Section 32

X. (32) Having, therefore, now pointed out each variety, the tranquillity of the good man, and the state of agitation in which the bad man lives, let us now consider what follows the statement which we have hitherto been examining. For Moses says that Nod, which name, being interpreted, means the tumult into which the soul has migrated, is opposite to Eden. Now Eden is a symbolical expression for correct and divine reason, on which account its interpretation is luxury; because divine reason is, above all other things, delighted with and exults among unmingled and pure, and also well filled up and complete pleasure, God, the giver of all good things, raising his virgin and undying graces upon it. But by its own intrinsic nature, the bad is always striving with the good, the unjust with the just, the wise with the foolish, and all the different species of virtue with all the different species of vice. Something like this is the meaning of the statement that Nod is opposite to Eden.