He, then, who had drunk of this unmixed source of joy, and was a follower of and fellow rejoicer with Moses, and not one of the least valued of that body, in his Psalms addressed his own mind, saying, "Delight thou in the Lord." Psalm xxxvii. 4. Exciting himself and his mind towards heavenly and divine love by these words, and indignantly turning away from the luxury and effeminacy existing among what are called and believed to be human goods; and being hurried away in his whole heart by divine inspiration and fervour, and finding his joy in God alone.
Section 40
And the statement that "the Paradise was in the east," is a proof of what has been here said. For folly is a thing of darkness and setting, and which brings on the night; but wisdom is a most brilliant thing, radiant all around, and in the truest sense of the word, rising. And, as the sun, when it arises, fills the whole circle of the heaven with its light, so in the same manner, when the beams of virtue shine forth, they made the whole place occupied by the mind full of pure light.
Section 41
Therefore the possessions of man have guards and keepers, very fierce beasts, for the repulse of invading and attacking enemies. But the possessions of God have rational natures for their guards. For "there," says Moses, "God placed the man whom he had made;" that is to say, he placed him among the rational virtues alone;
Section 42
therefore the practises and uses of the virtues have received from God this especial honour beyond the souls of other animals. And therefore, also, it is most Psalm xxxvii. 4. expressly and plainly declared that God placed that man which is really man in us, namely, the mind, among the most sacred shoots and plants of excellence and virtue. But among those animals which have no share in mind, no one has ever cultivated any plant worth speaking of, since there is not one of them capable by nature of receiving comprehension.
Section 43
We cannot therefore raise any question as to why it was ordained that all the different species of animals should be collected in the ark which was made at the time of the great deluge, while more were brought into the Paradise. For the ark was an emblem of the body, which of necessity therefore contained all the most tameable and ferocious evils of the passions and vices; but the Paradise contained only the virtues: and the virtues do not receive anything savage or in short anything destitute of reason.
Section 44
And Moses also speaks very carefully, not representing the man who was made after God’s own image, but the man who was formed of clay, as the one who was placed in the paradise. For the one who was made after the image of God, and stamped with the truth of God, does, as it appears to me, in no respect differ from the tree which bore as its fruit everlasting life. For they are both imperishable, and have both been thought worthy of the most central position in the dominant part of man. For it is said that "the tree of life is in the midst of the Paradise." But the other man, he of the composite and more earthly body, who has no justification in uncreated and simple nature, the cultivator of which is the only person who knows how to dwell in the house and in the courts of the Lord. For Jacob is represented "as a plain man dwelling in a house," Genesis xxv. 27, where the expression, however, is "dwelling tents." having a disposition full of ingenuity, and compounded and made up of all kinds of materials.
Section 45
It was natural therefore to place and firmly root the mind in the middle of the paradise, that is, of the universal world, having in itself faculties which draw it in contrary directions, so that it should be kept in a state of doubt when called upon to discriminate as to what it should choose and what it should avoid, since if it chose the better part it would reap Genesis xxv. 27, where the expression, however, is "dwelling tents." immortality and glory; and if it chose the worse it would meet with reproach and death.
Section 46
Such then are the trees which the only wise God has planted in rational souls. But Moses, pitying those who were exiled and compelled to quit the paradise of the virtues, addresses a prayer to the absolute authority of God and to his merciful and propitious powers, entreating that in the place from which the earthly mind, Adam, was banished, there a people capable of seeing the truth might be planted.
Section 47
For he says, "Bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thy inheritance which thou dost give them; thou hast made them to sit in thy seat, O Lord; in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have made. The Lord shall shall be king of ages, for ever and ever." Exodus xv. 17.
Section 48
Therefore he had learnt, as plainly as any man that ever lived, that God, having fixed the roots and seeds of everything down in the earth, is the cause also of the greatest of all plants, namely this world, shooting up; which world he here seems to speak of enigmatically in the song which I have just quoted, where he calls it the mountain of his inheritance; since that which is made is the most appropriate possession and inheritance, of him who has made it.
Section 49
Therefore he prays that we may be planted in it, not in order that we may become irrational and unmanageable in our natures; but that, in due obedience to the arrangement of the all-perfect governor, imitating his perpetual and undeviating consistency, we may live a temperate and innocent life. For to be able to live in a strict uniformity with nature, is what the men of old have defined as the end of happiness.
Section 50
And accordingly what is said afterwards is in strict agreement with what is said before, namely, that the world is the beautiful and properly prepared house of God, appreciable by the external senses; and that he himself made it and that it is not uncreated, as some persons have thought. And he uses the word "sanctuary," as meaning a splendour emitted from holy objects, an imitation of the archetypal model; since those things which are beautiful to the external senses are to the intellectual senses models of what is beautiful. The expression that "it was prepared by the hands of God," means that it was made by his world-creating powers. Exodus xv. 17.
Section 51
But in order that no one may suppose that the Creator had need of any one of the things which he created, he adds the most necessary assertion, "Being King of ages for ever and ever." But a king is in need of nothing, but everything which is subject to him is inevitably in need of the king.