De Fuga Et Inventione

He also celebrates the number seven, multiplied by the number ten; at one time speaking of the seventy palm-trees by the fountains, and in other passages he speaks of the elders, who were only seventy in number, to whom the divine and prophetical Spirit was vouchsafed. And again, it is the same number of heifers which are sacrificed at the solemn festival of the feast of tabernacles, [*](Numbers xxix. 13. ) in a regular and proper division and order, for they are not all sacrificed together, but in seven days, the beginning being made with thirteen bulls; for thus, by every day subtracting one till they come to the number seven, the arranged number of seventy is properly completed.

And when they have come to the gates of virtue, the preliminary liberal sciences, and have seen the fountains, and the stems of the palm-trees growing by them, they are said to pitch their tents, not by the palm-trees, but by the waters. Why is this? Because those who carry off the prizes of perfect virtue are adorned with palm-leaves and with fillets; but those who are still exercising themselves in the preliminary branches of instruction, as people thirsting for learning, settle [*](Exodus xv. 27. ) [*](Numbers xxix. 13. )

Such then are the fountains of intermediate instruction. Let us now consider the fountain of folly, concerning which the lawgiver speaks thus, "Whosoever shall lie with a woman who is sitting apart has uncovered her fountain, and she has uncovered the issue of her blood; they shall both be destroyed." [*](Leviticus xx. 18. ) He here calls the external sense a woman, representing the mind as her husband.

When therefore the woman, having forsaken her legitimate husband, settles near those objects of the external sense which allures and destroys, and embraces them all in an amorous manner; then therefore, if the mind be turned to sleep when it is necessary that it should be awakened, it has uncovered the fountain of the external sense, that is itself, that is to say, it has rendered itself, without a covering and without a wall, and easy to be plotted against.

But nevertheless the woman also has uncovered the fountain of her blood, for every external sense, when flowing towards the external object appreciable by it, is cheered and restrained by being under the dominion of the reason; and it is left in a solitary condition, being deprived of any proper governor. And as the most terrible misfortune for a city is to be without walls, so the most unfortunate state for a soul is to be without a guardian.