On the Migration of Abraham

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

"And the Lord said to Abraham: Go out from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed. And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse, and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:1-3).

Wishing to purify the human soul, God first gives it, as a starting point toward complete salvation, migration from three places: the body, sense-perception, and spoken reason. For the land, as it happens, is a symbol of the body; kindred, of sense-perception; and the father's house, of reason.

Why is this? Because the body took its composition from the earth and is dissolved back into the earth again—Moses is witness to this when he says, "You are earth, and to earth you shall go" (Genesis 3:19); for he says that it was molded as clay into human form when God shaped it, and what is bound must necessarily be released back into the elements it was bound from. Sense-perception, on the other hand, is kin and sibling to the mind—the irrational to the rational—since both are parts of one soul. And reason is the house of the father, because our father is the mind, sowing into each of the parts its own powers and distributing to them its activities, having taken up the care and oversight of them all; and the house in which it dwells, set apart from the rest of the dwelling, is reason. For just as the hearth belongs to the man, so speech is the dwelling-place of the mind.

The mind, at any rate, displays itself and whatever thoughts it begets, arranging and ordering them as in a house, in speech. Do not be surprised that he has called the reason of the mind, in a human being, a house; for he says that the mind of the universe, God himself, also has his own Logos as a house.

Grasping the vision of this house, the ascetic openly confesses: "This is nothing other than the house of God" (Genesis 28:17). This is equivalent to saying: the house of God is not one of the things that come into visibility or that fall under sense-perception at all; it is invisible, formless, apprehended by soul alone, as soul.

Who, then, could this be but the reason older than all things that have come into being—the reason which, taken hold of as though it were a rudder, the pilot of the universe grips to steer all things, using it as an instrument when he was fashioning the cosmos, for the faultless constitution of the things brought to completion?

We have now shown that by "land" he hints at the body, by "kindred" at sense-perception, and by "father's house" at reason. As for essence: since the command, taken literally, would proclaim death, it is instead equivalent to saying, "be alienated in your judgment; held fast by none of them, stand above them all; they are subject to you—never treat them as your rulers."

Being a king, you were born to rule and not to be ruled; know yourself for your whole life, as Moses too teaches in many places when he says, "Attend to yourself" (Exodus 34:12). For in this way you will perceive both those whom it is fitting for you to obey and those over whom it is fitting for you to command.

Go out, then, from what is earthly about you—that utterly polluted thing, my friend—escaping the body as a prison, and from its pleasures and desires, which are like the guards of that prison, with all your might and every power, leaving out nothing that would harm them, but drawing yourself up against all of it at once, together, in a body.

Go out also from kindred sense-perception. For now you have lent yourself to each of the senses and have become estranged, having thrown away your own good, the good you had lent out. And you know that even if everyone else were silent, your eyes and ears, and the whole crowd of your household, lead you toward the things dear to themselves.

But if you should wish to recover your own loans and to wrap yourself in your own possession, dividing and alienating no part of it, you will lay claim to a life of blessedness, forever harvesting the use and enjoyment not of things foreign to you but of your own goods.

But you must also migrate away from spoken reason, which he named the father's house, so that, deceived by the beauties of words and names, you may not be divided off from the beauty that pertains to truth—the beauty that is found in the things being signified. For it is out of place to be carried along further by a shadow of bodies or an imitation of archetypes; for interpretation resembles a shadow and an imitation, while the natures of the things being interpreted resemble bodies and archetypes. Whoever aims at being, rather than at seeming to be, must cling to those natures, settling apart from the shadows.

So then, whenever the mind begins to know itself and to converse with intelligible truths, it will thrust away, all at once, the part of the soul that inclines toward the sensible form, which among the Hebrews is called Lot. For this reason the sage is introduced saying, quite openly: "Separate yourself from me" (Genesis 13:9). For it is impossible for one possessed by love of the bodiless and incorruptible to live together with one who inclines toward the sensible and the mortal.

Most beautifully, then, the hierophant wrote up one whole sacred book of the Law under the fitting title "Exodus" for the oracles it contains. For being an educator, and most ready to admonish and bring to soundness of mind all those capable of being admonished and made sound, he intends to remove the whole people of the soul out of the land of Egypt—the body—and away from its inhabitants, considering it the harshest and heaviest burden of all for the mind capable of vision to be pressed down by the pleasures of the flesh and made to serve whatever commands the pitiless desires give.

These people, then, having groaned and wept many tears over their bodily prosperity and the unstinting abundance of external goods—for it is said that "the sons of Israel groaned because of their labors" (Exodus 2:23)—God, being gracious, guides the way concerning the exodus, and his prophet delivers them.

But there are those who, right up to their death, kept up their libations to the body, and were buried, so to speak, in a coffin or a chest or whatever else one might call it, as though embalmed in it. Of these people, whatever parts were body-loving and passion-loving are consigned to oblivion and buried; but if anything virtue-loving happened to grow alongside, it is preserved in memory, through which noble things are naturally kindled back to life.

The bones of Joseph, at any rate—I mean the only incorruptible and memorable forms left behind of so great a soul—are what the sacred word takes care to preserve (Genesis 50:25), judging it out of place for the pure to be yoked together with the impure.

These are the memorable things: to believe that "God will visit" the seeing race (Genesis 50:24), and that he will not surrender it forever to blind Fate, its mistress, but will instead discern the mortal parts of the soul from the incorruptible—leaving behind in Egypt, as mortal, everything that concerns bodily pleasures and the other excesses of passion, while making a solemn pledge concerning the incorruptible parts, so that they may be carried up together with those ascending into the cities of virtue, and confirming that pledge with an oath.

What, then, are the incorruptible things? Estrangement from pleasure, which says, "let us lie together" (Genesis 39:7) and "let us enjoy human goods"; the shrewdness joined with endurance, by which he discerns and distinguishes the things reckoned goods by empty opinion, as though they were dreams... confessing that the true and clear interpretations of events belong to God (Genesis 40:8), while the obscure and unclear appearances belong to the wandering and still-unpurified life of men steeped in vanity, a life that delights in the pleasures provided by bakers and cooks and cupbearers—the refusal to be subject to it,

but instead to be recorded as ruler of all Egypt, the region of the body (Genesis 41:41); to take pride in being of the race of the Hebrews (Genesis 40:15), whose custom it is to migrate from the sensible to the intelligible—for "Hebrew" is interpreted as "one who crosses over"; to declare with dignity, "here I have done nothing" (ibid.)—for to have accomplished none of the things eagerly pursued here among the base, but to have hated and turned away from all of it, is no small thing to be praised for—

to mock the desires and the excesses of every passion; to fear God (Genesis 42:18), even if one has not yet become capable of loving him; to lay claim, while in Egypt, to the true life—wherefore the one who sees, marveling (and indeed it was a thing worthy of astonishment), says: "It is a great thing to me, if my son Joseph still lives" (Genesis 45:28)—not that he had died along with empty opinions and the corpse-bearing body—

to confess that he "belongs to God" (Genesis 50:19), and to none of the things that have come into being; to be recognized by his brothers, so as to shake and stir all the ways of those who love the body and who suppose they stand firmly upon their own doctrines, and to drive them out by force (Genesis 45:1-2); to say that he was sent not by men but was appointed by God (Genesis 45:7-8) to the lawful oversight of the body and of external things,

and many other things of the same kind besides, belonging to a better and more sacred order: not to endure dwelling in Egypt, the house of the body, nor to be buried at all in a chest, but, having departed entirely from everything mortal, to follow the lawgiver, reason, Moses, as guide,

for he is the nurse and rearer of noble deeds, words, and counsels, which, even if they should at times be overpowered by their opposites because of the confused mixture inherent in what is mortal, he nonetheless comes and separates out once more, so that the seeds and shoots of nobility may not vanish and be lost forever.

And he exhorts, with great vigor, to abandon the mother that gives birth to every kind of disorder—not delaying and lingering, but moving with the utmost speed. For he says it is necessary to sacrifice the Passover in haste (Exodus 12:11), which, when interpreted, means "crossing over," so that the mind, employing an undoubting resolve and unremitting eagerness, may make its crossing away from the passions without ever turning back, together with its thanksgiving to God the savior, who set it free for liberty when it had not even hoped for it.

And why do we wonder, if he urges the one held fast in the grip of an irrational passion not to yield nor be swept along by the rush of its current, but to resist and force it back, or, if he cannot, to flee? For flight is a second path to safety for those unable to defend themselves — this even in the case of one who is by nature a fighter and has never become a slave to the passions, but is always contending in the contests against each of them: he is not permitted to wrestle to the very end, lest by continual engagement with them he draw upon himself a grievous doom from them. For many by now have become imitators of the very vice they opposed, just as others, on the contrary, have become imitators of virtue.

Hence such an oracle was given: "Return to the land of your father and to your kindred, and I will be with you" (Gen. 31:3) — equivalent to saying: you have become a perfect athlete, and have been deemed worthy of prizes and crowns, since virtue herself sets them out and holds forth to you the rewards of victory; now put an end at last to your love of contention, so that you need not toil forever, but may also be able to enjoy the fruits of what you have toiled for.

But this you will never find while you remain here, still dwelling with the objects of sense-perception and lingering among bodily qualities, of which Laban is the ruling type — for that is what his name means, "quality" — but you must become a migrant to the ancestral land of the sacred word, and in a sense to the father of those in training; and this land is wisdom, the best dwelling-place for souls that love virtue.

In this country you also have a lineage that is self-taught, self-instructed, having no share in infant and milky nourishment, forbidden by a divine oracle to go down into Egypt (Gen. 26:2) and to consort with the pleasures of the flesh that lure us — I mean the one surnamed Isaac.

