The Works of Philo (complete)

Anger, again, is a defensive weapon, which has been of great service to many people, and so too have the other passions in the same manner. On which account Moses has said, with great felicity, " that he was an assistant to liimself :" for he is in reality an assistant to the mind, as if he were its brother and near kinsman : for the external sensations and the passions are parts of one soul, and are its offspring.

Now of assistants there are two kinds, the one consisting in the passions and the other in the sensations. ... * are wanting ; and there is a great want of connection between what follows and what has gone before. But the prior kind is tliat of generation, for Moses says, " And God proceeded and made all the beasts of the field out of the earth, and all the birds of heaven ; and he brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living soul that became its name." You see here who are our assistants, the beasts of the soul, the passions. For after God had said, " I will make him a helpmeet for him," Moses adds subsequently, " He made the beasts," as if the beasts also were assistants to us. But these are not, properly speaking, assistants, but are called so only in a catachrestic manner, by a kind of abuse of language, for they are found in reality to be enemies to man.

As also in the case of cities, the allies turn out at times to be traitors and deserters ; and in the case of friendship, flatterers are found to be enemies instead of companions ; and Moses here speaks of the heaven and the field synonymously, describing the mind in this allegorical manner ; for the mind, like the field, has innumerable periods of rising and budding forth ; and, like the heaven, has brilliant, and divine, and happy characteristics of natm'e. But the passions he compares to beasts and birds, because they injure the mind, being untamed and wild, and because, after the manner of birds, they descend upon the intellect; for their onset is swift and difficult to withstand ; and the word " besides," as attached to " he made," is not superfluous. Why so ? because he has previously said, that the beasts were formed before the creation of man, and he shows it in the following words, which are an account of what was done on the sixth day. " And God said. Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, four-footed animals, and creeping things, and wild beasts."

Why, then, is it that he makes other animals now, not being content with those already existing? now this must be stated according to the principles of moral philosophy. The species of evil are abundant in created man, so that the most evil things are continually produced in him ; and this other thing must be affirmed on principles of natural philosophy. First of all, in the six days he created the different kinds of passions, and the ideas, but now, in addition to them, he is creating the species. On which account Moses says, " And besides he made . . ." and that what had been G 2 previously created were genera is plain from what he says, " Let the earth bring forth living souls," not according to species but according to genus. And this is found to be the course taken by God in all cases ; for before making the species he completes the genera, as he did in the case of man : for having first modelled the generic man, in whom they say that the male and female sexes are contained, he afterwards created the specific man Adam.

This therefore he denominated the species of assistants, but the other part of the creation, the description, that is, of the formation of the external sensations, was postponed till he began to form the woman ; and having put off this he then gives an account of the distribution of names ; and this is an explanation, partly figurative and partly literal, which is worthy of our admiration.

It is literal, inasmuch as the Lawgiver has attributed the imposition of names to the first-born man ; for those also among the Greeks, who study philosophy, say that they were wise men who first gave names to things : hut Moses speaks more correctly in the first place, because he attributes this giving of names, not to some of those men who lived in early times, but to the first man who was created upon the earth ; so that, just as he himself was created to be the beginning of creation to all other animals, he might also be considered the beginning of conversation and language : for if there were no such things as names there could be no such thing as language : and, secondly, because, if many different persons gave names, they must have been different and devoid of all connexion, since different persons would have given difl'erent names : but if only one person did so, the name given by one was sure to be adapted to the thing : and the same name was likely to be a token to every one of the existing things signified by it.

But the moral meaning of this passage is as follows : — • We often use the expression ri instead of bia r! ; (why ?) as when we say, why (n) have you washed yourself? why (-/) are you walking? why (r!) are you conversing? for in all these cases ri is used instead of dia, ri ; when therefore Moses says, " to see what he would call them," you must understand him as if he had said hia ri (why), instead of ri (what) : and the mind will invite and embrace each of these meanings. Is it then only for the sake of what is necessary that the mor•^ tal race is of necessit}' implicated iu passions and vices ? or is it also on account of that which is immoderate and superfluous? And again, is it because of the requirements of the earth-born man, or because the mind judges them to be most excellent and admirable things ; as for instance, is it necessary for every created thing to enjoy pleasure ? But the bad man Hies to pleasure as to a perfect good, but the good man seeks it only as a necessary ; for without pleasure nothing whatever is done among the human race.

Again, the bad man considers the acquisition of riches as the most perfect good possible ; but the good man looks upon riches only as a necessaiy and useful thing. Very naturally, therefore, God desires to see and to learn how the mind denominates and appreciates each of these things, whether it looks upon them as good, or as things indifferent, or as evil in themselves, but nevertheless in some respects necessary.

On which account, thinking that everything which he invited towards himself, and embraced as a living soul, was of equal value and importance with the soul, this became the name, not only of the thing which was thus invited, but also of him who invited it : as for instance, if the man embraced pleasure, he was called a man devoted to pleasure ; if he embraced appetite, he was called a man of appetite ; if he invited intemperance, he himself also acquired the name of intemperate ; if he admitted cowai'dice, he was called cowardly ; and so on in the case of the other passions. For as he who has any distinctive qualities according to the virtues, is called from that virtue with which he is especially endowed, prudent, or temperate, or just, or courageous, as the case may be ; so too in respect of the vices, a man is called unjust, or foolish, or unmanly, when he has invited and embraced these habits of mind and conduct.

" And God cast a deep trance upon Adam, and sent him to sleep ; and he took one of his ribs," and so on. The literal statement conveyed in these words is a fabulous one ; for how can any one believe that a woman was made of a rib of a man, or, in short, that any human being was made out of another ? And what hindered God, as he had made man out of the earth, from making woman in the same manner? For the Creator was the same, and the material was almost interminable, from which every distinctive quality whatever was made. And why, when there were so many parts of a man, did not God make the woman out of some other part rather than out of one of his ribs ? Again, of which rib did he make her? And this question would hold even if we were to say, that he had only spoken of two ribs ; but in truth he has not specified their number. Was it then the right rib, or the left rib ?

Again, if he tilled up the place of the other with flesh, ■was not the one which he left also made of flesh ? and indeed our ribs are like sisters, and akin in all their parts, and they consist of flesh. What then are we to say ? ordinary custom calls the ribs the strength of a man ; for we say that a man has ribs, which is equivalent to saying that he has vigour ; and ■we say that a wrestler is a man with strong ribs, when we mean to express that he is strong : and we say that a harpplayer has ribs, instead of saying that he has energy and power in lais singing. Now that this has been premised we must also say, that the mind, while naked and free from the entanglement of the body (for our present discussion is about the mind, while it is as yet entangled in nothing) has many powers, namely, the possessive power, the progenitive power, the power of the soul, the power of reason, the power of comprehension, and part of others innumerable both in their genus and species.

Now the possessive power is common to it with other inanimate things, with stocks and stones, and it is shared by the things in us, which are like stones, namely, by our bones.

And natural power extends also over plants : and there are parts in us which have some resemblance to plants, namely, our nails and our hair : and nature is a habit already put in motion, but the soul is a habit which has taken to itself, in addition, imagination and impetuosity ; and this power also is possessed by man in common with the irrational animals ; and our mind has something analogous to the soul of an irrational animal. • Again, the power of comprehension is a peculiar property of the mind ; and the reasoning power is perhaps common to the more divine natures, but is especially the property of the mortal nature of man : and this is a twofold power, one kind being that in accordance with which we are rational creatures, partaking of mind ; and the other khid being that faculty by which we converse. There is also another power in the soul akin to these, the power of sensation, of which we are now speaking ; for Moses is describing nothing else on tliis occasion except the formation of the external sense, according to energy and according to reason.

For immediately after the creation of the mind it was necessary that the external sense should be created, as an assistant and ally of the mind ; therefore God having entirely perfected the first, proceeded to make the second, both in rank and power, being a certain created form, an external sense according to energy, created for the perfection and completion of the whole soul, and for the proper comprehension of such subject matter as might be brought before it. How then was this second thing created? As Moses himself says in a subsequent passage, when the mind was gone to sleep : for, in real fact, the external sense then comes forward when the mind is asleep. And again, when the mind is awake the outward sense is extinguished ; and the proof of this is, that when we desire to form an accurate conception of anything, we retreat to a desert place, we shut our eyes, we stop up our ears, we discard the exercise of our senses ; and so, when the mind rises up again and awakens, the outward sense is put an end to.

