XXVI. (101) And he says in another passage that, “When I have gone out of the city I will stretch forth my hands unto the Lord, and the voices shall Cease.”{24}{#ex 9:29.} Think not here that he who is speaking is a man, a contexture, or composition, or combination of soul and body, or whatever else you may choose to call this concrete animal; but rather the purest and most unalloyed mind, which, while contained in the city of the body and of mortal life is cramped and confined, and like a man who is bound in prison confesses plainly that he is unable to relish the free air. But as soon as it has escaped from this city, then being released, as to its thoughts and imaginations, as prisoners are loosened as to their hands and feet, it will put forth its energies in their free, and emancipated, and unrestrained strength, so that the commands of the passions will be at once put an end to. (102) Are not the outcries of pleasure very loud with which she is accustomed to deliver such commands as please her? And is not the voice of appetite unwearied when she pours forth her bitter threats against those who do not serve her? And so again all the other passions have a voice of loud and varied sound. (103) But even, if each one of the passions were to exert the ten thousand mouths and voices, and all the power of making an uproar spoken of by poets, it would not be able to perplex the ears of the perfect man, after he has already passed from them, and determined no longer to dwell in the same city with them.
XXVII. (104) But the sacred Scriptures agree with the man who can speak from experience, when he says that in the camp of the body all the sounds of war were heard, the tranquillity dear to peace having been driven to a distance. For he does not say that it is not such a shout of war, but that it is not such a shout as some persons think the cry of men who have conquered or who have been conquered to be, but rather such an one as would proceed from men heavy and overwhelmed with wine. (105) For the expression, “It is not the voice of men beginning to exert themselves in battle,” is equivalent to the words, “of men who have got the better in war,” for exertion in battle is the cause of victory. Thus he represents the wise Abraham, after the destruction of the nine kings, that is, of the four passions and the five powers of the outward senses, which were all set in motion in a manner contrary to nature, preluding with a hymn of gratitude, and saying, “I will stretch forth my hand to the most high God, who made heaven and earth; that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet of any thing that is Thine,”{25}{#ge 14:22.} (106) And he means, as it appears to me, by this expression, everything in the world, the heaven, the earth, the water, the air, and all animals, and all plants. For to every one of them, he who directs all the energies of his soul towards God, and who looks to him alone as the only source form which he can hope for advantage, may fitly say–I will take nothing that is yours; I will not receive from the sun the light of day, nor by night will I receive light from the moon or from the other stars, nor rain from the air and from the clouds, nor meat and drink from the earth and from the water, nor the power of sight from the eyes, nor the faculty of hearing from the ears, nor that of smelling from the nostrils, nor from the palate in the mouth the sense of taste, nor the faculty of speaking from the tongue, nor the power of giving and taking from the hands, nor that of approaching and of retreating from the feet, nor that of breathing from the lungs, nor that of digesting from the liver, nor from the other internal organs of the body the power of exciting the energies which belong to them, nor the yearly produce from trees and seeds; but I will look upon every thing as proceeding from the only wise God, who extends his own beneficial powers in every direction, and who by their agency benefits me.
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