Once you have received his inheritance, you will necessarily lay aside toil; for abundance of things ready to hand and good at hand is the cause of freedom from toil. And the spring from which good things rain down is companionship with the God who gives freely; for this reason, sealing the promise of his benefits, he says, "I will be with you."

What good thing, then, could be lacking when the God who brings all to completion is present, together with the Graces, his virgin daughters, whom their father begets undefiled and unstained and rears as maidens? Then studies and toils and exercises come to rest, and, without need of art, by the providence of nature everything beneficial is bestowed all at once, and on all.

And this outpouring of self-generated goods is called a "release," since the mind is released from the activities that follow its own private undertakings, and is freed, as it were, from voluntary acts, because of the abundance of things rained upon it that pour down without cease.

These things are by nature most wonderful and most beautiful. For whatever the soul labors to bring forth by itself is, for the most part, miscarried and born before its time; but whatever God waters with his own shower is perfect and whole and comes to birth as the best of all things.

I am not ashamed to relate my own experience, which I have known times without number. There have been occasions when I intended, according to my custom, to set down my thoughts on philosophical doctrines, and though I knew well what needed to be put together, I found my mind barren and sterile, and went away having accomplished nothing, reproaching myself for my presumption, but struck with awe at the power of Being, by whom the wombs of the soul are opened and closed.

And there have been times when I came empty and suddenly became full, thoughts being showered and sown upon me invisibly from above, so that under divine possession I was seized with a kind of frenzy and knew nothing — neither the place, nor those present, nor myself, nor what was being said, nor what was being written. For then I obtained, I might almost say, a flow of interpretation, an enjoyment of light, a most keen-sighted vision, a most vivid clarity of the subject-matter, such as might come through the eyes from the clearest demonstration.

Now that which is thus shown is worthy to be seen, worthy to be beheld, worthy to be loved — the perfect good, and its nature is to turn the bitterness of the soul into sweetness, the finest seasoning of all delights, through which even things that give no nourishment become saving food. For it is said, "The Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water" (Exod. 15:25) — meaning the mind that was dissolved and flabby and full of bitterness, so that once sweetened it might be tamed.

And this tree promises not only nourishment but immortality; for it says that the tree of life was planted in the middle of paradise (Gen. 2:9) — that is, goodness, attended as by bodyguards by the particular virtues and the actions that accord with them; for this occupies the most central and the best place in the soul.

Now the one who sees is the wise man; for the foolish are blind, or have dim sight. For this reason people used to call the prophets "those who see" (1 Kingdoms 9:9); and the lawgiver was eager to give ears in exchange for eyes, that one might see what one had formerly only heard, and so obtain, in place of the portion that comes by hearing, the portion that comes by sight.

For into "Israel, the one who sees," the coin of learning and teaching is reminted — he who was formerly named Jacob — through whom seeing becomes the divine light, indistinguishable from knowledge, which directs the eye of the soul and leads it to apprehensions far clearer and more brilliant than those that come through the ears. For just as through music the things of music are apprehended, and through each art the things within that art, so too through wisdom the wise is contemplated.

Wisdom is not only, like light, an instrument of seeing, but she also sees herself. She is the archetypal radiance of God, of which the sun is an imitation and an image. And the one who shows each thing is God alone, who has knowledge; for men are called knowers only by seeming to know, but God is called knowing in a lesser sense than he truly is by nature, for all the accounts ever framed about him are overpowered by the powers of Being.

He establishes his wisdom not only from the fact that he fashioned the cosmos, but also from the fact that he has founded most securely within himself the knowledge of the things that have come to be;

for it is said, "God saw all that he had made" (Gen. 1:31) — not as though he merely cast a glance upon each thing, but rather that he had a seeing, a knowledge, and a comprehension of what he had made. It is therefore not fitting to guide, teach, and point out particular things to those who are ignorant, except for the one who has knowledge — one who is not benefited by an art as a man is, but is himself acknowledged to be the origin and

source of the arts and the sciences. And with careful precision he did not fix the time of his promise as the present but as the future, saying not "the land I am showing you" but "the land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1), as a testimony to the faith which the soul placed in God — a faith that does not display its gratitude on the basis of results already accomplished, but on the basis of expectation of what is to come;

for the soul that is suspended and hung upon good hope, and, because of the certainty of the one who made the promise, has judged without hesitation that things not yet present are already present, has found faith to be a perfect good, a reward in itself. For it is said again, "Abram believed God" (Gen. 15:6), and likewise to Moses, after showing him the whole land, he says, "I have shown it to your eyes, but you shall not enter there" (Deut. 34:4).

Do not, however, suppose that this was said to belittle the all-wise man, as some of the thoughtless imagine; for it would indeed be foolish to think that slaves partition the territory of virtue before their masters do.

Rather, this is meant to show you, first, that the region of the immature is one thing and that of the perfect another — the one called practice, the other called wisdom; and second, that the finest things in nature are objects to be seen rather than to be possessed. For how could one possess things allotted a more divine portion? Yet to see them is not impossible — though not for everyone; it belongs only to that race which is purest and keenest of sight, to whom, by displaying his own works, the Father of all grants the greatest of all gifts.

For what life is better than the contemplative, or more fitting for a rational being? For this reason, though it is hearing that serves as the judge of the voice of mortal creatures, the divine oracles reveal the words of God as things seen, after the manner of light; for it is said, "the people saw the voice" (Exod. 20:18) — not "heard" it — since what occurred was not a striking of the air by the instruments of mouth and tongue, but a radiance of virtue, most all-encompassing, indistinguishable from a rational spring, which is also indicated elsewhere in this way: "You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven" (Exod. 20:22) — not "you have heard," for the same reason.

And there is a place where he distinguishes things heard from things seen, and hearing from vision, saying: "You heard the sound of words, but you saw no likeness, only a voice" (Deut. 4:12) — a saying of great precision. For the voice that is divided into noun and verb and, in general, into the parts of speech, he rightly called audible, since it is judged by hearing; but the voice that consists not of words or names but is the voice of God, seen by the eye of the soul, he fittingly introduces as visible.

And having first said, "you saw no likeness," he adds, "but only a voice," which you certainly saw — for this is what is implied besides. So the words of God have as their criterion sight, occurring within the soul, while hearing belongs to the words divided into the particular forms of nouns and verbs.

And being an innovator in every branch of knowledge, he has here too made an innovation peculiar and strange, in saying that the voice is visible — the only one among the things within us that is not visible, thought alone being set apart from this rule; for all the things that belong to the other senses are visible — colors, flavors, vapors, hot and cold, smooth and rough, soft and hard — insofar as they are bodies.

But what this means I will explain more clearly. A taste is visible not qua taste, but only qua body—for it is qua taste that taste is known by the sense of taste. And a smell, qua smell, is examined by the nostrils, but qua body, by the eyes as well; and everything else is tested in the same way. But speech is not naturally visible, neither as something heard nor as body, even granting that it is in fact a body. Rather, mind and reason are the two things within us that are invisible.

But indeed our own vocal instrument is not like the divine instrument of voice. For ours mingles with air and takes refuge in its kindred place, the ears; but the divine voice consists of unmixed and unadulterated reason, reaching the hearing by virtue of its fineness, yet seen by a pure soul because of the sharpness of its sight.

So then, after the soul's abandonment of mortal things, God grants it, as I said, the first gift: the display and contemplation of immortal things; and the second is growth both in the multitude and in the greatness of virtue's doctrines. For he says, "And I will make you into a great nation," indicating by "nation" the multitude, and by "great" the growth toward what is better.

The increase of quantity in each of these two respects—in greatness and in multitude—the king of Egypt himself also attests, for he says, "Behold, the race of the sons of Israel is a great multitude" (Exodus 1:9), since both terms testify concerning the race that sees what is, as one who has acquired both multitude and greatness—the successes achieved in life and in reason.

For he did not say, as one preserving the ordinary sequence of words would, "much multitude," but "great," knowing that mere quantity by itself is an incomplete kind of greatness unless it also acquires the power of understanding and knowledge. For what good is it to take in many doctrines, if each of them is not made to grow to its fitting greatness? A field is not complete in which countless low plants exist, but no perfect shoot has grown up alongside them by the farmer's skill, already able to bear fruit.

Of the greatness and multitude of noble things, the beginning and the end is unceasing remembrance of God, and the invoking of the alliance that comes from him against the civil, confused, and unrelenting war of life. For he says: "Behold, a wise and understanding people, this great nation—for what nation is great, to whom God draws near as the Lord our God does in everything we call upon him for?" (Deuteronomy 4:6-7).

So it has been shown that a helping power stands ready at God's side to bring aid, and that the Leader himself draws nearer for the benefit of those worthy to be benefited. Who, then, are worthy to obtain these things? Surely it is clear: all lovers of wisdom and knowledge.

For these are the wise and understanding people he spoke of, each of whom is rightly called great, since each reaches for great things, and above all for one thing beyond measure: not to be separated from the greatest God, but to endure his approach steadily, without being overwhelmed, as he draws near.

This is the definition of the great people: to draw near to God, or "the one to whom God draws near." The wise man, citizen of the world and of the cosmos, is filled with many great goods; but the rest of the human crowd has more evils and fewer goods, for in a mixed and confused life the good is rare.

That is why it is sung in the oracles: "It is not because you outnumber all the other nations that the Lord chose and selected you—for you are the fewest of all nations—but because of the Lord's love for you" (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). For if one wished to divide the crowd within a single soul into nations, so to speak, one would find many disorderly ranks, marshaled by pleasures, desires, griefs, fears, and again by follies and injustices and their kindred and sister vices—but only one rank well ordered, led by right reason.

Among men, then, the unjust majority is preferred to the one just man; but with God, the rare good is preferred to countless unjust men. And he commands that one should never agree with such a multitude: "You shall not side with the many in wrongdoing" (Exodus 23:2). Should one then side with the few? Not even with a single base person—for the base man, though one, is many in his vices, and to be arrayed alongside him is the greatest loss. Rather, it is fitting to resist and make war on him, wielding an undaunted power.

