On the Creation

Philo of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

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.

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