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