"If," he says, "you go out to war against your enemies and see a horse"—the arrogant, unruly passion that kicks against restraint—"and a rider"—the mind carried along by it—"and a people more numerous than yours"—the zealots who march in formation behind what has just been named—"you shall not be afraid of them"; for though you are one, you will have as your ally the one Leader of all, "because the Lord your God is with you" (Deuteronomy 20:1).

For union with this One overthrows wars, builds up peace, overturns the many familiar evils, and preserves safe the rare race beloved of God—a race that everyone who becomes obedient to it comes to hate and abhor the earthbound throngs.

"For whatever creeping thing that goes upon the earth has many feet," he says, "you shall not eat, for they are abominations" (Leviticus 11). And is not a soul deserving of hatred that walks upon the earth not with one part but with all or most of its parts, licking after the pleasures of the body, and altogether unable to lift its gaze up to the divine circuits of heaven?

And indeed, just as the many-footed is blameworthy among creeping things, so too is the footless—the one for the reason already stated, the other because it has fallen wholly and entirely upon the earth, lifted up by nothing, not even the least bit. For he says that everything that goes upon its belly is unclean (ibid.), hinting at the person who pursues the pleasures of the belly.

Some, going even further, made use not only of the class of desire, but acquired also its sibling passion, anger, wishing to kindle the whole irrational part of the soul and to destroy the mind. For the saying that in word concerns the serpent, but in fact concerns every irrational and passion-loving human being, is truly a divine oracle: "Upon your breast and belly you shall go" (Genesis 3:14); for anger resides around the chest, and the form of desire in the belly.

The fool travels through both—anger and desire—never ceasing for a moment, having cast off the mind, his charioteer and umpire. But the man opposed to him has cut off anger and desire, and has enrolled the divine reason as his pilot, just as Moses, most beloved of God, did—who, when he performs the whole burnt offerings of the soul, "washes out the belly" (Leviticus 8:21), that is, washes away the whole form of desire, and "removes the breast from the ram of consecration" (Leviticus 8:29)—that is, all warlike anger—so that the remaining and better part of the soul, the rational part, with nothing any longer pulling it back and dragging it away, may exercise its truly free and noble impulses toward everything good.

For in this way it will grow in both multitude and greatness; for it is said: "How long will this people provoke me? And how long will they not believe me, despite all the signs I have done among them? I will strike them with a fatal blow and destroy them, and I will make you and your father's house into a nation greater and more numerous than this one" (Numbers 14:11-12). For whenever the great throng within the soul that indulges anger and desire is dissolved, at once, without fail, that which belongs to rational nature rises up and dawns.

Just as the many-footed and the footless, being opposites within the class of creeping things, are both recorded as unclean, so too the atheistic opinion and the polytheistic opinion, opposed to each other within the soul, are both profane. Here is the proof: the Law has driven both out of the sacred assembly, barring the atheistic—likened to the eunuch and the mutilated man—from taking part in the assembly, and likewise forbidding the polytheistic—likened to the child of a prostitute—from hearing or speaking there (Deuteronomy 23:1-2). For the man without offspring is atheistic, while the child of a prostitute is polytheistic, blind as to who his true father is, and so ascribing to himself many parents instead of one.

Two gifts, then, have already been described: the hope of the contemplative life, and growth toward multitude and greatness in noble things. The third is blessing, without which it is not possible to secure the former favors; for he says, "And I will bless you"—that is, "I will grant you praiseworthy reason"; for "well" always belongs to virtue. And reason is of two kinds: the one resembles a spring,

the other a stream flowing from it—the spring being reason within the understanding, and its utterance through mouth and tongue being the outflow. Each form of reason requires much wealth to be improved: the understanding, by being exercised in sound judgment toward all things, small and great alike; and the utterance, by being guided by right education.

For many reason well in their thoughts but are betrayed by a poor interpreter of that reasoning, not having practiced the general education in the arts of speech. Others, conversely, have become most capable interpreters but are utterly poor in deliberation—like those called sophists; for in such men the understanding is unmusical and without harmony, while the channels through their vocal instruments are wholly tuneful.

God grants his subjects nothing incomplete, but everything full and perfect. This is why, even now, he sends the blessing not upon one part of reason alone, but upon both parts together, judging it right that the one benefited should both conceive the best thoughts and be able to declare powerfully what he has conceived; for perfection, it seems, comes through both—through the one who supplies the thoughts purely, and through the one who translates them without stumbling.

Do you not see Abel—whose name means one who mourns mortal things and counts immortal things blessed—how, though he employs a blameless understanding, he is defeated because he has not been trained in arguments, wrestling against Cain, a man able to prevail by skill rather than by strength?

For this reason, while I admire the good fortune of his nature, I fault his manner to this extent: that when challenged to a contest of words, he came forward to compete, when he ought to have stood upon his accustomed calm, bidding a long farewell to his contentious rival—or, if he really wished to contend at all costs, he ought not to have entered the dust before being trained in the technical holds of wrestling; for among the wise of the countryside, it is generally those polished in civic affairs who tend most to prevail.

For this reason Moses, all-wise as he is, declines to enter into the examination of plausible and persuasive arguments, ever since God began to flash upon him the light of truth through the immortal words of knowledge and wisdom herself; yet he is drawn no less to the sight of these arguments -- not for the sake of becoming experienced in more matters, since the inquiries concerning God and his most sacred powers suffice for the lover of contemplation -- but in order to prevail over the sophists of Egypt, among whom mythical plausibilities are honored above the clarity of what is true.

Whenever, then, the mind walks about among the affairs of the Ruler of All, it needs nothing else for its contemplation, since among intelligible things the understanding alone is the sharpest-sighted eye; but whenever it deals also with things of sense-perception, or passion, or body -- of which the land of Egypt is a symbol -- it will need, along with these, the art and the power that concern words.

This is why he arranges to bring Aaron along with him, the spoken word: "Is not Aaron your brother?" he says. For since both share one mother, the rational nature, their offspring are surely brothers. "I know that he will speak" -- for grasping is the property of understanding, but speaking the property of utterance. "He will speak," he says, "for you" -- for the mind, unable to report to its neighbor the things stored within it, uses speech as an interpreter to make known what it has experienced.

Then he adds: "Behold, he himself will come out to meet you," since in truth speech, meeting thoughts, engraves what was unmarked by adding words and names, so as to make it notable. And "seeing you," he says, "he will rejoice in him" (Exod. 4:14) -- for speech rejoices and is glad whenever the thought is not dim, because when the thought shines clear, speech employs an unstumbling and smooth-running interpretation, richly supplied with names that are apt, well-aimed, and full of vivid force.

At any rate, whenever thoughts are somewhat unclear, speech treads on empty ground and, slipping, often falls so great a fall that it can no longer rise. "And you shall speak to him and put my words in his mouth" is equivalent to saying, you shall whisper to him the thoughts, which differ not at all from divine words and reasonings; for without a prompter, speech will not utter a sound -- and the prompter of speech is mind, as the prompter of mind is God.

And it goes on: "He himself will speak to you before the people, and he himself will be your mouth; and you will be to him as God" (Exod. 4:15-16) -- most vivid is the phrase "he will speak to you," as though to say he will interpret your thoughts, and again that "he will be your mouth," for the stream of speech, carried through tongue and mouth, carries the thoughts along with it. But speech is the interpreter of understanding to human beings, while understanding becomes, for speech, as God; and these are the thoughts, of which God alone is the overseer.

It is necessary, then, for the one who is about to meet a sophistic contest to have taken vigorous care over words -- so as not merely to escape their holds, but, counterattacking with both skill and power, to prevail.

Or do you not see the enchanters and sorcerers playing the sophist against the divine word, daring to attempt similar things -- not so much to display their own knowledge as celebrated, as to mock and deride what is happening? For they transform staffs into the nature of serpents, and turn water into the color of blood, and by incantations draw up onto the land what remains of the frogs (Exod. 7:12, 22; 8:7); and, wretched as they are, in piling up everything that leads to their own ruin, though they think they deceive, they are themselves deceived.

Against such men, how could one go to meet them except by making ready the reasoning word, the interpreter of understanding, called by the name Aaron? He who is now called mouth will later also be called prophet, when the mind too, having become divinely inspired, is addressed as god: "For I give you," he says, "as a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother will be your prophet" (Exod. 7:1). What a harmonious sequence! For the race that interprets the things of God is prophetic in kind, possessed by divine seizure

and frenzy. Accordingly, "the staff of Aaron swallowed up their staffs" (Exod. 7:12), as the oracle makes clear; for all sophistic arguments are swallowed up and vanish before the artful variety of nature, so that they confess that what is happening is "the finger of God" (Exod. 8:19) -- equivalent to a divine writ proclaiming that sophistry is forever overcome by wisdom; for it was by the finger of God, the sacred word says, that the tablets too were written, on which the oracles were inscribed (Exod. 32:16). This is why the sorcerers can no longer stand before Moses, but fall, as in a contest defeated by the mighty strength of their opponent (Exod. 8:18).

What, then, is the fourth gift? Greatness of name; for he says, "I will magnify your name" (Gen. 12:2). This means, as it appears to me, something of this sort: just as being good and noble is beneficial, so too is seeming to be so. Truth is better than reputation, but happiness comes from both together; for countless people who have approached virtue without pretense or flattery, and have caught sight of her genuine beauty, giving no thought to the fame that comes from the crowd, have been plotted against, judged wicked though they were good in the sight of truth.

And indeed there is no benefit even in seeming, unless a freedom from poison has long been present beforehand, as is naturally the case with bodies; for if everyone were to suppose the sick person healthy, or the healthy person sick, the opinion by itself would produce neither sickness nor health.

