but, anyone whose mind is set on enduring to the end the weary contest in which virtue is the prize, who practises continually for that end, and is unflagging in self-discipline, will take to him two lawful wives and as handmaids to them two concubines.
[25] And to each of them is given a different nature and appearance. Thus one of the lawful wives is a movement, sound, healthy and peaceful, and to express her history Moses names her Leah or “smooth.” The other is like a whetstone. Her name is Rachel, and on that whetstone the mind which loves effort and exercise sharpens its edge. Her name means “vision of profanation,” not because her way of seeing is profane, but on the contrary, because she judges the visible world of sense to be not holy but profane, compared with the pure and undefiled nature of the invisible world of mind.
[26] For since our soul is twofold, with one part reasoning and the other unreasoning, each has its own virtue or excellence, the reasoning Leah, the unreasoning Rachel.
[27] The virtue we call Rachel, acting through the senses and the other parts of our unreasoning nature, trains us to despise all that should be held of little account, reputation and wealth and pleasure, which the vulgar mass of ordinary men who accept the verdict of dishonest hearsay and the equally dishonest court of the other senses, judge worthy of their admiration and their efforts.
[28] Leah teaches us to avoid the rough and uneven path, impassable to virtue-loving souls, and to walk smoothly along the level highway where there are no stumbling-blocks or aught that can make the foot to slip.
[29] Necessarily then Leah will have for her handmaid the faculty of expression by means of the vocal organs, and on the side of thought the art of devising clever arguments whose easy persuasiveness is a means of deception, while Rachel has for her’s the necessary means of sustenance, eating and drinking.
[30] Moses has given us, as the names of these two handmaidens, Zilpah and Bilhah (Gen. 30:3, 9). Zilpah by interpretation is “a walking mouth,” which signifies the power of expressing thought in language and directing the course of an exposition, while Bilhah is “swallowing,” the first and most necessary support of mortal animals. For our bodies are anchored on swallowing, and the cables of life are fastened on to it as their base.
[31] With all these aforesaid faculties the Man of Practice mates, with one pair as free-born legitimate wives, with the other pair as slaves and concubines. For he desires the smooth, the Leah movement, which will produce health in the body, noble living and justice in the soul. He loves Rachel when he wrestles with the passions and when he goes into training to gain self-control, and takes his stand to oppose all the objects of sense. For help may take two forms.
[32] It may act by giving us enjoyment of the good, the way of peace, or by opposing and removing ill, the way of war. So it is Leah through whom it comes to pass that he reaps the higher and dominant blessings, Rachel through whom he wins what we may call the spoils of war. Such is his life with the legitimate wives.
[33] But the Practiser needs also Bilhah, “swallowing,” though only as the slave and concubine, for without food and the life which food sustains we cannot have the good life either, since the less good must always serve as foundation for the better. He needs Zilpah too, the gift of language giving expression to the course of an exposition, that the element of words and thoughts may make its twofold contribution to the perfecting process, through the fountain of thought in the mind and the outflow through the tongue and lips.