You see now what great caution he uses in speaking here, when he says, " I was indignant that I had made them," not reversing the order of the words so as to say, " Because I had made them I was indignant;" for the latter expression would have become a person who repented of what he had done, an idea which is inconsistent with the nature of God, which fore- sees everything. But the other doctrine is a general one, being the expression of a man who means to explain by it that anger is the fountain of all sins, and reason the source of all good actions. But God, remembering his own perfect good- ness in every particular, even if the whole or the greater part of mankind fall off from him by reason of the abundance and extravagance of their sins, stretching forth his right hand, his hand of salvation, supports man and raises him up, not per mitting the whole race to be utterly destroyed and to perish everlastingly.
XVI. On which account God now says, that Noah found grace in his sight, when all the rest of mankind appearing ungrateful were about to receive punishment, in order that he might mingle saving mercy with judgment against sinners.
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As the psalmist has said somewhere, " My song shall be of mercy and judgment."* For if God were to choose to judge the race of mankind without mercy, he would pass on them a sentence of condemnation; since there has never been a single man who, by his own unassisted power, has run the whole course of his life, from the beginning to the end, with- out stumbling; but since some men have fallen into voluntary, and some into involuntary sins, that therefore the human race might still subsist, even though many of the subordinate mem- bers of it go to destruction. God mingles mercy with his justice, which he exercises towards the good actions of even the unworthy; and he not only pities them while judging, but judges them while pitying them, for mercy is older than jus- tice in his sight, inasmuch as he knew the man who deserved punishment, not after he had passed sentence on him, but also before sentence.
XVII. On which account he says in another passage, " The cup is in the hand of the Lord; full of the mixture of un- mixed wine;"t and yet that which is mixed is not unmixed; but these words are spoken in a sense in the strictest accord- ance with natural philosophy, and in one perfectly consistent with what has been said before; for God exerts his power in an untempered degree towards himself, but in a mixed cha- racter towards his creatures; for it is impossible for a mortal nature to endure his power unmitigated. Do you think that you would be unable to look at the unmodified light of the sun? If you were to try to do so, your sight would be extin- guished by the brilliancy of his rays, and be wholly blinded by a close approach to that luminary, before it could perceive anything, and yet the sun is only one of the works of God, a portion of the heaven, a fragment of compressed aether, but you are nevertheless able to gaze Upon those uncreated powers which exist around him, and emit the most dazzling light, without any veil or modification.
As, therefore, the sun extends his rays from heaven to the boundaries of the earth, tempering and dissolving the exceed- ing violence of the heat that is in them by cool air, for he mixes his rays with that, in order that that portion of them which gives light being separated from that portion which gives heat, he may remit somewhat of his power of burning, * Psalm c. 1. f Paalm lxxv. 9.
ON THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD. 859 but retain the power by which he gives light, and so be re- ceived with welcome, when meeting that kindred and friendly light which is situated in the eyes of man; for the meeting of these two lights in the same place, coming from an opposite direction, and the reception of the one by the other, is what causes that comprehension which we arrive at by our faculty of sight: but what mortal could possibly receive in this man- ner the knowledge, and wisdom, and prudence, and justice, and all the other virtues of God, in an unalloyed state? The whole heaven, the whole world, could not do so.
Therefore the Creator, knowing the way in which he exceeded in all things that were most excellent, and the inherent natural weakness of created beings, even though they boast loudly, does not think either to benefit them or to chastise them to the extremity of his power, but only as far as he sees that those who are to be the objects of his benefits or of his chastisements have power to receive either. If, then, we are able to drink of and to enjoy a gentle and moderate mixture of his powers, we might receive sufficient happiness therefrom, than which the race of man ought not to seek to receive any more complete enjoyment.
We have now explained what the mixed and unmixed powers and what those really supreme faculties are which exist in the living God alone.