But the one to whom God has granted both -- both to be noble and good, and to seem to be so -- this person is truly happy, and in fact great of name. And one must take forethought, as for a great matter that greatly benefits the embodied life, for a good reputation. This falls to nearly everyone who, rejoicing with contentment, disturbs nothing of the established customs, but guards the ancestral way of life without neglect.

For there are some who, supposing the literal laws to be symbols of intelligible matters, have been overly precise about the latter while carelessly neglecting the former; these I myself would blame for their easy carelessness. For they ought to have taken care of both: a more exact inquiry into the unseen realities, and an irreproachable stewardship of the visible ones.

But as it is, as though living alone by themselves in a wilderness, or having become bodiless souls, knowing neither city nor village nor household nor any human community at all, they look past what seems good to the many and investigate the naked truth all by itself; these people the sacred word teaches to take thought for a good reputation and to dissolve none of the customs which divinely inspired men, greater than we are, have established.

For it is not because the seventh day is a teaching about the power that concerns the unbegotten, and the rest that concerns the begotten, that we should therefore dissolve the laws legislated for it -- such as kindling fire, or farming, or carrying burdens, or bringing accusations, or sitting in judgment, or demanding back deposits, or exacting the repayment of loans, or doing the other things permitted even at non-festival times;

nor, because a festival is a symbol of the soul's joy and of thanksgiving toward God, should we renounce the yearly seasonal festal assemblies; nor, because circumcision signifies the cutting away of pleasure and of all the passions, and the removal of the impious opinion by which the mind supposed itself capable of begetting through itself alone, should we abolish the law laid down concerning circumcision -- since in that case we would also neglect the sacred rites of the temple, and countless other things, if we attended only to what is made clear through hidden meanings.

Rather, one must consider these things to resemble the body, and those other things the soul; just as one must take forethought for the body, since it is the house of the soul, so too must one take care of the literal laws; for when these are kept, those other things too, of which they are symbols, will become more clearly known -- besides which one will also escape the blame and accusations of the many.

Do you not see that Abraham too says that great goods and small ones belong to the wise man, calling the great things his possessions and properties, which he permits the legitimate son alone to inherit, while the small things he calls gifts, which the illegitimate sons and the sons of concubines are deemed worthy to receive (Gen. 25:5-6)? The former

resemble the things that exist by nature, the latter the things established by convention. I also admire the all-virtuous Leah, who, at the birth of Asher -- who is the symbol of perceptible and illegitimate wealth -- says: "Blessed am I, for the women will call me blessed" (Gen. 30:13); for she aims at a fair reputation, judging it right to be praised not only by men and by truly manly reasonings, among whom unblemished nature and incorruptible truth are honored, but also by the more feminine, who in every way are overcome by appearances and are unable to conceive of anything perceptible beyond them.

It belongs to a perfect soul to lay claim both to being and to seeming to be, and to take pains to be well regarded not only in the men's quarters but also to be praised at the hearth of the women's quarters.

This is why Moses entrusted the making of the sacred works not only to men but to women as well; for they complete all the spinning of the hyacinth-blue, the purple, the scarlet, the fine linen, and the goats' hair (Exod. 35:25-26), and they contribute their own ornaments without hesitation -- "seals, earrings, rings, bracelets, hair-clasps" (Exod. 35:22), everything whose material was gold.

exchanging the ornament of the body for that of piety; and in their eager generosity they even dedicate their own mirrors together, for the making of the basin (Exod. 38:26), so that those who are about to perform the sacred rites, washing hands and feet -- the instruments by which the mind moves and takes its stand -- may see themselves reflected, in remembrance of the mirrors from which the basin was fashioned; for in this way they will allow no shameful thing to appear in the form of the soul, and will at last dedicate the votive offering of fasting and endurance, the most fitting and most perfect of offerings.

But these are truly noble and civilized women -- that is, the senses -- among whom virtue wishes to be honored as Leah is; while there are others who kindle the fire against the wretched mind, women without a city; for it is said that "women too further kindled fire against Moab" (Num. 21:30).

But does not each of the senses of the foolish person, when set ablaze by the objects of sense, set the mind itself on fire, pouring in a great and boundless flame with unstoppable rush and force? It is best, then, to conciliate the rank of women within the soul -- the senses -- just as also the rank of men -- the particular reasonings; for in this way...

...we will make our way through life most excellently and by the better road. This is why Isaac, who learned from no teacher but himself, prays that the lover of wisdom should receive both the intelligible and the sensible goods: for he says, "May God give you of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the earth" (Genesis 27:28) — which is equivalent to saying, first, may he continually water you with the intelligible and heavenly rain, not violently, so as to flood you, but gently and mildly, like dew, so as to do you good; and second, may he grant you sensible and earthly wealth, rich and abundant, drying up the opposite poverty both of the soul and of its parts.

If, however, you also examine the discourse concerning the high priest, you will find him thinking in harmony with this, and his sacred vestment made variegated out of both intelligible and sensible powers. Of these, some require a longer discussion than the present occasion allows, and must be postponed; but let us examine those at the extremities, at the head and at the feet.

On the head, then, is "a pure gold plate, bearing the impression of a seal, a consecration to the Lord" (Exodus 28:32), while at the feet, at the hem of the undergarment, are bells and flower-shapes (Exodus 28:29–30). But that seal is the idea of ideas, according to which God shaped the world — a thing bodiless, surely, and intelligible — while the flower-shapes and the bells are symbols of sensible qualities, whose criteria are sight and hearing.

And with great precision he adds that "the sound of it shall be heard when he goes in to the holy place" (Exodus 28:31), so that, as the soul enters into the intelligible and divine things that are truly holy, the senses too, benefited according to virtue, may sound in unison, and our whole constitution, like a well-tuned and populous chorus, may blend its different voices into a single harmonious song — the intelligible thoughts breathing the leading notes (for these are the leaders of this chorus), while the sensible things follow, singing along, being likened to the individual members of the chorus.

For in general, as the law says, "the necessities, the clothing, and the companionship" (Exodus 21:10) — these three — ought not to be withheld from the soul, but each of them assigned to it securely. Now the necessities are the intelligible goods, which must come to be by the reason of nature; the clothing concerns the visible adornment of life; and the companionship is the continual devotion and practice given to each of the kinds mentioned, so that the sensible things may appear to be of the same character as the invisible, intelligible ones.

The fifth gift, then, is the one that consists simply in existing itself; it is placed after the earlier ones not because it is inferior to them, but because it rises above and surpasses them all. For what could be more perfect than to be, by nature, truly and without pretense, good and worthy of blessing?

For he says, "You shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:2), not merely "blessed by others." The one is reckoned among the opinions and reports of the many; the other belongs to that which is blessed in truth.

For just as being praiseworthy differs from being praised, in the direction of the better, and being blameworthy differs from being blamed, in the direction of the worse — since the one is said of things by nature, the other merely by opinion, and nature that does not lie is more secure than mere seeming — so too, being blessed by human beings, which amounts to being led into good repute through opinion, is a lesser thing than being by nature worthy of blessing, even if everyone should stay silent, which is what is called "blessed" in the oracles.

These, then, are the prizes God grants to the one who is destined to become wise. Let us next see what he apportions to others for the sake of the wise man: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you" (Genesis 12:3).

Now it is clear to everyone that this too happens in honor of the virtuous man; but it is said not only for that reason, but also because of the fitting consequence found in the facts themselves. For whoever praises the good man is himself worthy of praise, and whoever blames him is, conversely, blameworthy. And praise and blame are confirmed not so much by the power of those who speak and write them, as by the truth of the facts; so that those who introduce any falsehood into either kind would seem to be neither praising nor blaming at all.

Do you not see the ten thousand flatterers, who day and night wear away the ears of those they flatter, breaking them down — not merely nodding assent to each thing said, but stringing together long speeches, chanting them like epic verses, and often uttering prayers with their voice...

...while in their thought they are constantly cursing? What, then, would a sensible person say — is it not that those who speak in this way are enemies rather than friends, and are blaming rather than praising, even if they compose whole dramas of encomia and chant them?

This is why the vain Balaam, though he sang hymns to God that were surpassingly excellent — among them the most sacred of all songs, "God is not like a man" (Numbers 23:19) — and though he ran through countless praises of the seer, Israel, was nonetheless judged by the wise lawgiver to be impious and accursed, and was reckoned to be cursing, not blessing.

For, he says, having allied himself with the enemy for a fee, Balaam became an evil prophet of evils, laying in his soul the most grievous curses against the race beloved of God, while being compelled to prophesy through mouth and tongue the most extraordinary prayers. For God, the lover of virtue, prompted the words spoken, which were good, while his own mind, hater of virtue, gave birth to the thoughts conceived — for these were baser.

This is testified to by the oracle concerning these matters: "For God did not give Balaam the power to curse you, but he turned the curses into blessing" (Deuteronomy 23:5) — even though everything Balaam said was full of fair speech. But the overseer of what is stored away in the soul, who alone is able to see what is invisible to creation, saw, and passed the sentence of condemnation from those very things — being at once the truest witness and the incorruptible judge. Since, conversely, it is praiseworthy for one who seems, in voice, to blaspheme and accuse...

...to be, in his thought, blessing and speaking well. This, it seems, is the custom of those who bring people to their senses — tutors, teachers, parents, elders, rulers, laws. For by reproaching, and sometimes even by punishing, each of these makes the souls of those under their care better. And no one among them is anyone's enemy, but all are friends to all; and it is the work of friends who employ a genuine and unadulterated goodwill to speak freely, without harboring ill will.

Let none of what belongs to blessings and prayers, or to blasphemies and curses, be referred rather to the outward channels of speech than to the thought, from which, as from a spring, each kind of the things spoken is tested.

