About the Planting of Noah (64-65)

For, in real truth, the mind which is perfectly purified, and which knows all the things of creation, knows and recognizes one only God, the Uncreate, whom it approaches, and by whom it is received. For to whom is it permitted to say, "He alone is my God," except to the man who is attached to none of the objects which are inferior to him? And this is the custom of the Levites; for the name of Levi, being interpreted, means, "he is to me," because different things are honoured by different people, but by him only that which is highest and most excellent, the Cause of all things.

They tell an old story, that some man in ancient times, who had fallen madly in love with the beauty of wisdom, as if it had been the beauty of a most lovely woman, once, when he saw a most sumptuous preparation of unbounded and costly magnificence, looked towards some of his friends, and said, "Behold, O companions, how many things there are of which I have no need!" And yet he had nothing whatever of even necessary things beyond his mere clothes, so that he was not puffed up with the magnitude of his riches, which has been the case with numbers of [*] [*]