; but in a sacred city, which is a borderland between the sacred and the profane place, a kind of second sanctuary. For the cities of the priesthood are more venerable than the rest, to the degree, I think, that their inhabitants are more honored than other inhabitants; for the law wishes, through the privilege of the city that receives him, to secure the most certain safety for the one who has fled there.
The time of his return, as I said, he fixed at the death of the high priest, for the following reason: just as, for each one who has been treacherously murdered, his kinsmen stand ready to exact justice and vengeance upon the murderers, so too the high priest is the kinsman and common next-of-kin of the whole nation, presiding as arbiter of justice for those in dispute according to the laws, and offering prayers and sacrifices each day and asking for good things as though on behalf of brothers and parents and children, so that every age and every part of the nation might be joined, as of one body, into one and the same fellowship of peace and good order, all reaching toward the same end.
Let every man, then, who has killed unwillingly be wary of him, as the champion and defender of those who were slain, and let him be shut up within the city to which he has fled, not venturing to go outside its walls, if indeed he has any regard for safety and for living without danger.
So when the law says, 'let the fugitive not return until the high priest dies,' it means something equivalent to this: until the common kinsman of all dies, to whom alone it is granted to arbitrate over both the living and the dead.
This, then, happens to be the reason that fits the ears of the younger; but the one which it is right to impart to the older and mature in character is this: as for voluntary offenses, let it be granted that ordinary priests alone are free of them—let anyone say this, too, of the other priests if he wishes—but as for both voluntary and involuntary offenses alike, by a special reckoning, the high priest must be free of them.
For it is not lawful that any stain of guilt attach to him at all, neither from premeditation nor from an unwilled turning of the soul, so that, being the revealer of sacred things, he may be adorned in both respects, employing a mind beyond reproach and a life of good conduct to which no disgrace attaches.
It would follow, then, that even those who have killed unwillingly should be regarded with suspicion by such a man—not as accursed, but not as pure either and wholly free from all fault, even if they seem to have served, in the fullest degree, the purposes of nature, which through them exacted vengeance on those who were slain, on whom she herself, judging secretly within herself, had passed a sentence of death. This applies, then, to the free and the citizens; next the law legislates concerning household servants who have been violently killed. Against those who kill household servants.
Household servants have a lesser lot in fortune, but partake of the same nature as their masters. For the divine law's standard of justice is not that of fortune but that of nature, in harmony with itself. Therefore masters ought not to use their powers over their servants to excess, displaying arrogance and contempt and dreadful cruelty; for these are not marks of a peaceable soul, but of one that, through lack of self-control, aspires to be unaccountable, after the manner of a tyrant's power.
For the man who fortifies his own house like a citadel, granting none of those within any freedom of speech, but savage toward everyone through an innate—or perhaps also cultivated—hatred of humankind, is a tyrant operating with lesser resources.
From this it is proved that such a man will not stop at the same point, should he gain greater resources; for he will pass at once to cities and lands and nations, having first enslaved his own homeland, as a demonstration that he intends to treat none of his other subjects with gentleness.
Let such a man, then, know clearly that he will not have license to go on offending continually and against many; for justice, which hates wickedness, the helper and champion of those wronged, will oppose him, and will demand from him an account and a reckoning for the calamity he has inflicted on his victims.
And should he claim that he inflicted blows for the sake of admonition, without intending to kill, he shall not walk away rejoicing at once, but shall be led before a tribunal and examined by exact assessors of the truth as to whether he killed willingly or unwillingly; and if he is found to have plotted with an unholy purpose, let him die, gaining nothing from the fact that he is a master, toward his own preservation.
But if those who were beaten do not die at once from the blows, but live a day or even two, then the master shall no longer be equally liable for murder, since he has gained an advantage for his defense—namely that he neither killed by the immediate blows nor afterward, though he had the man in his house, but let him live for as long a time as he was able to live, even if altogether short—apart from the fact that no one is so foolish as to attempt to harm another in matters where he himself will be the one wronged.
But one who kills a household servant harms himself far more beforehand, being deprived of the services he had from him while living and suffering a loss in value, perhaps a very great one. If, however, the servant happens to have done things deserving death, let the master bring him before the judges and make the wrongdoing known, making the laws, and not himself, the authority over the punishment. Against irrational animals which become the cause of death.
If a bull gores and kills someone, let it be stoned—for it is not fit to be slaughtered as a sacrificial victim—and let its flesh be inedible. Why? Because it is not holy for the flesh of what has killed a man to become food, or a relish for food, for other men.
But if the owner of the animal, knowing it to be wild and untamed, neither tied it up nor kept it shut up under guard, and had happened, moreover, to learn from others that it was not tame, yet let it out to graze freely, he shall be liable as though he were himself responsible; and the animal that did the goring shall be put to death at once, while the owner shall either be put to death in addition, or shall pay a ransom and price of deliverance, and the court shall decide what he must suffer or pay. If, however, the one killed should be a slave, let the master's loss in value be made good to him.
But if it gores not a man but a beast, let the owner of the one killed take the dead animal, and let the owner of the killer pay its equivalent, since he failed to guard against the savagery of his own animal though he had perceived it beforehand; and if, moreover, the animal itself kills another animal belonging to someone else, again let him pay the equivalent, being grateful that he does not have to bear a greater penalty for having begun the mischief.
Some are accustomed to dig pits in the earth very deep, either to stop up springs that well up, or to receive rainwater, and then, having widened underground channels out of sight, though it was necessary either to build a wall around the openings or to cover them over, through some dreadful carelessness or derangement of mind they leave them gaping open, to the destruction of some.
If, then, one of those passing by on the road, not perceiving it beforehand, steps into the empty space and is carried down and dies, let those who wish bring an accusation on behalf of the deceased against those who made the pit, and let the court assess what must be suffered or paid. But if an animal falls in and dies, let them, taking the carcass themselves, make good to the owner its full value as though it were still alive.
A crime akin and closely related to the one just mentioned is committed also by those who, in constructing houses, leave the roofs flat without surrounding them with a parapet, though it is necessary, so that no one may fall unnoticed to his death; for, to tell the truth, they commit murder, even if no one happens to be swept off and die, so far as their own part in the matter is concerned. Let them, then, be punished equally with those who leave the openings of their pits gaping.
Since wicked natures have no limit to their offending, but always go to extremes, exceeding themselves, intensifying their vices and stretching them out to the immeasurable and unbounded, the lawgiver would have decreed a thousand deaths against them, if that had been possible; but since it was not, he ordains a further punishment, commanding that those who kill be impaled.
Having prescribed this, he returns again to his own humanity, growing gentle toward those who have done savage deeds, and says: let the sun not go down upon the impaled, but let them be hidden in the earth before sunset, once taken down. For it was necessary that those who had raised themselves up on high as enemies of every part of the world should be shown punished before the sun, the sky, the air, the water, and the earth, but then be dragged away again to the region of the dead and buried, so that they should not pollute the regions above the earth.
Excellently, too, is this ordained: that fathers should not die on behalf of sons, nor sons on behalf of parents, but that each of those who has done deeds worthy of death should be put to death alone, on his own account — a rule made because of those who prize violence above justice, or who are excessively affectionate.
For these latter, out of an excessive and overflowing goodwill, will often be glad to die first in place of another, offering themselves, though blameless, on behalf of the guilty, thinking it a great gain not to see their children punished, if they are fathers, or their parents, if they are sons, since they would count the time that followed as unlivable and harder than any death.
To these one must say: your goodwill has no proper season, and whatever is out of season is rightly blamed, since even timely acts are praised only when timely. One ought indeed to love those who do things worthy of love, but no wicked person is truly a friend. Kinship, and those called friends even among kinsmen, are alienated by wickedness when they do wrong; for kinship in righteousness and every virtue is more intimate than kinship of blood, and whoever abandons it is reckoned not merely among strangers and foreigners but even among sworn enemies.
Why then do you put on the falsely borrowed name of goodwill, which is good and humane, concealing beneath it what is really softness and want of courage? Or are they not unmanly in nature, those in whom the reckoning of pity overcomes justice? And this so that you may commit a double wrong — rescuing the guilty from punishment, while you yourselves, who have done nothing blameworthy at all,
think it right to be punished in their place? But these people at least have this in mitigation, that they seek nothing for their own advantage, and that their excessive tenderness is for those nearest to them in kin, on whose behalf they are glad to think of dying for their safety.
But the cruel-hearted and those savage by nature — who would not reject them, I do not say from among the moderate, but even from among those not especially untamed in soul — who either contrive in secret or dare openly to hang the greatest disasters on one person in place of another, alleging friendship or kinship or partnership or some similar bond as a pretext for the ruin of those who have done no wrong? And they do this sometimes though they have suffered nothing terrible themselves, but for the sake of greed or plunder.
Recently a certain tax collector appointed among us, when some of those thought to owe money fled through poverty, in fear of merciless punishments, seized by force the wives and children and parents and the rest of the household of these men, and, beating them and dragging them through the mud and inflicting every kind of outrage, in order that they should either reveal the fugitive or pay what he owed — though they could do neither, the one because they did not know, the other because they were no less destitute than the one who had fled — he did not let go until, stretching their bodies on the rack and the wheel, he killed them with newly devised forms of death.
He tied up a basket full of sand with cords and hung it around their necks, a most crushing weight, setting them up in the open air in the middle of the marketplace, so that some, worn down by concentrated tortures — the wind and the sun and the shame from those passing by and the burdens hanging from them — would be forced to give up in agony, while others watching their sufferings would suffer beforehand in anticipation;
and some of these, receiving through their eyes a sharper perception in their souls than the sufferers themselves, as though they were being tormented in the bodies of others, took leave of life before their time, by sword or poison or the noose, thinking it a great stroke of fortune amid such misery to die without torture;
and those who did not manage to kill themselves in time were led out in order, as in the allotment of inheritances, first those nearest of kin, and after them the second and third, down to the last of them; and whenever none of the kinsmen remained, the evil crossed over even to their neighbors, and sometimes even to villages and cities, which quickly became deserted and emptied of their inhabitants, as people moved away and scattered to places where they expected to escape notice.
But perhaps it is no wonder that men barbarous by nature, untasted of gentle education, obeying despotic commands, exact the annual tribute — not only from property but from bodies too — for the sake of tax-gathering, bringing dangers even upon the soul, one person suffering for another.
But even the very boundaries and rules of justice, the lawgivers themselves, looking to reputation rather than to truth, have consented to become the most unjust of all, commanding that in the case of traitors their children should be destroyed along with them, and in the case of tyrants, the five households nearest to them. Why is this?
I would say: if they shared in the wrongdoing, let them be punished together with the wrongdoers; but if they neither took part in it nor were zealous imitators of the like, nor, puffed up by the good fortune of their kin, indulged themselves in soft living, for what reason will they be destroyed? Is it for this one reason alone, that they are kinsmen? Are punishments then for lineage, or for transgressions?
Perhaps, you solemn lawgivers, the members of your own households happen to be good; but if they had turned out wicked, I do not think you would ever have entertained such decrees even in your minds — indeed, even in drafting them for others you would have been troubled — because of the foresight one takes to avoid suffering anything irreparable oneself... one who lives a life of safety ought to consider the case of those in danger, and to examine it as though he stood in the same misfortunes; for the one condition carries fear, which makes a person, guarding against it for himself, unwilling to overlook it in another, while the other condition is free of fear, and it is this that has often persuaded people to disregard the security of those who are blameless.
Our lawgiver, then, having reckoned all this, and having seen how the errors current among other peoples corrupt the best form of government, turned away from them in aversion and detested those who practiced them, whether out of carelessness or out of inhumanity and vice, and never handed over any of his fellow citizens to punishment by making him bear the addition of another's wrongdoing.
For this reason he flatly forbade that sons be put to death in place of parents, or parents in place of sons, judging it right that the punishment, whether of fines, or blows and more violent outrages, or wounds and maimings and disfigurements and exiles and all the other penalties of justice, should belong to those whose transgressions they were; for in remembering the single principle that one person should not be killed in place of another, he included within it also the lesser penalties that had been left unspoken.

On women's not behaving shamelessly.
Marketplaces and council chambers and courts of law and public gatherings and assemblies of crowded companies, and the life lived in the open air through speech and action in both war and peace, are fitting for men; but for women, keeping house and staying within are fitting — for unmarried girls, the inner courtyard within the outer doors marks their boundary; for grown women, the outer gate.
For there are two kinds of city, the larger and the smaller: the larger are called towns, the smaller households. Men have been allotted the governance of the larger, whose name is statecraft, and women that of the smaller, whose name is household management.
Let a woman, then, not meddle with matters outside her household management, seeking as she does a life confined within, nor let her be seen, like something roaming loose, on the roads in the sight of other men — except when she must go to the temple, and even then taking care to go when the marketplace is not crowded — but having returned home once most people have gone back, in the manner of a free woman and truly a citizen, performing sacrifices and prayers in quiet, for the averting of evils and the sharing in good things.
But for women to dare to rush out, under pretext of alliance or aid, when men are quarreling or brawling, is reprehensible and no small degree shameless — women whom the law did not think it right to bring even into wars and campaigns and the dangers undergone for the whole of one's country, seeing what was fitting, which he intended always and everywhere to be kept unshaken, judging this very thing to be in itself better than victory and freedom and every kind of good fortune.
If, however, a woman, learning that her husband is being outraged, overcome by longing for him out of wifely affection, is forced by the passion that has seized her to rush forward, let her not, in her boldness, become more masculine than her nature, but let her remain a woman even in the ways she gives help; for it would be altogether dreadful if a woman, wishing to rescue her husband, should bring outrage upon herself, filling her own life with shame and great reproaches for a boldness beyond remedy.
For a woman will rail in the marketplace and utter some word among those forbidden, yet when another speaks ill she will not run off and stop her ears; and now some go so far that women not only, through unbridled tongue, revile and abuse in a crowd of men, but even bring their hands into action — hands trained for weaving and spinning wool, not for blows and violence, as though they were practicing pancratiasts or boxers.
And other things one might perhaps bear and endure; but this is intolerable — if a woman should be so bold as to seize hold of the genitals of the man her husband is quarreling with. Let her not be excused on the ground that she seems to be doing this in helping her husband, but let her be restrained from her excessive boldness by paying a penalty, so that she herself, wishing to commit the same offense again, will not be able to, and the rest, who are too impulsive, will be moderated by fear; and let the penalty be the cutting off of the hand that touched what it was not lawful to touch.
It is also right to praise the organizers of the athletic games, who barred women from watching, so that by being present while men were stripped naked they might not corrupt the approved currency of modesty, disregarding the ordinances that nature has fixed for each division of our kind. For neither is it fitting for men to be present while women take off their clothes; rather each sex should turn its eyes away from the other when it is stripped, following the intentions of nature.
Then again, if the eyes are liable to reproach, are not the hands far more culpable? For the eyes often see even what we do not wish to see, since they act like freedmen and force their way; but the hands, ranked among our subordinate parts, obey us and serve our commands like troops under orders.
This is the explanation commonly given by many; but I have heard another from inspired men who take most of the provisions of the laws to be visible symbols of invisible things, and spoken things standing for things unspoken. It was something like this: of the soul, as in families of kin, one part is male and belongs to men, the other female and belongs to women. The male part is the one that dedicates itself to God alone, as to a father and maker and cause of all things; the female part is the one that hangs upon things subject to becoming and decay, stretching out its power like a hand so as to grasp blindly at whatever it happens upon, welcoming a generative process that undergoes countless turns and changes, when instead it ought to cling to the unchangeable, blessed, and thrice-happy divine nature.
Reasonably, then, it has been laid down symbolically that the hand which has touched the twin parts should be cut off — not so that the body should be maimed, deprived of its most necessary member, but so that the soul should cut away every godless calculation that uses as its stepping-stone all things that come into being. For twins are a symbol of begetting and of generation.
Following the sequence of nature I will add this as well: the monad is an image of the first cause, while the dyad is an image of passive and divisible matter. Whoever, then, honors and welcomes the dyad ahead of the monad should not fail to realize that he is accepting matter rather than God. For this reason the law has judged it right that this reaching-out of the soul should be cut off like a hand; for there is no greater impiety than to ascribe to the passive the power that belongs to the agent.
One might justly find fault with those who assign penalties unlike the wrongs they punish — fines of money for assaults, or loss of civic standing for wounds and maimings, or perpetual exile and banishment for willful killing, or imprisonment for theft. For unevenness and inequality are hostile to a constitution that pursues truth.
Our law is the guide to equality, commanding that wrongdoers undergo the same things they have done: from their property, if they have wronged their neighbors in respect of property; from their bodies, if they have sinned against bodies in their parts and members and senses; and if they have plotted even against the soul, it commands that the penalty be exacted upon the soul. For to undergo one kind of thing in place of another, when the two have no community but are separated in kind, belongs to those who overturn laws, not to those who confirm them.
We say this while other cases stand differently. For it is not the same thing to strike a stranger with blows as to speak ill of a ruler or a private citizen, nor is doing something forbidden in profane places the same as doing it in sacred ones, nor is it the same on festivals and public assemblies and state sacrifices, and again on days marked by a cessation of ordinary activity or altogether inauspicious — and all other such matters must be examined carefully, for they either increase or diminish the punishment.
Again, if anyone, it says, knocks out the eye of a male or female slave, he shall set them free. Why? Just as nature, in granting the body its governing power, attached it to the head — giving it the most fitting place, the topmost point, as to a king (for nature sent it up to the height and set it there to rule, laying it as a base under the whole frame from neck to feet, as a pedestal supports a statue) — so too she gave the mastery among the senses to the eyes. She assigned them a dwelling above even these other parts, as rulers, wishing to honor them not only above the rest but with the most conspicuous and visible location.
It would take long to enumerate the uses and benefits that the eyes provide our race; but one, the finest, must be mentioned. Heaven rained down philosophy, the human mind received it, but sight was its guide; for sight was the first to behold the highways stretching across the ether.
Philosophy is the fountain of all goods that are truly good; the one who draws from it for the acquisition and use of virtue is praiseworthy, but the one who draws from it for the sake of cunning and outwitting others is blameworthy. The former resembles a good companion at a feast, who gladdens both himself and his fellow diners; the latter resembles the man who gorges himself on unmixed wine to the point of drunken violence and outrage against himself and those nearby.
In what manner, then, sight guided philosophy must now be told. Looking up into the ether, it beheld the sun and moon and the wandering and fixed stars, that most sacred army of heaven, a world within the world; then the risings and settings, the harmonious dances, and the conjunctions occurring at fixed periods of time, the eclipses, the illuminations,
then the waxings and wanings of the moon, the sun's motions in latitude, as it advances from the south toward the north and again returns from the north toward the south, bringing about the seasons of the year, by which all things come to fruition, and countless other marvels besides these; and surveying all these things over land and sea and air, it displayed them to the mind with eager care.
And the mind, seeing through sight what it was not able to grasp by itself, did not stop at the things seen alone, but, being a lover of learning and of beauty, and marveling at the spectacle, formed a reasonable conclusion: that these things had not come together automatically by irrational motions, but by the intelligence of God, whom it is right to call father and maker; and that they are not unlimited but bounded by the circumscription of a single world, embraced, city-like, by the outermost sphere of the fixed stars; and that the father who begot it cares for what has come into being by the law of nature, taking forethought for both the whole and its parts.
Then it went on to examine further what the substance of the visible is, and whether it is the same for all things in the world or different for different things, and out of what each thing was fashioned, and the causes through which it came to be, and the powers by which it is held together, and whether these are bodies or bodiless.
For what else could the inquiry into these and similar matters be called but philosophy? And what name could be more fitting for one who considers these things than 'philosopher'? For to consider God and the world and the things within it in common — both living creatures and plants — and the intelligible patterns as well as their perceptible outcomes, and the virtue and vice belonging to each individual thing that has come into being, reveals a disposition that is a lover of learning, a lover of contemplation, and truly a lover of wisdom.
This, then, is the greatest good that sight provides to human life; and it seems to me to have been granted this privilege because it stands nearer of kin to the soul than the other senses. For all of them have some affinity with the mind, but sight, as in households, has been allotted the first and highest rank, nearest of kin.
One could establish this from many considerations. For who does not know that the eyes of those who rejoice grow bright and smile, while those of the grieving are full of gloom and downcast looks? And if the burden becomes excessive, pressing and weighing them down, they weep; and when anger prevails, they swell and take on a bloodshot, fiery look, but a gracious and gentle look, if the passion relaxes.
And when reasoning and reflecting, the pupils grow fixed, as if sharing in the thought; whereas among the more simple-minded, through folly, the gaze too wanders unsettled. And in general the eyes suffer along with the passions of the soul and are naturally disposed to change together with its countless shifts, on account of their kinship; for it seems to me that God has made nothing so clear an imitation of the invisible
as sight is of reasoning. If, then, anyone has plotted against sight, the best and most authoritative of the senses, and has been caught knocking out the eye of a free person, let him suffer the same in return; but not if the victim is a slave — not because the wrongdoer deserves less blame for a lesser injury, but because the one who has suffered would gain a worse master in the one maimed in return, who would nurse the grievance forever and take vengeance every day as an implacable enemy, with commands more burdensome and harsh than his strength could bear, under which pressure he would break even his soul.
The law, then, took forethought that the plotter should not go unpunished nor the maimed person be further wronged, by commanding that if anyone knocks out the eye of a household slave, he must without hesitation grant him freedom.
For in this way the offender will receive a double penalty for what he has done, being deprived at once of the honor and of the service, and a third thing harder than either of those named — being compelled to confer the greatest benefit on an enemy whom perhaps he had prayed to be able always to harm; while the one who endured the injury will have double consolation, not only being freed but also escaping a harsh and cruel master.
The law also commands that if anyone knocks out a slave's tooth, freedom must be granted to the slave as a gift. Why? Because life is precious, and nature has fashioned teeth as instruments of life, by which the management of nourishment is carried out. Of teeth, some are cutters, deemed worthy of that name for cutting food and other edible things, and others are grinders, for their ability to crush what has been cut into smaller pieces.
For this reason the maker and father, who is not accustomed to fashion anything that is not appointed for some use, did not produce the teeth right away at the first formation, as he did each of the other parts, having considered that they would be a superfluous burden to an infant that was going to be fed on milk, and a harsh injury to the breasts, from which nourishment flows, if bitten during the drawing of the milk.
Foreseeing, then, the fitting time — and this is when the infant is weaned — he brought forth the growth of teeth, which he had stored up beforehand, once it was already able to bear the more solid nourishment that requires the organs I have mentioned, turning away from the nourishment that comes through milk.
If, then, someone yields to a servant's arrogance and knocks out a tooth, the minister and assistant of the most necessary things—nourishment and life—let him set the injured party free, being himself deprived of the service and ministry he received from the one he wronged.
Is a tooth of equal worth to an eye, someone will say? I would answer that each is of equal worth in relation to the purpose for which it came to be: the eye in relation to visible things, the tooth in relation to edible things. But if one wishes to compare them, one will find the eye the most venerable of the body's parts, since it is the spectator of the most venerable thing in the cosmos, the heaven, while the tooth is useful as the worker of nourishment, the most useful thing for living. And the one who has lost his sight is not thereby prevented from living, but for the one whose teeth have been knocked out, the most pitiable death lies in wait.
If, then, someone plots against these members in his household servants, let him not fail to recognize that he is contriving for them, by his own hand, a famine amid abundance and plenty. For what use is it for there to be no lack of food, if the instruments for managing it have been stripped away and cast off, because of harsh, implacable, and savage-hearted masters?
For this reason, elsewhere too, he forbids lenders to take a millstone or an upper millstone as a pledge from debtors, adding that the one who does this takes a soul in pledge. For the one who takes away the instruments of living rushes toward manslaughter, since he has resolved to plot even against a soul.
He took such great forethought that no one should become in any way responsible for another's death, that he holds even those who have touched a corpse—one that has met death according to nature—not to be pure at once, until they have been sprinkled and washed and so purified. Yet he did not permit even the perfectly pure to enter the sanctuary within seven days, commanding that they be purified on the third day and the seventh.
Moreover, to those entering a house in which someone has died, he commands that they touch nothing until they have washed themselves and also washed thoroughly the garments they were wearing; and he considers the vessels, the furniture, and everything else that happens to be inside the house to be, one might almost say, entirely impure.
For the soul of a human being is a precious thing, and when it departs and migrates elsewhere, everything left behind becomes defiled, being deprived of the divine image, since the human mind is godlike, having been stamped after the archetypal form, the Logos above all.
Let the other things also be impure, he says, whatever the impure person touches, defiled by sharing in what is not pure. This oracle seems somehow to reveal a more universal declaration, not resting on the body alone, but further investigating the characters and ways of the soul.
For strictly speaking, the impure one is the unjust and impious person, in whom no reverence enters for either human or divine things, who confounds and mingles everything on account of the excesses of his passions and the extremes of his vices, so that whatever matters he touches become all tainted, changing together with the depravity of the one who acts; and conversely, the deeds of good people are praiseworthy, becoming better through the virtues of those who perform them, since what comes to be tends somehow to be made like those who do it.

======== The Special Laws IV ========

The laws concerning adultery and murder, and everything that either of these entails, have I believe been stated earlier with full precision. We must now examine what follows in order — the third topic on the second tablet, and the eighth counting both tablets together: the law against stealing.
Whoever takes or carries off what belongs to another, without right, shall — if he does it by force and openly — be recorded as a public enemy, since he weaves shameless audacity together with lawlessness; but if he does it secretly, trying to escape notice like a thief, making darkness a veil for shame over his wrongdoing, let him be punished as a private matter, being liable only to the one he attempted to harm, and let him pay back double the stolen goods, healing an unjust gain with the most just injury.
But if he is too poor to pay the penalty, let him be sold — for it is right that the one who has submitted to the most unlawful profit should be deprived of freedom and become a slave — so that the victim, left uncompensated on account of the thief's lack of means, should not seem to be treated with contempt.
But let no one condemn the decree as inhumane. For the one sold is not left a slave forever; rather within seven years he is released by a general proclamation, as I explained in the discussion of the seventh year.
And let him be content to pay back double the stolen property, or even to be sold, since he does no small wrong: first, because not being satisfied with what he has, he reaches for more, fortifying a scheming and hard-to-cure disease, namely greed; second, because casting covetous eyes on others' property and gaping after it, he sets traps for embezzlement, taking from their owners what they possess; and third, because in his effort to escape notice he alone sometimes reaps the benefits from the deed while turning the accusations against the innocent, making the search for the truth blind.
And in a way he seems to accuse himself, since he is refuted by his own conscience in the acts he steals secretly, being altogether either ashamed or apprehensive — of which the one is a sign that he supposes the act shameful (for shameful things bring shame), and the other a sign that he considers it worthy of punishment, for punishments instill fear.
If someone, driven mad by desire for others' property, attempts to steal, and being unable to take it away easily, breaks through a wall by night, making darkness a veil for his wrongdoing, and is caught in the very act, before sunrise, in the very breach — let him be killed on the spot by the master of the house, since he is accomplishing a lesser deed as his primary aim, theft, but intending as the consequence a greater one, murder, being prepared, should anyone try to stop him, to defend himself with the iron digging-tools he carries and other weapons. But if the sun has risen, let him no longer be killed in the same way by the householder's own hand; instead let him be brought before the rulers and judges to pay whatever penalty they prescribe.
At night, while the rulers along with private citizens are staying at home and have turned to rest, there is no refuge of help for the one being wronged; hence he himself must be master of the punishment, appointed by the occasion itself as both ruler and judge.
By day, however, the courts and council-chambers stand open, and the city is full of those ready to seize the offender — some appointed by vote as guardians of the laws, others who without any such appointment, moved by a hatred of wrongdoing, take up of their own accord the role of champions for the wronged. It is to these that the thief must be brought; for by fleeing the charges of self-will and rashness in this way, he will seem to help himself in a more democratic manner.
If, while the sun is up, someone kills the thief with his own hand before trial, let him be liable, since he has preferred anger to reasoning and put his own desire ahead of the laws. For one should not say, 'Since you were wronged by night by a thief, therefore you yourself by day commit a worse theft' — not theft of money, but of justice, by which the constitution has been ordained to be arranged.
Now other stolen goods are valued at double repayment. But if someone steals an ox or a sheep, the law judged it worthy of a greater penalty, granting a preeminence to these animals, which excel among the tame herds not only in bodily beauty but also in the benefits they provide for human life. For this reason the law did not set the amount of penalty equal for both, but having reckoned up the uses each of the aforementioned animals provides, it legislated the repayment proportionally.
For it orders the thief to repay four sheep, and five oxen, for each one stolen, since the sheep provides four kinds of tribute — milk, cheese, wool, and yearly lambs — while the ox provides five: the same three in milk, cheese, and offspring, plus two special ones, ploughing the earth and threshing, of which the one is the beginning of the sowing of crops, and the other the completion, for the cleansing of the harvested produce toward its readier use as food.
A thief too is the one who kidnaps a person — but a thief of the best of all things that exist upon the earth. Now for inanimate things, and for those animals that do not provide great benefits to life, the law has ordered that double be restored by the thieves to the owners, as was said before, and again fourfold and fivefold in the case of the tamest herds, oxen and sheep.
But man, it seems, has obtained the finest portion among living creatures, being close of kin to God and a relative through his participation in reason, which, though he seems to be mortal, makes him immortal. Therefore everyone in whom a zeal for virtue enters is harsh in temper and utterly implacable toward kidnappers, who for the sake of most unjust profit dare to impose slavery on those who are free by birth and share the same nature.
For if it is a praiseworthy act for masters to free home-bred slaves and those bought with silver — even ones who have often done no great service — releasing them from the bondage that holds them out of the humanity they practice, how much more blame do those deserve who take away from those who possess it the best of all possessions, freedom, for which it is noble for the well-born and well-reared to die?
Already some, increasing their innate depravity and turning their scheming character to implacability, have practiced kidnapping not only against foreigners and those of another race, but also against people of their own nation — sometimes even fellow demesmen and tribesmen — disregarding the common bond of laws and customs in which they were reared from their earliest age, things which seal the firmest goodwill in the souls of those not too savage and not given to cruelty.
These men, for the sake of most unlawful gain, sell such people to slave-dealers and to whoever happens to enslave them abroad, unlikely ever to return, never so much as in a dream to bow again before the soil of their homeland, nor to taste any good hope. For they would have done less wrong if they had simply used the kidnapped as their own servants; but as it is they commit a double wrong by selling them off, setting up for one master two, and doubling the slaveries stationed over them.
For the kidnappers themselves, knowing the former good fortune of those they have subjected, might in time repent, taking late pity on the fallen, feeling shame before the uncertain and unpredictable nature of fortune; but the buyers, through ignorance of their lineage, will think little of them as though they were servants from father and grandfather before them, having nothing in their souls to lead them toward gentleness and humanity, which is naturally preserved toward the free.
Let the penalty against those who enslave people of another nation be whatever the court assesses; but against those who, besides enslaving, have sold their own kinsmen, let the penalty be inexorable death. For these are indeed kinsmen, not far removed from blood relations, bordering on them within a wider circle.
'And in the field too,' as one of the ancients said, 'lawsuits grow,' since greed and desire for others' property exist not only in the city but also outside it, inasmuch as it is rooted not in differences of place but in the minds of insatiable and quarrelsome men.
For this reason the best-governed cities elect two kinds of overseers and officials for the common order and security: those within the walls, whom they call city-wardens, and those outside, to whom they give a fitting name, calling them field-wardens. For what need would there be of field-wardens at all, if there were not also in the countryside some who live to the harm of their neighbors?
If then a shepherd, or goatherd, or cowherd, or in general a herdsman grazes and pastures another's field, sparing neither its crops nor its trees, let him pay back an equivalent amount in produce of the same value.
And let him be content to submit to this, having met with a law both fair and very forgiving, which — though he has done the deeds of an implacable enemy, whose habit it is to ravage fields and destroy cultivated plants — has not punished him as a public enemy with death or exile or, at the very least, deprivation of all his property, but has judged it right only that he make good the damage to the owner.
For always seeking excuses by which it might lighten misfortunes, out of its surpassing gentleness and the humanity it holds both by nature and by practice, the law found a plausible defense on the herdsman's behalf: that the nature of the animals is irrational and disobedient, especially when they are reaching after food.
Let him then be liable, because he drove the herd in the first place into an unsuitable place; but let him not bear responsibility for everything that happened, for it is likely that once he perceived the harm he tried to drive them out as quickly as possible, while the herd, feasting on the green pasture and gorging on tender crops and shoots, resisted in its own contest against him.
They cause harm not only by pasturing their flocks on other people's property, but also by carelessly and heedlessly kindling fire. For the power of fire, once it takes hold of fuel, darts everywhere, spreading and pouring itself out, and once it has gained the upper hand it takes no notice of whatever means of extinguishing it are brought against it, but consumes even these as food for its own growth, until it has used up everything and is itself spent by its own action.
It is fitting that fire be left unguarded neither in houses nor in farm buildings, since people know that a single smoldering spark has often been fanned into flame and has burned down great cities, especially when the blaze has been driven on by a following wind.
In wars of no quarter, at any rate, the first, middle, and final power lies in fire, which men trust more than the ranks of infantry, cavalry, and naval combatants, and the abundant equipment of arms and siege engines; for a single man shooting a fire-bearing arrow at the right moment has burned up a great fleet of ships together with their crews, or has consumed populous armies along with the equipment on which they had rested their hopes of victory.
If, then, someone throws fire into a heap of thorny brushwood, and it catches and sets fire in addition to a threshing-floor of wheat or barley or vetch, or sheaves of grain gathered together, or a deep-soiled plain bearing green crops, let the one who threw the fire pay for the damage, so that by suffering for it he may learn to guard very carefully against the first onsets of such things, and not stir up and awaken a power that is unconquerable and by nature destructive when it is able to remain at rest.
A deposit is the most sacred of matters held in common, resting on the good faith of the one who receives it. Loans are proven through contracts and documents, but things given without a loan, openly for use, have as witnesses those who saw the transaction.
But deposits are not made in this way; rather, a single person gives them, alone, to another alone, in secret, looking around at the place, not even bringing along a slave to help carry the goods, even if that slave happens to be devoted to his master. For each of the two parties seems eager to avoid any proof: the one so that his giving may go unnoticed, the other so that his receiving may go unknown. But over an invisible transaction there presides, in every case, an invisible God, whom it is natural for both parties to call as witness—the one trusting that the deposit will be returned when it is demanded back, the other that he will recover it in due time.
The one who denies a deposit, then, should not fail to realize that he commits the greatest wrong, since he has cheated the one who entrusted it of his hope, has concealed depraved character under the cover of respectable words, and has feigned faithlessness while playing the part of counterfeit good faith, rendering worthless both the pledge of his right hand and his unfulfilled oaths. He must be regarded as having shown contempt for both human and divine things, and as denying a double deposit: that of the one who entrusted his own property, and that of the most truthful witness, who oversees the affairs of all and hears the affairs of all, whether they wish it or not.
But if the one who received the deposit as a sacred trust thinks he must guard it untouched, revering truth and good faith, while others—thieves and housebreakers lying in wait for what belongs to others—slip in and steal it, then, if they are caught, let them pay double the penalty prescribed for thieves who are apprehended.
But if these thieves are not caught, let the one who received the deposit come forward of his own free will before the divine tribunal, and, raising his hands to heaven, let him swear, calling destruction down upon himself, that he has neither embezzled any part of the deposit, nor conspired with anyone else regarding it, nor fabricated any theft that never occurred. For it would be absurd either to penalize one who has done no wrong, or to make one who ran to help a friend's trust, and was himself wronged by others, liable for the resulting loss.
Deposits are made not only of inanimate things but also of living creatures, and here the danger is twofold: one, common to inanimate things, is theft; the other, peculiar and distinctive, is death. Theft has already been discussed; it remains also to legislate concerning death.
If, then, animals entrusted as a deposit should die, let the one who received them summon the one who entrusted them and show him the animals, thereby clearing himself of any base suspicion. But if the owner happens to be abroad, it is not proper to call in other witnesses, whom perhaps the one who trusted him took care to keep unaware of the matter; instead, when the owner returns, the receiver must swear that he is not concealing unjust embezzlement under a false claim of death.
But if someone takes a utensil or an animal not as a deposit but because he needs to use it, and afterward both are stolen, or the animal dies, then, if the lender was present with him the whole time, the one who took it would not be liable, since he can point to the lender himself as a witness that he is not making excuses; but if the lender was not present with him, he must pay compensation. Why?
Because it is possible that, in the owner's absence, the one using the animal wore it out with continual toil so as to kill it, or was careless with the utensil, disregarding what belonged to another, when he ought to have taken good care of it and not made it easy for thieves to steal.
If anyone else is skilled at observing sequence in affairs, he too, in framing successive prohibitions one after another, aims at continuity, weaving what follows into harmony with what has gone before. He says that the harmony of what was going to be said was proclaimed by an oracle in the person of God himself, in this manner: "You shall not steal, and you shall not lie, and you shall not falsely accuse one another in my name unjustly, and you shall not profane my name" (Lev. 19:11–12)—expressed altogether beautifully and with great didactic force.
For the thief, convicted by his own conscience, denies the charge and lies, fearing the punishments that would follow if he confessed; and the one who falsely denies, eager to shift the accusation onto someone else, slanders and devises schemes by which the false charge may seem plausible; and every slanderer is at once a perjurer, giving little thought to piety, since, lacking legitimate proofs, he takes refuge in what is called artless proof, the proof by oaths, thinking that by invoking God he can produce conviction in his hearers. Let such a person know that he is unholy and profane, defiling the name that is by nature undefiled and divine. "You shall not bear false witness."
This is the ninth of the ten headings, the fourth in number of those on the second tablet, and one able to benefit human life immeasurably if it is observed, just as, conversely, it can cause harm if neglected.
The slanderer is blameworthy, but the one who bears false witness is more culpable still; for the one helps himself, while the other collaborates in wrongdoing for another's sake, and in comparing wicked men, the one who sins for his own sake is less unjust than the one who sins for another's.
Every judge eyes the accuser with suspicion, as one who cares little for the truth in his eagerness to win the case—which is why speakers need introductions to secure the attention of their hearers. But toward the witness, from whom he has suffered no prior wrong, the judge extends an open, unguarded trust with a free mind and open ears, since the witness masquerades under the names of good faith and truth—names most beneficial to affairs, and most persuasive of all—which he uses as bait, as it were, to hunt down what he desires and longs for.
That is why the lawgiver in many places exhorts us not to consent to any injustice, whether committed by a person or in a matter; for consent, when it is not given for a sound purpose, invites false testimony, since everything that is unjust is, in truth, harsh and hateful, an enemy to the light of truth.
It is no great marvel not to join one wicked man in his madness when he invites others to similar deeds; but not to be swept along with a multitude rushing headlong into lawlessness, as if down a steep slope in a single onrush, belongs to a noble soul and to a spirit steeled with courage.
For some suppose that whatever seems right to the majority, however lawless it may be, is lawful and just—judging wrongly; for it is good to follow nature, but the rush of the crowd is the very opposite of following nature.
If, then, some people gather together in factions and populous crowds and stir up revolution, one must not consent to them, since they are debasing the ancient and approved currency of the constitution; for a single wise counsel defeats many hands, while ignorance joined with a crowd is a greater evil. But some carry their wickedness to such an excess
that they not only accuse men of things that never happened, but persisting in their depravity, they stretch and extend their falsehood all the way to heaven, bearing false witness against the blessed and happy nature of God. These are the readers of portents and omens, the diviners by sacrifice, and all the others who labor at the art of divination—if the truth must be told, at the artful malpractice of it—counterfeiting the divinely inspired possession and prophecy.
For the true prophet declares nothing at all of his own; rather, he is an interpreter, prompted by another, of everything that he utters, at the time when he is inspired and in a state of unknowing, his own reasoning having departed and vacated the citadel of the soul, while the divine spirit has entered and taken up residence there, playing upon and sounding every instrument of his voice, so as to make clear and evident the things he foretells.
But of those who aspire to the counterfeit and vulgar art of divination, each one, through guesswork and conjecture, sets an order that does not belong to it beside the order of truth, and easily leads astray those whose character is unstable—like unballasted boats driven off course and capsized by a strong contrary wind—away from the safe harbors of piety; for he thinks he ought to proclaim as predictions the things he has merely guessed at, not as his own discovery, but as divine oracles vouchsafed to him alone in secret, so as to win more secure belief in his deception from the great and populous crowds who hear him.
This sort of man he calls, with an aptly aimed name, a false prophet, since he counterfeits true prophecy and overshadows what is genuine with spurious inventions. But in quite a short time such stratagems are wholly exposed, for nature does not love to remain hidden forever, but when the moment comes reveals her own beauty by unconquerable powers.
For just as in solar eclipses the rays, dimmed for the briefest while, shortly afterward blaze out again, displaying an unshadowed and far-shining light, with nothing at all standing in the sun's way, as though in a clear open sky the whole disk were shining forth—so too, whenever certain men, contriving a divination they have falsified, assume the specious name of prophecy and falsely claim to be inspired by God, they will easily be refuted; for truth will come again and will blaze up, flashing forth a most far-shining light, so that the falsehood that had overshadowed it disappears.
Here too is another altogether admirable ordinance he further laid down: he commanded that the testimony of a single witness not be admitted—first, because deception is possible, for false impressions are countless and are apt to befall people from countless sources;
and second, because it is most unjust to rely on one witness either against several persons or even against a single one; for many witnesses are more deserving of credence toward conviction, while one does not prevail by number, and to give equal weight belongs to unfair advantage. For why should one assent more readily to a witness testifying against another than to the accused speaking on his own behalf? The best course, it seems, is to hold to a mean where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Concerning what pertains to the judge.
The law holds that all who adhere to the sacred constitution of Moses ought to be free of every irrational passion and every vice more than those who live under other laws, and above all, those who have been allotted or elected to judge. For it is absurd that men entrusted with dispensing justice to others should themselves be liable to wrongdoing—men who must, as though from an original painting, reproduce the works of nature for others to imitate.
For just as the power of fire, in warming whatever it touches, is itself hot long before, from its own nature, and conversely the power of snow, being itself chilled, chills other things as well, so too a judge ought to be filled with justice unmixed and pure, if indeed he is to water with justice those who come before him, so that, as from a sweet spring, a drinkable stream may flow for those thirsting for lawful order.
And this will come about if a man, on entering to judge, considers that he is at once judging and being judged, and takes up together with his vote understanding, so as not to be deceived; justice, for the distribution to each party of what is fitting according to merit; and courage, for remaining unyielding before pleas and pity in the punishments meted out to the condemned.
The man who cultivates these virtues would rightly be considered a public benefactor, calming, like a good pilot, the storms of affairs, for the safety and security of those who have entrusted their own concerns to him.
The law, then, first commands the judge not to admit an idle report. What does this mean? Let your ears, it says, be purified; and they will be purified if they are continually washed with the streams of serious discourse, refusing to admit the long-winded speeches of tale-spinners, mime-writers, or fashioners of vanity, who dress up in solemn language things worth nothing—vain, hackneyed talk deserving only ridicule.
And from the injunction not to admit an idle report, something else is also made clear, in harmony with the former: he who attends to those who testify by hearsay, it says, will attend vainly and unsoundly. Why? Because eyes meet the events themselves, touching the facts in a certain manner and grasping them wholly through and through, with the aid of light, by which all things are both illumined and tested; but ears, as someone before us aptly said, are less trustworthy than eyes, since they do not meet the facts themselves but are dragged along by words that interpret the facts—words that are not always by nature truthful.
This is why some lawgivers among the Greeks, transcribing from the most sacred pillars of Moses, seem to have legislated well in ordaining that hearsay not be admitted as testimony, holding that what a man has seen should be judged reliable, but what he has merely heard is not altogether certain.
A second precept to the judge: not to accept gifts. For gifts, the law says, blind seeing eyes, corrupt justice, and do not allow the mind to walk the straight highway.
To take bribes on behalf of unjust causes is the work of utterly wicked men; to take them on behalf of just causes is the work of men only half wicked. For there are certain well-dressed persons, half-corrupt, half-just, who take up the cause of the wronged against the wrongdoers, yet are unwilling to record as victors, without payment, those who are bound to win in any case, and instead make their judgment a thing bought and sold for hire.
Then, when someone accuses them, they say they have not perverted justice—for those who deserved to lose have lost, and those who deserved to prevail have prevailed—offering a poor defense; for a good judge must bring two things to bear, the most exact knowledge of the law and incorruptibility; but the man who awards justice for gifts, without realizing it, disgraces a thing naturally noble.
He commits two further wrongs besides: the one, in habituating himself to love money, which is the starting point of the greatest transgressions; the other, in harming the very man he ought to have benefited, by putting a price on justice.
This is why, in a most instructive manner, Moses commands that justice be pursued justly, hinting thereby that justice can also exist unjustly, on account of those who award it for gifts—not only in the courts, but everywhere, on land and sea, and in almost all, I might say, the affairs of life.
Indeed, there was once a man who, having received a deposit of little value, gave it back—not out of goodwill toward the depositor, but as a trap, so that by letting down the trust shown in small matters as bait, he might hook the trust given in greater ones; which was nothing other than doing a just thing unjustly. For the restoring of another's property is just, but it was not done justly, insofar as it was done for the sake of hunting bigger prey.
The cause of such offenses is above all an attachment to falsehood, which, from earliest birth and even in swaddling clothes, nurses and mothers and the rest of the household throng, both slave and free, by their deeds and words continually foster as a lifelong companion, fitting it and uniting it to the soul as though it were a necessary part of nature—a thing which, even if it really had been born together with us by nature, ought to have been cut away by the practice of what is good.
But what in life is so noble as truth? The all-wise lawgiver set it up as an inscription in the most sacred place, on the vestment of the high priest, where he wished to adorn the ruling faculty of the soul with the finest and most distinguished of ornaments; and beside truth he set up a kindred power, which he called Manifestation—both being images of the two forms of reason within us, the reason held within and the reason uttered aloud. For the uttered reason has need of manifestation, by which the hidden thoughts within each of us are made known to our neighbor, while the reason held within has need of truth, for the perfecting of a life and conduct through which the road to happiness is discovered.
A third precept to the judge: to examine the facts before the litigants, and to try in every way to withdraw himself from the impression the parties in the case make on him, forcing himself into ignorance and forgetfulness of what he knows and remembers—kinsfolk, friends, fellow citizens, and likewise on the other side, strangers, enemies, foreigners—so that neither goodwill nor hatred may overshadow his knowledge of what is just. For it is inevitable that a man who advances like one blind, without a staff and without guides on whom to lean securely, will stumble.
Hence it befits the good judge to veil from his sight the litigants, whoever they may be, and to look upon the nature of the matters themselves unadorned and bare, intending to judge not according to reputations but according to truth, and taking to heart this thought: that “judgment belongs to God” (Deuteronomy 1:17), and the judge is only a steward of judgment; and a steward is not permitted to give away as favors what belongs to his master, since he has received as a deposit the best of all things in human life, entrusted to him by the best of all beings.
In addition to what has already been said, he introduces yet another wise ordinance: he commands that the poor man not be pitied in judgment—he who has filled up almost the whole of legislation with ordinances of mercy and humanity, holding out great threats against the arrogant and the boastful, and setting great rewards before those who see fit to set right the misfortunes of their neighbors, and who regard their own abundance not as private possessions but as common property belonging to those in need.
For what someone before us aptly said is true, that there is nothing in which men come nearer to God than in showing favor. And what greater good could there be than for mortal creatures to imitate the eternal God?
Let not the rich man, then, having gathered abundant silver and gold at home, hold it back, but bring it out into the open, that he may enrich the harsh way of life of the poor with cheerful sharing; nor let any man of high repute, exalting himself, boast and swagger, but honoring equality, let him share his freedom of speech with the disreputable; and let the man endowed with bodily strength be a support to the weaker, and not, as in athletic contests, utterly overpower with his might those who are lesser, but let him be eager to share his own strength with those who have grown weary from their own.
For as many as have drawn from the springs of wisdom, having driven envy beyond the borders of their thought, of their own accord and without need of exhortation strip for the benefit of their neighbors, pouring the streams of reasoned discourse through the ears into their souls, so that they may share in the same knowledge; and whenever they see young men of good stock and noble growth, like well-sprouted and well-born saplings, they rejoice, believing they have found heirs of the soul's wealth—which alone is truly wealth—and taking them in hand, they cultivate their souls with doctrines and theories, until, once rooted, they bear the fruit of nobility of character.
Those who have drawn from the springs of wisdom, having driven envy beyond the bounds of their thinking, strip for action on behalf of their neighbors of their own accord, without needing exhortation, pouring the streams of reason into the souls of others through their ears, to bring them into a share of the same understanding. And whenever they see young people of good natural growth, like well-sprouted and noble shoots, they rejoice, thinking they have found heirs to their wealth of soul, which alone is true wealth in reality, and taking them in hand they cultivate their souls with doctrines and theories, until, once rooted, they bear the fruit of nobility of character.
Such images are woven into and worked through the laws, for the relief of those without resources -- people it is not right to pity on the basis of judgment alone; for pity belongs to misfortune, but one who does wrong by deliberate choice is not unfortunate but unjust.
Let punishments for the unjust stand as firm as honors for the just, so that no wicked person, lacking resources, cowering and hiding behind his poverty, may cheat his way out of paying the penalty by appeal to pity, having done deeds deserving not pity -- how could it be? -- but anger. And let the one who enters to judge, like a good money-changer, distinguish and separate the natures of things, so that the genuine may not be confused, mixed up with the counterfeit.
Much else could be said about false witnesses and about judges; but so as not to speak at length, let us proceed to the last of the Ten Words, which, like each of the others, has been proclaimed in summary form. It is this: “You shall not desire.” You shall not desire.
Every passion is culpable, since every excessive and overflowing impulse, and every irrational and unnatural movement of the soul, is blameworthy. Or is it an old passion, once let loose? It settles in, and unless a bridle is fitted to it, as to unruly horses, one is dealing with a hard-to-cure passion, and then, before one realizes it, one is carried off by its unruliness, like a charioteer swept along by his team, into ravines or pits hard to climb out of, from which it is scarcely possible to be saved.
Of all the passions, none is as troublesome as desire for things that are absent -- things that seem good but in truth are not -- for it breeds difficult and endless longings; it stretches and drives the soul to the furthest extreme, toward the unbounded, even when at times the very thing pursued flees from it, showing contempt not by turning its back but by facing it directly.
For whenever desire perceives that it is being pursued with eagerness, it pauses briefly to entice its pursuer and hold out hope of being caught, and then withdraws to a greater distance, mocking it; and the soul, left behind and falling short, writhes, suffering a punishment like that of Tantalus, laid upon the wretched soul. For the story tells that he too wished to draw water to drink but could not, the water always slipping away, and if he wished to pluck fruit, it all vanished, the abundance around the trees turning barren.
For just as the harsh and inconsolable mistresses of the body, thirst and hunger, rack it as much as, or no less than, if it were being broken on the wheel by a torturer, often even to the point of death, unless someone tames their savagery with food and drink, so too desire, having emptied the soul by making it forget what is present and remember what is far away, implants in it a frenzy and uncontrollable madness, and produces mistresses heavier than the first pair but bearing the same names -- thirst and hunger -- not for the pleasures of the belly, but for money, reputation, positions of power, physical beauty, and countless other things that in human life seem enviable and worth fighting for.
And just as the disease physicians call “creeping” does not remain fixed in one place but moves and travels about and, as its very name shows, creeps everywhere, spreading and pouring itself out, seizing and linking together the whole community of the body's parts from the crown of the head to the feet, in the same way desire, darting through the whole soul, leaves not even the smallest part of it unaffected, imitating the power of fire fed by abundant fuel: it kindles and blazes up until, having consumed it entirely, it destroys the whole.
So great, then, and so overwhelming an evil is desire -- or rather, if the truth must be told, it is the source of all evils; for thefts and robberies, defaults on debts, false accusations and assaults, and beyond these seductions and adulteries and murders, and every wrong, private or public, sacred or profane -- from what else did they flow?
For desire, truly called the origin of evil, whose slightest offspring is erotic love, has not once but many times already filled the inhabited world with disasters beyond number -- disasters that not even the whole circuit of the earth could contain, but which, through their sheer mass, poured out into the sea as if driven by a torrent, so that everywhere every sea was filled with enemy ships and all the devices that naval wars bring forth were assembled together; and falling in a mass again upon islands and mainlands, they were swept back, running their course, as in the ebb and flow of tides, back to the place from which they had first been set in motion.
We will grasp a clearer picture of this passion in the following way: whatever desire lays hold of, it works a change for the worse, like venomous creatures and deadly poisons.
What do I mean by this? If it is directed toward money, it produces thieves, cutpurses, footpads, and burglars, liable for defaulting on debts, denying deposits, taking bribes, robbing temples, and everything else of the kind.
If toward reputation, it produces boasters, people who despise others, unstable and unsettled in character, with ears stopped up by flattering voices, humbled and puffed up at once because of the fickleness of crowds whose praise and blame come in an uncritical torrent, indiscriminate in hatred and friendship, so that they easily exchange one for the other, and all else that is kin and akin to this.
And if desire is directed toward power, it produces people factious by nature, unequal in their dealings, tyrannical, savage in temper, enemies of their homelands, merciless masters to those weaker than themselves, implacable enemies to their equals in strength, flatterers of the more powerful in order to attack them through deceit. And if toward physical beauty, it produces seducers, adulterers, pederasts, zealots for licentiousness and lust, treating the greatest evils as if they were the most blessed goods.
Having already reached the tongue, it has introduced countless innovations there; for some desire either to be silent about what ought to be said, or to say what ought to be passed over in silence, and upon those who speak out avenging justice follows, and upon those who hold their tongues, the opposite.
Having taken hold of matters of the belly, it produces gluttons, insatiable people, profligates, zealots for a soft and dissolute life, delighting in drunkenness and gourmandizing, wretched slaves to unmixed wine and fish and delicacies, crawling around banquet tables like greedy little dogs, from which results a miserable and accursed life, more grievous than any death.
For this reason, those who have not merely tasted philosophy with the tips of their lips, but have feasted more fully on its true doctrines, having examined the nature of the soul and discerned in it a threefold form -- one of reason, one of spirit, and one of desire -- assigned to reason, as ruler, the topmost and most fitting dwelling place, the head, where also the ranks of the senses are stationed like the bodyguards of the mind, as of a king; to spirit they assigned the chest, so that
like a soldier clad in a breastplate, even if not free of all passion, it might at least be hard to capture; and so that, settled close to the mind, it might be benefited by its neighbor, who charms it with wisdom and renders it gentle in its passions; and to desire they assigned the region around the navel and what is called the diaphragm.
For it was necessary that desire, having the least share in reasoning, be settled as far as possible from the royal quarters of the mind, virtually at the outer edges, and that, being the most insatiable and unrestrained of all creatures, it graze in
places where there is both food and mating. It was with all this in view, I think, that the most holy Moses stripped off this passion and, loathing it as the most shameful thing and the cause of the most shameful things, forbade desire above all else, as a kind of siege-engine set against the soul -- a passion whose removal, or whose obedience to reason as pilot, will fill everything, throughout everything, with peace, good order, and perfect goods, toward the completeness of a happy life.
Being a lover of brevity, and accustomed to cut short what is boundless in scope through instruction by example, he begins to admonish and instruct concerning the single desire that busies itself with the belly, supposing that the other desires, too, will no longer be as unruly, but will be restrained, once the oldest of them, the one that acts as their ruler, has learned to obey the laws of self-control.
What, then, is the teaching at the outset? Two things above all hold it together: eating and drinking. Neither of these did he leave unchecked, but he curbed both with ordinances most conducive to self-restraint, to human kindness, and -- the greatest thing -- to piety.
For he commands that firstfruits be offered from grain, wine, oil, livestock, and everything else, and that the firstfruits be distributed for sacrifices and to the priests -- the former as thanksgiving to God for the fertility and abundance of all things, the latter for the sanctity connected with the temple, so that the priests may receive payment for their services in the sacred rites.
He permits no one at all to taste or partake of anything before the firstfruits have been set apart, and this serves at the same time as training in the most beneficial self-restraint; for one who has learned not to rush upon the abundance that the seasons of the year have brought, but to wait until the firstfruits have been consecrated, thereby seems to check the unruliness of his impulses, easing the passion.
Nor indeed did he leave participation in and use of other things unrestrained for those who share in the sacred constitution, but whatever among land animals, water creatures, or birds is fleshiest and fattest, tickling and provoking treacherous pleasure, all this he forbade outright, knowing that once it has enticed the most slavish of the senses, taste, it will produce insatiability, an evil hard to cure for both souls and bodies; for insatiability gives birth to indigestion, which is the beginning and source of diseases and infirmities.
Among land animals, the pig's kind is agreed by those who eat it to be the sweetest of all; and among water animals, the kinds without scales. * * * For no other food is as capable of promoting self-control: it trains and strengthens those naturally suited to the practice of virtue, by scantiness and simplicity, working to strip away extravagance.
He legislated neither harsh austerity, like the Spartan lawgiver, nor the indulgence in luxury and softness that the one who instructed the Ionians and Sybarites introduced, but cutting a middle path between the two he relaxed what was too taut and tightened what was too slack, blending the excesses at either extreme, as on a musical instrument, into the middle tone, aiming at harmony of life and blameless concord. This is why he laid down, not carelessly but with great deliberation, what foods were to be used and what were not.
As for beasts that feed on human flesh, one might suppose it just that they suffer the same things at human hands that they inflict on others; but Moses judged it right to hold us back from enjoying these, even though they would provide a most pleasant feast, reckoning what is fitting for a gentle soul. For even if it is proper for those who have inflicted such things to suffer the like, it is not proper for those who have suffered to retaliate in kind, lest, without noticing it, they be brutalized by anger, that savage passion.
And he takes such great precaution over the matter that, wishing to check from far off any impulse toward what has been described, he forbade also the unrestrained use of other flesh-eating animals, setting apart instead the plant-eating kinds into gentle herds, since these are also tame by nature, feeding on the mild produce that the earth yields and engaging in no scheming.
There are ten of these in number: the calf, the lamb, the goat-kid, the deer, the gazelle, the antelope, the wild-goat, the pygarg, the oryx, the giraffe. For always intent on the theory of numbers, which he had come to understand precisely has the greatest power among existing things, he legislates nothing, small or great, without also bringing in and, so to speak, fitting to the matters being legislated their proper number. Now of the numbers arising from the unit the most perfect is ten, which, as Moses says, is also the most sacred and holy, and it is by this number that the kinds of clean animals are sealed, since he wished to assign the use of these to those who share in the constitution ordained by him.
He sets out the test and proof of the ten animals in common, according to two signs: cloven hoof and cud-chewing. Those which lack both, or have only one of the two, are unclean. Both of these signs are symbols of the most scientific kind of teaching and learning, by which the better things are distinguished from their opposites without confusion.
For just as the cud-chewing animal, when it has divided its food and lodged it in its gullet, draws it up again little by little and works it smooth, and only afterward sends it on to the stomach, in the same way the one being educated, having received through the ears the doctrines and theorems of wisdom from the teacher, makes his learning more secure by not being able to grasp and hold it firmly all at once, until, going back over each thing he has heard with continuous acts of memory — for these are the glue of thoughts — he stamps it firmly upon his soul as an impression.
But it seems there is no benefit in the firm grasp of thoughts unless there is added a distinguishing and separating of them, into a choosing of what one must and a fleeing of the opposite; and it is this that the cloven hoof symbolizes. For the road of life is twofold, one leading toward vice, the other toward virtue, and one must turn away from the one and never abandon the other.
For this reason, whatever animals are single-hoofed or many-clawed are unclean, the former because they hint at one and the same nature belonging to good and bad alike — as with a hollowed and rounded road that is both uphill and downhill — the latter because they show that there are many roads, or rather many pathless ways, in life leading to deception; for it is not easy amid a multitude to find the most useful and best path.
Having laid down these boundaries for land animals, he begins also to describe which water animals are clean for eating, marking these too by two distinguishing marks, fins and scales; for whatever has neither, or only one of the two, he sets aside and rejects. The reason for this is not to be stated without purpose.
Whatever lacks either both or one of these is swept along by the current, being unable to withstand the force of its flow; but those possessing both turn to face it, standing their ground, and train themselves against their opponent with unconquerable eagerness and daring, so that, being pushed, they push back, and being chased, they run to meet the chase, checking wide paths through narrow straits into easy passages.
These too are symbols: the former of a pleasure-loving soul, the latter of one that longs for endurance and self-control. For the road leading to pleasure runs downhill and is very easy, producing more of a slide than a walk, while the road toward self-control runs uphill, laborious indeed, but most beneficial of all; and the one carries a person down and forces retreat, bearing them downward on its slope, until it casts them out at the very bottom, while the other leads to heaven those who do not tire beforehand, granting them immortality, if they have the strength to endure its roughness and difficulty of ascent.
Holding to the same pattern, he declares that among creeping things, whatever is footless, or crawls dragging along its belly, or is four-footed and many-footed, is unclean for food, again hinting through the creeping things at those devoted to their bellies in the manner of the sea-gull, endlessly paying tribute of unmixed wine, pastries, fish, and in general all the elaborate contrivances that bakers and caterers, with every kind of dish, devise and produce, fanning into flame and further kindling insatiable and unquenchable desires; and through the four-footed and many-footed creatures he hints at those who are wretched slaves not of one passion only but of all of them together, which in kind number four, but in their forms are countless. Hard indeed is slavery to one master, but heaviest and most unbearable, as one would expect, is slavery to many.
But those creeping things which have legs above their feet, enabling them to leap up from the ground, he records among the clean, such as the various kinds of locusts and the creature called the snake-fighter, again through symbols investigating the characters and ways of the rational soul. For the body's pull, being naturally heavy, drags down the shallow-minded, yoking and pressing them under the weight of the flesh.
Blessed are those to whom it has been given, by a stronger power, to resist the pull of that downward drag through the rules of right education, having been taught to leap upward from the earth and from lowly things into the ether and the revolutions of heaven, the sight of which is to be envied and eagerly sought by those who come to it willingly and not merely as an afterthought.
Having gone through in his account the forms of land animals and of water animals, and having distinguished them by laws as well as could be done, he begins to examine further the remaining nature of those in the air, disqualifying the countless kinds of birds that hunt for blood, whether against other creatures or against humans — flesh-eaters, venomous ones, and in general those that make use of predatory powers.
But doves, pigeons, turtledoves, and the flocks of cranes, geese, and similar birds he numbers among the tame and gentle order, granting their use without fear to those who wish it.
So it is that in each of the parts of the world — earth, water, air — he withdraws from our use the various kinds of animals, land, water, and winged, just as one removes fuel from fire, and so brings about the quenching of desire.
He commands, moreover, that neither a carcass nor an animal killed by wild beasts be brought near for eating: the former because it is not fitting for a human being to share a table with untamed beasts, virtually feasting together with them on their flesh-eating; the latter because it is perhaps harmful and disease-bearing, the blood having died along with the pus within it, and perhaps also because, once death had already taken hold of it, it was fitting to keep it untouched, out of respect for the compulsions of nature by which it had already been seized.
Those skilled at hunting, expert marksmen against wild game, rarely missing their mark, holding their heads high over successful hunts, especially when, together with the huntsmen and the hounds, they divide up the portions of the captured prey — these are praised by most lawgivers among Greeks and barbarians as being not only courageous but also sociable in character. But the one who introduced the sacred constitution would rightly find fault with them, since he flatly forbade the enjoyment of carcasses and of animals killed by beasts, for the reasons stated.
But if any of those in training should be a lover of exercise and of the hunt, supposing such pursuits to be rehearsals and preliminary contests for wars and dangers against enemies, then whenever he has good fortune in the hunt, let him set the captured game before the dogs as a feast, a wage or prize for their courage and blameless partnership, but let him himself not touch it, being taught beforehand, through irrational animals, what he ought to think concerning enemies — that one must make war on them not for unjust gain, imitating the deeds of robbers, but either in retaliation for wrongs already suffered at their hands, or because of what one expects to suffer from them.
But some Sardanapaluses, stretching their excessive and overly luxurious lack of self-restraint wide open toward the boundless and endless, devising ever new pleasures, prepare things that ought never to be sacrificed, choking and strangling and entombing in the body — in blood — the very substance of the soul, which ought to be left free and unshackled; for it would have been enough to enjoy the flesh alone, without touching anything that has kinship with the soul.
For this reason, elsewhere he lays down a law concerning blood, that neither blood nor fat is to be eaten. Blood, for the reason I have stated, because it is the substance of the soul — not the intellectual and rational soul, but the sentient one, by which living itself is common to us and to the irrational animals; for the substance of that other soul is divine breath, and especially so according to Moses, who says in the account of the world's creation that God breathed the breath of life into the first man, the founder of our race, into the most sovereign part of the body, the face, where the senses, like bodyguards of the mind, are stationed as around a great king; and it is clear that what was breathed in was ethereal breath, or, if there is anything superior even to ethereal breath, since it is a radiance of the blessed and thrice-blessed nature —
and fat, because it is the richest of things, again as an instruction toward self-control and zeal for a strict life — that one should freely let go of what is easiest and closest at hand, but willingly endure cares and labors for the sake of acquiring virtue.
It is for this reason that from every sacrificial victim these two choice parts are wholly burnt, as a kind of firstfruits — fat and blood — the one poured out like a libation, the other brought as fuel for the flame in place of oil, because of its richness, to the fire that has been consecrated and made holy.
He censures some of his contemporaries as gluttons, people who supposed that self-indulgence was among the greatest of blessings. Not content to live luxuriously only in cities, where the supply and provision of necessities is abundant, they insisted on having markets of fish and meat and every article of a bountiful season even in trackless, impassable wastelands.
Then, when there was a shortage, they banded together, shouted, made accusations, and with shameless boldness harassed their leader, and did not stop their unrest until they got what they craved — got it, indeed, to their own destruction, for two reasons: so that it might be shown that all things are possible for God, who finds a way out of what is impassable and impossible, and so that those who could not master their bellies and who rebelled against holiness might be punished.
For a cloud of quails, lifted up from the sea, poured out around dawn, and the camp and its surroundings were overshadowed all around to the distance of a day's brisk walk for a man; and the height of the creatures' flight was reckoned at about two cubits from the ground, for easy capture.
It would have been reasonable for them, awestruck at the marvel of what had been wrought on so great a scale, to be satisfied with the sight, and, filled with reverence, nourished by it, to abstain from eating meat. But instead they, arousing their appetite even more than before, rushed at it as though at the greatest good, and, hauling in the creatures with both hands, filled their laps; then, storing them away in their tents, went out again to catch more — for excessive greed knows no measure — and, preparing every kind of dish, gorged themselves insatiably, these empty-minded men about to perish from their own surfeit.
And indeed, before long, they were destroyed by purgings of bile, so that the place even took its name from what had happened to them: it was called "Graves of Desire" (Num. 11:34), since, as the account has taught, there is no greater evil in the soul than desire.
This is why Moses says most excellently in his exhortations: "Let no one do what is pleasing in his own sight" (Deut. 12:8), which is equivalent to saying, let no one indulge his own desire; rather let a person seek to please God, the universe, nature, the laws, and wise men, renouncing self-love, if he is to become a truly good and noble man.
So much, then, has been said, to the best of my ability, concerning matters that fall under desire, in completion of the Ten Words and the precepts subordinate to them. For if the headings proclaimed by the divine voice must be shown to be the genera of the laws, and all the particular laws that Moses expounded must be shown as species subordinate to them, then, for the sake of an unconfused and precise grasp, some skill was needed, which I have used in assigning and attaching to each genus what belongs to it from the whole body of legislation.
Enough, then, of this. But one must not fail to recognize that, just as each of the Ten has certain particulars akin to it and having no fellowship with any other genus, so too there are some common to all, fitting, so to speak, not one or two, but all ten of the Words.
These are the virtues beneficial to the community. For each of the Ten Sayings individually, and all of them in common, anoint and urge us on toward practical wisdom, justice, piety toward God, and the whole chorus of the virtues, weaving sound reasoning together with good counsel, and earnest actions together with reasoning, so that the instrument of the soul, harmoniously tuned throughout its whole self, may resound in melody of life and irreproachable concord.
Concerning the leading virtues, piety and holiness, and also practical wisdom and self-control, I have spoken earlier; now I must speak of justice, which practices what is akin and kindred to these. On Justice.
One part of justice — no small part — concerned the courts and judges; of this I made mention earlier, when, in dealing at length with the subject of testimony, I went through it more fully so that nothing pertaining to it should be omitted. Since I am not accustomed to repeat myself, except where some necessity compels it under pressure of circumstance, I will leave that aside and turn to the other parts, having said only this much by way of preface.
The just precepts, says the law, must be placed in the heart and bound as a sign upon the hand and kept moving before the eyes, hinting through the first image that just precepts must not be entrusted to unbelieving ears — for trust does not reside in hearing — but must be impressed upon the ruling faculty of the soul, the best of all lessons, engraved there as with tested seals.
And through the second image, that one must not only form conceptions of what is noble but also put into practice without delay what has been decided — for the hand is the symbol of action, and it is upon action that he commands the just precepts to be bound and hung, saying that this will be a sign, though he has not stated outright of what, because, as it seems to me, it is a sign not of one thing but of many, indeed of nearly everything that belongs to human life.
And through the third image, that just precepts must be pictured always and everywhere as though close before the eyes; let them, he says, have a swaying motion — not so that they be unstable and unsettled, but so that by their motion they may draw the sight toward a clear vision, for motion, by stirring and arousing, is what attracts vision, or rather it renders the eyes sleepless and wakeful.
Whoever has managed to imprint upon the eye of his soul precepts that are not at rest but in motion, exercising their natural activities, should be recorded as a perfect man, no longer to be classed among the disciples and learners but among the teachers and instructors, and should offer to those of the young who wish to draw from him, as from a spring, an abundant stream of words and doctrines; and if one of the more timid, through modesty, hesitates and is slow to come forward to learn, let him go to that person himself and pour in, channeling into his ears a flood of instruction, until the reservoirs of his soul are filled.
Let him teach the just precepts beforehand to his kinsmen and friends and all the young, at home and on the road, going to bed and rising up, so that in every posture and every motion, in every place both private and public, not only waking but also sleeping, they may take delight in visions of just things; for there is no pleasure sweeter than to have one's whole soul filled through and through with justice, practicing its eternal doctrines and contemplations, leaving no place empty into which injustice might slip.
He also commands that these precepts, once written, be set up before the doorposts of every house and upon the gates in the walls, so that both those departing and those at home, citizens and strangers alike, encountering the writings engraved before the gates, may keep an unfailing memory of what must be said and done, taking care both not to do wrong and not to suffer wrong; and, going into their houses and out again, men and women and children and household alike, may do what is fitting and incumbent, both for others and for themselves.
Most admirable, too, is what he further proclaims: to add nothing and take nothing away, but to preserve unchanged, in equal and identical form, the ordinances laid down from the beginning. For it appears that addition results in unjust things, and subtraction in the removal of just things; for nothing is more fitting for the wise lawgiver than participation in whole and complete justice.
He also hints at the utmost perfection of the other virtues as well; for each of them is complete and full, having its perfection entirely from itself, so that, should any addition or subtraction occur, the whole would be turned and changed through and through into the opposite condition.
What I mean is this: courage, the virtue concerned with dreadful things, is known even by those not entirely without culture or refinement, even if they have had but a slight taste of education, to be the knowledge of what things must be endured.
But if someone, yielding to ignorance born of arrogance, thinking himself superior and capable of correcting what needs no correction, dares to add or take away anything, he alters the whole image, reshaping a noble character into a shameful one; for by addition he will produce rashness, and by subtraction cowardice, leaving not even the name of courage, which is of the greatest benefit to life.
In the same way, too, in the queen of the virtues, piety: if anyone adds anything, whether small or great, or conversely takes something away, in either case he will pervert and transform its form; for addition will generate superstition, and subtraction irreligion, piety itself being thereby abolished — piety, whose rising and shining is a thing to be prayed for, since it is the cause of the greatest of goods, producing the knowledge of how to serve God, which must be considered more sovereign and more royal than any office of rule or command.
Similar things to those stated may be said concerning each of the other virtues as well; but since I am accustomed to cut short the length of my discourse, I will be content with what has been said, which may serve as sufficient indications even of matters passed over in silence.
A further precept of common benefit has also been enjoined: "not to move the boundary marks of your neighbor, which those before you set up" (Deut. 19:14). This, it seems, is legislated not merely concerning inherited plots and the boundaries of land, for the cutting off of greed, but also for the safeguarding of ancient customs; for customs are unwritten laws, the decrees of men of old, engraved not on steles or on sheets of papyrus consumed by moths, but on the souls of those who share the same commonwealth.
For children ought to inherit from their parents, apart from their estates, ancestral customs, with which they have lived from their very swaddling clothes, and not despise them merely because their tradition is unwritten; for one who obeys the written laws would not rightly be praised, since he is admonished by necessity and fear of punishment, whereas one who abides by the unwritten laws, displaying virtue voluntarily, is worthy of commendation. The Establishment of Rulers.
Some introduced offices filled by lot, unprofitably for the masses; for the lot reveals good fortune, not virtue. At any rate, many unworthy men have often won by lot—men whom a good man, once he had taken command, would reject and would put to the test even among the subjects.
For even the so-called petty rulers among some peoples, whom they call masters, do not bring under their power all the home-bred or purchased slaves they are able to, but only those who become obedient, sometimes selling off in herds those whose character is incurably bad, as being unworthy even to serve good men.
Is it fitting, then, to make masters and rulers of whole cities and nations out of men who have obtained office by lot—by some slip of fortune, an unstable and unsettled thing? But for the care of the sick the lot counts for nothing; physicians do not obtain their post by lot, but are tested by experience.
And for the safe voyage and preservation of seafarers, it is not the man who has drawn the lot to steer who is straightaway sent to the stern, likely through inexperience to work shipwrecks of his own making even in fair weather and calm, but rather whoever from his earliest years can be shown to have been carefully trained in the art of piloting. This is the man who has sailed many times, who has crossed all or most of the seas, who has carefully examined the trading posts, harbors, anchorages, and roadsteads on islands and mainlands, and who knows the paths of the sea—thanks to his exact observation of the heavenly bodies—no less well than, indeed better than, the roads on land.
For by observing the courses of the stars and following their ordered movements, he has been able to cut unerring highways through pathless wastes, so that—the most incredible of all things—the nature that belongs to dry land might be able to make its crossing by way of what floats.
But is a man who is about to take in hand great and populous cities, full of inhabitants, and government, and the care of private, public, and sacred affairs—which one would not be wrong to call the art of arts and the science of sciences—going to weigh the exact test of truth against the unstable drift of the lot,
having fled from it? The test of truth consists in convictions grounded in reason. Having contemplated all this in his soul, Moses, wisest of all, does not even mention office by lot, but resolved to introduce offices filled by vote. At any rate he says: "You shall appoint over yourself a ruler, not a foreigner, but one from among your brothers" (Deuteronomy 17:15), making plain a voluntary choice and an unimpeachable scrutiny of the ruler, which the whole multitude, acting in agreement, will carry out. And God too—the guarantor of everything beneficial to the community—adds his vote to seal the choice, since he takes the man to be a kind of representative of the race, as an eye represents
the body. He sets out two reasons why one must not choose a foreigner for the office: one, so that he not amass a great quantity of silver, gold, and livestock, storing up great and altogether unjust wealth out of the poverty of his subjects; the other, so that he not uproot the nation from its own land for the sake of his private greed and force it to migrate, carried here and there in endless wandering, its hopes of acquiring greater goods left unfulfilled, in exchange for the loss of what it was already securely enjoying.
For he supposed in advance, reasonably, that a man of the same tribe and kin, sharing in the intimacy that belongs to the highest kinship—and the highest kinship is one commonwealth, one law, and one God, to whom all who belong to the nation have been allotted—would never go wrong in the ways just described, but on the contrary, instead of displacing the inhabitants, would provide a safe return for those scattered in foreign lands, and instead of taking away the property of others, would give his own substance to those in need, making it common.
From the day on which anyone enters office, he commands him to write out with his own hand a summary form of Deuteronomy containing all the laws, wishing what has been ordained to become fastened firmly to his soul; for from one who merely reads, the thoughts slip away, swept off by the current, but for one who writes at leisure they are stamped and firmly settled, since the mind takes its own time over each point and rests upon it, not moving on to the next before it has firmly grasped the one before. Once he has written it, however, let him try to consult and read it every day,
for the sake of a continuous, uninterrupted memory of the good ordinances that benefit everyone, and so that a firm love and longing for them may take root in him, his soul being continually taught and habituated to converse with sacred laws; for long familiarity produces an unfeigned and pure friendship, not only toward people, but also toward forms of writing worthy of love.
And this will come about if the ruler studies not another's writings and notes, but the ones he himself has written; for each person's own possessions are somehow more familiar to him and more readily called to mind.
And besides, as he reads, he will at the same time reason with himself in something like these terms: "I wrote these things—I, such a ruler—without making use of anyone else, though I had countless attendants at my service. Was it so that I might fill up a book, like men who write for hire, or like those who train eye and hand, the one for keenness of sight, the other for speed in writing? Not at all! It was so that, in writing these things into a book, I might at once transcribe them into my soul and stamp upon my mind characters more divine and indelible.
Other kings carry staffs and bear scepters, but for me the scepter is the book of Deuteronomy, a boast and a glory beyond rivalry, the emblem of a rule beyond reproach, modeled on its archetype, the kingship of God.
Ever leaning and resting upon the sacred laws, I shall acquire the two best things of all: first, equality, than which no greater good can be found, for arrogance and haughtiness belong to a small-minded soul that does not foresee the future.
Equality, then, will produce the goodwill and security that come from subjects who repay just returns in kind, while inequality produces the most treacherous dangers. These I shall flee, hating inequality, patron of darkness and of wars, and I shall have a life free from plots by honoring untroubled equality, which begets light and stability.
And I shall secure a second thing besides: not to tip the scale to one side, as on a balance, by twisting and distorting what has been ordained; but I shall try to guide these things along the highway of the middle course, keeping to straight and even steps, toward a share in a life free from stumbling."
Moses is accustomed to call the middle way "the royal road," since it lies on the border between excess and deficiency, and also because, within a triad, the middle position has been allotted the leading rank, fitting together what lies on either side into a unity by an unbreakable bond—by which, indeed, it is escorted like a king by his bodyguard.
Of the lawful ruler who honors equality, who cannot be bribed, who judges just things justly (Deuteronomy 16:20), who continually practices the laws, he says that the reward is long-lasting rule—not so that a long life should be granted him together with presiding over public affairs, but so that he may teach those who do not know it that the lawful ruler, even should he die, lives on for ages through his deeds, which he has left behind as immortal, indestructible monuments of nobility.
It befits the man deemed worthy of the highest and greatest office to choose successors who will share his rule, share his judging, and jointly administer whatever else serves the common good. For one man alone would not suffice, however eager and however robust in both body and soul, for the magnitude and multitude of affairs, worn out by the flood of matters pouring in day after day from every quarter, unless he had helpers at his side—all chosen for excellence in wisdom, capability, justice, piety, and in not merely avoiding but hating, as an enemy and the greatest evil, arrogance.
For such men would prove the helpers and supporters best fitted to lighten and ease the burden for a good and noble man weighed down by public affairs. And besides, since some matters are greater and others smaller, he would rightly entrust the lesser ones to his subordinates, so as not to be worn down over trifles, while for the greater matters he himself would necessarily become the most exacting examiner.
One must suppose the great matters to be, not what some think—when men of reputation contend against men of reputation, the rich against the rich, rulers against rulers—but rather the opposite: when private individuals, the poor, and the obscure contend against the more powerful, for whom the judge is their one hope of suffering nothing beyond remedy.
Clear examples of each of these can be found in the sacred laws, and it is good to imitate them. For there was once a time when Moses alone administered judgment by himself, laboring from dawn until night; but afterward his father-in-law arrived, saw with what a weight of business he was burdened, with those bringing disputes constantly streaming in upon him, and gave him the excellent advice to choose successors, granting him some respite.
Persuaded by what was said—for it was indeed advantageous—he chose the most highly approved men from the whole multitude and appointed them at once as both subordinates and judges, commanding that the greater cases be brought up to him.
This ordinance the sacred books contain in written form, for the instruction of the rulers of every generation: first, so that they not reject counselors as though they alone were capable of overseeing everything, since Moses, all-wise and beloved of God, did not reject them; and second, so that they choose a second and a third in command, taking care not to neglect more urgent matters while wearing themselves out over trifles, since it is impossible for human nature to attend to everything at once.
One of the examples has now been set out; the proof of the second must be fitted to it. I said that the cases of the humbler people carry great weight in judgment. Weak and humble are the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien. It is for these that the highest king must judge, he who has bound upon himself sovereignty over all things, since, according to Moses, God, the ruler of the universe, has not cast them out of his own administration of justice.
For the hierophant, hymning the virtues of him who is, speaks in this way: "The great and mighty God, who does not marvel at a person's face nor accept a bribe in giving judgment" (Deut. 10:17-18) — and he adds, judgment for whom? Not for satraps and tyrants who have bound upon themselves dominion over land and sea, but "for the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow".
For the alien, because he has made the very kinsmen who alone might naturally have been his allies into implacable enemies, by migrating toward truth and toward honoring the one worthy of honor, turning away from the mythical fictions and the plurality of rulers which his parents, grandparents, ancestors, and all who share the blood of those who founded this admirable colony held in esteem. For the orphan, because he has been deprived of father and mother, the natural helpers and champions, and left destitute of the one power that was necessary for his defense. For the widow, because she has lost the man who took over from her parents the care and protection of her; for a husband is to a wife what parents are to an unmarried girl.
Indeed, almost the whole nation of the Jews stands, in comparison with all others everywhere, in the position of an orphan. For other peoples, when disasters not sent by God come upon them, are not at a loss for help, because of their intermingling with other nations who act in concert with them; but no one readily joins forces with this nation, since it lives by exceptional laws. Its people are of necessity solemn, since they are trained toward the utmost virtue; and solemnity is austere, and this the great mass of mankind shuns, because they prefer the way of pleasure.
But nonetheless, Moses says that the ruler of the universe, to whom this nation has been allotted, always takes pity and compassion on its orphanhood and desolation, because out of the whole human race it has been set apart as a kind of firstfruits for the maker and father.
The reason is the justice and virtues, fought over and prized, of the founders of the nation, which endure like immortal, ever-flourishing plants, bearing fruit that preserves and benefits their descendants in every way, even if these descendants themselves happen to go astray in ways that are curable rather than utterly incurable.
Yet let no one, thinking that noble birth is a perfect good, grow careless of good actions on that account, reckoning that a person born of the best deserves greater anger if by wickedness of character he brings shame upon his parents. For having in his own family models of nobility to imitate, and turning away from none of them, he is culpable if he fails to set his life on a sound and upright course.
The law forbids, with the most just of prohibitions, that anyone entrusted with the leadership and care of the community should walk deceitfully among the nation; for it is the act of a soul that is unfree and utterly servile to veil treacherous designs beneath a mask of hypocrisy.
For a ruler must stand before his subjects as a father before his children, so that he too may be honored in return as by legitimate sons. Hence good rulers are, in truth, the common parents of cities and nations, showing an equal, sometimes even a greater, goodwill toward them. But those who wrap themselves in great power for the injury and harm of their subjects must be called not rulers but enemies, since they act as implacable foes act.
Moreover, those who do wrong by deceit are more wicked than those who oppose openly, if indeed it is easy to ward off those who lay bare their hostility without disguise, while the depravity of the others is hard to grasp and hard to hunt down, since, as on a stage, they put on a costume not their own to conceal their true appearance.
This form of rule extends already, and has crept in, I might almost say, into every department of life, differing only in size and degree. For what a king is to a city, that a headman is to a village, and a master to a household, and a physician to the sick; a general is to an army what a captain is to a ship's marines and crew; and again, what a shipowner is to a cargo-vessel, a pilot is to sailors. All of these have it in their power to do either well or worse, but they ought to will what is better; and what is better is to benefit, not to harm, all those it is in their power to help.
For this is what it means to follow God, since he too has the power to do either, but wills only the good. This is shown by the creation and governance of the world; for he called what did not exist into being, bringing order out of disorder, qualities out of what had no qualities, likenesses out of unlike things, sameness out of things differing, community and harmony out of things without communion or concord, equality out of inequality, and light out of darkness. For it is always his concern, and that of his beneficent powers, to transform and remodel whatever is disordered in the inferior substance
toward the better. This is what good rulers ought to imitate, if indeed they have any concern to be made like God. But since countless things slip away and escape the notice of the human mind, bound as it is to so great a crowd of the senses, quite capable of leading it astray and deceiving it with false opinions, or rather entombed within a mortal body — which one might properly call a tomb — let no judge be ashamed to admit that he does not know what he in fact does not know.
For, first, the one who lies will become worse than himself, having banished truth beyond the borders of his own soul; and second, he will do countless harm to those on trial, presenting a blind kind of knowledge because he does not see what is just.
So then, whenever unclarity and great darkness dim his grasp of the matters at hand, let him decline to render judgment and refer the case to more accurate judges. And who might these be but the priests, and the head and leader of the priests?
For the true ministers of God have sharpened their understanding with care, holding that even the smallest fault is no small thing, because of the surpassing greatness in every respect of the King they serve — which is why all who are consecrated as priests are commanded to offer sacrifice sober, so that no drug that creeps in to cause raving and delirium may dim the eyes of their understanding —
and perhaps also because the priest who is a priest in truth is at once a prophet, having advanced to the service of him who truly is not so much by lineage as by virtue; and to a prophet nothing is unknown, since he carries within himself an intelligible sun and rays that cast no shadow, granting the clearest apprehension of things invisible to sense but comprehensible to the mind.
Again, the merchants, shopkeepers, and market-traders who handle weights, scales, and measures, and all others who sell for a living the wares — dry or liquid — that people need, are set under the authority of market inspectors, but they ought, if they are prudent, to be rulers over themselves, doing what is just not out of fear but by free choice; for everywhere a right action done of one's own free will is more honorable than one done under compulsion.
Hence the law commands shopkeepers and merchants, and all others who have taken up such a way of life, to keep just scales, weights, and measures, contriving nothing to the harm of buyers, but speaking and acting in every matter from a free and guileless soul, reckoning that unjust gains are most harmful, while wealth gained with justice can never be taken away.
And since wages are set as the rewards of diligent labor for craftsmen, and it is those in need, not those with abundant means, who do the work, the law commands that payments not be deferred, but that the agreed wage be given on the very day. For it is absurd that the wealthy should receive services from the poor, yet not render in return the payment due, when they themselves live in immediate abundance.
Are these not clear proofs of a safeguard against greater wrongs? For he who does not allow even a wage that will certainly be paid to fall past its due time, fixing the deadline at evening, by which the laborer, on going home, must receive his payment — does not this same lawgiver, well before this, forbid robbery, theft, fraud on debts, and all things of that kind, shaping and molding the soul toward the approved form of true nobility?
It is also well said elsewhere that no one should slander or speak ill of anyone, and above all not of the deaf, who can neither perceive that a wrong is being done to him nor defend himself in kind. For of all conflicts the most lawless is one in which one party is put to the test in acting, and the other only in suffering.
Those who abuse the speechless and those whose hearing is impaired commit a wrong like that of people who trip the blind or put other obstacles in their path; for of necessity, being unable through ignorance to step over them, they stumble on both counts, missing their way and injuring their feet.
Against those who do such things, and those who take delight in them, the law holds out the fear of God, fittingly and appropriately, since he alone stretches out his hand and shields those unable to help themselves; and he all but declares outright to wrongdoers, concerning those who have been wronged:
"O empty of understanding, do you think you will go unnoticed, treating their misfortunes as a laughing matter and sinning against them further — the very things that have befallen these people, their ears through revilings, their eyes through obstacles set in their path? But the God who watches over and oversees all things, you will never escape his notice, as you trample upon the misfortunes of wretched human beings, thinking you will not suffer the like fate, going about with a body exposed to every disease, and senses so precarious that, for a slight and chance cause, they are not merely dimmed but suffer incurable disablement."
As for those who have forgotten themselves, who suppose they stand above the natural weakness common to all human beings and imagine they have escaped the hidden and unpredictable machinations of Fortune -- Fortune, who has often hurled sudden thunderbolts and, upon people enjoying a fair voyage through life, has brought them down almost within the very harbor of happiness -- why should such people boast and trample on the misfortunes of others, showing no reverence even for Justice, who sits enthroned beside the Ruler of all things, and to whom it is granted, with eyes sleepless and of the sharpest sight, to survey even what lies hidden in dark corners as though in the clear light of the sun?
These people seem to me, out of an excess of cruelty, not even to spare the dead, but -- to use the common expression -- would not hesitate to strike a corpse a second time, since they think it right to insult and outrage even parts of the body that are, in a sense, already dead before the rest -- for eyes that no longer see and ears that no longer hear are themselves dead -- so that even though these are parts belonging to a human being who has vanished from among the living, such people will display their pitilessness and implacability, doing nothing of that humane and sympathetic character which is preserved for the dead even by enemies in wars fought without any formal truce. So much, then, on this subject.
Next he sets out, one after another in orderly sequence, a harmony of precepts of a similar kind, saying that cattle are not to be mated with those under a different yoke, that a vineyard is not to be sown with two different crops, and that a garment woven from two kinds of material -- a fraudulent piece of work -- is not to be worn. The first of these was stated among the laws against adultery, to give clearer emphasis to the principle that one must not lie in wait to ambush marriages that belong to others, corrupting both the characters of wives and the honest hopes attached to the begetting of legitimate children; for the one who has forbidden the mating of different species among irrational animals evidently works, from a distance, to check adultery.
It must be spoken of again now, in the discussion of justice; for where the same principle can be applied to a number of cases, it should not be passed over. It is just, then, to bring together things capable of sharing in common; and things of the same kind are naturally suited to partnership, since things of different kinds are, on the contrary, by nature unmixed and incapable of partnership. Whoever contrives unlawful unions among such things acts unjustly, doing away with a law of nature.
But the truly sacred law has employed such great forethought for justice that it does not even permit the plowing of the earth by animals of unequal strength, but has forbidden yoking together an ass and a calf to plow, so that the weaker one, forced to compete against the excessive power of the stronger, should not be worn down and collapse beforehand.
And yet the stronger animal, the bull, is listed among the clean animals, while the weaker one, the ass, is among the unclean. But even so, the law did not begrudge those thought to be inferior their share of the benefit that comes from justice, for the sake, I think, of the most necessary lesson for judges -- that they should never disadvantage the lowborn in their judgments, in matters where the examination concerns not lineage but virtue or vice.
Akin to these is also the last ordinance in this series of paired precepts, that one must not weave together substances of different kinds -- wool and linen; for in these too, not only is their difference a barrier to partnership, but the dominance of one over the other, when they must be put to use, produces tearing rather than union.
The middle precept of the triad of paired laws was that one must not sow a vineyard with a second crop. First, so that things belonging to a different kind should not become mixed together in confusion; for sown crops are not suited to trees, nor trees to sown crops. For this reason nature has not fixed the same appointed time for both toward the production of their yearly fruit, but has assigned to the one the spring for the season of reaping, and to the other the end of summer for the gathering of tree-fruit.
At any rate, it happens that at the same time some things wither after having flowered earlier, while others sprout after having withered earlier; for in winter, while the trees are shedding their leaves, the sown crops are in flower, and in spring, on the contrary, while the wild and cultivated timber of the trees is withering, the sown crops sprout; and it is very nearly the same boundary at which the fruits of the sown crops reach completion and those of the trees take the beginning of their generation.
It was fitting, then, that things so widely separated from one another, both in their natures and in their flowering and in the seasons appropriate to the generation of what belongs to them, should be kept apart and settled in separate places, bringing order out of disorder; for order is akin to the cosmos, and disorder to the uncosmic.
Second, so that neither kind should suffer harm and inflict harm in turn upon the other, each drawing away the nourishment belonging to the other; for once this nourishment is split into fragments, as in famine and scarcity, all the plants alike will necessarily grow weak throughout, and either will become altogether barren from complete failure to bear, or, having grown weak beforehand from want, will never produce noble fruit.
Third, so that the fertile earth should not be crushed under the heaviest burdens, on the one hand by the continuous and overlapping density of what is sown and grows in the same place, and on the other by the doubling of the yield of fruit. For it is enough for the owner to take one yearly tribute from a single piece of land, just as a king takes one from a city; but to attempt to collect several tributes is the work of excessive greed for money, by which even the ordinances of nature are overturned.
For this reason the law might say to those who have resolved to sow their vineyards out of greed for gain: "Do not become worse than kings who have subdued cities and territories by arms and campaigns, who, out of forethought for the future and at the same time out of consideration for their subjects, think it right to collect a single yearly tribute, being on their guard against reducing them, in a short space of time, to utter and complete destitution.
But if you exact from the same soil, in spring, the tribute of barley and wheat, and in summer the tribute of tree-fruit, you will break its neck under a double burden; for it will fail you, in all likelihood, like an athlete who is not allowed to catch his breath and gather strength again for the beginning of a new contest.
But you seem to forget with ease those provisions of mine made for the common good; for if you had remembered my institution concerning the seventh year, by which I judged it right that the sacred land should be released, worn out by none of the labors of farming, on account of the toils it had undergone over the six years, bearing fruit each year in its season according to the ordinances of nature -- would you not, in youthful recklessness and grasping greed, have devised new sowings, planting even the land given to trees, and especially the vine-bearing land, with a second crop, so that you might, by a double and doubly unjust income each year, swell your estates through love of money, that lawless desire, hoarding up silver?"
For the very same person would not tolerate his own fields being left fallow in the seventh year without bringing in revenue, for the sake of restoring the exhausted land -- and yet he burdens and oppresses it with a double load.
It was necessary, then, for me to declare that the produce of such holdings -- both the fruit of the orchard and the fruit of the sown crop -- is unconsecrated and impure, because the life-breath animating the fertile earth is, in a manner of speaking, throttled and strangled, and because the owner, in dealing with the gifts of God, does violence and runs riot, unleashing his unjust desires upon it without setting any limit or measure to them."
Is it not worth falling in love with instructions of this kind, which from far off check and restrain the frenzy of human greed? For the private individual who has unlearned, in dealing with plants, the taking of unjust profit -- if he should lay hold of greater affairs and become a king -- will apply the same habit toward men and women alike, exacting no double tribute nor breaking the necks of his subjects with double levies; for the habit ingrained by long familiarity is enough to soften hard characters and, in a sense, to train and mold them toward better patterns -- and the better patterns are those which the soul stamps with the seal of justice.
These are the laws he lays down for each individual. But there are other, more general commands, which he proclaims in common to the whole nation, exhorting them as to how they must conduct themselves not only toward friends and allies, but also toward those who revolt from an alliance.
"For if," he says, "they shut themselves up quickly within their walls and offer resistance, let your young men, well armed and equipped for war, march out and, having thrown a camp around the city in a circle, wait watchfully, granting nothing to anger in advance of reasoning, so that they may set about what must be done with greater firmness and steadiness. Let them then at once send heralds to invite them beforehand
to a settlement, and at the same time to show the formidable strength of the arrayed force; and if, repenting of their recent uprising, they yield and turn toward peace, let them gladly accept the terms of truce;
for peace, even if it is very costly, is more profitable than war. But if they persist in their madness, emboldened and relying also on the invincible alliance of justice, let the besiegers press their siege-engines against the walls, and then, having broken open sections of them, let them charge in together in a mass, and, striking unerringly with their spears and cutting down without mercy, wheeling about with their swords, let them defend themselves by inflicting what these people intended to suffer, until they have laid low, man for man, the whole opposing army.
Then, having taken the silver and gold and the rest of the spoil, let them set the city on fire, so that it may never again be able to recover its breath, rise up, and rebel -- and also as a warning, to instill fear in neighboring peoples, since human beings are taught moderation by the sufferings of others. But let them release the young women and the wives, expecting them to suffer none of the violence that war inflicts, since they have been granted mercy on account of their natural weakness."
From this it is clear that the nation of the Jews is bound by treaty and friendly toward all who share the same disposition, and is peaceable in its intentions, yet not so contemptible as to yield, out of cowardice, to those who use force unjustly; but when it goes forth to defend itself, it distinguishes between those who live by treachery and those who do the opposite.
For to slaughter indiscriminately, even those who have done the least wrong or none at all, I would call the mark of a savage and untamed soul, and to treat women as an addition to a war waged by men -- women whose life is by nature peaceable and confined to the household -- is likewise the mark of such a soul.
He instills such a passion for justice in those who live under his constitution that he does not even allow the fruitful land of a hostile city to be ravaged by men cutting down its trees to destroy its produce.
"Why," he says, "do you bear a grudge against things that have no soul, whose nature is gentle and which produce gentle fruits? Does a tree, my friend, display the hostility of an enemy at war, that in return for what it offers you it should be made ready to be torn up by its very roots?"
On the contrary, it does good, supplying the victors with an abundance of necessities and of the means to a life of comfort. For it is not men alone who pay tribute to their masters, but plants too, bringing their more useful produce according to the seasons of the year, without which life is not possible."
But let there be no sparing of trees that are barren and unfruitful, and of all timber that grows wild, for those who wish to cut them for palisades and stakes and pointed stockades for trenches, and, when the need arises, for the construction of ladders and wooden siege-towers; for it is to such uses, and others like them, that these trees might fittingly be put.
So much, then, has been said concerning what pertains to justice. But justice itself — what poet or prose-writer could worthily sing its praise, standing as it does above every commendation and every encomium? At any rate, one thing alone, the most venerable of its excellences, its noble birth, would be praise enough in itself, even if a person were to pass over everything else and remain silent.
For equality, as those who have precisely studied nature have handed down to us, is the mother of justice. And equality is unshadowed light — the sun, if the truth must be told, of the intelligible realm — since its opposite, inequality, in which there is the one who exceeds and the one who is exceeded, is the beginning and source of darkness.
Equality has ordered well all things, both in heaven and on earth, by laws and ordinances that cannot be moved. For who does not know that days are measured against nights, and nights against days, by the sun, in an equality of proportionate intervals?
The equinoxes that occur each year, called by the name of what happens at them, the spring equinox and the autumn equinox, nature has made so plain that even the most unmusical of people perceive the equality, in their magnitudes, of days against nights.
And what of the moon's circuits, as it runs its double course from conjunction to full light and from fullness back to conjunction — are these not measured by an equality of intervals? For by as much and to whatever degree its waxings occur, by just so much and to the same degree do its wanings occur, in both aspects of its quantity, that of its number of days and that of its magnitude of light.
And just as equality is honored above all in the purest of substances, heaven, so too it is honored in the neighboring element, air; for the year being divided into four parts called the seasons, the air by nature turns and changes in its turnings and changes, displaying an order that cannot be perceived amid what looks like disorder. For being distinguished by an equal number of months into winter and spring, summer and autumn, three to each season, it completes the year, which, just as its very name indicates, contains all things within itself as it comes full circle, and could not have accomplished this in any other way had it not apportioned itself according to the seasons of the year.
Equality extends from the heavenly and celestial realms down to the things of earth, sending up on high the pure nature that belongs to itself, akin to the ether, while dispatching downward, like the sun's own radiance, to the earth, a second brightness.
For whatever among our affairs is out of tune is the work of inequality, and whatever has the order that is fitting is the work of equality — which, in the substance of the universe, to speak in the most proper sense, is order itself; in cities it is the most law-abiding and best of constitutions, democracy; and again, in bodies it is health, and in souls it is nobility of character; for inequality, conversely, is the cause of diseases and of vices.
Even the longest-lived among us would run out of time were he to wish to recount all the praises of equality and of the justice it has begotten. For this reason it seems better to me, content with what has been said, for the sake of stirring the memory of those who love learning, to leave the rest inscribed on their souls, as sacred images set in a most holy place.

