9. Let us then conceive of all the dwellers upon earth as using one Divine language, and, so long as they agree with one another, as being kept in the use of that Divine language; and let us suppose that they do not move from the east, so long as they mind the things of the light and the brightness of the everlasting light. And let them, whenever they move from the east, minding the things alien to the east, find a plain in the land of Shinar: which, being interpreted, is "the shaking of teeth," and symbolises their losing the means of their support; and there let them dwell. Then, inasmuch as they will to collect material things, and join to heaven things which have no such natural affinity, so that through the material things they may conspire against the immaterial, we will suppose them to say, "Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly." When, accordingly, they harden and stiffen the clay and other materials, and determine to make brick into stone and clay into bitumen, and therewith build a city and a tower the top of which they expect to reach unto heaven, let them severally, in proportion as they have moved a greater or less distance from the east, and in proportion as they have made the bricks into stones, and the clay into bitumen, and have built with them, be delivered to angels of more or less severity, and of such and such dispositions, until they have paid the penalty for their audacity; and we will further suppose them to be severally led by the angels, who give them |171 their own language, to various parts of the earth according as they deserve; some, let us say, to a scorching hot country, others to one so bitterly cold that it punishes its inhabitants, some to a land hard to cultivate, others to one not so hard, some to a land full of wild beasts, and others to one with not so many.