own word, into our hearts, by means of which he will heal them; reproving us and making us ashamed of the wickednesses which we have committed. On this account the lawgiver says, "Every word which a widow or a woman who is divorced vows against her own soul shall remain against it."* For if we call God the husband and father of the universe, supplying the origin and generation of all things, we shall be speaking rightly: as we shall if we call that heart widowed and divorced from God which either has not received divine seed, or, after having received it, has again voluntarily made it abortive. Therefore every thing which it decides it shall decide against itself: and these things shall remain utterly incurable.

For how can it be anything but a most intolerable evil, for a creature which is inconstant and easily moved in every direction, to lay down any positive decision and determination about itself, attributing to itself the virtues of the Creator? One of which is that, according to which, it defines in an unhesitating and unalterable manner. Therefore, not only shall it be widowed of knowledge, but it shall likewise be divorced from it. And the meaning of this expression is as follows:— For the soul which is widowed of, but is not yet divorced from, what is good, is able, in a manner, after long perseverance, to come to a reconciliation and agreement with her lawful husband, right-reason. But the soul which has once been utterly separated from it, and which has been removed to a different abode, has been cast out for ever and ever, as utterly incapable of reconciliation or peace, and is entirely unable to return to its previous habitation.

XLI. This. then, may be enough to say about the ex. pression, "My crime is too great to be forgiven."+

Let us now consider what follows that verse "Cain says, "But if thou castest me out this day from off the face of the earth, and from thy face I shall be hidden." What sayest thou, my good man? If thou art utterly cast out from the whole earth, shall you still be hidden? In what manner? * Numbers xxx. 10.

This is not the translation given in the text of the bible, though it is inserted in the margin. In the text of the bible we read, "And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear."Genesis iv. 13.

11

Genesis iv. 14.

For shall you be able to live? or are you ignorant of this, that nature has given animals different places to live in, and has not assigned the same place to them all? She has allotted the sea to the fishes, and to the whole race of aquatic animals, and the land to all the terrestrial animals. And man too, according, at least, to the composite nature of his body, is a terrestrial animal. And it is owing to this that all animals easily die when they have quitted the place which properly belongs to them, and have gone, as it were, into a foreign country; as, for instance, when terrestrial animals go under the water, or when aquatic animals have sailed out upon the land. If, therefore you, being a man, should be cast out from the land, whither will you turn ? Will you dive under water, imitating the nature of aquatic animals? But you will die the moment that you are underneath the water. Or will you take wings and raise yourself aloft, and so attempt to traverse the regions of the air, changing your character of a terrestrial, for that of a flying animal? But, if it is in your power, change and re-fashion the divine impress that you bear. You cannot do so. For in proportion as you raise yourself to a greater height, so much the more rapidly will you descend from that higher region and with the greater impetuosity to the earth, which is your appropriate place.

XLII. Can a man, then, or any other created animal, hide himself from God? Where can he do so? Where can he hide himself from that being who pervades all places, whose look reaches to the very boundaries of the world, who fills the whole universe, of whom not even the smallest portion of existing things is deficient? And what is there extraordi nary in the fact, that it is not practicable for any created being to conceal himself from the living God, when it is not even in his power to escape from all the material elements by which he is surrounded, but he must, if he abandon me, by that very act enter into another? At all events, if the Creator, employing that act by which he created amphibious animals, had chosen also by the same act to create a new animal, one capable of living in any element, then, this animal, if it forsook the weighty elements of earth and water, would necessarily have gone to those which are naturally light, namely, air and fire. And, on the other hand, supposing that it had originally dwelt among those elements whose place is on high, if it had sought

to effect a migration from them, it would have changed to the opposite region; for it was at all events necessary for it to appear steadily in one portion of the world, since it was not possible for it to run away out of every element: since, in order that nothing external might be omitted, the Creator scattered the whole of the four principles of everything over the universe, in order to create the existing condition of the world, in order to make a most perfect universe of perfect parts.

As therefore it is impossible for any one to escape from the whole of the creation of God, how can it be anything but still more impossible to escape from the Creator and Ruler himself? Let no one therefore too easily receiving these words in their obvious and literal acceptation without examination, affix his own simplicity and folly to the law; but let him rather consider what is here enigmatically intimated by figurative expressions, and so understand the truth.

