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speaks thus: "Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel and again, Let Dan be a serpent in the path, sitting upon the road, biting the heel of the horse, and the rider shall fall backwards, waiting the salvation of the Lord."+ The fifth son of Leah is Issachar, the legitimate son of Jacob; but if the two sons of Zilpah are counted he is the seventh; but the fifth son of Jacob is Dan, the son of Billah, the handmaid of Rachel; and the cause of this we will investigate in the proper place, but concerning Dan we must examine further now. The soul produces two kinds, the one divine and the other perishable; that which is the better kind it has already conceived, and ends in it; for when the soul was able to confess to God and to yield everything to him, it was not after that capable of receiving any more valuable possession; on this account she ceased to bring forth, after she had borne Judah, the emblem of the disposition of confessing—and now she begins to form the mortal race-now the mortal race subsists by imbibing; for, like a foundation, the sense of taste is the cause of the duration of animals; but the name Billah, being interpreted, means imbibing. From her was born Dan, which name being interpreted means judgment, for this kind distinguishes between and separates immortal from mortal things, therefore he prays that he may become a workman of temperance. But he will not pray for Judah, for Judah already has the capacity of praying to and pleasing God; "Therefore let Dan," says he, be a serpent in the path."One path is the soul.

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For as in the roads one may behold a great variety of living beings, inanimate and animate, irrational and rational, good and bad, slaves and free, young and old, male and female, strangers and natural citizens, sick and healthy, mutilated and perfect; so also in the soul there are motions inanimate, and imperfect, and diseased, and slavish, and female, and innumerable others of the class of evils; and on the other hand, there are motions which are living, and perfect, and masculine, and free, and healthy, and ripe, and virtuous, and genuine, and really legitimate. Let then the principle of temperance be a serpent in the soul, which makes its advance through all the circumstances of life, and let it sit in the path. But what is the meaning of this expression ?—The * Genesis xlix. 16. + Genesis xlix. 17.

field of virtue is not trodden down; for they are few who walk along it, but that of vice is trodden and worn?. And he recommends him here to occupy and to fill, with ambush and stratagem, the well-trodden path of passion and vice, in which the thoughts which are deserters from virtue pass their life.

XXV. "Biting the heel of the horse."-Very consistently the disposition which shakes the stability of the created and perishable being is called the supplanter, and the passions are compared to a horse; for passion has four legs as a horse has, and is an impetuous beast, and full of insolence, and by nature a most restive animal. But the reasoning of temperance is wont to bite, and to wound, and to destroy passion. Therefore passion having been tripped up, and having fallen, "the horseman will fall backwards." We must comprehend that the horseman who has mounted upon the passions is the mind, who falls from the passions when they are reasoned upon closely, and so are supplanted; and it is well figured, that the soul does not fall forward, for it must not go before the passions, but rather advance behind them, and behave with moderation.

And there is sound learning in what he says here. If the mind, though desirous to act unjustly, comes too late and falls backward, it will not act unjustly; but if, when it is moved onwards to some irrational passion it does not run forward but remains behind, it will then receive freedom from the dominion of the passions, which is a most excellent thing. On which account Moses, approving of this backward fall from off the vices, adds further, waiting for the salvation of the Lord," for, in good truth, he who falls from the passions is saved by God, and remains safe after their operation. May my soul meet with such a fall as this, and may it never afterwards remount upon that horselike and restive passion, in order that it may await the salvation of God, and attain to happiness!

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On this account also it was that Moses praised God in his hymn, because "the horse and his rider has he thrown into the sea," meaning that he has thrown the four passions, and the miserable mind which is mounted on them, down into ruin as to its affairs, and into the bottomless pit, and this is almost the burden of the whole hymn, to which every other part of it 18 referred, and indeed that is the truth; for if once a freedom * Exodus xv. 1.

from the passions occupies the soul, it will become perfectly happy.

XXVI. And we must also inquire, what is the reason why Jacob says, that "the rider will fall backward," and Moses says, that "the horse and his rider have been thrown into the sea." We must say, therefore, that that which is thrown into the sea is the Egyptian disposition, which indeed flies and escapes under the water, that is to say, under the advance of the passions. But the rider who falls backwards is not one of the persons who loves to yield to the passions; and the proof is, that Moses calls the one the horseman (ies), and the other the rider (ávaßárns). Now it is the business of the horseman to subdue the horse, and when he resists the rein to make him tractable; but it is the part of the rider to be conveyed wherever the animal carries him, and in the sea it is the office of the pilot to guide the ship, and to keep it straight, and to preserve it in the right course; but it is the part of the sailor to endure all that happens to the ship.

