De Praemiis Et Poenis Et De Exsecrationibus

and which, having been initiated in the divine mysteries, and having learnt to dwell only among the motions and periodical revolutions of the heavenly bodies, God has honoured with tranquillity, wishing it to be completely undisturbed and exempt from any contact of those passions which the necessities of the body engender, adding, out of covetousness, a desire for sovereignty over the passions. For either the heaven has caused a chill to something, or has scorched something, or has made something dry, or else, on the contrary, has melted and liquefied it; from all which causes the mind is unable to keep its path through life quite II 2

But if it has its abode in a healthy body, then it will with great care and tranquillity dwell among and devote all its leisure to the meditations of wisdom, having obtained a happy and fortunate existence.

This is the mind which has drunk strong draughts of the beneficent power of God, and has feasted on his sacred words and doctrines. This is the mind in which the prophet says that God walks as in his palace; for the mind of the wise man is in truth the palace and the house of God. And he who is the God of all things is peculiarly called the God of this mind; and again this mind is by a peculiar form called his people, not the people of any particular rulers, but of the one only and true ruler, the Holy One of holies.

This is the mind which a little while ago was enslaved to many pleasures and many desires, and to innumerable necessities arising from weaknesses and desires; but its evils God crushed in slavery, having elected to bring it to freedom. This is the mind which has received a favour not to be suppressed in silence, but rather to be proclaimed abroad and announced in every quarter, on account of the authority and power of its champion and defender, by which it was not thrust down to the tail, but was raised upwards to the head.