Legum Allegoriarum Libri I-III

And what that prudence was he will proceed to tell us, for he adds, And you have led away my daughters as captives; and if you had told me, I would myself have sent you away.[*](Genesis xxxi. 27. ) You would not have sent away things which were at variance with one another, for if you had sent them

for it is not you then only from whom we are fleeing, O Laban, thou companion of bodies and colours, but we are also escaping from everything that is thine, in which the voices of the outward senses sound in harmony with the energies of the passions. For we, if at least we are practisers of virtue, have meditated a very necessary meditation, which Jacob also meditated, namely, to overthrow and destroy those gods who are hostile to the soul, gods made by hands, gods whom Moses forbade the people to make;[*](Leviticus xix. 4. ) and these gods are the destruction of virtue and of a good state of the passions, but the consolidation and confirmation of vice and the appetites; for that metal which is cast, after it has been fused, is soon consolidated again.

But Moses speaks thus, And they gave to Jacob the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the turpentine tree which was in Shechem.[*](Genesis xxxv. 4. ) These are the gods of the wicked, but Jacob is not said to have taken them, but to have concealed and destroyed them, for every case being most accurately described, for the virtuous man will take nothing from wickedness for his own advantage, but will conceal all such things and destroy them secretly.

Just as Abraham tells the king of Sodom, when he was proposing to give him things of irrational nature in exchange for rational animals, namely, horses in exchange for men, that he would take nothing that belonged to him, but that he would stretch out the action of his soul, which, speaking symbolically, he called his hand, to the most high God;[*](Genesis xiv. 21. ) for that he had not taken from a thread even to a shoe-latchet of all that was his (the king of Sodom’s), in order that the king might never say that he had made the discerning man, namely Abraham, rich, exchanging poverty for wealthy virtue.

The passions are always concealed and guarded in Shechem; and the name Shechem being interpreted means the shoulder; for he who labours concerning pleasures is inclined to preserve them. But the passions are concealed and destroyed by the wise man, and that too not for a brief space of time, but up to this present day, that is to say, for ever, for all time is measured by the present day, for the cycle of one day is the measure of all time.

On which account Jacob gives Joseph Shechem,[*](Genesis xlviii. 22. ) as an especial portion beyond the rest of his brethren, meaning thereby the bodily things which are the objects of the outward senses, since he had gone through labour in respect of them; but to Judah the confessor he gave not presents but praise, and hymns and divine songs, in which he should be celebrated by his brethren. And Jacob did not receive Shechem as a gift from God, but he took it with his sword and with his bow, that is to say, by words, which had the power of cutting and repelling; for the wise man subjects all secondary things to himself, and when he has so subjected them he does not retain them, but makes a present of them to him who is by nature adapted to them.

Do you not see that also, when he appeared to take the gods, he did not take them, but concealed them and put them out of the way, and destroyed them out of his sight for ever. Now to what soul could it have happened to conceal vice and to put it out of the way, except to that soul to which God was revealed, and which he considered worthy to receive the revelation of his unspeakable mysteries? For he says, shall I hide from Abraham my son that thing which I am doing?[*](Genesis. xviii. 17. ) Well done, O Saviour, in that thou showest thy works to the soul which desires good things, and has concealed from it no one of thy works: and by reason of this conduct of thine he is able to avoid evil, and to conceal it and keep it out of sight, and to destroy for ever the passions which are injurious.

We have shown, therefore, in what manner the wicked man is a fugitive, and how he conceals himself from God; but now let us consider where he conceals himself. In the middle, says Moses, of the trees of the garden;[*](Genesis ii. 8. ) that is to say, in the middle of the mind, which again is itself the centre of the whole soul, as the trees are of the garden. For the man who escapes from God flees to himself,

for, since there are two things, the mind of the universe, which is God, and also the separate mind of each individual, he who escapes from the mind which is in himself flees to the mind of the universe; and conversely, he who forsakes his own individual mind, confesses that all the things of the human mind are of no value, and attributes everything to God; again, he who seeks to escape from God asserts, by so doing, that God is not the cause of anything, but looks upon himself as the cause of everything that exists.

At all events it is affirmed by many people, that everything in the world is borne on spontaneously without any guide or governor, and that the human mind, by its own single power, has invented arts and pursuits, and laws and customs, and all the principles of political and individual, and common justice, with reference both to men and to irrational animals.

