(4) 'The senses they call the horses, the objects of the senses their roads. When he (the Highest Self) is in union with the body, the senses, and the mind, then wise people call him the Enjoyer.'

(1) In the first place, it is requisite to know this, that the good man is not immediately happy from necessity; but that this is the case with the man who is both happy and good. For the happy man obtains both praise and the predication of blessedness; but the good man far as he is good obtains praise alone. The praise also arises from virtue; but the predication of blessedness from good fortune. And the worthy man, indeed, becomes such from the goods which he possesses; but the happy man is sometimes deprived of his felicity. For the power of virtue is perfectly free, but that of felicity is subject to restraint. For long-continued diseases of the body, and deprivations of the senses, cause the florishing condition of felicity to waste away.

God, however, differs from a good man in this, that God indeed not only possesses virtue genuine and purified from every mortal passion, but his power also is unwearied and unrestrained, as being adapted to the most venerable and magnificent production of eternal works. Man indeed, by the mortal condition of his nature, not only enjoys this power and this virtue in a less degree; but sometimes through the want of symmetry in the goods which he possesses, or through powerful custom, or a depraved nature, or through many other causes, he is unable to possess in the extreme a good which is perfectly true.

(3) Nor does he need cheerfulness of mind; for he does not fall into pain, being persuaded that all things happen well. Nor is he angry; for there is nothing to move him to anger, seeing he ever loves God, and is entirely turned towards Him alone, and therefore hates none of God's creatures. No more does he envy; for nothing is wanting to him, that is requisite to assimilation, in order that he may be excellent and good. Nor does he consequently love any one with this common affection, but loves the Creator in the creatures. Nor, consequently, does he fall into any desire and eagerness; nor does he want, as far as respects his soul, aught appertaining to others, now that he associates through love with the Beloved One, to whom he is allied by free choice, and by the habit which results from training, approaches closer to Him, and is blessed through the abundance of good things.

(96) Here thou must know, that without, distinct from himself, he had no impulse at all to his pride, but his beauty and brightness deceived him. When he saw that he was the fairest and most beautiful prince in heaven, then he despised the friendly qualifying, mixing, operating and generating of the Deity, and thought with himself that he would rule with his princely power in the whole Deity; all must stoop and bow to him.

(4) N. is welcome among the gods; he sees the great god, he is led on the good roads, he is presented with funerary offerings, his enemies are beaten down under him in the house of the Prince of Heliopolis

(6) He never cherishes resentment or harbours a grudge against any one, though deserving of hatred for his conduct. For he worships the Maker, and loves him, who shares life, pitying and praying for him on account of his ignorance. He indeed partakes of the affections of the body, to which, susceptible as it is of suffering by nature, he is bound. But in sensation he is not the primary subject of it.

(3) I say not that it shall ever last and dwell in all their minds continually, that be called to work in this work. Nay, so is it not. For from a young ghostly prentice in this work, the actual feeling thereof is ofttimes withdrawn for divers reasons. Sometime, for he shall not take over presumptuously thereupon, and ween that it be in great part in his own power to have it when him list, and as him list. And such a weening were pride. And evermore when the feeling of grace is withdrawn, pride is the cause: not ever pride that is, but pride that should be, were it not that this feeling of grace were withdrawn. And thus ween ofttimes some young fools, that God is their enemy; when He is their full friend.

(2) Exhaling, break within me the great fast Which a long season has in hunger held me, Not finding for it any food on earth. Well do I know, that if in heaven its mirror Justice Divine another realm doth make, Yours apprehends it not through any veil. You know how I attentively address me To listen; and you know what is the doubt That is in me so very old a fast." Even as a falcon, issuing from his hood, Doth move his head, and with his wings applaud him, Showing desire, and making himself fine, Saw I become that standard, which of lauds Was interwoven of the grace divine, With such songs as he knows who there rejoices. Then it began: "He who a compass turned On the world's outer verge, and who within it Devised so much occult and manifest, Could not the impress of his power so make On all the universe, as that his Word Should not remain in infinite excess. And this makes certain that the first proud being, Who was the paragon of every creature, By not awaiting light fell immature.