XVIII. And similar to what has been previously said, is that passage which occurs in another place, " God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same."* The expression " once " resembles the unmixed power, for the unmixed power is the unit, and the unit is the unmixed power; but the " twice " resembles the mixed power, for neither one' nor the other is a simple thing, inasmuch as it admits of combination or of divi- sion. God, therefore, utters unmixed units: for the word which he utters is not a beating of the air, being absolutely mingled with nothing else whatever, but it is incorporeal and naked, in no respect different from the unit. But we hear by the number two; for the breath being sent from the dominant part of us through the artery called the trachea, is formed in the mouth by the tongue, as by a kind of workman, and being borne outward, and mingled with its kindred air, and having struck it thus harmoniously, completes the mixture of the two • Psalm lxl 12.
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powers; for that which sounds together by a combination of different noises is at first adapted to a divisible duad, having one sharp and one flat tone: very beautifully, therefore, did he oppose one just reason to the multitude of unjust reasons, less indeed in number, but superior in power, in order that the worse of the two might not, like a weight put in a scale, weigh down the other; but that, by the power of the weight of the better one in the opposite scale it might have its lightness detected, and so be weakened.
XIX. But what is the meaning of the sentence, " Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God?" Let us now con- sider this: of those who find anything, some are finding what they formerly had and have lost; and some are discovering what they never had before, and now possess for the first time. Accordingly, those men who occupy themselves with the inves- tigation of appropriate names, are accustomed to call the latter kind finding (eugscr/s), and the former kind re-finding (avivgtarif). Of the former species we have a conspicuous example afforded us in the injunctions given about the great vow.* Now a vow is a request for good things from God; and the spirit of the great vow is to believe that God himself is the cause of good things from himself, without anyone else ever co-operating with him, of the things which may appear to be beneficial, neither the earth as fruitful, nor the rain as helping to promote the growth of seeds and plants, nor the air as calculated to nourish man, nor agriculture as the cause of production, nor the skill of the physician as the cause of health, nor marriage as the cause of the procreation of children: for all these things receive changes and alterations through the power of God, to such a degree and in such a way as often to have effects contrary to their usual ones. Moses, therefore says, that this man is " holy who nourishes the hair of his head;" the meaning of which is, that he is holy who promotes the growth in the principal por- tion of himself of the principal shoots of the doctrines of virtue, and who in a manner prides himself and takes delight in these doctrines: but sometimes he loses them, a sort of whirlwind, as it were, suddenly darting down upon the soul, and carrying-ofiL everything that was good out of it; and this whirlwind is an involuntary change, which pollutes the mind in a moment, which Moses calls death.f But nevertheless, when he has * Numbers vL 2. + Numbers vi. 9.
ON THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD. 361 afterwards got rid of this and become purified, he recovers and recollects again, what for a time, he had forgotten, and finds what he had lost, so that the days of his former change are not included in the computation, either because such change is a matter which cannot be reduced to calculation, inasmuch as it is inconsistent with right reason and has no partnership with prudence, or because it does not deserve to be taken into cal- culation; "for of such things," some ancient writer says, " there is no account nor calculation taken."* XX. And we have often met with such things as previously we had never seen even in a dream; like a husbandman whom some persons say while digging a hole for the purpose of plant- ing some fruit- bearing tree, found a treasure, meeting with good fortune which he had never hoped for. Therefore Jacob, the wrestler with God, when his father asked him the manner in which he had acquired this knowledge, saying, " How didst thou find this so quickly, my son?" answered and said, " Be- cause the Lord my God brought it before me."f For when God bestows on any one the treasures of his own wisdom with- out any toil or labour, then we, without having expected such things, suddenly perceive that we have found a treasure of per- fect happiness.
And it often happens to those who seek with great labour, that they miss that for which they are seeking; while others, who are seeking without any diligence, find with great ease even things that they never thought of finding. For those who are dull and slow in their souls, like men bereft of their eyesight, find the labour which they devote to the contempla- tion of objects of science useless and wasted; while others, through the richness of their natural endowments, find out im- measurable things without any investigation at all, by the help of felicitous and well directed conjectures; so that it would seem that they attain their objects not in consequence of any labour of their own, but because the things themselves do of their own accord come to meet them and hasten to present themselves to their view, and so give them the most accurate comprehension of them.
• Alluding probably to Theocritus h*»re, who says — 362 PHILO JUD.EUS.
