Wisdom, Nature, and the Soul

Did he forget the divine covenant? For he speaks to us about a rational animal regarding evil intent. Or now he calls the devil evil intent; for this one advised evil by saying, 'I will set my throne above the stars, I will be like the Most High.' And he also forgot the divine knowledge, leaving behind the instruction of youth; which youth shows his former state, by which also he was a zealot among the trees of paradise. For pursuing righteousness, he loves, and thus you run to seize it. Those who are seized by the years of life, these seize the tribulations of righteousness. And your mercy, he says, shall pursue me all the days of my life. Those remaining in innocence, he says, were left behind in the land, that is, in knowledge; but those having fallen through malice, through kindness, will return again.

He forgets the law, the one not living lawfully; he remembers the law, the one living according to it; and if this one keeps the words of God, the one doing them, this one destroys them, the one not willing to do them; for the hearers of the law are not righteous, he says, before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Do not be puffed up, he says, having acquired the wisdom of God; for he calls the wisdom of God here wisdom and it is human, through which he shows it; for in all your ways he says, 'He knew it,' so that you might make your paths straight. When the powers of the soul attain care, they will say 'whatever' to the Lord: 'Lord, who is like you?' For he says, 'All my bones shall say, Lord, Lord, who is like you?' For the mnemonic power of the soul, attaining care, will certainly say, 'I remembered God and was glad'; likewise also the optic power will say, 'I understood your works and was astonished'; and likewise also the desiring power, 'Lord, all my desire is against you'; and the reasoning power will also say, 'I reasoned about the days of old.' It will happen according to all, and also regarding the other powers.

In some copies there lies an abundance of grain; but it lies neither in the Hebrew nor with the Greeks, the grain. Toward wisdom alone are the demons unable, to cast thoughts into the heart of the one having become wise, if they are not forgiven; for the mind, making itself toward the things of wisdom through theorems, becomes unfit for thought.

Of the impure. A pure mind approaches wisdom; but the impure one will be distanced from it. Because of this transgression, Adam is prevented from taking hold of this tree, if the tree of life grows from the fruits of righteousness; and if the tree of life is the wisdom of God, he is justly prevented from touching this tree, for it is said that wisdom will not enter a bad-skilled soul.

God established the earth by wisdom, and prepared the heavens by prudence; and through his perception the abysses were broken open, and the clouds poured out dews. He called the earth here, which the holy Paul named breadth; and the heavens here called height, which he calls in the Epistle to the Ephesians; and the abysses called figuratively depth, and the cloud-formed things he calls length. All these are symbols of rational natures, dividing worlds and bodies by analogy.

He said the soul is a neck that has borne the yoke of the Lord. Preoccupation is an impure thought or a false knowledge of rational nature. From this we know that almsgiving removes the fearsome fantasies occurring to us in the night; and gentleness, lack of anger, and patience do the same, and all that is in its nature to restrain a troubled temper, if it is true that fearsome phantasms tend to arise from the turbulence of the temper. This enmity toward the neighbor works out some evil.

Ignorance is of the Lord in the souls of the ungodly, but knowledge is of God in the soul of the righteous. Just as to the unrighteous the Lord stands against them as righteousness, and to the liars as truth, so to the proud he stands against them as humility. The wise shall inherit knowledge; but the ungodly have valued ignorance.

It should be noted here that he calls the law a good gift because the one receiving gifts in his bosom is both unjust and not being guided; for there he says the commands of the evil one are unjust gifts, which the mind receiving them is not guided in its ways. He who transgresses the law abandons it. If it is for us to engrave wisdom, and the virtues are for us, then the engravings here signify the virtues, which lift up the knowledge of God. A crown of grace and a crown of luxury is the knowledge of God, which also protects us.