[109] But we must observe that he says that Noah was well pleasing to the Potencies of the Existent, to the Lord and to God (Gen. 6:8), but Moses to Him who is attended by the Potencies, and without them is only conceived of as pure being. For it is said with God as speaker, “thou hast found grace with Me” (Exod. 33:17), in which words He shews Himself as Him who has none other with Him.
[110] Thus, then, through His own agency alone does He who IS judge the supreme wisdom shewn in Moses to be worthy of grace, but the wisdom which was but a copy of that, the wisdom which is secondary and of the nature of species, He judges as worthy through His subject Potencies, which present Him to us as Lord and God, Ruler and Benefactor.
[111] But there is a different mind which loves the body and the passions and has been sold in slavery to that chief cateress (Gen. 39:1) of our compound nature, Pleasure. Eunuch-like it has been deprived of all the male and productive organs of the soul, and lives in indigence of noble practices, unable to receive the divine message, debarred from the holy congregation (Deut. 23:1) in which the talk and study is always of virtue. When this mind is cast into the prison of the passions, it finds in the eyes of the chief jailer a favour and grace, which is more inglorious than dishonour.
[112] For, in the true sense of the word, prisoners are not those who after condemnation by magistrates chosen by lot, or it may be elected jurymen, are haled to the appointed place of malefactors, but those whose character of soul is condemned by nature, as full to the brim of folly and incontinence and cowardice, and injustice and impiety and other innumerable plagues.
[113] Now the over-seer and warder and manager of them, the governor of the prison, is the concentration and congeries of all vices multitudinous and manifold, woven together into a single form, and to be pleasing to him is to suffer the greatest of penalties. But some do not see the nature of this penalty, but, being deluded into counting the harmful as beneficial, become right joyfully his courtiers and satellites, in the hope that having judged them to be faithful he may make them his subalterns and lieutenants to keep guard over the sins which are committed with the will or without it.
[114] My soul, hold such a mastery and captaincy to be a lot more cruel than that slavery, heavy though it be. Follow indeed, if thou canst, a life-purpose which is unchained and liberated and free.
[115] But, if it be that thou art snared by the hook of passion, endure rather to become a prisoner than a prison-keeper. For through suffering and groaning thou shalt find mercy; but if thou put thyself in subjection to the craving for office or the greed of glory, thou shalt receive the charge of the prison, a pleasant task indeed, but an ill one and the greatest of ills, and its thraldom shall be over thee for ever.