[71] Why, then, should we not at once take vengeance on him too, sophist and miscreant that he is, by sentencing him to the death that befits him—that is to silence, for silence is the death of speech? Thus will he no longer ply his sophistries within the mind, nor will that mind be led astray, but absolutely released from the pleasures of his “brother,” the body, and from the witcheries of the senses, the “neighbours” at his gates, and from the sophistries of the speech which is “nearest” to him, he will be able to devote his unhampered liberty to the world of mental things.
[72] It is this Mind who “says to his father and mother”—his mortal parents—“I have not seen you,” from the day when I saw the things of God; it is this Mind who no longer knows his sons, ever since he came to the knowledge of wisdom; it is this Mind who renounces his brethren (Deut. 33:9), ever since he was not renounced before God, but judged worthy of full salvation.
[73] It is this same Mind who “took the lance,” that is probed and searched the secrets of corruptible creation, which finds in food and drink the treasure-house of its happiness; who “entered,” as Moses tells us, “the furnace”—the furnace of human life, which burns so fiercely and unquenchably, fed with the exceeding multitude of our transgressions; who then received strength to “pierce” both the woman and the man—“the woman through the womb,” because she believed herself to be the cause of generation, though in reality her part is passive rather than active—“the man” as representing every thought which followed this belief—the belief which invests the natures which are but the subjects of God’s action with the dues which belong only to Him who alone is the cause of all that comes into being (Num. 25:7, 8).