VII. (21) Let us now again in its turn consider what is the united body of evils voluntarily incurred. Our souls being capable of being divided into three divisions, one division is said to have fallen to the lot of the mind and of reason, the second to passion, and the third to appetite; and each separate one of these has its own peculiar evils, and also they have all common and mutual diseases. Since the mind reaps the harvest which folly, and cowardice, and intemperance, and injustice sow; and passion brings forth frantic and insane strife and conflict, and all the other numerous evils with which it is pregnant; and appetite disseminates in every direction the impetuous and fickle loves of youth which descend upon every object, animate or inanimate, which it chances to meet with. (22) For then, as if in any vessel, the sailors, and the passengers, and the pilots, had all, under the influence of insanity, agreed to destroy it, those who have joined in the plot against it are none the less involved in the same destruction. For the heaviest of all evils, and almost the only one that is incurable, is the unanimous energy of all the parts of the soul agreeing to commit sin, not one of the parts being able to act with soundness (just as is the case in an evil affecting the whole people), so as to heal those that are sick; but even the physicians being diseased as well as their patients, whom the pestilential disease has overwhelmed and weighs down under a confessed calamity. (23) Of this great evil, that great deluge described by the lawgiver is an image; for the torrents from heaven continually pouring down cataracts of wickedness itself with impetuous violence, and springs from the ground (by which I mean the body) continually bursting up and pouring forth streams of every passion in great numbers and vast size, which, uniting an being mingled in the same stream with the other waters, are thrown into confusion, and overthrow the whole region of the soul which has received them with incessant eddies and whirlpools. (24) “For,” says Moses, “the Lord God, seeing that the wickedness of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one did think continually in his heart nothing but evil all his days, determined to punish man” (and here by man I understand the mind, together with all the reptiles and the winged creatures, and all the rest of the multitude of wild animals which surround him), by reason of his incurable wickedness; and then punishment which God decided upon was the deluge. (25) For there was unbounded freedom in sinning, and unlimited licence in doing wrong, no one hindering it, but all restraints being shamelessly broken down in such a way that there was no fear left behind to restrain those who were thoroughly ready to snatch at abundant supplies for enjoyment of every kind. And may we not say that this was natural? For it was not only one portion of the soul which was corrupted in such a way that it could still be preserved by the sound condition of the other parts; but there was no part whatever of it which was left free from disease or from corruption. For the incorruptible Judge, says Moses, seeing that every thought of man’s heart (not one single idea by itself) was evil continually, inflicted upon him a deserved punishment.
VIII. (26) These are they who “made a treaty with one another in the valley of Salt.”{2}{#ge 14:3.} For the region of the vices and of the passions is a hollow valley, rough, and full of ravines; truly salt, and producing bitter pains; and their treaty, as one that was not worthy of being confirmed by any oath or by any libation, the wise Abraham, who knew the character of it, annulled. For it is said in the scripture that, “All these men made a treaty at the valley of Salt, that is the sea of Salt.” (27) Do you not perceive that they who are barren of wisdom and blinded as to the intellect which it would be natural to expect should be sharp-sighted, having the name of Sodomites from their real character,” did, with all their people united together, from young to old, surround the house in a Circle”{3}{#ge 19:4.} (that is to say, the house of the soul), in order to pollute and contaminate those strangers from a foreign land, who had been received in hospitality, namely, sacred and holy reasons, the guards and defenders of the soul; no one whatever attempting either to resist those wrong doers, or to avoid doing wrong himself? (28) For Moses does not speak of some as having consented and of others having stood aloof; but, as he says, “The whole people surrounded the house all together, both old and young,” having entered into a conspiracy against all those holy actions and words which it is customary to call angels.
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