XLIII. Perhaps now that which is intimated by the expression, "If thou castest me out this day from off the face of the earth, from thy face I shall be hidden," may be this, if thou dost not bestow on me the good things of the earth, I will not receive those of Heaven; and if no use and enjoyment of pleasure is afforded me, I have no desire for virtue, and if thou dost not allow me to participate in human advantages, thou mayest retain the divine ones to thyself. Now the things which among us are accounted necessary and valuable and genuine real goods are these; to eat, to drink, to be clothed in various colours and fashions; by means of the faculty of sight, to be delighted with pleasant sights; by means of one's faculty of hearing to be delighted with melodies of all sorts of sounds; to be gratified through our nostrils with fragrant exhalations of odours; to indulge in all the pleasures of the belly and of the parts adjacent to the belly to satioty; not to be indifferent to the acquisition of silver and gold; to be invested with honours and post of authority, and all other things which may tend to man's reputation; but as for prudence, or fortitude, or justice, austere dispositions which only make life laborious, those we pass by, and if we are forced to admit them into one calculation we must do so, not as perfect goods in themselves, hut only as efficients of good.

Do you therefore, O ridiculous man, affirm that if you are

doprived of a superfluity of bodily advantages and external good things, you will not come into the sight of God? But I tell you that even if you are so deprived of them, you will by all means come into his sight; for when you have been released from the unspeakable bonds of the body and around the body, you will attain to an imagination of the uncreated God.

"

XLVI. Do you not see in the case of Abraham that, "when he had left his country, and his kindred, and his father's house," that is to say, the body, the outward senses, and reason, he then began to become acquainted with the powers of the living God? for when he had secretly departed from all his house, the law says that, God appeared unto him,"t showing that he is seen clearly by him who has put off mortal things, and who has taken refuge from this body in the incorporeal soul; on which account Moses taking his tent "pitches it without the tabernacle," and settles to dwell at a distance from the bodily camp, for in that way alone could he hope to become a worthy suppliant and a perfect minister before God. And he says that this tent was called the tent of testimony, taking exceeding care that it may really be the tabernacle of the living God, and may not be called so only.

For of virtues, the virtues of God are founded in truth, existing according to his essence: since God alone exists in essence, on account of which fact, he speaks of necessity about himself, saying, "I am that I am,"§ as if those who were with him did not exist according to essence, but only appeared to exist in opinion.

But the tent of Moses being symbolically considered, the virtue of man shall be thought worthy of appellation, not of real existence, being only an imitation, a copy made after the model of that divine tabernacle, and consistent with these facts is the circumstance that Moses when he is appointed to be the God of Pharaoh, was not so in reality, but was only conceived of as such in opinion, "for I know that it is God who gives and bestows favours, but I am not able to perceive that he is given, and it is said in the sacred scriptures, "I give thee as a God to Pharaoh," and yet what is given is the patient, not the agent; but he that is truly living must be the agent, and beyond all question cannot be the patient.

* Genesis xii. 1.
Exodus xxxiii. 7.

+ Genesis xii. 7.
§ Exodus iii. 14.

What then is inferred from these facts? Why, that the wise man is called the God of the foolish man, but he is not God in reality, just as a base coin of the apparent value of four drachmas is not a four drachma piece. But when he is compared with the living God, then he will be found to be a man of God; but when he is compared with a foolish man, he is accounted a God to the imagination and in appearance, but he is not so in truth and essence.

XLV. Why then do you talk nonsense, saying, "If thou castest me forth from off the earth, and from thee I shall be hidden." For one might say on the contrary, if I remove thee from the earth by part of thee, then I will manifestly show thee my own image. And a proof of this is, thou wilt depart from before the face of God, but when thou hast departed thou wilt not the less inhabit thy earthly body. For Moses says, afterwards, "And Cain went forth from before the face of God and dwelt in the earth," so that when thou art cast out from the earth, thou art not hidden from the living God; but when thou desertest him thou takest refuge on earth in a mortal country. And indeed it will not be the case, that every one who findeth thee will hide thee, as thou sayest, speaking sophistically. For that which is found, is found in every case by two people, by one who resembles itself, or by one who is dissimilar. By one who resembles itself according to the kindred and relationship which exists in all things, and by him who is not like, according to the contrary unlikeness.

The one, therefore, that is like, endeavours to preserve that which resembles itself, and that which is dissimilar endeavours to destroy that which differs from it. And let them know that Cain, and all other wicked men will not be slain by any one who meets them, but that evil doers imitating their kindred and connected wickednesses, will become guardians and preservers of them; but all those who have cultivated prudence or any other virtue, will destroy them if they can, as irreconcileable enemies. For, in short, all bodies and all things are preserved by the things which are akin to and attached to them, but are destroyed by those that are alien and hostile to them. On this account, also, the oracle which bears testimony against this pretended simplicity of Cain, says, " You do not think as you say For you say, indeed, that whosoever finds out the • Genesis iv. 16. + Genesis xli. 5.