XIV. (1.77) And the sun is also spoken of in many passages of holy writ in a figurative manner. Once as the human mind, which men build up as a City{19}{#ge 1:4.} and furnish, who are compelled to serve the creature in preference to the uncreated God, of whom it is said that, “They built strong cities for Pharaoh and Peitho,”{20}{#ge 11:4.} that is, for discourse; to which persuasion (to peithein) is attributed, and Rameses, or the outward sense, by which the soul is devoured as if by moths; for the name Rameses, being interpreted, means, “the shaking of a moth;” and On, the mind, which they called Heliopolis, since the mind, like the sun, has the predominance over the whole mass of our body, and extends its powers like the beams of the sun, over everything. (1.78) But he who appropriates to himself the regulation of corporeal things, by name Joseph, takes the priest and minister of the mind to be his father-in-law; for says the scripture, “he gave him Aseneth, the daughter of Peutephres, the priest of Heliopolis, for his Wife.”{21}{#ge 41:45.} (1.79) And, using symbolical language, he calls the outward sense a second sun, inasmuch as it shows all the objects of which it is able to form a judgment to the intellect, concerning which he speaks thus, “The sun rose upon him when he passed by the appearance of God.”{22}{#ge 32:31.} For in real truth, when we are no longer able to endure to pass all our time with the most sacred appearances, and as it were with incorporeal images, but when we turn aside in another direction, and forsake them, we use another light, that, namely, in accordance with the external sense, which is real truth, is in no respect different from darkness, (1.80) which, after it has arisen, arouses as if from sleep the senses of seeing, and of hearing, and also of taste, and of touch, and of smell, and sends to sleep the intellectual qualities of prudence, and justice, and knowledge, and wisdom, which were all awake. (1.81) And it is for this reason that the sacred scripture says, that no one can be pure before the evening, {23}{#le 4:31.} as the disorderly motions of the outward senses agitate and confuse the intellect. Moreover, he establishes a law for the priests also which may not be avoided, combining with it an expression of a grave opinion when it says, “He shall not eat of the holy things unless he has washed his body in water, and unless the sun has set, and he has become Pure.”{24}{#le 22:6.} (1.82) For by these words it is very clearly shown that there is no one whatever completely pure, so as to be fit to be initiated into the holy and sacred mysteries, to whose lot it has fallen to be honoured with these glories of life which are appreciable by the external senses. But if any one rejects these glories, he is deservedly made conspicuous by the light of wisdom, by means of which he will be able to wash off the stains of vain opinion and to become pure. (1.83) Do you not see that even the sun itself produces opposite effects when he is setting from those which he causes when rising? For when he rises everything upon the earth shines, and the things in heaven are hidden from our view; but, on the other hand, when he sets then the stars appear and the things on earth are overshadowed. (1.84) In the same manner, also, in us, when the light of the outward senses rises like the sun, the celestial and heavenly sciences are really and truly hidden from view; but when this light is near setting, then the starlike radiance of the virtues appears, when the mind is pure, and concealed by no object of the outward senses.
Page 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546474849505152535455565758596061626364656667686970717273747576777879808182