======== On the Virtues ========

Having first spoken of justice and the matters that pertain most urgently to it, I now move on to the next virtue, courage — not the raving battle-madness that most people take for courage, with anger as its counselor, but the true knowledge of it.
Some men, puffed up with rashness and aided by bodily strength, stationed in full armor for war, have cut down countless thousands of their opponents in the flower of youth, winning a name unfitting to them though sounding fair — “valor” — and have been judged especially glorious in victory by those who assess such things, though by nature and by practice they have become savage and beastlike, thirsting for human blood.
But there are others who, though confined to their houses, their bodies wasted away by long illness or by the toil of old age, are yet healthy and youthful in the better part of the soul, full of high purpose and brimming with the boldest courage; though they only dream of ever touching weapons of defense, by the most public-spirited proposals of good counsel they have often set upright again, both the private affairs of individuals and the common affairs of their homelands when these had fallen, applying unyielding and unbending reasoning about what is truly advantageous.
These, then, are the ones who labor at true courage, being practitioners of wisdom; but those others live out its false namesake through ignorance, a disease hard to cure, which one might properly call rashness — just as, they say, a counterfeit coin bears a stamp that mimics the true image.
Not a few other things in human life are acknowledged to be hard to bear — poverty, disrepute, disability, and the many forms that disease takes. Faced with these, the shallow-minded grow soft, unable even to be roused out of their timidity; but those who are full of good sense and nobility strip for the contest with endurance and vigorous resistance, holding the threats and menacing gestures of such troubles to be a great laughing-matter and object of mockery. Against poverty they set wealth in array — not the blind wealth, but the sharp-sighted kind, whose treasures and possessions the soul by nature stores up.
For poverty has thrown down countless numbers, who fell like exhausted athletes, unmanned and made soft; but before the judgment seat of truth, not a single person is truly poor who has as provider the indestructible wealth of nature: air, the first and most necessary and continuous nourishment, breathed in without interruption by day and by night; then also abundant springs and the ever-flowing streams not only of winter torrents but of rivers fed from their own sources, for use in drinking; then, for food, the yield of every kind of fruit and the many species of trees that forever bear their yearly harvest. Of these no one is in need, but everywhere all people enjoy a great abundance.
But if some, holding the wealth of nature as nothing, pursue instead the wealth of empty opinion, leaning on a blind guide in place of one who sees, and following a maimed leader on their
journey, they are bound of necessity to fall. Now the wealth that serves as bodyguard to the body, being nature's invention and gift, has already been spoken of; but the more august wealth, which belongs not to everyone but only to men who are truly reverent and touched by the divine, must now be disclosed. This wealth is supplied by wisdom, through logical, ethical, and physical doctrines and theorems, from which the virtues spring — virtues that cut away the soul's extravagance, engendering instead a love of contentment and of wanting little, in accordance with the soul's likeness to God.
For God is in need of nothing, wanting for nothing, but is himself utterly self-sufficient; whereas the worthless man is in need of much, always thirsting after what he lacks for the sake of an insatiable and unquenchable desire, which he fans and kindles like fire, stretching it over everything both small and great. But the man of worth needs little, standing on the border between immortal and mortal nature: having neediness because of his mortal body, but not having much need because of a soul that reaches after immortality.
In this way they set wealth against poverty; against disrepute they set good repute. For praise, having its foundation in nobility of character and flowing from it as from an ever-running spring, does not consort with the mob of unexamined men who are accustomed to expose the soul's irregularities in unsteady speech — men who sometimes, cheapening praise for shameful gain, do not blush to speak against those who are chosen for excellence. But the number of such praiseworthy people is small; for virtue is not abundant among mortal kind.
Against the maiming of the senses, too — living alongside which countless people have died before their time, because they could find no remedy to ward off the harm — practical wisdom stands opposed, the ruling power within us, which gives eyes to the understanding; and this understanding, they say, altogether and in every way surpasses the sharp-sightedness of the body's eyes.
For bodily eyes gaze only upon the surfaces of visible things, and need light from outside as well; but the understanding penetrates even into the depths of bodies, examining and surveying each of their parts thoroughly through and through, and it grasps also the natures of incorporeal things, which sense-perception is powerless to observe. It comprehends, one might say, nearly the whole range of sharp-sightedness that belongs to the eye, without needing any borrowed light, being itself a star and, in a sense, an image and likeness of the heavenly bodies.
… they cause harm. Health of soul is the good blending of the powers of spirit, desire, and reason, when the rational power is dominant and, like a charioteer, holds the reins over each of the other two as if they were unruly horses.
The name proper to this health is self-control, which brings about the safety of the ruling faculty within us; for when that faculty is often in danger of being submerged and swept under by the flood of the passions, self-control does not allow it to go under, but draws it up and lifts it aloft, giving it life and breath and, in a manner of speaking, making it immortal.
All that has been said amounts to instructions and teachings inscribed in many places throughout the legislation, persuading the compliant more gently and admonishing the more unruly more forcefully, concerning matters of the body and of external things — teaching them to hold as their one end living according to virtue, while also striving zealously after all the other things that lead toward it.
And had I not already gone through each of these points earlier, in the discussions on freedom from vanity, I would attempt at present to draw the matter out at greater length, weaving and stringing together what seem to lie scattered in different places.
But since I have already spoken of it, I do not think it right to repeat myself now that the occasion for it has passed. Those, however, who do not shrink from the effort but earnestly apply themselves to reading the books that come before this one, ought to understand that nearly everything said there about freedom from vanity concerns courage as well, since it takes a soul that is vigorous, noble, and thoroughly braced with sinew to look down on everything that vanity habitually invests with false dignity, to the ruin of a life lived toward truth.
So great is the law's earnestness and ambition to train and brace the soul for courage that it even legislated what sort of clothing one ought to wear, forbidding a man in the strongest terms to put on a woman's garment, so that not even a trace or shadow of femininity might attach itself, to the harm of the male line. For it wills, ever following nature, to legislate that things proper and akin to one another should be so all the way down to the smallest and, because of their triviality, seemingly most insignificant details.
For since it saw the bodily forms of man and woman stamped, as it were, in outline, unlike one another, and since a different way of life had been allotted to each of the two kinds — to the one the household, to the other public affairs — and likewise in all other matters that were not themselves works of nature but were, in keeping with nature, discoveries of sound judgment, it judged it advantageous to legislate; and these were matters of diet, of dress, and anything of similar kind.
For it held that the man who is truly a man should show his manliness even in these things, and especially in matters of dress, which he wears continually by day and by night, and which ought therefore to bear no reminder of unmanliness.
In just the same way, having trained the woman too in the adornments that befit her, it forbade her to put on a man's clothing, guarding from a distance equally against effeminate men and mannish women; for it knew that, just as in buildings, once a single stone is removed the rest no longer stand as they did.
Furthermore, since human affairs unfold within two occasions, peace and war, the virtues can be seen tested in both. Of the others we have spoken before, and will speak again should the need arise; but for now courage must be examined in earnest, since its works in peacetime the legislation has celebrated in many places, ever aiming at the right occasion — matters we have already recalled in their proper places — while its works in war we shall now take as our starting point, after first stating this.
Whenever it draws up the roll of soldiers, it does not think it right to summon all the young men, but excuses some, adding reasonable grounds for exemption from military service: for instance, those who are cowering and fearful, who are likely to be overcome by an innate softness and to instill fear in their fellow soldiers.
For a neighbor's evil has a way of rubbing off well onto the person nearby, especially in war, when reasoning is thrown into confusion by anguish and is unable to grasp the true nature of events with precision; for at such a time people are accustomed to call cowardice caution, fearfulness foresight, and unmanliness safety, clothing the most shameful acts in seemly and dignified names.
So then, in order that one's own side not be harmed by the unmanliness of those who go to war, and that the enemy's side not gain the advantage by scornfully overpowering the ignoble, knowing that an idle crowd is not helpful but an obstacle to success, the law drove out the timid and those who collapse into cowardice — just as, I think, no general imposes on the physically sick the necessity of fighting, granting exemption instead for their weakness.
Cowardice too is a kind of disease, and a heavier one than those of the body, since it destroys the powers of the soul. For bodily diseases happen to have only a brief period at their height, but cowardice is an evil that grows up with a person, attached—no less, indeed more—than the united parts of the body, from earliest age to extreme old age, unless God should happen to heal it; for all things are possible to God.
Moreover, he does not call up all the boldest men either, even if they are extremely robust in both body and soul and are willing to fight in the front line and face danger first; rather, having praised their resolve for displaying a public-spirited, eager, and undaunted character, he investigates whether they are bound by certain necessary causes, whose pull is powerful.
"For if someone," he says, "has recently built a house and has not yet had time to move into it, or has planted a young vineyard, setting the cuttings into the ground himself, and has not yet had the season of its fruit, or has become betrothed to a virgin and has not yet married her, let him be excused from all military service"—showing both humanity and strategic sense together,
in granting this exemption for two reasons. One, since the outcome of wars is uncertain, so that others should not effortlessly seize what these men have labored for; for it seemed a hard thing that a man should not be able to enjoy his own property, but that one man should build and another dwell in the house, one man plant and another who did not plant gather the fruit, one man court a woman and another who did not court her marry her—since it is not right to render empty the hopes of those who expect good things in life;
the other reason was that men serving with their bodies should not lag behind in their souls; for their minds are necessarily strained toward the longing for the enjoyment of what has drawn them away. Just as the hungry or thirsty, when food or drink comes into view somewhere, chase after it and run to it without turning back, eager to partake of it, so those who have labored for a lawful wife or the acquisition of a house or a plot of land, and who suppose in hope that they have all but reached the moment of enjoying each of these, are thrown into agitation when that enjoyment is taken from them, so that, though present in body, they are not present in the better part, the soul,
through which right action comes about—or rather, its opposite. He therefore does not think that these men, and others like them, should be enrolled on the military roll, but only those in whom no pre-existing passion lurks and undermines them, so that with free and unconstrained impulses they may throw themselves against dangers without excuse. For just as a full suit of armor is of no use to a body that is weak or maimed, since it will be unable to bear it and will cast it off, in the same way some passion of a suffering soul, out of tune with present circumstances, will ruin even a robust body.
Looking to these considerations, he judges not only the captains and generals and the other commanders of the army, but each of the soldiers as well, testing how each stands with regard to bodily fitness and steadiness of reasoning: examining the body, whether it is whole, whether it is entirely healthy throughout, whether it is well fitted in all its parts and limbs for the postures and movements appropriate to each; and examining the soul, whether it is full of confidence and boldness, whether it is undaunted and full of noble good sense, whether it is ambitious for honor and prefers a death with glory to an inglorious life.
For each of these qualities, taken by itself alone, is—to tell the truth—a power in its own right; but if they should all come together at once, they will display an invincible strength that has no rival by a wide margin, overpowering the enemy without bloodshed.
The sacred books contain the clearest proof of what has been said. There is a very populous nation, the Arabs, whose ancient name was the Midianites. These people were hostile to the Hebrews for no other reason than that the Hebrews had been allotted as their portion the worship and honor of the highest and most ancient Cause, as its maker and father of all things; and the Midianites contrived every device and made every attempt to turn them away from the honor of the One who truly is, and to transform them from holiness to impiety—for they supposed that in this way they would easily gain the upper hand—since after saying and doing countless things they had grown weary, like men at the point of death who have given up hope of safety, and so they devised some such stratagem as this.
Having summoned the most beautiful of their women, they said to them: "You see how uncountable the multitude of the Hebrews is. But a harder fortification to breach than their multitude is their unanimity and concord; and the cause of that concord is the highest and greatest thing of all, their belief concerning the one God, from which, as from a single spring, they draw a unifying and indissoluble friendship for one another."
"Man is captured by pleasure, and above all by intercourse with a woman. And you are the most outstanding of women; beauty by nature is a thing that draws men on, and youth easily slips into incontinence."
"Do not fear the names of prostitution or adultery as things that will bring disgrace, but set against them the benefits that will come of the deed, through which you will transform a day's ill repute into ageless and unending glory—giving up your bodies only in appearance, as a clever device and stratagem against enemies, while keeping your souls virgin, and so sealing your purity for the future as well."
"And this war will hold the newest kind of glory, being won through women rather than through men. For our own race, we admit, will suffer no defeat in it, since our opponents are superior to us in every respect that bears on battle; but yours will bring victory entirely, and—the greatest good of all—prizes of valor without danger. For without bloodshed, or rather without even raising dust, you will win the day merely by being seen, at the very first appearance."
Hearing this, women who had never even dreamed of a pure life, untasted of proper education, gave their consent, having all along feigned a character of chastity as an act; and adorning themselves with costly clothing and necklaces and all the other things with which a woman is accustomed to be decked out, and making their natural beauty still more attractive through careful grooming—for the contest was no small one: the hunting of young men not easily hunted—they came forward into full view.
Then, drawing near, with courtesan-like glances, a flood of chatter, and wanton postures and movements, they lured the small fraction of the young men whose characters were unballasted and unsteady; and having, through the disgrace of their bodies, hooked the souls of those who came to them, they invited them to unholy sacrifices and unlawful libations offered to gods made by human hands, and so alienated them from the worship of the one God who truly is.
Having accomplished this, they brought the good news to their men; and they would have gone on to draw in others too, those not so very steadfast, had not God, the benefactor and merciful one, taking pity on the suffering, checked those who had lost their senses—there were twenty-four thousand of them—by an immediate punishment, and, when they were in danger of being swept away as if by a torrent, reined them back by admonishing them through fear.
The leader of the nation, pouring into their ears the doctrines concerning piety and thereby steering the souls of his subjects toward them, chose out a thousand men from each tribe, selecting the best, and enrolled them, intending to exact a penalty for the ambush which the Midianites had contrived through their women—men who had hoped to bring down the whole multitude from the height of holiness and to corrupt it, but had been able to corrupt only
those already mentioned. This small number, arrayed against many tens of thousands, employing both skill and boldness together, each man as if an entire host in himself, charged contemptuously into the massed ranks, and, cutting down all in their path, emptied out the tightly packed companies and whatever forces lay in wait to fill the gaps left by the fallen ranks, so that by a single onset they laid low many tens of thousands and left nothing of the youth arrayed against them; and they killed also the women who had joined in the men's unholy designs, while taking captive the young virgins, out of pity for their innocent age.
And having won so great a war, they lost none of their own men; rather, as many and of whatever quality as had gone out to battle returned unwounded and whole—or rather, to tell the truth, with double their former strength; for the joy of victory produced a power no less than what they had had before.
The cause of all this was nothing other than their eagerness to undertake, at the risk of danger, the contest on behalf of piety—a contest in which God himself fights on the front line, an unconquerable ally, suggesting good counsels to their minds and instilling the mightiest strength into their bodies.
Proof of this alliance from God lies both in the fact that many tens of thousands were captured by so few, and in the fact that not one of the enemy escaped, while not one of their own friends was killed, their number and bodily strength remaining undiminished.
That is why in the Exhortations he says: "If you practice justice, holiness, and the other virtues, you will live a life free of war and altogether peaceful, or, if war should arise, you will easily overpower your enemies, since God commands the army invisibly, whose concern it is to save the good with all his might."
"So do not be struck with terror and afraid, whether well-armed infantry and cavalry together attack in many tens of thousands, or whether the enemy, having seized strongholds and fortified positions in advance, hold the ground, or whether they are supplied with unstinting resources—even if you lack every advantage of abundance that they possess: allies, weapons, favorable positions, supplies."
"For those things, like a merchant vessel laden with goods of every kind, a sudden gust of wind has often struck and capsized and destroyed; while for the cheap and meager, like ears of grain already shriveled from drought and lack of rain, God, sprinkling and snowing gently upon them, has supplied saving powers enabling them to be revived and brought to full fruit."
From this it is clear that one must hold fast to justice and holiness; for those with whom the Divine is at peace are supremely blessed, while those against whom it is hostile are utterly wretched. Let so much be said, sufficiently for the present, concerning courage. On Humanity.
Next we must examine philanthropy — humanity's love — the closest kinsman of piety, its sister and, in truth, its twin. The prophet of the laws loved this virtue as, I think, no one else has, for he knew it to be a highway leading straight to holiness; he trained everyone under him and welded them together into a fellowship, setting up his own life like an archetype painting, a fine example.
Now the deeds he performed from earliest youth to old age for the care and protection of every individual and of all people together I have already set out in the two treatises I wrote on the life of Moses. But it is worth recalling one or two things he accomplished at the very end of his life; for they are proofs of that continuous, unbroken nobility of character which he had stamped upon his soul, unconfused, in an impression shaped by a divine seal.
When the appointed term of his mortal life was about to end, and he learned from unmistakable oracles of his departure from this world, he did not imitate other kings or private citizens, whose one concern and prayer is to leave their children as heirs. Although he was the father of two sons, he left the rule to neither of them, overcome by no favor of kinship or affection for his own household. And even if there were grounds for suspicion regarding his sons, he was certainly not at a loss for nephews of high character, who had won the highest priesthood as the prize of virtue.
But perhaps he did not think it right to draw them away from the divine service, or perhaps he reasoned, as is likely, that the same men cannot competently administer both offices, priesthood and kingship, since the one professes the service of God and the other the care of human beings. Or perhaps he did not deem himself worthy to be the judge of so great a matter; for to test who is well fitted by nature for rule is a task belonging almost to divine power alone, for it alone can easily discern a man's character.
The clearest proof of what I have said would be this. He had a friend, almost a companion from his earliest years, named Joshua. Nothing of the sort that usually creates friendship among other people brought about this friendship, but a heavenly, pure, and truly divine love, from which every virtue happens to spring. This man shared his roof and his table with him, except when solitude was required of him as he became inspired and spoke oracles. Joshua rendered every other kind of service too, always outstanding in the eyes of the people — all but
being a deputy governor and administering the affairs of leadership jointly with him. Yet even though he had gained, over a long span of time, an exact proof of Joshua's nobility in both word and deed, and — the most essential thing — his goodwill toward the nation, Moses did not think it right to leave even him as his successor, fearing lest he might hold a false opinion, deeming good a man who was not truly so; for the criteria of human judgment are by nature somewhat dim and unreliable.
For this reason, not trusting his own judgment beforehand, he prays fervently and beseeches God, the overseer of the invisible soul, who alone can perceive the mind with precision, to choose by merit the man most fit for leadership, one who will care for his subjects as a father would. And raising to heaven his hands, pure and, one might say more figuratively, virgin, he says:
‘Let the Lord, God of the spirits and of all flesh, look out a man over the multitude, for the care and oversight, a shepherd who will lead them blamelessly, so that the nation may not become like a scattered flock that has no herdsman.’
And yet who among those who heard this prayer at the time would not have been astounded, and said, ‘What are you saying, master? Do you not have legitimate sons? Do you not have nephews? Leave the rule above all to your sons — for they are by nature the first heirs — and if you reject them, then at least to your nephews.’
‘But if you have judged them too unsuitable as well, preferring the nation to your nearest and dearest kin, still you have a blameless friend who has given proof of perfect virtue to you, the all-wise one. Why then, if the choice is to be made not by lineage but by nobility of character, do you not think him worthy of consideration?’
But he will declare that ‘it is right to make God the judge of all things, and especially of great matters, in which doing well or badly has led countless numbers of people to happiness, or, on the contrary, to misery. And nothing is greater than the office of rule, to which are entrusted the affairs of cities and countries, whatever is at stake in war or in peace. For just as a good voyage requires a pilot's judgment and skill, in the same way, for the good governance of subjects everywhere, there is need of some altogether wise leader.’
‘But wisdom, which is older not only than my own birth but than the birth of the whole world, it is neither right nor possible for anyone else to judge, but only God and those who love it without guile, purely and genuinely.’
‘I learned from my own experience not to judge for the office of rule even one of those who seem fit for it. As for the care and oversight of public affairs, I neither chose it of my own will nor received it after being appointed by any other man, but even when God, through clear oracles and unmistakable pronouncements, plainly declared and commanded me to rule, I drew back, entreating and imploring, looking at the greatness of the task, until, since he commanded repeatedly, I obeyed out of fear.’
‘How then would it not be absurd not to follow the very same footsteps, and, having made use of God as judge when I myself was about to rule, not again to place the appointment of my successor in his hands alone, without human judgment taking any part in it — human judgment, for which what seems likely is closer than what is true? And this all the more since the leadership will not be over some chance nation, but over the most populous of all nations everywhere, one that professes the greatest of professions: supplication to him who truly is, who is the maker and father of all things.’
‘For what accrues to the devotees of the most approved philosophy from philosophy itself, this comes to the Jews through their laws and customs: knowledge of the highest and most ancient cause of all things, having rejected the error concerning gods that come into being. For no created thing is truly God, but only in men's opinion, since it has been deprived of the most essential thing — eternity.’
This, then, is the first and clearest proof of his humanity and faithfulness toward his whole people. But there is another proof, no less than the one just told. For when Joshua, his student and imitator of his admirable character, was judged by merit and by divine criteria to become ruler, Moses did not, as another man might have, grow downcast that his sons or nephews had not been chosen; instead, filled with inexpressible joy,
because the nation was going to have as its guardian a man best in every respect — for he knew that whoever pleases God must of necessity be noble and good — took Joshua by the right hand and led him before the assembled multitude. Showing no apprehension at all about his own death, but instead adding fresh new joys to his old ones, not only in memory of the earlier delights in which he had reveled to the full through every kind of virtue, but also because of his hope of becoming immortal, passing from a perishable life to an imperishable one, with a cheerful countenance, radiant and joyful from the good spirits of his soul, he says:
‘For me, the time has now come to depart from life in the body; but here is the successor to the guardianship over you, chosen by God.’ And he at once recounted to them the oracles that had been given confirming this choice, and they believed them.
And turning to Joshua, he exhorts him to act with manly courage and to be exceedingly strong in giving good counsel, proposing sound judgments and, with unyielding and vigorous reasoning, bringing to completion whatever had been rightly determined. And he said these things perhaps to one who had no need of exhortation, but because he could not contain his affection for his fellow man and his love for his nation, goaded by it in a certain way, he laid bare whatever he thought would be beneficial.
There was also an oracle for him, to encourage his successor and to make him most courageous for the care of the nation, not fearing the weight of the office of rule, so that this might become for future generations a rule and a law for all leaders looking to Moses as their archetypal model, and so that no one would begrudge good counsel to his successors, but rather would train and strengthen their souls with instructions and exhortations.
For the exhortation of a good man has the power to raise up those who have grown discouraged in their thinking, and, lifting them to a height above circumstances and events, to instill and establish in them a noble and undaunted spirit.
Having spoken what was fitting both to his subjects and to the heir of the leadership, he begins to hymn God in song, rendering him the final thanksgiving of his life in the body, in return for the favors — not the ordinary, customary kind, but ever new ones — with which he had been blessed from birth to old age.
And gathering together a divine assembly — the elements of the universe and the most all-embracing parts of the cosmos, earth and heaven, the one the hearth of mortal beings, the other the home of the immortals — he composed his hymns of praise between them, through every form of harmony and concord,
so that both humans and ministering angels might hear it — the former as intimates, for instruction in a like disposition of thanksgiving; the latter as overseers, watching according to their own experience to see whether any part of the song was out of tune, and at the same time doubting whether any man, bound as he was to a perishable body, could in the same way as the sun, the moon, and the all-holy chorus of the other stars, have tuned his soul, like an instrument, to the divine, harmonizing it with heaven and the whole cosmos.
Ranked among the dancers of the upper heaven, the hierophant blended into his thankful hymns to God the genuine feelings of his goodwill toward the nation, among which were reproofs of ancient sins, warnings and correctives suited to the present occasion, and exhortations for the future built on good hopes, which good ends must necessarily follow.
Taking his place among the dancers who circle the heavens, the hierophant blended into his hymns of thanksgiving to God the genuine feelings of his goodwill toward the nation: among these were rebukes for old sins, warnings and correctives suited to the present moment, and exhortations for the future built on good hopes, hopes that must be followed by a happy ending.
When he had completed these dances, woven together as they were with holiness and love of humanity, he began to change from mortal life into immortal existence, and little by little he became aware of the separation of the elements from which he had been compounded, as his body, like an oyster clinging to its shell, was stripped away, while his soul was laid bare and longed for the migration natural to it from this place.
Then, having made ready what was needed for his departure, he did not set out on his journey to that other country before he had, through the summoning of the heads of the tribes, blessed with harmonious prayers all the tribes of the nation, twelve in number; and we must believe that these prayers will be fulfilled, for the one who prayed was beloved of God, and God is the friend of humanity, and those on whose behalf the petitions were made were of noble and well-born stock, ranked in the very highest order, under the generalship of him who is maker and father of all.
The petitions were for the true goods, not only that these might belong to them in their mortal life, but far more that they might belong to them once the soul had been released from the bondage of the flesh. For Moses alone, it seems, from the beginning had conceived of the whole nation as bound to him by a kinship more necessary and far more genuine than kinship of blood,
and had declared it heir of all the good things which human nature can contain: those he himself possessed he gave freely and at once; those he did not yet possess he begged God to supply, knowing that the springs of God's graces flow unceasingly, yet are not opened to all, but only to suppliants; and suppliants are those who love nobility and goodness, to whom it is granted to draw, in their thirst for wisdom, from the most sacred springs.
The proofs, then, of the lawgiver's love of humanity and fellow-feeling, which he displayed both through the good fortune of his own nature and through the guidance of the sacred oracles, have now been shown. We must next speak of the ordinances he laid down for those who came after him, even if not all of them — for that is no easy task — at least those closely related and nearest to his own designs.
For fairness and gentleness are not established by him only in relations among human beings; rather, pouring it out lavishly, he extends it also to the natures of other living creatures and to the varieties of cultivated trees. What he legislated concerning each of these must be told in turn, beginning first with human beings.
He forbids, then, lending at interest to a brother, calling brother not only the one born of the same parents, but anyone who is a fellow-citizen and of the same people, holding it unjust to take interest on money as though it were offspring bred from cattle.
And he urges that this should not make one draw back and become more reluctant to give assistance, but rather, with open hands and open minds, to grant favors above all to those in need, reckoning that a kindness is itself, in a sense, a loan, one that will be repaid at a better time, without compulsion, by the voluntary disposition of the recipient; but if people are unwilling to make a gift outright, then at least to lend most readily and eagerly, expecting to receive back nothing beyond the original sum.
For in this way the poor would not become more destitute by being forced to pay back more than they had received, nor would the lenders be wronged, since they would recover only what they had put forward — and yet not only that; for along with the principal, in place of the interest they had refused to take, they receive in addition the finest and most valuable of human things: gentleness, fellowship, kindness, magnanimity, good repute, good name. What possession can rival these?
The Great King himself will appear utterly destitute when measured against a single virtue; for his wealth is lifeless, buried in treasuries and the recesses of the earth, whereas the wealth of virtue is in the ruling part of the soul. Indeed, even the purest part of his substance lays claim to it — the heaven, and God who begat all things. Further, we must reckon as poverty masquerading as wealth the affluence of money-lenders and usurers, who, though they seem to be kings dripping with gold, have not even in a dream beheld the wealth that truly sees.
There are some who have carried wickedness to such an excess that, having no money, they lend food, expecting to receive back more than they gave. Such men would very quickly turn a request for charity into an occasion for creating famine in the midst of abundance and plenty, deriving profit from the hunger of wretched human beings, all but weighing out their food and drink on a scale, lest the balance tip against them.
To those, then, who are to share in his sacred commonwealth he necessarily commands that they turn away from such ways of gaining, for these are the practices of a soul that is slavish and utterly ignoble in nature, one that has changed into savagery and the character of wild beasts.
Among the ordinances tending toward humanity is also this one which he lays down: to pay a poor man's wages on the very same day, not only because it is just that one who has rendered the service for which he was hired should receive without delay the wages due for his labor, but also because, as some have said, the craftsman or the porter, living from day to day, wearing himself out in his whole body like a beast of burden, has set his hope on his wages; if he receives them at once, he rejoices and is strengthened, and works the next day with double eagerness; but if he does not receive them, besides his great distress, his energies are dissolved by grief and he collapses, so that he is unable to meet the demands of his work day by day.
Again he says: let the creditor not enter the house of the debtor to seize by force some pledge or security for the loan, but let him stand outside at the door and wait, calling gently for it to be brought out. And the debtors, if they have the means, should not hold back, since it is fitting that the one should not use his power to indulge his own arrogance in insulting his debtors, while the others should offer worthy pledges as a reminder that what belongs to another must be returned.
Who indeed would not admire his ordinance concerning reapers and grape-gatherers? For he commands that at harvest time one should not gather up the fallen ears of grain, nor cut every part of the standing crop, but leave some portion of the field uncut, thereby making the wealthy at once magnanimous and generous, by their giving up something of their own rather than grasping at everything and gathering and carrying home to store up as treasure, and at the same time making the poor more cheerful, since, lacking property of their own, he allows them to enter into the fields of their fellow tribesmen and reap what is left as though it were their own.
And again at the season of the vintage he commands the landowners, as they gather in the grapes, neither to collect the fallen berries nor to go over the vineyards a second time. The same ordinance he gives to those who gather olives, acting like the most affectionate and most just of fathers, whose children do not all enjoy the same good fortune, but some live in abundance while others have come down to the depths of poverty; these he pities and calls, out of compassion, to share in the possessions of their brothers, as though what belongs to others were their own — not shamelessly, but for the correction of their want, and not merely to make up for the loss of fruit but also, so far as it seems fitting, of property itself.
But there are some whose minds have grown so filthy, in their greed for silver and their mortal sickness for every kind of gain, giving no thought to how it might be obtained, that they go over the vineyards and olive-groves a second time and strip bare the fields that bear barley and wheat, thereby exposing their own slavish and ignoble pettiness of soul, and at the same time committing impiety.
For they themselves have contributed little toward the cultivation, while nature has supplied most of what is necessary for fruitfulness and abundant growth: timely rains, good mixtures of climate, the continual gentle dews that nourish the growing plants, life-giving breezes, and the harmless succession of the yearly seasons, so that neither does summer scorch nor cold freeze, nor do the turnings of spring and autumn harm what is coming to birth.
And though they know and constantly see nature bringing all this to completion and bestowing it with lavish grace, they nonetheless dare to appropriate her benefits to themselves, and, as though they were the cause of everything, share nothing with anyone, practicing hatred of humanity together with impiety. Since these people have not, of their own free choice, labored to cultivate virtue, he corrects and disciplines them against their will by sacred laws, which the good man obeys willingly, and the wicked man obeys unwillingly.
The laws command that tithes be given to the priests as first-fruits from grain, wine, oil, tame cattle, and wool, and that from the produce of the fields and other tree-fruits, in proportion to one's holdings, offerings be brought in full baskets together with songs composed for God, songs which the most sacred books record and preserve inscribed in writing; and further, that the firstborn of oxen, sheep, and goats not be counted among one's own in the herds, but that these too be reckoned as first-fruits, so that people, by growing accustomed on the one hand to honor the divine, and on the other not to seek gain from everything, may be adorned with piety and love of humanity, the leading virtues among all the virtues.
Again, he says, if you see a beast of burden belonging to a relative, a friend, or, in general, anyone you know, wandering astray in the wilderness, lead it back and restore it; and if its owner happens to be far away, keep it safe among your own animals until he returns and receives back a deposit that he never gave you, but one which you yourself discovered and restore for the sake of the natural fellowship among human beings.
As for the laws concerning the seventh year, by which the land as a whole must be released and left fallow, and the poor may fearlessly go onto the estates of the rich to gather the fruit that has grown of its own accord, a gift of nature — are these not kind and full of love for humanity?
Let the landowners enjoy six years, he says, in return for what they have acquired and cultivated, but let the destitute and the propertyless enjoy the one seventh year, with no work of husbandry being carried out at all; for it would be unjust that some should labor while others reap the fruit. Rather, so that the land might in a sense be left ownerless, with no cultivation touching it, the graces coming from God alone should be complete and whole, meeting those in need halfway.
And what of the ordinances concerning the fiftieth year — do they not surpass every measure of love for humanity? And who, among those who have not merely tasted the legislation with the tips of their lips, but have feasted on it more fully and reveled in doctrines at once most delightful and most beautiful, would not say so?
For in it are accomplished the same provisions as in the seventh year, but it has taken on something still greater: the restoration of one's own properties, which through unwanted circumstances people had ceded to others. For he does not allow full and permanent ownership of what belongs to another, blocking the paths toward greed in order to check ambition, that scheming cause of every evil; nor did he think it right that the original holders should be stripped entirely of what was their own, paying the penalty of poverty — poverty which it is not right to punish, but necessary to pity.
There are also countless other particular ordinances, kind and humane, concerning fellow countrymen; having mentioned these sufficiently in earlier treatises, I shall be content with what has just been said, which I have added here opportunely, by way of example.
Having legislated concerning fellow countrymen, he thinks that converts too deserve to be honored with every privilege, since they have left behind their kin by blood, their homeland, their customs, their shrines, their images of the gods, and the honors and dignities these confer, and have undertaken the noble migration from mythical fabrications to the clear evidence of truth and the reverence of the one God who truly exists.
He therefore commands members of the nation to love the converts, not merely as friends and kinsmen but as themselves, in both body and soul: in body, by acting together so far as possible, and in soul, by sharing the same griefs and joys, so that, though divided into separate parts, they may seem to be a single living creature, their fellowship producing a union that is harmonious and organic.
I need say no more about food and drink and clothing and the other necessities of daily life, which the law directs the native-born to give to converts; for all these follow naturally from the ordinances of goodwill enjoined on one who loves the convert just as he loves himself.
Still further extending and driving forward humaneness — a thing by nature attractive — he legislates also concerning resident aliens, requiring that those who have become migrants in times of need pay some honor to their hosts: full honor to those who have treated them well and received them hospitably, but a more modest honor if they provided nothing beyond mere reception; for simply to find anchorage in a city to which one has no claim, or rather merely to set foot on foreign soil, is by itself a sufficient gift to those unable to dwell in their own land.
But going even beyond the very bounds of fair dealing, he thinks one ought to bear no grudge even against hosts who have treated one badly, since, even if not in their actions, they at least bear the name of hospitable. He says outright: ‘You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a resident alien in Egypt’ (Deuteronomy 23:7).
And yet what evil did the Egyptians leave undone that they did not inflict upon the nation, forever weaving new cruelties into old ones with ever-fresh inventions of savagery? Yet nonetheless, since at the beginning they received them without barring their cities or making the country impassable to those who came, let them have, he says, the privilege owed to hospitality: a treaty of friendship.
And if any of them should wish to change over to the Jewish constitution, they must not be irreconcilably driven off as the children of enemies, but must be received in such a way that even a third generation may be called into the assembly (ibid. v. 8) and given a share in the divine words, in which it is right that even the native-born and highborn should be initiated.
These, then, are the laws he lays down for those who receive resident aliens. But he lays down other kind provisions, full of gentleness, concerning enemies as well. He requires that even when they are already at the gates, standing at the walls in full armor and setting siege engines against them, they should not yet be counted as enemies until, after sending heralds, they have called them to peace — so that, if the enemy yield, the two sides may find the greatest good, friendship; but if they resist more stubbornly, the Israelites, having gained justice as their ally, may advance to their defense in hope of victory.
If, however, from among the spoils of war you come to desire a beautiful woman, do not, he says, vent your passion upon her as upon a mere captive, but rather, taking a more humane pity on the change in her fortune, lighten her misfortune, and reshape everything for the better.
You shall lighten her burden by shaving the hair of her head, cutting her nails, and stripping off the clothing she was wearing when taken captive; and by allowing her thirty days, permitting her to mourn and weep freely for her father and mother and the rest of her family from whom she has been parted — whether they are dead, or enduring in slavery misfortunes worse than death. After this, you shall come together with her lawfully as your wife.
For a woman who is to enter a man's bed, not for hire like a courtesan trafficking the bloom of her youth, but out of love for the man who joins with her or for the begetting of children, deserves to be honored with the sacred rites belonging to lawful marriage.
He has arranged each point exceedingly well. First, he did not allow desire to run unbridled, throwing off restraint, but curbed its violence by imposing a delay of thirty days. Second, he puts the love to the test, to see whether it is a frenzied and fickle thing, wholly given over to passion, or whether it shares in the purer kind, tempered by reason; for reason will shackle desire, allowing it to work no outrage, but making it wait out the appointed month.
Third, he shows pity for the captive woman: if she is a virgin, because no parents give her away in arranging the union she would most have wished for; if she is a widow, because, deprived of her lawful husband, she will now have to make trial of another — and this while the fear of a master hangs over her, even if he practices equality; for what is always subject fears the power of the one who rules, however gentle he may be.
If, however, a man, having satisfied his desire and grown weary of it, no longer wishes to share intimacy with the captive woman, the lawgiver does not so much punish him as admonish and correct him for the improvement of his character; for he commands him neither to sell her nor to keep her any longer as a slave, but to grant her freedom, and also to grant her an unthreatened departure from the household, so that, when another woman comes in out of the rivalry that is natural in such cases, she may not suffer some irreparable harm through jealousy, especially once the master has been led captive by newer charms and has grown indifferent to the older ones.
Pouring one command after another into ears eager to listen, he further enjoins gentleness: if the pack animals of enemies, weighed down by their burdens, should collapse under the load, one must not pass by, but must help lift them up and raise them again — teaching us from afar not to rejoice over the unwanted misfortunes of those who have made themselves our enemies, since he knew malicious pleasure at another's harm to be a bitter, resentful passion, at once the sibling and the rival of envy: sibling, because both spring from passion and both are aroused by the same circumstances, almost following one upon the other; but rival, because the one produces pain at the good things of one's neighbor, while the other produces pleasure at his misfortunes.
And if, he says, you see the pack animal of some enemy wandering astray, set aside the kindling of your quarrel, lead the beast off with a graver disposition, and return it to him. For you will benefit him no more than yourself, since he gains only a dumb animal, perhaps worth nothing much, while you gain the greatest and most honored thing in all nature: nobility of character.
And necessarily following upon this act, as a shadow follows a body, comes the dissolution of enmity; for the one who has been benefited is drawn, even against his will, toward reconciliation, enslaved by the debt of gratitude, while the one who has done the benefit, guided by his own good deed as counselor, has already turned his mind, almost of itself, toward reconciliation.
This is above all what the most sacred prophet wishes to bring about through the whole of his legislation: concord, fellowship, unity of mind, a blending of characters, out of which households and cities, nations and lands, and the whole human race might advance to the highest happiness.
But up to now these remain only prayers; yet they will become, as I persuade myself, most truthful deeds as well, once God grants virtues an abundance like the yearly fruits of the earth — virtues of which may we not fail to have our share, we who have carried the longing for them about with us almost since our earliest years.
These, then, and others like them, are the provisions he established concerning the free. And in harmony with them, it seems, he also legislates concerning slaves, granting to them too a share in the same provisions that tend toward gentleness and humanity.
As for hired laborers who, out of need for the necessities of life, have subjected themselves to the service of others, he thinks they should suffer nothing unworthy of the freedom that is theirs by birth, exhorting those who employ their service to look to the unpredictability of fortune and to feel a due respect for its changes. As for those debtors from daily loans who have taken on the name and condition of bondage, or those who from free persons have become slaves under more violent compulsion, he does not allow them to suffer misfortune forever, but grants them complete release in the seventh year.
For creditors who have not recovered their loan, or who have acquired those formerly free by some other means, six years of service suffice, he says; and those who are not slaves by birth should not be deprived of good hope forever, but should return to the old freedom from care of which they had been deprived through circumstances they did not choose.
And if, he says, a slave of the third generation from another household, whether out of fear of his master's threats, or out of awareness of some wrongdoing, or though he has done no wrong at all but simply has a master otherwise implacable and savage-tempered, takes refuge with you seeking protection, do not overlook him; for it is not right to hand over suppliants, and the slave who has fled for refuge to your hearth as if to a temple is himself a suppliant, one who justly deserves to find sanctuary there — ideally by coming to an honest reconciliation free of any trickery, but if not, then at the very least by being sold as a last resort; for it is unclear which way a change of masters will tip the scale, and an uncertain evil is lighter than one already known.
These, then, are the laws he lays down concerning kin and strangers, friends and enemies, slaves and free persons, and human beings in general. And this same fairness and gentleness he extends even to the nature of irrational animals, granting them too a share, as though they might draw some good thing from a benevolent spring.
For in the case of the tame flocks—sheep, goats, and cattle—he commands that people abstain from immediately enjoying their offspring, taking them neither for food nor on the pretext of sacrifice. For he supposed it to be the mark of a brutal soul to lie in wait for newborn creatures in order to separate them at once from their mothers, for the pleasure of the belly—or rather for some outlandish and perverse craving of the soul.
So he says to the one who is to live according to his most sacred constitution: "Noble friend, you have great abundance of things to enjoy that carry no reproach with them. It might perhaps be pardonable if want and scarcity forced a person to do many things against his will. But you, assigned the finest rank, under the true captaincy of nature's right reason, ought instead to excel in self-control and the other virtues; and because of that reason you must be civilized, admitting nothing crude into your thinking."
What could be more crude than to add, on top of the pangs of birth, further pangs from outside by separating the newborn immediately from its mother? For when they are torn away, the mothers cannot help writhing, on account of a natural affection toward their offspring—especially just after delivery, since the breasts, flowing and finding no nursing infant to relieve them, become swollen and hardened; and pressed by the weight of milk congealed within, they are afflicted with pain.
"Grant, then," he says, "the offspring to its mother—if not for all time, at least nurse it on milk for the first seven days, and do not render useless the springs which nature has poured out abundantly in the breasts, cutting off that second gift which she prepared long in advance, having foreseen from afar, with an eternal and perfect wisdom, what would follow—"
"—for the first gift is birth, through which what is not comes to be; the second is the flow of milk, food most gently suited to the moment, watering every tender and unformed thing, being at once drink and food. For the watery part of the milk is drink, while the part that thickens is food—provided by foresight so that the newborn should not suffer, since need at different times is always being met, but under one and the same feeding it already escapes those bitter mistresses, thirst and hunger, through both kinds of nourishment together."
Having read this law, you virtuous and much-contested parents, hide your faces—you who are forever bent on murder against infants, who lie in wait with evil intent for newborn creatures in order to expose them, you implacable enemies of the whole human race.
By what goodwill will you ever come to anyone, having become the murderers of your own children with your own hands? You who, so far as lies in you, empty the cities, beginning your work of destruction from those nearest in kinship; you who overturn the ordinances of nature and tear down whatever building it has raised, through the savagery of an untamed and unbroken soul, fortifying birth with destruction and life with death.
Do you not see that the lawgiver who is best in all things took care that not even the offspring of irrational animals should be separated from the mother that bore it, until it has been nursed on milk? This was done chiefly for your sake, noble sirs, so that even if not by nature, then at least by instruction you might be taught to love your own kin, looking to lambs and kids, which are not prevented from indulging themselves amid the unstinting provision of what they need—nature having prepared such things in the most fitting places, from which enjoyment will come easily to those in need, and the lawgiver watching over it all with great foresight, so that no one might obstruct these beneficial and life-preserving gifts of God.
Wishing, moreover, in manifold forms to sow the seeds of gentleness and fairness in people's minds, he lays down another ordinance, akin to the previous ones, forbidding that a mother and her offspring be sacrificed together on the same day. For even if one must sacrifice, still it should be done at different times; for it is an excess of savagery to kill the cause of a birth together with the very thing brought to life, on the same day. And to what end is this?
Either on the pretext of sacrifice, or for the pleasure of the belly. If for the sake of sacrifice, then the very name is a lie: such slaughter is butchery, not sacrifice. What altar of God would ever receive victims so unholy? What fire would not split itself in two and pull apart, fleeing the union that comes from so unmixed a deed? I think it would not endure even the briefest moment, but would be extinguished at once, by some providence, lest the air and the most sacred nature of breath be defiled by the rising flame.
But if it is not for the sake of sacrifice but for feasting, who would not charge such people with unnatural and monstrous appetites of gluttony run wild? Such people pursue outlandish pleasures. But what pleasure is there for meat-eaters in tasting, in the same meal, the flesh of mothers and their young? If someone wished to mix their limbs together, skewering them on spits to gorge on the roast, I do not think he could remain calm, but would cry out in protest at the sheer novelty of the outrage and heap countless reproaches on the gluttony of those preparing so unnatural a banquet.
But the law drives away from the sprinklings even any pregnant animal, not permitting it to be slaughtered until it has given birth, reckoning what is in the womb as equal to what has already been born—not because what has not yet come into the light holds an equal rank, but in order to check, from far off, the readiness of those accustomed to throw everything into confusion.
For if what is still growing plantlike, and reckoned a part of the pregnant mother—now united with her, though in the course of months it will be torn away again from that natural union—is protected, for the sake of the hope that it will become a living creature, by leaving the mother free from any scheme against her, so that the pollution just mentioned may not occur, how much more should this hold for what has already been born, possessing its own share of soul and body separately? For of all things the most unholy is to kill offspring and mother together, at one time and on a single day.
Starting from this, it seems to me, some lawgivers introduced the law concerning condemned women, which commands that pregnant women, even if they have done deeds deserving death, be kept under guard until they give birth, so that what is in the womb should not perish along with them when they are put to death.
But these lawgivers recognized this only in the case of human beings; he, however, going further still, extended his fairness even to irrational animals, so that by practicing it toward creatures not of our own kind, we might have all the more abundant a store of humanity toward our own kind, refraining from harming and retaliating against one another, and not hoarding our own goods as treasure but bringing them out into the common good, as to kinsmen and brothers by nature, to all people everywhere.
Let the clever slanderers, then, go on charging this nation with hatred of humanity, and accusing its laws of prescribing something unmixed and unsociable—when it is plain that the laws extend mercy even to the flocks of cattle, while the nation, from its earliest years, through its lawful instruction, tames and reshapes toward gentleness whatever is disobedient in the soul.
He strips for the contest and struggles with himself, so to speak, being prolific in virtue and employing a certain resourcefulness in his fine instructions. For having commanded that, before it is weaned, neither lamb nor kid nor any other creature of the flock be torn from the one that bore it, and having further ordained that mother and offspring not be killed on the same day, he lavishes yet more, saying: "You shall not boil a lamb in its mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19, 34:26; Deuteronomy 14:20).
For he judged it altogether monstrous that the very nourishment of a living creature should become the seasoning and relish of that same creature once killed—that nature, taking care for its preservation, should have poured out milk, which she arranged to flow through the mother's breasts as though from reservoirs, while human intemperance should go so far as to misuse the very cause of life for the consumption of the rest of the body as well.
If someone insists on boiling meat in milk, let him do it without cruelty and without impiety. There are countless flocks everywhere, milked every day by cowherds, goatherds, and shepherds, for whom milk is the chief source of income from their herding—some of it poured out as it is, some condensed and pressed into cheese. So that, when abundance is available, whoever boils the flesh of lambs or kids or any other creature in its mother's milk displays a harsh crudeness of character, cutting away the most necessary and most kindred feeling to a rational soul: pity.
I admire also that other law, which, like a chorus singing in full harmony with the earlier ones, declares: you shall not muzzle an ox while it threshes. This is the very ox that, before the sowing of the deep-soiled plain, cuts open the furrows and prepares the fields in advance for both heaven and farmer—for the one, so that it may sow in season; for the other, so that deep hollows, receiving the gifts of the rains, may store and dispense from little by little rich nourishment for the seed, until, bearing ears of grain, it brings the yearly crop to completion. And after that completion, the ox is again needed for another service: the threshing of the sheaves and the separation of the chaff from what is genuine and useful.
But since I have spoken of the gentle and kindly ordinance concerning oxen that thresh, I will next set out the law laid down concerning beasts that plow, which is of the same kinship. For it forbids yoking together, for plowing the earth, an ox and a donkey—not only out of regard for the incompatibility between the animals, since the one is clean and the donkey is among the unclean, and it is not fitting to bring together things so estranged from one another, but also because their strength is unequal, and he takes forethought for the weaker, so that it not be crushed and oppressed by the greater force of the stronger. And yet the weaker one, the donkey, is driven outside the sprinklings, while the stronger, the ox, the law allows to be offered in the most solemn sacrifices.
But even so, he did not disregard the weakness of the unclean, nor did he allow the clean to use their strength against them without justice—all but crying aloud, openly, to those who have ears in their soul, that none should wrong any foreigner, since they have nothing to be charged with, for being of another race is no fault at all; for whatever stands apart from every accusation, free of vice and the effects of vice, is blameless.
Lavishing his fairness yet again, he uses it richly and to the full, passing from rational beings to irrational ones, and from irrational beings to plants, of which I must speak next, since I have already spoken of the former—human beings and all that has a share of soul.
He has expressly forbidden cutting down cultivated trees, or shearing, to its harm, a plain that is bearing grain before its season, or destroying fruit altogether—so that the human race might be supplied from an unstinting abundance of food, and might live in plenty not only of what is necessary but also of what belongs to a life of refinement. For the fruit of grain, set apart for human food, is necessary; while the countless varieties of tree-fruit belong to a life of refinement—though these often, in times of scarcity, become food of a second resort as well.
And going further still, he does not even allow the land of enemies to be cut down, but commands restraint from felling trees and from ravaging, judging it monstrous to vent one's anger against human beings upon things that are the cause of no harm.
And going even further, he does not permit the cutting down even of the enemies' land, but commands them to refrain from felling trees and ravaging, since he considered it absurd that anger meant for men should be vented on things responsible for no wrong.
Next he requires that one look not only to the present but also, as if from a watchtower far off, discern the future with the sharp-sightedness of reasoning, since nothing remains in the same state but all things undergo turns and changes; so it is likely that those who were until now enemies, once someone has opened negotiations and initiated terms of reconciliation, may straightaway become allies under treaty.
It would be harsh to deprive future friends of the necessities of life, laying up for oneself nothing of what is beneficial, because of the uncertainty of the future. For that saying of the ancients is finely put: that one should enter into friendship without ruling out the possibility of enmity, and give offense as though friendship were still to come, so that each person may keep something in reserve, according to his own nature, for the sake of security, and not, having stripped himself bare in deeds and words, repent later, blaming himself for excessive rashness when it is of no use.
This maxim cities too must keep, taking forethought in peace for the needs of war, and in war for the needs of peace, neither trusting their allies without limit as though they would never turn to the opposing side, nor altogether distrusting their enemies as though they could never shift their anchorage toward alliance.
But even if nothing should be done for an enemy's sake in hope of reconciliation, still no plant is an enemy; rather all are at peace with us and beneficial, and the cultivated ones especially are indispensable, since their fruit is either food itself or a possession equal in value to food. Why then should we wage war on things that are not warlike, cutting them down or burning them or tearing them up by their very roots—things which nature herself has brought to maturity by the flow of waters and the good tempering of the air, so that they might bring men yearly tribute as though to kings?
He, like a good guardian, took care to produce, by a kind of training regimen, strength and vigor not only in animals but also in plants, and especially in the cultivated ones, since these are worthy of greater attention and are not as naturally vigorous as the wild ones, needing the skill of husbandry for a more powerful growth.
For he commands that newly planted trees be tended for three successive years, cutting away the excess shoots, so that they not be weighed down and oppressed, and so that, their nourishment not being fragmented, they not grow weak from deficiency; and that the ground around them be dug and turned, so that nothing harmful may spring up alongside to hinder their growth. And he does not allow the fruit to be picked for enjoyment and use, not only because it would be imperfect fruit from an imperfect tree—for even among animals, whatever is not yet mature does not produce mature offspring—but also because the young trees would be harmed and, in a sense, stunted and kept low to the ground if prevented from putting forth their growth freely.
But after three years, when the roots have gone deeper, gripping the soil more firmly, and the trunk, resting as it were on unshaken foundations, has grown vigorously, it will be able to bear mature fruit in the fourth year, in accordance with the perfect number, four.
In the fourth year, however, he commands that the fruit not be picked for enjoyment, but that the whole of it be consecrated as first fruits to God—on the one hand as thanksgiving for what has already come to pass, and on the other as an expression of hope for future fruitfulness and continued yield thereafter.
See how much gentleness and goodness he shows, and how he has poured it out first toward every kind of human being, even if one is a foreigner or an enemy; then toward irrational animals, even those that are not clean; and beyond all these, toward crops and trees alike. For the one who has first learned fairness toward natures that have no perception will never do wrong to any creature endowed with soul, and the one who does not attempt to act destructively toward living things is taught, from far off, to take care of rational beings as well.
By such teachings he tamed the thinking of those who lived under his laws, and separated them from arrogance and boastfulness, the most grievous and most burdensome of evils, which the many cling to as though they were the greatest goods—especially whenever wealth, reputation, and positions of power furnish an abundant excess of resources.
For boastfulness grows even in neglected and obscure people, as does each of the other passions, diseases, and infirmities of the soul; but it does not gain further increase in them—rather, like a fire's substance, it dims for want of fuel. It shows itself openly, however, in the great, who have, as I said, wealth, reputation, and power as its providers; and once filled to the brim with these, like men who have drunk deep of unmixed wine, they become drunk and behave with the insolence of drunkards toward slaves and free alike. And sometimes this happens to whole cities as well: "for surfeit breeds insolence," as the old saying goes.
For this reason Moses, revealing sacred things, most excellently exhorts people to abstain from all sins, but especially from arrogance. Then he reminds them of the things that habitually kindle this passion: the unmeasured filling of the belly, and an abundant excess of houses, possessions, and livestock. For at once such people become unable to master themselves, puffed up and swollen with pride, for whom the one hope of a cure is never to forget God.
For just as, when the sun has risen, the darkness vanishes and all things are filled with light, in the same way, whenever God, the sun perceived by the mind, rises and shines upon the soul, the murk of the passions and vices is scattered, and the purest and most lovely
form of the most radiant virtue is revealed. And wishing still further to restrain and abolish arrogance, he adds the reasons why one ought to carry the memory of God as an image never to be forgotten. "For he," he says, "gives you the strength to gain power" (Deut 8:18)—a most instructive statement. For the one who has been precisely taught that his vigor and robustness are a gift received from God, reckoning up his own weakness, which he had before enjoying this gift, will cast off his lofty and overweening pride and will give thanks to the cause of the change for the better. A grateful soul is the enemy of boastfulness, since, conversely, ingratitude is akin to arrogance.
'And if,' he says, 'your affairs prosper, once you have received and acquired strength which perhaps you did not expect, produce power.' What this means must be made more precise for those who do not fully grasp what is meant. Many attempt to bring about the opposite of what has benefited them: for either, having grown rich, they contrive poverty for others, or, having gained a great share of reputation and honor, they become the cause of disrepute and dishonor for others.
But the prudent man, as far as possible, ought to make those who associate with him quick-witted; the temperate man ought to make them self-controlled; the courageous man, noble and brave; the just man, just; and, in general, the good man ought to make them good. For these, it seems, are powers, which the man of refinement will embrace as most his own; but powerlessness and weakness, their opposites, are foreign to virtuous character.
Besides, he teaches a lesson most fitting to rational nature: to imitate God as far as possible, omitting nothing that contributes to the likeness attainable by us. 'Since, then,' he says, 'you have received strength from the most powerful one, share your strength with others, passing on what you have experienced, so that you may imitate God by bestowing similar benefits.'
For the gifts of the first ruler are beneficial to the community—the gifts he gives to some, not so that they, upon receiving them, should hide them away or misuse them to others' harm, but so that, bringing them out into the open as at a public feast, they might invite as many as possible to their use and enjoyment.
We say, then, to the man of great wealth, the man of reputation, the man of good bodily condition, and the man of knowledge, that he should make those he encounters rich, reputable, well-conditioned, and knowledgeable, and, in general, good—rather than, preferring envy and malice to virtue, standing in the way of those capable of doing well.
Those who breathe great arrogance in its intensified form, being incurably disposed in every respect, the law most excellently did not bring before human judgment, but handed over to the divine tribunal alone. For it says: whoever undertakes to act with insolence 'provokes God' (Num 15:30). Why is this?
Because, first, arrogance is a vice of the soul, and the soul is invisible to anyone but God; and a blind punisher is blameworthy, having ignorance as his accuser, while one who sees is praiseworthy, doing everything with knowledge. Secondly, because every boastful person, having become filled with irrational pride, supposes himself to be, in Pindar's words, 'neither a man nor a demigod but a god entire,' claiming to step beyond the bounds of human nature.
For such a person, just as his soul, so too his body is blameworthy in all its postures and movements alike: he walks on tiptoe, holds his neck raised high in a display of pride, is puffed up and swollen beyond his nature, and though seeing, looks askance with sidelong glances, and though hearing, pretends not to hear. He treats his household servants like cattle, free persons like servants, his own relatives like strangers, his friends like flatterers, and his fellow citizens like foreigners.
He thinks himself the wealthiest, most honored, most handsome, strongest, wisest, most temperate, most just, most eloquent, and most learned of all; and then he supposes everyone else to be poor, disreputable, dishonored, foolish, unjust, ignorant—refuse, mere nothing. Fittingly, then, such a man would have as his adversary and punisher, as the revealer of sacred things says, God himself.

