The Many Faces of Man

He found one man out of a thousand, and a woman he found not in all these things. Many manuscripts have 'a man'; 'but a woman in all these things he found not.' If you can take it literally, that a diligent man barely finds one man out of a thousand, but a diligent woman is not to be found in all these. Or thus: he found a man, one of the thousand, a single thought of a man from many, but a woman not, because of her being hard to hunt, because of her being hard to grasp—is he saying he has found this? For it is a prey.

It is one thing to know someone as a sophist, and another to grasp his sophisms. For he who guards himself from falling into sophisms knew that he has a sophist against him, but he is not always able to untie his sophisms. But to find truly is that is, to see his craft, to make his deception manifest. Furthermore, see, he found this, which God made with the upright man, and they themselves sought many thoughts. The essence of this observation is this: God made man upright, that is, good and well, having nothing crooked or bent. But they themselves found many thoughts.

According to those thoughts, these are the differences: that 'he is a certain prey', that 'to find one thought with the one', that 'someone is a fool'. They were saying that the enemy is complex, when I mentioned the First. But he certainly has a face resembling himself, in that he is Satan, in that he is the Accuser. This face of his only those are able to see who say, 'for we do not ignore his thoughts.' They know what kind of a deceptive face he has, being imposed from without, and what kind of a face is, as if according to his nature, his face. But according to his nature, his face is that which sinks into evil. And you find often sophist men having ten thousand faces around them, and they have one hidden aim.

Therefore, that is his face. Just as he moves from these to those who are praised, there is a certain face of the man, according to which he is a man, not according to which he is an evil man or a cunning man.

This is the one who has become in honor: 'a man being in honor does not fail' (Prov 22:4), as the man having become 'both in image and in likeness' (Gen 1:26) of God. And this indeed is his preceding face, which if anyone should look upon and contemplate, he would find the man.

But they did not achieve one single calculation, but many. For wickedness is manifold. And I have once spoken aloud an image regarding the process of division, that all those who succeed find the same number, but those who err do not find the same.

A man therefore has a face, according to which he is rational, according to which he does all things with reason; and just as I was saying regarding the judge: the true judge is a living soul, just. He observes nothing other than the facts of the things being judged, not whether they are friends or enemies or relatives. For the good of the judgment depends on this.

And observe that he did not say 'property was cast away,' but 'to the properties.' And there is one form of man which makes him like God, but there are many, into which he falls. When he becomes cunning, he bears the face of a fox. When harmful and injurious, he bears the face of a serpent; when wild, a lion; when uncontrolled and a lover of pleasure and a flatterer, a dog. And entirely from the one man and the one form, variety and manifoldness arise.

And again the purpose will be, even if it seems not to some, by which the rejection of all forms occurs, to bear them so that that which God has made might be revealed. When, therefore, he remained in identity, he had one calculation. And just as it is said in one of the Psalms: 'God dwells with the single-minded in his house' (Ps 11:3), those dwelling piety, uprightly, and ecclesiastically are single-minded, 'being equipped with the same mind and the same purpose,' as each is to be single-minded.