XXI. To these men the law-giver says were given, " Great and beautiful cities, which they had not built; houses full of good things, which they had not filled; cisterns cut out of the solid rock, which they had not hewn; vineyards and olive gardens, which they had not planted.*" Now, by cities and houses, he here symbolically sketches out the generic and spe- cific virtues; for genus resembles a city, because it is marked out in larger circumferences, and because it is common to many individuals; and species resembles a house, because it is more contracted and avoids community; and cisterns prepared before-hand intimate the rewards which fall to the lot of some for their labour, while they are given spontaneously to others, being channels of heavenly and wholesome waters and well prepared treasures for the preservation of the virtues before- mentioned, by means of which joy is shed over the perfect heart, irradiating it all over with the light of truth. Again, when Moses speaks of the vineyards, he means them as an emblem of cheerfulness, and the olive gardens as a symbol of light.
Happy, therefore, are they who, suffering something like those persons who awoke up out of deep sleep, on a sudden, without any labour or exertion on their part, behold the world before them; and miserable are they to whom it happens to be eagerly contentious for objects to which they are not fitted by nature, being full of a contentious spirit, which is the most grievous of diseases. For, in addition to failing in the object which they are desirous of attaining, they do further incur great disgrace with no slight injury, like ships which are attempting to make their way by sea against opposing winds; for they, in addition to being unable to proceed in their course towards the point to which they are hastening, are very often upset with their crews and their cargoes, and so cause pain tb their friends and pleasure to their enemies.
XXII. Therefore the law says that some persons, having made a violent effort, went up to the mountains " And the Amorites came forth who dwell on that mountain, anchwounded them, as bees might have done, and pursued them fromSeir even to Hormah."f For it follows of necessity that those persons who, being by nature unfitted for the comprehension of arts, if by making violent efforts they do something in them, ON THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OP GOD. 363 not only fail of attaining their end, but also incur disgrace; and those who voluntarily, but still without any deliberate con- sent of their mind, do something that they ought to do, putting a sort of constraint on their own voluntary principle, do not succeed, but are wounded and harassed by their own con- sciences.
So also those who restore deposits of small value in the hope of having larger deposits entrusted to them, which they may be able to appropriate, you would call men of good faith; and yet even when they are restoring the deposits, they put a great constraint on their natural faithlessness, by which it is to be hoped, they will be unceasingly tormented.
And do not all those who offer but a spurious kind of worship to the only wise God, putting on a profession of a rigid life like a dress on a magnificent stage, merely with the object of making a display before the assembled spectators, having im- posture rather than piety in their souls, do not they, 1 say, stretch themselves on the rack as it were, and torment them- selves, compelling even the truth itself to assume a false ap- pearance. Therefore, they being for a brief period over- shadowed with the emblems of superstition, which is the great hindrance to holiness, and a great injury to those who have it and to those who associate with it; after that again stripping off their disguise, display their naked hypocrisy. And then like men, convicted of being aliens, they are looked upon as enemies, having entered themselves as citizens of that noblest of cities — virtue, while they have really no connection with it. For whatever is violent (fiiaiov) is also of short duration, as its very name imports, since it closely resembles short (/3a/o»). And the ancients used the two words (/Sa/ov) and (oXiyo^eoviov) of short duration as synonymous.
XXIII. We must now consider the question which is meant by " Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord God." * Is the meaning of what is here expressed this, that he received grace, or that he was accounted worthy of grace? The former idea it is not natural for us to entertain; for what was given to him beyond what was given to all, as one may say, not only to all concrete natures only, but to all elementary and simple natures which have been accounted worthy of divine grace? But the second interpretation has a reason in it which is not * GeneBia vi. 8.
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altogether inconsistent, that the cause of all things, judges those persons worthy of his gifts, who do not corrupt the divine impression which has been stamped upon them, namely, the most sacred mind, with disgraceful practices; still perhaps even this is not the true meaning of the words. For what kind of person must he be who would be accounted before God to be worthy of his grace? I indeed think that the whole world put together could scarcely attain to such a pitch, and yet the world is the first, and greatest, and most perfect of all the works of God. May it not. then perhaps be better to understand this expression as meaning that the virtuous man being fond of investigating things, and eager for learning, amid all the dif- ferent things that he has investigated, has found this one most certain fact, that all things that exist, the earth, the water, the air, the fire, the sun, the stars, the heaven, all animals and plants whatever, are the grace of God.