These, then, are the first things Moses says come to pass for the excellent man in his dealings with others, whether people wish to attach blame or praise, prayers or curses, to him. But the greatest thing comes next, when those others are silent: that no part of rational nature is left without a share in his benefit. For he says, "In you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).

And this is a most doctrinal statement. For if the mind continues free from sickness and harm, it makes healthy use of all the tribes and powers around it — those concerned with sight and hearing and all the other senses, and again those concerned with pleasures and desires, and all that transmutes the passions into good feeling.

Already, indeed, household and city and country and nations and regions of the earth have enjoyed great happiness because a single man took thought for the good and the beautiful — and most of all whoever, along with good judgment, has received from God an irresistible power as well, just as instruments serve the musician in music and every craftsman in his craft, or wood serves fire as its material.

For in truth the righteous man is a support for the human race: whatever he himself has, he brings forward into the common good, giving it ungrudgingly for the benefit of those who will use it; and whatever he does not find within himself, he asks for from God alone, who is all-wealthy. And God, opening his heavenly treasury, rains and snows down good things in abundance, so that the reservoirs of all things on earth overflow and pour forth.

These gifts God is accustomed to grant, not turning away from the suppliant word directed to him; for it is said elsewhere, when Moses made supplication: "I am gracious to them according to your word" (Numbers 14:20). And this, it seems, is equivalent in force to "In you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed." For this reason the wise Abraham, having experienced God's goodness in all things, came to believe that even if God should destroy everything else, yet if some small remnant of virtue, like a smoldering ember, should be preserved, on account of that little remnant he would have mercy on the rest as well — he who is able to raise up the fallen and rekindle the dead (Genesis 18:24ff.).

For even the smallest spark, smoldering under ash, when it is fanned by a breath and rekindled, sets ablaze a great fire; so too the smallest amount of virtue, when it is warmed by good hopes and flares up, opens the eyes of what was until then closed and blind, makes what had withered put forth new growth again, and brings what had been made barren by unfruitfulness round to a rich abundance of offspring. Thus the rare good, by the providence of God, becomes abundant...

...as it is poured out, making all things like itself. Let us pray, then, that the mind may remain, like a pillar in a house, within the soul, and that the righteous man may remain a true human being within the human race, for the healing of its sicknesses. For as long as he is healthy, we must not despair of hopes for complete deliverance, because, I think, God the Savior, having held out the most healing of all remedies — his gracious power — to his suppliant and worshiper, permits him to use it for the deliverance of those who are ailing, applying it to the wounds of the soul, which folly and injustice and the rest of the throng of vices, once sharpened, have inflicted.

The clearest example is Noah the righteous, who, when so many parts of the soul had been swallowed up in the great flood, rode the waves and swam vigorously, and stood above all the terrors, being brought safely through; and once saved, he cast down from himself great and noble roots, from which, like a plant, the race of wisdom sprang up — a race which, having borne gentle fruit for the seer, Israel, produced three fruits, the measures of an age: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

For virtue is, and will be, and has been in the universe—though the untimeliness of human beings may perhaps overshadow it, the season that attends God reveals it again, in which prudence too gives birth to a male, Sarah, blossoming not according to the seasonal times of the year, but according to timeless prime and opportune moments; for it is said: "I will return and come to you at this time, in due season, and Sarah your wife shall have a son" (Gen. 18:10).

Concerning the gifts, then, which God is accustomed to grant to those who are to become perfect, and, for their sake, to others also, this has been made clear. It is said next that "Abraham went, just as the Lord had spoken to him" (Gen. 12:4).

This is what the best philosophers celebrate as the goal: to live in accordance with nature. And this comes about whenever the mind, having entered upon the path of virtue, walks in the tracks of right reason and follows God, remembering his commands and confirming them always and everywhere, in both deeds and words.

"For he went, just as the Lord had spoken to him"—and this means something like this: as God speaks—and he speaks altogether beautifully and admirably—so the man of worth does each thing, keeping the path of his life straight and blameless, so that the deeds of the wise man are no different from divine words.

Elsewhere, at any rate, he says that Abraham did "all my law" (Gen. 26:5); and law is nothing other than divine reason enjoining what must be done and forbidding what must not, as he testifies, saying that "he received a law from his words" (Deut. 33:3-4). If, then, the law is divine reason, and the good man does the law, he altogether also does the reason; so that, as I said, the words of God are the deeds of the wise man.

The goal, then, according to most sacred Moses, is to follow God, as he also says elsewhere: "You shall walk after the Lord your God" (Deut. 13:4)—not using the motion that comes through legs (for the vehicle of a human being is the earth, but of God, even if it is the whole cosmos, I do not know), but he seems to be speaking allegorically, representing the soul's conformity to divine doctrines, whose reference tends toward the honor of the cause of all things.

Intensifying the unrestrained longing for the good, he further exhorts us to cling to him: "You shall fear the Lord your God," he says, "and serve him and cling to him" (Deut. 10:20). What, then, is the glue? What is it? Surely piety and faith; for the virtues fit and unite the mind to the incorruptible nature; and indeed Abraham, because he believed, is said "to draw near to God" (Gen. 18:23).

If, then, in walking he neither grows weary, so as to give way and collapse, nor grows slack, so as to be turned aside to either side and wander, missing the middle and straight-stretched road, but, imitating good runners, completes the racecourse of life without stumbling, he will attain crowns and prizes worthy of his arrival at the goal.

Or are these not the crowns and the prizes: not to fail of the goal of one's labors, but to reach the hard-to-reach limits of wisdom? What, then, is the goal of thinking rightly? To condemn oneself and all that is created for folly; for to think that one knows nothing is the limit of knowledge, since there is only one who is wise, who is also the only God.

For this reason Moses most beautifully introduced him as both father of all things and overseer of what has come to be, saying: "God saw all the things he had made, and behold, they were very good" (Gen. 1:31); for it was possible for no one to perceive fully what had been composed, except the one who had made it.

Come forward now, you who are full of vanity and lack of education and much boastfulness, you who seem wise to yourselves and not only profess to know clearly what each thing is, but even dare, out of recklessness, to assign the causes as well—as though you had been present at the birth of the cosmos, and had observed how each thing was completed and from what, or had become counselors to the Craftsman about the things being constructed.

Then, letting go of everything else at once, know yourselves, and say clearly who you are—in respect of body, in respect of soul, in respect of sense-perception, in respect of reason, in respect of even one, the smallest, of your faculties. Declare what sight is and how you see, what hearing is and how you hear, what taste is, what touch, what smell, and how you exercise each of these, or what are the sources from which it has come about that these even exist.

Do not, then, prattle to me about moon and sun and the other things in heaven and cosmos, so far removed and differing in nature, O you empty of mind, before you have examined and come to know yourselves. Then, perhaps, you may be trusted also when you discourse about other things; but before you have made clear who you yourselves are, do not suppose that you will ever become judges of other things, or the most truthful of witnesses.

Since these things stand thus, the mind, having been made perfect, will render the end to the God who brings all to fulfillment, according to the most sacred writing; for it is a law that the end belongs to the Lord (Num. 31:28ff). When, then, does it render it? When it arrives "at the place which God had told him, on the third day" (Gen. 22:3), having passed the greater part of the intervals of time and already crossing over to the timeless nature.

For then he will sacrifice his beloved son—not a human being (for the wise man is no child-killer), but the male offspring of the virtue-bearing soul, the fruit that has blossomed forth, the fruit whose bearing he did not know how it came about, a divine growth. When this appeared, she who was thought to have conceived it tells of her ignorance of the good thing that happened, saying: "Who will announce to Abraham"—as to one presumably disbelieving concerning the rising of the self-taught race—"that Sarah is nursing a child" (Gen. 21:7)? Is it not, rather, that the child is nursed by Sarah? For that which is self-taught is nourished by no one, but is itself nourishment for others, being sufficient to teach and having no need to learn.

"For I have borne a son"—not as the Egyptian women do, in the prime of the body (Exod. 1:19), but as the Hebrew souls do, "in my old age" (Gen. 21:7), when whatever belongs to sense-perception and mortality has withered, and what belongs to intellect and immortality has grown young again—things worthy of honor and reverence.

"And I bore," having had no need of the midwife's art; for we give birth even before any human devices and skills come to our aid, without the customary co-workers, since it is God who sows and begets the noble offspring, which are fittingly rendered back to the giver, according to the law laid down for thanksgiving: "For my gifts, my presents, my offerings," he says—

"take care to bring to me" (Num. 28:2). This is the goal of the road for those who follow words and lawful commands and walk in the way that God leads; but he who yields to the hunger of pleasure and the greedy passions, whose name is Amalek—for it is interpreted "a people that licks up"—shall be cut off.

The oracles indicate that this character, lying in ambush, whenever it sees the stronger part of the soul's power having crossed over, rises up from its ambush and, as it were, "cuts off the rearguard" of the part left behind exhausted (Deut. 25:17-18). And weariness is of two kinds: one is the easily-yielding weakness of reasoning unable to bear up under the labors on behalf of virtue, and this, being found at the rear, is most easily caught; the other is the endurance of noble things, which takes up all noble things together vigorously, and does not think it right to carry anything base, however slight it may be, but throws it off as the heaviest of burdens.

For this reason the law addressed virtue too by a well-aimed name, Leah, which, when interpreted, means "toiling"; for she has rightly judged the life of the base—naturally burdensome and heavy—to be full of toil, and does not even deign to look upon it, turning her gaze toward the good alone.

Let the mind be zealous not only to follow God without slackening and with vigor, but also to travel the straight path, inclining to neither side—neither right nor left—where earthly Edom has made his lair, sometimes indulging in excess and abundance, sometimes in deficiency and want. For it is better to walk the middle road, the royal road that leads to truth (Num. 20:17), which the great and only King, God, has widened into a most beautiful dwelling-place for souls that love virtue.

