De Migratione Abrahami

But some go far beyond these persons in wickedness, not only indulge in every description of desire, but also acquire that passion which is akin to desire, namely, anger, wishing to excite the whole of the irrational part of the soul and to destroy the mind. For what has been said in words, indeed, is applicable to the serpent, but in reality it is meant to apply to every man who is irrational and a slave to his passions, being truly a divine oracle, "Upon thy breast and upon thy belly shalt thou go;" [*](Genesis iii. 14. ) for anger has its abode about the breast, and the seat of desire is in the belly.

But the foolish man proceeds always by means of the two passions together, both anger and desire, omitting no opportunity, and discarding reason as his pilot and judge. But the man who is contrary to him has extirpated anger and desire from his nature, and has enlisted himself under divine reason as his guide; as also Moses, that faithful servant of God, did. Who, when he is offering the burnt offerings of the soul, "washes out the belly;" [*](Exodus xxix. 26. ) that is to say, he washes out the whole seat of desires, and he takes away "the breast of the ram of the consecration;" [*](Leviticus viii.29. )that is to say, the whole of the warlike disposition, that so the remainder, the better portion of the soul, the rational part, having no longer anything to draw [*](Leviticus xi. 42. ) [*](Leviticus xi. 43. ) [*](Genesis iii. 14. ) [*](Exodus xxix. 26. ) [*](Leviticus viii.29. )

for, in this way, it will improve both in quantity and in magnitude. For it is said, "How long shall this people exasperate me? and till what time will they refuse to believe me in all the signs which I have done among them? I will smite them with death and I will destroy them, and I will make thee and thy father’s house into a mighty nation, greater and mightier than this." [*](Numbers xiv. 11. ) For when the great multitude of the passions which indulge in anger and desire in the soul is put to the rout, then immediately those affections which depend on its rational nature rise up and become brilliant;

for as the reptile with many feet and that with no feet at all, though they are exactly opposite to one another in the race of reptiles, are both pronounced unclean, so also the opinion which denies any God, and that which worships a multitude of Gods, though quite opposite in the soul, are both profane. And a proof of this is that the law banishes them both "from the sacred assembly," [*](Deuteronomy xxiii. 2. ) forbidding the atheistical opinion, as a eunuch and mutilated person, to come into the assembly; and the polytheistic, inasmuch as it prohibits any one born of a harlot from either hearing or speaking in the assembly. For he who worships no God at all is barren, and he who worships a multitude is the son of a harlot, who is in a state of blindness as to his true father, and who on this account is figuratively spoken of as having many fathers, instead of one.

There have now been two gifts of God already mentioned: the hope of a life devoted to contemplation, and an improvement in good things in respect both of quantity and of magnitude. The third gift is blessing, without which it is not possible that the graces already mentioned can be confirmed; for the scripture says, "And I will bless thee;" that is to say, I will give thee a word which shall be praised; for the portion εὖ (in εὐλογήσω, I will bless), is always applicable to virtue. And of speech, one kind is like a spring and another kind is like a stream;