was addressed to it because of its cold and listless unbelief. Therefore the divine speech addresses the cold and listless soul in figurative language, and by way of things with which it is acquainted introduces it to a love with which it is not acquainted. Allegory, after all, devises, for the sake of the soul that is far removed from God, a stratagem that will elevate it to God. When figurative language is interposed, the soul, even while it grasps in the words something on its own level, apprehends