On the Meeting for the sake of seeking Instruction (56-60)

And the father of this passion is very properly described as Eliphah; for this name, being interpreted, means "God has scattered me." But does it not follow that when God scatters, and disperses, and discards the soul, banishing it from himself, irrational passion is at once engendered? For He plants the mind which can really behold him, and which is really attached to God, the vine of a good kind, stretching out its roots so as to make them everlasting, and giving it abundance of fruit for the acquisition and enjoyment of the virtues.

On which account Moses prays, saying, "Bring them in and plant them in," [*] in order that those divine shoots may not be ephemeral, but long-lived and lasting for ever and ever. And banishing the unjust and ungodly soul, he disperses it [*] [*]

There is also in another place the following sentence deeply engraven: "When the Most High came down to scatter the nations, as he dispersed the sons of Adam," [*] he drove out all earthly dispositions, which had no desire to see any good thing from heaven; depriving them of house and city, and rendering them truly wanderers on the face of the earth. For no house, nor city, nor anything else which relates to society and participation, is preserved for any one of the wicked; but they are deprived of all settled habitation, and dispersed abroad, being moved in every direction, and living a life of continued emigration, and not being able to become settled any where.

Therefore the wicked man has for his children, wickedness, by his wife who is a citizen, and passion by his concubine; for the whole soul, like a free citizen, is a companion of reason, but that which is open to reproach brings forth wickedness. But the nature of the body is a concubine, by means of whom the birth of the passion is beheld; and the body is the region of the pleasures and passions, and it is called Thamnah,

which name, being interpreted, signifies a "fluctuating abandonment." For the soul becomes faint and powerless by reason of the passions having received much tossing about and agitation from the body, on account of the violent storm which bursts forth from immoderate impetuosity.