Let us now consider another point, namely, how the mind goes to sleep : for when the outward sense is awakened and has become excited, when tlie sight beholds any works of painting or of sculpture beautifully wrought, is not the mind then without anything on which to exercise its functions, contemplating nothing which is a proper subject for the intellect? What more? When the faculty of hearing is attending to some melodious combination of sound, can the mind turn itself to the contemplation of its proper objects ? by no means. And it is much more destitute of occupation, when taste rises up and eagerly devotes itself to the pleasures of the belly ; on which account Moses, being alarmed lest some day or other the mind might not merely go to sleep, but might become absolutely dead, says in another place, "

And it shall be to you a peg in your girdle ; and it shall be, that when you sit down you shall dig in it, and, heaping up earth, shall cover your shame."* Speaking symbolically, and giving the name of peg to reason which digs up secret affairs ; and he bids him to • Deuteronomy xxiii. 1 3. bear it upon the affection v.dth -which he ouglit to be girded, and not to allow it to slacken and become loosened ; and this must be done when the mind, departing from the intense consideration of objects perceptible by the intellect, is brought down to the passions, and sits down, yielding to, and being guided by, the necessities of the body : and this is the case when the mind, being absorbed in luxurious associations, forgets itself, being subdued by the things which conduct it to pleasure, and so we become enslaved, and yield ourselves up to unconcealed impurity. But if reason be able to purify the passion, then neither when we drink do we become intoxicated, nor when we eat do we become indolent through satiety, but we feast soberly without indulging in folly.

Therefore, the awakening of the outward senses is the sleep of the mind ; and the awakening of the mind is the discharge of the outward senses from all occupation. Just as when the sun arises the brightness of all the rest of the stars becomes invisible ; but when the sun sets, tliey are seen. And so, like the sun, the mind, when it is awakened, overshadows the outward senses, but when it goes to sleep it permits them to shine. JX. After this preface we must now proceed to explain the words : " The Lord God," says Moses, " cast a deep trance upon Adam, and sent him to sleep." He speaks here with great correctness, for a trance and peiwersion of the mind is its sleep. And the mind is rendered beside itself when it ceases to be occupied about the things perceptible only by the intellect which present themselves to it. And when it is not energizing with respect to them it is asleep. And the expression, " it is in a trance," is very well employed, as it means that it is perverted and changed, not by itself, but by God, who presents to it, and brings before it, and sends upon it the change which occurs to it.

For the case is this : — if it were in my own power to be changed, then whenever I chose I should exercise this power, and whenever I did not choose I should continue as I am, without any change. But now change attacks me from an opposite direction, and very often when I am desirous to turn my intellect to some fitting subject, I am swallowed up by an influx contrary to what is tittinrr; and on tlie other hand, when I conceive an idea respecting something unseemly, I discard it by means of i pleasant notions while God by his own grace pours into nij soul a sweet stream instead of the salt flood. It is necessary therefore, that every created thing should at times be changed. For this is a property of every created thing, just as it is an attribute of God to be unchangeable. But of these beings who have been changed, some remain in their altered state till their final and complete destruction, though others are only exposed to tlie ordinary vicissitudes of human nature ; and tliey are immediately preserved. On which account Moses says that "

God will not suffer the destroyer to enter into your houses to smite them."* Foihe does permit the destroyer (and change is the destruction of the soul) to enter into the soul, in order to exhibit the peculiar chai-acteristic of the created being. But God will not permit the offspring of the seeing Israel to be changed in such a manner as to be stricken down by the change ; but he will compel it to emerge and rise up again like one who rises up from the deep, and so he will cause it to be saved.

" He took one of his ribs." He took one of the many powers of the mind, namely, that power which dwells in the outward senses. And when he uses the expression, " He took," we are not to understand it as if he had said, " He took away," but rather as equivalent to " He counted, He examined ; " as he says in another place, "Take the chief of the spoils of the captivity. "t What, then, is it which he wishes to show ? Sensation is spoken of in a twofold manner ; — the one kind being according to habit, which exists even when we are asleep, and the other being according to energy. Now, in the former kind, the one according to habit, there is no use : for we do not comprehend any one of the objects presented to our view by its means. But there is use in the second, in that which exists according to energy ; for it is by means of this that we arrive at a comprehension of the objects perceptible by the outward senses.

Accordingly, God, having created the former kind of sensation, that existing according to habit, when he was creating the mind (for he was furnishing that with many faculties in a state of rest), desires now to complete the other kind which exists according to energy. And this one according to energy is perfected when the one which exists according to habit is put in motion, and extended as far as the flesh and the organs of sense. For as nature is perfected when the seed is put in motion, so, also, energy is perfected when the habit is put in motion.

"And he filled the space with flesh instead of it." That is to say, he filled up that external sense which exists according to habit, leading it on to energy and extending it as far as the flesh and the whole outward and visible surface of the body. In reference to which Moses adds that '' he built it up into a woman : " showing by this expression that woman is the most natural and felicitously-given name for the external sense. For as the man is seen in action, and the woman in being the subject of action, so also is the mind seen in action, and the external sense, like the woman, is discerned by suff'ering or being the subject of action. And it is easy to learn this from the way in which it is affected in practice. Thus the sight is affected by these objects of sight which put it in motion, such as white and black, and the other colours. Again, hearing is affected by sounds, and taste is disposed in such or such a way by flavours ; the sense of smell by scents ; and that of touch by hardness or softness. And, on the other hand all the outward senses are in a state of tranquillity until each is approached from without by that which is to put it in motion.

" And he brought her to Adam. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." God leads the external sense, existing according to energy, to the mind ; knowing that its motion and apprehension must turn back to the mind. But the mind, perceiving the power which it previously had (and which, while it was existing according to habit was in a state of tranquillity), now have to become a complete operation and energy, and to be in a state of motion, marvels at it, and utters an exclamation, saying that it is not unconnected with it, but very closely akin to it. For Adam says, " This now is bone of my bone ;" that is to say, This is power of my power ; for bone is here to be understood as a symbol of strength and power. And it is, he adds, suffering of my sufferings ; that is. it is flesh of my flesh. For every thing which the external sense suffers, it endures not without the support of the mind ; for the mind is its fountain, and the foundation on which it is supported. It is also worth while to consider why Adam adde word "now," for he says, "This now is bone of my bone."

The explanation is, external sensation exists now, having its existence solely with reference to the present moment. For the mind touches three separate points of time ; for it perceives present circumstances, and it remembers past events, and it anticipates the future. But the external sensations have neither any anticipation of future events, nor are they subject to any feeling resembling expectation or hope, nor have they any recollection of past circumstances ; but are by nature capable only of being affected by that which moves them at the moment, and is actually present. As, for example, the eye is made white by a white appearance presented to it at the moment, but it is not affected in any manner by that which is not present to it. But the mind is agitated also by that which is not actually present, but which may be past ; in which case it is affected by its recollection of it ; or it may be future, in which case it is, indeed, the influence of hope and expectation. XIIL " And she shall be called woman." This is equivalent to saying. On this account the outward sensation shall be called woman, because it is derived from man who sets it in motion.

He says " she ;" why, then, is the expression " she" used ? Why, because there is also another kind of outward sensation, not derived from the mind, but having been created at the same moment with it. For there are, as I have said before, two different kinds of outward sensation ; the one kind existing according to habit, and the other according to energy. Now, the kind existing according to habit is not derived from the man, that is to say from the mind, but is created at the same time with him. For the mind, as I have already shown, when it was created was created -srith many faculties and habits ; namely, with the faculty and habit of reasoning, and of existing, and of promoting what is like itself, as also with that of receiving impressions from the outv/ard senses. But the outward sensation, which exists according to energy, is derived from the mind. For it is extended from the outward sensation which exists in it according to habit, so as to become the same outward sense according to energy. So that this second kind of outward sense is derived from the mind, and exists according to motion.

And he is but a foolish person who thinks that any thing is in true reality made out of the .92 PHILO JUDiEUS. mind, or out of itself. Do you not see that even in tlie' case of Rachel (that is to say of outward sensation) sitting upon the images, while she thought that her motions came from the mind, he who saw her reproved her. For she says, " Give me my children, and if you give them not to me I shall die.'"* And he replied : " Because, 0 mistaken woman, the mind is not the cause of any thing, hut he which existed before the mind ; namely God." On which account he adds : " Am I equal to God who has deprived you of the fruit of your womb ? " But ^ that it is God who creates men, he will testify in the case; of Leah, when he says, "But the Lord, when he saw that Leah was hated, opened her womb. But Rachel was barren. "t But it is the especial property of man to open the womb. Now naturally virtue is hated by men. On which account God lias honoured it, and gives the honour of bearing the first child to her who is hated.

