III. (6) As, according to the most skilful physicians and natural philosophers, the heart appears to be formed before the rest of the body, after the manner of the foundation of a house or the keel of a ship, and then the rest of the body is built upon it; on which account, even after death, the physicians say, that the heart still quivers, as having been created before the rest of the body, and being destroyed after it; so also does the dominant portion of the soul appear to be older than the whole of the soul, and the irrational part to be younger; the formation of which Moses has not yet mentioned, but he is about to give a sketch of it, how the irrational part of the soul is the external sensation, and the passions which spring from it, especially if the judgments are our own. And this assistant of God is younger, and created, being thus described with perfect propriety. (7) But now let us see how that part, which was postponed before, acts as an assistant: how does our mind comprehend that such and such a thing is black or white, unless it employs sight as its assistant? and how does it know that the voice of the man who is singing to his harp is sweet, or, on the contrary, out of tune, if it has not the assistance of the faculty of hearing to guide it? And how can it tell that exhalations are fragrant or foulsmelling, unless it makes use of the sense of smell as its ally? How again does it judge of the different flavours, except through the instrumentality of its assistant, taste? (8) How can it distinguish between what is rough and what is smooth, except by touch? There is also another class of assistants, as I have already said, namely, the passions: for pleasure also is an assistant, co-operating towards the durability of our race, and in like manner concupiscence, and pain, and fear, biting the soul, lead it to treat nothing with indifference. Anger, again, is a defensive weapon, which has been of great service to many people, and so too have the other passions in the same manner. On which account Moses has said, with great felicity, “that he was an assistant to himself:” for he is in reality an assistant to the mind, as if he were its brother and near kinsman: for the external sensations and the passions are parts of one soul, and are its offspring.
IV. (9) Now of assistants there are two kinds, the one consisting in the passions and the other in the sensations. […]{1}{A word or two are lost here. Pfeiffer thinks that several sentences are wanting; and there is a great want of connection between what follows and what has gone before.} But the prior kind is that of generation, for Moses says, “And God proceeded and made all the beasts of the field out of the earth, and all the birds of heaven; and he brought them to Adam to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called any living soul that became its name.” You see here who are our assistants, the beasts of the soul, the passions. For after God had said, “I will make him a helpmeet for him,” Moses adds subsequently, “He made the beasts,” as if the beasts also were assistants to us. (10) But these are not, properly speaking, assistants, but are called so only in a catachrestic manner, by a kind of abuse of language, for they are found in reality to be enemies to man. As also in the case of cities, the allies turn out at times to be traitors and deserters; and in the case of friendship, flatterers are found to be enemies instead of companions; and Moses here speaks of the heaven and the field synonymously, describing the mind in this allegorical manner; for the mind, like the field, has innumerable periods of rising and budding forth; and, like the heaven, has brilliant, and divine, and happy characteristics of nature. (11) But the passions he compares to beasts and birds, because they injure the mind, being untamed and wild, and because, after the manner of birds, they descend upon the intellect; for their onset is swift and difficult to withstand; and the word “besides,” as attached to “he made,” is not superfluous. Why so? because he has previously said, that the beasts were formed before the creation of man, and he shows it in the following words, which are an account of what was done on the sixth day. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, four-footed animals, and creeping things, and wild beasts.” (12) Why, then, is it that he makes other animals now, not being content with those already existing? now this must be stated according to the principles of moral philosophy. The species of evil are abundant in created man, so that the most evil things are continually produced in him; and this other thing must be affirmed on principles of natural philosophy. First of all, in the six days he created the different kinds of passions, and the ideas, but now, in addition to them, he is creating the species. (13) On which account Moses says, “And besides he made…” and that what had been previously created were genera is plain from what he says, “Let the earth bring forth living souls,” not according to species but according to genus. And this is found to be the course taken by God in all cases; for before making the species he completes the genera, as he did in the case of man: for having first modelled the generic man, in whom they say that the male and female sexes are contained, he afterwards created the specific man Adam.