But God has given nothing to himself, for he has no need of anything; but he has given the world to the world, and its parts he has bestowed on themselves and on one another, and also on the universe, and without having judged anything to be worthy of grace, (for he gives all his good things without grudging to the universe and to its parts), he merely has regard to his own everlasting goodness, thinking the doing good to be a line of conduct suitable to his own happy and blessed nature; so that if any one were to ask me, what was the cause of the creation of the world, having learnt from Moses, I should answer, that the goodness of the living God, being the most im- portant of his graces, is in itself the cause.
XXIV. But here we must observe that Moses says, that " Noah pleased " the powers of the living God, " the Lord and God," but that he tells us that Moses himself pleased the Being who is attended by those powers as his body guard, and who, without them, is conceived only according to his essence. For it is said here, speaking in the person of God, " Because thou hast found grace in my sight,"* pointing Out himself instead of any one else whatever. Thus, therefore, he— itfho exists himself by himself alone, thinks the exceeding wisdom which is found in Moses worthy of grace, and that other wis- dom which was formed on the model of his, he considers of an inferior class, and more a wisdom of species, as consisting of * Exodus xxxiii. 17.
ON THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD. 365 subordinate powers, according to which he is both Lord and God, and ruler and benefactor.
But another mind attached to the body and the slave of the passions, having been sold as slave to the chief cook,* that is to say to the pleasure of our compound being, and being castrated and mutilated of all the masculine and generative parts of the soul, being afflicted with a want of all good practices, and being incapable of receiving the divine voice, being also separated and cut off from the sacred assembly, in which conferences and discussions about virtue are continually being brought up, is conducted into the prison of the passions, and finds grace, (a grace more inglorious than dishonour), with the keeper of the prison.f For these men are properly called prisoners, not those who after they have been condemned at the judgment seat by the legitimate magistrates, or by judges formally appointed, are led away by the officers into the place appointed for malefactors; but those in whom nature has condemned the disposition of their souls, men who are full of intemperance, and cowardice, and injustice, and impiety, and innumerable other evils; but the steward, and keeper, and guardian of these men, is the keeper of the prison, a composition and combination of all kinds of various wickednesses, united together into one mass, to please whom is the greatest of punishments.
But some people who do not perceive this, being deceived with respect to what is injurious to such a degree, as to look upon it as advantageous, come to him with great joy, and offer themselves as his body-guards, that being accounted faithful by him, they may become his lieutenants and successors in the guardianship of involuntary and voluntary offences; but do thou, O my soul, thinking such an office and magistracy as that, more grievous than the most laborious slavery, adopt, as far as you can, an unrestrained, and unconfined, and free system of life, and if you are caught by the baits of passion, endure rather to be a prisoner yourself, than the keeper of a prison; for then if you suffer distress, and groan aloud, you will obtain pity; but if you give yourself up to ambition of great posts, and to a covetousness of honour, you will receive that pleasant and greatest evil of being keeper of the prison, by which you will be influenced the whole of your life.
* Genesis xxxiz 1. t Genesis xxxix. 21.
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XXV. Reject therefore with all your might all idea of pleasing the keepers of the prison; but on the contrary, with all your ability and all your earnestness, labour to please him who is the cause of all things; and if you are unable to do so, (for the greatness of his dignity is exceeding high), at all events advance, without ever turning back, towards his powers, and present yourself to them as their suppliant, until they admit- ting the continual assiduity and sincerity of your service, place you in the ranks of those who have pleased them, as they did Noah, of whose descendants Moses has made a most admirable and novel catalogue; for he says, " These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man, being perfect in his gene- ration, and Noah pleased God"; * for the descendants of the compound being were naturally compound beings also them- selves; for horses do of necessity beget horses, and lions beget lions, bulls become the parents of bulls, and so too men beget men; but such things are not the appropriate offspring of a good mind; the progeny of that are the virtues before mentioned, namely the being a man, the being just, the being perfect, the pleasing God, which last particular, inasmuch as it is the crowning one, and as it were the boundary of perfect happiness, is enumerated last of all.