And in another passage he says : " But if a man has two wives, one of them being loved and one of them being hated, and if they bear him children, and if the first-bom son be the child of her who is hated ; he will not be able to give the honours of the birthright to the child of the wif(3 whom lie loves, overlooking the first-born son the child of her who is hated. "+ For the productions of virtue which is hated, are the first and the most perfect, but those of pleasure, which is loved, are the last.

" On this account a man will leave his father and his mother and will cleave to his wife ; and they two shall become one flesh." On account of the external sensation, the mind, when it has become enslaved to it, shall leave both its father, the God of the universe, and the mother of all things, namely, the virtue and wisdom of God, and cleaves to and becomes united to the external sensations, and is dissolved into external sensation, so that the two become one flesh and one passion. And liere you must observe that it is not the woman who cleaves to the man, but on the contrary, the man who cleaves to the woman ; that is to say, the mind cleaves to the external sensations. For when that which is the better, namely, the mind, is united to that which is the worse, namely, the external sensation, it is then dissolved into the nature of flesh, which is worse, and into outward sensation, which is the cause of the passions. But wlien that which is the inferior, namely, the outward sensation, follows the better part, that is the mind, then there will no longer be flesh, but both will become one, namely, mind.

And this is a thing of such a nature that it prefers the alTections to piety. There is also another being called by an opposite name, Levi ; he who says to his father and mother : " He saw you not, and he did not recognize his brethren, and repudiated his children."* This man leaves his father and mother ; that is to say, his mind and the material of his body, in order to have as his inheritance the one God ; " For the Lord himself is his inheritance. "f And, indeed, suffering is the inheritance of him who is fond of suffering ; but the inheritance of Levi is God. Do you not see that '* he bids him on the tenth day of the month bring two goats as his share, one lot for the Lord and one lot for the scape-goat." J For the sufferings inflicted on the scape goat are in real truth the lot of him who is fond of suffering.

"And they were both naked, both Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed ; but the serpent was the most subtle of all the beasts that were upon the earth, which the Lord God had made :"§ — the mind is naked, which is clothed neither with vice nor with virtue, but which is really stripped of both : just as the soul of an infant child, which has no share in either virtue or vice, is stripped of all coverings, and is completely naked: for these things are the coverings of the soul, by which it is enveloped and concealed, good being the garment of the virtuous soul, and evil the robe of the wicked soul. And the soul is made naked in these ways. Once, when it is in an unchangeable state, and is entirely free from all vices, and has discarded and laid aside the covering of all the passions.

With reference to this Moses also pitches his tabernacle outside of the camp, a long way from the camp, and it was called the tabernacle of testimony. |1 And this has some such meaning as this : the soul which loves God, having put off the body and the affections which are dear to it, and having fled a long way from them, chooses a foundation and a sure ground for its abode, and a lasting settlement in the perfect doctrines of virtue ; on wliicli account testimony is borne to it by God, that it loves what is good, " for it was called the tabernacle of testimony," says Moses, and he has passed over in silence the giver of the name, in order that the soul, being excited, might consider who it is who thus beareth mtness to the dispositions which love virtue.

On this account the high priest " will not come into the holy of holies clad in a garment reaching to the feet ;* but having ^ut off the robe of opinion and vain fancy of the soul, and having left that for those who love the things which are without, and who honour opinion in preference to truth, will come forward naked, without colours or any sounds, to make an offering of the blood of the soul, and to sacrifice the whole mind to God the Saviour and Benefactor ; and certainly Nadab and Abihu,f who came near to God, and left this mortal life and received a share of immortal life, are seen to be naked, that is, free from all new and mortal opinion ; for they would not have carried it in their garments and borne it about, if they had not been naked, having broken to pieces every bond of passion and of coqjoreal necessity, in order that their nakedness and absence of corporeality might not be adulterated by the accession of atheistical reasonings ; for it may not be permitted to all men to behold the secret mysteries of God, but only to those who are able to cover them up and guard them ; on which account Mishael and his partisans concealed them not in their own garments, but in those of Nadab and Abihu, who had been burnt with fire and taken upwards ; for having stripped off all the garments that covered them, they brought their nakedness before God, and left their tunics about Mishael.

But clothes belong to the irrational part of the animal, which overshadow the rational part. Abraham also was naked when he beard, " Come forth out of thy land and from thy kindred ;"'J and as for Isaac, he indeed was not stripped, but was at all times naked and incorporeal ; for a commandment was given to him not to go down into Egypt, § that is to say, into the body. Jacob also was fond of the nakedness of the soul, for his smoothness is nakedness, " for Esau was a hairy man, but J Gen. xiii. 1. g Gen. xxvL 2. Jacob," says Moses, " was a smooth man,"* on which account he was also the husband of Leah. XVI . This is the most excellent nakedness, but the other nakedness is of a contrary nature, being a change which involves a deprivation of virtue, when the soul becomes foolish and goes astray.

Such was the folly of Noah when he was naked, when he drank wine.f But thanks be to God, that this change and this stripping naked of the mind according to the deprivation of virtue, did not extend as far as external things, but remained in the house ; for Moses says, that " he was stripped naked in his house :" for even if a wise man does commit folly, he still does not run to ruin like a bad man ; for the evil of the one is spread abroad, but that of the other is kept within bounds, and therefore he becomes sober again, that is to say, he repents, and as it were recovers from his disease. But let us now more accurately examine the statement, " that the stripping of him naked took place in his house." When the soul, being changed, only conceives some evil thing and does not put it in execution, so as to accomplish it in deed, then the sin is only in the private domain and abode of the soul.

But if, in addition to thinking some wickedness it proceeds also to accomplish it and cany it into execution, then the wickedness is diffused over the parts beyond his house : and on this account he curses Canaan also, because he related the change of his soul abroad, that is to say, he extended it into the parts out of doors, and gave it notoriety, adding to his evil intention an evil consummation by means of his actions : but Shem and Japhet are praised, because they did not attack his soul, but rather concealed its deterioration.

On this account also the prayers and vows of the soul are invalidated when " they are made in the house of one's father or one's husband, | while the reasoning powers are in a state of quiescence, and do not attack the alteration which has taken place in the soul, but conceal the delinquency ; for then also " the master of all things" will purify it: but he hears the prayer of the widow and of her who is divorced without revoking it ; for " whatever," says he, " she has vowed against her own soul shall abide to her," and very reasonably ; for if, after she has been put away, she has advanced as far as the parts out of the house, so that not only is her place changed, but that she also sins in respect of deeds that she has perfected, she remains incurable, having no communion of conversation with her husband, and being deprived also of the advocacy and consolation of her father.

The third description of stripping naked is the middle one, according to which the mind is destitute of reason, having no share in either virtue or vice ; and it is with reference to this kind of nakedness which an infant also is partaker of, that the expression is used which says, " And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife ;" and the meaning of it is this, neither did their intellect understand, nor did their outward senses perceive this nakedness ; but the former was devoid of all power of understanding, and naked ; and the latter was destitute of all perception.

And the expression, " they were not ashamed," we will examine hereafter : for there ai'e three ideas brought forward in this passage. Shamelessness, modesty, and a state of indifference, in which one is neither shameless nor modest. Now shamelessness is the property of a worthless person, and modesty the characteristic of a virtuous one ; but the state of being neither modest nor shameless, is a sign of a person who is void of comprehension, and who does not act from any settled opinion ; and it is of such a one that we are now speaking : for he who has not yet acquired any comprehension of good or evil, is not able to be either shameless or modest, therefore the examples of shamelessness are all the unseemly pieces of conduct, when the mind reveals disgraceful things, while it ought rather to cover them in the shade, instead of which it boasts of and glories in them. It is said also in the case of Miriam, when she was speaking against Moses, " If her father had spit in her face, ought she not to keep herself retired for seven days ?

"* For the external sense, being really shameless and impudent, though considered as nothing by < iod the father, in comparison of him who was faithful in all his house, to whom God himself united the Ethiopian woman, that is to say, unchangeable and well-satisfied opinion, dared to speak against Moses and to accuse him, for the very actions for which he deserved to be praised ; for this is his greatest praise, that he received the Ethiopian woman, the unchangeable nature, tried in the fire and found honest ; for as in the eye, the part which sees is black, so also the part of the soul which sees is what is meant by the Ethiopian woman. Why then, as there are many works of ■wickedness, does he mention one only, namely, that which is conversant about what is shameful, saying, " they were not ashamed :" but were they not doing wrong, or were they not sinning, or were they not acting indecorously ? But the cause is at hand. No, by the only true God, I think nothing so shameful as to suppose that I comprehend with my intellect, or perceive by my outward sense. Is my mind the cause of my comprehending?

