On Sobriety 3

¹And indeed in the Greater Song, he calls the whole people when they shew a rebellious spirit, by the name which belongs to the age of folly and babyhood, that is “bairns.” “The Lord is just and holy,” he says; “have not the blameworthy bairns sinned against him? a crooked and perverse generation, is it thus that ye requite the Lord? Are ye a people thus foolish and not wise?” (Deut. 32:4–6). ²We see clearly that he has given the name of “bairns” or “children” to men within whose souls are grounds for blame, men who so often fall through folly and senselessness and fail to do what the upright life requires. And in this he had no thought of literal age in the sense in which we use it of the bodies of the young, but of their truly infantine lack of a reasonable understanding. ³Thus Rachel, who is comeliness of the body, is described as younger than Leah, that is beauty of soul. For the former is mortal, the latter immortal, and indeed all the things that are precious to the senses are inferior in perfection to beauty of soul, though they are many and it but one. ⁴It is in accordance with this that Joseph is always called the young and youngest. For when he is keeping the flock with his bastard brothers, he is spoken of as young (Gen. 37:2), and when his father prays for him he says, “my youngest son, though grown, return to me” (Gen. 49:22). ⁵Now Joseph is the champion of bodily ability of every kind, and the staunch and sincere henchman of abundance in external things, but the treasure which ranks in value and seniority above these, the seniority of the soul, he has never yet gained in its fullness. For if he had gained it, he would have fled quite away from the length and breadth of Egypt, and never turned to look back. But as it is, he finds his chief glory in cherishing and fostering it—this Egypt over which the Man of Vision sings his hymn of triumph to God when he sees its fighters and its leaders sunk in the sea and sent to perdition. ⁶The “young” disposition, then, is one which cannot as yet play the part of shepherd with its true-born brothers, that is, rule and keep guard over the unreasoning element in the soul, but still consorts with the base-born, who honour as goods such things as are good in appearance rather than the genuine goods which are reckoned as belonging to true existence. ⁷And “youngest” too this youth is held to be, even though he has received improvement and growth to something better, when compared with the perfect or full-grown mind which holds moral beauty to be the only good. And therefore Jacob uses words of exhortation: “return to me,” he says, that is, desire the older way of thinking. Let not your spirit in all things be the spirit of restless youth. The time is come that you should love virtue for its own sake only. Do not like a foolish boy be dazzled by the brightness of fortune’s gifts and fill yourself with deceit and false opinion.