But there is one kind of creation, which is a sort of con- ducting and travelling from that which does not exist to existence. This is the one which plants, and animals do of necessity use; and there is another kind, which is a transition and change from a better genus to a worse species, which Moses mentions when he says, "These are the generations of Jacob; Joseph when he was seventeen years of age, was keeping the sheep with his brethren, being a youth with the sons of Billah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives. "f For when this reason inclined to meditation and devoted to learning, was driven down from its more divine speculations, human and mortal opinions, then Joseph, the— companion of the body, and of all the things which pertain to theoody was born, being still but a youth, even though in the lapse of time he may become greyheaded, as being one who never listened to any older discourse or opinions, which the com- panions of Moses acquired as the most useful possessions for themselves and their disciples. On this account it seems to * Genesis vi. 9. J Genesis xxxvil 2.
ON THE UNCHANGEABLENESS OF GOD. 3ft* me that Moses wishing to describe his figure and to give a more accurate idea of his appearance, so as to make it known, introduced him as tending his father's sheep, not in the com- pany of any one of his father's legitimate sons, but with his illegitimate brethren, who, being the sons of concubines, derive their name from the inferior sex, that of the women, and not from the superior sex, that, namely of the man; for they here are called the sons of Jacob's wires, Billah and Zilpah, and not the sons of their father Israel.
XXVI. And one may here very fitly raise the question for what reason it was that after mentioning the perfection of Noah in virtue, he then immediately adds that " the earth was become corrupt in the sight of God, and was filled with wickedness."* But perhaps it is not difficult to arrive at a solution of this doubt, for any one who is not exceedingly ignorant of all in- struction. We must say therefore, that when an incorruptible species arises in the soul, the mortal part is immediately de- stroyed; for the birth of virtuous studies is the death of dis- graceful ones, since also when light shines forth darkness dis- appears. On this account, in the law of leprosy, it is most expressly enjoined that " If the living skin arise in the leper, he shall be polluted;"f and further ratifying this same injunction, and as it were setting a seal to it, he adds, '* and the flesh which is sound shall pollute him," delivering this injunction in opposition to what is natural or usual: for all men think the things that are sick the pollution of those that are in health, and those that are dead the pollution of the living, and not, on the contrary, that the healthy and the living are the pollution of the sick and of the dead, but rather, they account them their salvation. But the lawgiver being full of the most modern wisdom in everything, has this peculiarity in his expositions, that he teaches that the healthy and the living are the causes of our not being pure from pollution; for the healthy and living complexion in the soul is truly conviction which rises up against it: when this conviction rises up, it makes a catalogue of all the offences of the soul, and reproaching it with them, and looking sternly at it, it is scarcely able to be stopped in its attacks upon it; and the soul being convicted recognises all its actions by which it has offended against right reason, and per- * Qenesia vi. 11. t Loviticna xiii. 14.
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ceives that it is foolish, and intemperate, and unjust, and full of pollutions.
XXVII. On which account Moses also establishes a most extraordinary law, in which he enjoins that " the man who is in part leprous shall be accounted impure, but that he who is wholly, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head over- whelmed with leprosy, shall be considered pure;"* for atiy one else, I apprehend, reasoning from probability, would say the exact contrary, and would think that the leprosy which was contracted, and which extended over only a small portion of the body, was less impure, but that the leprosy which was dif- fused, so as to spread over the whole body was more impure: but Moses here, as it appears to me, uses this symbolical ex- pression to intimate this most undeniable truth, that uninten- tional misdeeds, even if they be of the greatest enormity, are not deserving of blame, and are pure, inasmuch as they have not conscience, that terrible accuser, to testify against them: but that intentional offences, even if they do not extend over a wide surface, being convicted by the judge who passes sentence against the soul, are rightly accounted unholy, and polluted, and impure.