De Migratione Abrahami

And the Lord said to Abraham, "Depart from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house to a land which I will show thee; and I will make thee into a great nation. And I will bless thee, and I will magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. And I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse them that curse thee; and in thy name shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." [*](Genesis XII. 1. )

God, wishing to purify the soul of man, first of all gives it an impulse towards complete salvation, namely, a change of abode, so as to quit the three regions of the body, the outward sense and speech according to utterance; for his country is the emblem of the body, and his kindred are the symbol of the outward sense, and his father’s house of speech. Why so?

Because the body derives its composition from the earth, and is again dissolved into earth; and Moses is a witness of this when he says, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." [*](Genesis iii. 19. ) For he says, that man was compounded by God fashioning a lump of clay into the form of a man; and it follows of necessity that, a composite being, when dissolved, must be dissolved into its component parts. But the outward sense is nearly connected with and akin to the mind, the irrational part to the rational, since they are both parts of one soul; but speech is the abode of the father, because our father is the mind, which implants in each of its parts its own powers, and distributes its energies among them, undertaking the care and superintendence of them all; and the abode in which it dwells is speech, a dwelling separated from all the rest of the house; for as the hearth is the abode of a man, so is speech of the mind: [*](Genesis XII. 1. ) [*](Genesis iii. 19. )

at all events, it displays itself, and all the notions which it conceives, arranging them and setting them in order in speech, as if in a house. And you must not wonder that Moses has called speech in man the abode of the mind, for he also says, that the mind of the universe, that is to say, God, has for his abode his own word.

And the practiser of virtue, Jacob, seizing on this apprehension, confesses in express words that, "This is no other than the house of God," [*](Genesis xxviii. 17. ) an expression equivalent to, The house of God is not this thing, or anything which can be made the subject of ocular demonstration, or, in short, anything which comes under the province of the outward senses, but is invisible, destitute of all specific form, only to be comprehended by the soul as soul.

What, then, can it be except the Word, which is more ancient than all the things which were the objects of creation, and by means of which it is that the Ruler of the universe, taking hold of it as a rudder, governs all things. And when he was fashioning the world, he used this as his instrument for the blameless arrangement of all the things which he was completing.

That he means by Abraham’s country the body, and by his kindred the outward senses, and by his father’s house uttered speech, we have now shown. But the command, "Depart from them," is not like or equivalent to, Be separated from them according to your essence, since that would be the injunction of one who was pronouncing sentence of death. But it is the same as saying, Be alienated from them in your mind, allowing none of them to cling to you, standing above them all;

they are your subjects, use them not as your rulers; since you are a king, learn to govern and not to be governed; know yourself all your life, as Moses teaches us in many passages where he says, "Take heed to thyself." [*]( Exodus xxxiv. 12. ) For thus you will perceive what you ought to be obedient to, and what you ought to be the master of.

Depart therefore from the earthly parts which envelop you, O my friend, fleeing from that base and polluted prison house the body, and from the keepers as it were of the prison, its pleasures and appetites, putting forth all your strength and all your power so as to suffer none of thy good things to come to harm, but improving all your good faculties together and unitedly. [*](Genesis xxviii. 17. ) [*]( Exodus xxxiv. 12. )

Depart also from thy kindred, outward senses; for now indeed you have given yourself up to each of them to be made use of as it will, and you have become a good, the property of others who have borrowed you, having lost your own power over yourself. But you know that, even though all men are silent on the subject, your eyes lead you, and so do your ears, and all the rest of the multitude of that kindred connection, towards those objects which are pleasing to themselves.

But if you choose to collect again those portions of yourself which you have lent away, and to invest yourself with the possession of yourself, without separating off or alienating any part of it, you will have a happy life, enjoying for ever and ever the fruit of good things which belong not to strangers but to yourself.

But now rise up also and quit speech according to utterance, which Moses here represents God as calling your father’s house, that you may not be deceived by the specious beauty of words and names, and so be separated from that real beauty which exists in the things themselves which are intended by these names. For it is absurd for a shadow to be looked upon as of more importance than the bodies themselves, or for an imitation to carry off the palm from the model. Now the interpretation resembles a shadow and an imitation, but the natures of things signified under these expressions, thus interpreted, resemble the bodies and original models which the man who aims at being such and such rather than at appearing so must cling to, removing to a distance from the other things.

When therefore the mind begins to become acquainted with itself, and to dwell among the speculations which come under the province of the intellect, all the inclinations of the soul for the species which is comprehensible by the intellect will be repelled, which inclination is called by the Hebrews, Lot; for which reason the wise man is represented as distinctly saying, "Depart, and separate yourself from me;" [*](Genesis xiii. 9. ) for it is impossible for a man who is overwhelmed with the love of incorporeal and imperishable objects to dwell with one, whose every inclination is towards the mortal objects of the outward senses.

Very beautifully therefore has the sacred interpreter of God’s will entitled one entire holy volume of the giving of the [*](Genesis xiii. 9. )

Therefore, after the merciful God has instructed this people, groaning and bitterly weeping for the abundance of the things concerning the body, and the exceeding supply of external things (for it is said, "The children of Israel groaned by reason of the works") [*](Exodus ii. 23. ) when, God, I say, had instructed them about their going out, the prophet himself led them forth in safety.

But there are some persons who have made a treaty with the body to last till the day of their death, and who have buried themselves in it as in a chest or coffin or whatever else you like to call it, of whom all the parts which are devoted to the slavery of the body and of the passions are consigned to oblivion and buried. But if anything well affected towards virtue has shot up by the side of it, that is preserved in the recollection, by means of which good things are naturally destined to be kept alive.

Accordingly, the sacred scriptures command the bones of Joseph—I mean by this the only parts of such a soul as were left behind, being species which know no corruption and which deserve to have mention made of them—to be preserved, thinking it preposterous for pure things not to be united to pure things.

And what is especially worthy of being mentioned is this, that he believed that God would visit the race which was capable of seeing," [*](Genesis 1. 24. ) and would not give it up for ever and ever to ignorance, that blind mistress, but would distinguish between the immortal and the mortal parts of the soul, and leave in Egypt those parts which were conversant about the pleasures of the body and the other immoderate indulgences of the passions; but with respect to those parts which [*](Exodus ii. 23. ) [*](Genesis 1. 24. )

What then are the parts which are imperishable? In the first place, a perfect alienation from pleasure which says, "Let us lie down together," [*](Genesis xxxix. 7. ) and let us enjoy human enjoyments; secondly, presence of mind combined with fortitude, by means of which the soul separates and distinguishes from one another those things which by vain opinions are accounted good things, as so many dreams, confessing that "the only true and accurate explanations of things are to be found with God;" [*](Genesis xl. 8. ) and that all those imaginings, which exist in the unsteady, puffed up, and arrogant life of those men who are not yet purified, but who delight in those pleasures which proceed from bakers, and cooks, and wine-bearers, are uncertain and indistinct;

so that such a man is not a subject but a ruler of Egypt, that is to say of the whole region of the body; so that "he boasted of being of the race of the Hebrews," [*](Genesis xl. 15. ) who were accustomed to rise up and leave the objects of the outward senses, and to go over to those of the intellect; for the name Hebrew, being interpreted, means "one who passes over," because he boasted that "here he had done nothing." [*](Genesis xl. 17. ) For to do nothing of those things which are thought much of among the wicked, but to hate them all and reject them, is praiseworthy in no slight degree;