How so? for does it even comprehend itself, and know what it is, or how it came to exist ? And are the outward senses the cause of man's perceiving anything ? How can it be said to be so, when it is neither understood by itself nor by the mind ? Do you not see, that he who fancies that he comprehends is often found to be foolish in his acts of covetousness, in his drunkenness, in his deeds of folly ? Where then is his intellectual capacity shown in these actions ? Again, is not the outward sensation often deprived of the power of exercising itself? Are there not times when seeing ■we do not see, and hearing we do not hear, when the mind has its attention ever so little drawn off to some other object of the intellect, and is applied to the consideration of that?

As long as they are both naked, the mind naked of its power of exciting the intellect, and the outward sense of its power of sensation, they have nothing disgraceful in them ; but the moment that they begin to display any comprehension, they become masked in shame and insolence : for they will often be found behaving with simplicity and folly rather than with any sound knowledge, and this not only in particular acts of covetousness, or spleen, or folly, but also in the general conduct of life : for when the outward sense has the dominion the mind is enslaved, giving its attention to no one proper object of its intellect, and when the mind is predominant, the untoward sense is seen to be without employment, having no comprehension of any proper object for its own exercise.

" Now the serpent was the most subtle of all the H beasts -wliich are upon the earth, which the Lord God made."* Two things having been previously created, that is, mind and outward sense, and these also having been stripped naked in the manner which has ah-eady been shown, it follows of necessity that pleasm'e, which brings these two together, must be the third, for the purpose of facilitating the comprehension of the objects of intellect and of outward sense : for neither could the mind, without the outward sense, be able to comprehend the nature of any animal or of any plant, or of a stone or of a piece of wood, or, in short, of any substance whatever ; nor could the outward sense exercise its proper faculties without the mind. Since, therefore, it was necessary for both these things to come together for the due comprehension of these objects, what was it which brought them together except a third something which acted as a bond between them, the two first representing love and desire, and pleasure not obtaining the dominion and mastery, which pleasure Moses here speaks of symbolically, under the emblem of the serpent.

God, who created all the animals on the earth, arranged this order very admirably, for he placed the mind first, that is to say, man, for the mind is the most important part in man ; then outward sense, that is the woman ; and then proceeding in regular order he came to the third, pleasure. But the powers of these three, and their ages, are different only in the night, for in point of time they are equal ; for the soul brings forward everything at the same moment with itself: but some tilings it brings forward in their actuality, and others in their power of existing, even if they have not yet arrived at the end. And pleasure has been represented under the form of the serpent, for this reason, as the motion of the serpent is full of many windings and varied, so also is the motion of pleasui'e. At first it folds itself round a man in five ways, for the pleasures consist both in seeing, and in hearing, and in taste, and in smell, and in touch. But the most vehement and intense are those which arise from connection with woman, through which the generation of similar beings is appointed by nature to be effected.

And yet this is not the only reason why we say that pleasure is various in appearance, namely, because it folds itself around all the divisions of the irrational part of the soul, but because it also folds itself with many windings around each separate part. For instance, the pleasures derived from sight are various, there is all the pleasure which arises from the contemplation of pictui-es or statues ; and all other works which are made by art delight the sight. So also do the different stages through which plants go while budding and flowering and bearing fruit ; and likewise the diversified beauty of the different animals. In the same manner the flute gives pleasure to the sense of hearing, as does the harp, and every kind of instrument, and the harmonious voices of the irrational animals, of swallows, of nightingales ; and likewise the melody of such rational beings as nature has made musical, the tuneful voice of the harp-players, and of those who represent comedy, or tragedy, or any other histrionic performance.

AVhy need we enlarge on the pleasures of the belly ? For we may almost say that there are as many varieties of pleasure as there are of gentle flavours which are presented to the belly, and which excite the outward sense. ¥/as it not then, with great propriety that pleasure, which is derived from many varied sources, was presented to an animal endowed with varied faculties ? On this account, too, that part in us which is analogous to the people, and which acts the part of a multitude, when it seeks "the houses in Eg}'pt,"* that is to say, in its corporeal habitation, becomes entangled in pleasures which bring on death ; not that death which is a separation of soul and body, but that which is the destruction of the soul by vice. For Moses says, " And the Lord God sent among the people deadly serpents, and they bit the people, and a great multitude of the children of Israel died."t For in real truth there is nothing which so much bringeth death upon the soul as an immoderate indulgence in pleasures.

And that which perishes is not the dommant portion in us but the subject one, that which acts the part of the multitude ; and it receives death up to this point, namely, until it turns to repentance, and confesses its sin,' for the Israelites, coming to Moses, say, "We have sinned in that we have spoken against the Lord and against you ; pray, thei'efore, for us to the Lord, and let him take away the serpents from us." It is well put here, not we have sinned because we have spoken against the Lord, but because we were inclined to sin we have spoken against the H 2 Lord, for when the mind sins and departs from virtue, it blames divine things, imputing its own sins to God.

How, then, can there be any remedy for this evil ? When anotlier serpent is created, the enemy of the serpent which came to Eve, namely, the word of temperance : for temperance is opposite to pleasure, which is a varied evil, being a varied virtue, and one ready to repel its enemy pleasure. Accordingly, God commands Moses to make the serpent according to temperance ; and he says, " Make thyself a serpent, and set it up for a sign." Do you see that Moses makes this serpent for no one else but for himself ? for God commands him, " Make it for thyself," in order tjiat you may know that temperance is not the gift of every one, but only of that man who loves God. And we must consider why Moses makes a brazen serpent, when no command was given to him respecting the material of which it was to be formed. May it not have been for tliis reason ? In the first place, the graces of God are immaterial, being themselves only ideas, and destitute of any distinctive quality ; but the graces of mortal men are only beheld in connection with matter.

In the second place, not only does Moses love tlie incoi-poreal virtues, but our own souls, not being able to put off their bodies, do likewise aim at corporeal virtue, and reason, in accordance with temperance, is likened to the strong and solid substance of brass, inasmuch as it is firm and not easily cut through. And perhaps brass may also have been selected inasmuch as temperance in the man who loves God is a most honourable thing, and like gold ; though it has only a secondary place in a man who has received wisdom and improved in it. " And whomsoever the one serpent bites, if he looks upon the brazen serpent shall live:" in which Moses speaks truly, for if the mind that has been bitten by pleasure, that is by the serpent which was sent to Eve, shall have strength to behold the beauty of temperance, that is to say, the serpent made by Moses in a manner affecting the soul, and to behold God himself through the medium of the serpent, it shall live. Only let it see and contemplate it intellectually.

Do you not see that wisdom when dominant, which is Sarah, says, " For whosoever shall hear it shall rejoice with me."* But suppose that any were able to bear that virtue has brought forth happiness, namely, Isaac, immediately he will sing a congratulatory hymn. As, therefore, it can only be one who has heard the news that can sympathise in one's joy, so also it can only be he who has clearly seen temperance and God, who is safe from death. But many souls that have been in love v/ith perseverance and temperance, when removed to a distance from the passions, have nevertheless withstood the power of God, and have undergone a change for the worse, wliile their Master has made a display of himself and of the work of creation; of himself, that he is always immovable, and of the work of creation, that it vibrates as if in a scale, and inclines opposite ways at different times. For Moses speaks to the Israelites of God, "

Who led ye then through that great and terrible wilderness, where there were biting ser|)ents, and scorpions, and thirst ; where there was no water ? who brought forth for thee out of the hard rock a fountain of water ? who fed thee with manna in the desert, which thy fathers knew not?"* Do you not see that not only did the soul, while longing for the passions which prevailed in Egypt, fall under the power of the serpents, but that, also, while it was in the wilderness, it was bitten by pleasure, that affection of varied and serpentlike appearance ? And the work of pleasure has received a most appropriate name, for it is called a biting. Moreover, not only they who were in the desert were bitten by serpents, but also they who were scattered abroad, for I, also, often having left the men who were my kinsmen and my friends, and my country, and having gone into the desert in order that I might perceive some of those things which are worthy of being beheld, have profited nothing. But my mind, being separated from me, or being bitten by passion, has withdrawn towards the things opposite to them.

And there are times when in the midst of a multitude composed of infinite numbers of men, I can bring my mind into solitude, God having scattered for me the crowd which perplexes my soul, and having taught me that it is not the difference of place that is the cause of good and evil, but rather God, who moves and drives this vehicle of the soul wherever he pleases.

