Legum Allegoriarum Libri I-III

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!

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,[*](Exodus xv. 1. ) 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 is referred, and indeed that is the truth; for if once a freedom

And we must also inquire, what is the reason why Jacob says, that the rider will fall backward,[*](Genesis xlix. 17. ) 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 (ἱππεὺς), and the other the rider (ἀναβάτης).

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;[*](Leviticus xi. 22. ) among which are the locust, and the attacus, and the acris,[*](These are different kinds of locusts. ) 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,

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.