XXXIV. (180) We have now then described the first and most important of the considerations which belong to repentance. And let a man repent, not only of the errors by which he was for a long time deceived, when he honoured the creature in preference to that uncreated being who was himself the Creator of all things, but also in respect of the other necessary and ordinary pursuits and affairs of life, forsaking as it were that very worst of all evil constitutions, the sovereignty of the mob, and adopting that best of all constitutions, a wellordered democracy; that is to say, crossing over from ignorance to a knowledge of those things to be ignorant of which is shameful; from folly to wisdom, from intemperance to temperance, from injustice to righteousness, from cowardice to confident courage. (181) For it is a very excellent and expedient thing to go over to virtue without every looking back again, forsaking that treacherous mistress, vice. And at the same time it is necessary that, as in the sun shadow follows the body, so also a participation in all other virtues must inevitably follow the giving due honour to the living God; (182) for those who come over to this worship become at once prudent, and temperate, and modest, and gentle, and merciful, and humane, and venerable, and just, and magnanimous, and lovers of truth, and superior to all considerations of money or pleasure; just as, on the contrary, one may see that those who forsake the holy laws of God are intemperate, shameless, unjust, disreputable, weak-minded, quarrelsome, companions of falsehood and perjury, willing to sell their liberty for luxurious eating, for strong wine, for sweetmeats, and for beauty, for pleasures of the belly and of the parts below the belly; the miserable end of all which enjoyment is ruin to both body and soul. (183) Moreover, Moses delivers to us very beautiful exhortations to repentance, by which he teaches us to alter our way of life, changing from an irregular and disorderly course into a better line of conduct; for he says that this task is not one of any excessive difficulty, nor one removed far out of our reach, being neither above us in the air nor on the extreme borders of the sea, so that we are unable to take hold of it; but it is near us, abiding, in fact, in three portions of us, namely, in our mouths, and our hearts, and our hands; {31}{#de 30:11.} by symbols, that is to say, in our words, and counsels, and actions; for the mouth is the symbol of speech, and the heart of counsels, and the hands of actions, and in these happiness consists. (184) For when such as the words are, such also is the mind; and when such as the counsels are, such likewise are the actions; then life is praiseworthy and perfect. But when these things are all at variance with one another life is imperfect and blameable, unless some one who is at the same time a lover of God and beloved by God takes it in hand and produces this harmony. For which reason this oracular declaration was given with great propriety, and in perfect accordance with what has been said above, {32}{#le 26:12.} “Thou hast this day chosen the Lord to be thy God, and the Lord has this day chosen thee to be his people.” (185) It is a very beautiful exchange and recompense for this choice on the part of man thus displaying anxiety to serve God, when God thus without any delay takes the suppliant to himself as his own, and goes forth to meet the intentions of the man who, in a genuine and sincere spirit of piety and truth, hastens to do him service. But the true servant and suppliant of God, even if by himself he be reckoned and classed as a man, still in power, as has been said in another place, is the whole people, inasmuch as he is equal in value to a whole people. And this is naturally the case in other matters also; (186) for, as in a ship, the pilot is of as much importance as all the rest of the crew put together; and, as in an army, the general is of as much value as the whole of the army, since, if he is slain, the whole army is defeated as much as if it had been slain to a man and utterly destroyed; so in the same manner the wise man is, as to importance, on a par with the whole nation, being defended by that indestructible impregnable fortress, piety towards God.{33}{sections 187û227 appear out of sequence in Yonge’s edition under a separate treatise title: On Nobility. The publisher has elected to include them here to conform to the Cohn-Wendland (Loeb) sequence and numbering.}
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