For this reason, too, some of those who pursue the gentle and sociable philosophy have said that the virtues are means, positioning them on a boundary, since arrogance, full of much boastfulness, is a great evil, and the affectation of a lowly and inconspicuous bearing is easily fallen into, while what is blended moderately between the two is beneficial.

But what account is to be given of the words "Lot went with him" (Gen. 12:4) must be examined. Now Lot, when interpreted, means "turning aside"; and the mind inclines, sometimes toward the good, sometimes again turning away toward evil. And both of these are often observed in one and the same person; for there are some who are hesitant and double-minded, inclining now to one wall, now to the other, like a boat carried about by opposing winds, or swaying back and forth like a scale, unable to be firmly fixed upon one course—and not even their turning toward the better is to be praised, for it comes about by drift, not by settled judgment.

Of these Lot too is a devotee, of whom it is said that he went with the lover of wisdom. It would have been good, having begun to accompany that man, to unlearn ignorance and never run back to it again. But in fact he does not join him for the sake of being made better by imitating the superior one, but in order to provide him too with counter-pulls and diversions and occasions for slipping from that point.

And here is the proof: the one, relapsing into his old sickness, will go off, taken captive by the enemies within the soul; but the other, having guarded himself against his ambushes and plots, will by every means be separated from him. And this separation he will not accomplish at once, but only afterward. For now, since he is only just beginning divine contemplation, his perceptions are unsteady and wavering; but when they have become fixed and established more firmly, he will be able to sever the alluring and flattering enemy—implacable and hard to catch by nature—from himself.

Here is the proof: the one who relapses into the old sickness will go off, taken captive by the enemies within the soul, while the one who guards against its ambush-plots by every device will be resettled apart from it. But this resettlement he will effect later, not yet. For now, since he has only just begun divine contemplation, its truths sway and totter for him; but when they have become fixed and settled more firmly, he will be able to divorce what entices and flatters him, as an enemy irreconcilable and by nature hard to capture.

For this is the thing which, being hard to rub off, clings to the soul, hindering it from running swiftly toward virtue; this same thing followed us when we were leaving Egypt — the whole region of the body — eager, according to the instructions of the prophet Moses' word, to unlearn the passions; it took hold of our zeal for the exodus, and out of envy for the speed of our departure, it worked delays into it.

For it is said: "and a great mixed multitude went up with them, and sheep and cattle and very many flocks" (Exod. 12:38). This "mixed multitude," if the truth must be told, was the beastlike and irrational opinions of the soul. And most beautifully and aptly he calls the soul of the base person "mixed"; for it is compounded and heaped together, truly a mixture of many conflicting opinions, one in number but a myriad in its versatility.

That is why "great" is added to "mixed." For the one who looks to one goal only is simple, unmixed, and truly smooth; but the one who sets before himself many ends of life is great, mixed, and in truth hairy. For this reason the oracles present Jacob, the practicer of noble things, as smooth, and Esau, the practicer of the most shameful things, as hairy (Gen. 27:11).

On account of this mixed and hairy crowd, compounded of jumbled and confused opinions, the mind — though able to run swiftly, when it was fleeing Egypt, the region of the body, and to take possession of virtue's inheritance in three days by a threefold light: memory of things past, clear perception of things present, and hope for things to come — instead wears away a span of forty years, going around in a circle and wandering because of its versatility, when what was needed was the direct route, which is the most effective.

This is the one who delights not merely in a few forms of desire, but insists on leaving out nothing whatsoever, so that he may pursue, through and through, the entire genus in which every species is comprised. For it is said, "the mixed multitude among them desired a desire" — of the genus itself, not of some one species — "and sitting down they wept" (Num. 11:4). For the understanding, growing feeble, comprehends this, and when it cannot obtain what it craves, it weeps and groans — although it ought rather to rejoice at failing to attain passions and sicknesses, and to consider the lack and absence of them great good fortune.

But indeed even the dancers of virtue's chorus are accustomed to writhe and weep, either lamenting the misfortunes of the foolish because of their natural sociability and love of humanity, or out of sheer overflowing joy. And this joy arises whenever a sudden downpour of blessings, massed together and never even expected, comes flooding down all at once. It is from this, I think, that the poetic phrase was spoken: "she laughed through tears."

For joy, the best of the good emotions, falling upon the soul unexpectedly, makes it greater than it was before, so that the body can no longer contain its bulk, but, being pressed and squeezed, drips forth streams which are customarily called tears, concerning which it is said in the hymns: "you will feed us with the bread of tears" (Ps. 79:6) and "my tears have become my bread day and night" (Ps. 41:4). For the visible tears of inward and serious laughter are food for the understanding, whenever the divine longing, melting within, turns the created being's lament into a song of hymn to the Uncreated.

Some, then, cast off this mixed and hairy crowd and wall themselves off from it, delighting only in the God-loving race; but others form a partnership with it too, thinking it right to steer their own life as a mediator, setting it on the border between human and divine virtues, so as to touch both — both the virtues that are real and those that are merely apparent.

The character who lives by this second doctrine is the one customarily named Joseph, with whom, when he is about to bury his father, there go "all the servants of Pharaoh, and the elders of his house, and all the elders of Egypt, and all the household of Joseph, and his brothers, and all his father's house" (Gen. 50:7-8).

You see that this political character is stationed midway between Pharaoh and his father's house, so that he may lay equal hold both on the bodily things, that is, Egypt, and on the things of the soul, which are treasured up in his father's house. For whenever he says "I belong to God" (Gen. 50:19) and the other things akin to this, he abides by the customs of his father's house; but whenever he mounts "the second chariot" (Gen. 41:43) of the mind that thinks itself to reign, Pharaoh, he sets up again the delusion of Egypt.

More wretched, however, is the one thought more glorious — the king who rides in the leading chariot; for not to excel in noble things is the most conspicuous disgrace, so that carrying off second prize in such matters is the lighter evil.

You could learn his wavering between both sides also from the oaths he makes, swearing at one time "by the health of Pharaoh" (Gen. 42:16), and at another time, conversely, not by the health of Pharaoh (Gen. 42:15). But the oath that contains the negation would be a decree of his father's house, which is ever bent on putting the passion to death and wishing it dead, while the other belongs to Egypt, to which it is dear that this passion be kept alive.

That is why, although so great a multitude went up together with him, Scripture did not call it a "mixed crowd" — because to the one who sees to the utmost degree and loves virtue, everything that is not virtue or virtue's work seems mingled and confused together, whereas to the one who is still creeping along the ground,

the prizes of earth in themselves are reckoned worthy of love and honor. The lover of practical wisdom, as I said, will wall himself off from the one who, like a drone, is recognized as spoiling their useful labors and therefore tags along; but he will welcome those who follow for the sake of imitation, out of zeal for noble things, allotting to them their fitting portions. "Of the men who went with me," he says, "Eshcol, Aner, Mamre — these shall take a portion" (Gen. 14:24); by these he means characters who are lovers of contemplation.

For Eshcol bears a name that symbolizes fire, a token of good natural endowment, since a good nature is bold and fiery and takes firm hold of whatever it grasps; Aner belongs to the lover of contemplation, for it is translated "eyes," since the eyes of the soul also are opened wide by good cheer. The inheritance of both of these is the contemplative life, called Mamre, which by translation is named "from vision." And for the contemplative, seeing is fitting and most proper to him.

Whenever the mind, employing these as trainers, leaves nothing lacking for its exercise, it accompanies and runs together with perfect practical wisdom, neither exceeding it nor being exceeded, but walking in step with it, weighed exactly equal. This is shown by the oracle, where it is clearly said that the two of them went and came up together "to the place which God had told him of" (Gen. 22:3).

A surpassing equality of virtues indeed, when labor competes with good natural condition, and skill with self-taught nature, and both prove able to carry off equal prizes of virtue — just as if painting and sculpture no longer, as now, produced only motionless and lifeless works, but had the power to make the things painted and molded move and live; for then these arts, which of old were merely imitative of nature's works, would seem now to have themselves become natures.

And he who has been lifted up so far aloft on high will no longer allow any part of his soul to linger below among mortal things, but will draw them all along with him, as though suspended from a single cord. That is why an oracle of this sort was given to the sage: "Go up to your Lord, you and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel" (Exod. 24:1).

This is something like: "Go up, O soul, to the vision of Being, harmoniously, rationally, willingly, fearlessly, lovingly, in the holy and perfect numbers of the sevenfold multiplied tenfold." For Aaron is said in the laws to be the prophet of Moses — spoken word prophesying on behalf of the understanding; Nadab is translated "willing," one who honors the divine not out of compulsion; and Abihu, "my father": this is the one who needs God to govern him not as a master, through folly, but rather as a father, through wisdom.

These are the bodyguard powers of the mind worthy to reign, whose lawful part it is to escort the king, accompanying him. But indeed it is a fearful thing for a soul to go up to the vision of Being by itself, not knowing the way, lifted up by ignorance together with boldness — and great are the falls that come from lack of knowledge joined with much rashness —

and this is why Moses prays to have God himself as guide upon the road that leads to him; for he says, "If you yourself do not go with me, do not bring me up from here" (Exod. 33:15); because every motion without the divine is harmful, and it is better to remain here below, wandering through mortal life like the great mass of humankind, than to lift oneself up toward heaven and be overturned by arrogance — just as happened to countless sophists, who supposed wisdom to be the persuasive invention of arguments, and not the truest conviction concerning realities.

Perhaps also something like this is meant: do not lift me aloft, granting me wealth or reputation or honors or offices or any of the other so-called strokes of good fortune, unless you yourself intend to come along with me; for these things often bring their possessors either the greatest benefit or the greatest harm — benefit, whenever God leads the way for the judgment; harm, whenever the opposite is the case; for to countless people the so-called goods, which are not truly good, have become the cause of irreparable evils.

