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