(12) Who is not elated, who does not hate, does not grieve, who has renounced both good and bad, he, My devotee is dear to Me.

(22) In truth, man in this world is extremely weak and contemptible; it is only in the next that he will be of value, if by means of the "alchemy of happiness" he rises from the rank of beasts to that of angels. Otherwise his condition will be worse than the brutes, which perish and turn to dust. It is necessary for him, at the same time that he is conscious of his superiority as the climax of created things, to learn to know also his helplessness, as that too is one of the keys to the knowledge of God.

(12) And manliness in man, who is subject to perturbation, as they say, makes him who partakes of it essentially fearless and invincible; and anger is the mind's satellite in patience, and endurance, and the like; and self-constraint and salutary sense are set over desire. But God is impassible, free of anger, destitute of desire. And He is not free of fear, in the sense of avoiding what is terrible; or temperate, in the sense of having command of desires. For neither can the nature of God fall in with anything terrible, nor does God flee fear; just as He will not feel desire, so as to rule over desires.

(6) 'But he who has understanding and whose mind is always firmly held, his senses are under control, like good horses of a charioteer.'

(3) Thus also is the proud, corrupted, perished nature of man, it stareth only upon that which is glittering and in fashion in this world, and supposeth that God has forgotten the afflicted, and therefore plagueth them so, because he mindeth them not.

(62) And although the Driver compasses thee about, and will fetch thee away, yet there is a limit for thy Beast, how far it shall go, the Hunter cannot break [or destroy] it sooner than the limited Time; and then if he breaks it, or it is done only for [the Manifesting of] God's Deeds of Wonder, and for thy best Good; all thy Stripes in the thorny Bath shall stand in my Kingdom for a fair Ensign of thy Victory; and moreover, thou shalt have great Joy in it, before the Angels of God, in that thou hast despised the Hunter, and art gone out of a wild Birth into an angelical one. O how thou wilt rejoice, when thou shalt think upon thy wild Beast, which plagued thee Day and Night, in that thou art 0 loosed from it.

(34) He has no impulse or driving, without or distinct from himself; his impulse and mobility stands in his body, which is of such a kind and manner as the whole God is; and his light and knowledge, as also his life, is generated in that manner as the whole divine being is generated.

(33) And then if he finds his Master so unjust, that he rises up against him, and takes away his unrighteous Bread, which he thinks to eat under a soft Yoke, and worries him to the uttermost, and leaves him no Time to escape, he sticks full of Impatience under that heavy Burden, and grumbles and murmurs, and seeks all evil Devices to ease his Yoke, that he might eat his Bread in Quietness; and yet it will not be, the Driver [Hunter, cruel Tyrant his Master] is behind him, and takes away his Bread, and feeds him with Sorrow under his Yoke.

(21) 'Though sitting still, he walks far; though lying down, he goes everywhere. Who, save myself, is able to know that God who rejoices and rejoices not?'

(12) The breath, when on the point of departing, tore up the other senses, as a horse, going to start, might tear up the pegs to which he is tethered 1. They came to him and said: 'Sir, be thou (our lord); thou art the best among us. Do not depart from us!'

(12) 'The wise who, by means of meditation on his Self, recognises the Ancient, who is difficult to be seen, who has entered into the dark, who is hidden in the cave, who dwells in the abyss, as God, he indeed leaves joy and sorrow far behind.'

(190) For he is asleep, and deaf to the other's voice. But the perfect spiritualist who has broken his boat He is then neither silent nor speaking, but a mystery. That marvelous one is in neither of these states 'Twould be irreverent to explain his state more fully. These illustrations are weak and inappropriate, In short, the vengeance of That Jealous One (God) When the King awoke out of his trance to consciousness, When that incomparable one looked into his quiver,