On Repentance.
Moses, the most holy, being a lover of virtue, a lover of nobility, and above all a lover of humanity, exhorts all people everywhere to be zealots for piety and justice, setting before those who repent great rewards, as though to victors: a share in the finest commonwealth, and the enjoyment of both its lesser and its greater benefits.
For among the goods that come first, in bodies it is unbroken health, in ships it is safe sailing, and in souls it is the unfailing memory of what deserves to be remembered; second are the goods established by correction—recovery from sickness, the most welcome deliverance from the dangers of a voyage, and the recollection that arises out of forgetting, whose sibling and closest kin is repentance, which is ranked not in the first and highest class of goods, but is carried in the class that comes second after it.
For never sinning at all belongs to God alone, and perhaps also to a godlike man; but for one who has sinned to change over to a blameless life belongs to a prudent person who has not, in every respect, failed to see what is advantageous.
This is why, gathering such people together and initiating them, he calls them forward, holding out conciliatory and friendly guidance, which urges them to practice truthfulness and to cast away vanity, and to hold fast to truth and freedom from vanity as the causes most necessary for happiness, rising up against the fabrications of myth which, from earliest childhood, while their souls were still tender, their parents and nurses and tutors and countless other familiars had engraved in them, fashioning an endless wandering away from knowledge of what is best.
What, after all, could be best among the things that exist, other than God? Yet people have assigned his honors to things that are not gods, exalting them beyond due measure while wholly forgetting him—those empty of sense. All, then, who have deemed it right to revere the creator and father of the universe, even if not from the beginning, but who later embraced monarchy in place of the rule of many, must be considered dearest and closest of kin, since they offer the greatest thing toward friendship and intimacy: a disposition dear to God. With them one ought to rejoice together, just as one would rejoice with those who, having been blind before, regained their sight and saw the most radiant light out of the deepest darkness.
The first and most necessary of the steps toward repentance, then, has been stated. But let a person repent not only for the things by which he was deceived for a long time, admiring the things that have come into being ahead of the uncreated one and maker, but also in all the other matters necessary to life, passing over, as it were, from the worst of bad constitutions, mob rule, to the most law-abiding constitution, democracy—that is, from ignorance to knowledge, of which ignorance is shameful, from folly to prudence, from lack of self-control to self-control, from injustice to justice, from cowardice to courage.
For it is altogether noble and advantageous to desert, without turning back, to virtue, abandoning vice, that scheming mistress; and at the same time it is necessary to follow it, as a shadow follows a body in sunlight, and
the honoring of the truly existing God brings with it fellowship in all the other virtues as well. For newcomers immediately become self-controlled, disciplined, modest, gentle, good, humane, dignified, just, magnanimous, lovers of truth, superior to wealth and pleasure; since, conversely, one can see that those who have deserted the sacred laws are undisciplined, shameless, unjust, undignified, small-minded, quarrelsome, companions of falsehood and perjury, having sold their freedom for delicacies, strong drink, pastries, and physical beauty, for the pleasures of the belly and those below the belly, whose ends are the heaviest penalties of both body and soul.
Truly beautiful, moreover, are the instructions he gives toward repentance, by which we are taught to retune our life, changing from discord to a better harmony; for he says that this matter is not something enormous, nor set far off, neither up in the sky above nor at the ends of the earth, nor beyond the great sea, so as to be hard to grasp, but is very near, dwelling in three parts of our being—mouth, heart, and hands—symbolized by words, intentions, and actions: the mouth is the symbol of speech, the heart of intention, and the hands of actions, and in these lies happiness.
For whenever the speech is of one kind and the judgment likewise, and the intention is of one kind and the action likewise, life is praiseworthy and complete; but whenever these are at odds with one another, life is incomplete and blameworthy. If a person does not forget this harmony, he will be well-pleasing to God, becoming at once beloved of God and a lover of God. Hence, well and in harmony with what has been said, that oracle was employed: "You have chosen God today to be your God, and the Lord has chosen you today to become his people" (Deuteronomy 26:17–18).
Truly beautiful is this exchange of choice, with the human being eager to serve the Existing One, and God, without delay, making his own the suppliant, and coming forward to meet the intention of the one who approaches his service genuinely and without pretense. The true worshiper and suppliant, even if he happens to be a single individual in number, is, in power—just as he himself chooses—the whole people, having become equal in honor to an entire nation.
And this is its natural condition. For just as on a ship the helmsman counterbalances all the sailors, and in an army the general counterbalances all the soldiers—for if he is destroyed, defeat follows, just as if the entire force had been captured to a man—in the same way the wise man rivals an entire nation in worth, fortified by an indestructible wall: piety. On nobility of birth—
For this reason those who extol nobility of birth as the greatest good and the cause of great goods deserve no small censure, if, in the first place, they think noble those descended from long-wealthy and long-famous families, when not even their ancestors, from whom they boast their descent, achieved happiness through their abundant resources—since the good in truth is not by nature disposed to dwell in anything external, nor even in anything of the body, nor indeed in any part of the soul, but only in the governing faculty.
For God, wishing, out of gentleness and love for humanity, to establish this among us too, found no shrine more worthy on earth than reason; for he alone, being superior, is the good—even if some disbelieve it, those who have either not tasted wisdom at all or have tasted it only with the tips of their lips—for silver and gold, honors and offices, and bodily vigor together with beauty seem sufficient to those assigned to the needs of positions of leadership, for the service that belongs to royal virtue... [text broken] ...not having seen the most radiant light.
Since, then, nobility of birth is the proper inheritance of a mind purified by perfect purifications, one must call noble only the self-controlled and the just, even if they happen to have come from household slaves or purchased slaves; but for those who, born of good parents, have become base, let the territory of nobility be forbidden ground.
For the base person is homeless and stateless, driven out from the fatherland of virtue, which is in truth the fatherland of wise men as well; and low birth necessarily follows him, even if he should be descended from grandfathers or ancestors of blameless life, if he practices estrangement and disjoins himself as far as possible from nobility, both in words and in deeds.
But indeed, besides the fact that the base are not by nature noble, I see all of them as irreconcilable enemies of nobility, tearing down the ancestral dignity and
whatever is splendid in their lineage, dimming and extinguishing it. For this reason it seems to me that the most affectionate fathers issue formal disowning, cutting their sons off from house and kinship, whenever the natural, exceeding and overflowing goodwill of parents toward their offspring is overpowered by the wickedness found in them.
The truth of this account is easy to discern from other examples as well. What benefit would ancestral sharpness of sight be to one whose eyes are blinded? Or what use, for eloquence, is it to one whose tongue is paralyzed, that his parents or grandfathers were loud-voiced? What good does it do, toward vigor, for one wasted away by a long, consuming illness, if the founders of his family are recorded as Olympic or circuit victors for their athletic strength? For the ravages of the body remain no less severe in a similar case, admitting no improvement on account of the good fortunes of one's relatives.
In the very same way, just parents are of no benefit to the unjust, nor self-controlled parents to the undisciplined, nor good parents in general to the wicked; for indeed the laws are of no benefit to lawbreakers, of whom the laws themselves are the punishers—and certain unwritten laws are also the lives of those who have emulated virtue.
Hence I think that nobility, if God had stamped it into a human form, standing before its rebellious offspring, would say something like this: "Kinship is not measured by blood alone, when truth presides, but by likeness of actions and pursuit of the same things. But you have practiced the opposite, considering what is dear to me hateful, and what is hostile, dear; for with me, reverence and truth, moderation of feeling and freedom from vanity and guilelessness are honored, but among you these are dishonored; and shamelessness, falsehood, excess of passion, vanity, and vices are hateful to me, but to you these are most intimate.
Why, then, having practiced estrangement in deed, do you feign the kinship that is in word, slipping under a becoming name as a disguise? For I do not tolerate deceptive tricks and cunning frauds, since it is easy for anyone at all to find fine-sounding words, but it is not easy to exchange base characters for good ones.
Looking to these things, both now and hereafter I will consider as enemies those who have kindled the fuel of hostility, and I will regard them with more suspicion than those reproached for low birth; for the latter have this defense, that they have no household model of nobility and goodness to draw on, but you are liable to judgment, you who were born of great houses, for whom splendid lineages are a source of pride and glory; for though models of goodness stood beside you and were, in a manner of speaking, part of your very nature, you took thought to imitate nothing noble from them."
That nobility is placed in the possession of virtue, and that it is only the one who has this whom he has understood to be noble—not whoever happens to be born of fine and good parents—is clear from many examples.
Take at once those born of the earth-born man: who would not call them well-born, and the founders of the well-born? They obtained an exceptional lineage above those who came after, having sprung from the first bridal pair, man and woman, when they first came together in common intercourse for the begetting of their kind. And yet, though there were two of them, the elder brought himself to murder the younger by treachery, and having committed the greatest pollution, fratricide, he was the first to stain the earth with human blood.
What good, then, did nobility of birth do for this man, who displayed baseness of soul? God, the overseer of human affairs, seeing it, loathed it, and, holding it up as a warning, fixed penalties for it—not putting him to death at once, so that he would be insensible to misfortune, but hanging over him countless deaths perceived through sense, amid griefs and successive fears, to the perception of the most painful evils.
There was, in the generations after this, a man of the highest repute, a man most holy, whose piety the lawgiver thought worthy to be inscribed in the sacred books. In the great flood, when cities were vanishing in total destruction — for even the highest mountains were being swallowed as the flood's onrush swelled and intensified — he alone, with his household, was saved, having won the prize of nobility of character, than which none greater can be found.
Yet even this man, once he had three sons who had shared equally in their father's gift, found that one of them dared to mock and jeer at the very father who had caused his safety, over some slip made without deliberate intent, exposing to those who did not know of it what decency requires be hidden, to his begetter's shame. So he gained nothing from his brilliant nobility of birth, becoming instead accursed, and the beginning of misfortune for his descendants — the very fate that one who had neglected honor toward a parent deserved to meet.
But why should one dwell on these when there is the first man, the earth-born, to consider? His nobility was beyond comparison with any mortal's, for he was shaped by divine hands into a bodily statue, and deemed worthy of a soul drawn from nothing that belongs to the realm of becoming, since God breathed into him as much of his own power as mortal nature could receive. Is this not a nobility so surpassing that it cannot be brought into comparison with any of those others that have won renown?
For the glory of others rests on the good fortune of their ancestors — and human ancestors are perishable, corruptible creatures, whose successes are for the most part unstable and short-lived — but his father was no mortal at all: it was the eternal God.
Having become, in a sense, an image of him — with respect to the ruling mind within the soul — he ought to have kept that image unstained, so far as possible, by following the virtues of his begetter. Yet when good and evil, the noble and the shameful, the true and the false, were set before him for choice or avoidance, he eagerly chose the false, the shameful, and the evil, and disregarded the good, the noble, and the true. For this, quite reasonably, he exchanged the immortal life of blessedness and happiness for a mortal one, having fallen from it, and with the greatest ease he passed over into a toilsome and miserable existence.
Let these, then, stand as principles common to all humanity, that those who lack nobility of character should not pride themselves on great lineage. But for the Jews there are other examples too, distinct from these common ones, and peculiar to them. For among the founders of their nation are some whom the virtues of their ancestors availed nothing at all, once they were caught in reprehensible and culpable actions — even if convicted by no one else, still convicted by their own conscience, the one tribunal out of all that no rhetorical art can lead astray.
The first of these had many children, having begotten offspring by three wives, not for the enjoyment of pleasure but in hope of multiplying his line; yet out of many, only one alone was declared heir of his father's blessings, while all the rest, having failed in soundness of judgment and having taken on nothing of their begetter's character, were sent away, estranged from that celebrated nobility.
Again, from the heir who had proved worthy, twin sons were born, bearing no resemblance to each other — not even in body, let alone in disposition, except for their hands, and that only for a certain arrangement of providence. The younger was obedient to both parents and so pleasing that he even won God's commendation, but the elder was disobedient, uncontrolled in the pleasures of the belly and those that follow the belly, and by these he was persuaded even to give up his birthright to the one born after him, and immediately to regret having given it up, and to plot murder against his brother, and to occupy himself with nothing but ways of grieving his parents.
And so for the one they set the highest prayers, God confirming every one of them and deigning to leave none unfulfilled, while to the other, out of pity, they granted a subordinate rank, that he should serve his brother — considering it a good thing, as indeed it is, for the worthless man not to be his own master.
And had he borne his servitude willingly, he would have been judged worthy of second honors, as in a contest of virtue; but as it is, having grown insolent and having run away from that good governance, he became the cause of great reproaches both for himself and for his descendants, so that his unlivable life stands as a monument to the clearest proof that nobility of birth benefits nothing those unworthy of nobility.
These, then, belong to the reprehensible rank — men whom the virtues of their fathers profited nothing once they had turned wicked from good, while the vices in their souls did them countless harm. But I can name others assigned to the opposite and better rank, men whose ancestors were culpable, yet whose own lives were enviable and full of good report.
The most venerable of the Jewish nation was Chaldean by birth, the son of an astronomer, one of those occupied with the mathematical sciences, who hold the stars to be gods, and the whole heaven and cosmos, and say that on these depend the good and ill fortune that befalls each person, supposing there to be no cause outside the objects of sense.
What could be harder than this, or better able to expose the ignoble state of the soul, than for a man, through knowledge of the many, secondary, created things — a knowledge that leads to ignorance of the One, the eldest, the uncreated, the maker of all — to arrive, on account of this and countless other reasons that human reasoning cannot grasp for their vastness, at the conviction that this One alone is best?
Having grasped some notion of these things, and moved by divine inspiration, he left his homeland, his kindred, and his father's house, knowing that if he remained, the deceptions of polytheistic belief would remain lodged in him too, rendering the discovery of the One impossible — the One who alone is eternal and father of all things, both intelligible and perceptible — but that if he emigrated, the deception of his understanding would emigrate as well, exchanging false belief for truth.
At the same time, the longing he felt to know the Existent One was further kindled by oracles delivered to him, guided by which he pressed on with the most tireless zeal in his search for the One; nor did he relent until he had gained clearer visions — not of God's essence, for that is impossible — but of his existence and his providence.
For this reason he is said to have been the first to believe in God, since he was also the first to hold an unshaken and firm conviction that there is one supreme cause, and that it exercises providence over the cosmos and all that is in it. Having acquired faith, the most steadfast of the virtues, he acquired along with it all the others as well, so that among those who received him he came to be regarded as a king — not by reason of his equipment, for he was a private individual, but by the greatness of his soul, possessing as he did a kingly disposition.
And indeed those he dwelt among continued to serve him as their ruler, struck with awe at the greatness, surpassing that of an ordinary human, that pervaded his whole nature. He did not engage in the same kind of converse as others, but was often moved by inspiration to loftier speech. Whenever he was so possessed, everything about him changed for the better — his looks, his color, his stature, his bearing, his movements, his voice — as the divine spirit, breathed upon him from above and taking up residence in his soul, clothed his body with an extraordinary beauty, his words with persuasiveness, and his hearers with understanding.
Would you not say, then, that this emigrant, bereft of all kin and friends, was the noblest of men, since he yearned for kinship with God and strove by every means to become known to him, and was assigned the finest rank of all, that of prophet, trusting nothing among created things above the uncreated father of all — and was, as I said, regarded as king by those who received him, having taken up his rule not by weapons or by military force, as is customary for some, but by the appointment of God, the friend of virtue, who honors the lovers of piety with sovereign powers for the benefit of those they encounter?
This man is the standard of nobility for all proselytes. Those who abandon ignobility — the ignobility that comes from alien laws and lawless customs, which assigned divine honors to stones and pieces of wood and, in short, to lifeless things — and who make the noble migration to a truly living and animate commonwealth, whose overseer and guardian is truth, follow his example.
This nobility was aspired to not only by men beloved of God but by women as well, who unlearned the ignorance, bred into them, of honoring things made by human hands, and were instructed instead in the knowledge of the sole sovereignty by which the cosmos is ruled.
Tamar was a woman from Syrian Palestine, raised in a household and city full of polytheism, teeming with carved images, statues, and objects of worship of every kind. But when, as if out of deep darkness, she was able to glimpse a faint ray of truth, she deserted to piety at the risk of death, giving little thought to living, unless she were to live nobly; and by living nobly she meant nothing other than the service and supplication of the one Cause.
And though she was married in succession to two brothers, both wicked men — the earlier as her lawful husband, the later by the law of levirate obligation, since the first had left no offspring — she nevertheless kept her own life unstained, and had the strength to obtain the good report due to the virtuous, and to become the source of nobility for all who came after her. She, though a foreigner, was nonetheless free-born, of free parents, and of no obscure standing either.
But maidservants born beyond the Euphrates, in the farthest reaches of Babylon, who were given as dowry-gifts to their mistresses when the latter married, and who were then judged worthy to come to the bed of a wise man, at first passed from the status of concubines to the name and standing of wives, and, instead of remaining maidservants, were raised by their mistresses to equal honor with them — a thing scarcely credible — being advanced to the very same rank. For envy does not take up residence in the souls of the wise, and where it is absent, all goods are shared in common.
And the children born of these unions, though illegitimate, were in no way inferior to the legitimate ones — not only in their father's eyes, for it is no wonder that the common father of all showed the same goodwill to those not born of the same womb, but also in the eyes of their stepmothers. For the stepmothers, setting aside the hatred customarily felt toward stepchildren, transformed it into an affection beyond words, while the stepchildren, for their part,
in return for this goodwill, honored their stepmothers as if they were mothers by nature. And the brothers, though reckoned as only half of one lineage, did not think it fitting to love one another by halves, but rather doubled the passion of loving and being loved, and made up in fullness for what seemed to be lacking, striving to achieve harmony and blending of character among all the children born of both mothers.
What share, then, should be given to those who put on nobility of birth—another's good—as if it were their own? Apart from what has already been said, they might justly be regarded as enemies both of the Jewish nation and of everyone everywhere: enemies of their own people, because they give their kinsmen license to neglect a sound and settled life, trusting instead in the virtue of their ancestors; and enemies of everyone else, because even if these men should attain the very summit of nobility and goodness, they will gain nothing from it, since they did not happen to have blameless parents and grandparents.
I do not know whether any teaching could be more harmful than this one—if punishing justice were not to follow the wicked children of good parents, and honor were not to attend the good children of wicked ones, since the law tests each person on his own merits, and praises or punishes him not for the virtues or vices of his relatives.

