Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit

Those, now, who attribute these things to themselves, have received an allotment worthy of their own perverseness, namely, a soul fond of plotting against others, polluted with irrational passions, and enveloped in a multitude of vices; at one time eager to indulge in violent insolence through its gluttony and lasciviousness, as though it were in a brothel; at another time held fast by the multitude of its iniquities as in a prison, with wicked (not men but) actions which deserve to be led before all the judges. Secondly, speech insolent, loquacious, sharpened against the truth, injurious to all who come in its way, and bringing disgrace upon those who possess it. Thirdly, the external sense, insatiable, always filling itself with the objects of the outward senses, but through its immoderate appetites never able to be satisfied, disregarding all its monitors and correctors, so as to refuse to look upon or to listen to them, and to reject with disdain all that they say to it for its good.

But those who take these things not for themselves but for God, attribute each one of them to him, guarding that which they have acquired in a truly holy and religious manner, keeping their mind, so that it shall think of nothing else but the things relating to God and to his excellencies, and their speech so as to make it, with unrestrained mouth, and with encomiums, and hymns, and announcements of happiness, honour the father of the universe, collecting together and exhibiting all its powers of interpretation and utterance in this one office; and regulating the external senses, so that forming a conception of the whole of that world which is perceptible by them, they may, in a guileless, honest, and pure manner, relate to the soul all the heaven and earth, and the natures whose home is between the

For God has implanted in the mind a power of comprehending that world, which is appreciable only by the intellect, by its own power, but the invisible world by means of the external senses. And if any one were able in all his parts to live to God rather than to himself, looking by means of the external senses into those things which are their proper objects, for the sake of finding out the truth; and through the medium of the soul, investigating in a philosophical spirit the proper objects of intelligence, and those things which have a real existence, and by means of his organs of voice, singing hymns in praise of the world and of its Creator, he will have a happy and a blessed life.

I think then that this is what intimated in the words, "Take for me;" God, intending to send down the perfection of his divine virtue from heaven to earth, out of pity for our race, in order that it might not be left destitute of a better portion, prepared in a symbolical manner the sacred tabernacle and the things in it, a thing made after the model and in imitation of wisdom.