Moreover, the soul falls hi with a scorpion, that is to say, with dispersion in the wilderness ; and the thirst, which is that of the passions, seizes on it until God sends forth upon it the stream of his own accurate wisdom, and causes the changed soul to drink of unchangeable health ; for the abrupt rock is the wisdom of Grod, which being both sublime and the first of things he quarried out of his own powers, and of it he gives drink to the souls that love God ; and they, when they have drunk, are also filled with the most universal manna; for manna is called something which is the primary genus of every thing. But the most universal of all things is God ; and in the second place the word of God. But other things have an existence only in word, but in deed they are at times equivalent to that which has no existence.

See now the difference between him who turns to sin in the desert and him who sins in Egypt. For the one is bitten by serpents which cause death, that is to say by insatiable pleasures which inflict death ; but the other, he who meditates in the wilderness, is only bitten by pleasure and driven astray, but is not killed. And the one, indeed, is healed by temperance, which is the brazen serpent which was made by the wise Moses ; but the other is supplied by God with a most beautiful draught to drink, namely, wisdonl, from the fountain which He himself has brought forth out of his own wisdom. Nor, indeed, does the pleasure which is in tlie form of a serpent, abstain from attacking that most sincere lover of God, Moses, for we read as follows ; " If, therefore, they will not obey me, nor listen to my voice — for they will say, God has not been seen by you — • what shall I say to them ? And the Lord said vmto Moses, What is that which is in thy hand ? And he said, A rod. And God said. Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch forth thy hand, and take hold of it by the tail. And having stretched forth his hand, he took hold of it by the tail, and it became a rod in his hand. And the Lord said unto him, That they may believe thee." * How can any one believe God ? If he has learnt that all other things are changed, but that he alone is unchangeable. Therefore, God asks of the wise Moses what there is in the practical life of his soul ; for the hand is the symbol of action. And he answers, Instruction, which he calls a rod. On which account Jacob the supplanter of the passions, says, " For in my staff did I pass over this Jordan."* But Jordan being interpreted means descent. And of the lower, and earthly, and perishable nature, vice and passion are component parts ; and the mind of the ascetic passes over them in the course of its education. For it is too Iowa notion to explain his saying literally ; as if it meant that he crossed the river, holding his staff in his hand.

Well, therefore, does the God-loving Moses answer. For truly the actions of the virtuous man are supported by education as by a rod, tranquillizing the distui'bances and agitations of the mind. This rod, when cast away, becomes a serpent. Very appropriately. For if the soul casts away instruction, it becomes fond of pleasure instead of being fond of virtue. On which account Moses fled from it, for the man who is fond of virtue does flee from passion and from pleasure. But God did not praise his flight. For it is fitting, indeed, for your mind, before you are made perfect, to meditate flight and escape fi-om the passions ; but Moses, that perfect man, ought rather to persevere in his war against them, and to resist them, and to strive against them, otherwise they, relying on their freedom from danger and on their power, will ascend up to the citadel of the soul, and take it by storm, and will plunder it entirely, like a tyrant. On which account God commanded Moses " to take hold of it by the tafl," that is to say, let not the hostile and untameable spirit of pleasure terrify you, but with all your power take hold of it, and seize it firmly, and master it.

For it will again become a rod instead of a serpent, that is to say, instead of pleasure it will become instruction in j^our hand ; but it will be in your hand, that is in the action of a wise man, which, indeed, is true. But it is impossible to take hold of and to master pleasure, unless the hand be first stretched out, that is to say, unless the soul confesses that all actions and all progress is derived from God ; and attributes nothing to himself. Accordingly he, when he saw this serpent, decided to flee from it ? But he prepared another principle, that of temperance, which is the brazen serpent : that whosoever was bitten by pleasure, when he looked on temperance, might live a real life.

Such a serpent Jacob boasts that Dan is, and he speaks thus : " Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel :"* and again, "Let Dan be a serpent in the path, sitting upon the road, biting the heel of the horse, and the rider shall fall backwards, waiting the salvation of the Lord."t The fifth son of Leah is Issachar, the legitimate son of Jacob ; but if the two sons of Zilpah are counted he is the seventh ; but the fifth son of Jacob is Dan, the son of Billah, the handmaid of Rachel ; and the cause of this we will investigate in the proper place, but concerning Dan we must examine further now.

The soul produces two kinds, the one divine and the other perishable ; that which is the better kind it has already conceived, and ends in it ; for when the soul was able to confess to God and to yield everything to him, it was not after that capable of receiving any more valuable possession ; on this account she ceased to bring forth, after she had borne Judah, the emblem of the disposition of confessing — and now she begins to form the mortal race — now the mortal race subsists by imbibing ; for, like a foundation, the sense of taste is the cause of the duration of animals ; but the name Billah, being interpreted, means imbibing. From her was born Dan, which name being interpreted means judgment, for this kind distinguishes between and separates immortal from mortal things, therefore he prays that he may become a workman of temperance. But he will not pray for Judah, for Judah already has the capacity of praying to and pleasing God ; " Therefore let Dan," says he, " be a serpent in the path." — One path is the soul.

For as in the roads one may behold a great variety of living beings, inanimate and animate, irrational and rational, good and bad, slaves and free, young and old, male and female, strangers and natural citizens, sick and healthy, mutilated and perfect ; so also in the soul there are motions inanimate, and imperfect, and diseased, and slavish, and female, and innumerable others of the class of evils ; and on the other hand, there are motions which are living, and perfect, and masculine, and free, and healthy, and ripe, and virtuous, and genuine, and really legitimate. Let then the principle of temperance be a serpent in the soul, which makes its advance through all the circumstances of life, and let it sit in the path. But what is the meaning of this expression ? — The field of virtue is not trodden down ; for they are few who walk along it, but that of vice is trodden and worn? And he recommends him here to occupy and to fill, with ambush and stratagem, the well-trodden path of passion and vice, in which the thoughts which are deserters from virtue pass their life.

" Biting the heel of the horse." — Very consistently the disposition which shakes the stability of the created and perishable being is called the supplauter, and the passions are compared to a horse ; for passion has four legs as a horse has, and is an impetuous beast, and full of insolence, and by nature a most restive animal. But the reasoning of temperance is wont to bite, and to wound, and to destroy passion. Therefore passion having been tripped up, and having fallen, " the horseman will fall backwards." We must comprehend that the horseman who has mounted upon the passions is the mind, who falls from the ])assions when they are reasoned upon closely, and so are supplanted ; and it is well figured, that the soul does not fall forward, for it must not go before the passions, but rather advance behind them, and behave with moderation. And there is sound learning in what he says here. If the mind, though desirous to act unjustly, comes too late and falls backward, it will not act unjustly; l3ut if, when it is moved onwards to some irrational passion it does not run forward but remains behind, it will then receive freedom from the dominion of the passions, which is a most excellent thing.

On Avhich account Moses, approving of this backward fall from off the vices, adds further, " waiting for the salvation of the Lord," for, in good truth, he who falls from the passions is saved by God, and remains safe after their operation. May my soul meet with such a fall as this, and may it never after-' wards remount upon that horselike and restive passion, in order that it may await the salvation of God, and attain to happiness ! On this account also it was that Moses praised God in his hymn, because " the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea,"* meaning that he has thrown the four passions, and the miserable mind which is mounted on them, do\Mi into ruin as to its affairs, and into the bottomless pit, and this is almost the burden of the whole hymn, to which every other part of it is referred, and indeed that is the truth ; for if once a freedom from the passions occupies the soul, it will become perfectly happy.

And we must also inquire, what is the reason why Jacob says, that " the rider will fall backward,"* and Moses says, that " the horse and his rider have been thrown into the sea." We must say, therefore, that that which is thrown into the sea is the Egyptian disposition, which indeed flies and escapes under the water, that is to say, under the advance of the passions. But the rider who falls backwards is not one of the persons who loves to yield to the passions : and the proof is, that Moses calls the one the horseman Qt-tivs), and the other the rider (amlSdrrn). Now it is the business of the horseman to subdue the horse, and when he resists the rein to make him tractable ; but it is the part of the rider to be conveyed wherever the animal carries him, and in the sea it is the office of the pilot to guide the ship, and to keep it straight, and to preserve it in the right course ; but it is the part of the sailor to endure all that happens to the ship. And in reference to this the horseman who subdues the passions is not drowned in the sea, but dismounting from them awaits the salvation of the master.