======== On Rewards and Punishments ========

The oracles given through the prophet Moses fall, as it happens, into three kinds: one concerns the making of the world, the second is historical, and the third is legislative. The making of the world is set forth in a manner altogether beautiful and worthy of God, beginning from the birth of heaven and ending with the fashioning of man. The one is the most perfect of imperishable things, the other of mortal things. In weaving together the immortal and the mortal in this creation, the Maker fashioned the world, making some things to rule and others to be subject and to come into being.
The historical part is a record of the lives, both virtuous and wicked, of men, and of the penalties and rewards appointed for each in every generation. Of the legislative part, one division has a more general subject matter, while the other consists of particular commandments: the ten chief pronouncements, which are said to have been delivered as oracles not through an interpreter but shaped in the very heights of the air and possessing an articulate, rational structure, and the remaining specific provisions proclaimed through the prophet.
Concerning all these matters, I have gone through as much as the occasion allowed in earlier treatises, and I have likewise treated the virtues which he assigned to peace and to war. I now proceed, in due sequence, to the subjects proposed, namely the rewards set before the good and the penalties set before the wicked.
For after training those who lived under his constitution, by means of instructions and gentler exhortations, and again by sterner threats and admonitions, he summoned them to a demonstration of what they had been taught. They came forward as though into a sacred contest and laid bare their own moral choice, exposing it to the clearest possible test of truth.
Then those who were athletes of virtue in reality were found not to have proved false to the good hope placed in them by the laws that had trained them, whereas the unmanly and ignoble, because of an innate softness of soul, collapsed before anything stronger could even press against them, and became a source of shame and laughter to the onlookers.
For this reason the former received prizes, proclamations, and all else that is given to victors, while the latter went away not merely uncrowned but bearing a defeat more disgraceful, and harder to bear, than any suffered in athletic contests. There, only the bodies of athletes fall, and these can easily be raised up again; but here whole lives fall, and once overturned they are scarcely able to be set upright again.
Concerning privilege and honor, and, on the other side, punishment, he sets forth an ordered and harmonious arrangement, by individuals, by households, by cities, by countries and nations, and by the great regions of the earth. We must first examine what concerns honors, since this is both more profitable and pleasanter to hear, taking as our starting point each particular case in turn.
The Greeks say that the ancient Triptolemus was lifted up into the air on winged serpents and sowed the fruit of grain over the whole earth, so that instead of eating acorns the human race might have gentle, beneficial, and most pleasant food. This story, like many others fashioned by those accustomed to telling marvels, is a fiction of myth, and we may leave it to those who have cultivated sophistry ahead of wisdom and deception ahead of truth.
For from the beginning, at the very first coming-into-being of the universe, God prepared beforehand what was needed for all living creatures, bringing it up out of the earth, and especially for the human race, to which he granted dominion over all earthborn things. For none of the divine works is left unfinished from birth; rather, even those things that seem later to be perfected by arts and by careful attention were laid down beforehand, already half-complete, by the forethought of nature—so that it may not be said, without reason, that acts of learning are really acts of recollection.
Let these matters, then, be set aside for now, and let us examine the most necessary sowing, which the Maker planted in a fertile field, that is, in the rational soul.
Of this the first seed is hope, the spring from which lives flow. It is by hope of gain that the merchant strips himself for action amid the manifold forms of moneymaking; it is by hope of a safe voyage that the ship's captain crosses the vast seas; it is by hope of glory that the ambitious man chooses a public career and the management of civic affairs; it is because of hope for prizes and crowns that those who train their bodies contend in the athletic games; and it is hope of happiness that lifts up the zealots of virtue to philosophy, in the belief that through it they will be able to see the nature of what exists and to do what follows from that vision, toward the perfection of the best lives, both contemplative and active—and whoever attains these is at once happy.
Some, then, have kindled the seeds of hope like enemies and have burned up the vices in their own soul, or, careless as farmers, have let them rot through idleness. And there are others who, though they seem to have taken care of them, have embraced self-love ahead of piety and have attributed the causes of their successes to themselves.
All these are culpable; only the one who has attributed his hope to God, both as the cause of its very existence and as the only power capable of keeping it unharmed and undestroyed, is worthy of approval. What prize, then, is set before the one crowned in this contest? It is the creature composed of a mortal and an immortal nature—man—no longer the same, yet not another, than the one who received the prize.
This one the Chaldeans call Enosh, which, when translated into the Greek tongue, is 'man'—receiving as his own name the common name of the whole race, an exceptional prize, as though no one should be reckoned a man at all who does not hope in God.
After the victory of hope comes a second contest, in which repentance competes—repentance which has no share in that unchanging, immutable nature that is always the same and in the same condition, but which, through zeal and love for what is better, suddenly and eagerly hastens to abandon the greed and injustice with which it has grown up, and to change its anchorage toward self-control, justice, and the other virtues.
Here too a double prize is set before a double achievement: for abandoning shameful things, and for choosing the most excellent things. And the prizes are emigration and solitude. For scripture says of one who fled the innovations of the body and deserted to the soul:
"He was not found, because God moved him elsewhere" (Genesis 5:24). By this transfer scripture clearly hints at the emigration, and by his not being found, at the solitude—and most fittingly so. For if a man has truly come to despise pleasures and desires, and has resolved, without deceiving himself, to stand above the passions, let him make himself ready for departure, fleeing without a backward glance from home, homeland, kinsfolk, and friends.
For habit is a dragging force, so that there is danger, if one does not depart, of being caught, held fast in a circle by so many charms, whose images will stir up again the calm that has settled over shameful practices, and will engrave fresh memories of things it would have been good to forget.
Many, at any rate, have been brought to their senses by travel abroad, cured of frenzied and raging passions, once the sight was no longer able to supply the phantom images that fed their pleasure. For once the separation occurs, the passion must beat against emptiness, since what would stir it up is no longer present.
Yet even if such a person emigrates, he must turn away from the crowds of the many and embrace solitude instead; for in a foreign land too there naturally exist snares like those at home, on which those who are careless and who delight in the company of the many must inevitably be impaled. Whatever is disorderly, unruly, discordant, culpable—that is the mob, and it is most unprofitable for one newly settled toward virtue to be carried along with it.
For just as, in those recovering from a long illness, the body is somehow easily susceptible, not yet set firm in a stronger vigor, so too in those whose soul is now healing for the first time, the powers of the mind are still loose and unsteady, so that there is danger the passion may again break out—the passion which is by nature stirred up by living together with people of a more careless sort.
After the contests of repentance, a third set of prizes is set before justice, whose adherent receives a double reward: safety amid a universal destruction, and appointment as steward and guardian, from every kind of animal, paired together, for a second creation in place of the one that was destroyed.
For the Maker judged it fitting that the same man should become both the end of the condemned generation and the beginning of the guiltless one, teaching by deeds, not by words, those who say the world is without providence, that in accordance with the law he had established in the nature of the universe, all the countless myriads of men who lived in injustice were not worth as much as one man who lived his life together with justice. This man the Greeks call Deucalion, the Chaldeans Noah, in whose time the great flood occurred.
After this triad, another triad, more sacred and more beloved of God, arises from a single kinship. For father, son, and grandson hastened toward the same end of life: to please the Maker and Father of all, having laughed at the things the many admire—glory, wealth, and pleasure—and laughed too at vanity, which is forever woven together out of falsehoods and embroidered with color to deceive those who look upon it.
This is the sorcerer, the one who molds lifeless things into gods, the great and hard-to-capture fortification, by whose contrivances and stratagems every city is lured, since it seizes beforehand upon the souls of the young; for having taken up residence from earliest age, it settles in until old age, except in those upon whom God has shone the light of truth. Vanity is truth's rival, and though it yields only with difficulty, it does give way at last before the stronger power.
This class is small in number but great and greatest in power, so that not even the whole circuit of the earth can contain it, but it reaches on to heaven; for, gripped by an unspeakable longing to contemplate and to be forever in the company of things divine, once it has searched out and traversed the whole of visible nature it passes at once to the incorporeal and intelligible, bringing along none of the senses, but letting go whatever in the soul is irrational and employing only that which is called mind and reasoning.
The leader of this God-loving persuasion, the first to migrate from vanity to truth, having through virtue acquired by teaching arrived at perfection, wins as his prize faith toward God; the one who, by good fortune of nature, has gained virtue self-taught, self-heard, and self-instructed, is given joy as his reward; and for the one who trains himself and has won the good through toils unwearied and unbending, the crown is the vision of God. What could anyone conceive more beneficial or more solemn than believing in God, and rejoicing throughout the whole of life, and forever beholding the One who is?
Let us examine each of these more precisely, not led astray by the names, but peering within and probing deeply with our minds. The one, then, who has truly believed God has, beginning from the two powerful faculties within himself — reasoning and sense-perception — disbelieved everything else that is generated and perishable; for to each of these a court and tribunal of its own has been allotted, to the one for the examination of intelligible things, whose end is truth, to the other for that of visible things, whose end is opinion.
That opinion is unstable and errant is clear from this: it relies on images and probabilities, and every image, by a beguiling likeness, misrepresents its archetype. Reasoning, the guide of sense-perception, supposing that its judgments are fastened upon things intelligible and constant and unchanging, is instead caught faltering over many things; for whenever it makes its assaults upon particulars, which are countless, it grows powerless and weak and gives up, like an athlete thrown to the ground by a stronger force.
But whoever has been able to look beyond and rise above all bodies and all incorporeal things, and to lean and stand firm on God alone, with a reasoning of unbending resolve and unwavering and most steadfast faith — this man is truly happy and thrice blessed.
After faith, joy was set before the man who acquired virtue from nature without a struggle and won the victory effortlessly; for this reward was named, as the Greeks would say, laughter, but as the Chaldeans call it, Isaac; and laughter is the bodily sign, visible, of an invisible joy in the mind.
And it turns out that joy is the best and finest of the good emotions, by which the whole soul, through and through, is filled with cheerfulness — rejoicing over the Father and Maker of all things, God, and rejoicing also over deeds done without any vice, even when they do not happen to be pleasant, on the ground that they occur rightly and for the preservation of the whole.
For just as a physician, in cases of great and dangerous disease, sometimes removes parts of the body, aiming at the health of the rest of the body, and a helmsman, when storms arise, jettisons cargo out of forethought for the safety of those sailing with him, and no blame follows the physician for the mutilation nor the helmsman for the loss, but on the contrary praise follows each, since each has looked to what is advantageous rather than what is pleasant, and has acted rightly,
in the same way one must always marvel at the nature of the whole and be well pleased with everything done in the world, apart from voluntary vice, examining not whether something has turned out contrary to one's own pleasure, but whether the world is driven and steered, in the manner of a well-governed city, unto its own preservation.
This man too, then, is blessed no less than the former, having no share in gloom or dejection, reaping a life free of pain and free of fear, never having touched even in a dream the harsh and dry life, because his soul in its every part is possessed beforehand by joy.
After the self-taught man who made use of a rich nature, third comes the man of practice, brought to perfection and receiving as his special prize the vision of God. For having laid hold of everything pertaining to human life and having engaged with all of it, not superficially, and having passed by no toil or danger, in the hope that he might somehow be able to track down truth, so worthy of love, he found among the race of mortal things great darkness — in earth and water and air and ether; for even the ether and the whole heaven presented to him the appearance of night, since all perceptible nature is indeterminate, and the indeterminate is brother and kin to darkness.
So, having closed the eye of his soul to the age gone before through his continuous contests, he barely began to open it and to discern and cast off the mist that had overshadowed it; for a radiance purer than incorporeal ether, suddenly shining forth, revealed the intelligible world with its charioteer.
The charioteer, shining round about with unmixed brilliance, was hard to see and hard to make out, the eye's vision being dimmed by the flashing rays; yet the soul, though much fire poured in upon it, held out with an extraordinary longing to behold him.
And the Father and Savior, seeing his genuine yearning and longing, took pity and, granting strength to the impact of his vision, did not begrudge him a sight of himself, so far as it was possible for a generated and mortal nature to receive it — not a vision manifesting what he is, but that he is.
For that which is better than the good, and older than the monad, and purer than the one, is impossible to be beheld by anyone else, because it is fitting for him alone to be apprehended by himself. But that he is — a name of existence that is comprehensible — either not everyone comprehends, or not everyone by the better road; rather, some have declared outright that the divine does not exist at all, others have wavered, holding both views at once as being unable to say whether it is or is not, and others, having received their notions about the existence of God from those who raised them by custom rather than by reasoning, have supposed they were being pious with good aim, though they have actually traced piety's outline as superstition.
But if some have also had the strength, through knowledge, to form an image of the Maker and Ruler of the universe, they have advanced, as the saying goes, from below upward. For just as men who have entered a well-governed city and observed the land, flourishing both in its hill country and its plain, full of crops and trees and fruits, and moreover full of every kind of living creature, and upon it seas and lakes poured out and rivers, both native and winter-torrents, and the temperate blending of air and winds, and the harmonious changes of the yearly seasons, and over all these the sun and moon and the wandering and fixed stars and the whole heaven fitted together in ranks with its own army — a true world revolving within the world —
marveling and struck with awe, they arrived at a notion consistent with what had appeared to them: that such great beauties and such surpassing order had not come to be of their own accord, but through some craftsman and world-maker, and that providence must necessarily exist; for it is a law of nature that what has made a thing should care for what has come to be.
But these men, divinely inspired and distinguished from the rest, as I said, advanced from below upward, as though by some heavenly ladder, conjecturing the craftsman from his works by a plausible reasoning. But if some have been able to apprehend him from himself, using no other reasoning as a co-worker toward the vision, let them be enrolled among holy and genuine worshippers and truly God-loving men.
Among these is the one called in Chaldean Israel, but in Greek, one who sees God — not what God is, for that is impossible, as I have said, but that he is — having learned this not from anyone else, not from things on earth, not from things in heaven, not from any of the elements or their compounds, whether mortal or immortal in turn, but summoned by God himself alone, who willed to reveal his own existence to his suppliant.
How this impact of vision came about is worth seeing by way of an image. Do we behold this perceptible sun by anything other than the sun? Do we behold the stars by anything other than stars? And in general, is not light seen by light? In the very same way, God too, being his own radiance, is beheld through himself alone, no other thing assisting or being able to assist toward the pure apprehension of his existence.
Those, then, who from the things that have come to be hasten to behold the unbegotten one who begot all things are mere conjecturers, doing something like those who, starting from the dyad, investigate the nature of the monad, when instead they ought, starting from the monad — for this is the origin — to consider the dyad; but
those who pursue truth behold God by means of God, light by means of light. The greatest prize, then, has been described. In addition to these, the man of practice receives a reward not pleasant to mention but excellent to understand: the reward is named, symbolically, the numbness of the broadness (Genesis 32:25); for arrogance and haughtiness are shown through the broadness, when the soul pours itself out beyond measure toward what it should not, while through the numbness of what is puffed up and swollen — self-conceit — a contraction is shown.
And nothing is so beneficial as for the impulses, when slackened and let loose, to be checked and made numb, the spiritual sinews relaxed, so that the immoderate strength of the passions, once weakened, may afford breadth of soul to the better part.
One must further examine that the prize most fitting to each of the three was assigned. For the one brought to perfection through teaching, faith was assigned, since the learner must believe the teacher regarding what he expounds; for it is difficult, or rather impossible, for one who disbelieves to be instructed.
But for the one who, by good fortune of nature, arrived at virtue, joy was assigned; for a well-formed nature and the gifts of nature are a cause for rejoicing, when the mind, gladdened by its own quickness and by well-aimed insights, finds without labor what it seeks, as though a prompter were whispering from within; for the swift discovery of what is sought is a matter for rejoicing.
But for the one who has acquired practical wisdom through discipline, the reward is sight. For after the active life in youth, the contemplative life is best and holiest; sending him to the stern as a pilot, God entrusted him with the tiller, as one competent to steer earthly affairs. For without scientific contemplation, nothing done is good.
Recalling one further man, and aiming not to speak at length, I will turn to what follows in my argument. This man was proclaimed victor, crowned in one sacred contest after another. I mean not those contests reckoned sacred by the many — for these are in fact unholy, offering prizes and honors for violence, insolence, and injustice in place of the utmost punishments — but those which the soul is naturally suited to contest, driving out folly and villainy by prudence, prodigality and stinginess by self-control, rashness and cowardice by courage, and, by the other virtues, the vices opposed to them, which benefit neither themselves nor others.
Now all the virtues are virgins, but piety is the most beautiful, having received the leadership as if in a chorus — piety, which Moses the theologian obtained as his special portion; through it, along with the countless other things recorded in the writings concerning his life, he obtains four exceptional prizes: kingship, legislation, prophecy, and the high priesthood.
For he became king — not by the customary means, with an army and weapons, and naval, infantry, and cavalry forces — but appointed by God, by the willing consent of those he ruled, whose voluntary choice God himself had wrought in them. He alone is recorded among us as a king without a voice, without possessions, without wealth, having embraced the wealth that sees in place of the wealth that is blind, and — if I must speak without holding anything back — regarding God's portion as his own estate.
The same man becomes a lawgiver as well; for the king must command and forbid, and law is nothing other than reason commanding what must be done and forbidding what must not be done. But since what is beneficial in each case is often unclear — for through ignorance we often command what should not be done and forbid what should be done — it was fitting that he receive a third gift, prophecy, so that he might be free from error. For the prophet is an interpreter, sounding from within the things God would have said, and with God there is nothing blameworthy.
The fourth is the high priesthood, through which, prophesying with expert skill, he will serve the Existent, and will offer up thanksgivings on behalf of his subjects when they act rightly, or, if they err, will make prayers and supplications of propitiation. These, being of a single form, ought to cohere with one another, bound together in the bonds of harmony and examined with reference to the same end, since whoever falls short in any one of the four is incomplete for leadership, having taken up a lame stewardship of the common affairs.
Enough, then, of the prizes assigned to individual men; prizes are assigned also to whole households and to populous kindreds. For instance, when the nation was divided into twelve tribes, there are leaders equal in number to the tribes, related not merely by a single house or kinship, but by a more genuine intimacy; for they are all brothers by the same father, and their grandfather and great-grandfather, together with their father, became the founders of the nation.
The first of these, who turned from delusion toward truth and looked beyond the trickery of the Chaldean sciences for the sake of a more perfect vision — a vision which, once he beheld it, drew him, and he followed the appearance, just as they say iron is drawn by the magnet stone — became, instead of a sophist, wise through instruction, and had many children, all of them culpable except one, who fastened securely the cables of his lineage and came safely into harbor.
To his son in turn, who had acquired wisdom self-taught and untutored, it happened that two sons were born: one wild and untamable, full of anger and desire, and in general having fortified the irrational part of the soul against the rational part; the other gentle and humane, a lover of nobility, of equality, and of freedom from vanity, ranked in the better order, a champion of reason, an adversary of folly.
This is the third of the founders, the one with many children and the only one blessed with good children, unharmed in every part of his household — like some fortunate farmer who sees his whole planting safe, tame, and fruitful.
Each of the three has a literal narrative that is a symbol of a hidden meaning, which must be examined. To begin with, it happens to everyone being taught that, as he advances toward knowledge, he leaves ignorance behind; and ignorance is prolific. For this reason the first is said to have many children, yet he judges none of the others worthy to be called his son except one; for in a sense the one who learns disowns the offspring of ignorance and rejects them as hostile and ill-disposed.
By nature, indeed, all of us, before the reason within us is brought to completion, lie on the border between vice and virtue, inclining as yet toward neither; but when the mind, having taken wing, forms an image of the good with the whole soul, through all its parts, it rushes toward it unrestrained and winged, leaving behind the evil born together with it as a brother — an evil it also flees, taking the opposite road, never turning back.
This is what he hints at in saying that twin sons were born to the one who had obtained a fortunate nature; for at the very beginning, together with its birth, every human soul bears twins in its womb, evil and good, as I said, forming an image of each. But when it obtains a blessed and happy portion, it inclines with a single pull toward the good, never once tipping the other way, nor wavering toward an equal balance.
But the soul that has obtained both a good nature and a good education, and, thirdly, has been trained in the doctrines of virtue, so that none of them remains merely superficial and loose but all are firmly fixed and stamped in, as if joined by sinews — this soul acquires health, and acquires strength; from these a good complexion arises out of reverence, and good condition and beauty follow.
This soul, having become a fullness of virtues through the three best things — nature, learning, and practice — leaving nothing empty within itself for the entry of anything else, brings forth a perfect number: two sets of six sons, an image and likeness of the zodiac circle, for the improvement of things here below. This is the unharmed household, complete and continuous both in the literal scriptures and in the allegories understood through deeper meaning, which received, as I said, the prize of leadership over the tribes of the nation.
From this household, as time passed and it grew into a great multitude, well-governed cities were founded, schools of prudence, justice, and holiness, in which the acquisition of the other virtues too is magnificently investigated.
The prizes long ago apportioned to the good, both in common and individually, have now been described in outline; from these one could most easily discern also what has been omitted. Next we must again examine, in a more general way, the punishments set before the wicked, one by one — since this is not the occasion to record them in every particular.
There arose, right at the beginning, when the human race had not yet multiplied, a fratricide. This is the first man to come under a curse, the first to cast upon the still-pure earth the unaccustomed defilement of human blood, the first to check the flourishing and budding of the kinds of animals and plants and of all things that thrive in fruitful abundance, checking their fruitfulness, the first to fortify destruction against birth, and death against life, and mourning against joy, and evils against goods.
What, then, must he have suffered to pay a fitting penalty — he who, through a single act, left out none of the deeds of violence and impiety? Perhaps someone would say: being put to death. This reasoning belongs to a man who does not see the great tribunal; for men think death is the limit of punishments, but in the divine tribunal it is scarcely even the beginning.
Since, then, the deed was unprecedented, its punishment too had to be found unprecedented. What, then, is this punishment? To live always dying, and in a sense to endure a death that is immortal and unending. For death is of two kinds: the one consisting in being dead, which is a good, or at least indifferent; the other consisting in the process of dying, which is altogether an evil, and the longer it lasts, the heavier it is.
Consider, then, how death is made to last on with him forever. There are four passions in the soul: two concerned with the good, present or future — pleasure and desire; two concerned with evil, present or expected — pain and fear. Of these, he cut away, root and all, the pair concerned with the good, so that not even by chance should he ever take delight in, or desire, anything pleasant; but the pair concerned with evil alone he implanted in him, pain unmixed with any cheerfulness, and fear unmingled with anything else.
For it says that he cursed the fratricide with a curse, that he should “groan and tremble always” (Gen. 4:12), and set upon him a sign that he should not be killed by anyone (ibid. v. 15), so that he should not die once and be done with it, but should live on forever, as I said, dying amid pains and griefs and unbroken misfortunes; and — hardest of all — that he should perceive his own evils, be weighed down by what is at hand, and, foreseeing the onrush of what is to come, be unable to guard against it, since hope has been cut away from him — the hope that God sowed into the human race, so that, having this kindred consolation, even those who have done irremediable things might find their griefs made lighter.
Just as, for the man swept away by a torrent, the nearby current that drags him along is fearful, but still more fearful is what comes bearing down from above, which presses on with unrelenting, unbroken force and, rising up, overwhelms and floods him — in the same way, among evils, those at hand are painful, but those that flow from fear are still more grievous; for fear supplies, as if from a spring, all that is painful.
These, then, are the things determined against the first man who became a fratricide. But other things were also determined against households that had joined together in a shared wrongdoing. There were certain temple-wardens and sacred servants appointed to the office of gatekeepers; these, filled with irrational arrogance, rose up against the priests, claiming the right to seize their honors for themselves.
Having set up as leader of their conspiracy the eldest among them, who together with a few accomplices had also been the instigator of the daring act, they abandoned the outer courts and the outer precincts and advanced upon the inner sanctuary, displacing those who had been deemed worthy of the priesthood by oracles.
Confusion, as one would expect, took hold of the whole multitude, since things immovable were being moved, the laws were being violated, and the order surrounding the sanctuary was thrown into disarray by dreadful lawlessness.
At this the guardian and protector of the nation was indignant. At first, using a rather grave manner but without anger — for he was by nature free from anger — he tried by argument to teach them to change their minds, and not to overstep the boundaries that had been set nor to introduce innovations into the consecrated holy things on which the hopes of the nation hang.
But when he accomplished nothing — for they were deaf to everything, supposing that, overcome by love of his own family, he had appointed his brother high priest and entrusted the priesthood to his nephews — he did not consider this the terrible thing, terrible though it was; rather he judged that thing altogether grievous, namely, if the choice of the priests, made according to the oracles, should seem to be disregarded.
Clear testimony to this is laid up in the sacred writings. Speak first of the prayers, which he is accustomed to call "blessings." "If," he says, "you keep the divine commandments, becoming obedient to the ordinances, and do not merely receive by hearing the things proclaimed but accomplish them through the actions of your life, you shall have as your first gift victory over your enemies.
For the commands are not excessive nor heavier than the strength of those who are to use them, nor is the good far distant, either beyond the sea or at the ends of the earth, so that one would need a long and toilsome journey abroad; nor did it suddenly dispatch a migration from here to heaven, so that one lifted up on high and winged could scarcely attain it. Rather it is near and very close at hand, established in three parts of each of us: mouth, heart, and hands" — that is, more figuratively, in word, in thought, and in action.
For if our counsels are of this kind, and our words are such as our sayings, and our deeds are such as these, and these follow one another bound by the unbreakable bonds of harmony, happiness prevails — that is, the truest wisdom and prudence: wisdom for the service of God, and prudence for the management of human life.
Now as long as the precepts of the laws are merely spoken, they meet with little or no acceptance; but when there are added actions that follow and accompany them in all the pursuits of life, then, as if led up out of deep darkness into light, they will be illuminated with glory and good report.
For who, even among those envious by nature, would not say that this alone is a wise and most intelligent race, to which it has been granted not to leave the divine exhortations empty and bereft of deeds proper to them, but to fill out its words with praiseworthy actions?
This race has not been settled far from God, always forming images of the beauties of heaven and being guided by a heavenly longing, so that if one were to ask what great nation this is, some would fittingly answer: the one to whom God listens when it offers its most sacred prayers, and draws near to its invocations made from a pure conscience.
Since there are two kinds of enemies — the one, of men, arising from a practiced habit of greed, the other, of beasts, employing a natural hostility without any such habit — each must be discussed in turn, and first that concerning the beasts that are enemies by nature. For these are hostile not to one city or one nation but to the whole human race, not for a fixed length of time but for an unbounded and unlimited age.
Of these beasts, some, fearing man as a master, crouch down in cowering hatred; others, bolder and more daring, attack first, watching for their opportunity — from ambush, if they happen to be weaker, or openly, if they are stronger.
For this is a single war without truce and without herald, as of wolves against lambs, and of all wild beasts against all men, both those in water and those on land — a war that no mortal is able to bring to an end, but only the Uncreated, whenever he judges some worthy of salvation: those peaceable in character, who embrace concord and fellowship, in whom envy has either never dwelt at all or has swiftly departed, since they have resolved to bring their own goods into the common stock for shared participation and enjoyment.
For if this good should ever shine upon our life, and we should be able to see that time in which the untamed creatures will at last become tractable — and long before that, the wild beasts within the soul will be tamed, than which no greater good can be found — or is it not foolish to suppose that we shall escape the harm done by beasts outside us, while we continually stir up within ourselves the beasts that make for dreadful savagery? Hence one must not despair that, once the things of the mind have been made gentle, the animals too will be made tame.
At that time, it seems to me, bears and lions and leopards, and the creatures found among the Indians, elephants and tigers, and all the others whose strength and might are unconquerable, will change from their solitary and isolated way of life to a gregarious one; and by a brief imitation of herd animals they will grow tame toward the image of man, no longer provoked as before, but, once reconciled, will hold their ruler and natural master in reverent awe. And some, in rivalry with the tractable and master-loving, will even, like little Maltese dogs, fawn with their tails in a more cheerful motion.
At that time too the tribes of scorpions and snakes and the other reptiles will have their venom rendered powerless. The Egyptian river also produces, along with the inhabitants of that land, man-eating creatures, the so-called crocodiles and hippopotamuses; the seas too produce countless forms of the most savage creatures. Among all of these the person of worth will become sacred and inviolable, since God has honored virtue
and granted to it as its prize immunity from harm. Thus the older war, the one that exists by both time and nature, will be dissolved, when the beasts have been tamed and have changed toward gentleness. But the newer war, the one that arose from greed through practiced habit, will be dissolved easily, since men, as it seems to me, will be put to shame if they are to be found more savage than irrational animals, once they have escaped the penalties and harm coming from those very animals.
For it will appear most shameful, as one would expect, that creatures venomous and man-eating and unsociable and incapable of fellowship should have changed and come into a covenant of peace, while man, an animal gentle by nature and akin to fellowship and concord, should be murdering his own kind without truce.
"Or rather," he says, "war will not pass through the land of the pious at all, but will collapse of itself and be shattered against itself, once the adversaries perceive against what sort of contest they would be engaged, seeing that the pious enjoy the unopposable alliance of justice. For virtue is magnificent and most august, and alone, by remaining at rest, is sufficient to render easy the bearing of great evils."
"Or even if some, in a kind of madness, should rush forward, possessed by an uncontrollable and inconsolable desire for war, then while they are still forming up they will boast and bluster with bravado, but when they come to the test of arms they will find that their boasting was empty, since they are unable to win; overpowered by a mightier force, they will flee headlong, hundreds before mere fives and tens of thousands before hundreds — they who advanced by many roads scattering before those who came by a single one."
"And some, though no one at all is pursuing them except fear, will turn their backs to their adversaries as an easy target for well-aimed blows, so that it will be a simple matter for all of them, from youth upward, to be cut down and fall. For 'a man shall come forth,' says the oracle, and, commanding armies and waging war, he shall subdue great and populous nations, God sending the aid that befits the holy — that is, undaunted courage of soul and mightiest strength of body, of which either alone is fearsome to enemies, but both together, if they should combine, are altogether irresistible."
"And some of the enemies, he says, will be judged unworthy even to be defeated by men, against whom he will array swarms of wasps instead, to fight on behalf of the pious, to their most shameful ruin."
"These men will not only hold firm victory in war without bloodshed, but also unopposed mastery of rule, for the benefit of their subjects — a rule that will come about through goodwill, or fear, or reverence. For they cultivate the three greatest qualities that contribute to an unshakeable leadership: dignity, formidable power, and beneficence, from which the effects already named are produced. For dignity produces reverence, formidable power produces fear, and beneficence produces goodwill; and these, blended and fitted together in the soul, render subjects obedient to their rulers."
These, then, he says, will be the first things to befall those who follow God and who always and everywhere cling to his commandments and fit them to each part of life, so that nothing wanders astray in sickness from the proper regimen; and second, wealth, which of necessity accompanies peace and rule.
Of wealth, that which belongs to nature is inexpensive: nourishment and shelter. Nourishment is bread and running water, which is poured out everywhere in the inhabited world; shelter is of two kinds, clothing and housing, on account of the harm that follows from cold and heat. Each of these, if one is willing to strip away the excessive and superfluous extravagance, is very easy to procure.
Those who emulate the wealth just described, welcoming the gifts of nature rather than those of empty opinion, and practicing contentment with little and self-restraint, will possess, in great abundance, even the wealth of luxurious nourishment, without having pursued it — for it will leap toward them as toward men most fit and most reverent in the proper use of it, gladly fleeing the company of the licentious and insolent, so that it may not, in passing them by, provide for those who live to the harm of their neighbors, the men of benefit to the community.
For it is an oracle that for those who keep the sacred commandments, the sky will rain down timely showers, and the earth will bear a harvest of every kind of fruit — the plain a harvest of sown crops, the hill country a harvest of tree-fruits — and that no season will be left empty of benefit, but through the continuous and overlapping succession of God's graces, "harvest will overtake vintage, and vintage will overtake sowing"
(Lev. 26:5), so that without failure and without interruption people are always at once gathering in one crop and looking ahead to the next, each waiting upon the other, so that the ends of the earlier crops, joining with the beginnings of the later ones, complete a kind of circle and dance, wanting nothing good.
For the abundance of what is produced will suffice both for immediate use and enjoyment and for the ungrudging surplus of what is to come, as the new crops flourish alongside the old and make up for their want; and there are times when, because of unspeakable fertility, no one will give any thought at all to what was gathered long before, but people will leave it unstored and untreasured for anyone who wishes to make free use of it.
For those whose true wealth lies stored in heaven, cultivated through wisdom and holiness, for them the wealth of possessions also abounds on earth, since the providence and care of God keep their storehouses forever full — because the impulses of their mind and the undertakings of their hands are never hindered from bringing to success whatever good things they are always eager to pursue.
But for those whose portion is not heavenly, because of their impiety and injustice, the possession of earthly goods likewise cannot by nature go well for them; even if it comes their way, it slips away again very quickly, since from the start it came not for the benefit of those who received it but to weigh their distress down all the more heavily — the distress that necessarily follows from being deprived.
"Then indeed," he says, "out of sheer overabundance and superfluity you will do what you now endure; for now, showing no respect for the laws or for the customs of your ancestors, but disregarding everything all at once, you fall short of your basic needs and court the houses of moneylenders and usurers, borrowing at high interest; but then, as I said, you will do the opposite."
For out of your ungrudging surplus you yourself will lend to others, and not a little to a few, but much to many — to whole nations, since everything prospers for you, both in the city and in the countryside: in the city through offices, honors, and good repute won by justice, good counsel, and public service in word and deed; in the country through abundance of necessities — grain, wine, oil — and of everything needed for a life of comfort. These are the countless kinds of tree-fruit, and further the good breeding of herds of cattle, of goats, and of the other flocks.
But what use is all this, someone might say, to a man who is not going to leave behind heirs and successors? For this reason, sealing his benefits, he says: no one will be childless, nor any woman barren, but all the genuine servants of God will fulfill nature's law concerning the begetting of children.
For men will become fathers, and fathers of fine children, and women will become mothers, and mothers of fine children, so that every household will be filled with a numerous kinship, with nothing lacking, neither in relation nor in name, of all that is attributed to one's kin — both upward, toward parents, uncles, grandparents, and likewise downward, toward sons, brothers, nephews, grandsons, granddaughters, cousins — all who share the same blood.
No one governed by the laws would die too soon or incomplete, nor be deprived of any of the ages of life that God has allotted to the human race; but rising step by step from infancy as though by a staircase, and fulfilling in each age, in due order of time, the numbers of years appointed for it, he will arrive at the last stage, which borders on death — or rather on immortality — the man who in truth grows old well, leaving behind him a household rich in fine and numerous children in his place.
This is what he foretold when he said somewhere, "you shall fulfill the number of your days" (Exod. 23:26) — with words at once fitting and proper. For the man without learning and without law is, as they say, reckoned neither in account nor in number, but for the one who lays claim to education and to the sacred laws, the first grace, once he has shown himself accounted worthy and approved, is to share in number and in rank.
And it is a marvel too that the fulfillment spoken of is not of months or years but of days, implying that every single day of the good man's life ought to be left empty and void of nothing, giving no room for sins to creep in, but that every part and interval of it should be filled full with goodness. For virtue and the good are judged not by quantity but by quality; hence he reckoned that even a single day, lived rightly, is equal in worth to the whole good life of the wise man.
This is also what he hints at elsewhere, saying that such a man will deserve blessing both coming in and going out, because the good man is praiseworthy in every motion and in every condition, within and without, a statesman and a household manager at once, so that he sets right what is within by household management and what is without by statesmanship, correcting whatever is expedient.
If, then, one man happens to be of this kind in a city, he will appear superior to the city itself; if a city, superior to the surrounding country; if a nation, he will rise above all nations, as a head does over a body, for the sake of being conspicuous — not so much for the sake of glory as for the benefit of those who behold him. For the constant sight of good examples imprints on souls that are not utterly hard and unyielding impressions much like themselves.
Hence it is said to those willing to imitate excellent and admirable beauties that they should not despair of a better change, nor of the return — as though from a scattering of the soul that vice has brought about — to virtue and wisdom; for when God is gracious, everything is made easy.
And he is gracious to those who feel shame and who change their moorings from lack of self-control to self-mastery, who condemn their former culpable life and abhor whatever shameful images they have imprinted on their souls, while they long for calm from the passions, and for stillness, and pursue eagerly a peaceful life.
Just as one might easily gather with a single command men settled at the ends of the earth, bringing them from the farthest bounds to whatever place he wished, so too the Savior, taking pity, could easily lead the mind — after it has wandered every which way for a long time, straying and being harmed by pleasure and desire, mistresses held in high esteem — out of pathlessness onto the road, once the mind has determined to flee without turning back, in a flight not the disgraceful kind so called, but the saving kind, than which one could not err in calling it better than any homecoming.
The external goods, then, have been spoken of — victories over enemies, mastery in wars, the securing of peace, and the abundance of the goods that come with peace: riches, honors, offices, and the praises that attend those who fare well, praised by every mouth, both of friends and of enemies, the latter out of fear, the former out of goodwill. But we must also speak of goods more closely one's own — those concerning the body.
He says, then, that for those who labor at virtue and who set the sacred laws as leaders over the words and deeds of their life, both privately and in common, there will be complete freedom from disease; and even if some sickness should occur, it would not come to do harm, but to remind the mortal that he is mortal, so as to bring down overweening pride and improve his character. Health will be accompanied by keen perception and by wholeness and completeness in every part, for the unhindered service of each toward the purpose for which it was made.
For God judged it right, as a prize, to grant a house well built and well fitted together from foundation to roof — and the house most closely akin to the soul is the body — both for the sake of the many things necessary and useful for life, and above all for the sake of this: that the mind, purified by perfect purifications,
having become an initiate of the divine mysteries and a fellow-traveler with the choruses and revolutions of the heavenly bodies, God honored with stillness, wishing it to have no share, sickening over none of the passions that the necessities of the body generate when they impose, through the excess of the passions, their tyranny; for the heavens either chilled something through or scorched it, and made it parched, or on the contrary made it flow — through all of which the mind is unable to keep straight the course of its own life.
But dwelling in a healthy body, it will linger and take its leisure with great ease among the contemplations of wisdom, having obtained a blessed and happy life; this is the man who has drawn deep and unmixed draughts of God's beneficent power, and been feasted on sacred words and doctrines.
This is the man of whom the prophet says that God "walks about" in him as in a royal palace; and indeed the mind of the wise man truly is a royal palace and a house of God; his God is called, in a special sense, the God of all things; and he too is called a chosen people — not of one of the rulers who govern only in part, but of the One who alone in truth rules, holy of the Holy.
This is the man who, a short time before, was yoked to many pleasures, many desires, and countless compulsions of vices and passions; whose evils of slavery God shattered, rescuing him into freedom; this is the man whose benefaction was not obtained without proclamation, but was made known and announced everywhere, because of the authority of the one who shielded him, by which he was not dragged down toward the tail but was conveyed upward toward the head.
These things are allegorized, expressed figuratively; for just as in a living creature the head is the first and best part, and the tail the last and most trivial — not even a part that completes the number of limbs, but only a fly-whisk against what flits about it — in the same way he says that the head of the human race will be the good man, whether a single man or a people, while all the others are, as it were, parts of the body, animated by the powers in the head and above.
These are the prayers on behalf of good men, those who fulfill the laws in their deeds; Moses says they will be brought to completion by the grace of the gift-loving God, who makes what is good august and honors it out of his likeness to it. Next we must examine the curses laid down against the lawless and unruly. On Curses.
As the first curse, he records, as the lightest evil, poverty and want and scarcity of necessities and complete destitution: for the seed, he says, while still unripe enemies will ravage, and when it has ripened they will suddenly fall upon it and reap it, working a double disaster—famine for its owners, abundance for their enemies.
for the goods of one's enemies grieve no less than one's own misfortunes. And even while the enemy is quiet, harsher afflictions by nature will not be quiet: for you will sow the deep, rich soil of the plain, but a cloud of locusts will suddenly swoop down and mow it clean, and what is left for gathering will be the merest fraction of what was sown; and you will plant vineyards with unstinting expense and untiring toil, such as farmers are likely to undertake, but when the grapes have ripened and are budding and hanging heavy with plenty, worms will appear and harvest them instead.
When you see the olive groves flourishing with an abundant mass of fruit, you will rejoice, naturally, in hope of a fortunate harvest; but when you begin to gather it in, you will perceive your misfortune more than your impiety: the oil, all the richness, will drain away invisibly, and the outer husk itself, empty, will be left behind to deceive the soul with emptiness. And in general, whatever is sown or whatever trees bear fruit
will be consumed utterly by blight. And other calamities besides those mentioned lie in wait, engineers of want and destitution. For that through which nature supplied good things to men will be made barren—earth and sky alike: the one miscarrying and unable to bring its fruits to term, the other turned to sterility, none of the year's seasons—not winter, not summer, not spring, not autumn—rising in their proper order, but all forced apart into a shapeless, disordered mixture at the command of a despotic power; for no rain, no
shower, no fine drizzle, no small trickle, no dew, nothing capable of nourishing growth will come; instead only what is destructive to growing things and ruinous to fruits, once they have ripened, will occur—prepared precisely so that nothing reaches completion. "I will make," he says, "the sky over you bronze, and the earth iron" (Lev. 26:19; cf. Deut. 28:23), hinting that neither will accomplish the works proper to it, the works for which it came to be.
For where has iron ever borne ears of grain, or bronze brought rain—things which living creatures need, above all man, that perishable being deficient in so much? He signifies not only barrenness and the ruin of the year's seasons, but also the birth of wars and the unbearable, unspeakable evils that attend them; for bronze and iron are the materials of weapons of war.
And the earth, too, will bear dust, and soot will be brought down from the sky above, bringing a most crushing harvest that leads to destruction by suffocation, so that nothing might be left out of what serves ruin. Populous kindreds will be laid waste, cities will suddenly be emptied of their inhabitants, left standing as monuments of a former prosperity and a passing wretchedness, for the instruction of those still capable of being brought to their senses.
So great a scarcity of necessities will hold sway that, alienated from these, men will turn to eating one another—not only strangers with no claim of kinship, but their own nearest and dearest: father will lay hands on his son's flesh, mother on her daughter's inward parts, brothers on brothers, children on parents; and always the weaker will be the accursed, evil food of the stronger—the feast of Thyestes itself will pale beside the extremities of disaster that these times will work on so grand a scale.
For along with everything else—just as, in times of prosperity, life is desired for the enjoyment of good things, so too in those grim times a great longing will be implanted to go on living amid a share of measureless and unceasing evils, all beyond cure. For it is a lesser hardship for those past feeling to cut short their griefs by death, as is the custom of those not utterly out of their minds; but those out of their wits, from sheer derangement, would wish to live to the greatest possible age, insatiably and unquenchably clinging to the depths of their own wretchedness.
Such is the nature of what seems the lightest of evils, destitution, to bring on further evils, once the judgment driven by God is set in motion: for although cold, thirst, and lack of food are hard, they would be most welcome in such times, if only they brought a swift and final death; but lingering on, wasting away soul and body together, they produce sufferings heavier than those recounted in tragedies, sufferings which, because of their extremity, seem to belong to myth.
Slavery is the most unbearable thing to free men, for the sake of avoiding which the prudent are eager to die, striving with love of danger against those who threaten to impose mastery over them; and an unconquerable enemy is likewise unbearable; but if the same person should become both at once—master and enemy together—who could withstand it? The power to do wrong, from despotic authority, combined with the readiness to forgive nothing, born of implacable hostility?
He says, then, that those who disregard the sacred laws will be treated by their enemy masters without mercy, having been brought under subjection not only by their enemies' attack, but also by their own willing choice, for the sake of avoiding the unwanted things which famine and scarcity of necessities produce; for some consider the lesser evils preferable, as an escape from greater ones, if indeed anything of what has been described could be called slight.
For in their servitude they will undertake the bitter services commanded of their bodies, and, worn down in their souls by the anguish of yet more bitter sights, they will give up: for they will see those whom they raised in their households, or planted with their own hands, or acquired as their own, become the heirs, turned into enemies, enjoying goods that are no longer theirs but stand ready for others; they will see the choicest of their own flocks feasted upon, sacrificed and dressed for the most pleasant enjoyment, by those who took them from the ones now deprived; they will see too the wives they married in lawful wedlock for the begetting of legitimate children,
who, thought to be chaste, keepers of the house, and devoted to their husbands, will behave like courtesans; and though they will rush to defend themselves, beyond mere flailing they will be able to accomplish nothing, every strength cut away and sinews severed. For they will stand as targets set up for those wishing to lead them off, plunder, seize, insult, wound—for injury, for outrage, for utter destruction—so that not one shot goes wide, but all find their mark and strike true.
Accursed will they be in cities and villages, accursed in houses and farmsteads; accursed the plain and whatever seed was sown in it, accursed the deep soil of the hill country and whatever kinds of cultivated trees grow there; accursed the herds of livestock, for they will be made barren and sterile; accursed all the fruits, for at the very moment of their prime they will be blasted by the wind.
The storerooms full of food and money will be emptied; no path to profit will prosper; every craft, every manifold undertaking, every one of the countless forms of livelihood will bring no benefit to those who pursue them; for the hopes of the diligent will come to nothing, and, in short, whatever anyone touches through wicked pursuits or deeds—deeds whose head and end is abandonment of the service of God—these are the wages of impiety and lawlessness.
And besides these, bodily diseases will attack each limb and member separately, eating away at it, and again wasting the whole body through and through, with fevers, chills, consumptions, savage scabs, jaundice, gangrenous eyes, festering sores that creep like serpents over the skin, disorders of the inward parts, upheavals of the stomach, blockages of the passages in the lungs that prevent easy breathing—paralysis of the tongue, deafness of the ears, blinding of the eyes, dimming and confusion of the other senses, all terrible in themselves, yet appearing not so terrible when set beside still heavier afflictions—
as the blood in the veins loses whatever life-force was in it, and the breath in the arteries no longer receives, as before, a saving blend from the outer air akin to it, and the sinews go slack and are loosed—
upon which follows the collapse of the harmony and concord of the limbs, once a stream of salty and thoroughly bitter fluid has first done its damage by seeping in, and, whenever it is shut up in narrow channels that have no easy outlet, being compressed and itself compressing, gives rise to sharp and hard-to-bear pains, from which arise gout and arthritic afflictions and diseases for which no saving remedy has ever been devised, but which remain incurable by any human contrivance.
Seeing these things, some will be struck with astonishment at how those who a moment before were plump, well-fleshed, and flourishing in the height of good condition have so suddenly wasted away, become shriveled, nothing but sinew and thin skin, and how women delicately reared and utterly soft, through the luxury that grew up with them from earliest age, have had both their bodies and their souls made savage together by a terrible affliction.
Then, then indeed, enemies will pursue and the sword will exact its penalty, and those who flee to the cities, when they think themselves to have reached safety, deceived by a false hope, will perish by the thousands, having plunged straight into their enemies' ambush.
And if even after this they are not brought to their senses, still veering off course and turning away from the straight roads that lead to truth, fear and terror will be implanted in their souls, and they will flee though no one pursues, and, as is the way with false rumors, they will fall headlong at mere reports; the lightest rustle of a leaf carried on the air will produce as much agony and panic as the harshest war waged by the mightiest enemies—so that children will disregard their parents, and parents their children, and brothers their brothers, each expecting capture rather than help from the others, and looking for safety only in fleeing on his own.
But the hopes of wicked men come to nothing: those who think they have escaped will be caught no less, indeed more, than those seized beforehand. And even if some do slip away unnoticed, they will still lie in ambush from their natural enemies; and these are the most savage of beasts, armed from within themselves, which God fashioned at the very first creation of the universe—to be, for those capable of being admonished, a fear, and for those beyond cure, an inexorable penalty.
Those who look upon cities razed to their very foundations will disbelieve that they were ever inhabited at all; and they will make proverbial the sudden reversals of fortune from splendid prosperity to calamity, cases as numerous as those that have actually been recorded—and there are unrecorded ones too.
Those who see the cities destroyed down to their foundations will not believe that they were ever inhabited at all; and they will turn into a kind of proverb the sudden reversals from splendid prosperity into misfortune, as many as were recorded—indeed, even those that were never written down.
Wasting sicknesses will penetrate even to the depths of the body, breeding despondency and distress along with anguish. Successive fears, shaking the soul up and down by day and by night, will make life unsettled and hanging as if from a noose, so that in the morning they will pray for evening, and in the evening for dawn, because of the afflictions plainly visible to those awake and the horrifying visions that come in dreams to those asleep.
The convert, lifted up on high by good fortune, will be looked upon by all, admired and counted blessed for two most excellent things: for having deserted to God, and for receiving as his most fitting reward a secure rank in heaven, which it is not permitted to describe; while the man of noble birth who has counterfeited the true coinage of good breeding will be dragged down to the very depths, carried off to Tartarus and profound darkness—so that all men, seeing these examples, may be brought to their senses, learning that God embraces virtue that springs up out of low birth, letting the roots go their own way and instead welcoming the shoot that has grown from the stock, because it has been tamed and transformed into fruitfulness.
Thus, just as when cities have been consumed by fire and the land laid waste, so the land—which has been thoroughly worked and worn down by the unbearable violence of inhabitants who banished the virgin sabbaths beyond the borders both of the land and of their own thinking—will one day begin to breathe again and lift up its head. For nature has shown the sabbaths of days and of years to be the only, or to put it more safely, the first festivals: for men, the sabbaths of days, as a rest, and for the land, the sabbaths of years.
But those who have veiled over this whole law—the sacred rites, the treaties, the altar of mercy, the common hearth from which friendship and concord were joined together (for everything proceeds by sevens and sabbaths)—the more powerful of them oppressed the weaker with continuous and unremitting demands, and they oppressed the fields too, always pursuing homeless gains born of greed, setting upon their desires unbridled and unjust impulses toward the insatiable.
For instead of granting to men—who, in the truest sense, are brothers, since common nature is their one mother—the truces prescribed after every six days, and instead of granting to the land as well the reliefs due after every six years, refraining from burdening it with sowing or planting, so that it should not be worn out by unbroken labors,
neglecting these beneficial exhortations that called them to gentleness, they oppressed with unrelenting compulsions the bodies and souls of all whom they could, and they cut away the strength of the deep soil too, insatiably exacting yields beyond its capacity and, through tributes not only yearly but even daily, wearing it down and breaking its neck entirely.
For these things, they will pay in full the curses and penalties described; but the land, its sinews cut and having endured countless afflictions, will be relieved once it has thrown off the burden of its impious inhabitants, and it will grow lighter. And when, looking about on every side, it sees none of those who tore down its greatness and dignity, but sees its marketplaces empty of tumult, wars, and wrongdoing, and full instead of quiet, peace, and justice, it will grow young again and flourish, and it will keep the seasons of the sacred sabbaths as festivals in stillness, gathering its strength to rest, like an athlete who has trained beforehand.
Then, like an affectionate mother, it will grieve for the sons and daughters it lost, who became a source of pain to their parents whether dead or—even more—while still alive; but growing young once more, it will bear fruit and give birth to a blameless generation, a restoration of the former one. For, as the prophet says, the desolate woman is rich in children and abounds in offspring—a saying that is also allegorized concerning the soul.
For whenever the soul is populous, it is filled to overflowing with passions and vices, as if surrounded by its own children—pleasures, desires, folly, licentiousness, injustice—and it is weak, sick, and, in its precarious state, dying; but once it has been made barren and childless of these, or has cast them off all at once, it becomes, by this transformation, a pure virgin,
and, having received the divine seed, it molds and brings to life natures worth fighting for, wonders of beauty—prudence, courage, self-control, justice, holiness, piety, the other virtues and good feelings—whose birth is a blessing rich in offspring, and whose very expectation, even before the birth, already brightens its weakness with hope.
Hope is a joy before joy—even though it falls short of the complete joy that comes after, it is nonetheless better than it in two ways: because it loosens and enriches the parched dryness of our anxious cares, and because, running ahead of what is to come, it brings the good news of the full good yet to arrive.
As for the curses and punishments, then, which those deserve to undergo who despise the justice and piety of the sacred laws and are led astray by polytheistic opinions—whose end is atheism—through forgetting the teaching native and ancestral to them, which they were taught from their earliest years, namely to regard the nature of the One as the supreme God, to whom alone those who pursue unfeigned truth instead of fabricated myths must be devoted—all this I have set forth without holding anything back.
If, however, they receive these powers not for their own destruction but for correction, and, filled with shame, change with their whole soul—first reproaching themselves for their wandering, and then confessing and acknowledging in a purified mind, before the truthful and guileless witness of their own conscience, all the wrongs they have committed against themselves, and afterward with their tongue as well, for the improvement of those who hear them—they will meet with the kindness of the Savior and merciful God, who has granted to the human race an exceptional and greatest gift: kinship with his own Logos, from which, as from an archetype, the human mind has come into being.
For even if they are in the farthest ends of the earth, enslaved among the enemies who carried them off as captives, they will all be set free in a single day, as if at one signal, since their sudden transformation toward virtue will strike their masters with astonishment; for out of reverence, their masters will release them
from ruling over their betters. And when they obtain this unexpected freedom, those who, only shortly before, were scattered throughout Greece and barbarian lands, on islands and on continents, will rise up and, with a single impulse, hasten from every direction toward one appointed place, each guided there by some vision more divine than is natural to man—invisible to others, but manifest only to those who are being brought to safety,
employing three intercessors for their reconciliation with the Father: first, the fairness and kindness of him who is being entreated, who always sets forgiveness before punishment; second, the holiness of the founders of the nation, because their souls, released from their bodies, display an unfeigned and unadorned devotion toward the Ruler, and are accustomed to make their supplications on behalf of their sons and daughters not without effect, the Father granting them, as a special honor, a hearing in their prayers;
and third—the reason on account of which especially the goodwill described above hastens forth to meet them—the improvement of those who are being brought into treaties and covenants, who have at last managed to come from a trackless waste onto the road, whose destination is nothing other than to please God, as sons please a father.
And when they arrive, the cities that had shortly before become ruins will be rebuilt, the desolate land will be resettled, and the barren earth will be transformed into fruitfulness; and the good fortunes of their fathers and forebears will be reckoned a small thing beside the abundant resources at hand, which, flowing like the ever-running springs of God, will secure deep wealth, both for each individually and for all in common, greater than envy can touch.
And the reversal of everything will happen all at once: for God will turn the curses onto the enemies of those who have repented, the enemies who took pleasure in the nation's downfall, mocking and jeering at it, supposing that they themselves would hold an unshakeable inheritance of good fortune which they hoped to leave to their children and descendants in succession, while they would forever look upon their rivals kept in a fixed and unwavering misfortune stored up for future generations as well—
failing, out of derangement of mind, to understand that even the brilliance they had shortly before enjoyed came about not for their own sake but as a warning to others—for whom, once they had abandoned their ancestral ways, a saving remedy was found: grief, at feeling the pain of their enemies' prosperity. So then, having wept and groaned over their own reversal, those to whom it did not happen to run wholly aground will run the double course back to their former, ancestral good fortune.
But those who laughed at their lamentations, who voted to hold public festivals on their days of ill omen, who feasted sumptuously through their mourning, and who, in short, made merry over the misfortunes of others—when they begin to receive the wages of their cruelty, they will realize that they were not sinning against people obscure and disregarded, but against men of noble birth who retained sparks of their good breeding, sparks which, once fanned into flame, made the glory that had been quenched only a short time before shine out again.
For just as, when the trunks of trees are cut down but the roots are not removed, new shoots spring up, by which the old, decaying timber is outdone and surpassed, in the same way, when in souls the smallest seed toward virtue has been left behind, even though all else has been stripped away, none the less from that small remnant grow the most honored and beautiful things found among men—through which cities, once again full of vigorous men, are resettled, and nations increase toward a great multitude of people.

======== Every Good Man is Free ========

Our earlier discourse, Theodotus, concerned the thesis that every base person is a slave, which we established through many plausible and true arguments. This present discourse is that one's kin, a full brother by both father and mother, and in a sense its twin, in which we shall demonstrate that every person of true worth is free.
The story goes that the most sacred company of the Pythagoreans, among many other admirable teachings, also handed down this one: "do not walk the highways." This did not mean that we should scramble over cliffs — for the precept was not laying down toil for our feet — but rather it was hinting through a symbol that we should not use words or deeds that are vulgar and well-trodden.
Those who embraced philosophy in the true sense, having become obedient to that command, took it to be a law — or rather a solemn ordinance ranking with an oracle — and looking beyond the opinions of the herd, they blazed a different trail, one impassable to ordinary people, in words and doctrines, causing forms of thought to rise up which it is not lawful for anyone impure to touch.
By "not pure" I mean those who either remained utterly untasted of education throughout their lives, or who received it crookedly rather than along a straight path, recasting the beauty of wisdom into the disgrace of sophistry.
These people, unable to see the intelligible light because of the weakness of the eye of the soul, are naturally overshadowed by its brilliance. Living as it were in night, they distrust those who live in daylight, and whatever such people, having gazed most clearly upon the unmixed radiance of the sun's rays, report to them, they regard as monstrous, resembling apparitions, no different from the marvels shown at shows.
For how is it not truly bizarre and astonishing to call "exiles" those who not only spend their time in the very heart of the city but also sit on councils, serve as judges, attend the assembly, and sometimes even undertake the offices of market-supervisor, gymnasiarch, and the other public services,
while calling "citizens" those who either were never enrolled at all, or who have been condemned to loss of civic rights and exile, men driven beyond the borders, who are able not merely not to set foot on the land but not even to view their ancestral soil from a distance, unless they are being driven along by certain avenging spirits, longing for death? For countless punishers stand in readiness against those who come back, sharpened by their own resolve and serving the commands of the laws.
And how is it not absurd, and full of great shamelessness or madness — I do not know which to call it, for owing to the sheer excess it is not even easy to find suitable names of one's own — to call "rich" the most destitute people, who lack even the necessities, living out a wretched and miserable existence, barely procuring their daily bread, possessing a peculiar famine in the midst of common abundance, nourished on the mere breeze of virtue the way they say cicadas are nourished on the air,
while calling "poor" those who are awash in an abundance of silver and gold and a multitude of possessions and revenues and other untold goods, whose wealth has benefited not only their relatives and friends, but who, going out beyond their household, benefit large gatherings of fellow tribesmen and fellow demesmen, and reaching further still, supply a whole city with everything it needs, whether peace or war requires it?
And from that same dream-delusion, they have dared to pronounce slavery upon men blessed on both sides and truly wellborn, whose forebears — not parents alone but grandfathers and ancestors reaching back to the founders, both on the men's side and the women's — have been most illustrious, while pronouncing freedom upon wretches branded through three generations of servitude, ground down by shackles and slaves of long standing.
Such things, as I said, are the pretext of people whose understanding has been darkened, who are slaves of opinion, clinging to the senses, whose court, being perpetually bribed by the very parties on trial, is unreliable.
They ought, if they had any real zeal for truth, not to fall short in reasoning of those who are ill in body. For the latter entrust themselves to physicians in their longing for health, while the former shrink from casting off the disease of the soul, ignorance, though they have become companions of wise men, from whom it is possible not only to unlearn ignorance but also to acquire the possession truly proper to a human being, knowledge.
Since, according to the most sacred Plato, "envy stands outside the divine choir," and wisdom is most divine and most sociable of all things, she never shuts up her own school, but keeps it perpetually open and receives those who thirst for wholesome words, upon whom she pours an unstinting stream of unmixed teaching, persuading them to become drunk with a sober intoxication.
Those who, as if initiated in the mysteries, have once been filled with her sacred rites, reproach themselves greatly for their former negligence, on the ground that they did not spare the time, but wore away a life not worth living, in which they were widowed of understanding.
It is fitting, therefore, that youth everywhere should devote the firstfruits of its earliest prime to nothing so much as to education, in which it is good both to grow up and to grow old. For just as, they say, new vessels retain the odors of whatever was first poured into them, so too the souls of the young, stamping the first impressions of their perceptions indelibly upon themselves, and being least overwhelmed by the flood of what streams in afterward, display clearly the original form.
Enough, then, of this. The matter under inquiry must be examined precisely, so that we are not led astray and wander because of the vagueness of terms, but rather, having grasped what the discourse concerns, may fit our proofs to it with sure aim.
Slavery, then, is said to be of two kinds, of souls and of bodies. Masters of bodies are men, but masters of souls are vices and passions. In the same way freedom is also of two kinds; the one produces immunity of bodies from more powerful men, the other produces a truce of the mind from the mastery of the passions.
The first of these no one at all inquires into, for the fortunes of men are countless, and many people of the highest worth have often, in circumstances not of their choosing, lost the freedom that was theirs by birth. But the inquiry concerns characters that neither desires nor fears nor pleasures nor griefs have yoked, characters that have come forth as it were from prison and had the bonds by which they were bound loosed.
Having then cleared out of the way the pretextual quibbles and the names — foreign to nature but hung upon mere opinion — of "house-bred slaves" or "purchased slaves" or "captives," let us seek the truly free man, to whom alone belongs self-mastery, even should countless people write themselves down as his masters. For he will cry out that saying of Sophocles, no different from an oracle's response: "God is my ruler, and no mortal is." For truly he alone is free who has God alone as his guide,
and in my judgment he is also the guide of others, having been entrusted with earthly affairs, as a mortal successor of a great king, the Immortal. But let the discourse on the wise man's rule be deferred to a more suitable occasion, while the discourse on freedom must now be made precise.
If someone, going deeper into the matter, should wish to look closely, he will know clearly that nothing else is so akin to another thing as self-determined action is to freedom, because for the base person there are many obstacles — love of money, love of glory, love of pleasure — while for the person of true worth there is absolutely nothing that rises up against him and takes its stand over him, the way that, in a contest of prizes, over those thrown down in the wrestling stand love, fear, cowardice, grief, and their kindred passions.
For he has learned to disregard the orders that the most lawless rulers of the soul give, out of zeal and longing for freedom, whose own special portion is self-command and voluntary action. Some people praise that line of verse composed by a certain poet: "Who is a slave, if he takes no thought of dying?" as one who grasped well the consequence of his own thought; for he understood that nothing so naturally enslaves the mind as fear of death, on account of the yearning for life.
But one ought to reckon that not only the person who takes no thought of dying is unenslaved, but also the person who takes no thought of poverty and disrepute and pain and all the other things that most people consider evils — people who are themselves bad judges of such matters, since they assess who is a slave by looking to services rendered, when they ought to look instead to a character that cannot be enslaved.
For the man who, out of a mean and servile disposition, undertakes mean and servile tasks against his own judgment, is truly a slave; but the man who adapts his own conduct to the present circumstance, both willingly and with endurance holding out against what comes from fortune, and who considers nothing in human affairs to be strange, but has carefully examined that things divine are honored with an eternal order and blessedness, while all mortal things are tossed about in the surge and swell of circumstance and sway toward unequal balances, and who nobly endures whatever befalls him, is at once a philosopher and free.
Hence he will not obey every person who gives him orders, even if that person threatens him with outrages and tortures and certain most fearful threats, but with youthful boldness will proclaim in reply: "Roast, burn my flesh, glut yourself drinking my dark blood; for sooner shall the stars go down beneath the earth, and the earth rise up into heaven, than you shall win from me a fawning word."
I once saw, in a contest of pankratiasts, one man landing blows with both hands and feet, aiming well and leaving nothing undone that could bring victory, yet giving up exhausted and slack, and leaving the stadium at the end without a crown; while the other, the one being struck, compacted by the density of his flesh, hard and solid, truly full of athletic spirit, sinewy through and through, like a rock or a piece of iron, yielded nothing to the blows, and wore down his opponent's strength by the endurance and firmness of his patience, until complete victory.
Something like this, it seems to me, is what happens to the man of worth. For once his soul has been thoroughly strengthened by a firm-minded reasoning, he forces the one using violence against him to give up sooner than he himself endures doing anything against his judgment. But perhaps what is said seems incredible to those who have not experienced virtue - just as that other fact seems incredible to those who do not know pankratiasts, yet it happens no less in truth.
Looking to these things, Antisthenes said that the man of worth is hard to carry off: for as folly is light and easily swept along, so wisdom is fixed, unswerving, and possesses an immovable weight.
But the lawgiver of the Jews represents the hands of the wise man as heavy (Exodus 17:12), hinting through symbols that his actions are established not superficially but firmly, springing from a mind that does not waver.
He is therefore compelled by no one, since he has come to despise pain, and to despise death, and holds all fools subject to him by the law of nature. For just as goatherds and cowherds and shepherds lead flocks of goats, cattle, and sheep, while it is impossible to set the herds in command of shepherds, in the same way the many, resembling cattle, need an overseer and ruler, while the men of worth are leaders, appointed to the rank of herd-masters.
Homer, then, is accustomed to call kings ‘shepherds of the people’; but nature has bestowed this name more properly upon the good, since kings, at least, are for the most part shepherded rather than shepherding - for unmixed wine drives them, and beauty, and pastries and delicacies and the seasonings of cooks and bakers, to say nothing of desires for silver and gold and more solemn things - whereas the good are enticed by nothing, but rather admonish whomever they perceive caught in the snares of pleasure.
That acts of service are not marks of slavery, the clearest proof is war: for one can see soldiers on campaign all doing their own work, not only carrying their full armor, but also loaded like pack animals with whatever is needed for daily necessities, then going out for water, for gathering firewood, and for fodder for the animals.
As for what they do against the enemy on campaign, why dwell at length - digging trenches, or building walls, or constructing triremes, or performing with their own hands and the rest of their bodies all the tasks that service or skill require.
There is also a kind of war even in peacetime, no less severe than the war of arms, one which disrepute, poverty, and a dreadful lack of necessities wage together; compelled by this, men are forced to undertake even the most slavish tasks - digging, farming, practicing menial trades, serving without hesitation merely to be fed, and often even carrying loads through the middle of the marketplace in full view of their peers, fellow students, and age-mates.
Others are slaves by birth who, by a stroke of good fortune, attain the status of free men: they are appointed stewards of households and properties and great estates, and sometimes even rulers over their fellow slaves; and many are chosen, ahead of friends and relatives, to be entrusted with the wives and orphaned children of their masters. Yet all the same they are slaves - though they lend money, make purchases, collect revenues, and are courted.
What wonder is it, then, if by a reverse slip of fortune someone performs the duties of a slave? It is obedience to another that takes away freedom. And how do children put up with the commands of a father or mother, or pupils with the instructions their teachers give? For no one is a slave willingly. Parents, at any rate, will never display such an excess of hatred toward their own children as to force them to endure services, the only true marks of slavery.
But if someone, seeing certain people being sold cheaply by slave-dealers, supposes they are therefore slaves, he strays far from the truth: for a sale does not make either the purchaser a master or the one sold a slave, since fathers have sometimes taken payment for their sons, and sons often for fathers who have been carried off by bandits or made captives in war - and the laws of nature, more binding than the laws below, declare these people free.
And indeed some have even gone to the opposite extreme and turned the matter around completely, becoming, instead of slaves, masters of those who bought them. I myself have often observed pretty little slave-girls, naturally talkative, who with two weapons - beauty of appearance and charm of speech - lay siege to their owners; for these are engines of unmoored and unballasted souls, more powerful than any machine built for the demolition of walls.
Here is a sign: their owners court them, beg them, are eager to obtain their favor as though from Fortune or a good spirit, and if overlooked they writhe in distress, but if they see only that glance turn gracious, they leap for joy and dance.
unless one must also say that the man who bought lions is master of lions - a man who, should the lions merely fix their eyes on him, will straightaway learn, to his cost, how harsh and savage are the masters he has purchased for himself. What then? Do we not think the wise man more free from slavery than lions, holding his strength in a free and invulnerable soul, rather than being unruly in a body that is by nature a slave and possesses the greatest bodily vigor?
One may also learn the freedom that belongs to the man of excellence from other considerations: no slave, in truth, is ever happy; for what is more wretched than to have no authority even over oneself? But the wise man is happy, bearing within him the ballast and the fullness of nobility, in which lies authority over all things.
so that, without doubt and of necessity, the man of excellence is free. Besides this, who would not say that the friends of the gods are free? Unless indeed it is fitting to grant not only freedom but even rulership to the companions of kings, who share in governing and administering the realm together with them, while slavery must be attributed to the companions of the Olympian gods - who, because of their love of God, straightaway upon being born become beloved of God, and are honored with an equal favor in return, by the judgment of truth, and, as the poets say, are rulers over all and kings of kings. But the lawgiver of the Jews, going further still, more boldly,
inasmuch as he was, as the account has it, an ascetic of unadorned philosophy, dared to call the man possessed by divine love and devoted only to the One who Is, no longer a man, but a god (Exodus 7:1) - a god, that is, of men, not of the parts of nature, so that he might leave to the Father of all the title of being King and God of gods.
Is it worthy, then, to consider the one who has attained so great a privilege a slave, rather than alone truly free? Even if he has not been deemed worthy of a divine portion in himself, still, through having God as a friend, he was surely bound to be happy: for the champion is not weak, nor is God, being a friend to his companions, careless of the rights due to companions.
Further, then, just as among cities, those governed by oligarchy or tyranny endure slavery, having as harsh and heavy masters those who subjugate and dominate them, while those that make use of laws as their caretakers and protectors are free - so too among men: those over whom anger, or desire, or some other passion, or even scheming vice holds sway, are altogether slaves, while all who live under law are free.
And law, unerring, is right reason - not perishable, corrupted by this man or that, mortal, inscribed on little sheets of paper or on stone tablets, lifeless engraved on lifeless things, but imperishable, stamped by an immortal nature upon an immortal understanding.
For this reason one might well marvel at the dimness of sight of those who fail to perceive distinctions so clearly evident - who say that the laws of Solon and Lycurgus, ruling and governing, are entirely sufficient for the freedom of the greatest peoples, Athens and Sparta, when their citizens obey them, and yet deny that right reason - which is also the source of all other laws - is sufficient for wise men to share in freedom, when they obey it in all that it commands or forbids.
In addition, then, to what has been said, the clearest proof of freedom is equality of speech, which all the virtuous maintain toward one another. Hence they say that those trimeter verses were spoken with philosophic insight: ‘For slaves by nature have no share in the laws.’ And again: ‘You are by nature a slave; you have no share in reasoned speech.’
Just as, then, the law of music grants equality of speech in the art to all who have practiced music, and the law of grammar or of geometry grants it to grammarians or geometers, so too the law of life grants it to those experienced in the affairs of life.
And all the virtuous are experienced in the affairs of life, since they are also experienced in the affairs of the whole of nature; and some of them are free, so that all who share equality of speech with these are likewise...
no serious man is a slave, but all are free. And from the same starting point it will also be shown that the fool is a slave. For just as the law of music does not grant equal speech to the unmusical in the presence of the trained, nor the law of grammar to the illiterate in the presence of grammarians, nor in general does any technical law grant it to the unskilled in the presence of skilled practitioners, so too the law of life does not grant equal speech to those inexperienced in living in the presence of the experienced.
But to all the free, equal speech is granted by law; and some of the serious are free; and of those inexperienced in living, the base are inexperienced, while the wise are the most experienced; therefore none of the base are free, but all are slaves.
Zeno, driven by virtue if anyone ever was, demonstrates rather forcefully that the base have no equal speech with the good. For he says: "Will not the base man wail if he contradicts the serious man? Then there is no equal speech for the base man with the serious man."
I know that many will mock this argument as showing more stubbornness than understanding when questioned. But once they have finished their laughter and their mockery, if they are willing to look closely and examine carefully what has been said, they will be astonished to find its truth, that there is nothing for which a man will wail more than for failing to obey the wise man.
For loss of money, or dishonor, or exile, or the outrages of blows, and all such things are small and amount to nothing when set against vices, of which vices themselves are the makers. But the many, failing to perceive the harms done to the soul because their reasoning is maimed, happen to be distressed only by external things, having been deprived of the one faculty by which alone the damage to the mind can be grasped.
But if they could recover their sight, and were to behold the deceptions wrought by folly and the abuses wrought by cowardice and all that licentiousness has committed in its drunkenness or injustice has committed against the law, they would be filled with unceasing grief at the misfortunes of what is best in them, and because of the excess of these evils they would not even tolerate consolation.
Zeno seems to have drawn this argument as from a spring, from the legislation of the Jews, in which, there being two brothers, one temperate and the other licentious, the father common to both, taking pity on the one who has not attained to virtue, prays that he may be enslaved to his brother — supposing slavery, which seems the greatest evil, to be the most complete good for a fool, since it deprives him of the independence to transgress with impunity, while through the guardianship of the one set over him his character will be improved.
The things said so far, for my part, were sufficient to establish the point at issue. But since physicians are accustomed to treat the varied forms of disease with correspondingly varied treatments, it is necessary also, in the case of problems considered paradoxical because of their unfamiliarity, to bring forward proof upon proof in support; for some people are persuaded only with difficulty, when struck by a continuous succession of demonstrations.
It is said, then, not without point, that the man who does everything with practical wisdom does everything well, and the one who does everything well does everything rightly, and the one who does everything rightly also does everything without error, blamelessly, irreproachably, unaccountably, and without penalty, so that he will have the power to do all things and to live as he wishes. And whoever has this power would be free. But the good man does everything with practical wisdom; therefore he alone is free.
And indeed, whoever cannot be compelled or hindered would not be a slave. But it is not possible to compel or hinder the serious man; therefore the serious man is not a slave. That he is neither compelled nor hindered is clear: for the one who is hindered is the one who fails to obtain what he desires, but the wise man desires the things that come from virtue, and it is not his nature to fail to obtain them. And indeed, if a man is compelled, it is clear that he does something unwillingly. But among the things a man does, actions are either successes stemming from virtue, or failures stemming from vice, or else neutral and indifferent.
Now the things that stem from virtue he does not by compulsion but willingly — for all that he does is chosen by him — while the things that stem from vice, being things to be shunned, he does not do even in a dream; nor is it likely that he does the indifferent things either, toward which his mind holds an even balance as on a scale, having been trained neither to yield as though they had a pulling force, nor to be vexed at them as though they deserved aversion. From this it is clear that he does nothing unwillingly and is compelled in nothing; but if he were a slave he would be compelled; so the good man would be free.
Now since some of those least versed in the choir of the Muses, who do not understand demonstrative arguments — the sort that establish general truths about things — are accustomed to ask: well then, who, either in the past or now, were or are the sort of men you fashion in your descriptions? It is a fine answer to give, that in ancient times too there were some who surpassed their contemporaries in virtue, taking God alone as their guide and living according to law, the right reason of nature, not only free themselves but also filling those who came near them with a free disposition of mind; and even in our own day there still exist, as it were, images copied from the original painting, imprinted with the nobility and goodness of wise men.
For if the souls of those who dispute this have been bereft of freedom, enslaved by folly and the other vices, that is no reason why the whole human race should be so as well. And if such men do not go forward in great herds like a flock, there is nothing surprising in this: first, because things of great beauty are rare; and further, because, turning away from the great crowd of more careless people, they devote their leisure to the contemplation of the works of nature, praying, if it were somehow possible, to set life right again — for virtue benefits the community — but being unable to do so, since strange affairs, which the passions and vices of the soul have caused to grow, are flooding the cities, they withdraw, so as not to be swept away by the rush of the current as though by the violence of a torrent.
But we, if we had any zeal for improvement, ought to have tracked down their hiding places and, sitting as suppliants, called upon them, so that by approaching we might tame our brutalized life, proclaiming to them, in place of war and slavery and untold evils, the peace and freedom and abundance of other goods flowing all around.
But as things now stand, for the sake of money we search out every hidden recess and lay open the hard, unyielding veins of the earth, and much of the plain is mined, and no small part of the mountain country too, as men search out gold and silver, bronze and iron, and the other materials.
And empty opinion, deifying its own vanity, has descended even to the depths of the sea in its search, in case some beautiful thing hidden from sense-perception might lie somewhere there; and having discovered the forms of many-colored and costly stones, some clinging to rocks, others to shellfish — which have in fact become even more prized — it has honored the deception of sight.
But for the sake of practical wisdom or temperance or courage or justice, the land, both impassable and passable alike, goes untraveled, and the seas, unsailed at every season of the year, are nonetheless crossed by shipowners for profit.
And yet what need is there of a long journey by land or by sea, for the search and pursuit of virtue, whose roots the one who planted them set not far off but very close at hand? Just as the wise lawgiver of the Jews also says: "in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands" (Deuteronomy 30:14), hinting through symbols at words, counsels, and actions, all of which require the art of farming.
Those, then, who have preferred idleness to labor have not only prevented the shoots from growing, but have also withered and destroyed the roots; while those who consider leisure harmful and are willing to labor, cultivating them like noble young plants, have through continual care raised up virtues into trunks reaching to the sky, evergreen and immortal shoots bearing the fruit of never-ceasing happiness — or, as some would say, not bearing happiness but themselves being happiness, which Moses is accustomed to call by the compound name "whole burnt offerings."
For in the case of things that grow from the earth, the fruit is not the tree nor the tree the fruit; but in the case of what grows in the soul, the shoots have been transformed wholly through and through into the nature of fruit — the shoot of practical wisdom,
the shoot of justice, of courage, of temperance. Having, then, such resources within ourselves, should we not blush to proclaim to the human race a poverty of wisdom, when it was possible to fan into flame, as one fans a smoldering spark buried in ash? But indeed, toward the things we ought to have hastened as most akin and most our own, there is great reluctance and continual indolence, by which the seeds of nobility and goodness are destroyed, while toward the things it would have been reasonable to be slow about, there is insatiable longing and desire.
For this reason the earth and sea are full of the rich and the famous and those who indulge in pleasures, but the number of the wise and just and good is small; yet what is small, even if rare, is not nonexistent.
Greece and the non-Greek world alike bear witness to this. For in Greece those truly called the Seven Sages flourished, and others before and after them, as is likely, reached their prime, whose memory, in the case of the older ones, has been erased by the length of time, while that of the more recent ones is being effaced through the prevailing negligence of their contemporaries.
But among non-Greek peoples, among whom there are ambassadors of word and deed, there exist very numerous multitudes of noble and good men: among the Persians, the order of the Magi, who, searching out the works of nature to attain knowledge of the truth, in quiet initiate others into the divine virtues through clearer manifestations, and are themselves initiated; and among the Indians, the order of the Gymnosophists, who, in addition to natural philosophy, labor also at moral philosophy, and have made their whole life a display of virtue.
And Palestinian Syria too is not barren of nobility and goodness, a land inhabited by no small portion of that most populous nation, the Jews. Among them there are some called Essenes, numbering more than four thousand, so named, in my opinion — though not in strict accordance with Greek dialect — from their holiness, since they have become above all others servants of God, not sacrificing living creatures, but deeming it fit to prepare their own minds to be worthy of holiness.
These men, in the first place, live in the villages, avoiding the cities because of the ingrained lawlessness of those who dwell in them, knowing from experience that the contagion of disease coming from a corrupting atmosphere is incurable to souls. Some of them work the land, others pursue crafts that cooperate with peace, and so benefit themselves and those close to them, not hoarding silver and gold, nor acquiring great tracts of land out of desire for revenue, but procuring only what is needed for the necessities of life.
For alone among almost all humankind, having become without money and without possessions—by deliberate choice rather than by lack of good fortune—they are considered the wealthiest, judging frugality and contentment, as indeed it is, to be abundance.
You would find among them no maker of arrows, javelins, daggers, helmets, breastplates, or shields, nor in general any armorer or engineer or anyone pursuing the crafts of war; nor even those peacetime crafts that slide so easily into vice. For of trade, retail dealing, or shipowning they know not even in a dream, warding off the occasions that lead to greed.
There is not a single slave among them, but all are free, rendering service to one another; and they condemn masters, not only as unjust, in that they violate equality, but also as impious, in that they abolish the law of nature, which, having given birth to all alike and reared them as a mother does, has made them true brothers—not merely called so, but genuinely so; a kinship which scheming greed, gaining the upper hand, has shaken apart, working alienation in place of intimacy and hostility in place of friendship.
Of philosophy they leave the logical part, as unnecessary for the acquisition of virtue, to the word-hunters, and the physical part, as beyond human nature, to the sky-gazing babblers, except so much of it as is philosophized concerning the existence of God and the origin of the universe; but the ethical part they labor at diligently, using as trainers the ancestral laws, which it would be impossible for a human soul to have devised without divine inspiration.
In these they are instructed at other times as well, but especially on the seventh days. For the seventh day has been reckoned sacred, on which they abstain from other work and, arriving at holy places called synagogues, sit in rows according to age, the younger beneath the elder, maintaining a fitting decorum as they listen.
Then one takes up the books and reads, while another of those most experienced comes forward and explains whatever is not clear; for most of their philosophizing is done through symbols, in the manner of an ancient zeal.
They are trained in piety, holiness, justice, household management, statesmanship, knowledge of what is truly good and bad and indifferent, in the choices one must make and the avoidances of their opposites, using three criteria and standards: love of God, love of virtue, and love of humanity.
Of their love of God they furnish countless proofs: the continuous and unbroken purity maintained throughout their whole life, their avoidance of oaths, their truthfulness, their belief that the divine is the cause of all good things and of no evil at all. Of their love of virtue: freedom from love of money, freedom from love of glory, freedom from love of pleasure, self-control, endurance, and further frugality, simplicity, contentment, freedom from arrogance, obedience to law, steadiness, and all the qualities akin to these. Of their love of humanity: goodwill, equality, and a fellowship surpassing all description, about which it is not out of place to say a little.
First, then, no one has a private house that does not happen to belong to all in common; for besides living together in companies, it stands open also to those of like zeal who come from elsewhere.
Then there is one storeroom for all, and common expenses, and common food, since they have made their meals communal; for you would not find among any other people the sharing of roof, of life, and of table more firmly established in practice. And this is not without reason: whatever they receive as wages for the day's work, they do not keep as their own, but set it forth in the common stock, thereby providing the benefit from it to all who wish to use it.
Those who are sick are not neglected on the ground that they are unable to provide for themselves, since they have ready to hand from the common resources whatever is needed for their care, so that they can draw freely and abundantly. And there is reverence and concern for the elders, cared for in old age with every abundance by the hands and thoughts of true children, as though by their own parents.
Such athletes of virtue does philosophy produce, free of the elaborate contrivance of Greek terminology, setting before them as its exercises praiseworthy actions, from which unenslaved freedom is made secure.
Here is a proof: many rulers have at various times risen up against the country, of differing natures and purposes—some striving to outdo the untamed savagery of wild beasts, leaving nothing undone in cruelty, slaughtering their subjects in droves like cattle, or even, while they were still alive, carving them limb by limb in the manner of butchers, until they themselves suffered the same misfortunes at the hands of the justice that oversees human affairs, and did not desist;
others, having transformed their disturbed and rabid fury into a different form of vice, practicing an unspeakable bitterness, speaking softly, displaying their temper through the pretense of a gentler voice heavy with hidden wrath, fawning like venomous dogs, becoming the cause of incurable evils, left behind in the cities monuments of their own impiety and inhumanity in the unforgettable sufferings of those who had endured them—
yet none of them, neither the most savage-hearted nor the most treacherous and cunning, was able to bring any charge against the aforesaid company of the Essenes, or holy ones; rather, all of them, overpowered by the goodness of these men, treated them as though they were by nature autonomous and free, celebrating their communal meals and their fellowship surpassing all description, which is the clearest proof of a perfect and truly happy life.
Since some do not think that virtues found among the masses can be perfect, but suppose them to stop short at mere growth and advancement, it is necessary to adduce as witnesses the lives of individual good men, which are the clearest proofs of freedom.
Calanus was an Indian by birth, one of the gymnosophists; considered the most enduring of all his contemporaries, not only by his own countrymen but even—which is exceedingly rare—by foreign kings hostile to him, he was admired, having woven together in his person noble deeds with words worthy of praise.
Alexander of Macedon, at any rate, wishing to display to Greece the wisdom found among the barbarians, as one displays a copy and likeness taken from an original painting, first invited Calanus to accompany him on his travels, promising to procure him the greatest renown throughout all Asia; and when he could not persuade him, he said he would compel him to follow.
But Calanus, very aptly and nobly, said, 'Of what worth, then, will you display me to be to the Greeks, Alexander, if I am to be compelled to do what I do not wish?' Is not this speech full of frankness, and is not the mind behind it far fuller of freedom? Indeed, in letters more lasting than mere spoken words, he inscribed clear marks of an unenslaved character.
This is shown by the letter sent to the king: 'Calanus. Your friends persuade you to bring hands and compulsion against the philosophers of India, though they have not so much as seen our deeds even in their dreams. Bodies you will move from place to place, but you will not compel souls to do what they do not wish, any more than you will make bricks and logs utter speech. Fire causes the greatest torments and destruction to living bodies; over this we rise superior, for we are burned while yet alive. There is no king or ruler who will compel us to do what we do not choose. We are not to be likened to the philosophers of the Greeks, as many of them as have practiced speeches for display in public assemblies, but among us deeds follow words and words follow deeds; ... brief, they possess another power, and secure blessedness and freedom.'
In the face of such declarations and convictions, is it not fitting to invoke the saying of Zeno, that 'one might sooner sink a wineskin full of air than compel any one of the wise, against his will, to do anything he is unwilling to do'? For the soul is unyielding and unconquerable which right reason has strengthened with firm convictions.
Witnesses to the freedom of the wise are the poets and prose writers, by whose sentiments Greeks and barbarians alike, nourished on them almost from the cradle, are improved in character, everything in their souls that has been corrupted by faulty upbringing and manner of life being reminted toward what is genuine.
See, then, what sort of thing Heracles says in Euripides: 'Burn, scorch my flesh, glut yourself drinking my dark blood; for sooner shall the stars go down beneath the earth, and the earth rise up into the heavens, than a flattering word shall come from me to meet you.' For in truth, fawning, flattery, and pretense, in cases where words contend with convictions, are most fit for a slave, but to speak freely, without adulteration and genuinely, out of a pure conscience, is fitting for the nobly born.
Again, do you not see that this same wise man, even when sold, does not appear to be a servant, but strikes those who see him with astonishment, as one who is not only free but will even become master of the one who bought him?
When Hermes is asked whether he is base, he answers: “Not base at all—quite the opposite: dignified in bearing, not servile, not overly stout as a slave would be, but splendid in dress to look at and vigorous with the club. No one wants to buy masters better than himself for his household—yet everyone who looks at you is afraid, for your eye is full of fire, like a bull glaring at a lion about to charge.” Then he adds: “Your very look, even while you are silent, shows that you would not be obedient, but would rather give orders than take them.” And when he was sent to the fields by Syleus, who had bought him,
he proved by his actions that nature cannot be enslaved. He slaughtered the best of the bulls there, on the pretext of sacrificing to Zeus, and feasted; and having brought out a great quantity of wine all at once, he reclined at his ease and drank his fill.
When Syleus arrived and was indignant both at the loss and at the servant's carelessness and excessive contempt, the man, without changing color or altering what he was doing in the least, said with the utmost boldness: “Lie down and let us drink; and in this you will straightaway have proof of me, whether I am the stronger.” Should this man, then, be declared the slave or the master of his owner,
seeing that he not only frees himself but issues commands to the one who bought him, and if he should balk, is bold enough to strike and abuse him, and if the man brings in helpers, to destroy them all at a stroke? It would be laughable, then, and utter nonsense, to speak of the documents called bills of sale, once they have been overpowered by a force stronger than the one against which they were drawn up—more invalid than blank scraps of paper, destined to be destroyed altogether by moths or time or mildew.
But someone will say: one ought not to bring forward the virtues of heroes as proof, for they, being greater than human nature, rivaled the Olympians, having obtained a mixed birth from the blending of immortal and mortal seed, and were rightly called demigods, since the mortal admixture was mastered by the imperishable portion; so there is nothing surprising if they made light of those who contrived slavery against them. Granted. But was Anaxarchus, or the Eleatic—I mean Zeno—a hero, or born of gods?
Yet even so, tortured by savage tyrants who had grown still more brutal in their cruelty against them, racked with newly devised torments, as though bearing about bodies belonging to others or to enemies, they treated the terrors with the utmost contempt.
For having trained their souls from the start, through knowledge, to love withdrawal from partnership with the passions and to cling to education and wisdom, they made the soul an emigrant from the body, and rendered it a fellow-dweller with prudence and courage and the other virtues.
Accordingly, one of them, being tried and racked to make him blurt out one of the secrets, showed himself more powerful than fire and iron, the mightiest things in nature: he bit off his own tongue with his teeth and hurled it at his torturer, so that not even under compulsion, against his will, should he utter what it was noble to keep silent about.
The other said, with the greatest endurance: “Pound away at the sack of Anaxarchus”—for these acts of daring, full of boldness as they are, do not fall much short of surpassing heroic nobility of birth; because for the heroes their renown was involuntary, coming from those who begot them, whereas these men's renown lies in voluntary virtues, which by nature make immortal those who practice them without guile.
I know of wrestlers and pancratiasts who, often, out of love of honor and eagerness to win, when their bodies have given out, still breathe and contend by soul alone—a soul which, having trained itself to hold terrors in contempt, endures steadfastly to the very end of life.
Do we then suppose that athletes in training attain such vigor of body out of fear of death, or hope of victory, or so as not to witness their own defeat, while those who exercise the invisible mind within themselves—which is, in truth, the real human being, though it carries about the perceptible form as a house—and who anoint themselves with the words of philosophy and the deeds of virtue, would not be willing to die for the sake of freedom, so as to complete their appointed journey with a mind unenslaved?
They say that in a sacred contest two athletes of equal strength, doing and suffering the same things to one another, would not give up until each of them died. “Ah, poor fellow, your own doggedness will be your ruin,” someone might say of such men.
But if death for the sake of a wild-olive wreath or of parsley brings glory to contestants, does it not bring far greater glory to the wise, for the sake of freedom—for which, to tell the truth, the longing is implanted in souls alone, as a part united to them, not something to be had at random, and if it is cut off, the whole partnership of the soul is destroyed?
There is a story sung among those whose custom it is to trace virtues to their inborn, natural unenslavability, about a Spartan boy: having been carried off as a captive by one of Antigonus's men, he submitted to the tasks of a free man, but resisted the tasks of a slave, saying he would not be a slave—even though, because of his youth, he had not yet been firmly reared in the laws of Lycurgus, but had only tasted them—judging death more fortunate than his present unlivable life, and despairing of ransom, gladly did away with himself.
It is also said that the Dardanian women, taken captive by the Macedonians, considering slavery the most shameful evil, threw into the deepest part of the river the very children they had nursed, crying out: “But you, at least, shall not be slaves; before you begin a life weighed down by misfortune, cutting short what is fated, you shall cross, as free ones, the necessary and final road.”
Euripides the tragedian brings on Polyxena caring nothing for death but concerned for freedom, in the lines where she says: “I die willingly; let no one touch me. I will offer my throat with good courage; but let me die free, as befits one who was born free—release me and kill me, by the gods.”
Do we then suppose that in mere women and boys—the one naturally weak of mind, the other prone to slip because of their age—so great a love of freedom is instilled that, rather than have it taken from them, they rush toward death as toward immortality, while those who have drunk deep of unmixed wisdom are not immediately free, having within themselves virtue as a spring of happiness, which no scheming power has ever been able to yoke, since it holds an eternal inheritance of rule and kingship?
But indeed we hear also of whole peoples who, for the sake of freedom together with loyalty to benefactors now dead, have chosen utter self-destruction, as they say the Xanthians did not long ago. For when Brutus, one of those who had attacked Julius Caesar, marched against them, they, fearing not mere pillage but slavery at the hands of a man-slayer who had killed their leader and benefactor—for Caesar had been both to them—fought back with all their strength at first, so long as they were able, and as their numbers dwindled little by little, still held out.
But when they had spent all their strength, each household drove its own women and parents and children into their houses and sacrificed them; and having heaped the victims into piles, they set fire to them and slaughtered themselves upon the pyres, fulfilling, as free men, their allotted fate out of a free and noble spirit.
These men, then, fleeing the implacable bitterness of tyrannical enemies, chose death with glory before a life without honor. But those to whom the turns of fortune permitted life endured with fortitude, imitating the daring of Heracles;
for that hero too proved himself greater than the commands of Eurystheus. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes, at any rate, showed such loftiness and greatness of spirit that, when he was captured by pirates and they grudgingly and barely supplied him the food he needed, he was bent neither by his present fortune nor frightened by the cruelty of his captors, but said: “It is quite absurd that when piglets or sheep are about to be sold, they are fattened up into good condition with richer food, while the best of living things, man, is sold off cheap after being wasted to a skeleton by starvation and continual want.”
Once he had received sufficient food, since he was about to be sold along with the other captives, he sat down beforehand and ate his meal with great cheer, sharing it with those nearby; and when one of them would not eat, but was quite downcast, he said, “Will you not stop your gloom?
Make use of what is at hand,” he said, “for even fair-haired Niobe thought of food, she whose twelve children perished in her halls, six daughters and six sons in the flower of youth.” Then, growing bold before the man who was inquiring about those interested in buying, he said, “What do you know?” and when asked replied, “How to rule men”—a spirit free and noble and by nature kingly resounding, as it seems, from within him. And now, given the usual respite in which the others, full of gloom, sat downcast, he turned even to wit; at any rate it is told,
that having noticed one of the prospective buyers who was afflicted by an effeminate disease, he told from his appearance that the man was not truly male, and approaching him said: “You should buy me—for you seem to me to need a man”—so that the man, ashamed at what he knew of himself, shrank away, while the others were struck with amazement at the boldness and accuracy of the remark. Should such a man, then, be called a slave, and not rather the very embodiment of freedom, together with a rule accountable to none?
An emulator of this man's frankness of speech was one Chaereas, a man of education. Living in Alexandria by Egypt, when Ptolemy once grew angry and threatened him without measure, he, thinking the freedom in his own nature no less than that king's kingship, answered back: “Rule over the Egyptians; as for you, I take no account of you, nor do I heed your anger.” For noble souls have something kingly about them,
A certain Chaereas, a man of learning, became a devoted emulator of this man's frankness. For living in Alexandria by Egypt, when Ptolemy once took offense and threatened him none too mildly, reckoning the freedom native to his own character no less than that king's realm, he answered back: "Rule over the Egyptians, but I care nothing for you, nor do I trouble myself over your anger." For noble souls have something kingly in them,
a brilliance not dimmed by an excess of fortune, which incites even those puffed up with rank to contend on equal terms, arraying frankness of speech against arrogance.
There is a story about Theodorus, nicknamed "the Atheist," that when he had been expelled from Athens and had come to Lysimachus, since one of the officials reproached him for his flight and added the reasons as well—that he had been condemned for atheism and for corrupting the youth, and so was expelled—he said, "I was not expelled, but I suffered the same thing as Heracles, son of Zeus."
For that one too was put ashore by the Argonauts, not because he had done wrong, but because, being all by himself a full cargo and ballast, he weighed the ship down, causing his fellow sailors to fear that the vessel would be swamped. And I too changed my abode for this same reason, since the politicians at Athens could not keep pace with the height and greatness of my thought, and I was envied besides.
When Lysimachus asked further, "Did you not also fall from your homeland through envy?" he said again, "Not through envy, but through the excesses of my nature, which my homeland could not contain.
For just as, when Semele, pregnant with Dionysus, was unable to carry him for the full time appointed until birth, Zeus, struck with wonder, drew out the unripe fruit of her womb and made it equal in honor to the gods of heaven, so too, since my homeland was too small to hold so great a weight of philosophical thought, some spirit or god raised me up and resolved to settle me in Athens, a more fortunate place."
Now if one looks for examples of the freedom found among the wise—as of other human goods as well—one may find them even among irrational animals. Roosters, at any rate, are so given to fighting recklessly that, rather than yield and give ground, even when they are getting the worse of it in strength, they do not
give way in courage, but persist even to death. Miltiades, the general of the Athenians, took note of this: when the King of the Persians, having raised up the whole flower of Asia, was crossing into Europe with many tens of thousands, intending to seize Greece at a single stroke, Miltiades gathered the allies in the Panathenaic stadium and put on cockfights for them to watch, supposing that the exhortation conveyed by such a sight would be more powerful than any speech—and he was not mistaken in his judgment.
For having seen the endurance and love of honor, unconquered to the end even in irrational creatures, they seized their weapons and rushed to war, as if about to grapple with the very bodies of their enemies, giving no thought to wounds or slaughter, so that even in death they might at least be buried in the free soil of their homeland. For nothing so spurs one on toward improvement as the success, beyond all hope, of those held in less regard.
The tragic poet Ion also recalls the fighting spirit shown in these birds, in these lines: "Not even when struck in body, and in both his eyes, does he forget his courage, but though failing in strength he still cries out; for he has chosen death before slavery."
What then should we suppose of the wise—will they not most gladly exchange death for slavery? And is it not absurd to say that the souls of the young and well-endowed, in the contests of virtue, fall short of roosters and scarcely manage to carry off second prize?
And indeed there is something else that no one who has even brushed against education is ignorant of: that freedom is a fine thing and slavery a shameful one, and that fine things belong to the good and shameful things to the base. From this it is most clearly established that none of the virtuous is a slave, even if countless people brandish the tokens of mastery and threaten them, and that none of the foolish is free, even if he happens to be Croesus, or Midas, or the Great King himself.
The celebrated beauty of freedom and the accursed disgrace of slavery are attested by the older and longer-lived—by those who are, as it were, immortals among mortals, for whom it is not lawful to lie: namely, by cities and nations.
For councils and assemblies gather on almost every single day concerning nothing so much as the confirmation of freedom where it is present, or its acquisition where it is absent. And do the Greek world and the barbarian world, split into factions by nation and forever at war, ever want anything other than to escape slavery and secure freedom for themselves?
That is why in battles the greatest exhortation given by company-commanders, battalion-commanders, and generals is this: "Fellow soldiers, let us drive off slavery, the heaviest of evils, now bearing down upon us; let us not overlook freedom, the finest good among human things. This is the beginning and the source of happiness, from which all its particular benefits flow."
This is why the Athenians—who seem to me the sharpest-sighted in intellect among the Greeks, for what the pupil is in the eye, or reasoning in the soul, Athens is that in Greece—when they arrange the procession to the Awesome Goddesses, admit no slave whatsoever to take part, but carry out each of the customary rites through free men and women, and not just any who happen to be at hand, but those who have pursued a blameless life; since even the festival cakes are prepared by the most highly regarded of the young men, who count the service itself, as it truly is, a matter of honor and esteem.
Recently, when actors were performing a tragedy and reciting the verses of Euripides—those lines, "Whoever bears the name of free, even if he has but little, should reckon that he has much"—I saw all the spectators rise on tiptoe in astonishment and, with raised voices and successive shouts, join together praise of the sentiment with praise of the poet, who glorified freedom not only in deed but in name as well.
I admire also the Argonauts, who declared the whole crew free, admitting not a single slave, not even for the necessary tasks, welcoming self-service as the sister of freedom—
—which they embraced at that time. And if it is worth paying attention to poets as well—and why should we not?—since these men are the teachers of the whole of life, just as parents are of their own children privately, so these men bring cities to their senses publicly. Nor did the Argo, with Jason as her captain, allow household slaves to come aboard, since she, endowed with a share of soul and reason, was by nature a lover of freedom. Hence Aeschylus too said of her: "Tell me, where is the sacred place of the Argo,
One must pay the least possible heed to the menaces and threats that certain people hold over wise men, and say something like what Antigenidas the flute-player said. For they say that when one of his rival craftsmen, in anger, said, "I will buy you," he replied with deep composure, "Then I in turn will teach you to play the flute."
It is fitting, then, for the virtuous man too to say to one who threatens to buy him, "Then you will be taught self-control"; and to one who threatens exile, "The whole earth is my homeland"; and to one who threatens the loss of his property, "My livelihood is within me"; and to one who threatens blows or death, "These things do not terrify me, nor am I inferior to boxers or pancratiasts, who, gazing upon dim images of virtue—since they have trained only the good condition of their bodies—endure both kinds of suffering with fortitude;
for the mind within me, the ruler of the body, braced by courage, has been so thoroughly strengthened with sinew that it can stand above every pain."
One must therefore be on guard against trying to capture such a beast, which, formidable not only in strength but even in appearance, shows itself hard to catch and not to be despised.
The inviolability of certain places has often granted safety and a truce to slaves who take refuge there, as though they were of equal honor and equal standing; and one can see those who have been slaves for generations, by a kind of hereditary succession from great-grandfathers and even earlier ancestors, when they sit as suppliants in sanctuaries, speaking with complete freedom and full assurance.
There are some who contend for their rights against their very owners, vigorously and with contempt, not merely on equal terms but from a position of far greater strength; for some, even if they are of noble birth, are by nature enslaved by the reproach of their own conscience, while others, having secured for their bodies the immunity that comes from the inviolability of the place, display souls—which God fashioned unconquerable by anything—of an entirely free and truly noble character;
unless someone is so utterly unreasoning as to suppose that mere places are the cause of confidence and free speech, while virtue, the most godlike of all things, through which places themselves, and everything else that has a share of understanding, acquire their sacred character, is not.
Indeed, those who flee to sanctuaries for asylum, though they gain safety from the place alone, are still liable to seizure from countless other quarters — a wife's gifts, a child's disgrace, a lover's deception — whereas those who take refuge in virtue, as in an unbreachable and impregnable wall, disregard the missiles that the ambushes of the passions hurl and shoot. Fortified with this power, a person could say with all frankness
that while others are captured by whatever comes along, "I know how to obey myself," as the tragedian says, "and likewise to rule, measuring everything by virtue."
It is said, at any rate, that Bias of Priene, when Croesus threatened him, retorted with utter contempt that he should go on eating onions — hinting at weeping, since the eating of onions provokes tears.
So the wise, holding nothing more kingly than virtue, which commands their whole life like a general, have no fear of the dominions of others, regarding them as subjects. This is why it is customary to call the double-minded and deceitful, one and all, servile and slavish.
Hence too the well-turned saying: "Never does a slavish head grow straight, but always crooked, with a twisted neck." For a shifting, deceptive, duplicitous character is of the basest breeding, just as a noble character is straight and unfeigned and guileless, its words in harmony with its counsels and its counsels with its words.
It is worth laughing at those who think that, once released from ownership by a master, they have thereby been made free. For household slaves who have been manumitted would no longer, indeed, be quite the same as before; but slaves they remain, all of them, obeying not men — that would be less dreadful — but the most dishonorable of soulless things: strong drink, vegetables, pastries, and whatever else the fussy contrivances of bakers and caterers produce to please the wretched belly.
Diogenes, at any rate, on seeing one of the so-called freedmen giving himself airs, with many congratulating him, marveled at the folly and lack of judgment and said, "It is just as if someone were to proclaim that from this day one of his household slaves is a grammarian, or a geometer, or a musician, though he has not so much as dreamed of these arts." For just as the proclamation does not make people knowledgeable, so neither does it make them free — since that would be something blessed indeed — but only, at most, not slaves.
Let us, then, set aside empty opinion, from which the great mass of humanity hangs suspended, and, falling in love with truth, that most sacred possession, let us not attribute citizenship or freedom to so-called free citizens, nor slavery to home-bred or purchased servants; but passing over lineage, deeds of ownership, and bodies altogether, let us examine the nature of the soul.
For if it is driven by desires, or lured by pleasure, or turns aside in fear, or is drawn tight by grief, or dragged by the neck under anger's yoke, it enslaves itself, and makes a slave even of one who possesses countless masters; but if it has fought down ignorance with prudence, licentiousness with self-control, cowardice with courage, and greed with justice, then along with its freedom from slavery it has also gained the power to rule. But souls that have not yet partaken of either condition —
neither the one that enslaves nor the one through which freedom is secured, but are naked, like the souls of quite young infants — these must be nursed, instilling in them at first, in place of milk, gentle nourishment: the teachings given through the general course of studies; then afterward stronger fare, of which philosophy is the maker, from which, once grown to maturity and come to good condition, they will arrive at a blessed end — not Zeno's alone, nor merely the one proclaimed by the Pythian oracle, but this: to live in accordance with nature.

