LXIII. (179) And he uttered this prayer, blaming Joseph the statesman and governor, because he had ventured to say, “I will feed them in that Land,”{87}{#ge 45:11.} for, “hasten ye,” said Joseph, “and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus says Joseph,” and so on, and presently he adds, “Come down unto me, and do not tarry, come with all thou hast, and I will feed thee in that land; for still the famine lasts for five years.” Jacob, therefore, speaks as he does reproving and at the same time instructing this imaginary wise man, and he says to him, “O my friend, know thou that the food of the soul is knowledge, which it is not the word which is intelligible by the external senses that can bestow, but God only who has nourished me from youth, and from my earliest age till the time of perfect manhood, he shall fill me with it. (180) Joseph therefore was treated in the same way with his mother Rachel, for she also thought that the creature had some power; on which account she used the expression, “Give me children,” but the supplanter, adhering to his proper character, says to her, “You have used a great error; for I am not in the peace of God, who alone is able to open the womb of the soul, {88}{#ge 30:1.} and to implant virtues in it, and to cause it to be pregnant, and to bring forth what is good. Consider also the history of thy sister Leah, and you will find that she did not receive seed or fertility from any creature–but from God himself.” “For the Lord, seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb, but Rachel was Barren.”{89}{#ge 29:31.} (181) And consider, now, in this sentence, again, the subtlety of the writer spoken of. God opens the wombs, implanting good actions in them, and the womb, when it has received virtue from God, does not bring forth to God, for the living and true God is not in need of any thing, but she brings forth sons to me, Jacob, for it was for my sake, probably, that God sowed seen in virtue, and not for his own. Therefore, another husband of Leah is found to be passed over in silence, and another father of Leah’s children, for he is the husband who openeth the womb, and he is the father of the children to whom the mother is said to bear them.
LXIV. (182) “And I will place enmity between thee and between the Woman.”{90}{#ge 3:15.} In reality, pleasure is hostile to the external sense, although, to some persons, it appears to be especially friendly to it. But as one would not call a flatterer a companion (for flattery is a disease of friendship), nor would one call a courtezan friendly to her lover, for she adheres only to those who give her presents, and not to those who love her; so, also, if you investigate the nature of pleasure, you will find that she has but a spurious connection with the external senses. (183) When we are sated with pleasure, then we find that the organs of the external senses in us lose their tone. Or do not you perceive the state of those men who from love of wine get drunk?–that seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear; and, in the same way, they are deprived of the accurate energies of the other external senses? And, at times, through immoderate indulgence in food, all the vigour of the external senses is relaxed when sleep overtakes them, which has derived its name from the relaxation of them. For, at that time, the organs of the external senses are relaxed, just as they are on the stretch in our waking hours, when they no longer receive unintelligible blows from external things, but such as speak loudly and are evident, and which transmit their impressions to the mind. For the mind, when stricken, must recognize the external thing, and receive a visible impression from it.
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