Now those who conspired for iniquities, “moved,” we are told, “from the ‘east’ (or ‘rising’) and found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there” (Gen. 11:2). How true to nature! For there are two kinds of “rising” in the soul, the better and the worse. The better is when the beam of the virtues rises like the rays of the sun; the worse when virtues pass into the shadow and vices rise above the horizon. We have an example of the former in these words: “And God planted a pleasaunce in Eden towards the sun-rise” (Gen. 2:8). That garden was not a garden of the plants of the soil, but of heavenly virtues, which out of His own incorporeal light the Planter brought to their rising, never to be extinguished. I have heard also an oracle from the lips of one of the disciples of Moses, which runs thus: “Behold a man whose name is the rising” (Zech. 6:12), strangest of titles, surely, if you suppose that a being composed of soul and body is here described. But if you suppose that it is that Incorporeal one, who differs not a whit from the divine image, you will agree that the name of “rising” assigned to him quite truly describes him. For that man is the eldest son, whom the Father of all raised up, and elsewhere calls him His first-born, and indeed the Son thus begotten followed the ways of his Father, and shaped the different kinds, looking to the archetypal patterns which that Father supplied.
On the Confusion of Tongues 14
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.