======== On the Contemplative Life ========

Having discussed the Essenes, who aspired to and labored hard at the practical life, excelling in it in every respect—or at least, to put it more moderately, in most respects—I will now, following the natural order of my subject, say what is fitting about those who embraced the contemplative life, adding nothing of my own for the sake of improvement, as all poets and prose writers are wont to do for lack of good material, but keeping strictly to the truth itself, before which I know that even the most eloquent speaker will fall silent. Yet I must still strive and contend; for the greatness of these men's virtue must not become a reason for silence among those who think nothing good deserves to be passed over quietly.
The very name reveals the purpose of these philosophers at once: they are rightly called Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, either because they profess a medicine superior to that practiced in cities—for that medicine heals only bodies, while this one heals souls gripped by harsh and hard-to-cure diseases, which pleasures and desires and griefs and fears, and greed and folly and injustice, and the countless multitude of other passions and vices, have inflicted upon them—or because they have been trained by nature and the sacred laws to serve Being itself, which is better than the Good and purer than the One and more primordial than the Monad. With whom is it worth comparing these people, among all who profess piety?
Is it with those who honor the elements as gods—earth, water, air, fire? Different peoples have given these different names: fire they call Hephaestus, I suppose, from its kindling; air they call Hera, from its being lifted up and raised on high; water perhaps Poseidon, because of its drinkability; earth Demeter, since she seems to be the mother of all plants and animals. But these names are inventions of sophists,
while the elements themselves are lifeless matter, incapable of motion on their own, laid before the Craftsman as material for every form and quality he shapes.
Or is it with those who honor the products of these elements—sun, moon, or the other stars, whether wandering or fixed, or the whole heaven and cosmos? But these too did not come into being of themselves, but by some craftsman of perfect knowledge. Or is it with the demigods?
That indeed is even worthy of mockery. For how could the same being be both immortal and mortal? Not to mention that the very origin of their birth is culpable, filled with adolescent lack of restraint, which people dare, impiously, to attach to blessed and divine powers—as though beings untouched by any passion and thrice-blessed had gone mad with lust for mortal women and consorted with them.
Or is it with those who honor carved images and statues? Their substance is stone and wood, until just recently completely shapeless, before stonecutters and woodcutters severed them from their natural continuity—stone and wood whose sister and kindred portions have become wash-basins and footbaths and other still less honorable things, which serve needs performed in darkness rather than in light.
As for the Egyptians, it is not even decent to mention them: they have brought irrational animals—not only tame ones but even the wildest of beasts—into divine honors, one from each region under the moon: among land animals the lion, among water animals the native crocodile, among the creatures of the air the kite and the Egyptian ibis.
And seeing these creatures being born, needing food, insatiable in their eating, full of excrement, venomous, man-eating, prone to every kind of disease, and perishing not only by natural death but often by violence, they prostrate themselves before them—tame beings before the untamed and unbroken, rational beings before the irrational, beings who claim kinship with the divine before creatures that could not even be compared to Thersites, rulers and masters before what is by nature subject and servile.
But let these people, since they infect not only their own countrymen but also their neighbors with such nonsense, remain forever untreated, blind in sight—the most necessary of the senses; I mean not the sight of the body, but that of the soul, by which alone truth and falsehood are recognized.
But let the race devoted to service, ever being taught to see, long for the vision of Being, and pass beyond the sun perceived by sense, and never abandon this station, which leads to perfect happiness.
Those who come to this service do so neither from habit, nor from anyone's advice or exhortation, but seized by a heavenly love, they become inspired like those who rave in Bacchic frenzy or Corybantic possession, until they see the object of their longing.
Then, because of their yearning for the immortal and blessed life, considering their mortal life already ended, they leave their property to sons or daughters or other relatives, willingly assigning it in advance as an inheritance, and to those who have no relatives, to companions and friends; for it was fitting that those who had readily received sight-giving wealth should yield the blind kind of wealth to those whose minds are still blind.
The Greeks celebrate Anaxagoras and Democritus, because, struck by a longing for philosophy, they let their estates become pasture for sheep. I too admire these men for having shown themselves superior to riches; but how much better are those who, instead of releasing their possessions to be grazed by cattle, correct the poverty of human beings—kinsmen or friends—and make the needy prosperous! For that act was thoughtless—not to call it madness, in speaking of men whom Greece admired—while this one is sober and carried out with careful judgment. It was superfluous wealth—
what more do enemies do than strip and cut down the timber of their opponents' land, so that, pressed by scarcity of necessities, they may yield? This is what Democritus and his circle did to their own kin, contriving for them a man-made want and poverty—not, perhaps, out of malice, but from failing to foresee and take account of what would benefit others.
How much better and more admirable, then, are these people, who, using no less impulse toward philosophy, preferred greatness of mind to negligence, and gave away their property as a gift rather than destroying it, so as to benefit both others and themselves—others by abundant means, themselves by the practice of philosophy! For the care of money and possessions consumes time; and it is good to be sparing of time, since, as the physician Hippocrates says, 'life is short, but the art is long.'
This, it seems to me, Homer also hints at in the Iliad, at the beginning of the thirteenth book, in these lines: 'the close-fighting Mysians and the noble mare-milking Hippemolgi, the milk-eating Abii, most just of men'—as though the pursuit of livelihood and money-making breeds injustice through inequality, while justice arises from the opposite choice, for the sake of equality, by which the wealth of nature is defined and prevails over the wealth found in empty opinions. When, then, they have parted with their possessions,
lured by nothing further, they flee without turning back, leaving behind brothers, children, wives, parents, throngs of relatives, circles of friends, the homelands in which they were born and raised—since what is familiar is a most powerful lure and enticement.
But they do not move to another city, as those unfortunate or badly enslaved persons do who ask to be sold by their owners, thereby procuring for themselves a change of masters, not freedom—for every city, even the best-governed, is full of countless disturbances and disorders that no one, once led by wisdom, would willingly endure—
but they make their dwelling outside the walls, pursuing solitude in gardens or lonely places, not out of some cultivated, harsh misanthropy, but because they know that mingling with people of unlike character is unprofitable and harmful.
This group exists in many parts of the inhabited world—for it was fitting that both Greece and the non-Greek world should share in the complete good—but it is most numerous in Egypt, in each of the so-called nomes, and especially around Alexandria.
The best of them, from every region, set out as though to their homeland, on a colony to a certain place that lies above Lake Mareia, on a somewhat low-lying hill, very conveniently situated, both for safety and for the mildness of the air.
Safety is provided by the farmhouses and villages lying round about; the mildness of the air by the continual breezes that rise both from the lake, which opens into the sea, and from the open sea nearby—the breezes from the sea being fine, those from the lake heavier, and their mixture producing a most healthful condition.
The houses of those who have gathered there are very plain, providing shelter only for the two most necessary purposes: protection from the scorching heat of the sun and from the cold of the air. They are neither close together, as in cities—for neighborliness is troublesome and displeasing to those who have devoted themselves to and pursue solitude—nor far apart, on account of the fellowship they cherish, and so that, if there should be a raid by bandits, they might come to one another's aid.
In each house there is a sacred room, called a shrine or monastery, in which, alone, they perform the mysteries of the sanctified life, bringing in nothing—no drink, no food, nor anything else needed for the body's requirements—but only the laws, and oracles delivered through prophets, and hymns, and the other things by which knowledge and piety are increased and brought to fulfillment.
They keep the memory of God ever present and never forgotten, so that even in their dreams nothing appears to them but the beauty of the divine virtues and powers; indeed many of them, dreaming, speak aloud in their sleep the celebrated teachings of their sacred philosophy.
Twice each day they customarily pray, at dawn and at evening: at sunrise asking for a good day - the truly good day, that their minds be filled with heavenly light - and at sunset that the soul, fully relieved of the crowd of the senses and sense-objects, might withdraw into its own council-chamber and senate-house and there track down the truth.
The whole stretch of time from morning to evening is for them a discipline. For as they read the sacred writings they practice their ancestral philosophy by way of allegory, since they regard the wording of the literal text as symbols of a hidden nature, one made evident through underlying meanings.
They also possess writings of ancient men who, as founders of this school of thought, left behind many records of the allegorical method; these they use as a kind of model, imitating the manner of that approach. So they do not merely study but also compose songs and hymns to God in all sorts of meters and melodies, which they necessarily set to rather solemn rhythms.
For six days each of them, living apart, pursues philosophy alone by himself in the aforementioned dwellings, not crossing the outer threshold nor even glancing out from a distance. But on the seventh days they come together as if to a common assembly and sit in rows according to age, in a fitting posture, hands kept inside the garment, the right hand between chest and chin, the left drawn back at the side.
Then the eldest and most experienced in their doctrines comes forward and speaks, with a composed look and a composed voice, using reasoning and good judgment - not putting on display cleverness of words as orators or the sophists of today do, but pursuing and expounding the precision found in the thoughts themselves, a precision that does not merely perch on the tips of the ears but travels through hearing into the soul and remains there firmly. All the others listen in silence, showing their approval only by nods of the eyes or the head.
This common sanctuary, to which they come together on the seventh days, is a double enclosure, one section set apart for the men, the other for the women's quarters; for the women too, by custom, join in listening, holding the same zeal and the same purpose.
The wall between the two chambers rises from the floor to a height of three or four cubits, built up like a breastwork, while the space above, up to the roof, is left open, for two reasons: so that the modesty proper to a woman's nature is preserved, and so that they, seated within earshot, may readily follow what is said,
with nothing blocking the speaker's voice from reaching them. Laying down self-control as a kind of foundation of the soul, they build the other virtues upon it. None of them would take food or drink before sunset, since they judge that philosophy is worthy of the light, but the body's necessities belong to darkness; hence they have assigned the day to the one and a small portion of the night to the other.
Some of them are reminded of food only once every three days, those in whom the longing for knowledge is more deeply rooted; and some so delight and take such pleasure, feasting richly and abundantly on the teachings that wisdom supplies, that they can hold out twice as long, scarcely tasting necessary food once every six days - grown accustomed, as they say the race of cicadas is, to feed on air, since their song, I suppose, makes the lack of food easy to bear.
They regard the seventh day as wholly sacred and a festival above all festivals, and have honored it with special privilege; on it, after tending to the soul, they also give the body its ease, as one relieves cattle too, releasing it from its continual labors.
They eat nothing costly, only plain bread, with salt as a relish, which those who live delicately season further with hyssop, and their drink is spring water. For the two mistresses nature has set over the mortal race, hunger and thirst, they appease without indulgence, bringing nothing for flattery's sake, but only what is useful, without which life is impossible. For this reason they eat only enough not to be hungry and drink only enough not to be thirsty, avoiding excess as an enemy and schemer against both soul and body.
Since shelter, too, is of two kinds, clothing and housing, it has already been said of housing that it is unadorned and improvised, made only for what is needed; and clothing likewise is of the plainest sort, meant only to ward off cold and heat - a thick cloak of shaggy hide in winter, a light tunic or linen garment in summer.
In sum, they cultivate freedom from vanity, knowing that vanity is the origin of falsehood and freedom from vanity the origin of truth, each functioning like a spring: from falsehood flow the many-formed kinds of evils, and from truth flow the abundance of goods, both human and divine.
I wish also to describe their common gatherings and the more cheerful conduct of their banquets, setting them against the banquets of others. For when other men have gorged themselves on unmixed wine, as though they had drunk not wine but something that provokes madness and frenzy, or whatever is more savage still born of the derangement of reason, they crash about and rage like untamed dogs, and rising up they bite one another and gnaw off noses, ears, fingers, and other parts of the body, so that they prove true the story told of the Cyclops and the companions of Odysseus, devouring, as the poet says, 'gobbets' of human flesh - and more savagely than he described.
That one, at least, attacked men he suspected as enemies, but these attack their own companions and friends, sometimes even kinsmen, at the salt and the table, making truceless war amid the pledges of friendship, and, like those in athletic contests, they counterfeit as if it were sound coin the very training of the games - wretches in place of athletes, for that is the name that must be given them.
For what those athletes do soberly in the stadiums, before the eyes of all the Greeks by day, for the sake of victory and crowns, these men do falsely, drunk by night in the darkness at their banquets, behaving with drunken violence, acting ignorantly and viciously to the dishonor, outrage, and harsh mistreatment of those who must endure it.
And if no one comes forward to part them like an umpire, they wrestle each other down with still greater license, murderous and deadly at once in their intent; for they suffer no less than what they inflict, though they do not realize it, being out of their minds - men who endure drinking wine not, as the comic poet says, only to the harm of their neighbors, but to their own harm as well.
So those who a little before entered the banquet safe and sound, as friends, go out a short time later as enemies, their bodies maimed; and some need advocates and judges, others plasterers and physicians and the help these provide.
Others among those thought to be more moderate drinkers, having drunk unmixed wine as though it were a sleeping-draught, overflow with it, and, throwing forward the left elbow and twisting the neck sideways, belching into their cups, are weighed down by deep sleep, seeing and hearing nothing, as though they possessed but one single sense - the most slavish of all, taste.
I know of some who, once merely tipsy, before being fully drenched in drink, arrange in advance, by subscription and contribution, for the next day's drinking bout, supposing that the hope of future drunkenness is itself part of the enjoyment already in hand.
Living in this way they pass their lives without home and without hearth, enemies of parents, wives, and children, enemies too of their country, and hostile even to themselves; for a dissolute and profligate life is a schemer against everyone.
Perhaps someone might approve of the arrangement of banquets now prevalent everywhere, following the taste for Italian extravagance and luxury, which both Greeks and non-Greeks have come to emulate, making their preparations more for display than for genuine feasting.
Couches for three and for many more, fashioned from tortoise-shell or ivory or still more precious material, most of them inlaid with gems; coverlets of purple interwoven with gold, and others dyed in floral colors of every kind for the pleasure of the eye; a multitude of drinking-vessels arranged by type - horn-cups and bowls and goblets and other manifold vessels, most skillfully wrought Thericlean ware, engraved with the precision of master craftsmen.
Serving-slaves of the fairest and most beautiful form, brought in not so much for service as to delight the eyes of those looking on with their appearance; of these, the boys who are still young pour the wine, while grown lads, bathed and smoothed, carry the water, their faces rouged and painted, their hair braided and elaborately dressed,
For they wear their hair long, either never cutting it at all, or trimming only the hair over the forehead at the very tips, to bring it into an even line and a precisely rounded shape. They gird up spider-web-fine, gleaming white tunics, the front hanging lower than the knees and the back a little below the knees, gathering each side into thicker folds at the seam of the little tunics so as to let the folds hang loose at the flanks, widening the hollows of the ribs.
Others stand by in attendance, boys just past childhood, their first down just blooming, who a little while ago were the playthings of pederasts, trained with excessive elaborateness for the heavier tasks of service — a display, as those who employ them suppose, of the host's wealth, but in truth, as it really is, of bad taste.
Besides these there is the variety of pastries and delicacies and seasonings, over which bakers and cooks labor, taking care not merely to sweeten the taste — which alone would have been necessary — but also the sight, by their cleanliness. [Sensory pleasures parade before the guests:] turning their necks round in a circle, they lick over the dishes with their eyes and their nostrils, some drawn by the plumpness and abundance, others by the savor that rises from them. Then, when they have had their fill of both sights and smells, they bid the guests eat, having first lavished no small praise on the preparation and on the host's extravagance.
At any rate seven tables and more are brought in, laden with everything that earth and sea and rivers and air produce, all choice and well-fattened — creatures of the land, of the water, of the air — each course differing from the last both in its preparations and in its seasonings. And so that no kind existing in nature should be left out, last of all the desserts are brought in, heaped high, quite apart from what goes to the revels and the so-called after-dinner extras.
Then some of the tables are carried out empty because of the insatiable greed of the guests, who gorge themselves gull-fashion and gnaw the meat so thoroughly that they even chew on the bones; others they maul and tear and leave half-eaten. And when they have utterly given out, their bellies filled to the throat but their appetites still unsatisfied, worn out with eating rather than satisfied by it — but why should I dwell any longer on these things,
which are already condemned by many even among the more moderate people, since they only inflame appetites whose diminishing would be a benefit? Indeed one might well pray for the most dreaded of things, hunger and thirst, rather than for the boundless abundance of food and drink found at such banquets.
Of the banquets famous in Greece, the two most celebrated and noteworthy are those at which Socrates himself was present: the one at Callias's house, when he was giving the victory feast for Autolycus on his being crowned, and the one at Agathon's, which men of letters and philosophers, Xenophon and Plato, thought worthy of record — for they wrote them down as memorable, supposing that later generations would use them as models of tasteful conduct at banquets.
And yet even these, compared with the banquets of our own people, who have embraced the contemplative life, will be shown up as laughable. Each, to be sure, has its pleasures, but Xenophon's is the more human: flute-girls and dancers and conjurers and comic poets take great pride in their jesting and witticisms, and there are other features belonging to the merrier sort of relaxation.
Plato's, on the other hand, is almost entirely about love — not merely of men mad for women or women for men, for such desires are subject to the laws of nature — but of males for males differing only in age; for even if something seems to be said gracefully about love and the heavenly Aphrodite, it is introduced only for the sake of urbane wit.
For the greater part of it is taken up by common, vulgar love, which strips away manly courage, the virtue most beneficial to life both in war and in peace, and produces in souls a feminine disease, fashioning men into womanish creatures who ought instead to have been trained in every pursuit conducive to strength.
Having corrupted the years of boyhood and reduced the boy to the condition and status of a mistress, this love has also injured the lovers in what is most vital to them — body, soul, and property. For the mind of the pederast is necessarily strained toward the boy, sharp-sighted only for him, but blind to everything else, private and public alike; his body wastes away from desire, especially when it fails of its aim; and his property is diminished from two directions, both from neglect and from the expenses lavished on his beloved.
There grows up alongside this another and greater evil, common to all: they contrive the depopulation of cities and a scarcity of the best class of men, and barrenness and sterility, imitating farmers ignorant of their craft, who, instead of sowing the deep, rich plain, sow salt marshes or stony, hard-baked ground, which, besides being incapable of producing anything, also ruins the seed cast into it.
I pass over in silence the fictions of myth and the two-bodied loves, which at first grew together, joined by uniting powers, and then, like parts that had merely come together, were split apart again when the harmony that held them fast was dissolved. All these tales are seductive, able by the novelty of their invention to charm the ears; but the disciples of Moses, having learned from their earliest years to love truth, from a position of great superiority scorn them, and remain undeceived.
But since the celebrated banquets are full of such nonsense, carrying their own refutation within themselves, should anyone be willing to look past reputation and the widespread report of them as having been altogether excellent, I will set against them, in opposition, the life of those who have dedicated their own existence and themselves to knowledge and to the contemplation of the things of nature, according to the most sacred instructions of the prophet Moses.
These people first gather at intervals of seven weeks, in awe not only of the simple week but of its power; for they know it to be holy and ever-virgin. It is the eve of the greatest feast, which falls to the fiftieth day, the most holy and most natural of numbers, constituted from the power of the right-angled triangle, which is the origin from which the generation of the universe proceeds.
So when they come together, clothed in white, joyful, with the utmost solemnity, at a sign given by one of the men appointed for the day's service — for that is the customary name for those engaged in such duties — they stand in order, row upon row, before reclining, and stretching both eyes and hands toward heaven — the eyes because they have been trained to look upon what is worthy of sight, the hands because they are pure of unjust gain, defiled by no pretext of profit-seeking — they pray to God that the feast may be pleasing to him and take place according to his will.
After the prayers the elders recline, following the order of their admission into the group; for they do not reckon as elders those who are advanced in years and gray-haired [rather they are counted as still quite young children] if they have come late to this way of life, but those who from their earliest years have grown up and come to maturity in the contemplative part of philosophy, which is indeed the most beautiful and most divine part.
Women also share the banquet, most of them aged virgins, who have kept their chastity not out of necessity, as is the case with some priestesses among the Greeks, but rather by their own free choice, out of zeal and longing for wisdom, in whose company they have been eager to live, and for whose sake they have disregarded the pleasures of the body, desiring offspring not mortal but immortal, which only the God-loving soul is able to bear from itself, once
the Father has sown into it rays of intelligible light, by which it will be able to contemplate the doctrines of wisdom. The seating is arranged separately, the men on the right, the women on the left. Let no one suppose that couches — even if not costly, still softer ones — are prepared for people of such noble birth, refinement, and devotion to philosophy. They are rather rough mats of ordinary material, spread on the ground, made of the papyrus native to that region, quite plain, slightly raised at the elbows so as to give something to lean on; for while they relax somewhat the Spartan harshness of self-discipline, they always and everywhere practice a generous, free simplicity, waging unrelenting war against the enticements of pleasure.
They are not served by slaves, holding that the possession of servants is altogether contrary to nature; for nature has begotten all men free, but the injustice and greed of some, who have emulated inequality, the primal source of evil, have imposed a yoke, binding the weaker under the power of the stronger.
In this sacred banquet, then, as I have said, there is no slave, but free men perform the services required, undertaking the duties of attendance not under compulsion, nor waiting to be commanded, but anticipating the orders willingly, with zeal and eagerness.
For it is not just any free men who are appointed to these services, but the young members of the community, chosen with the utmost care on the basis of merit, as befits those who, being refined and well-born, are pressing on toward the height of virtue. Like true-born sons, they wait upon their fathers and mothers gladly and with a sense of honor, regarding these common parents as more truly their own than those related by blood — since to people of sound mind nothing is more one's own than nobility of character. They come in to serve ungirded and with their tunics let down, so as not to bring with them even a semblance of a servile posture.
At this banquet — I know that some will laugh on hearing this, but it is those who do things worthy of tears and lamentations who will be laughing — no wine is brought in during those days, but only the clearest water, cold for the majority, warm for the more delicate among the elders; and the table is free of anything containing blood, on which bread is the food and salt the relish, though hyssop is sometimes added as a seasoning for the sake of those who are fond of luxury.
For right reason instructs them to live, as priests must when offering sacrifice, in sobriety; for wine is a drug of folly, and costly delicacies stir up the most insatiable of all creatures, desire.
Such, then, are the first things. After the diners have reclined in the order I have described, and the attendants have taken their stand, arrayed and ready for service, the president of the company — once complete silence has fallen over everyone (though when is it otherwise, one might ask? yet even more so now than before, so that no one dares even to murmur or to breathe more heavily than usual) — inquires into some point in the sacred writings, or else resolves a question raised by someone else, giving no thought to display — for he is not eager for the reputation that comes from cleverness of speech — but desiring to see something more precisely himself, and, having seen it, not begrudging it to those who, even if they do not see as sharply, still share a like longing to learn.
He teaches at a leisurely pace, lingering and dwelling on repetitions, engraving the thoughts into the soul; for by the technique of one who runs on smoothly and without pausing for breath, the mind of the listeners cannot keep up, but falls behind and fails to grasp what is being said.
But those seated hold their ears and eyes raised toward him, remaining in one and the same posture throughout, listening; they show that they understand and have grasped the point by a nod and a glance, and their approval of what he is saying by a cheerful look and an easy turning of the face, and their perplexity by a gentler motion of the head and the tip of the right finger; and the young men standing by attend no less closely than those reclining at table.
The expositions of the sacred writings are made through hidden meanings, in allegories; for the whole of the legislation seems to these men to resemble a living creature: its body is the spoken ordinances, and its soul is the invisible mind laid up within the words, in which the rational soul has begun, above all else, to contemplate what belongs to it — as though seeing, through the names as through a mirror, the extraordinary beauties of the thoughts they reflect, and having unfolded and uncovered the symbols, brings the inner meanings out naked into the light for those who are able, from a small reminder, to discern the hidden by means of what is manifest.
So when the president seems to have discoursed adequately, and to have met his aim — his exposition hitting its mark, their hearing hitting its mark too — applause comes from everyone, as people rejoicing together over what is still to follow.
And then one of them rises and sings a hymn composed to God — either a new one that he himself has made, or an old one of the poets of long ago, for they have left behind many measures and melodies of trimeter verse, processional hymns, libation-songs, songs at the altar, standing choral songs finely measured out in many-turned strophes — and after him the rest sing in their turn, in due order, all listening in deep silence except when it is necessary to sing the closing refrains and responses; for then all of them, men and women alike, raise their voices together.
Whenever each has finished his hymn, the young men bring in the table just mentioned, on which is the most sacred food, leavened bread with a seasoning of salt, mixed with hyssop, out of reverence for the holy table that stands in the sacred forecourt; for on that table are loaves and salt without any seasonings, the loaves unleavened and the salt unmixed.
For it was fitting that the simplest and purest things should be allotted to the highest of the priests as the prize of his service, and that the rest should aspire to the same things yet abstain from them, so that those who are greater might keep their privilege.
After the meal they keep the sacred all-night festival. It is kept in this manner: they all rise together, and in the middle of the gathering two choruses are formed at first, one of men and one of women; a leader and precentor is chosen for each, the most honored and most musical among them.
Then they sing hymns composed to God in many measures and melodies, sometimes singing together, sometimes moving their hands and dancing in response to one another in antiphonal harmonies, chanting inspired now the processional songs, now the standing songs, forming the turns and counter-turns of the choral dance.
Then, when each chorus has feasted separately and by itself — as though, in Bacchic rites, having drunk deep of the unmixed wine that is dear to God — they mingle together and become a single chorus out of the two, an imitation of the chorus long ago formed at the Red Sea because of the wonders worked there.
For by God's command the sea became for some a cause of salvation, for others of utter destruction; for when it was torn apart and driven back by violent recoils, and on either side, as though walls had been set up facing one another, the space between was cut open and widened into a broad highway of dry land, through which the people crossed on foot all the way to the opposite shore, being led up onto the high ground beyond; but when it rushed back again in its returning tide and poured out over the dried floor from both sides, the enemies who had followed in pursuit were overwhelmed and destroyed.
Seeing and experiencing this — a deed greater than word or thought or hope — the men and women together, seized with inspiration, becoming a single chorus, sang hymns of thanksgiving to God the savior, Moses the prophet leading the men, and Miriam the prophetess leading the women.
It is above all in imitation of this that the chorus of the Therapeutae and Therapeutrides, with melodies answering and responding to one another, the high voices of the women blending with the deep sound of the men, produces a harmonious concord and truly musical sound; the thoughts are altogether beautiful, the words are altogether beautiful, and the dancers are dignified — and the end of the thoughts, the words, and the dancers alike is piety.
Having thus been drunk with this fine drunkenness until dawn, not heavy-headed or drowsy-eyed but rather more awake than when they came to the gathering, they stand with their eyes and their whole body turned toward the east, and when they see the sun rising they stretch out their hands to heaven and pray for a fair day, for truth, and for keenness of reasoning; and after their prayers each withdraws to his own sacred dwelling, once more to engage in and cultivate their accustomed philosophy.
So much, then, concerning the Therapeutae, who have embraced the contemplation of nature and of what is in it, and have lived for the soul alone, citizens of heaven and of the world, genuinely commended to the Father and Maker of all things by virtue, which has procured for them friendship as its most fitting reward, adding to it nobility of character — a thing better than any good fortune, reaching to the very summit of happiness.