But dost thou not see, O soul, the unreasonable character of these opinions? For one of them having the particular mind, which was created and which is mortal, does in reality ascribe it to the mind of the universe, which is uncreated and immortal: and the other again, repudiating God, most inconsistently drags forward, as an ally, that mind which is unable even to assist itself.

On this account also Moses says, that If a thief be detected in the act of breaking into a house, and be smitten so that he die, that shall not be imputed as murder to him who has smitten him; but if the sun be risen upon him, then he is liable, and shall die in retaliation.[*]( Exodus xxii. 2. ) For if any one cuts down and destroys that reason which stands upright and is sound and correct, which testifies to God that he alone is able to do everything, and is found in the act of breaking in upon it, that is to say, standing over this reason thus wounded and destroyed, and who recognises his own mind as energising, and not God, is a thief, taking away what belongs to others,

for all things belong to God; so he who attributes anything to himself is taking away what belongs to another, and receives a very severe blow and one difficult to heal, namely, arrogance, a thing nearly akin to imprudence and ignorance. But he says nothing as to the name of him who has smitten him, for the smiter is not a different person from him who is smitten.

Would that the man so stricken might die, that is to say might perish before he had succeeded in his objects, for then he will appear to be less sinful, for of vice one kind is discerned in habit, and another kind in motion; but the one which is discerned in motion has an inclination towards the perfecting of its operation, on which account it is more mischievous than the one which is discerned only in habit.

If therefore the mind, which imagines itself and not God to be the cause of things, dies, that is to say, becomes inactive and contracts itself, then there is no cause of death in it; it has not absolutely destroyed the living opinion, which attributes all power, and all exertion of power to God, but if the Sun rises, that is to say the mind which appears brilliant in us, and if it appears to see through everything and to judge everything, and not to flee from itself, it then becomes liable to death, and shall die in retaliation for the living doctrine which it has destroyed; according to which God alone is the cause of everything, being found to be wholly unable to effect any good purpose, and to be truly dead in as much as it has shown itself the interpreter of a lifeless and dead and departed doctrine.

And it is in reference to this that the Holy Scripture curses any one who has placed in any secret place any carved thing, or any thing made of cast metal, the work of the hands of an artist.[*](Deuteronomy xxvii. 15. ) For why, O mind, do you store and treasure up within yourself depraved opinions, that God is a being of such and such qualities, (he who has no distinctive qualities) like a carved work; or that he who is imperishable is perishable like images that are cast in the foundry; and why do you not rather bring them forward openly that you may learn what is right from men who practise the truth? For you think that you are endowed with some great skill because you have devised absurd opinions imposing upon you by an appearance of probability, in opposition to the truth: but in reality you

But that the wicked man si nks into and is concealed within his own scattered mind, fleeing from the real mind or truth, is testified by Moses who smote the Egyptian and buried him in the sand,[*](Exodus ii. 12. ) the meaning of which is that he by his arguments convinced him who asserted that the good things of the body were the most excellent, and who thought that the good things of the soul were of no value, and who likewise esteemed the pleasures as the end of life.

For when he had comprehended the labour of him who beholds God, which the king of Egypt had imposed on him, (and by the king of Egypt is meant vice, which is the guide of the passions) he sees an Egyptian man, that is to say human passions operating at a seasonable moment, beating and insulting the man who beholds God, and looking round upon the whole soul on this side and on that side, and seeing no one standing by except the true God, and everything else in a state of confusion and disorder, having stricken down and convicted the lover of pleasure, he hides him in the dispersed and agitated mind, which is deprived of all kindred with and comprehension of what is good.

This man then is hidden in himself, but the man who is opposite to him escapes from himself, and flees to the God of all existing things. On which account Moses says moreover, He led him forth out of doors and said to him, look up to heaven, and count the stars,[*](Genesis xv. 5. ) which we should be glad indeed to see thoroughly and to comprehend; since we are insatiable in our love for notice, but nevertheless we are unable to measure the riches of God.

Nevertheless thanks be to that magnificent and bounteous God because he says that he has implanted in the soul seeds as brilliant, as visible at a distance, and as eternally new as the stars in heaven. And it is not a superfluous addition when after having said he led him forth, he subjoins out of doors, for who is ever led forth in doors? But perhaps what he says here has some such meaning as this; he led him forth into the outermost place, not into some