But the one who follows God necessarily has as fellow travelers God's attendant words, which it is customary to call angels; it is said, at any rate, that "Abraham went along with them, escorting them on their way" (Gen. 18:16). O most beautiful reciprocity, by which the one escorting was himself escorted, giving back exactly what he received — not one thing in exchange for another, but that very same thing, ready for mutual exchange.

For as long as he is not yet made perfect, he uses the divine word as guide of the road; for there is an oracle: "Behold, I send my angel before your face, to guard you on the way, that he may bring you into the land which I have prepared for you. Give heed to him and listen to him; do not disobey him, for he will not draw back from you, for my name is upon him" (Exod. 23:20-21).

But when he arrives at the height of knowledge, running with full effort, he will match the pace of the one who formerly led the way; for thus both will become followers of God, the leader of all, with no one holding a different opinion still accompanying them, but even Lot — who bent aside the soul that was capable of growing upright and unbending — being separated off.

"Now Abraham," Moses says, "was seventy-five years old when he went out from Haran" (Gen. 12:4). About the number seventy-five - for it holds a meaning in harmony with what has already been said - we will speak precisely later. But first let us investigate what Haran is, and what it means to emigrate from that region.

No one who has encountered the Laws is likely to be ignorant that Abraham first left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran, and then, when his father died there, he moved on from that place too, so that he had already left two locations. What, then, must we say?

The Chaldeans are held to have worked out astronomy and the casting of horoscopes with more thoroughness and distinction than other peoples, fitting earthly things to celestial ones and heavenly things to those on earth, and displaying, as if through the music of reasoned discourse, the most harmonious symphony of the universe, through the fellowship and sympathy of its parts with one another - parts separated in place but not divided in kinship.

These men supposed that this visible universe was the only thing among the things that exist, either being itself god, or containing god within itself as the soul of the whole; and by fashioning fate and necessity into gods they filled human life with much impiety, teaching that apart from visible things nothing whatsoever is the cause of anything, but that the revolutions of the sun and moon and the other stars dispense good things and their opposites to each of the things that exist.

Moses, however, seems to endorse the fellowship and sympathy of the universe's parts with one another, in declaring that the world is one and created - for since it has come into being and is one, it is reasonable that the elemental substances underlying all the things brought to completion should be the same throughout its parts, just as happens with unified bodies whose members are interlinked -

but he disagrees with them about the belief regarding God: for neither the world nor the soul of the world is the first God, nor are the stars or their choral dances the most venerable causes of what befalls human beings; rather, this universe is held together by invisible powers, which the Craftsman stretched out from the farthest bounds of earth to the ends of heaven, taking care that what had been well bound should not be loosed - for the powers of the universe are unbreakable bonds.

Therefore, if somewhere in the legislation it says, "God is above in heaven and below on earth" (Deut. 4:39), let no one suppose this is said of him with respect to his being - for it is right that Being should contain, not be contained - but of his power, by which he established, arranged, and set the universe in order.

This power is, properly speaking, goodness itself: it has driven away from itself envy, which hates virtue and hates beauty, and it generates the gracious gifts by which it brought what did not exist into being and made it manifest. For Being, when it is merely imagined through opinion, in truth is nowhere to be found, so that the most truthful of oracles is the one in which it is said, "Here am I," pointed to as though it could be pointed to, seen as though it could be seen, "before you" (Exod. 17:6); for he is before all that has come into being, standing outside it and involved with none

of the things that come after him. Having said this, in order to overturn the Chaldean opinion, he thinks it necessary to turn about and call back to the truth those whose minds still Chaldaize, beginning his teaching thus: "Why," he says, "you remarkable people, do you suddenly rise so high from the earth and go swimming into the heights, overreaching the air and walking the upper sky, as though you could accurately track the motions of the sun, the revolutions of the moon, and the harmonious, celebrated dances of the other stars? These things are greater than your conceptions can grasp, since they have been allotted a more blessed and more divine portion.

"Come down, then, from heaven, and once you have come down, do not again go examining the forms of earth and sea and rivers, of plants and animals, but investigate only yourselves and your own nature, and do not settle anywhere else rather than in yourselves. For by observing the affairs of your own household - what rules in it, what obeys, what is ensouled, what is soulless, what is rational, what is irrational, what is immortal, what is mortal, what is better, what is worse - you will immediately gain clear knowledge of God and his works.

"For you will reason that just as there is mind in you, so there is mind in the universe as a whole; and just as your mind, having taken up rule and mastery over what belongs to you, has rendered each of your parts obedient to itself, so too the mind that has clothed itself in dominion over the whole steers the world by sovereign law and justice, caring not only for the more distinguished things

"but also for those that seem less conspicuous. So migrate from your meddling curiosity about the heavens and dwell, as I said, in yourselves - leaving behind the land of the Chaldeans, that is, opinion, and moving instead to Haran, the region of sense-perception, which is the bodily house of the mind.

"For Haran is translated 'cavern,' and caverns are symbols of the openings of sense-perception; for in a sense the eyes are the openings and burrows of sight, the ears of hearing, the nostrils of smells, the throat of taste, and the whole structure of the body is the burrow of touch.

"Stay a while longer with these faculties, then, settle down, take your leisure, and determine as precisely as you can the nature of each; and once you have learned what is good and what is worse in each, flee the one and choose the other instead. But when you have examined your own household with full precision and have illuminated the meaning that each of its parts holds, rouse yourselves and seek the migration from this place - a migration that proclaims not death but immortality.

"Of this migration you will observe clear evidence even while still confined within your bodily and perceptible burrows: at times in deep sleep - for when the mind withdraws and slips away from the senses and everything else pertaining to the body, it begins to converse with itself, gazing upon truth as in a mirror, and having washed away everything it had impressed upon itself from sense-perceived images, it becomes inspired with the most truthful divinations of the future through dreams -

"and at times even while waking; for when the mind is seized and led by one of the contemplations of philosophy, it follows that contemplation and, no doubt, forgets everything else that belongs to the bodily mass. And if the senses stand in the way of a precise vision of the intelligible, those who love to contemplate take care to strip away their interference: they close their eyes, stop up their ears, and see fit to check the impulses of the other senses as well, spending their time in solitude and darkness, so that the eye of the soul, to which God gave the power to see intelligible things, may not be overshadowed by anything perceptible.

"Having learned in this way what it means to leave the mortal behind, you will also be instructed in true beliefs about the Uncreated - unless you fail to recognize that your own mind, once it has stripped off body, sense-perception, and speech, is able to see the things that are in their nakedness apart from these; and that the mind of the whole, God, stands outside all of nature, containing it, not contained by it, and has gone beyond it not merely in conception, as a human mind does, but in his very essence, as befits God.

"For our mind has not fashioned the body but is the work of another; and so it is contained, as in a vessel, by the body. But the mind of the whole has begotten the whole universe, and the maker is greater than the thing made; so that it could not be contained by what is inferior to it - not to mention that it would not be fitting for a father to be contained in his son, though a son may grow through the care of his father.

"Thus, moving forward little by little, the mind will arrive at the Father of piety and holiness, first departing from the casting of horoscopes, which had persuaded it to suppose that the world is the first God rather than a creation of the first God, and that the courses and motions of the stars are the causes of misfortune and, conversely, of happiness for human beings.

"Then, coming to the examination of itself, and philosophizing about its own household - about body, about sense-perception, about speech - and learning, in the poet's words, that 'both good and evil are wrought within one's own halls,' the mind next cuts a path from itself and, through this path, hopes to comprehend the Father of the universe, hard to conjecture and hard to trace; and having come to know itself precisely, it will perhaps come to know God too, no longer remaining in Haran, among the instruments of sense-perception, but turned back upon itself. For it is impossible, while still moving in a manner governed by the senses rather than the intellect, to arrive at the

"contemplation of that which is. For this reason the character stationed in the best rank before God, whose name is Samuel, does not teach Saul the rules of kingship while he is still lingering among the baggage, but only once he has drawn him out from there. For someone inquires whether the man is still coming here, and the oracle answers: 'Behold, he himself is hidden among the baggage.'"

"What, then, does it befit the one who hears this - being by nature suited to instruction - to do, except to draw him out with urgency? For 'running,' it says, 'he took him from there' (1 Kings 10:22-23), because while he lingered among the vessels of the soul, body and sense-perception, he was not fit to hear the doctrines and laws of the kingdom - and we say that kingship is wisdom, since the wise man too is a king - but once he had migrated away, when the mist had scattered, he was about to see keenly. It is reasonable, then, that the companion of knowledge should think it necessary to leave behind the country of sense-perception too, whose name is Haran."

"He leaves it at the age of seventy-five years; and this number stands at the boundary between the perceptible and the intelligible nature, between the older and the younger, and further between the perishable and the imperishable.

"For the number seventy stands for a reckoning that is intelligible, older, and imperishable, while the number five stands for one that is perceptible and younger, being equal in count to the senses. By this number the ascetic still in training is also assessed, since he has not yet been able to carry off the perfect victory prizes; for it is said that 'all the souls from Jacob were seventy-five' (Exod. 1:5)."

For these are the souls of one who competes and does not corrupt the truly sacred contest for the acquisition of virtue - offspring generated before their bodies, but not yet cut free of the irrational, still dragging along the venomous crowd of sense-perception. For Jacob is the name of one who wrestles, gets covered in dust, and trips up his opponent by the heel - not of one who has already won.

But when he seems capable of seeing God and is renamed Israel, he will use only the seventieth word, having excised the pentad of the senses; for it is said, "your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy souls" (Deut. 10:22). This is the number familiar to Moses the wise: those chosen from the whole multitude for excellence turn out to number seventy, and all of them elders, not in age but in understanding and counsel, in judgment and zeal for ancient ways.