======== On the Eternity of the World ========

In every obscure and serious matter it is right to invoke God, since he is a good begetter and nothing is obscure to one who has attained the most exact knowledge of the universe; and for an argument concerning the incorruptibility of the world it is most necessary of all, since among perceptible things nothing is more complete than the world, and among intelligible things nothing more perfect than God. Mind is always the guide of sense-perception, and the intelligible guides the perceptible; and it is a law for subjects to inquire eagerly of their ruler and overseer, since in them there is planted a still greater longing for truth.
If, then, having trained ourselves in the doctrines of practical wisdom and self-control and every virtue, we had wiped away the stains left by our passions and sicknesses, God would perhaps not have thought it unworthy to guide souls thoroughly purified and made radiant with a brilliance like sunlight to the knowledge of heavenly things, whether through dreams, or oracles, or signs, or portents. But since we bear impressions hard to wash out, stamped upon us by folly and injustice and the other vices, we must be content if, even through mere likely conjectures, we discover by our own efforts some imitation of the truth.
It is worth the while of those who inquire whether the world is incorruptible—since both 'corruption' and 'world' are terms used in many senses—first to investigate the names, so that we may determine which meaning is now in question; not that we must enumerate everything the words can signify, but only what is useful for the present teaching.
The word 'world,' then, is used in one sense for the whole system composed of heaven and the stars together with everything they encompass, and earth and the living creatures and plants upon it; in another sense for heaven alone, as when Anaxagoras, gazing up at it, answered the man who asked why he wore himself out keeping watch all night beneath the open sky, 'to behold the world'—hinting at the dances and revolutions of the stars; and in a third sense, as the Stoics hold, for the substance extending all the way to the conflagration, whether ordered or unordered, whose motion they say time is the measure of. Our present inquiry, however, concerns the world in the first sense, the one composed of heaven and earth and the living creatures within them.
'Corruption,' too, is used in more than one sense: it is said of change for the worse, and also of the complete removal of a thing from existence, which must be called a passing into non-being. For just as nothing comes into being from what does not exist, so nothing passes away into what does not exist: 'for it is impossible for anything to come to be out of that which in no way exists, and equally impossible and inconceivable for that which exists to be utterly destroyed.' And the tragic poet says: 'nothing that comes to be ever dies, but one thing separating from another displays a different form. Nothing is so foolish as to be perplexed—'
—whether the world passes away into non-being, or whether it merely undergoes the change involved in its ordered arrangement being dissolved, its various forms of elements and compounds resolved into one and the same condition, as when things crushed or broken receive a complete confounding of their parts.
Three opinions have arisen concerning the question before us: some say the world is eternal, ungenerated and indestructible; others, on the contrary, say it is generated and perishable; and there are some who, taking one element from each side, accepted generation from the later thinkers and incorruptibility from the earlier, and so arrived at a mixed opinion, supposing the world to be both generated and incorruptible.
Democritus and Epicurus, then, and the great crowd of philosophers from the Stoa, attribute to the world both generation and corruption, though not in the same way. The former describe many worlds, ascribing the generation of some to the collisions and interweavings of atoms, and their corruption to the clashings and collisions of things already formed; while the Stoics hold that there is a single world, that God is the cause of its coming to be, but no longer the cause of its passing away—rather, the power of unwearied fire that exists within things, in the long cycles of time, resolves everything into itself, and from this fire, in turn, a rebirth of the world is constituted through the providence of the craftsman.
According to these thinkers, one might in a sense call the world both eternal and perishable: perishable with respect to its ordered arrangement, but eternal with respect to the conflagration, made immortal through rebirths and cycles that never cease.
Aristotle, however—perhaps with reverent and pious insight—declared that the world is ungenerated and incorruptible, and condemned as dreadful atheism the position of those who argued the opposite, who thought that so visible a god as this differed not at all from things made by hand, though it truly contains within itself the sun and moon and the whole company, wandering and fixed, of a veritable pantheon.
And he used to say, as the story goes—mocking those men—that formerly he had feared for his own house, lest it be overturned by violent winds or extraordinary storms, or by time, or by neglect of the care it required, but that now a greater fear hung over him from those who, with their corrosive arguments, were destroying the whole world.
Some, however, say that it was not Aristotle who first discovered this opinion, but certain of the Pythagoreans. I myself have come across a treatise by Ocellus, a Lucanian by birth, entitled On the Nature of the Universe, in which he not only declared the world to be ungenerated and incorruptible but established it by demonstrations as well.
They say that the view that the world is both generated and incorruptible is shown by Plato in the Timaeus, through the divinely fitting proclamation in which the eldest and ruler is represented as saying to the younger gods: 'Gods of gods, I am the craftsman and father of works which, so far as I will it, are indissoluble. Now everything that has been bound may be dissolved; yet to wish to dissolve what has been well fitted together and is in good condition would be the act of one who is evil. Therefore, since you have come into being, you are not altogether immortal, nor are you wholly indissoluble; nevertheless you shall not be dissolved, nor shall you incur the doom of death, since you have obtained a bond even stronger and more sovereign than those with which you were bound at your generation—the bond of my will.'
But some, being over-subtle, suppose that according to Plato the world is called 'generated' not because it took a beginning of generation, but because, if it were generated, it could not have been constituted otherwise than as described—or because its parts are observed to be involved in generation and change.
It is better and truer to hold the former interpretation—not only because throughout the whole treatise Plato calls that God-fashioned being father, maker, and craftsman, and calls this world his work and offspring, an imitation perceptible to sense of an intelligible archetypal pattern, containing within itself, in perceptible form, all that the archetype contains in intelligible form—a most perfect impression, made after a most perfect model, addressed to sense as the model is addressed to mind—
but also because Aristotle himself bears witness to this concerning Plato, he who, out of reverence for philosophy, would never have lied, and than whom no one is a more trustworthy witness to his teacher's views, especially so trustworthy a pupil—one who did not treat his education as a mere sideline pursued with fickle indolence, but who, striving to surpass the discoveries of the ancients, made original contributions of his own on some of the most essential points in every branch of philosophy.
Some consider the poet Hesiod the father of the Platonic doctrine, supposing that he too speaks of the world as generated and incorruptible—generated, because he says: 'Verily first of all Chaos came to be, and thereafter broad-bosomed Earth, the ever-secure seat of all things,'
and incorruptible, because he has nowhere indicated its dissolution or destruction. As for Chaos, Aristotle supposes it to be a kind of place, on the ground that whatever is to receive a body must necessarily be presupposed to exist beforehand; while some of the Stoics think the name was formed from 'water,' by way of its 'pouring' (chysis). Whichever view is correct, it is quite plainly indicated by Hesiod that the—
—world is generated. But long ages before him, Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, declared in the sacred books that the world is both generated and incorruptible. There are five of these books, of which he entitled the first Genesis; it opens in this way: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth; and the earth was invisible and unformed' (Gen. 1:1-2). Then, proceeding further, he shows again that days and nights, seasons and years, and the moon and sun, which display the nature of the measurement of time, together with the whole of heaven, have obtained an immortal portion and continue on, incorruptible (cf. Gen. 1:14; 8:22).
Those who construct arguments for the world's being ungenerated and incorruptible, out of reverence toward the visible god, are to be ranked first, and they must take their own proper starting point. For everything liable to corruption there are two causes of destruction lying ready beforehand, one from within, the other from without. Iron and bronze, for instance, and substances of that kind, you will find perishing sometimes from within themselves, when rust, running over them like a creeping disease, eats through them, and sometimes from without, when, a house or a city being set on fire, they are consumed together with it by the violent onrush of the flame. In the same way, death comes upon living creatures too—sometimes from within, when they fall sick, sometimes from without, when they are slaughtered or stoned or burned, or endure the impure death that comes by strangling.
If, then, the world too is perishable, it must of necessity be destroyed either by some external force or by one of the powers within it; but each of these is impossible. There is nothing external to the world, since the whole of substance has been used up in constituting it—for if anything at all had been left over, then what now exists would have become other than it is by that omission, whereas it is whole precisely because the entire substance has been spent upon it. And it is ageless and diseaseless, since bodies subject to disease and old age are overturned by the powerful assault, from outside, of heat and cold and other opposites falling upon them, whereas none of these powers can escape the world so as to encircle and attack it from without, all of them, with no part left outside, being wholly enclosed within it. And if, after all, there is anything external to it, it can only be the void—that impassive—
—nature, which is incapable of either acting or being acted upon. Nor, indeed, will the world be dissolved by any cause operating within it. In the first place, because then the part would be greater and mightier than the whole, which is utterly absurd; for the world, wielding a power beyond all surpassing, governs all its parts and is governed by none of them. And in the second place, because, there being two causes of corruption, one from within and the other from without, whatever is capable of undergoing the one is altogether capable of receiving the other as well.
Here is the proof: ox and horse and man and similar living creatures, because it is their nature to be destroyed by the sword, will also die of disease; for it is difficult, or rather impossible, to find anything which, being by nature liable to the external cause of destruction, is wholly incapable of the internal one.
Since, then, it has been shown that the world will not be destroyed by any force from without—because, as demonstrated, nothing at all has been left outside it—neither will it be destroyed by any force within it, because of the proof already reasoned out above, according to which whatever is susceptible to the one of these causes is by nature also receptive of the other.
Confirming testimony is found also in the Timaeus, concerning the world's being free from disease and destined not to perish, in these words: 'Now the constitution of the world has taken up each one of the four elements whole; for its constitutor constituted it out of the whole of fire and water and air and earth, leaving no part or power of any of them outside,' having reasoned thus:
First, so that it might be as whole a living creature as possible, complete from complete parts; and besides this, one, since nothing was left over from which another such creature might come to be; and further, that it might be free from old age and disease, observing that in a composite body heat and cold and everything that has strong powers, when they beset it from outside and fall upon it at the wrong time, cause distress and bring on diseases and old age and make it waste away. For this reason and by this reasoning God fashioned it whole from the whole of all things, complete, free from old age, and free from disease.
Let this, then, be taken as testimony from Plato for the indestructibility of the world; and let the fact that it is ungenerated be taken from the sequence of nature. For dissolution follows upon what has come to be, while indestructibility follows upon what is ungenerated; since even the poet who composed that iambic trimeter—"what has come to be, it has been granted, must die"—seems to have spoken to the point, understanding the sequence of causes of coming-to-be and of destruction... it stands thus.
In another way it is as follows: everything composed of things fitted together is destroyed by dissolution into the elements out of which it was composed; so dissolution was nothing other than a return to what is natural for each element, so that, conversely, the combination forced the things that came together into a state contrary to nature. And indeed this seems to hold altogether truly.
For we human beings, compounded from the four elements—which together make up the whole of heaven, earth, water, air, and fire—have borrowed small portions and been blended together; and the things blended have been deprived of their natural position: the heat that tends upward has been forced down, while the earthy substance, which has weight, has been made light and has claimed the upper place,
which the most earthy part in us, the head, has occupied. And the weakest of bonds is the one that violence has drawn tight—small and short-lived; for it is broken all the sooner by the very things bound by it, since they strain to break free from longing for their natural motion, toward which they hasten as they migrate. For, as the tragic poet says: "What grew from earth returns again to earth, and what sprang from the seed of heaven goes back to the vault of heaven. Nothing that comes to be perishes; separated, one thing from another, it displays its own proper form." For all things subject to destruction, then, this law and this ordinance stands written:
whenever the things that have come together in the mixture stand fast, they must, before their arrangement according to nature, instead take on disorder and migrate to their opposite places, so that they seem in a way to be living as strangers; but whenever they are dissolved, they return to the place proper to their own nature.
But the world has no share in the disorder just described. For, come, let us consider: if it were being destroyed, its parts would now of necessity be arranged each in a place contrary to nature; but this is not a reverent thing to suppose. For all the parts of the world have obtained the best position and a harmonious order, so that each, cherishing its place as if it were its native land, seeks no change for the better.
For this reason the middle place was assigned to earth, toward which all earthy things, even if you toss them up, are carried down—and this is a sign of a place according to nature; for wherever a thing, not carried by any force, comes to rest and remains still, it has obtained its own proper place. Water has been poured out over the earth, while air and fire have moved from the middle toward the upper region, air having been allotted the place between water and fire, and fire the highest place; hence even if you light a torch and carry it down toward the earth, the flame will nonetheless resist and, lightening itself, will run back up toward the natural motion of fire.
If, then, disorder contrary to nature is the cause of destruction for other living things, while in the world each of the parts has been arranged according to nature, each having been allotted its own proper place, the world may justly be said to be indestructible.
Further, this too is clear to everyone: that every nature is eager to preserve and keep safe, and, if it were possible, even to make immortal, each of the things of which it is the nature—the nature in trees preserving the trees, the nature in animals each of the animals.
But the nature concerned with a part is too weak to bring it necessarily to eternity; for either want, or burning heat, or freezing cold, or countless other things that are accustomed to arise, fall upon it and shake it violently and dissolve the bond that holds it together, and in the end break it apart; whereas if nothing of this sort lay in wait from outside, it would, so far as lay in its own power, keep all things, small and great alike, free from old age.
It is necessary, then, that the nature of the world too should be eager for the persistence of the whole; for it is surely not inferior to the natures concerned with parts, so as to run away and desert its post, contriving sickness in place of health and destruction in place of complete safety, since "she who has the fairest head and brow among them all, easily recognized, and all of them are fair." But if this is true, the world will not admit destruction. Why? Because the nature that holds it together is unconquerable, by reason of its great strength and might, prevailing over all the other things that were going to do it harm.
For this reason Plato rightly says, "for nothing went out from it, nor did anything come to it from anywhere"; for there was nothing outside it. For, providing for itself its own wasting as its own nourishment, and both acting and being acted upon in every way within itself and by itself, it came to be by design; for its maker judged that, being self-sufficient once put together, it would be better than if it were in need of something else.
There is, indeed, another argument, that most demonstrative one on which I know countless people pride themselves as though it were exact and wholly irrefutable. For they ask: for what reason will God destroy the world? Either in order no longer to make a world, or in order to construct another one.
The former is foreign to God; for it would mean changing from order to disorder, not from disorder to order; besides, this would mean that he takes on a change of mind—a passion and a disease of the soul; for he ought either not to have made a world at all, or, having judged the work fitting for himself, to rejoice in what had come to be.
The second alternative is worthy of no little inquiry. For if he is going to construct another world in place of the one now existing, the one that comes to be will in every case turn out either worse, or similar, or better; and each of these is open to censure. For if the world is worse, the craftsman too is worse. But the works of God, wrought by the most perfect art and knowledge, are blameless, irrefutable, and beyond correction; for, as they say, "not even a woman is so lacking in good sense as to choose the worse instead of the better"; and it is fitting for God to give shape to the shapeless and to work wonders of beauty even from the most unsightly things.
But if it is similar, the craftsman labors in vain, being no different at all from little children who, playing often on the shore, build up hills of sand and then, scooping them away with their hands, tear them down again; for it is far better not to construct anything similar, neither taking away nor adding anything, nor again changing for better or worse what came to be in the beginning, but to let it remain as it once became.
But if he is going to fashion something better, then the craftsman too will become better than before, so that when he was constructing the earlier world he was less complete both in art and in understanding—which it is not even lawful to suppose; for God is equal to himself and like himself, admitting neither relaxation toward the worse nor intensification toward the better. It is to such irregularities that human beings are subject, being by nature disposed to change toward either the better or the worse, accustomed to undergo increases and advances and improvements, and all their opposites as well.
Besides this, it would be fitting that the works of us mortals should be perishable, while the works of the immortal, by reasonable account, should surely be imperishable; for it is reasonable that the things fashioned should be made like the nature of their makers.
And indeed this too is clear to everyone: that if the earth were destroyed, the land animals would necessarily perish, the whole race of them together; if water were destroyed, the water creatures; and likewise, if air and fire were destroyed, the creatures that fly through the air and those born of fire.
By the same analogy, then, heaven is destroyed: the sun and moon will be destroyed, the remaining planets will be destroyed, the fixed stars will be destroyed—that vast and once-blessed army of perceptible gods. And this, were it to happen, would be nothing other than to suppose gods destroyed; for it is equal to supposing human beings immortal. And yet, comparing the two in a ranking of absurdities, one would find the latter more reasonable than the former; for it is plausible that a mortal should, by the grace of God, obtain a share of immortality, but it is impossible that gods should cast off indestructibility, even if the wisdom of human beings runs mad.
And indeed those who introduce conflagrations and rebirths of the world consider and agree that the stars are gods, yet they do not blush to destroy them in their argument. For they ought either to declare them fiery lumps of molten metal, as some who babble such nonsense about the whole of heaven as though it were a prison do, or, considering them divine or daemonic natures, to agree that the indestructibility fitting for gods belongs to them as well. As it is, they have missed the true opinion so badly that they do not notice that they are bringing destruction upon Providence itself—which is the soul of the world—through the very things by which they philosophize inconsistently.
Chrysippus, then, the most esteemed among them, in his treatise On the Growing Argument, has concocted some such marvel as this. Having first established that it is impossible for two individually qualified things to subsist upon the same substance, he says: "let it be supposed, for the sake of argument, that one is conceived as whole and entire, and the other as lacking one of its two feet; and let the whole one be called Dion, and the incomplete one Theon; and then let one of Dion's two feet be cut off." When the question then arises which of the two has been destroyed, he says it is more fitting to affirm that it is Theon. But this is the talk of a paradox-monger rather than of one speaking the truth.
For how is it that Theon, who has had no part cut off, has been snatched away, while Dion, whose foot has been cut off, has not been destroyed? "Rightly so," he says; "for Dion, once his foot has been amputated, has run up into the incomplete substance of Theon, and it is not possible for two individually qualified things to exist in respect of the same substrate. Therefore it is necessary that Dion remain, and that Theon has been destroyed." "But things that are caught not by others but by their own feathers," as the tragic poet says; for anyone who takes an impression of the pattern of this argument and applies it to the whole world will show most clearly that Providence itself is destroyed along with it.
Consider it thus: let the world be supposed as, so to speak, Dion—for it is complete—and the soul of the world as, so to speak, Theon, since the part is less than the whole; and let there be removed, just as the foot from Dion, so also from the world whatever is bodily in it.
Consider it this way: let the world stand for Dion — for it is complete — and let the soul of the world stand for Theon, since a part is less than the whole; and let something be removed, just as a foot from Dion, so also from the world whatever is bodily in it.
It is therefore necessary to say that the world is not destroyed by the removal of its body, just as Dion, having had his foot cut off, is not destroyed either — but Theon is, who suffered nothing at all. For the world, when its bodily element is removed, subsides into a lesser substance, but the soul of the world is destroyed, because two distinct qualities cannot belong to the same underlying subject. And it is a forbidden thing to say that providence is destroyed; but since providence is indestructible, the world too must of necessity be indestructible.
Time, moreover, furnishes the greatest proof of the world's eternity. For if time is ungenerated, the world of necessity is ungenerated as well. Why? Because, as the great Plato says, days and nights and months and the cycles of years brought time to light. And it is impossible for any of these to arise apart from the sun's motion and the revolution of the whole heaven; so that those who are accustomed to define things have rightly given time as the interval of the world's motion. Since this is sound, the world proves to be the same age as time, and its cause.
But of all things it is most absurd to suppose that there was once a world, when there was not yet time — since time's nature is without beginning and without end, given that these very words, "was," "once," "when," themselves imply time. And it follows from this that time could not have subsisted on its own even at a time when there was no world; for what does not exist does not move either, and time has been shown to be the interval of the world's motion. It is necessary, then, that each of the two — world and time — has subsisted from eternity, having taken no beginning of generation; and eternal things do not admit of destruction.
Perhaps some hair-splitting Stoic will say that time is given as the interval of the world's motion not only of the world as it is now ordered, but also of the world supposed to exist during the conflagration. To him one must say: my good man, you are renaming disorder and calling it order. For if this world we see has been called "order" truly and most fittingly, since it has been arranged and set in order by an art incapable of further improvement, then its change into fire would rightly be called disorder.
Critolaus, one of those who have danced attendance on the Muses, a devotee of the Peripatetic philosophy, in supporting the doctrine of the world's eternity, used arguments of this kind: if the world came into being, the earth too must of necessity have come into being; and if the earth came into being, then certainly the race of humankind did too; but humankind is ungenerated, its race having subsisted from eternity, as will be demonstrated.
Therefore the world too is eternal. But what has been set aside must now be established, if indeed proof is needed even for things so evident — and it is needed, it seems, on account of the myth-makers, who, having filled their lives with falsehoods, have banished truth beyond the border. Not only cities and households but every single possession they have forced into widowhood, and, devising meters and rhythms as bait for an ambush to serve the allure of their diction, with which they bewitch the ears of the foolish — just as ugly and hideous courtesans bewitch the eyes with borrowed and counterfeit ornament in place of genuine beauty.
For they say that the generation of human beings from one another is a more recent work of nature, while generation from the earth is more ancient and primordial, since the earth is and is regarded as the mother of all things; and that the Sown Men celebrated among the Greeks sprang from it.
Just as trees do now, so these sprang up as complete and armed children of the earth. That this is the fabrication of myth is easy to see from many considerations. To begin with, the first man to come into being would have had to grow according to fixed measures and reckonings of time; for nature has produced certain steps of the stages of life, through which a human being in a sense ascends and descends — ascending as he grows, descending in the diminutions — and the boundary of the topmost steps is the prime of life, beyond which, once one has reached it, one no longer advances, but, like runners in a double-course race who turn back over the same road, gives back in feeble old age what one received from vigorous youth.
To suppose that some were born full-grown is the mark of people ignorant of the laws of nature, its unmovable ordinances. For our own judgments, being smeared with the error that comes from the mortal element yoked to them, may reasonably admit of changes and shifts, but the workings of the nature of the universe are unchangeable, since it holds sway over all things and, on account of the certainty of what has once been established, preserves unmoved the boundaries fixed from the beginning.
If, then, nature had thought it fitting for creatures to be brought forth full-grown, a human being would even now be born full-grown, not becoming an infant, a child, or a youth, but being at once a man — and perhaps even ageless and immortal in every respect. For that which is not subject to growth is not subject to diminution either; for the changes up to the age of manhood consist in growth, and those from that point to old age and death consist in diminution; and it is reasonable that what has no share in the former changes should not undergo the latter ones either.
And what was there to prevent human beings, as they say happened formerly, from springing up now as well? Has the earth grown so old, through length of time, that it seems to have become barren? No — it remains ever alike, ever young, because it is the fourth part of the universe, and for the sake of the permanence of the whole it must not decay, since its sister elements too — water, air, and fire — continue ageless.
Clear proof of the earth's uninterrupted and eternal prime lies in the things that grow from it. For, purified either by the overflowing of rivers, as they say happens in Egypt, or by the yearly rains, it relaxes and unwinds the weariness that comes from its yield, and then, having rested and recovered its own strength up to full vigor, it begins again the generation of like offspring, giving abundant nourishment
to every form of living creature. For this reason, I think, the poets were not wide of the mark in naming her Pandora — "all-giving" — since she gives all things toward benefit and the enjoyment of pleasure, not to some but to all creatures endowed with soul. If, then, someone were to rise winged aloft when spring is at its height, and look down upon the mountain country and the plain, he would see the one region rich in grass and green, sending up fodder and grasses, barley and wheat and countless other kinds of sown crops, both those which farmers have planted and those which the season of the year yields of its own accord; and the other region shaded by branches and leaves, with which the trees are adorned, and abounding most of all in fruits — not only those for eating but also those which happen to heal our labors, for the fruit of the olive relieves the body's weariness, while that of the vine, drunk in moderation, eases the violent pains of the soul —
and further, the sweetest-scented breezes rising up from the flowers, and the countless distinctive hues, variegated by a marvelous artistry; and if, turning his gaze away from the cultivated regions, he were to survey in turn the poplars, cedars, pines, firs, the towering heights of oaks, and the other continuous and deep forests of wild trees, which overshadow the greatest and most numerous of the mountains and much of the deep-soiled foothill country, he would recognize the unyielding and untiring prime of an earth that is forever young —
so that, having lost nothing of its ancient strength, it would even now, if it had done so before, bring forth human beings, for two most necessary purposes: first, so as not to abandon its own proper station, especially in the sowing and generation of humankind, the best and most commanding of all land creatures; and second, for the relief of women, who while pregnant are burdened by the heaviest weight for some ten months, and, when about to give birth, often die in the very pains of labor.
Is it not, in general, a piece of gross foolishness to suppose that the earth has a womb folded within it for the sowing of human beings? For the region that generates living creatures is a womb — "nature's workshop," as someone called it — in which only living creatures are shaped; but this is not a part of the earth, but of a female creature, fashioned for the purpose of generation. Since one would also have to say that the earth acquired breasts, like a woman, when it was generating humans, so that those first brought forth might have their proper nourishment; yet no river, no spring anywhere in the inhabited world is ever recorded to have rained down milk instead of water.
And beyond this: just as the newborn must be nourished with milk, so too it must have the protection of clothing, on account of the harm that comes to bodies from cold and heat — for which reason midwives and mothers, who feel a necessary concern for their offspring, wrap infants in swaddling clothes. But those born of the earth — how would they not have been destroyed at once, left naked, by either the chill of the air or the scorching of the sun? For cold and heat, when they prevail, produce diseases and destruction.
But once the myth-makers had begun to disregard the truth, they went on to fable that those Sown Men were also born armed, fully equipped for battle at once. Yet what kinship is there between the first human beings to come into existence and the wielding of arms? For man is the gentlest of creatures, nature having bestowed on him reason as his special gift, by which even savage passions are charmed and tamed. It would have been far better if, instead of weapons, heralds' wands had sprung up — the tokens of reconciling truces — fitting for a rational nature, so that it might everywhere proclaim peace before war to all —
in every place. Now the idle chatter of those who attack the truth with falsehood has been adequately refuted. But one must know well that from eternity, in unbroken succession, human beings spring from human beings: the man sowing into the womb as into a field, the woman receiving the seed to preserve it safely, while nature invisibly shapes each of the parts, both of body and of soul, and bestows on the whole race what no single one of us was able to obtain — immortality; for it remains forever, though particular individuals perish, a truly wondrous and divine work. And if man, a small portion of the universe, is eternal, then surely the world too is ungenerated, and hence indestructible.
Critolaus, contending further, also employed an argument of this kind: the cause in itself of health is healthy; but also the cause in itself of wakefulness is wakeful; and if this is so, the cause in itself of eternity is eternal; and the world is the cause in itself of its own existence, as it is also for all other things; therefore the world is eternal.
It is also worth considering this: that everything which comes into being must at the beginning of necessity be imperfect, and, as time goes forward, grow until it reaches complete perfection. So that, if the world came into being, there was once a time when it was, to use the names we use for stages of life, an utter infant, and, advancing again through cycles of years and lengths of time, it was completed only late and with difficulty; for the prime of what lives longest is necessarily slow in coming.
But if anyone imagines that the world was ever subject to such changes, let him not fail to realize that he is held fast by an incurable madness. For it is plain that not only its bodily element would grow, but its mind too would make progress, since those who hold it to be destructible also suppose it to be rational.
Then, in the manner of a human being, it would be irrational at the beginning of its generation, but rational when it reached its prime — which it is impious not only to say but even to suppose. For it is not fitting to suppose that the most perfect enclosure of the visible gods, containing within it the portions allotted in particular, is not always perfect in both body and soul, exempt from the ills to which everything generated and destructible is bound?
In addition to this he says that, apart from external causes, three causes of death are laid upon living creatures — disease, old age, want — and that the world is vulnerable to none of these; for it has been compounded of the totality of the elements, so that it can be overpowered by no part left outside and set free from it; and it prevails over the powers that produce weaknesses, while the powers that yield to it it keeps free of disease and age. And it has become most self-sufficient and in need of nothing, falling short in nothing needed for its permanence, having repudiated the alternating cycles of emptying and filling, which, on account of an unrefined insatiability, living creatures undergo, courting death instead of life, or, to put it more cautiously, a life more pitiable than destruction.
Furthermore, if no eternal nature were ever seen, those who introduce the destruction of the world would seem less to be doing wrong, since they would have no example of eternity before them. But since fate, according to those who reason best about nature, is without beginning and without end, weaving the causes of each thing without gap and without interruption, why should one not also call the nature of the world long-lived — the order of disordered things, the harmony of unharmonious things, the concord of discordant things, the union of separated things, the persistence of wood and stone, the nature of plants and trees, the soul of every living creature, the mind and reason of human beings, the most perfect virtue of the excellent? And if the nature of the world is ungenerated and indestructible, it is clear that the world too, held together and controlled by an eternal bond, is indestructible.
Some, defeated by the truth, changed their allegiance even against the doctrines they had held. For beauty has a power that calls to us, and truth is marvelously beautiful, just as falsehood is monstrously ugly. At any rate Boethus of Sidon and Panaetius, men of great standing among the Stoics, as though seized by a god, abandoned the conflagrations and rebirths of the world and deserted to the more reverent doctrine, the indestructibility of the whole cosmos.
It is also said that Diogenes, when he was young, had signed on to the doctrine of the conflagration, but late in life he hesitated and held back — for it is not youth but old age that discerns what is truly solemn and worth contending for, especially matters that cannot be judged by the irrational and deceptive faculty of sense-perception, but only by the purest and most unmixed mind.
The followers of Boethus employ the most persuasive proofs, which I will now state. If, they say, the cosmos is generated and destructible, then something will come to be out of what does not exist — which even the Stoics themselves regard as utterly absurd. Why? Because no destructive cause can be found, either internal or external, that would do away with the cosmos. External to it there is nothing except, perhaps, void, once the elements have been separated out whole into it; and within it there is no such disease that could become a cause of dissolution for so great a god. But if it perishes without a cause, then clearly the coming-to-be of its destruction will arise from what does not exist — and this not even the mind can accept.
Moreover, they say, there are three generic modes of destruction: by division, by removal of the quality that holds a thing together, and by fusion. Things that consist of separated parts — herds of goats, herds of cattle, choruses, armies — or, again, bodies formed by things joined together, are dissolved by separation and division. Destruction by removal of the quality that holds a thing together occurs, for example, when wax is remolded or smoothed out so that it no longer presents any distinct shape of form. Destruction by fusion is exemplified by the physicians' four-ingredient remedy: the individual powers of the ingredients, once combined, vanish into the production of a single, distinct compound.
By which of these, then, is it fitting to say that the cosmos is destroyed? By division? But it does not consist of separated things, such that its parts could be scattered apart, nor of things joined together, such that it could be dissolved, nor is it unified in the same manner as our own bodies. For our bodies are perishable of themselves and are overpowered by countless things that harm them, whereas the cosmos's strength is invincible, ruling over all things with tremendous superabundance.
But is it destroyed by the complete removal of its quality? That, too, is impossible — for according to those who hold the opposite view, the quality of the ordered arrangement remains, sent into a lesser substance, that of Zeus, at the time of the conflagration. Is it, then, by fusion?
Away with that idea — for then, once again, destruction would have to be admitted as coming-to-be out of what does not exist. Why? Because if each of the elements were destroyed individually, it could undergo change into another; but if all are removed together, all at once, by fusion, one is forced to suppose the impossible.
Furthermore, they say, if everything is consumed in the conflagration, what will God do during that time? Absolutely nothing? And perhaps rightly so — for now he watches over each thing and, like a true father, exercises guardianship of all, and, to speak the truth, in the manner of a charioteer or a helmsman he drives and steers the whole universe, standing by the sun and moon and the other wandering and fixed stars, and further the air and the other parts of the cosmos, cooperating in all that serves the preservation of the whole and its correct, unimpeachable governance according to right reason.
But if all things are removed, he will lead an unlivable life through terrible idleness and inactivity — and what could be more absurd than that? I hesitate even to say it, though it is not even lawful to suspect it, that death will follow upon God, if indeed stillness will. For if you remove the ever-moving element from a soul, you utterly remove the soul itself along with it; and the soul of the cosmos, according to those of the opposing view, is God.
It is also worth raising this difficulty: in what manner will there be a rebirth, once everything has been dissolved into fire? For once the substance has been entirely consumed by fire, the fire itself, having no further fuel, must necessarily be extinguished. So long as it remains, then, the seminal principle of the ordered arrangement is preserved; but once it is destroyed, that principle is destroyed along with it. And this is already a doubly lawless and impious thing — not only to charge the cosmos with destruction, but also to do away with its rebirth, as though God took delight in disorder and inactivity and every kind of disharmony.
The argument must be examined more precisely as follows. Fire has three forms: ember, flame, and radiance. Ember is fire within an earthy substance, which lies hidden as a kind of breath-like condition, lurking throughout the whole substance to its very limits. Flame is what rises up, lifted from fuel. Radiance is what is sent out from flame, cooperating with the eyes for the perception of visible things. Flame occupies the middle position between radiance and ember: when extinguished it ends in ember, but when kindled it produces radiance, which flashes out, having lost its burning power.
If, then, we were to say that the cosmos is dissolved in the conflagration, it could not become ember, because a vast quantity of earthy matter would remain in which the fire could lurk — yet it is agreed that none of the other bodies will then subsist, but that earth and water and air will all have been dissolved into unmixed fire.
Nor, moreover, could it become flame; for flame is a kindling of fuel, and once nothing is left, having no fuel it will immediately be extinguished. It follows from this that no radiance either will be produced; for radiance has no subsistence of its own, but flows from the two prior forms, ember and flame — a lesser amount from ember, but a great deal from flame, since it is diffused very widely. But since those two, as has been shown, do not exist at the time of the conflagration, no radiance either could arise. Indeed, even the abundant, deep radiance of daytime, once the sun's course passes beneath the earth, vanishes at once with the coming of night, especially a moonless one. The cosmos, therefore, is not consumed in a conflagration, but is indestructible; and if it were to be consumed in one, no other cosmos could come to be afterward.
For this reason some of the Stoic school, seeing the refutation bearing down on them from afar with sharper eyes, thought it necessary to prepare remedies in advance for their doctrine as though for a dying patient — but these were of no help at all. For since fire is the cause of motion, and motion is the beginning of coming-to-be, and nothing whatsoever can come to be without motion, they said that after the conflagration, when the new cosmos is about to be fashioned, the fire is not extinguished in its entirety, but a certain portion of it is left remaining; for they were very much on guard lest, if it were extinguished all at once, everything would remain still and unorganized forever, there being no longer any cause of motion.
But these are fabrications of men seeking clever arguments, contriving against the truth. Why so? Because it is impossible, as has been shown, for the cosmos, once consumed by fire, to become like an ember, since a great deal of earthy substance would be left in which the fire would need to lurk; and perhaps the conflagration would not even prevail at all, if the heaviest and least consumable of the elements — earth — remains undissolved. And it must change into either flame or radiance: into flame, as Cleanthes supposed, or into radiance, as Chrysippus held.
But if it becomes flame, once it turns toward extinction it will be extinguished not in part but all at once; for flame exists together with its fuel — hence when fuel is abundant it increases and spreads, but when fuel is withdrawn it diminishes. One could confirm what happens from things among us: a lamp, so long as someone keeps pouring in oil, gives off a most radiant flame, but once that stops, having consumed whatever remnant of fuel was left, it is immediately extinguished, without reserving any portion of its flame.
And if instead it becomes not flame but radiance, again it changes all at once. Why? Because radiance has no subsistence of its own, but is generated from flame; and since flame in its entirety, throughout, undergoes extinction, radiance too must necessarily be done away with not in part but all at once. For what fuel is to flame, radiance is to flame; just as, then, flame is destroyed along with its fuel, so radiance is destroyed along with flame.
So it is impossible for the cosmos to undergo rebirth, since no seminal principle smolders on, once everything has been consumed — the rest by fire, and fire itself by want of fuel. From this it is clear that the cosmos continues on, ungenerated and indestructible.
But come, let us grant, as Chrysippus says, that the fire which resolves the ordered arrangement back into itself is the seed of the cosmos that is to be brought into being afterward, and that nothing he has philosophized about it is false. First, because coming-to-be proceeds from seed and dissolution proceeds into seed; and next, because the cosmos is described in natural philosophy as a rational nature, being not only ensouled but also possessed of mind, and moreover prudent — from these very premises the opposite of what they intend is established: that it will never be destroyed.
The proofs are most ready at hand for those not reluctant to examine the matter together. The cosmos, it seems, is either a plant or an animal. But whether it is a plant or an animal, once destroyed in the conflagration it will never become its own seed. The things among us bear witness to this, none of which, whether great or small, once destroyed, was ever separated out into the generation of seed.
Do you not see how much timber of cultivated plants, and how much of wild ones, is spread over every part of the earth? Each of these trees, so long as its trunk is healthy, produces its offspring-seed together with its fruit; but once withered by length of time, or otherwise destroyed at the very roots, it undergoes its dissolution into seed.
In the very same way, the kinds of animals too — which it is not even easy to enumerate for their multitude — so long as they survive and are in their prime, emit fertile seed, but once they have died, they never in any way become seed. Indeed it would be foolish to suppose that a man, while living, uses an eighth part of his soul — what is called the generative part — for the sowing of his likeness, but that once dead he does so with his whole self; for death is by no means more effective than life.
Besides, none of the things that exist comes to completion from seed alone, apart from its proper nourishment; for seed resembles a beginning, and a beginning by itself does not bring anything to full generation. Do not suppose, again, that the ear of wheat sprouts from the single grain sown by farmers into the fields alone, but rather that the greatest part of its growth is contributed by the moist and dry nourishment it draws, in its two forms, from the earth. And likewise the things fashioned in wombs are by nature brought to life not from seed alone, but also from the nourishment supplied from outside, which the mother who is pregnant takes in.
Why do I say all this? Because at the conflagration only seed will be left behind, there being no nourishment, since everything that was going to provide nourishment will have been dissolved into fire; so that the cosmos brought to completion at the rebirth will have a lame and imperfect generation, since that which most contributes to its perfection — the thing upon which, as upon a kind of staff, the seminal principle is set to lean — will have been destroyed. And this is absurd, refuted by plain evidence itself.
Furthermore, all things that receive their generation from seed are greater in bulk than what produced them, and are observed to occupy a greater space. Trees reaching to the sky, at any rate, often spring up from the smallest millet-seed, and the fattest and tallest animals from a small quantity of moisture emitted beforehand. But it also happens, as was said a little earlier, that at the time nearest to their generation the things born are smaller, and afterward grow in size until they reach complete maturity.
But with the universe the opposite will occur. For the seed will be larger and will occupy more space, while the result will appear smaller and in a lesser space; and the cosmos, composed from seed, will not gradually increase toward growth, but on the contrary will be drawn together from a greater bulk into a lesser one.
What is meant is easy to grasp. Every body that is resolved into fire is both dissolved and poured out, but when the flame within it is extinguished, it contracts and is drawn together. For things so evident there is no need of proofs, as though they were unclear. And indeed the cosmos, once set on fire, will become larger, since the whole of its substance will have been resolved into the finest ether. This, it seems to me, is also why the Stoics, in reasoning it through, leave an infinite void outside the cosmos, so that, since the cosmos was going to undergo some boundless expansion, it would not lack a space to receive the diffusion.
Now, when it has expanded and grown to such a degree that it very nearly coincides, in the boundlessness of its expansion, with the indeterminate nature of the void, this too has the character of seed. But when, at the regeneration, it comes from the complete parts of the whole substance... [lacuna] ...as the fire contracts in being extinguished into thick air, and the air contracts into water and settles, and the water thickens still further in its change into earth, the densest of the elements. These things run contrary to the common notions of those able to reason out the sequence of events.
Apart, then, from what has been said, one might use the following also as proof, and it will draw in even those who choose not to contend beyond due measure. Of opposites paired together, it is impossible for the one to exist and not the other: if white exists, black must also exist; and if great, small; if odd, even; if sweet, bitter; if day, night; and all things of that kind. But once conflagration occurs, something impossible will result: one member of each pair will exist, while the other will not. Come, let us examine it in this way.
When all things have been resolved into fire, there will be something light, rarefied, and hot — for these are the properties of fire — but nothing heavy, dense, or cold, the opposites of what has been named. How, then, could one better demonstrate the disorder woven into conflagration than by showing that things which by nature coexist as pairs are torn apart from their pairing? The estrangement has gone so far that to some properties eternity is granted, while to others non-existence.
Furthermore, this too seems to me to have been said, not without purpose, by those tracking down the truth. If the cosmos is destroyed, it will be destroyed either by some other cause or by God. By nothing else at all will it undergo dissolution, for there is nothing that does not contain it; and what is contained and dominated is surely weaker than what contains and dominates it. But to say that it is destroyed by God is the most impious thing of all, for God has been acknowledged by those who hold true opinions to be the cause not of disorder, disarray, and destruction, but of order, good arrangement, life, and everything that is best.
One might well wonder at those who babble on about conflagrations and regenerations, not only for the reasons stated, by which they are refuted as holding false opinions, but especially for this reason too. Since there are four elements of which the cosmos is composed — earth, water, air, fire — why, having singled out fire from all the rest, do they say that the others will be resolved into this alone? For, one might say, why not rather into air, or water, or earth? Surely there are excessive powers in these as well. But no one has said that the cosmos is turned into air, or into water, or into earth; so it would likewise be reasonable not to say that it is turned into fire either.
One must, however, also consider the equality of distribution inherent in the cosmos, and either fear or feel shame at charging so great a God with causing death. For there is an overwhelming counterbalancing exchange among the four powers, their returns weighed by the standards of equality and the bounds of justice.
For just as the yearly seasons, in their cycle, succeed one another in turn, receiving each other in relay toward the never-ceasing revolutions of the years, in the same way the elements of the cosmos also arrange themselves through their mutual transformations into one another — and, most paradoxical of all, the things that seem to die are made immortal, running their course forever and continually alternating the same path upward and downward.
The upward path, then, begins from earth: melting, it takes on the change into water; and water, evaporating, changes into air; and air, being made fine, changes into fire. The downward path begins from the top: fire, contracting as it is extinguished, changes into air; air, contracting when compressed, changes into water; and water, in its abundant outpouring, thickens by its change into earth, the densest of the elements.
Heraclitus, too, puts it well where he says: "For souls it is death to become water, for water it is death to become earth." For, holding that the soul is breath, he hints at the ending of air being the coming-to-be of water, and the ending of water in turn being the coming-to-be of earth, calling "death" not the utter destruction into nothing, but the change into another element.
Since, then, this self-governing equality of distribution is kept unbroken and continuous, as is not merely probable but necessary — since inequality is injustice, and injustice is the offspring of vice, and vice has been banished from the household of immortality, while the cosmos, on account of its greatness, has been shown to be something divine and the household of the visible gods — to say that it is destroyed is the mark of those who fail to perceive the coherence of nature and the interconnected sequence of things.
Some of those who suppose the cosmos to be eternal, elaborating further, also employ an argument of the following kind for their construction. They say there are four highest modes of destruction: addition, subtraction, transposition, and alteration. A pair, then, is destroyed by the addition of a unit, becoming a triad and no longer remaining a pair; a tetrad by the subtraction of a unit becomes a triad; the letter I is destroyed by transposition into H, when the two vertical parallel strokes stand up at right angles and the cross-stroke, tilted diagonally, is turned to join the two sides; and wine changes by alteration into vinegar.
But none of the listed modes touches the cosmos at all. For what shall we say — that something is added to the cosmos toward its destruction? But there is nothing outside it that has not become part of it, the whole; for it is contained and held together. Is something then taken away? First, what is taken away will again be a cosmos, only smaller than the present one; and further, it is impossible for any body to be dispersed outside, once torn away from its natural union.
But perhaps the parts are transposed? Then they will remain in like fashion, not exchanging their places; for all earth will never be borne upon water, nor water upon air, nor air upon fire. Rather, the naturally heavy things, earth and water, will occupy the middle region — earth underpinning it like a foundation, water floating above it — while air and fire, naturally light, occupy the upper region, though not in the same way; for air has become the vehicle of fire, and what is carried is necessarily borne above.
And surely one must not suppose it destroyed by alteration either. For the interchange of the elements is on equal terms, and equality of terms is the cause of unshaken stability and unwavering permanence, since neither element gains advantage nor is put at a disadvantage. So the mutual giving and taking, the counterbalancing of powers equalized by the standards of proportion, is the craftsman of health and unending preservation. From these considerations the cosmos is shown to be eternal.
Theophrastus, indeed, says that those who charge the cosmos with coming-to-be and destruction have been deceived by four very great phenomena: the unevenness of the earth, the retreat of the sea, the dissolution of each of the parts of the whole, and the destruction of land animals by whole species.
The first of these they establish as follows: if the earth had not received a beginning of generation, none of its projecting parts would still be seen standing up; all the mountains would already have become level, and all the hills flattened to the plain. For since so much rain has fallen every year through eternity, it is likely that the parts raised to a height would have been broken off by the torrents, and those that subsided would have been worn down, and by now everything would have been leveled through and through.
But as it is, the continuous unevennesses and the vast number of mountains rising to an ethereal height are signs that the earth is not eternal. For long ago, as I said, in infinite time, the rains would have made every place, from one end to the other, a level highway; for the nature of water, especially when it comes crashing down from the heights, tends both to thrust things aside by force and, by the continuous striking of its drops, to hollow out and work upon even the hardest and most rocky earth, no less than diggers do.
And indeed the sea, they say, has already diminished. Witnesses to this are the most renowned of islands, Rhodes and Delos; for these long ago had vanished, submerged and overwhelmed beneath the sea, but later, as the sea gradually diminished, they rose little by little and became visible, as the histories written about them attest.
And they named Delos also Anaphe, confirming what is said by both names, since, having appeared, it became "Delos" ("visible"), though it was formerly hidden and unseen. That is why Pindar too says of Delos: "Hail, god-built, most lovely offshoot to the children of rich-haired Leto, daughter of the sea, unmoved wonder of the broad earth, whom mortals call Delos, but the blessed ones on Olympus call the far-shining star of the dark-blue earth." For in saying this he hints that Delos is a daughter of the sea.
In addition to this, great gulfs and deep bays of great seas, once dried up, have become mainland, and have turned into no meager portion of the neighboring country, sown and planted, on which certain traces of the ancient inundation by the sea have been left behind — pebbles and shells and whatever else is customarily cast up along shores.
If, then, the sea is diminishing, the earth too will diminish, and over long cycles of years each of the two elements will be entirely consumed; and the whole of the air too will be spent, being gradually reduced, and all things will be resolved into the single substance of fire.
For the establishing of the third heading they employ an argument of this kind: "That is altogether destroyed of which all the parts are destructible; but of the cosmos all the parts are destructible; therefore the cosmos is destructible.
We must now examine — the point we postponed — what part of the earth, to begin with this element, whether greater or smaller, is not dissolved by time. Do not the hardest of stones grow soft and rot, owing to the weakness of their state — which is a tension of breath, a bond not unbreakable but only hard to dissolve — crumbling and flowing, first resolved into fine dust, and then in time being consumed and spent entirely? And what of water: if it is not stirred by the winds, does it not, once left motionless, die from stillness? At any rate it does die, and becomes utterly foul-smelling, like a living creature deprived of its soul.
The destruction of air, at least, is obvious to everyone: it is its nature to fall sick, to waste away, and in a sense to die. For what would anyone say, aiming not at a decorous name but at the truth, that a plague is, except the death of air, pouring out its own affliction to the destruction of everything that has a share of soul?
Why should I speak at length about fire? Once deprived of nourishment it is instantly extinguished, having become, as the poets say, lame all by itself. This is why it stays upright only by leaning on something, so long as the kindled material remains, but once that has been used up it vanishes.
They say that Indian serpents suffer something similar. Creeping up onto the largest of animals, the elephants, they coil themselves around the back and the whole belly, and cutting whatever vein they happen to reach, they drink the blood, drawing it in insatiably with a violent, forceful hiss. For a while, as the elephants are being drained, they hold out, leaping about in their helplessness and striking their side with the trunk as if trying to reach the serpents; then, as the vital fluid keeps emptying out, they can no longer leap, and stand there trembling; a little later, their legs too give way, and shaken by faintness they breathe their last, and in falling they destroy the very cause of their death, in the following way.
No longer having any nourishment, the serpents try to loosen the coil they have wrapped themselves in, longing now for release, but they are squeezed and crushed by the weight of the elephants, and all the more so whenever the ground happens to be hard and rocky. Writhing and doing everything they can to break free, pinned by the force of what is crushing them, they exhaust themselves in every kind of helpless, resourceless struggle, and, like men being stoned to death, or men caught beneath a wall that has suddenly collapsed on them, unable even to lift their heads, they die by suffocation. If, then, each of the parts of the world undergoes destruction, it is clear that the world compounded of them will not be indestructible either.
The fourth and final argument, they say, must be examined precisely as follows: if the world were eternal, the animal species would also be eternal—and much more so the human race, inasmuch as it is superior to the others. But it turns out to be recent, as those who wish to investigate the facts of nature can see. For it is likely, or rather necessary, that the arts and crafts should have come into existence together with human beings, as their exact coevals—not only because a methodical, systematic capacity is proper to a rational nature, but also because life without them is not possible.
Let us, then, look at the actual dates involved, setting aside the myths woven tragically around the gods... but if man is not eternal, then no animal is either, and so neither are the regions that received them—earth, water, and air. From this it is clear that the world is subject to destruction.
We must answer this elaborate ingenuity of argument, so that none of the less experienced should be taken in and give way to it. And the refutation should begin exactly where the sophists' deception begins. 'Should not the irregularities of the earth no longer exist, if the world were eternal?' Why, my good fellows? Others will come forward and reply that the natural constitution of mountains is no different from that of trees: just as trees shed their leaves at certain seasons and put out new growth again at others—hence the poet's fine saying, 'Some leaves the wind scatters on the ground, but the burgeoning wood grows others, when the season of spring comes on'—in the same way, parts of mountains are broken off, and other parts grow on in their place.
Over long periods of time this growth becomes noticeable, because trees, having a swifter nature, have their increase perceived more quickly, while mountains, having a slower one, only barely have their growths become perceptible, and only after a long time.
They seem, then, to be ignorant of the manner of their formation, since otherwise they would perhaps have been ashamed and kept quiet. There is no reluctance on our part to teach them: what is being said is neither new nor words of our own devising, but the ancient teaching of wise men, who left nothing unexamined of what is necessary for knowledge.
Whenever the fiery matter enclosed within the earth is driven upward by fire's own natural force, it makes its way toward its proper place, and if it finds even a small breathing-passage, it draws up with it a great deal of the earthy substance, as much as it can, and once it emerges outside it moves more slowly, and, having been forced to travel along together with the fire for a long stretch, once raised to its greatest height, it narrows as it tapers, ending in a sharp peak, imitating the shape of fire.
For then a forced struggle takes place between the lightest and the heaviest elements, natural opponents clashing together, each hastening toward its own proper region and resisting the force pressing against it. The fire, in drawing the earth up with it, is compelled to become heavy because of the earth's downward-tending weight surrounding it, while the earth, which by nature sinks to the lowest place, is lightened along with the fire's upward tendency and is lifted aloft, and, barely mastered by the stronger power of that which lightens it, is pushed upward toward fire's own seat and stands erect.
What wonder is it, then, if the mountains are not worn away by the downpours of rain, since the power that holds them together—the very power by which they also stand erect—grips them very firmly and strongly? For if the binding force that holds them were released, it would be natural for them to dissolve and be scattered by water, but being tightly held by the power of fire, they withstand the downpours of rain all the more securely. Let this, then, be said by us concerning the fact that the irregularity of the earth is no proof of the world's coming-to-be and destruction.
Against the argument mounted from the shrinking of the sea, this could fittingly be said: do not look only, and always, at islands that have emerged, or at any promontories that, once submerged long ago, later became joined to the mainland—for contentiousness is the enemy of natural philosophy, which holds truth as its most cherished pursuit. Rather, investigate also the opposite: how many regions on the continents, not only coastal but also inland, have been swallowed up by the sea, and how much dry land, having become sea, is now sailed by ships carrying countless cargoes.
Are you unaware of the story sung about the most sacred Sicilian strait? Long ago Sicily was joined to the mainland of Italy, but when the great seas on either side, driven by violent winds, rushed together from opposite directions, the boundary between them was flooded and torn apart, and beside it a city was founded and named Rhegium ('Break') after this very event. And the opposite of what one would have expected came about: the seas, previously separate, were joined together and united in their confluence, while the land, previously united, was split apart by the strait that now lies between, and beside it Sicily, once part of the mainland, was forced to become an island.
Report says that many other cities besides were made to vanish, swallowed up when the sea rose over them, since in the Peloponnese too they say three cities—Aegira, Boura, and lofty Helike, 'whose walls would soon grow countless seaweed'—once prosperous, were overwhelmed by a great onrush of the sea.
And the island of Atlantis, 'greater than Libya and Asia together,' as Plato says in the Timaeus, in a single day and night, 'when there occurred prodigious earthquakes and floods, sank beneath the sea and suddenly vanished,' becoming a sea that is not navigable, but a chasm of mud.
The supposed shrinking of the sea, then, contributes nothing to the world's being destroyed; for it plainly withdraws from some places while flooding others. One ought to reach a judgment not by observing one of these two phenomena alone but both together, since even in the disputes of ordinary life a lawful judge does not render a verdict before hearing both parties to the case.
Moreover, the third argument refutes itself, having been improperly framed from the very outset in its premise. For that whose parts perish is surely not thereby perishable, but only that all of whose parts perish together, all at once, and at the same time; since a man who has had the tip of a finger cut off is not thereby prevented from living, whereas if the whole union of his parts and limbs were destroyed, he would die at once.
In the same way, then, if all the elements together vanished all at once at a single moment, one would be bound to admit that the world could suffer destruction; but if each one individually changes into the nature of its neighbor, it is rather made immortal than destroyed, in accordance with the philosophical saying of the tragedian: 'Nothing of what comes to be dies; each thing, separating from another, shows forth a different form.'
It is sheer folly, however, to judge the age of the human race by the arts and crafts; for anyone who follows this absurd line of reasoning will end up declaring the world to be young, having barely come into being a scant thousand years ago, since even those we have learned of as the discoverers of the various branches of knowledge do not exceed that stated number of years.
But if one is indeed to say that the arts are the exact coevals of the human race, one must say so on the basis of a natural historical account, not carelessly and casually. And what is this account? Destructions of human beings across the earth—not of all of them together, but of most—are attributed to two principal causes: the uncontrollable onrushes of fire and of water. They say each of these strikes in turn, at intervals of very long cycles of years.
Whenever, then, a great conflagration takes hold, a stream of ethereal fire, poured out from above, is said to scatter itself in many directions, running across vast regions of the inhabited world. And whenever a flood occurs, the whole nature of water is said to sweep everything away, as native rivers and winter torrents not only overflow but exceed their usual level of rise, either violently bursting their banks or leaping over them in a rise to an immense height; so that, overflowing, they pour out into the adjoining plain, which at first is divided up into great lakes, as the water keeps settling into the lower-lying hollows, but then, as more water flows in and floods the intervening ridges of land by which the lakes were kept separate, they merge into the vastness of a single boundless sea through the union of the many.
And, furthermore, as these opposing forces contend in turn, those who dwell in the corresponding regions perish accordingly: by fire, those who live in mountains, on hilly ground, and in places poorly supplied with water, since they naturally lack an abundance of water as a defense against fire; and conversely by water, those who live along rivers, lakes, or the sea—for calamities are apt to touch their nearest neighbors first, or even only them.