Accordingly, the word of God in Leviticus recommends men " to feed on those creeping things which go on four feet, and which have legs above their feet, so that they are able to leap with them;"t among which are the locust, and the attacus, and the acris.J and in the fourth place the serpent-fighter; and very properly ; for if pleasure, like a serpent, is an unpi'ofitable and pernicious thing, then the nature which contends against pleasure must be a most profitable and saving thing, and this is temperance. Fight thou then, 0 my mind, against every passion, and especially against pleasure, for " the serpent is the most subtle of all the beasts that are upon the earth, which the Lord God has made." And of all the passions the most mischievous is pleasure. Why so? Because all things are the slaves of pleasui'e ; and because the life of the wicked is governed by pleasure as by a master.

Accordingly, the things which are the ef&cient causes of pleasure are found to be full of all wickedness : gold and silver, and glory and honours, ± These are different kinds of locusts. and powers and the objects of the outward senses, and the mechanical arts, and all other things which cause pleasure, being Yery various, and all injurious to the soul; and there are no sins without extreme wickedness ; therefore do thou aiTay against it the wisdom which contends with serpents ; and struggle in this most glorious struggle, and labour to win the crown in the contest against pleasure, which subdues every one else ; winning a noble and glorious crown, such as no assembly of men can confer.

" And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the Paradise."* A doctrine is introduced here which teaches us that the wicked man is inclined to run away. For the proper city of wise men is virtue, and he who is incapable of becoming a partaker in that is driven from his city ; and no bad man is capable of becoming a partaker of it ; therefore the bad man alone is driven away and becomes a banished man. But he who is banished from virtue is at once concealed from the face of God, for if the wise men are visible to God, inasmuch as they are dear to him, it follows plainly that the wicked are all concealed from him, and enveloped in darkness, as being enemies and adversaries to right reason. Now that the wicked man is destitute of a city and destitute of a home, Moses testifies in speaking of that hairy man who was also a man of varied wickedness, Esau, when he says, "

But Esau was skilful in hunting, and a rude man."t For it is not natural for vice which is inclined to be subservient to the passions to inhabit the city of virtue, inasmuch as it is devoted to the pursuit of inideness and ignorance, with great folly. But Jacob, who is full of wis- • Genesis viii. 8. t Genesis xxv. 27. dom, is both a citizen and one who dwells in a house, that is to say, in virtue. Accordingly Moses says of him, " But Jacob is a man without guile, dwelling in a house ; " On which account also " the midwives, since they feared God made themselves houses. ''* For they, being inclined to seek out the secret mysteries of God, one of which was that the male children should be preserved alive, build up the actions of virtue, in which they had previously determined to dwell. Accordingly, in this account it is shown how the wicked man is destitute of a city and destitute of a home : inasmuch as he is an exile from virtue, but that the virtuous man has a city and is allotted a home, namely wisdom.

And let us in the next place consider how any one is said to be concealed from God ; but unless any one receives this as an allegorical saying it would be impossible to comprehend what is here stated. For God has completed eveiything and has penetrated every thing, and has left no one of all his works empty or deserted. What kind of place then can any one occupy in which God is not ? And Moses testifies to this in other passages, when he says, " God is in the heaven above, and in the earth beneath ; and there is nothing anywhere but he."t And in another place he speaks in this manner, " I stood here before you did." J For God is of older date than any created being, and he will be everywhere, so that it cannot be possible for any one to be concealed from him : and what need we wonder at ?

For even if any thing were to happen to us we should not be able to escape the notice of, and to conceal om'selves from the most elementary of created things ; for instance, let any one try to flee from the earth, or the water, or the air, or the heaven, or the entire universe, and he will fail; for it is impossible but what he must be contained in these things, for no one will be able to flee out of the world. Again how could any man who is unable to conceal himself from the parts of the world, and from the whole world itself, be able to escape the notice of God? He never could do so. What then is the meaning of the expression, " they hid themselves ?" The bad man thinks that God is in a certain place, not surrounding it, but being surrounded by it. On which account also he thinks that he can conceal himself from him, as if God were without any prevailing reason at a distance from ttiat part of the world in which he has determined to lurk.

And we must understand this in the following manner. In the wicked man the true opinion concerning God is overshadowed and kept out of sight, for he is full of darkness, having no divine irradiation, by means of which he may be able to contemplate things as they are. And such a man is a fugitive from the divine company just as a leper is or a man with any other impure disease, the one bringing together into the same place God and Creation, two opposite natures of two different complexions, as the causes of things, when there is really but one cause, the great Creator ; and the other, a man afflicted with a foul disease, believing that everything is created from the world, and again is dissolved into the world, but thinliing that nothing has been created by God, being a follower of the doctrine of Heraclitus introduces covetousness and indigence, and one universe, and all Idnds of things alternately. In reference to which the Holy Scripture says "

Let them send forth from the holy soul every leper, and eveiy one afflicted with foul disease, and eveiy one who is impure in his soul, both male and female, and all mutilated persons, and all these wlio are emasculated, and all whoremongers,"* men who flee fi'om the authority of one God, and who are expressly forbidden " to come into the assembly of God ;" t but wise reasons are not only not concealed, but are even eager to manifest themselves. Do you not see that Abraham was still standing in the place of the Lord, and coming near to him said " do not then destroy the righteous with the impious, " J him who is manifest to you and well known by you, with him who flees from you and seeks to escape your notice, for he indeed is impious, but the righteous man is one who stands before you and does not flee. For it is right indeed master that you alone shoidd be honoured, but it does not follow that as an impious man is discovered so also is a pious man ; but it is sufficient if he is just. On which account he says " do not then destroy the righteous with the wicked."

For not even one single man on earth honours God in a worthy manner, but only according to righteousness. For when it is not possible for a man to exhibit due gratitude even to his parents, for it is impossible for him to become their parents in his turn ; how can it be anything but absolutely impossible adequately to requite God, or worthily to praise him who created the whole universe out of things that had no previous existence. " For God made all virtue." VI. Be thou therefore 0 my soul in all your entirety always visible to God, for three separate times, that is to say for time divided according to a tlii'eefold division ; not drawing after ,you the female passion arising from external sensation, but offering up to him manly thought, the eucourager to and practiser of persevering courage. " For at three seasons of the year every male must appear before the Lord the God of Israel"* this is the injunction of the holy scriptures.

On this account Moses when he appears to God in visible form, flees from the dispersing disposition, that is from Pharaoh, wbo boasts, saying, that he does not know the Lord, "for Moses," says he, " retreated from the presence of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of jMidian"t that is to say, being interpreted, in the judgment of the nature of things ; and sat down upon a well, waiting to see what good which might be drank in God would rain upon his thirsting and eager soul. Accordingly he retreats from the impious opinion which is the mistress of the passions, namely from Pharaoh ; and he retreats into Midian, that is to say into judgment, considering anxiously whether he ought to live in tranquil inactivity or whether he ought again to contend with that wicked man to his own destruction. And he considers whether if he attacks him he shall be able to gain the victory, from which consideration he restrains himself waiting, as I have already said, to see if God will give to his deep and not frivolous consideration, a fountain sufficient to wash away the impetuosity of the king of Egypt, that is to say of liis own passions.

And he is thought worthy of grace, for having fought the good fight in behalf of virtue he never ceases from warring till he sees the pleasures overthrown and baulked of their object. And with this view Moses does not flee from Pharaoh, for if he had done so he would have fled without returning ; but withdraws for a time, that is to say he makes a truce from the war, after the fashion of a wrestler who seeks a respite and collects his breath again, until, having aroused the alliance of prudence and the other virtues he attacks his enemy once more, by divine reason, -with tlie most vigorous power.

But ■lacob, for he is a supplanter, having acquired virtue by regular system and discipHne, not without hard labour, for his name had not as yet been changed to Israel, " fled from the affairs of labour*" that is to say from colours and figures, and in short from bodies the nature of which is to wound the soul through the objects of outward sense ; for since, when he was present, he could not entirely and utterly subdue them, he lied, fearing to be subdued by them. And he is very worthy uf praise for so doing ; for " says Moses you will make the hiidren of Israel cautious,f " but not bold, or covetous of those things, which do not belong to them.

" And Jacob concealed himself from Laban the Syrian, in that he told him not that he was about to flee from him, md he fled from him, taking with him all that he had, and he crossed the river, and proceeded towards the Mount Gilead." It was most natural for him to conceal that he was about to flee, and not to inform Laban, who was a man depending wholly on thoughts such as arise from the outward senses, just as if you have seen some excellent beauty and are chai'med with it, and are likely to be led into error in respect of it, you should privily flee from the imagination of it, and never tell it to your mind, that is to say, never think of it again nor give it any consideration, for continued recollections of anything are not without making some distinct impression, and injure the intellect and turn it out of the right way, even against its will. And the same reasoning applies to all temptations which arise in respect of any one of the external senses, for in all such cases secret flight is the preserver from danger.

