Every mind that sets itself up against God, the mind which we call “King of Egypt,” that is of the body, proves to be a maker of such structures. For Moses describes Pharoah as rejoicing in buildings constructed of brick. This is natural, for when the workman has taken the two substances of earth and water, one solid and the other liquid, but both in the process of dissolution or destruction, and by mixing them has produced a third on the boundary line between the two, called clay, he divides it up into portions and without interruption gives each of the sections its proper shape. He wishes thus to make them firmer and more manageable since this, he knows, is the easiest way to secure the completion of the building. This process is copied by the naturally depraved, when they first mix the unreasoning and exuberant impulses of passion with the gravest vices, and then divide the mixture into its kinds, sense into sight and hearing, and again into taste and smell and touch; passion into pleasure and lust, and fear and grief; vices in general into folly, profligacy, cowardice, injustice, and the other members of that fraternity and family—the materials which moulded and shaped, to the misery and sorrow of their builders, will form the fort which towers aloft to menace the soul.
On the Confusion of Tongues 19
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.