In these ways described, then, along with countless other lesser calamities, when the greater part of humankind perishes, the arts too are necessarily lost along with them; for knowledge cannot be seen existing by itself, apart from the one who practices its method. But whenever these general calamities relax their grip, and the human race begins to renew its youth and to sprout again from those not overtaken by the crushing disasters, then the arts too begin to be reconstituted—not coming into being for the first time then, but having become scarce through the diminished numbers of those who possessed them.
What we have received concerning the indestructibility of the world, then, has been stated to the best of our ability. The objections to each point must be set forth in what follows.

======== Flaccus ========

Second after Sejanus, Flaccus Avillius took up the plot against the Jews. He could not injure the whole nation outright, as Sejanus had, since he had fewer resources for it, but wherever he could reach he impaled great numbers with irreparable evils. Still, though he appeared to attack only a part of the nation, he extended his plot to assail all Jews everywhere, relying more on craft than on force; for those who lack the strength natural to tyrants achieve their designs through cunning.
This Flaccus, then, having been judged among the emperor's friends by Tiberius Caesar after the death of Severus, who had been entrusted with Egypt, was appointed prefect of Alexandria and the country — a man who at the start of his rule displayed countless proofs of apparent excellence. He was quick and consistent, sharp in understanding, effective in carrying out what he had resolved, most ready in speech, and able to perceive an unspoken matter before it was even voiced.
In a very short time, then, he became thoroughly familiar with the administrative affairs of Egypt, which are intricate and varied and barely mastered even by those who have made the work their pursuit from earliest youth. The clerks were an extraordinary crowd, yet he already outstripped them all in experience in matters both great and small, so that he became, for the sake of precision, not merely their equal but a teacher instead of a familiar figure to those who had formerly instructed him.
As for what concerned accounts and the correct management of the revenues, though these were important and necessary, they gave no evidence of a commanding spirit; but the qualities that revealed a nature more splendid and truly regal he displayed with greater openness. He carried himself, for instance, with more dignity — for a certain haughtiness is most profitable to a ruler — he adjudicated major cases together with men of rank, he brought down the overproud, and he prevented the gathering of a mixed and disorderly mob. He also dissolved the clubs and associations that, always under pretext of sacrifices, would feast and riotously meddle in public affairs, dealing firmly and vigorously with those who resisted.
Then, once he had filled the city and the countryside with good order, he turned in his rounds again to the military forces, drawing them up, drilling them, training the infantry, the cavalry, the light-armed troops, and their commanders — so that they would not, by embezzling the soldiers' pay, incite them toward banditry and plunder — and reminding each soldier in turn not to meddle in anything outside his military duty, but to remember that he was stationed also to preserve the peace.
Perhaps someone might say: "You there, though you know you are accusing a man, you have gone through no charge at all, but have strung together long praises. Are you not raving, out of your mind?" — I am not out of my mind, my friend, nor am I so foolish as to be unable to see where an argument leads.
I praise Flaccus not because it is fitting to extol an enemy, but so that I may set his depravity in a clearer light. For one who errs through ignorance of the better course is granted pardon, but one who does wrong from knowledge has no defense, since he stands already convicted in the court of his own conscience.
Having received his command for a term of six years, in the first five, while Tiberius Caesar was still alive, he preserved the peace and governed with such vigor and strength that he surpassed all who had held the office before him.
But in the last year, after Tiberius had died and Gaius had been proclaimed emperor, he began to let everything slacken and slip — whether because of the very heavy grief he bore for Tiberius (for it was plain that he was deeply affected, as for one closest to him, from his continual dejection and the flow of tears that poured forth unceasingly as if from a spring), or because he bore ill will toward the successor for having courted the party of the legitimate heirs rather than that of the adopted one, or because he had had a part in the conspiracy against Gaius's mother — for which she had been put to death — and, through fear of being caught, had let his guard down.
For a while he still held out, not entirely relinquishing his grip on affairs. But when he heard that Tiberius's grandson, who shared the rule, had been killed at Gaius's command, struck by this unspeakable calamity he cast himself down and lay speechless, his mind having long before given way and grown slack.
For while the young man lived, he had not despaired of the sparks of his own safety; but once he had died, he thought his own hopes had died with him — though a small breath of aid still remained, namely his friendship with Macro, who at first had wielded the greatest influence with Gaius and, as the story goes, had contributed the largest share toward his obtaining the empire, and still more toward his safety —
for Tiberius had often planned to remove Gaius, thinking him malicious and unfit for rule, and at the same time out of fear for his grandson (he was afraid that, once he himself died, the boy would become a mere sacrifice); yet often Macro would remove his suspicions and praise Gaius as simple, without malice, sociable, and utterly devoted to his cousin, so that Tiberius would be willing to yield the empire to him alone, or in any case to give him the foremost place.
Deceived by these men, he unwittingly left behind, at his death, an implacable enemy — to himself, to his grandson, to his whole line, to his advocate Macro, and to all mankind.
For when Macro saw him living without restraint and following his impulses toward whatever came, however it came, he would admonish and try to calm him, believing him still to be the Gaius who, while Tiberius yet lived, had been reasonable and obedient. Poor wretch, for his excess of goodwill he paid the highest penalty, being destroyed along with his whole household, wife and children together, as a superfluous burden and an annoyance.
Indeed, whenever we saw him approaching from a distance and looked downcast, he would say such things to those with him: "Let us not smile, let us look downcast: here comes the one who reproves, the plain-spoken one, who has now begun to be tutor to a full-grown man and an emperor, now that the moment has driven off and parted him from those of his earliest youth."
So when Flaccus learned that this man too had been destroyed, he abandoned entirely what hope remained, and, growing weak and dissolving in judgment, was no longer able to manage affairs as before.
Whenever a ruler despairs of being able to hold power, his subjects are bound at once to grow unruly, especially those whose nature it is to be provoked by trivial and chance occurrences — and among these the Egyptian populace takes first place, being accustomed to fan great uprisings from the smallest spark.
Finding himself in a helpless and desperate state, he floundered and reversed everything he had held to shortly before, along with the turn of his judgment toward the worse, beginning with his closest associates: those who were well-disposed and especially his friends he now regarded with suspicion and thrust away, while with those who had been declared enemies from the start he made peace and used them as counselors in everything.
These men — for they bore him a grudge — feigned in word alone to be reconciled, but nursed in their minds resentments wholly irreconcilable in deed, and, play-acting genuine friendship as if on a stage, seized him wholly for themselves. So the ruler became a subject, and the subjects became rulers, proposing the most disadvantageous counsels and having them ratified at once.
For they became the guarantors of everything they had schemed, taking up, merely for show, a name of office as mute as a mask on the stage — Dionysiuses who curry the mob, Lampons who scribble decrees, Isidoruses who lead factions, busybodies, inventors of evils, disturbers of the city; for this name has somehow come to prevail among them.
All these men banded together and devised a most grievous scheme against the Jews, and coming to Flaccus in private they said:
"Everything you had from the boy Tiberius Nero is gone, and gone too is the hope that came after him, your friend Macro; the prospects from the reigning power are not favorable to you. You must find yourself the most capable advocate, one through whom Gaius may be won over to goodwill."
"That advocate is the city of Alexandria, which the whole imperial house has honored from the beginning, and our present master especially. It will plead your cause if it receives some gift from you — and there is no greater benefit you could grant it than to hand over and abandon the Jews."
Though bound to reject and take offense at men who spoke like revolutionaries and common enemies, he instead endorsed what they had said. At first he made his plots less conspicuous, not presenting himself as an equal and impartial hearer to those with disputes, but inclining toward one side; nor did he grant equal freedom of speech in other matters, but whenever any Jew approached him, he would turn away and cultivate an unapproachable manner toward these alone. Later he displayed his hostility openly as well.
What further strengthened his madness — cultivated more by design than by nature — was a certain coincidence of events. Gaius Caesar gave to Agrippa, grandson of King Herod, a third portion of his grandfather's realm, which the tetrarch Philip, his uncle on his father's side, had been enjoying as its fruits.
When he was about to set sail, Gaius advised him to forgo the voyage from Brundisium to Syria, since it was long and wearisome, and instead to take the shorter route by way of Alexandria, waiting for the Etesian winds; for he said that the merchant ships from there were fast sailers and had the most experienced pilots, who, like men driving racehorses, kept an unswerving straight course. Agrippa obeyed, both as one obeying a master and as one following advice meant for his own benefit.
Coming down to Dicaearchia and seeing Alexandrian ships lying at anchor and ready to put out, he boarded with his own people, and, favored with a good voyage, was brought to land a few days later without notice or observation, having ordered the pilots — for Pharos came into view about the late afternoon — to gather in the sails and to keep the ship out at sea, not standing far off, until deep evening came on, and then to put in to the harbors by night, so that he might disembark once everyone had already turned to sleep, and reach his host's house unseen by anyone.
So he made his stay with such great discretion, wishing, if it were at all possible, to slip away unnoticed by everyone in the city; for he had not come to see the sights of Alexandria, having already stayed there before, on the occasion when he set out on his voyage to Rome to visit Tiberius, but meant to use it as a short route on his way home.
But the people, bursting with envy — for the Egyptian character is by nature malicious — took the good fortune of others as their own misfortune, and at the same time, on account of their old and, in a way, natural hatred toward the Jews, were vexed that a Jew had become a king, no less than if each of them had individually been robbed of an ancestral kingdom.
And once again the wretched Flaccus's companions goaded him on, driving him to the same jealousy and provoking his envy, saying, "His visit here is your undoing; he is wrapped in a greater weight of honor and glory than you are. He turns everyone's attention to himself, the whole bodyguard of spearmen looking on, adorned as it is with silver-plated and gilded weapons."
"For was it necessary for him to come into the domain of another, when he could, by making use of the voyage, have been sent safely to his own country? Even if Gaius allowed it — or rather compelled it — he ought to have begged and pleaded to be excused from coming here, so that the governor of the country not be dishonored by being outshone."
Hearing these things, he knew, even more than before, how in public he feigned being Agrippa's companion and friend, out of fear of the one who had sent him, but privately was consumed with jealousy, gave vent to his hatred, and insulted him obliquely, since he did not dare to do so openly.
For to the idle and leisured mob of the city — and it is a multitude given over to loose talk, and quick to seize any opportunity for slander and abuse — he permitted the reviling of the king, whether he himself had started the insults or had incited and led on others, through his attendants who were accustomed to such things, to do so.
These, seizing the opportunity, spent whole days in the gymnasium mocking the king and stringing together gibes; and in some cases, using poets who composed mimes and farces, they displayed their cleverness in shameful matters, being slow to learn what is good but the quickest and most ready to learn the opposite.
For why did he not grow indignant, why did he not stop it, why did he not rebuke such shameless abuse? Even if the man had not been a king but merely one of the household of Caesar, should he not have been shown some measure of privilege and honor? No — these are clear proofs that Flaccus had become a partner in the abuse; for one who could have rebuked it, or at the very least restrained it, and did not, was plainly himself allowing and permitting it. And whatever occasion a disorderly mob seizes upon for its offenses, it does not stop there, but moves on from one thing to another, always working up something newer and worse.
There was a madman named Carabas, not afflicted with the wild and savage kind of madness — for that is unmanageable, both to those who have it and to those who come near it — but with the loose and gentler kind. He spent his days and nights naked in the streets, avoiding neither heat nor cold, a plaything for idle children and youths.
Driving the poor wretch to the gymnasium and setting him up on high, so that he might be seen by everyone, they spread out a sheet of papyrus for a diadem and set it on his head, and clothed the rest of his body with a floor-mat instead of a cloak, and someone, seeing a small strip of the local papyrus thrown down along the road, picked it up and gave it to him instead of a scepter.
And when, as in a theatrical farce, he had taken on the emblems of kingship and had been got up to look like a king, young men bearing rods on their shoulders in place of spears stood on either side of him in imitation of a bodyguard. Then others came up to him, some as if to pay their respects, some as if to bring cases for judgment, others as if to consult him about public affairs.
Then from the crowd standing round in a circle there rang out a strange shout of people calling him "Marin" — for that, they say, is the word for "lord" among the Syrians — for they knew that Agrippa was Syrian by race and possessed a large portion of Syria, over which he was king. And when Flaccus heard this, or rather saw it,
he ought properly to have seized and imprisoned the madman, so as not to give those who mock their betters an occasion for insult, and to have punished those who had got him up in this costume, because they had dared, both in deed and in word, both openly and obliquely, to insult a king, a friend of Caesar, and one honored by the Roman senate with praetorian rank. Instead, not only did he not rebuke them, he did not even see fit to stop it, granting impunity and free license to those who wished ill and were bent on hostility, pretending not to see what he saw and not to hear what he heard.
The mob — perceiving this, not the settled and respectable populace, but the one always accustomed to fill everything with tumult and disorder through its love of meddling and its zeal for a worthless life, and its habitual idleness and leisure, a treacherous thing — streamed together into the theater from early morning, since they had already bought from wretched Flaccus, the honor-mad man ready to sell anything, honors purchased at the cost not only of himself but of the common safety, and with one voice cried out that images should be set up in the synagogues, introducing this most novel outrage, never before committed.
And knowing this — for they are extremely sharp in wickedness — they craftily made a screen of Caesar's name, to which it is not lawful to attach anything blameworthy.
What, then, did the governor of the country do? Knowing that the city has two classes of inhabitants, ourselves and these others, and that all Egypt does too, and that the Jews who dwell in Alexandria and the country, from the descent toward Libya to the borders of Ethiopia, number no fewer than a million, and that the experiment concerned everyone, and that it was not profitable to disturb ancestral customs, he disregarded all this and permitted the dedication to be carried out, though he had countless resources and every means of forethought, either to give orders as a ruler or to give advice as a friend.
But he — for he was a fellow-worker in each of the wrongs being committed — thought it right to fan the flames of the sedition from a position of even greater power, adding ever newer accretions of evils, and, for his own part, filled almost the whole inhabited world, one might say, with civil wars.
For it was not unclear that the report about the destruction of the synagogues, having its beginning in Alexandria, would spread at once to the districts of Egypt, and would run from Egypt to the eastern regions and the nations of the east, and from the region below Egypt and Mareia, which are the borders of Libya, to the western regions and the nations of the west; for a single country cannot contain the Jews, so numerous are they.
For this reason they inhabit the greater number and the most prosperous of the cities in Europe and Asia, both on the islands and on the mainland, regarding the Holy City as their mother-city — the city in which stands the sacred temple of the Most High God — but considering as their fatherlands the places which each of them received from their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers and still earlier ancestors to dwell in, in which they were born and raised; and to some cities they came even at their founding, sending out settlers, as a favor to the founders.
And there was fear that people everywhere would seize on the occasion arising there to attack their fellow-citizens the Jews, introducing innovations against their synagogues and ancestral customs.
But they — for they were not going to remain quiet forever, even though they were by nature well disposed to peace, not only because among all people struggles over one's customs surpass even dangers to life itself, but also because they alone under the sun, along with their synagogues, were being deprived of their pious devotion to their benefactors, a thing for which they would have been honored, not put to death countless times — having no sacred precincts in which to express their gratitude, would have said to those who opposed them:
"You do not realize that you are not adding honor to our lords but taking it away, not knowing that for the Jews everywhere in the inhabited world the synagogues are manifestly their starting-points for reverence toward the house of Augustus, and if these are taken from us, what other place or manner of honor is left to us?
For if we are neglecting the customs that are permitted to us, we deserve to suffer the utmost punishment, for not rendering complete and full recompense. But if we hold back from what is not permitted by our own laws, this too is to confirm what is dear to Augustus — I do not know what wrong, small or great, we commit; unless someone should wish to blame us for not transgressing willfully and deliberately, for not neglecting to observe our departures from the customs of our ancestors — departures which, even if they begin from others, often end by falling back on those responsible for them."
But Flaccus wronged us in this way, by keeping silent about what should have been said and saying what should have been kept silent. And those men, whose favor he was courting—what was their intention? Was it really that of men wishing to pay honor? Then was there a shortage of temples in the city, whose largest and most essential districts have been consecrated as sacred precincts, for the dedication of whatever they wished?
We have spoken, then, of the impulse of men who delight in giving offense and who scheme with skill, an impulse by which those who commit outrage will not seem to be doing wrong, while it is unsafe for those who suffer the outrage to oppose them. For it is no honor, gentlemen, to abolish laws, to disturb ancestral customs, to insult one's fellow residents, and to teach even those in other cities to disregard concord.
Since, then, his assault on the laws seemed to him to be succeeding, once he had seized our houses of prayer and left not even the name of them, he turned to another target: the abolition of our civic status, so that, once we had been cut off from the only things on which our life relied—ancestral customs and a share in civic rights—we might undergo the utmost disasters, with no cable left to grasp for safety.
For a few days later he posted an edict in which he declared us foreigners and aliens, without granting us a hearing, but condemning us without trial. What greater proclamation of tyranny could there be than this? He himself became everything at once—accuser, enemy, witness, judge, and punisher. Then, to the two roles already mentioned, he added a third: he let loose, as though the city had been captured, anyone who wished to plunder the Jews. And once they had been granted impunity, what did they do?
There are five districts in the city, named after the first letters of the alphabet; two of these are called the Jewish districts, because the greatest number of Jews live in them, though not a few are also scattered and living in the others. What, then, did they do? They drove the Jews out of four of the districts and herded them together into the area of a single one, and a very small one at that.
Because of their numbers, they overflowed onto the beaches, the dung-heaps, and the tombs, stripped of everything they owned. Meanwhile those others, overrunning the now-deserted houses, turned to plunder and divided up the spoils as though from a war; and since no one stopped them, they even broke open the workshops of the Jews, which had been closed because of the public mourning for Drusilla, and carried off whatever they found there—and there was a great deal of it—hauling it through the middle of the marketplace and treating what belonged to others as their own.
But even heavier than the plunder itself was the idleness that followed it: those who had made their living had lost their stores, and no one—farmer, ship-owner, merchant, or craftsman—was permitted to carry on his usual business. In this way poverty was constructed from two directions at once: from the plundering itself, by which people who had once possessed something were stripped of their property in a single day, and from the fact that they could no longer earn a living by their customary trades.
Now these things, though unbearable, were nevertheless bearable when set beside what was done afterward. For poverty is a hard thing, especially when it is engineered by enemies, but it is a lesser evil than outrage against the body, even the slightest such outrage.
But as for what our people suffered, given the extremity of it, no one using words in their proper sense could even call it outrage or ill-treatment; rather, it seems to me that one would be at a loss for fitting terms, so great was the novel cruelty involved—so much so that the conduct of men who have conquered in war and are by nature implacable toward the captured would, by comparison, seem the very mildest thing.
Those conquerors plunder money and take a multitude of captive persons, having themselves run the risk, had they been defeated, of losing their own possessions. Yet even so, they release countless numbers of their spear-won captives, once relatives or friends pay a ransom for them—perhaps not because they are moved to pity, but because they are overcome by love of money. But, someone might say, what does that matter? For those who benefit from it, the manner of their deliverance makes no difference.
Indeed, even the enemy dead who have fallen in war are granted burial—by the more decent and humane victors, at their own expense; and even those who extend their hostility as far as the dead nonetheless hand over the bodies under truce, so that the fallen may not be denied that last favor which custom prescribes.
Such, then, is the conduct of the hostile in time of war. Let us now see what those who, only a little while before, were our friends did in time of peace. After the plundering, the forced evictions, and the violent expulsions from most parts of the city, we found ourselves as though besieged within walls by enemies encamped all around; we were crushed by want and by a terrible scarcity of necessities, watching our wives and infant children perishing before our eyes from a famine of human contrivance—
—and this though everything else was full of abundance and good harvest, the river having richly flooded the fields with its inundation, and the plain, wherever it bore wheat, yielding, through its fertility, the most bountiful crop of grain—
No longer able to endure their want, some went, though they had never been accustomed to it before, to the houses of relatives and friends, to ask for a contribution of the bare necessities; others, out of a noble spirit that turned away from the lot of a beggar as fit only for a slave and unworthy of a free man, went out into the marketplace for no other reason than to buy food for their households and themselves—unfortunate men that they were.
For they were seized at once by those who had established mob rule as their fortress, murdered by treachery, and, being dragged and trampled through the entire city, were utterly destroyed, with no part of them left that could receive burial.
But countless others too they worked over and destroyed, through manifold and elaborately devised forms of evil, driven to a savage cruelty—men who had raged themselves, out of sheer ferocity, into the nature of wild beasts. For whatever Jews happened to appear anywhere, they either stoned or beat to death with clubs, not aiming their blows straight at the vital parts, so that their victims would not die too quickly and thereby too quickly be relieved of their painful suffering.
Emboldened by this impunity and truce granted to their crimes, some, growing ever more reckless, gave up their blunter weapons and took up the most effective of all—fire and iron—and killed many with the sword, while destroying not a few by fire.
Indeed, the most pitiless of all these men even burned whole families—men together with their wives, infant children together with their parents—in the middle of the city, having no pity for old age, for youth, or for the innocent age of children. And whenever they could find no supply of wood, they gathered brushwood instead and destroyed their victims more by smoke than by fire, devising for the wretched a death that was more piteous and more prolonged. Their bodies lay together half-burned, a harsh and most painful sight.
And if those brought along to gather brushwood were slow about it, they would burn their masters on their own furniture, taken from the plunder—setting aside for themselves whatever was valuable, while burning up whatever was not especially useful, using such things instead of ordinary firewood.
Many they even bound while still alive, tying one foot at the ankle, and dragged them along while leaping upon them and trampling them underfoot, having devised the cruelest possible death;
and even once they were dead, their tormentors, raging on without end, inflicted still heavier abuse on the bodies, dragging them through, I might almost say, every single alley of the city, until the corpse—its skin, flesh, and sinews scraped away by the unevenness and roughness of the ground, and the parts that had been joined together by nature torn apart and scattered here and there—was completely consumed.
Those who did these things acted out, as though on a theater stage, the parts of those who were suffering. And the friends and relatives of those who had truly suffered these things, for the sole reason that they grieved over the disasters befalling their own kin, were led away, whipped, broken on the wheel, and after every form of abuse their bodies could endure, the last punishment held in reserve for them was the cross.
Having thus tunneled through and broken into everything, and having left no part of Jewish affairs untouched by his supreme malice, Flaccus—that master of great deeds, that inventor of novel crimes—devised yet another attack, strange and unprecedented.
For as to our council of elders, which the Savior and Benefactor Augustus had chosen to take charge of Jewish affairs after the death of the ethnarch, through his instructions to Magius Maximus when the latter was about to take up the governorship of Alexandria and the country for a second time—of the members of this council, thirty-eight who were found in their homes he ordered bound at once, and, arranging a fine procession through the middle of the marketplace, he led into the theater these elderly men, prisoners with their arms pinioned, some with leather straps, others with iron chains—a most pitiable spectacle, and utterly out of keeping with the occasion—
and, making them stand directly opposite their seated enemies as a public display of shame, he ordered every one of them stripped and scourged with the whips customarily used to degrade the very worst of criminals, so that some, carried out on stretchers as a result of the blows, died on the spot, while others fell ill for a very long time and came to despair of ever recovering.
The magnitude of this plot has already been demonstrated through other evidence, but it will be shown still more clearly through what is about to be said. Three men from the council of elders, Euodus, Tryphon, and Andron, had been stripped of everything they possessed in their homes in a single raid, and Flaccus was well aware that they had suffered this; for he had been informed of it, having earlier summoned our leaders to discuss what seemed to be terms of reconciliation with the rest of the city.
And yet, knowing precisely that these men had been robbed of their own property before the very eyes of those who had plundered it, he acted so that the victims should endure a double misfortune — poverty together with outrage done to their persons — while the robbers enjoyed a double pleasure, reaping the fruits of another's wealth and gorging themselves to satiety on the dishonor of those they had despoiled.
I hesitate to mention one of the things done at that time, for fear that, being thought trivial, it might diminish the magnitude of so many other outrages; yet even if it is a small thing, it is no small proof of malice. There are recognized distinctions among floggings in the city, corresponding to the rank of those about to be beaten: Egyptians happen to be scourged with one kind of lash and by one kind of person, while Alexandrians are beaten with the flat blade and by Alexandrian flat-blade-bearers.
This custom was preserved even in the case of our people by the governors before Flaccus, and by Flaccus himself in his early years. For it is possible — yes, it is possible — to find, even within dishonor, some small remnant of honor, and within outrage something carried over from the realm of the inviolable, whenever one allows the natures of things to be examined on their own terms, without adding from oneself some malicious passion that strips away and estranges everything mixed with the more decent form.
How then is it not utterly harsh that, while ordinary Alexandrian Jews were beaten with the more liberal and civic form of scourging whenever they were thought to have done something deserving punishment, the rulers — the council of elders, who bear a name signifying both age and honor — should in this respect fare worse than their subjects, treated like the meanest Egyptians guilty of the gravest crimes?
I say nothing of the fact that even if they had committed countless offenses, he ought out of respect for the occasion to have postponed the punishments; for among magistrates who govern rightly and do not merely pretend to honor their benefactors but truly honor them, it is customary to punish none of the condemned until these illustrious birthdays and festivals of the illustrious emperors have passed.
But he broke the law even during these very days and punished men who had done no wrong, men whom he could have punished again later if he had wished. Instead he hastened and pressed on for the sake of currying favor with the hostile mob, thinking that by this means he would win them over more fully to what he had in mind.
I know that in the past, when such a truce was about to begin, some who had been crucified were taken down and given over to their relatives, so that they might be granted burial and receive the customary rites; for it was thought fitting that even the dead should enjoy some benefit on the emperor's birthday, and that at the same time the sacred character of the festival should be preserved.
But he ordered that men not yet dead should not be taken down from their crosses, but that they should be crucified while still alive — men to whom the season offered only a brief reprieve, not a full pardon, only a postponement of punishment, not a complete release. And he did this after they had already been tortured with whips in the middle of the theater, and racked with fire and iron.
And the spectacle was arranged in two parts. The first show, from early morning until the third or fourth hour, consisted of this: Jews being whipped, hung up, broken on the wheel, mutilated, and led to their death through the middle of the orchestra. What came after this fine display were dancers and mimes and flute-players and all the other playthings of theatrical contests.
And why do I dwell on these things? For a second devastation was now devised, since he wished to lay siege to our whole armed population as well, by inventing a novel slander. The slander was this: that the Jews kept full suits of armor hidden in their houses. So he summoned a centurion whom he trusted above all others, named Castus, and ordered him to take the boldest soldiers from the ranks under his command and hurry, without any advance warning, to burst into the houses of the Jews and search them, to see whether any store of weapons lay hidden there. And the man ran off at once to carry out the order.
The people, not knowing what was intended, at first stood speechless with shock, their little wives and children clinging to them and dissolving in tears out of fear of captivity; for they expected nothing less than that this was the beginning of a general plundering.
But when they heard one of the searchers ask, “Where do you keep your weapons stored?” they breathed a little easier, and threw open everything, even what lay in their innermost rooms, and showed it all — glad on the one hand,
yet grieving on the other: glad that the slander would be refuted by the plain facts themselves, but distressed, first, that such grave accusations against them were believed in advance simply because they were concocted by their enemies, and second, that secluded women who never so much as stepped through the outer gate, and maidens kept in their chambers, who out of modesty avoided even the sight of men, even of their closest relatives, were now exposed not merely to unfamiliar eyes but to the menacing gaze of soldiers.
Yet when the search was carried out thoroughly, how great a store of defensive weapons was found? Helmets, breastplates, shields, daggers, pikes, whole suits of armor brought out in heaps? And in their turn, missile weapons — javelins, slings, bows, arrows? Of these, absolutely nothing was found; not even knives sufficient for the daily preparation of food.
From this the simplicity of their manner of life was at once made evident, since they did not admit extravagance or soft living, the very things that naturally breed satiety — and from satiety is born insolence, the beginning of every evil.
And yet not long before this, when the Egyptians throughout the countryside had been disarmed by a certain Bassus, whom Flaccus had assigned to this task, one could at that time see a great fleet of ships having sailed in and lying at anchor in the harbors of the river, loaded with weapons of every kind, and pack-animals carrying vast heaps of bundled spears tied together in balanced loads on either side, and nearly all the wagons from the camp full of complete suits of armor, moving forward in orderly rows, all presenting the same appearance and arrangement; and the distance between the harbors and the armory in the palace, where the weapons were to be deposited, was in all about ten stadia.
It would have been reasonable to search the houses of those who had furnished all this; for they had often revolted before and were suspected of a tendency to rebellion, and it was even necessary for their leaders, in imitation of the sacred games, to hold new triennial gatherings in Egypt for the collection of weapons, so that they either would not have time to manufacture new ones, or would have only a few instead of many, having no opportunity to withdraw and regroup.
But why should we have had to suffer any such thing? When were we ever suspected of rebellion? When were we not considered peaceable by everyone? Are the practices we follow every day not blameless, do they not contribute to the good order and stability of the city? Indeed, if the Jews had kept weapons among themselves, more than four hundred houses would not have been stripped bare, houses whose occupants became exiles, driven out by those who plundered their property. Why then did no one search the houses of these plunderers, who, even if they had no weapons of their own, at least possessed whatever they had stolen?
No, as I said, the whole affair was a plot born of the ruthlessness of Flaccus and of the mobs, of which even the women had their share of enjoyment. For not only in the marketplace but even in the middle of the theater, women were seized like prisoners of war and dragged onto the stage, falsely accused of one thing or another, amid some unbearable and most grievous outrage;
then, if they were recognized as belonging to another race, they were released — for many were seized as Jewish women without any careful inquiry into the truth — but if they turned out to be our women, those who had become tyrants and masters instead of mere spectators ordered them to eat pork, forcing it upon them. Now those who, out of fear of punishment, tasted it were released without further ill-treatment; but the more resolute among them were handed over to torturers for irremediable abuse, which is the clearest proof that they had done nothing wrong.
Beyond what has been said, he sought to harm us not only by his own actions but now also through the emperor himself, and devised a plan to that end. For we had voted every honor for Gaius that was possible and permitted by law, and having carried them out in deed, we presented the decree recording them to him, asking — since he would not have permitted us a delegation had we requested one — that he himself forward it.
Having read it, and nodding his head repeatedly at each item in the decree, smiling and beaming, or pretending to be pleased, he said, “I accept all of you as showing true piety, and I will send it, or rather I will myself fulfill the office of ambassador, so that Gaius may perceive your gratitude.”
“I myself will also bear witness to everything I know of the people's good order and obedience, adding nothing of my own; for the truth is the most sufficient praise.” Overjoyed at these promises, we gave thanks, believing that the decree had already, in our hopes, been read out before Gaius.
And indeed it was reasonable to think so, since everything sent through the prefects with urgency receives prompt consideration from the emperor. But he, bidding a hearty farewell to everything we had planned, everything he had said, everything he had agreed to, kept the decree back with himself, so that we alone among all people under the sun should be thought his enemies.
Was this not the work of a man who had lain awake scheming for a long time, with careful forethought, plotting against us -- rather than someone improvising recklessly out of desperation, carried by an ill-timed impulse and some perversion of reasoning?
But God, it seems, who cares for human affairs, took pity on us. He exposed Flaccus's flattering, polished words meant to deceive, and the council-chamber of his lawless mind where he had plotted his stratagems, and before long he gave us grounds for not being cheated of our hope.
For King Agrippa, visiting the city, once we had recounted to him the plot Flaccus had mounted against us, set the matter right. He promised to send on the decree, and, as we hear, took it and sent it, explaining also the delay -- not that our household had been slow to learn piety toward its benefactor, but that from the start we had been eager, only to be robbed of our timely demonstration of it by the malice of the governor.
After this, Justice -- champion and ally of the wronged, avenger of unholy deeds and unholy men -- began to close in on him. First he suffered an outrage and calamity of an utterly unprecedented kind, one that had befallen no one since the imperial house of Augustus took up the rule of land and sea.
There had, it is true, been some under Tiberius and under his father Caesar who governed provinces and turned their charge and stewardship into despotism and tyranny, filling their regions with irreparable evils -- bribery, plunder, unjust condemnations, the exile and banishment of the innocent, the summary execution of the powerful. These men, once their appointed term of office was over and they returned to Rome, the emperors called to account and required to render a reckoning of their conduct, especially whenever the wronged cities sent embassies.
At such times the emperors made themselves common judges, hearing accusers and defenders alike on equal terms, refusing to condemn anyone unheard, and rendering their verdicts neither out of hostility nor out of favor, but according to the nature of truth, judging what seemed to be just.
But for Flaccus, it was not after his term of office but while it was still current that the justice which hates wrongdoing overtook him, provoked by the boundless excess of his crimes and lawless acts.
The manner of his arrest was as follows. He had supposed that he had already won over Gaius regarding the matters for which he was suspect -- partly through letters overflowing with flattery, partly through the fawning speeches and long strings of fabricated praises he wove together whenever he addressed public gatherings, and partly through his great popularity with the greater part of the city.
But he did not notice that he was deceiving himself; for the hopes of wicked men are unstable, since they anticipate the better outcome while in fact suffering the opposite and getting only what they deserve. For a centurion named Bassus was sent from Italy, commissioned by Gaius, together with the company of soldiers he commanded.
Boarding one of the swiftest-sailing vessels, within a few days he reached the harbors of Alexandria, off the island of Pharos, toward evening, and ordered the pilot to keep out at sea until sunset, contriving to remain unseen so that Flaccus would not get advance notice, take some rash countermeasure, and render his mission futile.
When evening came, the ship put in, and Bassus disembarked with his own men and went forward, neither recognizing anyone nor being recognized by anyone. Finding along the road a soldier of the guard on watch, he ordered him to point out the house of the garrison commander, for it was to him that he wished to disclose his secret mission, so that, should he need extra hands, he would have someone to fight alongside him.
Learning that the commander was dining out with Flaccus at someone's house, he lost no time and pressed on to the house of the man who had given the banquet -- one Stephanio, a freedman of Tiberius Caesar, at whose house they were staying -- and, stopping a little way off, sent one of his own men, disguised as an attendant, to reconnoiter, a device meant to keep anyone from noticing. This man went into the banquet as though he were the servant of one of the guests, surveyed everything with care, and returned to report to Bassus.
Learning that the entrances were unguarded and that Flaccus had only a small company about him -- scarcely ten or fifteen serving slaves had accompanied him -- Bassus gave the signal to his men and rushed in suddenly. Some of the soldiers took their stand by the banqueting couches with swords girded, and surrounded Flaccus, who had not seen it coming; for he happened at that very moment to be proposing a toast and showing courtesy to those present.
When Bassus came forward into their midst, Flaccus, seeing him, was struck dumb with astonishment, and wishing to rise, he caught sight of the ring of guards around him and knew, even before he heard a word, what Gaius intended for him, what those who had come were under orders to do, and what he himself was about to suffer at once; for a keen mind can see all at once, and hear all together, things that in fact unfold bit by bit over a long time.
Each of his fellow diners rose in terror and stood frozen, shuddering, fearing that some sentence had been passed on the dinner company as well; for flight was neither safe nor even possible, since the entrances were already held. Flaccus was led away by Bassus's soldiers at his command, making this his final departure from a banquet; for it was fitting that the sentence begin from the hearth against the man who had made countless households hearthless, though they had done no wrong.
This was the most unprecedented thing Flaccus suffered -- to be captured like an enemy, in the very country he governed, on account, I believe, of the Jews, whom he had resolved to wipe out entirely in his hunger for glory. Clear proof of this lies in the timing of his arrest; for it was the season of the great national festival of the Jews, at the autumn equinox, when it is their custom to live in booths.
Yet nothing of the festival was carried out at all, since the leaders were still imprisoned after their irreparable and unbearable torments and outrages, while the ordinary people, considering the leaders' misfortunes shared by the whole nation, and burdened besides by the particular sufferings each had endured himself, were sunk in more than ordinary gloom.
For painful things tend to be doubled at festival time for those unable to celebrate -- through the loss of the cheerful gladness a festival calls for, and through the added share of grief by which they were thrown into turmoil, unable to find any remedy for such great misfortunes.
While they were in this state of deep pain, weighed down by the heaviest of burdens -- for they had shut themselves up in their houses, since night had fallen -- some came bringing news of Flaccus's arrest. They took it at first for a trick, not the truth, and were pained all the more, thinking they were being mocked and set up for a trap.
There was uproar throughout the city; night watchmen ran up and down, and horsemen galloped in haste to the camp and from the camp back again with urgent speed. Stirred by the unfamiliar commotion, some came out of their houses to inquire what had happened; for it seemed that something extraordinary was afoot.
When they learned of the arrest, and that Flaccus was already caught in the net, they stretched out their hands to heaven and sang hymns, striking up songs of praise to the God who watches over human affairs: "We do not gloat, Master," they said, "over the punishment of an enemy, for we are taught by the sacred laws to feel for our fellow men; but we rightly give you thanks for taking pity and mercy on us and for lightening the unrelenting, repeated afflictions we bore."
Having spent the whole night in hymns and songs, at dawn they poured out through the gates and made their way to the neighboring shores -- for their houses of prayer had been taken from them -- and standing on the purest ground, cried out with one voice:
"Earth and sea, air and heaven, parts of the universe and the whole cosmos, O greatest king of mortals and immortals, we have come to summon you to a hymn of thanksgiving, you who alone remain our dwelling place, since we have been driven out of everything else made by human hands, deprived of our city and of the public and private enclosures within it -- alone under the sun made cityless and hearthless by the plotting of our ruler.
"You hold out good hopes to us also for the restoration of what remains, since you have already begun to grant our prayers, in that you have suddenly cast down -- though he was not yet far off -- the common enemy of our nation and the author and teacher of the calamities it endured, a man breathing great ambitions and thinking to win glory through them. You did not let those who had suffered so much learn of it only by report, so that their joy would be dulled, but brought it close, almost before the eyes of the wronged, for a more vivid picture of this vindication beyond all hope."
Beyond what has been said, a third thing besides seems to me to have happened by divine providence. For when he set sail as winter was beginning -- since it was fitting that he, who had filled all the elements of the universe with his impieties, should also taste the terrors of the sea -- after suffering countless hardships he barely reached Italy, and immediately two of his bitterest enemies, Isidorus and Lampo, took up the accusations against him,
These men had, not long before, held the rank of subjects—hailing him as master, benefactor, savior, and the like—but now displayed, as opposing parties, a strength not merely equal but far greater, drawn from a great reserve, not only because they were confident in the justice of their cause, but, what mattered most, because they saw that the ruler of human affairs was an implacable enemy to Flaccus, one who would assume the outward form of a judge, taking care not to seem to condemn a man untried, but in fact display the conduct of a hostile party, since in his soul he had already condemned him before accusation or defense and had already fixed on him the utmost penalties.
Nothing is so hard to bear as for men once superior, once rulers, to be accused by their inferiors and former subjects—as if masters were accused by house-slaves or purchased servants.
But this, it seems, was a lighter evil when set beside a greater one. For it was not simply men who had held the rank of subjects who suddenly, stripping for the fight and joining forces, launched their accusations; rather, for most of the time of his governorship over the province these two men, above all others, had become his bitterest enemies. Lampon had been prosecuted for impiety against Tiberius Caesar, and after the matter dragged on for two years he had given up hope,
for the judge, maliciously contriving, kept feigning postponements and delays, wishing—even if the man should escape the charge—at least to hang over him for the longest possible time the fear of an uncertain future, and so give him a life more painful than death.
Then later, even when he seemed to have won, he claimed to have been wronged in his property—for he had been forced to hold the office of gymnasiarch in a rather diminished style—either because he was actually stingy and ungenerous in his expenditures, pleading that he did not possess a fortune sufficient for so lavish an outlay, or because he genuinely did not possess one, though before the test came he had let himself be reputed a very rich man, but when put to the proof he did not appear a man of great wealth, having acquired nearly everything he owned through wrongdoing.
For, standing beside the governors whenever they held court, he would take notes as the cases were brought in, as though this were his proper office; then he would erase some things or deliberately pass over them, and add in others that had not been said, and sometimes he would even substitute words, altering, transposing, and turning the letters upside down, extorting money syllable by syllable, indeed letter by letter—that stooped-over scribe.
Him the whole populace, again and again, with one accord, aiming true and striking the mark, denounced as a 'reed-cutter,' a name given to those who had reduced countless people, though still alive, to a state more wretched than the dead—people who, though able to win their cases and prosper, endured unjust defeat and poverty, since their enemies had bought both outcomes from the man who cheapened and sold off other people's property.
For it was impossible for the governors administering so vast a province, with private and public business always flowing in afresh, to remember everything—especially since they were not only judging cases but also receiving the accounts of revenues and taxes, the examination of which consumed the greater part of the year.
But he, entrusted with guarding the most essential deposit of all—justice, and the most sacred judgments concerning it—traded on the judges' forgetfulness, recording as defeated those who deserved to win, and, after an accursed fee, or more properly a bribe, recording as victors those who deserved to lose.
Such, then, was Lampon, who stood forth as accuser; and Isidorus was no less depraved—a demagogic rabble-rouser, practiced in stirring up confusion, an enemy of peace and stability, unable to originate factions and disturbances but formidable at fanning and swelling those that arose, eager to keep about him a disorderly, jumbled mob gathered from every mixed and motley element, which he had organized into divisions, as it were, like guild-companies.
There are, throughout the city, populous clubs whose fellowship is founded on nothing sound, but on unmixed wine, drunkenness, drunken violence, and the insolence these breed; the locals call them 'assemblies' and 'couches.'
In all, or most, of these clubs Isidorus carries off first place, and is called the symposiarch, the master of the couches, the disturber of the city. Whenever he wishes to accomplish some piece of mischief, at a single signal they come together en masse and say and do whatever is commanded; and once, having taken offense at Flaccus for some matter—
namely, that whereas at first he had seemed to be in his good graces, he was no longer courted as before—Isidorus hired the oil-anointed toughs and the men accustomed to train their voices for shouting, who peddle their bawling in the marketplace to buyers just as goods are sold, and urged them to assemble in the gymnasium.
These men, having filled the place, accused Flaccus on no genuine pretext at all, fabricating charges that had never occurred and stringing together false statements in anapestic verses drawn out to great length, so that not only Flaccus but everyone else was struck with astonishment at the absurdity of it, and concluded—rightly—that there must be someone whose favor they were currying, since they themselves had suffered no irreparable harm, nor did they know of any real wrong done to the rest of the city.
Afterward, on deliberation, it was decided to arrest some of them and inquire into the cause of this sudden, unaccountable madness and frenzy. Those arrested, without need of torture, confessed the truth, and along with it supplied proof through the facts themselves—the agreed price, the part already paid, the part promised to be paid later, the men chosen to distribute it as leaders of the faction, the place, the time, when the bribery took place.
Since everyone, naturally, was indignant, and the city took it hard that the folly of a few should be smeared onto its own name, it was decided to summon the purest part of the populace and, on the next day, to bring forward those who had distributed the bribe, so that Flaccus might both expose Isidorus and defend his own record as a governor, on the ground that he had been unjustly slandered.
When they heard the summons, not only the officials came but the entire city, apart from that portion which was about to be exposed for having taken the bribe. Those who had performed this fine service were raised up on a platform, so that they might be visible and conspicuous and recognized by all, and they charged Isidorus with being responsible for the disturbances and the abuse hurled at Flaccus, since he had furnished no small crowd with both money and wine for his sake.
"For where," they said, "could we have gotten such abundance? We are poor; we can barely provide our daily necessities. And what terrible thing had we suffered at the governor's hands, that we should have been driven to bear him a grudge? No—the one responsible for all this, its author, is that man who is always envious of those who prosper and hostile to lawful order."
The bystanders, recognizing these words—for what was said bore clear stamps and marks of the accused man's true character—cried out, some that he should be disenfranchised, others that he should be exiled, others that he should be put to death; and these last were the majority, to whose side the rest also came over, so that all with one accord, with a single voice, shouted for the death of the common pest, the man responsible, from the moment he had come forward and thrust himself into public affairs, for leaving no part of the city untouched by his corruption.
And he, aware of his own guilt, fled to escape arrest; but Flaccus took no further trouble over him, believing that with him gone by his own choice, the city's affairs would be free of faction and undisturbed.
I have dwelt at length on these matters, not in order to recall old wrongs, but because I have marveled at the justice that oversees human affairs: that the very men who from the start had been hostile to him, and to whom of all people he was most odious, were also the ones allotted to bring the accusation against him—an excess of anguish; for it is not so terrible to be accused as it is to be accused by confessed enemies.
He was not only accused—he, who had ruled over subjects and had, but a little before, held power over the life of each of these men who had now become his sworn enemies—but he was also utterly overpowered, meeting with a double misfortune: to be mocked in his defeat by gloating enemies, which to a right-thinking person is worse than death.
Then a kind of abundance of misfortunes came upon him. He was at once stripped of his entire estate, both what he had inherited from his parents and what he had acquired himself, having been an extraordinary lover of fine things. For his wealth was not, as with some very rich men, inert raw material; everything was carefully chosen for its refinement—drinking cups, garments, coverlets, furniture, and all the rest that adorns a house—every item exquisite.
And in addition, his household staff of servants, selected by merit both for physical beauty and vigor together, and for their unfailing competence in the practical duties of service; for in whatever post each had been assigned, they excelled, so as to be regarded either as first among those who practiced the same skills, or second to none at all.
Clear proof of this is that, when countless properties confiscated by the state were sold off, properties belonging to condemned men, only that of Flaccus was reserved for the emperor's own treasury—apart from a few small items—so that the law laid down for men condemned in this way should not be transgressed.
After the confiscation of his property, sentence of exile was passed on him, and he was driven from every part of the mainland — the greater and better portion of the inhabited world — and from every one of the fortunate islands. He was on the point of being banished to the bleakest of the Aegean islands, the one called Gyara, had he not found an advocate in Lepidus, through whom he exchanged Gyara for Andros, which lies very close to it.
Then he set out once more on the road from Rome to Brundisium, the very road he had traveled a few years before, at the time when he had been appointed governor of Egypt and the neighboring parts of Libya — so that the cities which had then watched him passing, breathing greatness and displaying the full weight of his good fortune, might now watch him again, laden with disgrace.
Pointed at with fingers and reproached for his sudden reversal, he was weighed down by heavier griefs, since his misfortune was constantly renewed and rekindled by the addition of fresh evils, which forced back into memory, as if by relapse, even the recollection of his earlier misdeeds — recollections that had until then seemed to have faded.
Having crossed the Ionian gulf, he sailed the sea as far as Corinth, becoming a spectacle to the coastal cities of the Peloponnese, once word of his sudden reversal spread; for whenever he disembarked from the ship, those of base nature ran together to gloat maliciously, while others came to look on and take a lesson from the misfortunes of another, as is their custom.
Having crossed the isthmus from Lechaeum to the sea on the opposite side and gone down to Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, he was compelled — since his guards would not grant him the least respite — to embark at once on a small merchant vessel and put to sea; and after suffering countless hardships when a contrary wind broke out violently against him, he was barely dragged as far as Piraeus.
When the storm had ceased, he passed by Attica as far as the headland of Sunium, and from there crossed over the islands that came next in turn — Helene, Ceos, Cythnos, and the others that lie in a row one after another — until he reached the last one he was destined to come to, Andros.
Catching sight of it from a distance, the wretched man let a flood of tears pour down his cheeks as if from a spring, and striking his chest, he cried out most bitterly, 'Men, my guards and escorts, what a fine exchange I am making — Andros, this luckless island, for blessed Italy — I, Flaccus, who was born, raised, and educated in the
imperial city of Rome, who was a fellow student and companion in life of the grandsons of Augustus, who was judged among the foremost friends of Tiberius Caesar, and to whom his greatest possession, Egypt, was entrusted for six years. What could account for so great a reversal?
Night in the middle of day, as if an eclipse had occurred, has seized hold of my life. What am I to call this little island? My place of exile, or a new fatherland — a refuge and shelter, but a wretched one? A tomb would be its truest name. For I, wretched man that I am, am setting out in a way carrying my own corpse, as if to a burial mound; either I shall break off my miserable life through grief, or, if I should be able to live on, I shall face a long death, one endured with full awareness.' Such were his lamentations.
When the ship put in at the harbor, everyone disembarked with eyes bent to the ground, like those crushed beneath a heaviest burden, their necks weighed down by misfortune, unable — or not daring — to lift their heads even slightly, because of those who met them and those who had come to gawk, standing on either side of the road.
Those who had escorted him brought him before the assembly of the people of Andros and displayed him to everyone, making them witnesses to the exile's arrival on the island.
When they had discharged this duty, they departed; but Flaccus, no longer seeing a single familiar face, found his suffering renewed, sharper still, by vivid images that pressed upon him; and as he took in the great emptiness surrounding him, in the midst of which he was now confined, his violent removal from his homeland, which had once seemed an evil, now seemed by comparison with his present state a welcome good. So violently was he convulsed that he differed in nothing from the mad; he leapt up again and again, running this way and that, clapping his hands together, striking his thighs, throwing himself to the ground, and crying out repeatedly:
'I am Flaccus, who a short while ago was governor of the great city, or rather the city of many cities, Alexandria — the administrator of Egypt, the most blessed of lands, to whom so many tens of thousands of its inhabitants used to turn, who commanded great forces of infantry, cavalry, and navy, not merely counted in numbers but chosen as the very finest among his subjects, who each day, whenever he went out, was escorted by countless throngs.'
'But were these things not phantoms — not truth at all? Did I, while sleeping, only dream that former cheerfulness — mere images treading upon nothing, fictions of a soul perhaps inscribing things that do not exist as though they did? I have been deceived; they were, it seems, shadows of things, not the things themselves — a mere imitation of reality, not reality itself making plain what is false. For just as, of the things that appear to us in dreams, we find nothing still standing once we rise, but all of it vanishes at once, flying away, so too those glories in which I once gloried have been extinguished in the briefest turn of time.'
Such were the thoughts with which he was continually wrestled to the ground and, in a sense, had his neck broken. Fleeing the gatherings of the crowd because of the shame that dogged him, he would neither go down to the harbor nor endure to venture into the marketplace, but shut himself up at home and lay low, not even daring to step beyond his own courtyard gate.
There were times, too, deep at dawn, while others were still in their beds, when, showing himself to no one at all, he would go out beyond the wall and spend the whole day in the wilderness, turning aside whenever anyone was likely to meet him, and, worn away and consumed in soul by the ever-present memories of his misdeeds, the wretched man would go back in only at dead of night, praying, because of his measureless and endless anguish, that evening might become morning; then, shuddering at the darkness and at the monstrous visions that came whenever he chanced to fall asleep, he would pray that morning become evening again.
For the gloom that enveloped him stood opposed to everything bright.
A few months later he bought a small plot of land, and on it he spent much of his time in isolation, groaning and weeping over his own fate.
It is said that once, around the middle of the night, becoming possessed like the Corybantic revelers, he went out from his farmhouse, lifted his gaze to the sky and the stars — truly seeing the order within the order of the universe — and cried out:
'King of gods and men, you have not, after all, been neglectful of the nation of the Jews, nor is their claim of your providence a false one; rather, those who say they have no champion or defender in you are utterly mistaken in their judgment. I myself am clear proof of this: for whatever I contrived against the Jews, I myself have suffered.'
'I looked on while their properties were being plundered, granting the plunderers free license; for this I was stripped of my paternal and maternal inheritance, and of whatever I had received as gifts and favors, and whatever else I had acquired by other means.'
'I once reproached them with dishonor and foreign status, though they were citizens with full civic rights, so as to gratify their adversaries — a disorderly, unruly mob by whose flattery I, unlucky man, was deceived; for this I have been dishonored, and, driven as an exile from the whole inhabited world, I am now shut up here.'
'I once brought some of them into the theater and ordered them, unjustly, to be tortured before the eyes of their bitterest enemies; and so it is only just that I have not been paraded into one theater or one city to suffer the utmost outrages, my wretched soul tormented even before my body — no, I have been paraded in a procession through the whole of Italy as far as Brundisium, through the whole Peloponnese as far as Corinth, and through Attica and the islands as far as Andros, my prison.'
'And I am firmly persuaded that this is not the limit of my misfortunes, but that others lie in wait to make full payment in kind for what I have done. I killed some, and did not pursue those who killed others; some were stoned; some were burned alive; others were dragged through the middle of the marketplace until their entire bodies were consumed.'
'Of these deeds I know that the avenging Furies await me, and the spirits of vengeance already stand as if at the starting line, poised and thirsting for blood; and each day, or rather each hour, I die in anticipation many deaths, in place of the one final death.'
Often he was terrified and thrown into panic; a shudder shook his limbs and every part of his body, and fear left his soul trembling, shaken by gasping breath and violent palpitation, since he was deprived of the one thing that by nature can console a human life—good hope.
No favorable bird ever appeared to him. Every omen was ill-boding, every rumor turned back on him; his waking hours were full of toil, his sleep full of dread, his isolation like that of a wild beast. Yet was the company of a crowd the sweetest thing to him? No—his time spent in the city was most unpleasant. Was solitude in the country a safe refuge from disgrace? No, it was treacherous and merciless: whoever approached him quietly, even gently, was under suspicion.
‘Someone is plotting something against me,’ he would say, ‘whoever walks a little faster does not seem to be hurrying toward something else, but is pursuing me. The pleasant man lies in wait for me, the outspoken man despises me; food and drink are given to me as to cattle led to slaughter.’
‘How long, though I am made of iron, can I hold out against such great misfortunes? I know I am growing soft toward death, kept by the spite of some hostile power from cutting short my wretched life all at once, because of certain extremities of irreparable evils which, storing them up against me,’
‘it grants as a favor to those it has already treacherously murdered.’ Turning such thoughts over and writhing in anguish, he awaited in dread the end appointed by fate; and his continual pains stirred up and overturned his soul. But Gaius, being savage by nature and insatiable in his acts of vengeance, did not, as some do, let go of those he had once punished, but nursing an unending wrath, kept contriving some new disaster for them; and he hated Flaccus above all others, so that even men who merely shared his name he regarded with suspicion, alienated by the very sound of it.
And often remorse came over him, because he had condemned Flaccus to exile and not to death; and though he respected the man who had pleaded for him, he nevertheless blamed Lepidus for it, so that Lepidus gave up interceding, from fear of punishment to himself; for he was afraid, reasonably enough, that by becoming responsible for another man's lighter sentence he might himself incur a heavier one.
Since, then, no one any longer dared say anything in his defense, Gaius indulged an implacable and unchecked rage, which, instead of fading with time as it should have, grew sharper instead—like diseases in the body that relapse, for these are more severe than the first attack.
They say, then, that once, lying awake at night, he fell to thinking about the men of rank who had been exiled—men suspected in name only of being unfortunate, but who had in truth secured for themselves a life free of business, at peace, and truly free.
He even changed the name for it, calling it a sojourn abroad rather than exile; for a sojourn abroad, he said, was simply the removal of men who had abundant provisions and could live free of business, in tranquility and ease—and it was absurd for such men to enjoy the fruits of a philosophic life in the midst of peace.
Then he ordered that the most eminent of them, those held in greatest regard, be put to death. He issued a written list of names, at the head of which stood Flaccus. When the men charged to carry out the killings arrived at Andros, Flaccus happened to be coming in from the countryside toward the town, while they were approaching from the harbor, and from a distance each party caught sight of the other.
Sensing from this what they were hurrying to do—for every soul is highly prophetic, especially in times of misfortune—he turned off the road and fled at a run over rough ground, forgetting, perhaps, that this was an island and not the mainland, where what good is speed when the sea shuts you in on every side? Of necessity one of two things must happen: either, pressing further on, to be carried into the sea, or to be caught the moment he reached its very edge.
It was, then, comparing one evil with another, better to die on land than at sea, since nature has assigned the earth as the place most proper to human beings and to all land-dwelling creatures alike, not only while they live but also when they die, so that the same earth may receive both their first birth and the final dissolution of their life.
But his pursuers, running without pause, caught up with him; and some at once began digging a pit, while others dragged him by force as he resisted, shouting and struggling; and because of this his whole body was wounded all over, as he ran about exposed to their blows like a hunted animal.
For as he grappled with and clung to his killers, at one moment preventing them from bringing their swords to bear, and at another receiving slanting blows, he became responsible for graver injuries to himself; and cut through and hacked apart in hands, feet, head, chest, and ribs, so that he was butchered like a sacrificial victim, he lay there—since justice willed to inflict on a single body a number of deaths equal to the murders of the Jews who had been unlawfully put to death,
and the whole place ran with blood from the many veins that were severed piece by piece, pouring out in streams; and as the corpse was dragged into the pit that had been dug, most of its parts came apart, since the sinews that bound together the whole unity of the body had been torn through.
Such were the sufferings that Flaccus too endured—the truest proof that the nation of the Jews had not been deprived of help from God.