But to keep recalling the temptation to one's mind, and to talk of it and dweU upon it subdues and enslaves the reason by force. Do not these then ever, O my mind, report to yourself any object of outward sense that has been seen by you, if you are likely to be led away captive by it, and do not dwell on it, in order that you may not become niiserable by being subdued by it, but rather, while you are stiU free, rise up and flee, preferring untamed liberty to slavery and subjection to a master,

But why now, as if Jacob had been ignorant that Laban was a Syrian, does Moses say, " And Jacob concealed himself from Laban the Syrian." This expression, however, has a reason in it which is not superfluous ; for the name Syria, being interpreted, means high.

Jacob, therefore, being an experienced man, that is to say, being mind, when he sees passion low and powerless, abides it, thinking that he shall be able to subdue it by force : but wlaen he beholds it high, and bearing its neck haughtily, and full of arrogance, then experienced mind flees first, and afterwards the other parts of his experience do also flee, namely reading, meditation, care, the recollection of what is honourable, temperance, the energy in pursuit of what is becoming ; and so he crosses over the river of the objects affecting the outward senses, which wash over and threaten to submerge the soul by the impetuosity of the passions, and having crossed over he proceeds towards the high and lofty reason of perfect virtue ; for " he proceeded towards the Mount of Gilead ;" and Gilead being interpreted means the migration of testimony, since God caused the soul to migrate from the passions which surrounded Laban, and bore witness to it, that it should migrate and receive another settlement, because it was profitable and expedient, and conducted it onwards from the evils calculated to render the soul base, and seeking the things that are^on the earth, to the height and magnitude of virtue.

On this account Laban, the friend of the outward senses, and one who energised according to them and not according to his mind, is indignant, and pursues after him and says, " why did you flee from me secretly, and not remain for the enjoyment of your soul, and for the opinions which judge concerning the body and the external good things of the world ?" But in fleeing from this opinion you have despoiled me also of my prudence, Leah and Eachel ; for they, when they remained in the soul created, prudence in it, but now that they have departed they have left it ignorance and inexperience." On which account he adds, " You have stripped me," that is to say, you have robbed me of my prudence.

And what that prudence was he will proceed to tell us, for he adds, " And you have led away my daughters as captives ; and if you had told me, I would myself have sent you away."* You would not have sent away things which were at variance vdih one another, for if you had sent them away really, and had emancipated the soul, you would have removed from it all bodily sounds, and such as affect the outward senses ; for in this way the intellect is emancipated fi'om evils and passions. But now you say that you send it away free, but by your actions you confess that you woidd have retained it in a prison ; for if you had sent it on its way with musical instruments, and drums and harps, and all the pleasures which affect the outward senses, you would not in reality have released it at all ; for it is not you then only from whom we are fleeing, 0 Laban, thou companion of bodies and colours, but we are also escaping from everything that is thine, in which the voices of the outward senses sound in harmony with the energies of the passions.

For we, if at least we are practisers of virtue, have meditated a very necessary meditation, which Jacob also meditated, namely, to overthrow and destroy those gods who are hostile to the soul, gods made by hands, gods whom Moses forbade the people to make ;* and these gods are the destruction of virtue and of a good state of the passions, but the consolidation and confirmation of vice and the appetites ; for that metal which is cast, after it has been fused, is soon consolidated again,

But Moses speaks thus, " And they gave to Jacob the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears ; and Jacob hid them under the turpentine tree which was in Shechem.'""!' These are the gods of the wicked, but Jacob is not said to have taken them, but to have concealed and destroyed them, for every case being most accurately described, for the virtuous man will take nothing from wickedness for his own advantage, but will conceal all such things and destroy them secretly. Just us Abraham tells the king of Sodom, when he was proposing to give liim things of irrational nature in exchange for rational animals, namely, horses in exchange for men, " that he would take nothing that belonged to him, but that he would stretch out " the action of his soul," which, speaking symbolically, he called " his hand," to the most high God ;| " for that he had not taken from a thread even to a shoe-latchet of all that was his (the king of Sodom's), in order that the king might never say that he had made the discerning man," namely Abraham, " rich," exchanging poverty for wealthy virtue.

I The passions are always concealed and guarded in Shechem ; and the name Shechem being interpreted means " the shoulder;'' for he who labours concerning pleasures is inclined to preserve them. But the passions are concealed and destroyed by the wise man, and that too not for a brief space of time, but up to this present day, that is to say, for ever, for all time is measured by the present day, for the cycle of one day is the measui'e of all time. On which account Jacob gives Joseph Shechem,* as an especial portion beyond the rest of his brethren, meaning thereby the bodily things which are the objects of the outward senses, since he had gone through labour in respect of them ; but to Judah the confessor he gave not presents but praise, and hymns and divine songs, in which he should be celebrated by his brethren.

And Jacob did not receive Shechem as a gift from God, but he took it with his sword and with his bow, that is to say, by words, which had the power of cutting and repelling ; for the wise man subjects all secondary things to himself, and when he has so subjected them he does not retain them, but makes a present of them to him who is by nature adapted to them. Do you not see that also, when he appeared to take the gods, he did not take them, but concealed them and put them out of the way, and destroyed them out of his sight for ever.

Now to what soul could it have happened to conceal vice and to put it out of the way, except to that soul to which God was revealed, and which he considered worthy to receive the revelation of his unspeakable mysteries ? For he says, " shall I hide from Abraham my son that thing which I am doing ?"•{• Well done, O Saviour, in that thou showest thy works to the soul which desires good things, and has concealed from it no one of thy works : and by reason of this conduct of thine he is able to avoid evil, and to conceal it and keep it out of sight, and to destroy for ever the passions wliich are injurious.

We have shown, therefore, in what manner the wicked man is a fugitive, and how he conceals himself from God ; but now let us consider where he conceals himself. " In the middle," says Moses, " of the trees of the garden ;"J that is to say, in the middle of the mind, which again is itself the centre of the whole soul, as the trees are of the garden. For the man who escapes from God flees to himself, for, since there are two things, the mind of the universe, which is God, and also the separate mind of each individual, he who escapes from the mind which is in himself flees to the mind of the universe ; and conversely, he who forsakes his own individual mind, confesses that all the things of the human mind are of no value, and attributes everything to God ; again, he who seeks to escape from God asserts, by so doing, that God is not the cause of anything, but looks upon himself as the cause of everything that exists.

At all events it is affirmed by many people, that everything in the world is borne on spontaneously \vithout any guide or governor, and that the human mind, by its own single power, has invented arts and pursuits, and laws and customs, and all the principles of political and individual, and common justice, with reference both to men and to irrational animals. But dost thou not see, 0 soul, the unreasonable character of these opinions? For one of them having the particular mind, which was created and which is mortal, does in reality ascribe it to the mind of the universe, which is uncreated and immortal : and the other again, repudiating God, most inconsistently drags forward, as an ally, that mind which is unable even to assist itself.

On this account also Moses says, that " If a thief be detected in the act of breaking into a house, and be smitten so that he die, that shall not be imputed as murder to him who has smitten him ; but if the sun be risen upon him, then he is liable, and shall die in retaliation."* For if any one cuts down and destroys that reason which stands upright and is sound and correct, which testifies to God that he alone is able to do everything, and is found in the act of breaking in upon it, that is to say, standing over this reason thus wounded and destroyed, and who recognises his own mind as energising, and not God, is a tliief, taking away what belongs to others, for all things belong to God ; so he who attributes anything to himself is taking away what belongs to another, and receives a very severe blow and one difficult to heal, namely, arrogance, a thing nearly akin to imprudence and ignorance. But he says nothing as to the name of him who has smitten him, for the smiter is not a different person from him who is smitten. • Exodus xsiL 2.

T f* But as a man who rubs himself is likewise a person who is rubbed, and as he who stretches himself out is also the person who is streched out, for he himself both exerts the power of the agent, and also fills the part of the patient. In like manner is he, who steals the things which belong to God, and attributes them to himself, subjected to the tortures of his own impiety and arrogance. Would that the man so stricken might die, that is to say might perish before he had succeeded in his objects, for then he will appear to be less sinful, for of vice one kind is discerned in habit, and another kind in motion ; but the one which is discerned in motion has an inclination towards the perfecting of its operation, on which account it is more mischievous than the one which is discerned only in habit.

