LIV. (160) Moses therefore does well when he adds, “Thou shalt go upon thy breast and upon thy Belly.”{72}{#ge 3:14.} For pleasure is not one of the things which is tranquil and steady, but is rather a thing which is in constant motion and full of confusion, for as flame is excited by being moved, so passion when it is put in motion in the soul, being in some respects like a flame, does not suffer it to rest. On which account he does not agree with those who pronounce pleasure a stable feeling, for tranquillity is connected with stones and trees, and all kinds of inanimate things, but is quite inconsistent with pleasure; for it is fond of tickling and convulsive agitation, and with regard to some of its indulgences it has not need of tranquillity but of an intense and violent unseemliness of commotion.
LV. (161) But the expression, “And dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,” is also used with great propriety. For the pleasures which are derived from the food of the body are all earthly. And may we not reasonably speak thus? There are two several parts of which we consist, the soul and the body; now the body is made of earth, but the soul consists of air, being a fragment of the Divinity, for “God breathed into man’s face the breath of life, and man became a living Soul.”{73}{#ge 2:7.} It is therefore quite consistent with reason to say that the body which was fashioned out of the earth has nourishment which the earth gives forth akin to the matter of which it is composed; but the soul, inasmuch as it is a portion of the ethereal nature, is supported by nourishment which is ethereal and divine, for it is nourished on knowledge, and not on meat or drink, which the body requires.
LVI. (162) But that the food of the soul is not earthly but heavenly the Holy Scriptures will testify in many passages, “Behold I will rain upon you bread from heaven, and the people shall come forth, and shall collect from day to day, when I will try them, whether they will walk according to my law or Not.”{74}{#ex 16:4.} You see that the soul is nourished not on earthly and corruptible food, but on the reasons which God rains down out of his sublime and pure nature, which he calls heaven. (163) “Let the people indeed go forth and the whole system of the soul likewise, and let it collect science and begin knowledge, not in large quantities but from day to day.” For, in the first place, in that way it will not exhaust all at once the abundant riches of the grace of God: but it will overflow like a torrent with their superfluity. Secondly, it will happen that when they have taken such good things as are sufficient for them and duly measured, they will think God the dispenser of the rest. (164) But he who endeavours to collect everything at once is only acquiring for himself despair with great sorrow, {75}{it seems that for anias, sorrow, we ought rather to read apistias, infidelity, as it is apistos which is afterwards joined with dyselpis.} for he becomes full of despair if he expects that God will only rain good things upon him at the present moment, and that he will not do so hereafter. And he becomes inclined to infidelity if he does not believe that the graces of God will be both at present and in all time abundantly poured upon those who are worthy of them. And he is foolish, moreover, if he thinks that he shall be a competent guardian of what he has collected contrary to God’s will. For a very slight inclination is sufficient to make the mind, which in its boastfulness attributes safety and stability to itself, an impotent and unsure keeper of those things of which it fancied itself a safe guardian.
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