======== On the Embassy to Gaius ========

How long shall we old men still be children — our bodies grey with the length of time, but our souls, through sheer lack of perception, utter infants? We think fortune, the most unsteady of things, is the most fixed, and nature, the most stable of things, the least secure. We keep changing our judgments, as in a game of checkers shifting our pieces, supposing that the products of chance are more lasting than the products of nature, and that what accords with nature is less secure than the products of chance.
The cause is that we judge present things without foresight of what is to come, using a perception that wanders in place of an understanding that does not wander. For the eye grasps what is in plain view and within reach, but reason presses on even to what is unseen and future — reason whose sight is keener than that of the body's eyes, yet we dim it, some by drunkenness and by gorging themselves, others by the greatest of evils, ignorance.
Still, the present occasion, and the many great matters judged in connection with it, are enough to persuade those — even if some have become unbelieving — that the divine takes forethought for human beings, and especially for the suppliant race, which has been allotted to the Father and King of the universe, the cause of all things.
This race is called, in Chaldean, Israel; and when the name is translated into Greek it means "the one who sees God" — which to my mind is the most precious of all possessions, private or common.
For if the sight of elders, or teachers, or rulers, or parents moves those who behold them to reverence and good order and zeal for a life of self-control, how much greater a foundation of virtue and nobility of character do we suppose will be found in souls that have been trained, bending beneath everything that has come into being, to see the uncreated and divine — the first good, beautiful, blessed, and happy, or rather, if the truth must be told, that which is better than the good, more beautiful than the beautiful, more blessed than blessedness itself and happier than happiness itself, and more perfect than anything that has been said.
For reason cannot climb up to the God who is untouchable and altogether intangible, but falls back and recedes, unable to use even his own proper names as a stepping-stone toward disclosure — I do not mean a name for his being, since not even the whole heaven, were it to become an articulate voice, could ever find words apt and well-aimed enough for that — but names for the powers that attend him as his bodyguard: the power that makes the world, the royal power, the power of providence, and the others, as many as are beneficent and as many as are punitive,
even if the punitive powers should be reckoned among the beneficent — not only because they form a part of laws and ordinances (for law is by nature completed out of two things: honor for the good and punishment for the wicked), but also because punishment itself often admonishes and disciplines even those who have sinned, and if not them, then certainly those near them; for the punishments of others improve the many, through fear of suffering the like.
For who, seeing Gaius, after the death of Tiberius Caesar, having taken over the government of every land and sea free of faction, well-governed, and fitted together in every part into concord — eastern, western, southern, northern; the barbarian race in harmony with the Greek, the Greek with the barbarian, the military with the civic population, the civic population with the soldiery — all agreeing to share and enjoy peace — who did not marvel and stand amazed at a state of good fortune beyond nature and beyond all account,
one who had inherited outright, all at once and in heaps, ready-made goods: vast treasuries of money, silver and gold — the one as raw material, the other as coin, the other as adornment fashioned into cups and other things wrought for display — vast forces, infantry, cavalry, naval; revenues supplied as though from springs, in an ever-flowing stream,
a rule over not merely the greater and most necessary parts of the inhabited world — which one might properly call "the inhabited world" — bounded by two rivers, the Euphrates and the Rhine, the one cutting off Germany and the more savage nations, the Euphrates cutting off Parthia and the tribes of the Sarmatians and Scythians, which are no less wild than the Germanic peoples — but, as I have already said, a rule over everything from where the sun rises to where it sets, both the sea within the ocean and the sea beyond it; over which the Roman people rejoiced, and all Italy, and the nations of Asia and of Europe.
For as no one had ever marveled at any emperor there had ever been, all were amazed at him, not hoping to have possession and use of goods both private and common, but thinking they already possessed the fullness of some good fortune, with even greater happiness in store.
One could see nothing else throughout the cities but altars, sacrificial victims, sacrifices, people dressed in white, wearing garlands, radiant, their faces bright with good will shining out from cheerful looks — festivals, public assemblies, musical contests, horse races, revels, all-night festivities with flutes and lyres, delights, relaxations, holidays, every kind of pleasure through every sense.
Then the rich did not surpass the poor, nor the honored the dishonored, nor creditors their debtors, nor masters their slaves, since the occasion granted equality before the law — so that the life under Cronus, recorded by the poets, was no longer thought a fiction of myth, because of the abundance and the good season, the freedom from grief and fear, and the rejoicings, shared by whole households together and by whole peoples, by day and by night, which continued unceasing and unbroken for the first seven months.
But in the eighth month a severe illness fell upon Gaius, who had shortly before, while Tiberius still lived, changed the easier and therefore healthier regimen he had followed into one of extravagance. For much unmixed wine, gluttonous feasting, insatiable appetites even on top of a full belly, ill-timed hot baths, vomiting followed at once again by wine-binges, and further bouts of gluttony, and lust indulged through boys and women, and whatever else destroys the soul and the body and the bonds that hold each together, all conspired together against him. And the wages of self-control are health and strength, but the wages of lack of self-control are weakness and sickness bordering on death.
So when the report spread that he was ill — while the seas were still navigable, for it was the beginning of autumn, the last voyage for seafarers, as they returned from markets everywhere to their own harbors and anchorages, especially those who took care not to winter abroad — people set aside their soft, luxurious life and grew gloomy; every household and every city became full of anxiety and dejection, as the joy of a little before now hung evenly balanced against a matching grief.
For every part of the inhabited world fell sick along with him, suffering a heavier illness than the one that gripped Gaius; for his was an illness of the body alone, but theirs was an illness affecting everyone everywhere — of strength of soul, of peace, of hopes, of the sharing and enjoyment of good things.
For they called to mind how many and how great are the evils that spring from lack of government: famine, war, the felling of trees, the ravaging of lands, the loss of property, deportations, the incurable fears surrounding slavery and death — for which there was no physician, since they had but one cure, that Gaius regain his strength.
So when the illness began to abate, in a short time even those at the ends of the earth perceived it — for nothing is swifter than a rumor — and every city was in suspense, ever thirsting for better news, until through those arriving the complete recovery was announced as good news; because of which they turned again from the beginning to the same rejoicings, each continent and every island alike counting his safety as their own.
For no one recalls so great a joy having come upon a single country or a single nation at the safety and restoration of a ruler as came, at Gaius, upon the whole inhabited world — both when he took over the government and when he recovered his strength from his illness.
For, as though only now beginning to change from a nomadic and beast-like life to one lived together in common and shared, and from desolate wilderness and folds and foothills to settling in walled cities, and from an unsupervised existence to being placed under the charge of some herdsman and leader of the flock over the gentler herd, they rejoiced in their ignorance of the truth;
for the human mind is blind when it comes to true perception of what is beneficial, able to use guesswork and conjecture rather than knowledge.
So indeed, without delay, he who had been thought a savior and benefactor, and one who would pour down for Asia and Europe new springs of good things for an unshakeable happiness, both for each individually and for all in common — as the saying goes, "from the very altar" — began to change into savagery, or rather revealed the wildness he had been screening beneath the mask of pretense.
For his cousin, who had been left as partner in the rule and was more properly his heir — the one was a grandson by adoption, the other by nature Tiberius's own — he put to death, alleging a plot, though not even his age admitted of such a charge; for the poor boy was only just passing from childhood into adolescence.
And, as some say, if Tiberius had lived only a short time longer, Gaius would have been removed from the way, since he had proceeded to incurable suspicions, and the legitimate grandson alone would have been declared ruler and heir of his grandfather's rule.
But Tiberius was overtaken by fate before he could bring his plans to completion; and Gaius, by outmaneuvering him, expected to escape the charge arising from his transgression of what was due to his partner in rule.
The trick was this: gathering the men in office, he said, "I wish — my cousin by birth, but my brother in affection, following also the judgment of the late Tiberius — to share the supreme power with him; and you yourselves see that he is still quite an infant, and in need of guardians, teachers, and tutors.
For what greater good could there be than that so great a weight of empire should be laid, not upon a single soul or a single body, but that there should be one able to lighten and share the load with me? As for me," he said, having outstripped guardians, teachers, and tutors of that age, though still a boy, I already write myself
as father, father, and him as son." With these words he deceived both those present and the youth himself — for the position given him was bait, since no rule was really hoped for by it, but rather the stripping away of what he already held — and against his co-heir and partner in right he plotted with great confidence, having taken thought for no one. For under Roman law full authority over a son rests with the father, quite apart from the fact that the imperial office answers to no one, no one daring or able to demand an account of anything whatsoever done.
This man, then, having taken him for a mere reserve contestant set aside in the games, he wrestled down, taking pity neither on their having been reared together, nor on their kinship, nor on his youth — that wretched, untimely-doomed partner in rule and co-heir, once hoped to be sole emperor because of his very close kinship to Tiberius; for grandsons, when their fathers have died, are counted among their grandfathers in the rank of sons.
It is said, too, that when he was ordered to kill himself with his own hand, with a centurion and a tribune standing over him, who had been told not to touch the pollution themselves, on the ground that it was not lawful for the descendants of emperors to be destroyed by others — for he made mention of laws in the midst of lawlessness, and of piety in the midst of impious deeds, mocking the very nature of truth — being wholly without experience — for he had never even seen another man being killed, nor had he been trained in arms, which are the practice and preliminary exercises of children being reared for empire, on account of wars that may arise — at first he begged those who had come, stretching out his neck, to kill him.
But when they would not consent, he himself took up the sword and asked, out of ignorance and inexperience, where the most fatal spot was, so that with a well-aimed blow he might break off his wretched life. And they, like teachers of misfortune, instructed and pointed out the place where the sword must strike; and he, having received his first and last lesson, became, under compulsion, the murderer of himself — wretched man.
When this first and greatest contest had been won by Gaius against Gaius, with no partner left in the rule any longer toward whom those who wished him ill and lived under suspicion might incline, he set himself at once toward a second contest: that against Macro, a man who had striven together with him in everything concerning the government — not only after he had been declared emperor, for it is the mark of flattery to court good fortune, but even earlier, toward his obtaining the rule at all.
For Tiberius, using deep intelligence, and being the most skilled of his contemporaries at discerning a man's unspoken intention, and excelling in understanding to the same degree that he excelled in good fortune, often eyed Gaius askance, as one ill-disposed toward the whole house of the Claudii, and attached only to his mother's family — and he feared for his grandson, lest, left young, he should come to ruin —
and as one ill-suited toward so great a rule besides, both because of the unsociable and uncommunicative character of his nature, and because of the unevenness of his ways; for his behavior appeared to Tiberius strange and frenzied, no consistency being preserved either in words or in deeds.
Macro, with all his strength, so far as the occasion allowed, courted Tiberius's favor, healing his suspicions, and above all where his mind seemed most deeply wounded, on account of his unceasing fear for his grandson.
For he declared that Gaius was well-disposed and obedient, and utterly devoted to his cousin, so much so that out of affection he alone would be willing to yield the rule to him; but that his modesty was of no advantage to him with many, on whose account Gaius, though simple, was thought devious.
And whenever a recital of probabilities failed to persuade, he would bring forward the pledge founded on their agreements, saying, "I give my guarantee; I am trustworthy enough for this; I have given sufficient proof of my particular devotion both to Caesar and to Tiberius, having been entrusted with the attack on and overthrow of Sejanus."
And in general he was capable in his praises of Gaius, if one may rightly call praises what were really defenses against charges and accusations that arose from suspicion, obscure and unclear — for, in sum, whatever praises one might utter concerning brothers or legitimate sons, so many and even more did Macro deliver to Tiberius on behalf of Gaius.
The cause, as the common report has it, was not only that Macro was courted in return by him — Macro who held the greatest, indeed almost the whole, power in the government — but also that Macro's wife, for a reason left unspoken, day by day anointed and roused her husband to relax nothing of his zeal and assistance on the young man's behalf. It is a terrible thing for a woman to unsettle and lead astray a man's judgment, and above all a lewd woman; for on account of shared complicity she becomes the more flattering.
He, not knowing of the corruption of his marriage and household, and thinking the flattery to be the purest goodwill, was deceived and, without realizing it, through their stratagems admitted his bitterest enemies as though they were his dearest friends.
Knowing, then, that he had saved him from destruction when he had come within a hair's breadth of ruin countless times, he used admonitions that were unfeigned and spoken with full frankness; for he wished, like a good craftsman, that his own work should remain undestroyed, dissolved neither by himself nor by another.
So whenever he saw him fallen asleep at a banquet, he would rouse him, aiming both at propriety and at safety — for one asleep is easily plotted against — or if he saw him watching dancers with wild excess, or at times dancing along with them, or at the mimes not smiling at shameful jests and gibes with becoming restraint but guffawing more like a boy, or being overcome by the melody of lyre-singers or choruses, at times even singing along, he would nudge him, sitting or reclining nearby, and try to restrain him.
Often, too, leaning close to his ear, so that no one else might overhear, he would admonish him quietly and gently, saying: "You must not be like anyone present, nor indeed like other men, either in what you watch, or what you hear, or in anything else that comes through the senses, but must excel in every concern of life to the same degree that you surpass others in good fortune."
For it is absurd that the ruler of land and sea should be overcome by a song, a dance, a mocking jest, or anything of the kind, rather than always and everywhere remembering his rule, like a shepherd and overseer of a flock, drawing toward his own improvement whatever word or deed comes from anyone at all.
Then he would say: "Whenever you happen to be present at theatrical, athletic, or equestrian contests, do not look at the pursuits themselves, but at the excellence achieved within those pursuits, and reason as follows:
if, in matters that benefit human life not at all, providing spectators nothing but delight and pleasure, some men labor so hard as to be praised and admired and to receive prizes and honors and crowns along with public proclamations, what must the man do who possesses the highest and greatest of all arts?
The greatest and best of all arts is rulership, through which all good and fertile land, both plain and mountain, is cultivated, and every sea is sailed without danger by cargo ships, in exchange for the goods that lands, out of desire for community, send back and forth to one another, receiving what they lack and sending back the surplus of what they carry.
For envy has never mastered the whole inhabited world, nor even its great divisions, all Europe or all Asia; rather, like a venomous creeping thing, it lurks, having crept into small places, against a single man or a single household, or, if ever it should breathe too strongly, against a single city; but it does not approach a wider circle of nation or land, and especially not since your own family, the Augustan house, truly began to preside over all things everywhere.
For whatever harmful things flourished and were found in our midst, he drove into exile beyond the borders and into the recesses of Tartarus, while things beneficial and profitable, which had in some sense been banished, he brought back from the ends of earth and sea into our own inhabited world; all of which
are entrusted to be steered by your single hand. Escorted by nature to the very highest stern, and having been given the rudder in charge, he steers the common vessel of humankind to safety, rejoicing and delighting in nothing more than in doing good to his subjects.
For different people owe different contributions, which private citizens are obliged to pay in their cities; but the contribution most proper to a ruler is this: to propose good counsels concerning his subjects, to carry out rightly what has been resolved, and to bring forth good things ungrudgingly with a generous hand and a generous mind — except for whatever it is right to hold in reserve as a precaution against the uncertainty of the future.
With words like these the unfortunate man kept chanting his charms, in hopes of improving Gaius. But Gaius, being fond of strife and contention, turned his mind to the opposite course, as though he had been urged toward it, and grew bold enough to shame his corrector to his face; and sometimes, when he saw him arriving from a distance, he would say the following to those nearby:
‘Here comes the teacher of a man who no longer needs to learn, the tutor of one who is no longer a boy, the counselor of one wiser than himself — the man who thinks the emperor should obey his subject enrolls himself as an expert in the science of rule and as my instructor, though from whom he learned the art of governing, I for my part do not know.’
‘For I, from my very swaddling clothes, have had countless teachers — fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, grandfathers, ancestors going back to the founders of our line, all of them my blood relations on both sides, paternal and maternal, who acquired sovereign power for themselves — not to mention that even in the first depositing of the seed there are certain royal potencies belonging to rulers.’
‘For just as resemblances of body and soul — in form, in disposition, in movements, in counsels and actions — are preserved in the generative principles, so it is likely that the resemblance to rule itself is sketched out, in still more definite outline, within those same principles.’
‘Then does someone dare to teach me — me, who was already fashioned through and through as emperor while still in the womb, in the workshop of nature — an ignorant man instructing a man of knowledge? Where is it lawful for private persons, until just now, even to peer into the counsels of a ruler’s soul? Yet with shameless boldness they dare to play the hierophant and to initiate others into the mysteries of rule, though they could scarcely even be enrolled among the initiates themselves.’
By practicing this little by little, he began to grow estranged from Macro, and to fabricate charges against him that were false but plausible and easily believed — for keen and powerful natures are formidable at inventing plausibilities.
These were the pretexts: ‘Gaius is my creation,’ said Macro. ‘I fathered him more than his parents did, or at least no less. Three times over, not once, he would have been snatched away by Tiberius’ murderous intent, had it not been for me and my persuasions. And when Tiberius died, holding the military forces under my command, I immediately transferred them over to Gaius’ service, teaching them that a single man had been lost, while the empire remains sound and complete.’
Some were persuaded by these words as though they were true, not recognizing the deceitful character of the speaker; for the counterfeit and shifting nature of his character was not yet apparent. But in fact, not many days later, the ill-fated man was put out of the way along with his wife, receiving as recompense for his excessive goodwill the harshest punishment of all.
Such is the nature of a favor bestowed on the ungrateful: in return for the benefits they received, they inflict the greatest injuries upon their benefactors. Macro, at any rate, having in truth accomplished everything with the most intense zeal and ambition — first to save Gaius, and then to see that he alone should succeed to the empire — reaped such rewards for his labor.
For it is said that the wretched man was compelled to kill himself with his own hand, and his wife suffered the same misfortune, though she had once been thought to have grown genuinely close to him through their long companionship; but they say that nothing bound by love’s ties is secure, because of the fickleness of that passion.
Now once Macro and his whole household had been sacrificed, Gaius stripped for a third, still graver act of treachery. Marcus Silanus had become his father-in-law, a man full of high spirit and brilliant by birth. When his daughter died an untimely death, Silanus still continued to attend upon Gaius, showing him the goodwill not so much of a father-in-law as of a true father, expecting to receive the same in return, having by the law of equality transformed his son-in-law into a son. But he was deceiving himself, holding a false opinion without realizing it.
For Silanus went on continually speaking as a guardian would, concealing nothing of what was needed to improve and benefit Gaius’ character, life, and rule, having as grounds for such frankness both his surpassing nobility of birth and his kinship by marriage; indeed his daughter had died not so long before that the rightful claims of an in-law should have faded — she was, so to speak, still gasping her last, some final remnants of the vital spirit still remaining and lodged within the body.
But Gaius, taking such admonitions as an outrage, because he believed himself the wisest and most self-controlled of all, and moreover the bravest and most just, hated those who instructed him more than he hated his acknowledged enemies.
Supposing, then, that this man too was a nuisance who would check the great onrush of his desires, and bidding a hearty farewell to the departed spirits of his dead wife on the grounds that he would remove her father, who had become his father-in-law, he had him treacherously killed.
And by now the matter had become notorious, on account of the successive murders of leading men, so that talk of these hard-to-purify pollutions echoed from every mouth — not openly, out of fear, but in a quieter voice.
Then, through a change of heart — for the crowd is unsteady in everything, in its counsels, its words, and its deeds — people, disbelieving that Gaius, who a little before had been thought kind and humane, equitable and sociable, had undergone such a sudden and total transformation, began looking for justifications; and searching them out, they found them. Concerning his cousin and co-heir, they said the following:
‘Rule admits no partner; this is an immovable law of nature. This young man, being stronger, brought about beforehand what he himself was destined to suffer at the hands of a weaker rival — this is self-defense, not murder. Indeed, perhaps it was even a foresighted act, for the benefit of the whole human race, that the boy was removed, since some would have attached themselves to him and others to Gaius, and out of such divisions civil strife and foreign wars arise. And what is better than peace? Peace grows out of right rule; and rule is right only when it is free of rivalry and undivided, through which all else, too, is set right.’
‘And concerning Macro: he grew more puffed up than was fitting; he never read the Delphic inscription, “Know yourself.” They say that knowledge is the cause of happiness, and ignorance the cause of misery. What had come over him, that he should exchange places and shift the subject into the rank of ruler and the emperor Gaius into the position of subject? It belongs properly to a ruler to give orders, which is what Macro was doing, and to a subject to obey, which is what he expected Gaius to endure.’
For these thoughtless people called advice a command, and a counselor a ruler, either failing through obtuseness to understand, or through flattery recasting the true nature of both the words and the things themselves.
‘And concerning Silanus: Silanus suffered something worthy of ridicule, for thinking that a father-in-law could carry as much weight with a son-in-law as a natural father does with a son. And yet fathers, when their sons enter upon great offices and powers, though they are themselves private citizens, hold themselves back, content to take second place. But this foolish man, no longer even a father-in-law, meddled in matters that were none of his concern, not understanding that his kinship by marriage had died along with his daughter’s death.’
‘For marriage-ties are the bond joining unrelated households, drawing what was foreign into kinship; and once that bond is dissolved, the partnership too is dissolved, especially when it is dissolved by an irreparable event — the death of the woman given in marriage into a foreign household.’
Such things people murmured in every gathering, giving the greatest weight to their wish not to seem to think the emperor cruel; for having hoped that such kindness and humanity as had been established in Gaius’ soul, greater than in any of his predecessors, they considered it altogether incredible that he had undergone so great and so sudden a change to the opposite extreme.
Having accomplished, then, these three labors just described, drawn from the three most essential quarters — two from within his own country, the senatorial order and the equestrian order, and the third from his own family — and supposing that, having overcome the strongest and most powerful men, he had instilled the most overwhelming fear in everyone else,
through the slaughter of Silanus he had struck fear into the senators — for Silanus had ranked second to none in the Senate — through the killing of Macro he had struck fear into the equestrians — for Macro had become, so to speak, the leader of their chorus, carrying off the first prizes of honor and renown — and through the murder of his cousin and co-heir he had struck fear into all his blood relations — he no longer thought it fitting to remain within the bounds of human nature, but overreached himself, striving to be regarded as a god.
At the beginning of this madness, they say, he reasoned as follows: just as the leaders of herds of other animals — cowherds, goatherds, and shepherds — are not themselves cattle or goats or sheep, but human beings who have attained a superior lot and constitution, in the same way I too, since I lead the herd, must be reckoned as set apart from the best herd of the human race and not to belong to the category of man, but to have obtained a greater and more divine lot.
Having sealed this notion in his mind, the fool carried around within himself this mythical fabrication as though it were the most unassailable truth. And once he had grown bold and dared to publish to the multitude this most godless self-deification of himself, he set about doing the things that followed from it and were consonant with it, and, as if by a series of steps, advanced little by little upward.
For he began at first by making himself resemble the so-called demigods — Dionysus, Heracles, and the Dioscuri — treating their oracular shrines and rites, Trophonius and Amphiaraus and Amphilochus and the like, as objects of mockery by comparison with his own power.
Then, as in a theater, he would take up now one costume and now another: at one time the lion-skin and club, both gilded, got up as Heracles; at another, a cap set upon his head when he was playing at being one of the Dioscuri; and at still other times he was decked out with ivy, thyrsus, and fawn-skins as Dionysus.
And he claimed to surpass even them on this ground: that each of those gods, having his own particular honors, did not lay claim to those shared by the others, whereas he arrogated to himself the honors of all of them together, out of envy and greed — indeed he outdid even those gods themselves, not by changing into a three-bodied Geryon, so as to deceive onlookers by sheer number, but — and this was the most extraordinary thing — while remaining a single body, transforming and recasting himself into manifold shapes, after the fashion of the Egyptian Proteus, whom Homer represented as undergoing every sort of change into the elements and the animals and plants that arise from them.
And yet, Gaius, what need had you of these emblems, you who were accustomed to have set up statues of the very beings just named? For what was needed was to emulate their virtues. Heracles purged land and sea, undertaking the most necessary and beneficial labors for the sake of all humankind, in order to destroy the harmful and destructive elements in the nature of each.
Dionysus tamed the vine and, pouring out from it a drink at once most pleasant and most beneficial to souls and bodies alike, brings souls to good cheer, working in them forgetfulness of evils and hopes of good things, while he renders bodies healthier, stronger, and more agile.
And he makes each individual human being better, and transforms populous households and kinship groups from a parched and toilsome existence into the pattern of a relaxed and cheerful way of life, and furnishes to every city, Greek and barbarian alike, feastings, merriments, festivities, and festivals one after another; for unmixed wine is the cause of all that has been mentioned. Again, tradition holds that the Dioscuri shared their immortality in common.
For since one of them was mortal and the other immortal, the one who had been granted the better lot did not think it right to love himself more than to show goodwill toward his brother.
For having envisioned the endless span of time and reckoned that he himself would live forever while his brother would be forever dead, and that along with his immortality he would take on an immortal grief for his brother, he brought about a marvelous exchange, blending together for himself what was mortal and for his brother what was imperishable, and did away with inequality, the source of injustice, by means of equality, which is the wellspring of justice.
All these, Gaius, were admired because of the benefactions they had performed, and are admired even now, and were deemed worthy of reverence and the highest honors. Tell us, then, yourself: on what ground do you swell with pride and puff yourself up as their equal?
Did you imitate the Dioscuri in brotherly love? Let me begin from this point. Your own brother and co-heir, in the prime of his early manhood — you man of iron, most pitiless of men — you slaughtered savagely, and your sisters you later drove into exile. Did they too instill in you a fear that they might take away your rule? Did you imitate Dionysus?
Have you become a discoverer of new graces, as he was? Have you filled the inhabited world with good cheer? Do Asia and Europe find themselves unable to contain the gifts that have come from you?
Rather, as a common blight and avenging fury, you have discovered new arts and sciences by which you turn pleasant and joyful things into unpleasantness, grief, and an unlivable life for all people everywhere, seizing for yourself, with insatiable and unquenchable desires, all the good and beautiful things possessed by others — those from the eastern lands, those from the western, those from all the other regions of the whole world, whatever there was to the south or toward the north — while in return you give back and send out, from your own bitterness, all the harmful and ruinous things that accursed and venomous souls are wont to breed. Is it for this that you have appeared to us as the new Dionysus?
But you also emulated Heracles, did you, with your untiring labors and unwearied feats of manly courage — good order and just law, abundance and prosperity and a plenty of all other good things, of which deep peace is the craftsman — filling continents and islands with these, you, the basest of the base, full of cowardice, you who have emptied the cities of everything conducive to stability and happiness, and have filled them instead with things productive of turmoil and confusion and the utmost misery?
In the face of such great calamities as you have brought upon us for our ruin, tell me, Gaius, do you seek to obtain a share of immortality, so that you may render your disasters not brief and short-lived but everlasting? I think, on the contrary, that even if you were once thought to have become a god, you would surely, on account of your wicked practices, be changed back into a mortal nature; for if virtues confer immortality, vices surely bring corruption.
So do not enroll yourself among the Dioscuri, those most devoted of brothers, you who have become the slayer and destroyer of your own brothers, nor lay claim to a share of the honor of Heracles or Dionysus, benefactors of human life, you who are a ruiner and corrupter of the very things they achieved.
So great was the frenzy that possessed him, and such the deranged and distracted madness, that he passed even beyond the demigods and pressed on, stripping for a contest with the reverence paid to beings reputed greater and more fully divine — Hermes, Apollo, and Ares.
Hermes first: arraying himself in herald's staff, sandals, and cloak, he made a show of order amid disorder, of consistency amid confusion, and of reason amid derangement.
Then, whenever it took his fancy, he would set these aside and transform and re-equip himself into Apollo, binding his head with rayed crowns, holding a bow in his left hand and arrows, and extending graces with his right — as though it were fitting to offer good things readily, with the better position, the right, assigned to that purpose, while punishments were to be withheld and assigned the inferior position.
— that is, the left. And choruses at once stood arrayed, singing paeans to him, the very same who a little before had been calling him Bacchus, Euios, and Lyaeus, and honoring him with hymns, when he took up the trappings of Dionysus.
Often, too, putting on a breastplate and sword, he would go forth with helmet and shield, invoked as Ares; and on either side of him marched the attendants of this new [and young] Ares, a company of murderers and public executioners, ready to render base services to one who lusted for blood and thirsted for human gore.
Then those who witnessed these things were struck with amazement at the absurdity, and marveled how a man who does the very opposite of what those he chooses to rival do should not think it worth his while to practice their virtues, yet gets himself up in the emblems proper to each of them. And yet these appended ornaments and adornments are set upon carved images and statues as symbols signifying the benefits that those so honored provide to the human race. Hermes wears sandals fitted with the pinions of wings on their soles. Why?
Is it not because it is fitting that the interpreter and prophet of things divine — from which very function he has been named Hermes — in announcing good things (for no one who brings news of evil can be a spokesman, not even for a wise man, let alone a god), should be swiftest of foot and all but borne on wings, owing to his unhesitating eagerness? For it is fitting to be first to bring good news of what is advantageous, just as one ought to delay in reporting what is ill-omened, if one is permitted to let it rest in silence.
Again, he takes up the herald's staff, a token of treaties of reconciliation; for wars secure truces and settlements through heralds who establish peace, while wars without heralds produce endless calamities both for those who wage them and for those who defend against them.
But for what purpose did Gaius take up the sandals? Was it so that ill-omened and inauspicious things, which ought to be kept quiet, might be proclaimed everywhere with headlong speed, resounding on every side? And yet what need was there for such hurried movement? For even standing still, he poured out countless evils upon evils, as if from ever-flowing springs, raining them down on every part of the inhabited world.
What need has he of a herald's staff, who never once spoke or did anything peaceable, but filled every household and city with civil wars, throughout both Greece and the barbarian world? Let him set aside Hermes, then—let him renounce
this name that does not belong to him, this false name. What is there in him resembling Apollo's offspring? He wears a crown of rays, the craftsman having skillfully imitated the sun's beams. But to that god, the sun, or light altogether, is welcome, not night, nor darkness, nor whatever is more lightless than darkness and fit for the state of his lawless deeds. For fine things need the full brightness of midday to be displayed, but shameful things, they say, need the depths of Tartarus, into which they deserve to be thrust, so as to be properly hidden.
Let him also change what is in each hand, and not falsify their order. Let him hold out arrows and a bow in his right hand—for he knows how to shoot arrows and hit his mark against men, women, whole families, and flourishing cities, for their utter destruction.
As for the Graces, let him either fling them away quickly or hide them in his left hand—for their beauty put them to shame, since he was forever leering and gaping after great fortunes, lusting for unjust plunder, by which their owners were butchered for the sake of a prosperity that brought them only misfortune.
But he also thoroughly falsified the medical art of Apollo. For Apollo became the discoverer of healing remedies for the health of mankind, claiming even to cure the diseases brought on by others, because of the surpassing gentleness that came to him both by nature and by practice.
Gaius, by contrast, brought diseases upon the healthy, mutilation upon the whole, and, in short, deaths inflicted by human hands upon the living—harsh deaths ahead of their appointed time—having prepared every instrument of destruction in unstinting supply; and if he had not been cut off first by justice, he would soon have destroyed whatever was most esteemed in every city.
For his preparations were ready above all against those in office and the wealthy, especially those in Rome and the rest of Italy, among whom silver and gold were stored up in such quantity that, if all the rest of the inhabited world's wealth were gathered together from its farthest reaches, it would be found far inferior. For this reason it was from his own homeland, as if from a sacred place, that he began to scatter the seeds of war in place of peace—he, the city-hater, the people-devourer, the plague, the destroying evil.
Apollo is said to be not only a healer but also a good prophet, foretelling the future through oracles for the benefit of mankind, so that no one, overshadowed by ignorance of what is hidden, might stumble blindly and unforeseeing into what is undesirable as though it were most profitable; but rather, having learned the future beforehand as though it were already present, and seeing it with the mind no less than what is at hand is guarded against by the eyes of the body, he might take precaution against suffering anything irreparable.
Is it, then, worth setting against these the ill-omened oracles of Gaius, through which poverty, dishonor, exile, and death were foretold everywhere for those in office and in power? What partnership, then, is there with Apollo for one who has practiced nothing proper or akin to him? Let the false-named Healer cease imitating the true Healer—for just as with counterfeit coin, a false stamp does not make the form of a god.
One might sooner hope for anything at all than that such a body and such a soul, both soft, could ever be made to resemble the strength of Ares in either respect. But he, like an actor on a stage changing many masks, deceived onlookers with false appearances.
Come, then, let none of the matters of body or soul be examined further, given his estrangement in every disposition and movement from the divinity just mentioned. As for the power of Ares—not the mythologized Ares, but the reason that exists in nature, to which courage has been allotted—do we not know it to be a power that wards off evil, a helper, and a defender of those who are wronged, as indeed the very name seems to show?
For it seems to me that Ares was named, in our tongue, from arēgein, which means 'to help'—one who puts down wars, a craftsman of peace. Of that peace Gaius was an enemy, but a comrade of wars, turning stability into turmoil and faction.
Have we not now learned from all this that Gaius ought not to be likened to any god, nor even to any demigod, since he had attained neither their nature, nor their essence, nor even their moral purpose? Desire, it seems, is blind, and most of all when it takes on vainglory together with love of strife, joined to the greatest power—the very power under which we, who were formerly prosperous, were ruined.
For he eyed the Jews alone with suspicion, as though they alone had chosen the opposite course and had been taught, in a manner, from their very swaddling clothes by parents, tutors, and instructors—and long before that by the sacred laws, and further still by unwritten customs—to regard as one the Father and Maker of the world, God.
For all the others—men, women, cities, nations, regions, climates of the earth, almost the whole inhabited world, I might say—although groaning at what was happening, nonetheless flattered him no less, exalting him beyond measure and swelling his conceit still further. Some even brought the barbarian custom into Italy—prostration—falsifying the noble character of Roman freedom.
One nation alone, that of the Jews, was singled out as suspected of resistance, being accustomed to welcome voluntary deaths as though they were immortality, so as not to overlook the destruction of any of their ancestral ways, however small—because, just as with buildings, the removal of a single stone makes even what still seems to stand firmly collapse, giving way and crumbling toward the empty space.
And what was being shaken was no small thing, but the greatest of all realities: that man's begotten and perishable nature should be turned into the unbegotten, and whatever else seemed to have fashioned itself into a god—which he judged to be the most grievous of impieties (for it would be quicker for a god to change into a man than a man into a god)—apart from also taking on all the other highest vices, distrust together with ingratitude toward the benefactor of the whole world, who by his own power grants unstinting abundance of good things to every part of the universe.
So the greatest and undeclared war was being mounted against the nation. For what heavier evil could there be for a slave than a hostile master? And the subjects were slaves of the emperor, even if unlike any other previous emperor in this respect, because those before ruled with fairness and according to law—but Gaius had cut off all gentleness from his soul and set his heart on lawlessness, for, considering himself the law, he treated the laws of lawgivers everywhere as empty words and set them aside. And we were registered not merely among slaves, but among the most dishonored of slaves, since the ruler was turning into a master.
Perceiving this, the mixed and disorderly mob of Alexandria attacked us, supposing that the most opportune moment had presented itself, and brought to light the hatred that had long been smoldering, stirring and throwing everything into confusion.
For, treating us as though we had been handed over by the emperor to acknowledged and utter disaster, or as though we had been conquered in war, they set upon us with frenzied and utterly savage rage, rushing into our houses and driving the owners out along with their wives and children, so as to leave them empty of inhabitants.
Furniture and valuables they no longer stole like thieves, watching for night and darkness for fear of capture, but carried off openly, in broad daylight, displaying them to passersby, as though they were heirs or purchasers acting on behalf of the owners. And if several of them agreed to act together in the plunder, they divided the spoil in the middle of the marketplace, often before the very eyes of the owners, mocking and jeering at them.
These things, then, were terrible enough in themselves—how could they not be? To become poor from rich and destitute from prosperous, though guilty of no wrong, suddenly homeless and without hearth, driven out and exiled from their own houses, so that, remaining in the open day and night, they might perish either from the scorching of the sun or the chill of the nights.
But these were lighter matters compared to what is about to be told. For having herded so many tens of thousands of men, women, and children together like cattle and livestock from the whole city into the smallest possible quarter, as though into some pen, they expected within a few days to find heaps of corpses piled together, either destroyed by hunger for lack of necessities—since the necessary supplies had not been prepared in advance, as if in prophecy of the sudden catastrophe—
or through crushing and suffocation, since no open space was afforded, and the surrounding air itself was corrupted, along with whatever vital element it contained for breathing—or, to speak the truth, was infected by the very gasps of those breathing their last, by which, inflamed and, in a sense, pressed down by the onset of fever, they drew in through nostrils and mouth a hot and unnatural breath, bringing, as the proverb says, fire upon fire.
The organs inside the body are by nature the most fiery of all; when the breezes from outside blow moderately cool, the instruments of breathing proceed smoothly, thanks to the good mixture of the air, but when the air turns hotter, the passages must inevitably become obstructed,
as fire flows in upon fire. No longer able to endure the cramped confines, they poured themselves out into deserted places, beaches, and tombs, craving to draw in pure and harmless air. But those who had already been trapped in other parts of the city, or who came in from the countryside unaware of the disasters that had broken out, suffered calamities of every kind: some were stoned, some wounded by roof-tiles, others had the most vital parts of their bodies, and especially their heads, beaten to death with clubs of holm-oak and oak.
Meanwhile some of those who habitually have nothing to do and plenty of leisure sat in a circle watching the small remnant who had been driven and herded together into this remote corner, as I said, guarding them like men under siege, in case any should slip out unnoticed. And indeed, not a few, disregarding their own safety for lack of necessities, were bound to come out for fear that their whole households would perish of starvation. Watching for the moment these people broke ranks, the guards kept a lookout, and any they seized they destroyed at once, torturing them with every kind of outrage.
There was yet another company lying in wait at the river harbors to plunder the Jews coming down from their boats and whatever goods they were bringing in for trade; boarding the vessels, they carried off the cargo before the very eyes of its owners, and then, twisting the owners' arms behind them, set them on fire, using for fuel the rudders, tillers, poles, and the planks of the decks.
For those who were burned in the middle of the city, the death was most pitiful of all: for lack of wood they sometimes gathered brushwood, and having kindled it, threw it upon the wretched victims; these, half-burned, were destroyed more by the smoke than by the fire, since the brushwood kindled only a feeble, smoky flame that went out at once, being too light to turn to glowing coals.
Many who were still alive they bound with straps and nooses, tightened around the ankles, and dragged them through the middle of the marketplace, leaping upon them, and they did not even spare the bodies of the dead: tearing them apart limb by limb and trampling them, these men, more savage and brutal than untamed beasts, consumed every last shred, so that not even a remnant was left that could obtain the honor of burial.
The governor of the region — the one man who by his own will could have put down mob rule in a single hour — pretended not to see what he saw and not to hear what he heard, but instead gave free rein to warmongering and threw peace into confusion; and so the mob, further incited, rushed into shameless and even bolder schemes: banding together in enormous crowds, they attacked the synagogues — there are many in each district of the city — some they stripped of their wooden fittings, others they razed to their very foundations, and into others they threw fire and burned them down, in their frenzy and insane madness giving no thought even to the neighboring houses, for nothing moves faster than fire once it has taken hold of an entire building.
And I pass over in silence the honors of the emperors — the shields, the gilded crowns, the inscribed slabs and inscriptions — that were pulled down and burned along with the synagogues, honors which they were obligated to preserve even above all else; but they were emboldened because they had no fear of retribution from Gaius, whom they knew well to bear an unspeakable hatred toward the Jews, so much so that they suspected no one could do anything more pleasing to him than to heap every kind of evil upon the nation.
Wishing to worm their way into his favor with novel flatteries and to indulge, with total impunity, their outrages against us, what do they do? As for those synagogues they had not been able to obliterate by fire and demolition, because so many Jews lived clustered nearby, they ravaged them in a different way, one that overturned our laws and customs: for they set up images of Gaius in every one of them, and in the largest and most conspicuous, a bronze statue of him mounted on a four-horse chariot.
And such was the speed and the intensity of their zeal that, having no new chariot-and-four ready to hand, they brought one from the gymnasium, a very old one, worn out, its ears, tails, hooves, and a few other parts broken off, which, some say, had even been dedicated in honor of a woman, the elder Cleopatra, who was the great-grandmother of the last Cleopatra.
How great an accusation this in itself brought upon those who set it up is obvious to everyone. For what does it matter if it belonged to a woman? What does it matter if it was old and belonged to a man? What does it matter if, in general, it had been dedicated in someone else's name? Men who set up such a thing in honor of the emperor could hardly be expected to take care that no report of it should reach one who, above all others, makes everything about himself an object of solemn reverence.
But they, on the strength of their overwhelming confidence, expected to be praised, and to enjoy still greater and more splendid benefits, for having dedicated to Gaius new precincts by converting the synagogues — not for the sake of honoring him, but so that they might glut themselves in every way with acts of malice against our nation.
Clear proofs of this can be found. First, from the kings: in the course of roughly ten, or even more, kings in succession over three hundred years, they set up not a single image or statue in the synagogues, even though these kings were their own kin and relatives, whom they regarded, wrote of, and addressed as gods.
And why should they not have done so, being merely human, they who deified dogs, wolves, lions, crocodiles, and a great many other beasts, aquatic and terrestrial, and birds as well, for whom altars, shrines, temples, and precincts are established throughout all Egypt?
Perhaps they will now say — though they would not have said it then, since people are accustomed to court the good fortune of their rulers rather than the rulers themselves — that the emperors hold a higher rank and station than the Ptolemies, and are therefore owed still greater honors.
Then, O most foolish of all people — to avoid being forced to say anything more blasphemous — why did you not consider Tiberius, who came before Gaius and was even responsible for his succession to power, worthy of the same honor? For twenty-three years he held sway over land and sea, and did not allow even a seed of war to smolder either in Greece or among the barbarian nations, but provided peace and the blessings of peace, to the very end of his life, with a generous and open hand and mind. Was his lineage inferior?
No — he was of the noblest birth on both his parents' sides. Was it his education? And who among the men who flourished in his time was wiser or more eloquent than he? Was it his age? And what king or emperor grew old more gracefully? Indeed, even while still young, he was called an old man on account of the reverence people felt for his shrewdness. Was it he, then — a man so great and so distinguished — whom you overlooked and passed by? What of the other?
He who surpassed human nature in every virtue, who because of the greatness of his sole rule together with his nobility of character was the first to be named Augustus, receiving that title not as a portion of an inheritance passed down through his family line, but by himself becoming the beginning of reverence even for those who came after him — he who, when he first came forward to take charge of public affairs, found them in turmoil and confusion?
For islands were contending against continents, and continents against islands, over primacy, each having as their leaders and champions the most eminent men of Rome in office; and again the great regions of the inhabited world, Asia against Europe and Europe against Asia, were vying for supreme power, the nations of Europe and Asia having risen up from the ends of the earth and waging grievous wars against one another over the whole of land and sea, in battles by infantry and by fleet, so that the entire human race came close to being consumed in mutual slaughter and utterly annihilated, had it not been for one man and leader, Augustus, whom it is fitting to call the Averter of Evil.
This is the Caesar who calmed the storms crashing down on every side, who healed the diseases common to Greeks and barbarians alike, diseases that came down from the regions of the south and the east and ran their course all the way to the west and the north, sowing their unwanted seed across the border-lands and the seas between.
This is the man who loosed the chains that had bound and crushed the inhabited world, not merely slackening them; this is the man who destroyed both the open and the hidden wars caused by the raids of brigands; this is the man who cleared the sea of pirate vessels and filled it instead with merchant ships.
This is the one who set free every city that had lost its liberty, who brought disorder into order, who tamed and reconciled every savage and beastlike nation, who enlarged Greece with many new Greek cities, and who, in the most essential regions of the barbarian world, made it Greek as well; the guardian of peace, the distributor to each of what falls to them, the one who laid his benefits out in the open without holding any in reserve, who concealed no good or noble thing throughout the whole of his life.
Yet this man, so great a benefactor, they concealed from view in the synagogues for the forty-three years during which he ruled Egypt, setting up nothing on his behalf, no image, no carved statue, no painting.
And indeed, if new and exceptional honors needed to be voted for anyone, it was fitting that they should go to him — not only because he was in some sense the origin and source of the line of Augustus, nor only because he was the first, the greatest, and the common benefactor, who in place of a multiplicity of rulers entrusted the steering of the common vessel to a single pilot, himself, being wondrously skilled in the art of governing (for it has rightly been said that "the rule of many is not good," since a multiplicity of authorities is the cause of manifold evils) — but also because the whole inhabited world voted him honors equal to those of Olympian gods.
And temples, gateways, sacred precincts, and colonnades bear witness to this, so that whatever magnificent works the cities, whether new or old, possess are surpassed in beauty and grandeur by the Caesarea, and this is especially so in our own Alexandria.
Indeed no precinct is like the one called the Sebasteion, the temple of Caesar who first set foot here, which, opposite the safest harbors, rises high, greatest and most conspicuous, and is filled as nowhere else with dedications — encircled with paintings and statues and silver and gold — a precinct of the widest extent, with porticoes, libraries, banquet-halls, groves, gateways, open spaces, courts open to the sky, adorned with everything fashioned for the most lavish splendor: a saving hope for those setting sail and those returning to harbor.
Having then such grounds, and all people everywhere of one mind with us, did we introduce any innovation regarding our houses of prayer, or fail to preserve each observance? Or did we omit any honor owed to Caesar? Who in his right mind could say so? Why then were we deprived? I will say, holding nothing back.
They knew of his diligence and that he made as much account of confirming the ancestral customs of each people as he did those of the Romans, and that he accepted the honors given him not for the overthrow of the established laws among some who fashion themselves as gods, but as one following the greatness of so vast an empire, which by nature comes to be made solemn through such things.
The clearest proof that he was never bound and puffed up by excessive honors is that he never once wished to be addressed as god, and — though someone might say this was distasteful to him — that he welcomed the Jews, whom he knew precisely to hold all such things in abhorrence as impious.
How then did he approve of the great section of Rome across the Tiber, which he well knew was held and inhabited by Jews? Most of these were Romans who had been freed: brought as captives into Italy, they were set free by those who had owned them, without being compelled to alter any of their ancestral customs.
He knew, then, that they had houses of prayer and gathered in them, especially on the sacred seventh days, when they are publicly instructed in their ancestral philosophy. He knew too that they collected money from the first-fruits and sent it to Jerusalem by the hands of those who would conduct the sacrifices.
Yet all the same he neither expelled them from Rome nor took away their Roman citizenship because they were also mindful of their Jewish one, nor did he innovate against their houses of prayer, nor did he forbid their gathering for instruction in the laws, nor did he oppose those who offered first-fruits; rather, he was so reverent toward what is ours that he adorned our temple with the costliest of dedications all but from his whole household, and ordered that perpetual sacrifices of whole burnt offerings be brought continually every day, at his own expense, as a first-fruit to the Most High God — sacrifices which are performed even now and will be performed forever, a token of truly imperial character.
Moreover, even in the monthly distributions made to the people, when the whole populace received in turn either money or grain, he never once deprived the Jews of that favor; but if it happened that the distribution fell on the sacred seventh day, when it is forbidden to receive or to give or in general to transact any business of livelihood, and especially any that involves earning, he had ordered those in charge of the distributions to reserve for the Jews until the following day the common benefaction.
For this reason all people everywhere, even if by nature they were not favorably disposed toward the Jews, were cautious about laying a hand on any of the Jewish customs to overthrow it — and this held true in the same way even under Tiberius, though there had been disturbances stirred up in Italy, at the time when Sejanus was contriving his attack.
For he knew — he knew at once, right after that man's death — that the accusations brought against the Jews who inhabited Rome were false slanders, fabrications of Sejanus, who wished to destroy the nation, which he knew would, alone or above all others, resist his unholy designs and actions, in order to prevent the emperor from being betrayed and endangered.
And he instructed the governors appointed everywhere to reassure the members of the nation in each city, since the prosecution had not extended to all but only to the guilty — and these were few — and to disturb none of their customary practices, but to hold in trust both the men themselves, as peaceable by nature, and their laws, as tending toward stability.
But Gaius, utterly puffed up with vanity, not merely said but actually believed himself to be a god. Then he found no people, whether Greek or barbarian, more suited than the Alexandrians to confirm his boundless desire, one beyond human nature; for they are clever at flattery and deception and pretense, having prepared fawning speeches, and defiling everything with unrestrained and unbridled mouths.
The title 'god' is used among them so loosely that they have granted it even to ibises and to the venomous native asps and to many other of the savage beasts among them; so that, naturally, by using without restraint names that properly belong to god, they deceive the foolish and those unacquainted with Egyptian godlessness, while they are caught out by those who know the great folly — or rather impiety — of these people.
Gaius, being unacquainted with this, actually supposed that he was truly regarded as a god by the Alexandrians, since they used, not obliquely but directly and to excess, all the names that others are accustomed to attribute to gods.
Furthermore, he supposed that the innovation concerning the houses of prayer had arisen from a pure conscience freely given and from unmixed honor toward himself — partly through attending to the memorandum-diaries that certain persons kept sending from Alexandria (for this was his most delightful reading, so much so that, compared with the charm found in these, the writings of other authors and poets were reckoned most unpleasant), and partly through certain household servants who were forever mocking and jeering along with him.
Most of these were Egyptians, an evil breed, who had mixed into their souls the venom and rage of the native crocodiles and asps together. And leader of this whole chorus of the Egyptian troupe was a certain Helicon, an accursed and utterly execrable slave who had wormed his way into the imperial household; for he had tasted a smattering of general education, thanks to the ambition of his former master, who had presented him as a gift to Tiberius Caesar.
At that time, then, he enjoyed no special favor, since Tiberius detested such juvenile pleasantries, being inclined almost from his earliest years toward the more solemn and austere.
But when Tiberius died and Gaius succeeded to the rule — a young master given over through every sense to relaxation and luxury — Helicon said to himself, 'Now, Helicon, is your moment; rouse yourself. You have as your audience and spectator, for the display of your talents, the best of all men. You are naturally quick-witted; you can mock and jest better than others; you know playthings and silly, worn-out games; you are no less schooled in the frivolous side of general education than in its serious side; and you possess, besides, a glib tongue that is not without its charm.'
'If you further mix into your jibes a touch of malice, so as to stir not only laughter but bitterness through your ill-natured wit, you will have wholly and skillfully captured a master who is by nature disposed to listen eagerly to accusations delivered under cover of mockery; for his ears, as you know, are wide open and pricked up toward those who have made a practice of weaving slander together with false accusation.'
'And do not go looking for further material: you have the slanders against the Jews and Jewish customs, which you were taught from your very swaddling clothes — not from one man alone but from the most scurrilous element of the city of Alexandria. Put your lessons on display.'
Lifted up and emboldened by these irrational and accursed devices, he kept close to Gaius and attended him constantly, absent neither by night nor by day, but present everywhere, so that he might make use of the emperor's solitary and restful hours to bring charges against the nation — this most cunning of men stirring pleasure through his jibes, so that the slanders might wound all the more; for the accuser who speaks openly he neither admitted to being nor was able to be, but by proceeding obliquely and by his artful contrivance he was a harsher and heavier enemy than those who openly declared their hostility.
It is said, too, that the envoys of the Alexandrians, well aware of this, had secretly hired him for great fees — not only in money but also in the hopes of honors, which they had planted in him, promising to provide them before long, once Gaius should arrive in Alexandria.
And he, dreaming of that occasion when, with his master present and with him virtually the whole inhabited world — for it was no secret that the most distinguished and eminent people from the cities, gathered from their very ends, would come together in Gaius's train to pay court — he would be honored by the greatest and most illustrious city, promised everything.
Up to a certain point, then, not knowing of the enemy lurking within, we guarded only against those outside; but once we perceived him, we searched about, looking in every direction, to see whether by any means, in any manner or place, we might soften and tame the man who was shooting at us so accurately from every side.
For he would play ball with Gaius and exercise with him and bathe with him and dine with him, and he was present when Gaius was about to go to sleep, holding the position, granted to no one else, of bedtime attendant and chief bodyguard within the household — so that he alone had access to the emperor's leisure hours, free from outside disturbances, to whisper into ears at rest whatever he most desired him to hear.
Mockery was mixed in with the accusations, so that it would stir pleasure in some while doing us the greatest harm; for what seemed to be his principal business, the mockery, was really a mere by-product for him, while what appeared to be the by-product, the accusations, was his only and primary business.
Shaking out every rope, like men with a favorable wind at the helm, he ran on with sails full, driven by a fair breeze, piling up charge upon charge and stringing them together. And his mind was being stamped ever more firmly, so that the memory of these accusations became unforgettable.
Being at a loss and without resource, since though we moved every stone to win Helicon's favor, we could find no way through -- no one daring either to speak to him or approach him, because of the arrogance and harshness with which he treated everyone, and also because we did not know whether he harbored any hostility toward the Jewish race, given that he was constantly anointing his master and inciting him against our nation -- we let that avenue rest for the time being and turned instead to the more urgent matter: it seemed best to hand Gaius a memorandum containing a summary account of what we had suffered and of what we thought it right to obtain.
This was, in effect, an abridgment of a longer petition we had sent a little earlier through King Agrippa; for he happened to be visiting the city, about to set out for Syria to take up the kingdom that had been given him.
[...] But it seems we were still deceiving ourselves without realizing it -- just as we had before, when we first set sail thinking we would come before a judge and obtain justice. In fact he was an implacable enemy, luring us on with what looked like a cheerful expression and rather genial greetings.
For when he first greeted us kindly in the field near the Tiber -- he happened to be coming out of his mother's gardens -- he returned our greeting and waved his right hand, hinting at goodwill, and sent to us the man in charge of embassies, named Homilus, saying, 'I myself will hear your case when I find a suitable moment.' And so everyone standing round was delighted, as though we had already won -- including those of our own number who are taken in by superficial appearances.
I, however, thought I had rather more understanding, both because of my age and my other education, and so I was more cautious about the very thing that delighted the others. 'Why,' I kept asking, turning the thought over in my own mind, 'when there are so many envoys who have come from nearly every land, did he say he would hear only us? What did he mean by it? He was surely not unaware that we were Jews, for whom it is enough simply not to be treated worse than others.'
So is it not close to madness to suppose we were being granted a special privilege by a master who belonged to another nation, was young, and answered to no one? No -- it seems rather that he had already sided with the party of the other Alexandrians, and it was to grant them a privilege that he promised to judge the case so quickly -- unless, going beyond being an impartial and common listener, he becomes their ally instead of a judge, and our opponent.'
Turning these thoughts over, I was in turmoil and had no rest, by day or by night. And while I was despondent, bearing my distress in silence -- for it was not even safe to give it voice -- another calamity struck, suddenly and unexpectedly, the heaviest of all, bringing danger not to one part of the Jewish people but, taken together, to the whole nation.
We had traveled from Rome to Dicaearchia, following Gaius; for he had gone down to the coast and was spending his time around the bay, moving from one to another of his many lavishly appointed country houses.
While we were preoccupied with our case -- for we kept expecting to be summoned at any moment -- someone approached us with a bloodshot, agitated look and gasping for breath, and drawing us a little apart from the others (for some people were standing nearby) he said, 'Have you heard the news?' And just as he was about to tell us, he was checked, overcome by a sudden flood of tears.
He began again, and was checked a second time, and a third. Seeing this, we were alarmed and urged him to disclose the matter he claimed to have come to tell us. 'You have not come,' we said, 'merely to weep before witnesses; and if the matter deserves tears, do not keep the grief to yourself alone -- we are by now well accustomed to misfortune.'
With difficulty, sobbing, but at last, in a broken voice, he said: 'Our temple is lost. Gaius has ordered a colossal statue to be set up in the innermost sanctuary, bearing his own name under the title of Zeus.'
We were struck with astonishment at what he said, frozen by shock and unable even to move forward -- we stood speechless, our strength failing, our bodies collapsing beneath us, all bodily vigor drained away -- when others arrived, bringing the same agonizing news.
Then, shutting ourselves away all together, we lamented our private misfortunes and our common fate at once, and said whatever our minds suggested -- for a person in misfortune is most talkative -- struggling to keep from being abandoned altogether to lawlessness beyond remedy. We had sailed across in the dead of winter without realizing how much worse a storm was waiting for us on land than any at sea; for that storm has nature as its cause, which marks out the yearly seasons, and nature brings safety; but the author of this one is a man with nothing human in his thinking, young and bent on revolution, invested with an authority answerable to no one over everything -- and youth combined with absolute power, indulging unchecked impulses, is an evil hard to fight.
Will it even be possible to approach him, or to open our mouths about our houses of prayer, before the man who is ravaging the holiest of all shrines? It is obvious that he who insults the most renowned and illustrious temple -- toward which east and west alike turn their gaze, shining out everywhere as the sun does -- will spare no thought for the less conspicuous places held in lesser honor.
And even if some safe opportunity for access should arise, what should we expect except inescapable death? But so be it -- we shall die; for a most glorious death suffered in defense of the laws is itself a kind of life. But if our death will bring no benefit at all, is it not madness to perish uselessly, especially when we are supposed to be acting as envoys, so that the disaster would fall more on those who sent us than on those who endure it?
What is more, even those of our own people whose natures are most opposed to wrongdoing will accuse us of impiety, for remembering, out of self-love, some private concern of our own, while the whole community is being shaken by the utmost danger; for it is necessary to set aside small things for the sake of great ones, and private concerns for the sake of the common good -- and if these are lost, the whole community perishes with them.
For where would it be holy or right to contend instead for anything else -- to show that we are Alexandrians, when it is the far more universal community of the Jews as a whole that hangs in danger? For along with the destruction of the temple comes the fear that this man, bent on revolution and grand schemes, may also order the common name of our nation to vanish along with it.
Since, then, both matters for which we had been sent were now lost causes, perhaps someone will say: why then did they not see to arranging a safe return? To such a person I would reply: either you do not have the genuine feeling of a noble man, or you were not brought up in, nor trained in, the sacred writings. Those who are truly noble are full of hope, and the laws produce good hope in those who encounter them, not merely with the tips of their lips.
Perhaps this is a trial for the present generation, to test how it stands toward virtue and whether it has been trained to bear terrible things with firm and resolute reasoning, without collapsing beforehand. So then, let everything that comes from human beings perish, and let it go on perishing; but let the hope in God the savior remain unshaken in our souls -- he who has often rescued the nation from situations beyond resource and beyond hope.
We said all this, both mourning our unexpected misfortunes and at the same time comforting ourselves with the hope of a calmer change. Then, pausing a little, we said to those who had brought the news, 'Why are you sitting there quietly, throwing only sparks into our ears, by which we are being scorched and set ablaze, when you ought also to be explaining what moved Gaius to this?'
They said: 'You know the highest and first cause, which indeed all people know: he wants to be regarded as a god, and he has assumed that only the Jews will not be persuaded of it -- and he could inflict no greater harm on them than by defiling the sanctity of their temple. He has also been informed that it is the most beautiful of all shrines everywhere, adorned continually from ancient times at unceasing and lavish expense; and being quarrelsome and contentious by nature, he intends to appropriate it for himself.'
And this has now been confirmed more than before by a letter sent by Capito. Capito is the tax collector for the province of Judaea, and he bears a certain grudge against the local inhabitants; for he arrived poor, and by embezzlement and skimming has amassed a considerable and varied fortune, and then, becoming anxious that some accusation might be brought against him, he devised a scheme by which he could deflect the charges of those he had wronged through slander.
A certain coincidence gave him the opening he wanted for this purpose. Jamnia -- a city of Judaea, one of the most densely populated -- is inhabited by a mixed population: most are natives, but some are foreigners who have infiltrated from the neighboring districts; these, though in a sense resident aliens among the true natives, cause trouble and mischief, constantly undermining something of the ancestral customs of the Jews.
These people, hearing from those who frequently visited how much zeal Gaius employed regarding his own deification, and how utterly estranged he was from the whole Jewish nation, thought a suitable opportunity for attack had fallen their way, and hastily set up an altar of the most makeshift material, shaping clay into bricks, for no other purpose than to plot against those living alongside them; for they knew the Jews would not tolerate it once their customs were overturned — which is exactly what happened.
For when the Jews saw it and were indignant that something truly sacred in the holy land was being defaced, they gathered together and tore it down. The others went straight to Capito, who was the deviser of the whole drama. Thinking he had found a windfall he had been seeking for a long time, he wrote to Gaius, exaggerating and inflating the matter.
Gaius, reading it through, ordered something richer and more grandiose than the brick altar set up at Jamnia out of spite — a colossal gilded statue to be installed in the sanctuary of the mother-city — taking as his advisers the best and wisest of men: Helicon, a well-born slave, a gossip-monger, a piece of refuse, and a certain Apelles, a tragic actor, who in the prime of his youth, so they say, peddled his beauty, and once past his prime came onto the stage.
Are those who tread the boards, trading themselves to spectators and theaters, lovers of modesty and self-control, and not of the utmost shamelessness and disorder? For this reason Apelles was admitted to the rank of adviser, so that Gaius might deliberate with one about whom to mock, with the other about what to sing, bypassing all consideration of the whole world — of whether everything everywhere was at peace and quiet.
So Helicon, that scorpion-like slave, let loose Egyptian venom against the Jews, and Apelles the venom of Ascalon — for he was from there; and the people of Ascalon harbor an implacable and irreconcilable hostility toward the Jewish inhabitants of the holy land, since they are their neighbors. Hearing these things, we were wounded in our souls at every word and name.
But the fine advisers of these fine deeds soon found the wages of their impiety: the one was bound in iron by Gaius on other charges, racked and broken on the wheel in rotation, as in cyclical diseases; the other, Helicon, was put to death by Claudius Germanicus Caesar, for other wrongs that the madman had committed. But this happened later.
The letter concerning the dedication of the statue was written, and not carelessly, but as circumspectly as possible for security. For he ordered Petronius, the governor of all Syria, to whom he had also written the letter, to take half of the army stationed by the Euphrates — which guarded against the crossing of the eastern kings and nations — and lead it into Judea to escort the statue, not to lend solemnity to the dedication, but so that, if anyone tried to prevent it, he would be destroyed at once.
What are you saying, master? Having foreseen that they would not tolerate it, but would defend the law and die before abandoning their ancestral customs, you make war? You do not seem to be ignorant of what was likely to result from touching off revolution over the temple; rather, having learned in advance exactly what was to come, as though it were already present, and what was to happen, as though it were already in hand, you ordered the army brought in, so that the dedication might first be consecrated by accursed sacrifices — the slaughter of wretched men and women together.
Petronius, reading through what had been commanded, was at a loss, unable either to oppose it out of fear — for he knew the punishment would be unbearable, not only for those who did not carry out what was ordered, but even for those who did not do so at once — nor to undertake it easily; for he knew that instead of a single death, countless people, if it were possible, would be willing to endure it rather than allow anything forbidden to be done.
For all people are protective of their own customs, but the Jewish nation especially so; for holding that the laws are oracles given by God, and having been trained in this teaching from earliest youth, they carry the images of its ordinances enshrined like statues within their souls.
Then, always beholding clear impressions and forms of them in their reasoning, they are struck with awe; and those foreigners who hold these things in honor they welcome no less than their own citizens, while those who either destroy or mock them they hate as the worst enemies. They shudder at each of the things prescribed in this way, so that they would never exchange it, for the sake of transgression, for any success or happiness whatsoever among human beings, however great.
Beyond all this, they have an extraordinary and exceptional zeal for the temple. The greatest proof of it: death without appeal has been decreed against members of other nations who pass beyond the inner enclosures — for they admit into the outer courts all people from everywhere.
With his eyes on all this, Petronius was slow to act, considering what a monstrous deed was being carried out, and calling together, as though in council, all the reasonings of his soul, he examined the judgment of each and found them all in agreement that nothing of what had been consecrated from the beginning should be disturbed — first because of what is by nature just and pious, and then because of the danger hanging over him, not only from God but also from those who would be wronged.
The thought also came to him of how great this nation is in population, which has not been confined, as each of the other nations has, to the single territory allotted to it alone, but occupies, one might almost say, the whole inhabited world; for it has spread throughout both continents and every region, so that it seems scarcely inferior to the native inhabitants.
Was it not most perilous to draw so many tens of thousands of enemies upon oneself? But should it ever happen that they, acting in concert wherever they are, should come together in their own defense, an irresistible force would result — quite apart from the fact that those who inhabit Judea itself are countless in number, most noble in body, most bold in soul, and choose to die before their ancestral customs, out of a high-mindedness which some slanderers might call barbaric, but which, in truth, is the mark of a free and noble people.
He was also frightened by the forces beyond the Euphrates; for he knew of Babylon and many of the other satrapies inhabited by Jews, not merely by hearsay but by experience. For every year sacred envoys are sent, bringing a great quantity of gold and silver to the temple, gathered from the first-fruits, crossing roads that are hard to travel, untrodden, and endless, which they consider highways, because they seem to lead toward piety.
He was, understandably, terrified that, on learning of the newly devised dedication, they might suddenly come upon him and surround him, some from this side and some from that, forming a circle, and joining hands might do terrible things to those caught in the middle. Reasoning in this way, he hesitated.
But then again he was pulled the other way by opposite considerations, saying: "This is the command of a master — and a young one, who judges advantageous whatever he wishes, and whose decision, once made, must be carried out, even if it is most unprofitable and full of contentiousness and arrogance — a man who has even leapt beyond humanity and already writes himself among the gods. Danger to my life hangs over me whether I oppose or yield — but if I yield, it comes with war, and is perhaps uncertain and not wholly bound to result; if I oppose, it is inescapable and assured, coming from Gaius himself."
Many of the Romans who administered affairs in Syria along with him shared this opinion, knowing that Gaius's wrath and vengeance would fall on them first, as accomplices in the failure to carry out what was commanded.
The making of the statue itself afforded him room for more careful deliberation; for it was not sent from Rome — by God's providence, I think, secretly extending a hand over those who were being wronged — nor did he order it transported by whichever of the artisans of Syria might be judged the best, since, given the speed of this lawless act, war would have flared up just as quickly.
Having gained time for weighing what was advantageous — for sudden, great events, when they fall upon one all at once, crush the power of reasoning — he ordered that the making of the statue be carried out in one of the neighboring regions.
So Petronius, summoning the most skillful craftsmen among the Phoenicians, gave them the material; and they worked at Sidon. He also summoned the leading men of the Jews, both priests and rulers, at once to disclose to them Gaius's orders, and also to advise them to bear what was being commanded by their master and to keep the terrible consequences before their eyes; for the more warlike of the military forces in Syria stood ready, forces that would cover the whole land with corpses.
For he thought that if he could first soften these men, he might through them instruct the rest of the multitude not to oppose. But he was, understandably, mistaken in his judgment. For they say that, struck by his very first words, they were instantly transfixed by the account of this unaccustomed evil, and, struck speechless, poured out a flood of tears as if from springs all at once, tearing at their beards and the hair of their heads, and saying such things as this:
"We who have been altogether fortunate have contributed much toward a good old age, only so that we might see what none of our ancestors ever saw. With what eyes? Our eyes will be torn out first, along with our wretched souls and our life of suffering, before we see such an evil — a sight not to be seen, which it is not lawful either to hear of unwillingly or even to conceive."
Such were their lamentations. When those in the holy city and the rest of the country learned of what was afoot, as though at a single signal — the signal given by their shared suffering — they poured out all together, and leaving their cities, villages, and homes empty, rushed in a single surge toward Phoenicia; for Petronius happened to be there.
Some of Petronius's men, seeing an unimaginable crowd bearing down, ran ahead to report it, so that he might be on guard, expecting an attack. But while they were still telling their story, and he was still unguarded, the multitude of the Jews suddenly settled over all Phoenicia like a cloud, striking terror into those who did not know the vast numbers of the nation.
And at first so great a cry went up, with weeping and beating of breasts, that the ears of those present could not take in its magnitude; for it did not stop when the criers stopped, but even when they fell silent it went on echoing. Then came approaches and entreaties, of the kind the occasion suggested — for their very misfortunes were teaching them what to do. They divided themselves into six ranks: old men, young men, boys, and again in their turn old women, women of age, and young girls.
When Petronius came into view from a distance, all the ranks, as though under orders, fell to the ground, uttering a kind of mournful wailing together with supplications. When he urged them to rise and come nearer, they got up only with difficulty, and having poured much dust over themselves and streaming with tears, with both hands drawn back behind them in the manner of men bound at the elbows, they came forward.
Then the council of elders stood and spoke as follows: "We are unarmed, yet some accuse us, on our arrival, of being enemies. The parts that nature has assigned to each of us for defense, our hands, we have turned back, where they can do nothing, offering our bodies as an easy target for the missiles of those who wish to kill us.
We have brought with us our wives and children and whole families to you, and through you have thrown ourselves before Gaius, leaving no one behind at home, so that you may either save us all or destroy us all in one utter ruin. Petronius, we are peaceable both in our nature and in our deliberate choice, and our devotion to work, cultivated through the rearing of children, has trained us in this way of life from the beginning.
When Gaius took up the imperial office, we were the very first of all the people of Syria to rejoice with him, at the time when Vitellius, from whom you received the governorship in succession, was residing in the city and received the letters concerning these matters; and it was from our city that the good news ran out to spread the report to the others.
Was it our temple that first received the sacrifices offered for the rule of Gaius, only so that it should be the first — or even the only one — deprived of its ancestral form of worship? We give up our cities, we yield our houses and possessions; furniture, money, treasures, and all our other goods we will bring in willingly; we shall count this as receiving, not as giving.
One thing alone we ask in place of everything else: that nothing new be introduced into the temple, but that it be kept as we received it from our grandfathers and ancestors. But if we do not persuade you, we surrender ourselves to destruction, so that we may not live to see an evil worse than death. We hear that infantry and cavalry forces have been made ready against us, in case we should resist the dedication of the statue. No one is so mad as to oppose his master while being his slave; we offer our throats readily and at once — let them kill, let them sacrifice, let them cut us up limb by limb without a fight and without shedding of blood in battle, let them do all that conquerors do. What need is there of an army?
We ourselves will begin the sacrifice, fine priests that we are — we, the killers of our own wives, will present them to the temple; we, the killers of our own brothers, will present our brothers and sisters; we, the slayers of our children, will present our boys and girls, that innocent age. For tragic deeds need tragic names, for those who endure tragic misfortunes.
Then, in the midst of it all, having bathed ourselves in the poison-like blood of our own kin — for such are the baths for those who are cleansed for Hades — we will mix our own blood with theirs, slaughtering ourselves last of all.
Let the command be carried out once we are dead. Not even God could blame us, aiming as we do at both things at once — reverence toward the emperor, and loyal acceptance of our consecrated laws. And this will come about if we depart from a life not worth living, holding it in contempt.
We have received a report, a very ancient one handed down by the learned men of Greece, who affirmed that the head of the Gorgon had such power that those who looked upon it were turned instantly to stone and rock. This seems to be the invention of a myth, but the truth of it is brought about by great, unwilling, and irremediable calamities. The wrath of a master brings about death, or something as bad as death.
Do you imagine — may it never happen — that if any of our people, being led along, should see the statue set up in the temple, they would not be turned to stone, their joints fixed and their eyes fixed, so that they could not even move, the whole body's natural motions altered in each of its several parts that work together?
We will make one last request, Petronius, the most just of all: we do not say that what has been commanded should not be done, but we beg and supplicate for a delay, so that we may choose an embassy and send it to meet with our master.
Perhaps, having sent our embassy, we shall persuade him, either by setting out at length the matter of honor due to God, or the preservation of laws that must not be abolished, or by arguing that he should not treat us worse than even the nations at the ends of the earth, whose ancestral customs have been preserved — customs which his grandfather and great-grandfather themselves recognized, setting their seal upon our practices with the utmost care.
Perhaps, hearing these things, he will grow gentler; the resolutions of great men do not remain the same, and those made in anger are also the quickest to subside. We have been slandered; allow the slanders to be cured. It is a hard thing to be condemned without a hearing.
And if we fail to persuade him, is there then anything to stop you doing even now what you already intend? So long as we have not yet sent our embassy, will you cut off the better hopes of so many tens of thousands of people? Their zeal is not for gain but for piety. And yet we err in saying this — for what gain could be more profitable to human beings than holiness?"
They said all this in great distress and anguish, gasping heavily, their breath broken, streaming with sweat over every limb, with an unceasing flow of tears, so that those listening already shared their suffering — and Petronius too, for he was by nature kindly and gentle, was carried away by what was said and what he saw; for it seemed to him that what was said was entirely just, and that the suffering he witnessed was pitiable.
Rising up, he deliberated with his council on what should be done, and saw that those who a little before had been utterly opposed were now wavering, and those who had been undecided were now leaning, in greater part, toward mercy. At this he was pleased, though he knew the nature of his superior, and how implacable his anger was.
But he himself, it seems, had certain sparks of Jewish philosophy and piety as well, whether he had learned of it long before out of zeal for education, or ever since he had governed the regions in which Jews are present in great numbers in every city, both in Asia and Syria, or because his soul was by nature so disposed as to be self-taught, self-prompted, and self-instructed toward things worthy of study. To the good, God seems to whisper good resolutions, through which, by benefiting others, they are themselves benefited — and this is what happened to him too. What, then, were these resolutions?
Not to press the matter but to persuade the craftsmen well skilled to complete the statue, aiming as far as possible not to fall short of the renowned original models by taking too little time, since improvised work tends somehow to be cut short, while work done with effort and skill requires a longer length of time.
Not to grant the embassy they had requested, for it would not be safe. Not to oppose the matter for those who wished to appeal to the ruler and master of all. To neither agree with nor deny the crowd's petition.
For either course carried danger. To write to Gaius nothing that accused them, but not to conceal the truth of their supplications and entreaties either, and to attribute the delay in the dedication partly to the construction requiring a measured span of time, and partly to the occasion itself offering great and reasonable grounds for postponement — grounds to which even Gaius himself would agree, not perhaps willingly, but of necessity.
For the grain crop was at its peak, as were the other sown crops, and there was fear that men, driven to desperation over their ancestral customs and holding life itself in contempt, might either ravage the fields or set fire to the grain-bearing hill country and plain; and there was need of watchfulness for a more careful gathering-in of the harvest, not only of the sown crops but also of what the fruit-bearing trees provide.
For he had determined, it was said, to sail to Alexandria in Egypt, but so great a ruler would not think it worth risking the open sea, both because of the dangers and because of the size of the escorting fleet required, and also for the care of his health — all of which are managed easily by one who makes the journey by land through the circuit of Asia and Syria.
He had decided, so the story goes, to sail to Alexandria in Egypt; but so great a ruler could not think it fitting to trust himself to the open sea, both because of the dangers involved and because of the size of the escorting fleet, and also for the sake of his bodily comfort—considerations that are all easily satisfied by one who makes the circuit through Asia and Syria.
For by that route he will be able each day both to sail and to put in to shore, especially since he will bring along mostly warships rather than merchant vessels, for which coastal sailing is more practicable than sailing the open sea is for cargo ships.
It was therefore necessary that fodder for the animals and abundant provisions be made ready in all the cities of Syria, and especially in those along the coast.
For an enormous crowd would arrive both by land and by sea, setting out not only from Rome and Italy itself but also following along from the provinces all the way to Syria—partly officials, partly the military, cavalry, infantry, the men of the fleet, and a household staff no smaller than the army. And what was needed was supplies proportioned not merely to what was necessary but to the extravagant abundance that Gaius demands. If he should come upon this letter, perhaps, besides not taking offense, he will even commend our foresight, seeing that we made the delay not as a favor to the Jews but for the sake of gathering in the harvest.
When his council had approved the plan, he ordered the letters to be written and appointed men who traveled light and were accustomed to taking the shortest routes on their journeys to carry them.
And when the couriers arrived, they delivered the letters; but he, while still reading, swelled with rage and was full of anger, making a note at every point. When he had finished, he clapped his hands together and said, “Well done, Petronius! You have not learned how to listen to an emperor. Successive offices of command have puffed you up. Up to now you seem not even to know Gaius by hearsay—soon you will have direct experience of him.
For you care about Jewish customs—a nation most hateful to me—but you disregard the commands of your ruler, the emperor.
You feared the crowd? But were not the military forces present, forces which the eastern nations and their rulers the Parthians fear? No—you took pity. Was it then to pity rather than to Gaius that you yielded? Now you plead the harvest as your excuse—you who will soon receive, without excuse, the harvest upon your own head. You cite the gathering of the crops and the preparations for our arrival as your reason; but if total barrenness had gripped Judea, were not the neighboring regions, so numerous and so prosperous, sufficient to supply what was needed and to make good the deficiency of one land?
But why do I raise my hands before the blow falls? Why should anyone perceive my intention in advance? Let the one who is about to reap the rewards of what he has done be the first to learn it from what he suffers. I stop speaking, but I will not stop thinking.”
And after pausing a little while over one of his secretaries dealing with the correspondence, he dictated his reply to Petronius, praising him for what appeared to be his foresight and careful consideration of the future; for he was extremely wary of provincial governors, seeing that they had at hand every opportunity for revolution, especially those in command of large armies in important posts, such as the forces stationed on the Euphrates in Syria.
So then, tending to his rancor for a time with courteous words and phrases, he concealed it, though heavy with wrath beneath the surface. Then, at the end of everything, he wrote ordering that nothing be attended to so urgently as the swift erection of the statue; for by now, he said, the summer harvest—whether a plausible or a genuine excuse—could well have been gathered in.
Not long afterward King Agrippa arrived, as was his custom, to pay his respects to Gaius. He knew absolutely nothing of what Petronius had written, nor of what Gaius had said either earlier or later; yet from Gaius's disordered movements and the disturbance in his eyes he could infer a smoldering anger, and he searched and examined himself thoroughly, turning his thoughts to everything, small and great alike, to see whether he had done or said anything he should not have.
But when he could find nothing whatsoever, he supposed, as was reasonable, that Gaius's bitterness was directed against someone else. Yet when again he saw him glancing at him askance and fixing his gaze on no one present but himself alone, he grew afraid, and though he often intended to ask what was wrong, he held back, reasoning as follows: “Perhaps the threat, though aimed at others, I would draw upon myself, by giving the impression of meddlesome curiosity, of rashness, and of impudence.”
Seeing him, then, agitated and at a loss—for Gaius was skilled at reading from a person's visible expression the hidden wish and feeling within—he said, “You are at a loss, Agrippa? I will put an end to your perplexity.
After spending so much time in my company, have you failed to learn that I communicate each thing not by voice alone, but even more, or no less, by my eyes?
Your fine and upright fellow citizens, the only people out of the whole human race who do not consider Gaius a god, now seem to me to be courting death itself in their obstinacy. When I ordered a statue of Zeus to be set up in their temple, they conspired as an entire people and left the city and the countryside, pretending it was to offer supplication, but in truth intending to act against my orders.”
As he was about to add more, Agrippa, in his anguish, kept changing color in every way at once, becoming flushed, then pale, then livid.
Already a shudder had seized him from the crown of his head down to his feet; trembling and convulsion churned every part and limb of his body; as his bodily strength slackened and gave way, he collapsed inwardly and, in the end, going limp, very nearly fell, had not some of those standing by caught him. Ordered to do so, they carried him home on a litter, unconscious of anything, overcome by a stupor brought on by the sudden onset of these afflictions.
Gaius, for his part, was roused to still greater harshness, intensifying his hatred for the nation. “If Agrippa,” he said, “my closest companion and dearest friend, bound to me by so many benefits, is so overcome by their customs that he cannot even bear to hear about them, but from the shock very nearly died, what must one expect of the rest, who have no such counterweight of attachment pulling the other way?”
Agrippa, for the first day and most of the second, lay oppressed by a deep stupor and provided no sign of life; but toward evening he raised his head a little, and with heavy eyelids, opening them briefly and with difficulty, surveyed with dim and clouded sight those standing around him, still unable to make out clearly the features of each.
Then, sinking back into sleep, he rested in a condition healthier than before, as far as one could judge from his breathing and the disposition of his body. Rising up again afterward, he asked, “Where am I now?
Am I with Gaius? Is my master himself present?” When they answered, “Take heart, you are in your own house; Gaius is not here—
you have rested well enough, having sunk into sleep; but turn yourself, raise yourself up, prop yourself on your elbow, and recognize those present. They are all your own people—of your friends, freedmen, and household servants, those who honor you most and are honored by you in return”—
he—for he was beginning to come to his senses—observed the sympathy each one showed; and when the doctors ordered most of those present to withdraw, so that through ointments and timely nourishment his frail body might be restored, he said, “Must you really take such careful thought for my regimen?
Is it not enough for me, wretched as I am, to relieve my hunger through the plain and rigorously frugal use of necessities? Not even these would I have accepted, were it not for the sake of one last act of help which my mind dreams of providing for my suffering nation.”
And he, in tears and eating only under compulsion, would not tolerate food without a relish, nor would he take even diluted wine, but tasting only water, said, “My wretched belly may for now hold off the debt it demands; but what is fitting for me to do but entreat Gaius concerning the...”
And taking up a tablet, he wrote this letter: “A meeting with you face to face, my lord, fear and shame have taken from me — the one turning me aside from your threat, the other overwhelming me with awe at the greatness of your rank.”
“But a letter will make known my petition, which I offer in place of a suppliant's branch. In every man, Emperor, there is implanted by nature a love of his homeland and an acceptance of his own laws; and of this you have no need to be taught, since you cherish your own homeland with all your heart, and honor with all your heart the things of your father.”
“To each people its own customs appear excellent, even if this is not so in truth; for they judge them not so much by reasoning as by the passion of goodwill. I was born, as you know, a Jew. My homeland is Jerusalem, in which the holy temple of the Most High God stands. I was allotted grandfathers and ancestors who were kings, most of whom were called high priests, who ranked kingship second to the priesthood, holding that just as God surpasses men in excellence, so the high priesthood surpasses kingship; for the one is the service of God, the other the care of men.”
“Allotted, then, to such a nation, and to such a homeland and temple, I make my petition on behalf of all three together: on behalf of the nation, that it may not carry away a reputation contrary to the truth, when from the beginning it has been most reverently and most devoutly disposed toward your whole house;”
“for in whatever is granted and permitted to them, they practice piety according to their own laws. They fall short of no people, neither of Asia nor of Europe, at all — in prayers, in the furnishing of dedicatory offerings, in the abundance of sacrifices, not only those offered at the public festivals but also those performed continually day by day; by which they show their piety not with mouth and tongue so much as by the resolves of an unseen soul — men who do not merely say that they are lovers of Caesar, but truly are.”
“Concerning the holy city, I must say what is fitting for me to say. As I said, this is my homeland, and it is the mother-city not of one country, Judea, but of most countries, because of the colonies it has sent out at various times — to the neighboring lands, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria in general and the part called Coele-Syria in particular; and to lands settled far away, Pamphylia, Cilicia, and the greater part of Asia as far as Bithynia and the recesses of Pontus; and in the same way into Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, and the greatest and best parts of the Peloponnese.”
“And not only are the mainlands full of Jewish colonies, but also the most highly regarded of the islands — Euboea, Cyprus, Crete. And I say nothing of the lands beyond the Euphrates; for all of them, apart from a small portion — Babylon and the other satrapies that possess fertile land round about — have Jews among their inhabitants.”
“So that if my homeland receives a share of your goodwill, it is not one city but countless others that are benefited, established in every region of the inhabited world — the European, the Asian, the Libyan, those on the mainlands, those on the islands, those on the coast and those inland.”
“And it befits the greatness of your so great fortune, through benefits done to a single city, to benefit countless others at the same time, so that through every part of the inhabited world your renown may be sung, and praises joined with thanksgiving may resound together.”
“You have deemed whole homelands of some of your friends worthy of Roman citizenship, and men who a short time before were slaves have become masters over others; and those over whom this has come to pass rejoice no less than those who have enjoyed the favor itself.”
“And I too am one of those who know that I have a master and lord, yet who have been judged worthy of a place in the rank of your companions — inferior to few in standing, and second to none in goodwill, not to say first.”
“Therefore, both because of my birth and because of the abundance of the benefits with which you have enriched me, I too might perhaps have taken courage to ask something for my homeland — if not Roman citizenship, then at least freedom or remission of tribute. Yet I have ventured to ask nothing of the kind, but rather the most bearable request of all: that you grant a favor which costs you nothing, and that my homeland receive the most profitable of gifts. For what greater good could come to subjects from the goodwill of their ruler than this?”
“In Jerusalem first, Emperor, your longed-for accession was announced, and from the holy city the report went out to the mainlands on either side; and for this reason too it deserves to receive a privilege from you.”
“For just as in families the eldest children obtain seniority of honor, because they were the first to give their parents the name of father and mother, in the same way, since this city was the first of the eastern cities to hail you as Emperor, it is right that it should obtain a greater share of good things — or, failing that, at least an equal share.”
“Having made these pleas and this petition on behalf of my homeland, I come at last to the petition concerning the temple. This temple, Gaius my lord, made by human hands, admitted from the beginning no image of any kind, because it is the dwelling-place of the true God; for the works of painters and sculptors are likenesses of gods perceived by the senses, but to portray or fashion an image of the invisible God was not”
considered holy by our ancestors. Agrippa, your grandfather, honored the temple by coming to it; and Augustus honored it by commanding, in his letters, that first-fruits be sent there from every place, and by the continual sacrifice offered on his behalf;
and your great-grandmother [honored it] ... [text lost here]. For this reason no one — not Greek, not barbarian, not satrap, not king, not implacable enemy, not civil strife, not war, not capture of the city, not sack, nothing else that exists — ever introduced so great an innovation into the temple as to set up in it a statue, a carved image, or anything else made by hands.
For even where people were hostile and hated the inhabitants of the country, still a certain reverence or fear kept them from abolishing any of the customs established from the beginning in honor of the Maker and Father of the universe; for they knew, from these and similar cases, the incurable disasters that spring from calamities sent by God. For this reason they were cautious about sowing an impious seed, fearing that they might be forced to reap a harvest leading to utter destruction.
But why should I call foreigners as witnesses, when I can bring forward many of those closest to you? Marcus Agrippa himself, your grandfather on your mother's side, when he was in Judea, at the time when Herod, my grandfather, was king of the country, thought it worth his while to go up from the coast to the mother-city, which lies inland;
and when he had seen the temple, and the adornment of the priests, and the sanctity of the rites of the people of the land, he was filled with wonder, believing that he had beheld something surpassingly majestic and greater than any account of it; and he had no other story to tell to the companions who were with him at the time than praise of the temple and of everything connected with it.
Indeed, for as many days as he stayed in the city, out of regard for Herod, he went to the temple, delighting in the sight of its construction, of the sacrifices, of the ministry and order surrounding the sacred rites, and of the dignity of the high priest whenever he was arrayed in the sacred vestments and officiated at the holy rites.
And after he had adorned the temple with as many dedicatory offerings as were permitted, and had done good to the inhabitants with gifts that would cause no harm, and had spoken much in praise of Herod and been praised by him in return countless times over, he was escorted all the way to the harbors — not by one city, but by the whole country — showered with leaves and admired for his piety. And what of your other grandfather, Tiberius Caesar?
Does he not appear to have chosen the very same course? For in the twenty-three years during which he was Emperor, he preserved the worship handed down at the temple from the most ancient times, abolishing or disturbing no part of it.
I have, moreover, an instance of his scrupulousness to add — although I suffered countless wrongs from him while he lived; but the truth is dear, and it is precious to you as well. Pilate was one of the prefects appointed governor of Judea. He, not so much to honor Tiberius as to vex the populace, dedicated in Herod's palace in the holy city gilded shields bearing no image and nothing else that was forbidden, except for a necessary inscription, which stated two things: the name of the one who dedicated them, and the name of him on whose behalf the dedication was made.
But when the people at large learned of it — and the matter had already become the talk of the town — they put forward the king's four sons, who fell short of kings neither in rank nor in fortune, together with his other descendants and the officials among them, and begged that the innovation concerning the shields be set right, and that he not disturb the ancestral customs which had been kept inviolate through every age before, undisturbed by kings and emperors alike.
But since he opposed them stubbornly — for he was inflexible by nature and, along with his self-will, unyielding —, they cried out: “Do not cause a rebellion, do not make war, do not overturn the peace. Dishonor of ancient laws is no honor to the emperor. Do not let Tiberius be your pretext for insulting our nation; he wishes none of our institutions to be overturned. If you claim otherwise, produce yourself either an edict or a letter or something of the kind, so that we may stop troubling you, choose envoys, and appeal to our master.”
This last point above all exasperated him, for he was terrified that if they really did send an embassy they would also expose the rest of his administration — the bribes, the acts of insolence, the robberies, the outrages, the wanton abuses, the unjudged and repeated murders, the endless and most grievous cruelty — going through it all in detail.
Being, then, such a resentful and heavy-wrathed man, he was in two minds: he had no courage to take down what had once been dedicated, yet he had no wish to do anything that would please his subjects, while at the same time he was well aware of Tiberius’s firmness in such matters. Seeing this, and understanding that he regretted what he had done but did not want to seem to, the officials—
—wrote most entreating letters to Tiberius. And he, on reading them, said such things to Pilate, and made such threats — how angry he became, though he was not easily provoked to anger, it is superfluous to relate, since the matter itself gives voice to it.
For at once, without even putting it off to the next day, he wrote back, reproaching and rebuking him at length for the newly ventured act of daring, and ordering him immediately to take down the shields and have them moved from the capital to Caesarea-on-the-Sea, named Sebaste after his great-grandfather, so that they might be dedicated in the Sebasteum; and they were so dedicated. Thus both things were preserved: the honor of the emperor, and the ancient custom concerning the city.
At that time, then, there were shields, on which no image had been painted; but now there is a colossal statue. And at that time the dedication was in the house of the procurators; but the one now expected, they say, is to take place in the innermost part of the sanctuary itself, in the very holy of holies, into which, once a year, the high priest enters — on the day called the Fast — only to burn incense and to pray according to ancestral custom for an abundant supply of good things, prosperity, and peace for all mankind.
And if anyone at all — I do not mean any of the other Jews, but even one of the priests, and not the lowest of them but those who hold the rank immediately after the first — should enter along with him, either on his own or even together with him; or rather, even if the high priest himself should go in on two days of the year, or even three or four times on the same day,
he suffers inescapable death; so great is the guard that the lawgiver has set around the holy of holies, having willed that it alone, of all places, remain untrodden and untouched. How many deaths, then, do you suppose those consecrated to these rites would willingly undergo, if they should see the statue being brought in? For my part, I think they would slaughter whole generations, together with their very wives and children, and finally offer up themselves as a last sacrifice upon the fallen bodies of their own kin. These things Tiberius understood.
And what of your great-grandfather, the best of all emperors who ever lived, the first to be named Augustus for his virtue and his fortune, who poured out peace everywhere over land and sea to the very ends of the world?
Not learning by hearsay about the things concerning the sanctuary — that there is in it no image made by hand, a visible likeness of an invisible nature — he marveled and paid homage, having tasted philosophy not with the mere tips of his lips but having feasted on it more fully, and feasting on it almost every day, recalling in part from the memories of what his mind had learned beforehand about philosophy, and in part from his constant living together with learned men who were always at his side. For at his dinner gatherings the greater part of the time was devoted to matters of education, so that not only the body but also—
—the soul might be nourished with what belonged to it. Though I could confirm the will of Augustus, your great-grandfather, with abundant proofs, I will content myself with two. First, he wrote to the procurators of the provinces, on learning that the sacred first-fruits were being neglected, instructing them to allow the Jews alone to assemble in their synagogues,
for these gatherings, he said, were not drunken and disorderly assemblies got up so as to harm the peace, but schools of self-control and justice, of men who practiced virtue and who contributed their yearly first-fruits, from which they offer sacrifices, sending sacred envoys to the temple in Jerusalem.
Then he commanded that no one should stand in the way of the Jews, whether in assembling, or in contributing money, or in sending it according to ancestral custom to Jerusalem; for this, even if not in so many words, was at least commanded in effect.
I have appended below, for your persuasion, my lord, a single letter, which Gaius Norbanus Flaccus wrote, making known what Caesar had written to him.
The copy of the letter is as follows: ‘Gaius Norbanus Flaccus, proconsul, to the magistrates of the Ephesians, greetings. Caesar has written to me that the Jews, wherever they may be, are accustomed by their own ancient custom to gather together and bring money, which they send to Jerusalem; these he did not wish to be prevented from doing. I have therefore written to you, that you may know that he commands this to be done accordingly.’
Is this not, O Emperor, clear proof of Caesar’s policy, which he maintained regarding the honor of our sanctuary, in that he did not wish the common form applied to associations generally to abolish the gatherings of the Jews, which they hold for the sake of their first-fruits and their other acts of piety?
There is another proof, no less clear, of Augustus’s intention. For he ordained that whole burnt offerings should be brought each day at his own expense to the Most High God, and these are still performed even now; the victims are two lambs and a bull, with which Caesar adorned the altar, knowing well that there is no image there, whether visible or hidden;
but rather this great leader and philosopher, second to none, reasoned within himself that it is necessary, among the things of this earth, to set apart a special sacred place for the invisible God, containing no visible representation, for a share in good hopes and the enjoyment of perfect blessings.
Having such a man as her guide in piety, your great-great-grandmother Julia Augusta also adorned the temple with golden bowls and libation vessels and a great multitude of other most costly offerings — and why did even she do this, when there was no image within? For the minds of women are somehow weaker, unable to grasp anything beyond what is perceived by the senses.
But she, just as she surpassed her whole sex in other respects, excelled in this as well, having risen above them by unmixed education, both by nature and by practice, her reasoning made masculine — so sharp-sighted had it become that it grasped things intelligible more than things perceptible,
and considered even these latter to be but shadows of the former. Having, then, my lord, such examples of a gentler policy — all most closely akin to you, from whom you were sown and sprang up and grew so great — preserve what each of them preserved.
Emperors plead with an emperor on behalf of these laws, Augusti with an Augustus, grandfathers and ancestors with a descendant, many with one, all but saying: ‘Do not overturn, in accordance with our own wishes, the customs that have been preserved down to this very day; for even if nothing ill-omened should result from their abolition, still the uncertainty of the future is not entirely free from fear, even for the most confident, unless they are contemptuous of divine things.’
If I were to recount the benefits I have received from you, the day would fail me — not to mention that it would not even be fitting to make a foremost matter a mere addendum to another speech. And yet, even if I keep silent, the facts themselves cry out and give voice: you released me from bondage in iron; who does not know it?
But do not, O Emperor, bind me with harsher chains; for those who were released were bound only in a part of the body, but those now expected are of the soul, and are about to press upon it wholly, through and through.
You banished the fear of death that always hung over me, and, when I was already dead with dread, you rekindled me and raised me up as if by a new birth. Preserve this favor, O Emperor, so that your Agrippa may not depart from life; for I shall seem not to have been released for the sake of being saved, but rather, having received heavier misfortunes, to have died all the more conspicuously.
You have granted me the greatest and most fortunate lot among men, kingship—first of one region, then also of another, greater one, joining to it what is called Trachonitis and Galilee. Do not, my lord, having granted me the means for abundance, take away the necessities, nor, having led me up into the clearest light, throw me back from the beginning into the deepest darkness.
I renounce those splendors; I do not refuse the fortune I had a little while ago; I would exchange everything for one thing alone—that our ancestral customs not be disturbed. For what account would there be of me, either among my own people or among all other men? Of necessity one of two things must follow: either I am judged a traitor to my own people, or I am no longer thought your friend in the same way. And what evil could be greater than either of these?
For if I am still counted among the rank of your companions, I will bear the reputation of betrayal, should neither my homeland be kept unharmed from every evil nor the temple be left untouched. For it is you great ones who preserve the interests of your companions and of those who take refuge in imperial protection.
But if some hidden hostility toward me lurks in your mind, do not imprison me as Tiberius did, but rather, having removed even the hope of ever being released again, order that I be put out of the way at once. For what good is life to me, when my one hope of safety was your goodwill?"
Having written this and sealed it, he sent it to Gaius, and shutting himself up at home he remained there, in anguish and turmoil, worrying above all how it would be received. For no small danger had been thrown at him, but one involving destruction, enslavement, and utter devastation—not only for those who inhabit the sacred land but for the Jews everywhere in the inhabited world.
Gaius, taking the letter and reading it through, at each thought at once knew that his wish would not be carried out, and at the same time was moved by the pleas mixed with justifications; and he praised Agrippa in one respect,
but blamed him in another. He found fault with him for his excessive devotion to his own people, who alone among men resisted and turned away from his deification, but he praised him for concealing and hiding nothing of himself, which he said were signs of the most noble and freeborn character.
So, softened as far as it seemed by these more gracious responses, he deemed Agrippa worthy of the highest and greatest gift, granting that the dedication should no longer take place; and he ordered that it be written to Publius Petronius, the governor of Syria, that he should no longer make any innovation regarding the temple of the Jews.
Yet even in giving this favor, he did not give it unmixed, but blended into it a most grievous fear. For he added in writing: “But if in the districts bordering the metropolis, outside it alone, some people wish to set up altars or shrines or certain images or statues in my honor and that of my family, and are prevented from doing so, those who hinder them are either to be punished on the spot or brought before me.”
This was nothing other than the beginning of factions and civil wars, and a crooked way of taking back, in effect, the gift he seemed to be giving outright. For some, out of rivalry against the Jews rather than out of piety toward Gaius, were bound to fill the whole land with dedicatory offerings, while others, seeing in their own villages the dissolution of their ancestral customs—even if they were the gentlest of all people—would not tolerate it; and Gaius, judging those who were provoked worthy of the greatest punishment, would order the statue to be set up again in the temple.
But by some providence and care of God, who watches over all things and governs with justice, none of the neighboring peoples stirred up any trouble, so that no occasion arose by which, ahead of a milder complaint, an inescapable calamity was bound to be met.
But what good was that, one might say? For even while they remained quiet, Gaius did not remain quiet, already repenting of the favor and rekindling the desire he had felt a little before. For he ordered that another statue be made, a colossal one, of bronze overlaid with gold, in Rome, no longer moving the one in Sidon, so that he might not disturb the populace by its movement, but that it might be carried secretly and at great leisure by ship, while remaining undisturbed and free of suspicion, and be set up suddenly, unnoticed by the crowd.
This he intended to do on his voyage along the coast during his journey to Egypt. For an unspeakable longing for Alexandria possessed him, which he was eager to reach with all haste and, once arrived, to dwell in for a very long time, believing that this one city alone had given birth to and would foster the deification he dreamed of, and had become a model of reverence for the others—being both the greatest city and situated in the finest part of the inhabited world. For it is characteristic of great men or great cities that lesser men and peoples attempt to emulate them.
He was, moreover, by nature untrustworthy in all other matters as well, so that even if he did some good deed, he would immediately repent and seek some way by which even this would be undone, to greater grief and harm.
Here is an example of what I mean: he released some prisoners for no particular reason, then imprisoned them again, bringing upon them a heavier calamity than before—the calamity of dashed hope.
Again he condemned to exile others who had expected death, not because they were conscious of having done anything deserving death, or indeed any lesser punishment at all, but because, owing to the judge's excessive cruelty, they had not expected to escape at all. To these men exile was a windfall, and, thinking they had escaped the utmost danger to their lives, they held it as good as a return home.
But not much time passed before he sent some of his soldiers, though nothing new had occurred, and destroyed all at once the best and noblest of them, who were already living as if in their homelands on the islands and bearing their misfortune most happily, inflicting a most pitiable and unexpected grief upon the households of the great men in Rome.
And if he gave money to some as a gift, he did not later exact it back as a loan, collecting interest and additional charges, but rather as stolen goods, to the greatest ruin of those who had received it. For it was not enough for the wretched recipients to repay what had been given; they had to bring in their entire estates besides, whether they had inherited them from parents, relatives, or friends, or had acquired them themselves by choosing a life of business.
The men of high rank, who thought themselves held in the very highest esteem, were harmed in a different way—one accompanied by pleasure, under a pretense of friendship—spending vast sums on undetermined, disorderly, and sudden journeys, and vast sums on banquets; for they exhausted entire estates in preparing a single dinner, so that they even had to borrow money—such was the extravagance.
Accordingly, some now prayed against the very favors he had granted them, supposing them to be not a benefit but a bait and a trap for unbearable ruin.
So great, then, was this unevenness of character toward everyone, but especially toward the race of the Jews. Being harshly hostile to them, he began by seizing for himself the synagogues in the other cities, starting with those in Alexandria, filling them with images and statues of his own form—for while he let others set up such dedications, he himself installed his own by force—and he sought to convert and transform the shrine in the holy city, which alone remained untouched, having been deemed worthy of complete inviolability, into a private temple of his own, so that it might be called the temple of Zeus, the Manifest, the New, Gaius. What do you say to that?
You, though a man, seek to lay claim to the ether and heaven, not content with the multitude of so many continents, islands, nations, and climates over which you have kindled your rule. Yet you do not deem God worthy of anything here among us—not a country, not a city—but you intend to take away even that small enclosure that has been consecrated and dedicated to him by oracles and divine utterances, so that within the enclosure of so vast an earth no trace or memorial might be left of the honor and reverence due to the truly existing, true God.
You inscribe fine hopes for the human race! You do not realize that you are opening up fountains of massed evils, inventing and contriving on a grand scale things that are not lawful either to do or even to conceive.
It is also worth recalling what we ourselves saw and heard when we were summoned to contend the struggle concerning our citizenship. For as soon as we entered, we knew at once, from his look and his movements, that we had come not before a judge but before an accuser—one more hostile than those arrayed against us.
For these were the tasks of a judge: to sit with assessors chosen for their merit, examining a case of the greatest importance, one that had lain undisturbed for four hundred years and was now being brought forward for the first time, with many tens of thousands of Alexandrian Jews at stake; to have the opposing parties stand on either side with their advocates; to hear the accusation in turn, then the defense, measured by water-clock; and, having risen, to deliberate with the assessors what should be openly declared as the most just judgment. But the tasks actually performed were those of a merciless tyrant, wielding a despot's brow.
For besides doing none of the things I have just described, he summoned the stewards of two gardens, those of Maecenas and of Lamia — they lie near each other and near the city, and he had been staying there for three or four days, since it was there, with us present, that the drama against the whole nation was to be staged — and he ordered all the grounds to be opened up for him.
He wanted, he said, to inspect each one closely. We were brought in before him, and the moment we saw him we bowed to the ground with every mark of reverence and awe, and greeted him as Augustus Imperator. But he returned the greeting with such mildness and courtesy that we despaired not only of our case but of our very lives.
For with a sneering, mocking grin he said, "So you are the men who hate god — you who do not believe me to be a god, though I am now acknowledged as such by everyone else, and instead you cling to the one you dare not even name." And raising his hands to heaven, he uttered an invocation which it is not lawful even to hear, let alone repeat word for word.
At once the envoys of the opposing party were filled with what delight, thinking that through this first outburst of Gaius's they had already won the embassy. They clapped their hands, they danced about, they invoked the names of all the gods upon him.
upon him. And seeing him delighted at being addressed in terms beyond human nature, the bitter informer Isidorus said, "You will hate these men here, master, and their fellow tribesmen still more, once you learn their ill will and impiety toward you: while all other people offer sacrifices of thanksgiving for your safety, these alone have refused to sacrifice. And when I say 'these,' I include all the other Jews as well."
But we all cried out with one voice, "Lord Gaius, we are slandered. We did sacrifice, and we offered whole hecatombs — not pouring the blood on the altar and taking the meat home for a feast and celebration, as some are accustomed to do, but delivering the victims whole to be consumed by the sacred flame, and that three times, not once: first when you succeeded to the principate, second when you recovered from that grave illness which the whole inhabited world suffered along with you, and third in hope of your victory in Germany." "Granted,"
he said, "all this is true, but it was offered to another, even if on my behalf. What good is it, then? For you did not sacrifice to me." A deep shudder seized us at once, hearing this on top of what had gone before, and it spread even to our faces.
And saying this he went on through the grounds, inspecting the men's quarters, the women's quarters, the rooms at ground level, the upper rooms — everything — finding fault with some as inadequate constructions, and himself devising and prescribing others more costly.
Then we, driven along, followed him up and down, mocked and jeered at by our opponents as though in a theatrical farce — and indeed the whole affair was a kind of mimicry: the judge had taken on the role of an accuser, and the accusers that of a base judge who looks to enmity rather than to the nature of the truth.
And when so great a man makes accusations against the one on trial, silence is the only recourse; for there is a way of defending oneself even through silence, especially when one is able to answer nothing of what he sought and demanded, since custom and law hold the tongue back and stitch the mouth shut.
Then, having given some orders concerning the buildings, he put to us a grave and solemn question: "Why do you abstain from pork?" At this question laughter again broke out from our opponents so loud — some genuinely amused, others cultivating it out of flattery, so that the remark might seem to have been said with wit and charm — that one of the attendants following him grew indignant at such contempt shown for an emperor, before whom even a modest smile was not safe for those not on close terms with him.
When we answered that different peoples have different customs, and that the use of certain things is forbidden to us just as it is to our opponents, and someone remarked, "Yes, and many people don't eat lamb either, though it's the readiest food of all," he laughed and said, "Quite right — for it isn't tasty."
Having been mocked and derided with such nonsense, we were at our wits' end. Then at last, offhandedly, he said, "We want to learn what principles of justice you use in your civic life."
But when we began to speak and to instruct him, having had a taste of our legal argument and realizing it was not to be despised, before we could bring forward our stronger points he cut short even what we had already said and dashed off at a run into the great hall, and going around it he ordered the windows all around to be fitted with panes of a translucent stone resembling white glass, which do not block the light but keep out wind and the sun's blazing heat.
Then he came forward again, without haste, and asked more moderately, "What were you saying?" But when we began to take up the thread of our argument, he ran off again into another room, where he was directing that original paintings be set up.
So, as our just cause was being torn apart, pulled to pieces, cut short and crushed, we grew exhausted and had no strength left, and expected nothing but death; we no longer had our souls within us, but in our anguish they had already gone forth ahead of us to beseech the true God to check the wrath of the falsely-named one.
But he, taking pity on us, turned his anger to mercy; and having relented toward a gentler mood, he said only this — "These men seem to me not so much wicked as unfortunate and foolish, in not believing that I have been allotted the nature of a god" — and departed, ordering us to leave as well.
Having escaped such a place — at once a theater and a prison — for as in a theater there was the din of those hissing, mocking, jeering without measure, and as in a jail there were blows falling upon our very vitals, tortures, the racking of the whole soul through blasphemies against the divine and through the threats which so great an emperor kept holding over us, bearing a grudge not on behalf of anyone else — for he would easily have changed his mind about that — but on his own behalf and for his desire for deification, which he supposed the Jews alone neither assented to nor could subscribe to — we could scarcely draw breath, and not because, loving life, we had cowered before death.
Death we would gladly have chosen as though it were immortality, if indeed any of our laws were going to receive redress; but knowing that we would be sacrificed to no advantage and with much disgrace besides — for whatever envoys suffer is charged back to those who sent them —
for this reason we were able to hold our heads up to some degree, but everything else terrified us, bewildered and at a loss as we were over what he would decide, what he would pronounce, what sort of judgment it would be; for did he even listen to the case, he who paid no heed even to some matters of state? And was it a small thing that in the persons of us five envoys the fate of all Jews everywhere hung in the balance?
for if he showed favor to our enemies, what other city would remain quiet? Who would not attack those who dwelt among them? What synagogue would be left untouched? What civic right established for those who live according to the ancestral customs of the Jews would not be overturned? All their special privileges and the common rights granted them in each of the cities would be overturned, shipwrecked, sent to the bottom.
Overwhelmed by such reasonings, we were swept along as though drowning; for even those who had previously seemed to be on our side had given up. When we were summoned, though present within, they did not stay but slipped away out of fear, knowing full well the passion with which he pursued being regarded as a god.
So the cause of Gaius's hostility toward the whole Jewish nation has now been told, in summary at least; and the recantation must also be told.