De Somniis (lib. i-ii)

Since then all steadiness, and stability, and the abiding for ever in the same place unchangeably and immovably, is first of all seen in the living God, and next in the word of the living God, which he has called his covenant; and in the third place in the wise man, and in the fourth degree in him who is advancing towards perfection, what could induce the wicked mind, which is liable to all sorts of curses, to think that it is able to stand by itself, while it is in reality borne about as in a deluge, and dragged hither and thither by the incessant eddies of things flowing in through the dead and agitated body?

"For I thought," says the scripture, "that I was standing on the bank of the river:" [*](Genesis xli. 17. ) and by the word river we say that speech is symbolically meant, since both these things are borne outward, and flow on with a vigorous and [*](Numbers xvi. 48. ) [*](Genesis xli. 17. )