A Treatise on the Confusion of Languages.

 I. (1) As to the preceding topics, what has been already said will be sufficient. We might next proceed to consider, and that in no slight or cursory

 II. (2) Those who are discontented at the constitution under which their fathers have lived, being always eager to blame and to accuse the laws, being

 III. (6) And there is also another story akin to this, related by the deviser of fables, concerning the sameness of language existing among animals: f

 IV. (9) But he who brings his account nearer the truth, has distinguished between the rational and irrational animals, so that he testifies that ident

 V. (14) Those, then, who put these things together, and cavil at them, and raise malicious objections, will be easily refuted separately by those who

 VI. (16) Now who is there who does not know the great influence of fortune, when men, in addition to the diseases or mutilations of the body, are atta

 VII. (21) Let us now again in its turn consider what is the united body of evils voluntarily incurred. Our souls being capable of being divided into t

 VIII. (26) These are they who made a treaty with one another in the valley of Salt.[Ge 14:3.] For the region of the vices and of the passions is a h

 IX. (29) But Moses, the prophet of God, will meet them and check them, though they come on with exceeding boldness even though, placing in the front

 X. (33) It is very appropriately said that the meeting took place on the bank of the river but the banks are also called the lips, and the lips are t

 XI. (39) But many, who are not able vigorously to refute the plausible inventions of the sophists, because they have not very much practised discussio

 XII. (44) And there is testimony in support of this assertion of mine first of all, in the disposition of every lover of virtue which acknowledges th

 XIII. (49) These and other similar gifts are the most desirable treasures of peace, that blessing so celebrated and so admired, which the mind of each

 XIV. (60) But those who conspired to commit injustice, he says, having come from the east, found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt There [Ge

 XV. (64) But an example of the worse kind of dawning is afforded by the words used by the man who was willing to curse the people who were blessed by

 XVI. (70) Accordingly, the body-loving race of the Egyptians is represented as fleeing, not from the water, but under the water, that is to say, ben

 XVII. (75) And take notice that Moses does not say that they came unto a plain in which they remain, but that they found one, having searched around

 XVIII. (83) But the wicked man, desiring to exhibit the fact that identity of language, and the sameness of dialect does not consist more in names and

 XX. (91) And before now some persons, even more excessively extravagant in wickedness than these, have not only prepared their own souls for such acti

 XXI. (98) But he says that the world perceptible to the outward senses is, as it were, the footstool of God on this account: first of all, that he may

 XXII. (101) And they are represented as baking the bricks in the fire, for the purpose of intimating by this symbolical expression that they are stren

 XXIII. (107) And the expression, Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which shall reach to heaven, has such a meaning as this

 XXIV. (116) For they say, Let us make for ourselves a name. O, the excessive and profligate impudence of such a saying! What say ye? When ye ought t

 XXV. (122) But all these men are the offspring of that wickedness which is always dying but which never dies, the name of which is Cain. Is not Cain r

 XXVI. (128) The children who have received from their father the inheritance of self-love are eager to go on increasing up to heaven, until justice, w

 XXVII. (134) And the statement, The Lord went down to see that city and that tower must be listened to altogether as if spoken in a figurative sense

 XXVIII. (142) We say that this is the reason why it is said that God went down to see the city and the tower and the addition, Which the sons of men

 XXIX. (150) But against those who praise themselves on justice, the Lord said, Behold, there is one race and one language among them all, an express

 XXX. (156) What, then, is the proof that they had not entirely completed this building? First of all, the manifest notoriety of the fact. For it is im

 XXXI. (159) At all events, the law says that that soothsayer and diviner who was led into folly in respect of his unstable conjectures (for the name,

 XXXII. (163) These things are an exhibition of a soul destitute of prudence, and which meets with no impediment to its indulging in sin for whoever i

 XXXIII. (168) And it is worth while to consider in no superficial manner what the meaning of that expression which is put by Moses into the mouth of G

 XXXIV. (171) This point then being thus granted, it is necessary to convert with it also what follows, so as to adapt it properly. Let us then conside

 XXXV. (176) These things, then, it was necessary to give an idea of beforehand but for what reason this was necessary we must now say. The nature of

 XXXVI. (180) And this may be enough to say in this manner and it is right that this point also should be considered, namely that God is the cause onl

 XXXVII. (183) We must now examine what this confusion is. How then shall we enter on this examination? In this manner, in my opinion. We have very oft

 XXXVIII. (190) This, now, is our opinion upon and interpretation of this passage. But they who follow only what is plain and easy, think that what is

XXV. (122) But all these men are the offspring of that wickedness which is always dying but which never dies, the name of which is Cain. Is not Cain represented as having begotten a son whom he called Enoch, [Ge 4:17.] and as building a city to which he gave the same name, and as after a fashion building up created and mortal things to the destruction of those things which have received a more divine formation? (123) For the name Enoch, being interpreted, means "thy grace." But every impious man supposes that what he thinks and understands is owing to the bounty of his intellect towards him; that what he sees is the gift of his eyes to him, what he hears of his ears, what he smells of his nostrils, and so that each of his outward senses bestows on him those perceptions which are in accordance with them. Again, that it is the organs of the voice which endow him with the capacity of speaking, and that there is actually no such thing as a God at all, or at all events that he is not the primary cause of things. (124) Because of these views he assigns to himself the first fruits of the fruits which he extracts from the earth by his husbandry, being contented afterwards to offer to God some of the fruit, and that too though he has a sound example at hand; for his brother offers a sacrifice of the offspring of the flock, offering the firstborn, and not those which are of secondary value; confessing that the eldest causes of all existing things are suited to the eldest and first cause. (125) But the impious man thinks exactly the contrary, namely, that the mind is endowed with absolute power to do whatever it desires, and that the outward senses have absolute power as to all that they feel, for that both the mind and the outward senses decide in an irreproachable and unerring manner, the one on bodies, and the other on everything. (126) Now what can be more open to blame, or more capable of conviction by truth, than such ideas as these? Has not the mind been repeatedly convicted of innumerable acts of folly? And have not all the outward senses been convicted of bearing false witness, and that too not by irrational judges who, it is natural to suppose, may be deceived, but before the tribunal of nature herself, which it is impossible to corrupt or to pervert? (127) And indeed as the criteria both of our mind and of our outward senses are liable to error respecting even ourselves, it follows of necessity that we must make the corresponding confession that God sheds upon the mind the power of intellect, and on the outward senses the faculty of apprehension, and that these benefits are conferred upon us not by our own members but by him to whom also we owe our existence.