The misuse of reason and the metaphor of the soil

It has been founded, and a part of the earth is the inhabited world, and it itself appropriately has this seat by its moist nature. And he says regarding the rivers that it is prepared for them; not to be founded upon rivers, but to be prepared; for it is not possible to say that it is founded both in the sea and in the rivers has been founded upon the sea, having been prepared for the rivers, so that it might be benefited by them, just as certain springs and channels flowing through it. Such bodies, if they do not have water sprinkled throughout them by which they can be held together, become fragments. And these things are to be understood regarding the literal sense.

But since the following things can no longer be taken historically: 'Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy place?' (Ps 24:3), it is necessary to say that the way of the ascent and the seat of the standing were not mentioned, but the answer is made to the one asking: 'Who is the one ascending and who is the one standing?' Thus: 'innocent of hands and pure in heart.' That being innocent refers to the hands, and that being pure refers to the actions. Then he says 'a divine character': 'innocent of hands and pure in heart, who has not taken his soul in vain.'

This is understood in two ways. 'In vain' refers to the foolish person taking his own soul, deliberating, choosing, and acting; for often these things—the unseemly, the sensible, the transitory—are signified by the name 'vain'; as if he were saying, 'and you will know where you were, when you were trusting in vain things,' meaning the transitory things. It can also refer to the sins themselves. 'In vain' he took it, the one rising in the morning and drinking wine and staying late so as to be consumed by the wine; for 'woe to those who rise early and pursue strong drink and stay late; for the wine will consume them' (Isa 5:11). Again, they have haste to rise from dawn and hurry to the courts, in which injustice follows; this one 'has taken his soul in vain.' This is also consistent with what is said in Isaiah to certain people: 'Vain is the strength of your spirit' (Isa 5:12). Here, 'spirit' is the opinion. Similarly, this applies to what was said concerning the Virgin, that just as she is holy in body, so she is holy in spirit, in opinion and in mind. Therefore, 'vain' is 'the strength of your spirit.' If anyone, then, uses the mind...

His mind is also worn out by 'worldly cares' toward vain things; his strength is in vain. They exhaust the power of reasoning toward vain things. Indeed, one can see such people and even more wicked ones. They exhaust the whole strength of the mind toward these things.

A second explanation for: 'who has not received his soul in vain' (Psalm 39:9). God prepared man as a rational being, not merely so that he might possess reasoning and do nothing according to it; for this He made the rational being, so that he might receive virtue and exercise it. 'He has received his soul in vain' does not mean God gave it thus, but that he himself has taken it thus. As one might say, for example: He made man from soul and body, and there are certain movements of the soul, and there are also movements of the body. We have the activity of members: walking, doing something with the hands, seeing. If anyone, then, for instance, having feet, never walks, he has his feet 'in vain' in a certain way.

And for an upward leading: the following words force even the preceding verses to be led upward. 'The Lord' is that 'earth,' that 'good and noble heart' which received the one whom Jesus cast seed, and bore fruit a hundredfold, or a hundred and sixty and thirty (Matthew 13:8). Often I have said that the intelligible things can be taken in the same way through more various thoughts, when they were saying the soul is a sheep and a plant. Here, therefore, the same earth is both earth and inhabited world. When, therefore, it bears the practical virtues, it is an earth having fullness. But when it has the divine gifts of the Spirit, it is an inhabited world having inhabitants. It is not a desert; for He has not said, 'Come, and let us abandon it,' as it is said to the doomed inhabited world. And this is the assembly of the Jews.

And he extends this also to every soul having, at first, a dwelling, but leaving it by its own fault. Therefore, this is connected to: 'He himself founded it upon the seas' (Psalm 74:3). Sea and seas is the name given to the place of earth and the condition of those dwelling there. Having being in billows and in saltiness, I call the dwelling; upon these seas He founded it. And this sea takes the sting of Jesus, so that from it...