De Ebrietate

for it is not the case, as some persons think, that the priests slay men, rational animals, compounded of soul and body, but they only eradicate from their minds all those things which are akin to and dear to the flesh, thinking it seemly for those who have become [*](Exodus xxxii. 27. )

On this account it is, that we shall slay a brother, not a man, but the body, which is brother to the soul; that is to say, we shall separate that which is devoted to the passions and mortal, from that which is devoted to virtue and divine. And, again, we shall slay a neighbour, not a man, but a company and a band; for such a company is, at the same time, akin to, and hostile to, the soul, laying baits and spreading snares for it, in order that being inundated by the objects of the outward senses, which overflow it, it may never emerge and look up to heaven, so as to embrace the beautiful and God-like natures. And we shall also slay those nearest to us: but that which is nearest to the mind is uttered speech, inserting false opinions among reasonable and natural plausibilities and probabilities, to the destruction of that best of all possessions, truth.

Why, then, are we not also to repel this being, too, who is a sophist and a polluted person, condemning him to the death which is suited to him, namely, silence (for silence is the death of speech), in order that the mind may be no longer led away by its sophisms, but being completely emancipated from all the pleasures which are according to the body, "the brother," and being alienated from, and having shaken off the yoke of, all the trickeries according to "the neighbour," and the neighbouring outward senses, and from the sophistries in accordance with the "nearest" nearest " speech, may be able, in all purity, to apply itself to all the proper objects of the intellect.

This is he "who says to his father and to his mother," his mortal parents, "I have not seen you," ever since I have beheld the things of God, who "does not recognize his sons," ever since he has become an acquaintance of wisdom, who "disowns his brethren," [*](Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9. ) ever since he has ceased to be disowned by God, and has been thought worthy of perfect salvation.