XXXVI. (196) On which account also that disposition which is ranked in the highest class by God, by name Samuel, does not explain the just precepts of kingly power of Saul, while he is still lying among the pots, but only after he has drawn him out from thence: for he inquires whether the man is still coming hither, and the sacred oracle answers, “Behold, he is hidden among the stuff.”{91}{1 Samuel 10:22.} (197) What, then, ought he who hears this answer, and who is by nature inclined to receive instruction, to do, but to draw him out at once from thence? Accordingly, we are told, “He ran up and took him out from thence, because he who was abiding among the vessels of the soul, that is, the body and the outward senses, was not worthy to hear the doctrines and laws of the kingdom (and by the kingdom, we mean wisdom, since we call the wise man a king); but when he has risen up and changed his place, then the mist around him is dissipated, and he will be able to see clearly. Very appropriately, therefore, does the companion of knowledge think it right to leave the region of the outward sense, by name Charran; (198) and he leaves it when he is seventy-five years old; and this number is on the confines of the nature discernible by the outward senses, and that intelligible by the intellect, and of the older and younger, and also of perishable and imperishable nature; (199) for the elder, the imperishable ratio, that comprehensible by the intellect, exists in the seventy; the younger ratio, discernible by the outward senses, is equal in number to the five outward senses. In this latter also the practiser of virtue is seen exercising himself when he has not yet been able to carry off the perfect prize of victory; –for it is said, that all the souls which came out of Jacob were seventy and Five;”{92}{#ge 46:27.}–(200) for to him, while wrestling, and not shrinking at all from the truly sacred contest, for the acquisition of virtue, belong the souls which are the offspring of the body, and which have not yet acquired reason, but are still attracted by the multitude of the outward senses. For Jacob is the name of one who is wrestling and engaged in a contest and trying to trip up his antagonist, not of one who has gained the victory. (201) But when he appeared to have gained ability to behold God, his name was changed to Israel, and then he uses only the computation of seventy, having extirpated the number five, the number of the outward senses; for it is said, that “thy fathers went down to Egypt, being seventy Souls.”{93}{#de 10:22.} This is the number which is familiar to Moses the wise man: for it happened that those who were selected as carefully picked men out of the whole multitude, were seventy in number; and those all elders, not only in point of age, but also in wisdom and counsel, and in prudence, and in ancient integrity of manners. (202) And this number is consecrated and dedicated to God when the perfect fruits of the soul are offered up. For, on the feast of tabernacles, besides all other sacrifices, it is ordered that the priest should offer up seventy heifers for a burnt offering. Again, it is in accordance with the computation of seventy that the phials of the princes are provided, for each of them is of the weight of seventy shekels; since whatever things are associated and confederate together in the soul, and dear to one another, have a power which is truly attractive, namely, the sacred computation of seventy, which Egypt, the nature which hates virtue, and loves to indulge the passions, is introduced as lamenting; for mourning among them is computed at seventy Days.{94}{#ge 50:8.}
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