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