And in reference to this the horseman who subdues the passions is not drowned in the sea, but dismounting from them awaits the salvation of the master. Accordingly, the word of God in Leviticus recommends men "to feed on those creeping things which go on four feet, and which have legs above their feet, so that they are able to leap with them :"+ among which are the locust, and the attacus, and the acris,‡ and in the fourth place the serpent-fighter; and very properly; for if pleasure, like a serpent, is an unprofitable and pernicious thing, then the nature which contends against pleasure must be a most profitable and saving thing, and this is temperance.

Fight thou then, O my mind, against every passion, and especially against pleasure, for "the serpent is the most subtle of all the beasts that are upon the earth, which the Lord God has made." And of all the passions the most mischievous is pleasure. Why so? Because all things are the slaves of pleasure; and because the life of the wicked is governed by pleasure as by a master. Accordingly, the things which are the efficient causes of pleasure are found to be full of all wickedness: gold and silver, and glory and honours, † Leviticus zi. 22. These are different kinds of locusts.

* Genesis xlix. 17.

and powers and the objects of the outward senses, and the mechanical arts, and all other things which cause pleasure, being very various, and all injurious to the soul; and there are no sins without extreme wickedness; therefore do thou array against it the wisdom which contends with serpents; and struggle in this most glorious struggle, and labour to win the crown in the contest against pleasure, which subdues every one else; winning a noble and glorious crown, such as no assembly of men can confer.

THE THIRD BOOK

OF THE TREATISE ON

THE ALLEGORIES OF THE SACRED LAWS,

AFTER THE WORK OF THE SIX DAYS OF THE CREATION.

I. "AND Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the Paradise." A doctrine is introduced here which teaches us that the wicked man is inclined to run away. For the proper city of wise men is virtue, and he who is incapable of becoming a partaker in that is driven from his city; and no bad man is capable of becoming a partaker of it; therefore the bad man alone is driven away and becomes a banished man. But he who is banished from virtue is at once concealed from the face of God, for if the wise men are visible to God, inasmuch as they are dear to him, it follows plainly that the wicked are all concealed from him, and enveloped in darkness, as being enemies and adversaries to right reason. Now that the wicked man is destitute of a city and destitute of a home, Moses testifies in speaking of that hairy man who was also a man of varied wickedness, Esau, when he says, "But Esau was skilful in hunting, and a rude man."+ For it is not natural for vice which is inclined to be subservient to the passions to inhabit the city of virtue, inasmuch as it is devoted to the pursuit of rudeness and ignorance, with great folly. But Jacob, who is full of wis• Genesis viii. 8. + Genesis xxv. 27.

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dom, is both a citizen and one who dwells in a house, that is . to say, in virtue. Accordingly Moses says of him, "But Jacob is a man without guilo, dwelling in a house;' On which account also " the midwives, since they feared God made themselves houses. "#

For they, being inclined to seek out the secret mysteries of God, one of which was that the male children should be preserved alive, build up the actions of virtue, in which they had previously determined to dwell. Accordingly, in this account it is shown how the wicked man is destitute of a city and destitute of a home: inasmuch as he is an exile from virtue, but that the virtuous man has a city and is allotted a home, namely wisdom.

II. And let us in the next place consider how any one is said to be concealed from God; but unless any one receives this as an allegorical saying it would be impossible to comprehend what is here stated. For God has completed everything. and has penetrated every thing, and has left no one of all his works empty or deserted. What kind of place then can any one occupy in which God is not? And Moses testifies to this in other passages, when he says, "God is in the heaven above, and in the earth beneath; and there is nothing anywhere but he." And in another place he speaks in this manner, "I stood here before you did." For God is of older date than any created being, and he will be everywhere, so that it cannot be possible for any one to be concealed from him and what need we wonder at? For even if any thing were to happen to us we should not be able to escape the notice of, and to conceal ourselves from the most elementary of created things; for i stance, let any one try to flee from the earth, or the water, or the air, or the heaven, or the entire universe, and he will fail; for it is impossible but what he must be contained in these things, for no one will be able to flee out of the world.

Again how could any man who is unable to conceal himself from the parts of the world, and from the whole world itself, be able to escape the notice of God? He never could do so. What then is the meaning of the expression," they hid themselves?" The bad man thinks that God is in a cortain place, t surrounding it, but being surrounded by it. On which a count also he thinks that he can conceal himself from him, Exodus i. 21. + Deuteronomy iv. 39. Exodus xvii. 6.

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