XIX. Why need we enlarge on the pleasures of the belly ? For we may almost say that there are as many varieties of pleasure as there are of gentle flavours which are presented to the belly, and which excite the outward sense. Was it not then, with great propriety that pleasure, which is derived from many varied sources, was presented to an animal endowed with varied faculties ? On this account, too, that part in us which is analogous to the people, and which acts the part of a multitude, when it seeks "the houses in Egypt," that is to say. in its corporeal habitation, becomes entangled in pleasures which bring on death ; not that death which is a separation of soul and body, but that which is the destruction of the soul by vice. For Moses says, " And the Lord God sent among the people deadly serpents, and they bit the people, and a great multitude of the children of Israel died."t For in real truth there is nothing which so much bringeth death upon the soul as an immoderate indulgence in pleasures. And tbat which perishes is not the dominant portion in us but the subject one, that which acts the part of the midtitude ; and it receives death up to this point, namely, until it turns to repentance, and confesses its sin,: for the Israelites, coming to Moses, say. "We have sinned in that we have spoken against the Lord and against you ; pray, therefore, for us to the Lord, and let him take away the serpents from us." It is well put here, not we have sinned because we have spoken against the Lord, but because we were inclined to sin we have spoken against the Numbers xxi. 5. t Numbers xxi. 6. H 2 Lord, for when the mind sins and departs from virtue, it blames divine things, imputing its own sins to God.

XX. How, then, can there be any remedy for this evil ? When another serpent is created, the enemy of the serpent which came to Eve, namely, the word of temperance : for temperance is opposite to pleasure, which is a varied evil, being a varied virtue, and one ready to repel its enemy pleasure. Accordingly, God commands Moses to make the serpent according to temperance ; and he says, " Make thyself a serpent, and set it up for a sign." Do you see that Moses makes this serpent for no one else but for himself ? for God commands him, " Make it for thyself," in order that you may know that temperance is not the gift of every one, but only of that man who loves God. And we must consider why Moses makes a brazen serpent, when no command was given to him respecting the material of which it was to be formed. May it not have been for this reason ? In the first place, the graces of God are immaterial, being themselves only ideas, and destitute of any distinctive quality ; but the graces of mortal men are only beheld in connection with matter. In the second place, not only does Moses love the incoqooreal virtues, but our own souls, not being able to put off their bodies, do likewise aim at corporeal virtue, and reason, in accordance with temperance, is likened to the strong and solid substance of brass, inasmuch as it is firm and not easily cut through. And perhaps brass may also have been selected inasmuch as temperance in the man who loves God is a most honourable thing, and like gold ; though it has only a secondary place in a man who has received wisdom and improved in it. <; And whomsoever the one serpent bites, if he looks upon the brazen serpent shall live:" in which Moses speaks truly, for if the mind that has been bitten by pleasure, that is by the serpent which was sent to Eve, shall have strength to behold the beauty. of temperance, that is to say, the serpent made by Moses in a manner affecting the soul, and to behold God himself through the medium of the serpent, it shall live. Only let it see and contemplate it intellectually.

So then the prophet comforted David as we have seen, but that blessed man, though he received most gladly the assurance, "The Lord has put away your sin," did not, king as he was, draw back from penitence. Indeed he put on sackcloth in place of his purple robe, and the king sat in ashes on the bare earth instead of on his gilded throne. And in ashes he did not merely sit but took them for eating, as he himself says, "I have eaten ashes as if bread and mingled my drink with weeping." His lustful eye he wasted away with tears; as he says, "Every night I wash my bed and water my couch with my tears." And when his courtiers exhorted him to take bread, he would not, but he prolonged his fast for seven whole days. Now if a king was apt to make confession after this manner, should not you, as a private person, make your confession? Again, after Absalom's rebellion, when David was in flight, with many roads to choose from before him, he chose to make his escape by the Mount of Olives, as good as invoking in his own mind the Deliverer who should from there ascend into the heavens. And when Shimei cursed him bitterly, he said, "Let him be." For he knew that forgiveness is for those who forgive.

(tom. xix. 3.) The Word, while still present, yet threatens to depart. So long as we preserve the seeds of truth implanted in our minds, the Word of God does not depart from us. But if we fall into wickedness, then He says to us, I go away; and when we seek Him, we shall not find Him, but shall die in our sin, die caught in our sin. But we should not pass over without notice the expression itself: Ye shall die in your sins. If ye shall die be understood in the ordinary sense, it is manifest that sinners die in their sins, the righteous in their righteousness. But if we understand it of death in the sense of sin; then the meaning is, that not their bodies, but their souls were sick unto death. The Physician seeing them thus grievously sick, says, Ye shall die in your sins. And this is evidently the meaning of the words, Whither I go ye cannot come. For when a man dies in his sin, he cannot go where Jesus goes: no dead man can follow Jesus: The dead praise not Thee, O Lord. (Ps. 113)

(tom. xix. in Joan. s. 4.) May they not however have a higher meaning in saying this? For they had opportunities of knowing many things from their apocryphal books or from tradition. As then there was a prophetical tradition, that Christ was to be born at Bethlehem, so there may have been a tradition also respecting His death, viz. that He would depart from this life in the way which He declares, No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. (c. 10:18) So then the question, Will He kill Himself, is not to be taken in its obvious sense, but as referring to some Jewish tradition about Christ. For His saying, I go My way, shews that He had power over His own death, and departure from the body; so that these were voluntary on His part. But I think that they bring forward this tradition which had come down to them, on the death of Christ, contemptuously, and not with any view to give Him glory. Will He kill Himself? say they: whereas, they ought to have used a loftier way of speaking, and have said, Will His soul wait His pleasure, to depart from His body? Our Lord answers, Ye are from beneath, i. e. ye love earth; your hearts are not raised upwards. He speaks to them as earthly men, for their thoughts were earthly.

(tom. xix. in Joan. s. 5.) Beneath, and, of this world, are different things. Beneath, refers to a particular place; this material world embraces different tractsd, which all are beneath, as compared with things immaterial and invisible, but, as compared with one another, some beneath, some above. Where the treasure of each is, there is his heart also. If a man then lay up treasure upon earth, he is beneath: if any man lay up treasure in heaven, he is above; yea, ascends above all hearers, attains to a most blissful end. And again, the love of this world makes a man of this world: whereas he who loveth not the world, neither the things that are in the world, is not of the world. Yet is there beyond this world of sense, another world, in which are things invisible, the beauty of which shall the pure in heart behold, yea, the First-born of every creature may be called the world, insomuch as He is absolute wisdom, and in wisdom all things were made. In Him therefore was the whole world, differing from the material world, in so far as the1 scheme divested of the matter, differs from the subject matter itself. The soul of Christ then says, I am not of this world; i. e. because it has not its conversation in this world.