Chapter II.
After the departure of Abraham, God speaks to him as a friend. The same is proposed to us for imitation, so that our mind may be reformed by his example. Therefore, Lot goes out with him; and what the significance of the sixtieth year is. Finally, how a wise person possesses their soul.
Abraham went out just as the Lord had spoken to him (Gen. XII, 4). Hence the Gentiles report the saying of the seven sages: Follow God, as if he were found; although Abraham, not to mention Moses, who was much earlier, was the one through whom the law was given, saying: You shall walk after the Lord your God (Deut. XIII, 4). Therefore Abraham went out, in whom not so much his perfection as his devotion of soul and freedom of mind went out from the bonds of the body, from the traps of pleasure. Finally, you have it: Abraham went out, just as God had spoken to him. Above, you have 'Go,' says God, in which the clear command of the one commanding is expressed: here you have how God spoke to him. The affection of some conversation is included; for he did everything that was ordained. Therefore, before the action, God speaks as if to a subject, after the action, he speaks as if to a friend. For the one who does what is commanded is a friend to God. And in his Gospel, the Lord Jesus says: 'You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants' (John 15:14-15). But, as I said, the process of the wise man is presented to us for imitation, written for the sake of experiment, not perfection. For the mind is still being reformed in Abraham, which has fallen in the first man. And therefore, it gathers itself through stages and progress.
6. And he added: And Lot went out with him (Gen. XII, 4), that is, decline. For the interpretation of the name signifies this; because as travelers, taking an unknown road, are often deceived by certain paths, so that they turn aside from the direct path; and yet if they are prudent, they do not go astray, but, hesitating, they gather the way from the view of the region itself: thus Abraham, though wavering, nevertheless followed the path of truth. He was often led astray by the false appearance of good things, but he was not completely inclined. For it is the mark of the perfect not to deviate, and of the wise not to deviate completely. But that one alone never deviated, of whom it is written: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in her womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel, he shall eat butter and honey, before he knoweth or preferreth evil, let him choose the good; for before the child shall know to prefer the evil or the good, he shall not believe malice, that he may choose what is good (Isaiah 7:14). Abraham could not do this, that he would choose good things before he knew evil things. But he adhered to celestial precepts, so as not to deviate from the truth (Gen. XII, 4). Therefore, he is described as having lived seventy-five years in Charra, because the number seventy signifies perfect remission, it is the feeling that can be influenced. The pleasure of these sensations cause our mind to not always be upright, but sometimes swayed; so that it does not hide within the caves of the body, but within the hiding places of pleasure.
However, even in these warrens, he managed to escape in such a way that he took his wife and grandson and all the souls he possessed in Charra. For those who are wise and self-controlled are possessors of virtue and soul, choosing the beauty of gentle manners. But those who are lovers of the body are ensnared by its pleasures, for in the disposition of the body lie all irrational virtues, while the rational virtues lie in the soul and disciplines. It is written afterwards (Ibid., 5), that he possessed his soul as a free ruler, and subject to no servitude. This, then, is the intention of the doctor; that even in those diversions and deviations, whether of a more recent age, or of a discipline not yet perfect, or in a place open to vice, he resided in such a way that he was not so inclined to fault that he could not depart. Finally, he defended and transferred his mind from that slippery possession.