e
knowledge and love of right, acts with freedom and constancy, whereas he
who acts from fear of evil, is under the constraint of evil, and acts in
bondage under external control. So that this commandment of God to Adam
comprehends the whole Divine natural law, and absolutely agrees with the
dictates of the light of nature; nay, it would be easy to explain on
this basis the whole history or allegory of the first man. But I prefer
to pass over the subject in silence, because, in the first place, I
cannot be absolutely certain that my explanation would be in accordance
with the intention of the sacred writer; and, secondly, because many do
not admit that this history is an allegory, maintaining it to be a
simple narrative of facts. It will be better, therefore, to adduce other
passages of Scripture, especially such as were written by him, who
speaks with all the strength of his natural understanding, in which he
surpassed all his contemporaries, and whose sayings are accepted by the
people as of equal right with those of the prophets. I mean Solomon,
whose prudence and wisdom are commended in Scripture rather than his
piety and gift of prophecy. He, in his proverbs, calls the human
intellect the well-spring of true life, and declares that misfortune is
made up of folly. "Understanding is a well-spring of life to him that
hath it; but the instruction of fools is folly" (Prov. xvi. 22). Life
being taken to mean the true life (as is evident from Deut. xxx. 19),
the fruit of the understanding consists only in the true life, and its
absence constitutes punishment. All this absolutely agrees with what was
set out in our fourth point concerning natural law. Moreover, our
position that it is the well-spring of life, and that the intellect
alone lays down laws for the wise, is plainly taught by the sage, for he
says (Prov. xiii. 14): "The law of the wise is a fountain of life"--that
is, as we gather from the preceding text, the understanding. In chap.
iii. 13, he expressly teaches that the understanding renders man blessed
and happy, and gives him true peace of mind. "Happy is the man that
findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding," for "Wisdom
gives length of days, and riches and honour; her ways are ways of
pleasantness, and all her paths peace" (xiii. 16, 17). According to
Solomon, therefore, it is only the wise who live in peace and
equanimity, not like the wicked whose minds drift hither and thither,
and (as Isaia