XXXV. (194) These are the fountains of errors. We must now examine that of prudence. To this one it is that perseverance, that is to say, Rebecca, descends; {60}{#ge 24:15.} and after she has filled up the whole vessel of her soul she goes up again, the lawgiver, most strictly in accordance with natural truth, calling her return an ascent; for whoever brings his mind to descend from over-arrogant haughtiness is raised to a great height of virtue. (195) For Moses says, “And having gone down to the fountain, she filled her ewer, and went up again.” This is that divine wisdom from which all the particular sciences are irrigated, and all the souls which love contemplation are are filled with a love of what is most excellent; (196) and to this fountain the sacred scripture most appropriately assigns name, calling it “judgment” and “holy.” For says the historian, “Having turned back, they came to the fountain of judgment; this is the fountain of Caddes,”{61}{#ge 14:7.} and the interpretation of the name Caddes is holy. It all but cries out and shouts that the wisdom of God is holy, bringing with it nothing of the earth, and that it is the judgment of the universe by which all contrarieties are separated from one another.
XXXVI. (197) We must now speak also concerning that highest and most excellent of fountains which the Father of the universe spake of by the mouths of the prophets; for he has said somewhere, “They have left me, the fountain of life, and they have digged for themselves cisterns already worn out, which will not be able to hold Water;”{62}{#jer 2:13.} (198) therefore, God is the most ancient of all fountains. And is not this very natural? For he it is who has irrigated the whole of this world; and I am amazed when I hear that this is the fountain of life, for God alone is the cause of animation and of that life which is in union with prudence; for the matter is dead. But God is something more than life; he is, as he himself has said, the everlasting fountain of living. (199) But the wicked having fled away, and having passed their time without ever tasting the draught of immortality, have digged, insane persons that they are, for themselves, and not first for God, having preferred their own actions to the heavenly and celestial things, and the things which proceed from care to those which are spontaneous and ready. (200) Then they dig, not as the wise men Abraham and Isaac did, making wells, but cisterns, which have no good nutritious stream belonging to and proceeding from themselves, but requiring an influx from without, which must proceed from instruction. While the teachers are always pouring into the ears of their disciples all kinds of doctrines and speculations of science altogether, admonishing them to retain them in their minds, and to preserve them when faithfully committed to memory. (201) But now they are but worn-out cisterns, that is to say, all the channels of the ill-educated soul are broken and leaky, not being able to hold and to preserve the influx of those streams which are able to profit.
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