If therefore the mind, which imagines itself and not God to be the cause of things, dies, that is to say, becomes inactive and contracts itself, then there is no cause of death in it ; it has not absolutely destroyed the living opinion, which attributes all power, and all exertion of power to God, but if the Sun rises, that is to say the mind which appears brilliant in us, and if it appears to see through everything and to judge everything, and not to flee from itself, it then becomes liable to death, and shall die in retaliation for the living doctrine which it has destroyed ; according to which God alone is the cause of everything, being found to be wholly unable to effect any good purpose, and to be truly dead in as much as it has shown itself the interpreter of a lifeless and dead and departed doctrine.

And it is in reference to this that the Holy Scripture curses " any one who has placed in any secret place any carved thing, or any thing made of cast metal, the work of the hands of an artist."* Bor why, 0 mind, do you store and treasure up within yourself depraved opinions, that God is a being of such and such qualities, (he who has no distinctive qualities) like a carved work ; or that he who is imperishable is perishable like images that are cast in the foundry ; and why do you not rather bring them forward openly that you may learn what is right from men who practise the truth? For you think that you are endowed with some great skill because you have devised absurd opinions imposing upon you by an appearance of probability, in opposition to the truth : but in reality you ai'e proved to be destitute of skill, in as much as you are unwilling to be healed of that terrible disease of the soul, ignorance,

But that the wicked man sinks into and is concealed within his own scattered mind, fleeing from the real mind or truth, is testified by Moses " who smote the Egyptian and buried him in the sand,"* the meaning of which is that he by his arguments convinced him who asserted that the good things of the body were the most excellent, and who thouoht that the good things of the soul were of no value, and who likewise esteemed the pleasures as the end of life. For when he had comprehended the labour of him who beholds God, which the king of Egypt had imposed on him, (and by the king of Egypt is meant vice, which is the guide of the passions) he sees an Egyptian man, that is to say human passions operating at a seasonable moment, beating and insulting the man who beholds God, and looking round upon the whole soul on this side and on that side, and seeing no one standing by except the true God, and eveiything else in a state of confusion and disorder, having stricken down and convicted the lover of pleasure, he hides him in the dispersed and agitated mind, which is deprived of all kindred with and comprehension of what is good. This man then is hidden in himself, but the man who is opposite to him escapes from himself, and flees to the God of all existing tilings,

On which account Moses says moreover, " He led liim forth out of doors and said to him, look up to heaven, and count the stars, "t which we should be glad indeed to see thoroughly and to comprehend ; since we are insatiable in our love for notice, but nevertheless we are unable to measure the riches of God. Nevertheless thanks be to that magnificent and bounteous God because he says that he has implanted in the soul seeds as brilliant, as visible at a distance, and as eternally new as the stars in heaven. And it is not a superfluous addition when after having said " he led him forth," he subjoins "out of doors," for who is ever led forth in doors? But perhaps what he says here has some such meaning as this ; he led him forth into the outermost place, not into some place or other out of doors, which might he surrounded bj other places. For as in dwelling houses the man's character is outside the woman's chamber, and the inner chamber is within, and the vestibule is outside of the hall but within the doorway, so also in the case of the soul that which is within one thing may be outside of some other thing.

This then is the sense in which we must understand this passage ; he led the mind forth into the outermost place, for what was the use of his leaving the body and fleeing to the outward senses ; and what would have been the use of his discarding the outward senses, and subjecting that which exists to the voice ? For it is fitting that the mind which is about to be led forth, and to be dismissed in freedom should be emancipated from all corporeal necessities, from all the organs of the outward senses, from all sophistical ratiocinations, and plausible persuasions, and last of all from itself.

On which account in another passage also he boasts, saying " the Lord the God of Heaven, and the God of earth who took me out of the house of my father."* For it is not possible for one who dwells in the body and belongs to the race of mortals to be united with God, but he alone can be so whom God delivers from that prison house of the body. On which account also, that joy of the soul, Isaac, when he is conversing and discoursing pi'ivately with God, comes forth forsaking himself and his own mind, for he says, " Come forth, 0 Isaac, to converse in the plain towards evening, "f and Moses, that word of prophecy, says, "When I go fortli from the city," that is from my soul, (for the soul is the city of the living creature, in as much as it is the soul which gives it its laws and customs), " I will stretch forth my hands,"J and I will reveal and unfold all my actions to God, invoking him as a witness and inspector of every one of them, from whom it is impossible by its own nature that vice should be hidden, but to whom it must be unfolded and by whom it must be clearly discerned.

When therefore the soul is made manifest in all its sayings and doings, and is made a partaker of the divine nature, the voices of the external senses are reduced to silence, and so likewise are all troublesome and ill-omened sounds, for the objects of sight often speak loudly and invite the sense of sight to themselves ; and so do voices invite the sense of hearing; scents invite the smell, and altogether^each varied object of sense invites its appropriate sense. But all these things are put at rest when the mind going forth out of the city of the soul, attributes all its own actions and conceptions to God. XV. " For the hands of Moses are heavy.* " For since the actions of the wicked man are like the wind and light, those of the wise man on the other hand are heavy and immoveable, and not easily shaken ; in reference to which his hands are held up by Aaron, who is reason, or by Ur, who is light. Now of all existing things there is nothing clearer tlian the truth ; therefore Moses intends here to signify by a symbolical form of expression, that the actions of the wise man are supported by the most necessary of all qualities, reason and truth.

On this account also, when Aaron dies, that is to say, when the truth is completely asserted, he ascends up to Ur,t that is to say, to Light ; for the proper end of reason is truth, which is more visible than any light, and to it reason is always striving to come. Do you not see that also when he received the tabernacle from God, and this tabernacle is wisdom, in which the wise man tabernacles and, dwells, he fixed it firmly and founded and built it up strongly, not in the body but out of it ; for he likens this to an encampment, to a camp I say full of wars and of all the evils which war causes, and which has no portion with peace. " And it was called the tabernacle of testimony ;"| that is to say wisdom was borne witness to by God. For every one who seeks the Lord went forth out of his house. And this is well said.

For if you seek God, 0 my mind, go forth out of yourself, and so seek for him ; but if you remain in the substance of the body, or in the vain opinions of the mind, you are then without any real wish to search into divine things, even if you do put on the appearance and pretence of seeking them. If when you search you will find God, is uncertain ; for there have been many persons to whom he has not revealed himself, but they have expended a vain labour all their time. But the mere act of seeking for him is sufficient to entitle you to a participation in good things, for the desire for what is good, even if it fails in attaining the end which it seeks, does at all events always gladden the heart of those who cherish it. Thus the wicked man who flees from virtue, and who seeks to conceal himself from God, flees to a powerless ally, that is his own mind, but the good man on the contrary seeking to escape from himself turns to the knowledge of the one God, and is victorious in the honourable race, and in that contest which is of all the most excellent. 10.

"And the Lord God called Adam, and said unto him, where art thou?"* Why now is Adam, alone called, when his wife also was concealed together with him ? In the first place we must say that the mind is summoned, and asked where it is. When it is converted, and reproved for its offence, not only is it summoned itself but all its faculties are also summoned, for without its faculties the mind by itself is found to be naked, and to be absolutely nothing, and one of its faculties is also the outward sense, that is to say the wmnan. The woman therefore, that is the outward sense is also summoned together with Adam, that is the mind, but separately God does not summon her. Why not? Because being destitute of reason she is incapable of being convicted by herself. For neither can sight, nor hearing, nor any one of the other external senses be taught, and moreover none of them are capable of receiving the comprehension of things ; for the Creator has not made them capable of distinguishing anything but bodies only. But the mind is able to receive teaching : on account of which fact God calls that, but not the external senses. 17. And the expression "Where art thou?

"admits of being interpreted in many ways. In the first place it may be taken not as an interrogation, but as an affirmation, equivalent to the words " You are somewhere," if you alter the accent on the particle tou "where." For, since you have thought that God was walking in the garden, and was surrounded by it, learn now that in this you were mistaken, and hear from God who knows all things that most true statement that God is not in any one place. For he is not surrounded by anything, but he does himself surround everything. For that which is created \! is in place ; for it is inevitable that it must be surrounded, and not be the thing which surrounds. In the second place, that which is said is equivalent to this. Where hast thou been, 0 soul ? AVhat evils has thou chosen instead of what good things ? When God invited you to a participation in virtue, have you pursued vice? And when he offered to you for your enjoyment the tree of life, that is to say the tree of wisdom by which you might live, have you hastened into ignorance and to destruction, preferring misery, the death of the soul to the happiness of eternal life ?