This number is consecrated and offered to God whenever the perfect fruits of the soul are gathered in and brought together; for at the Feast of Tabernacles, apart from the other offerings, it is prescribed to bring seventy calves as a whole burnt sacrifice (Num. 29:13ff.). According to the seventieth word the bowls of the rulers, too, are fashioned—for each weighs seventy shekels (Num. 7:13ff.)—since the things that are covenantal, reconciling, and truly dear to the soul possess, as it were, a drawing power: the seventieth and holy word, which Egypt—that nature which hates virtue and loves passion—is represented as mourning; for among them the mourning is reckoned at seventy days

(Gen. 50:3). This number, then, as I have said, is familiar to Moses; but the number of the five senses belongs to him who embraces both the body and external things, whom it is customary to call Joseph. So great is the care he takes of them that his full brother, who is the offspring of sense-perception—for he scarcely recognizes those who share only his father—he presents with five changes of festal robes (Gen. 45:22), considering the senses worthy of distinguished adornment and honor.

For the whole of Egypt he even writes laws, that they should honor the senses and bring them tributes and taxes on every produce as though to kings; for he commands that the grain be taxed a fifth (Gen. 47:24), which means: to store up abundant materials and food, without stint, for the five senses, so that each, insatiably filled with its own proper objects, may live in luxury and, weighing down the mind with what is piled upon it, may submerge it; for by the feastings of the senses the understanding is brought to famine, just as, conversely, by fastings it is brought to gladness.

Do you not see that the five daughters of Zelophehad also, whom those who read allegorically say are the senses, were born of the tribe of Manasseh, who is the son of Joseph—older in time, but weaker in power? And rightly so: for he is named from forgetfulness, a thing equivalent in force to remembrance. Now recollection holds second place after memory, whose namesake is Ephraim, who is interpreted as meaning "fruit-bearing"; and the fairest and most nourishing fruit of the soul is what is unforgettable in one's memories.

At any rate the maidens say, in words that fit their own case, "our father died"—but death is the forgetting of remembrance—"and he died not for his own sin"—most beautifully said; for forgetfulness is not a voluntary affection, but one of those things not in our power, coming upon us from outside—"but he had no sons" (Num. 27:3), "but daughters," since the faculty of memory, as being by nature one that rouses itself, begets males, while the faculty that forgets, making use as it were of the sleep of reasoning, bears females; for it is irrational, and the senses, being daughters of the irrational part of the soul, are female.

But if one has run past sense-perception swiftly, and has followed Moses, yet has not yet been able to keep pace with him, he will use the mixed and blended number, the seventy-fifth, which is a symbol of the sensible and the intelligible nature, both blended together into the generation of one thing free from reproach.

I admire greatly also the patient endurance of Rebekah, when she counsels the man made perfect, who has put down the roughness of his passions and vices, to flee at that time to Haran; for she says: "Now therefore, my child, listen to my voice, and rise up and flee to Laban my brother, in Haran, and dwell with him some days, until your brother's fury and anger turn away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him"

(Gen. 27:43–45). Most beautifully has she called the road toward the senses a flight; for the mind truly becomes a runaway when, abandoning what belongs properly to it, the intelligible, it turns toward the opposite order, that of the sensible. Yet there are times when even fleeing is useful, when one does it not out of hatred toward the better, but for the sake of not being plotted against by the worse. What, then, is the counsel of this patient endurance?

Most admirable and worth fighting for: if ever, she says, you see the passion of anger and fury stirred up and grown savage within yourself or in someone else—the passion that irrational and untamed nature nurtures like an animal—do not sharpen it further and turn it wild, for perhaps it will bite incurably; rather, cooling its heat and its excessive inflammation, tame it; for should it become tame and gentle to the hand, it would do the least harm. What, then, is the manner of taming and gentling it?

Having changed and refashioned yourself, so far as appearances go, follow at first whatever it wishes, and, opposing it in nothing, agree to love and hate the same things; for in this way it will be won over. And once it has been soothed, you will lay aside the pretense, and, no longer expecting to suffer any harm from it, you will return at ease to the care of your own affairs.

For this reason Haran is represented as full of livestock, and inhabited by keepers of cattle; for what place could be more suited to irrational nature, and to those who have taken up its care and oversight, than the senses within us?

At any rate, when the man in training asks, "Where are you from?", the shepherds answer truthfully, "From Haran" (Gen. 29:4); for the irrational powers come from sense-perception just as the rational ones come from the understanding. And when he further asks whether they know Laban, they say, reasonably, that they know him (Gen. 29:5); for sense-perception, it is thought, recognizes color and every quality, and Laban is a symbol of colors and qualities.

And he himself, once he has at last been made perfect, will leave the house of the senses, and will settle that of the soul as of the soul, which even while he is still amid his labors and exercises he sketches out in advance; for he says, "When shall I too make a house for myself?" (Gen. 30:30)—that is, when, having risen above the sensible things and the senses, shall I dwell with mind and understanding, nourished together and living together with things contemplated by reason, as do those souls that seek out hidden things—whom it is customary to call midwives?

For these too make for themselves proper coverings and safeguards, souls that love virtue; and the most secure building of all was the fear of God for those who made it their unbreakable guard and wall. "For because," it says, "the midwives feared God, they made houses for themselves" (Exod. 1:21).

So then, departing from the region of Haran, the mind is said "to journey through the land as far as the place of Shechem, to the lofty oak" (Gen. 12:6). Let us consider what it is to journey through: the love of learning is by nature a thing that seeks and inquires, that walks everywhere without hesitation, peers in on every side, and holds it right to leave nothing among the things that exist, whether bodies or affairs, unexamined. For it is by nature extraordinarily greedy for sights and sounds, so that it is not content with what is native to it, but longs also for what is foreign and settled at the farthest remove.

At any rate people say it is absurd that merchants and traders, for the sake of paltry gains, should cross the seas and travel round the whole inhabited world, letting nothing stand in their way—not summer, not winter, not violent winds, not contrary ones, not youth, not old age, not bodily illness, not the company of friends, not the ineffable pleasures found in wife and children and other kin, not the enjoyment of homeland and civic affection, not the secure use of money and property and other abundance, not anything else at all, great or small—

while for the sake of the fairest and most fought-for thing, and the one most proper to the human race alone—wisdom—they should not cross every sea and visit every corner of the earth, eagerly inquiring whether there is anywhere something good to be seen, and tracking it down with all zeal and eagerness, until it becomes possible to arrive at the enjoyment of the things sought and longed for.

Journey, then, O soul, through the human being too, if you wish, bringing each of the things that belong to him to judgment: what, for instance, is the body, and what does it do or undergo that cooperates with the understanding; what is sense-perception, and in what way does it benefit the ruling mind; what is reason, and by becoming the interpreter of what things does it contribute to nobility of character; what is pleasure and what is desire; what are grief and fear, and what is the remedy for these, by which one who has been caught may easily slip free, or else not be captured by them at all; what is folly, what is licentiousness, what is injustice; what is the multitude of other diseases that destructive vice by nature brings forth, and what turns them aside; and, on the contrary side, what is justice or prudence or self-control, courage, good counsel, virtue entire and well-being altogether, and in what way each of these is wont to be attained.

Journey, then, also through the greatest and most perfect human being, this world, and examine its parts, how they are separated by places yet united by powers, and what is this invisible bond of harmony and union in all things. Yet if, upon examining, you do not easily grasp what you seek, persist without growing weary; for these things are not to be seized in a holiday mood, but are found only with much great labor.

For this reason the lover of learning has taken hold of the place Shechem, whose name, translated, means "shoulder," a symbol of labor, since it is these parts that are accustomed to bear burdens, as he himself elsewhere recalls, saying of a certain athlete in this manner: "he bowed his shoulder to labor, and became a man who tills the soil" (Gen. 49:15).

So never, O understanding, grow soft and give way, but even if something seems hard to make out, open the eye that sees within you, peer inside, and gaze upon what exists with greater exactness, and never close your eyes, whether willingly or unwillingly; for sleep is blind, as waking is sharp-sighted. Be content to gain, through the continuity of your effort, a clear and undistorted impression of the things sought.

Do you not see that he says a lofty oak was planted at Shechem too, hinting at the unyielding and unbending, the firm and unbreakable labor of education? This the man who is to become perfect must necessarily make use of, so that the tribunal of the soul, named Dinah—for the name is interpreted as "judgment"—may not be seized by the labor that toils in the opposite direction, the labor that plots against prudence.

For the one after whom this place, Shechem, is named, being the son of Hamor—a nature that is irrational, for Hamor means "ass"—practiced folly, and, raised in shamelessness and boldness, this thoroughly polluted creature attempted to defile and corrupt the tribunals of the understanding, had not the hearers and disciples of prudence, Simeon and Levi, quickly fenced round what belonged to them and gone out securely against him, cutting him down while he was still in the midst of that labor that loves pleasure and loves passion and is uncircumcised; for there being an oracle that no daughter of him who sees, that is, Israel, should ever become a prostitute (Deut. 23:17), these men, having seized the virgin soul, hoped to escape notice (Gen. 34).

For it is not the case that there is a want of helpers for those who are treacherously wronged; but even if some suppose there is, they will only suppose it, and will be shown false in their opinion by the very outcome. For there is, there truly is, Justice, who hates evil, is implacable, and stands as an unyielding champion of those who are wronged, bringing to nothing the aims of those who would shame virtue; and when these have fallen, the soul that seemed to have been shamed changes back into a virgin—I say "seemed," because it was never in truth corrupted; for none of the things that happen against one's will is truly an affection of the one who suffers it, just as the deed done is not truly the act of one who does wrong unintentionally.

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