על אברהם י״חOn Abraham 18
א׳
1[81] What has been said is attested by the alteration and change in his name, for his original name was Abram, but afterwards he was addressed as Abraham. To the ear there was but a duplication of one letter, alpha, but in fact and in the truth conveyed this duplication shewed a change of great importance.
ב׳
2[82] Abram is by interpretation “uplifted father”; Abraham, “elect father of sound.” The former signifies one called astrologer and meteorologist, one who takes care of the Chaldean tenets as a father would of his children.
ג׳
3[83] The latter signifies the Sage, for he uses “sound” as a figure for spoken thought and “father” for the ruling mind, since the inward thought is by its nature father of the uttered, being senior to it, the secret begetter of what it has to say. “Elect” signifies the man of worth, for the worthless character is random and confused, while the good is elect, chosen out of all for his merits.
ד׳
4[84] Now to the meteorologist nothing at all seems greater than the universe, and he credits it with the causation of what comes into being. But the wise man with more discerning eyes sees something more perfect perceived by mind, something which rules and governs, the master and pilot of all else. And therefore he blames himself severely for his former life, feeling that all his years have been passed in blindness with no staff to support him but the world of sense, which is by its nature an insecure and unstable thing.
ה׳
5[85] The second migration which the man of worth undertakes, again in obedience to an oracle, is not as before from state to state but into a desert country in which he continued to wander, never complaining of the wandering or the insecurity which it caused.
ו׳
6[86] Yet who else would not have felt it a burden not only to be severed from his own country, but also to be driven out of all city life into pathless tracts where the traveller could hardly find a way? Who would not have turned his course and hurried back homeward, paying little regard to future hopes, but eager to escape his present hardships, and thinking it folly to choose admitted evil for the sake of uncertain good?
ז׳
7[87] Yet he alone appears to have had feelings the opposite of these, and to have thought that no life was so pleasant as one lived without association with the multitude. And that is natural, for those who seek God and yearn to find Him love the solitude which is dear to Him, and in this way first of all hasten to make themselves like His blessed and happy nature.
ח׳
8[88] So in both our expositions, the literal as applied to the man and the allegorical as applied to the soul, we have shewn both man and soul to be worthy of our affection. We have shewn how the man in obedience to divine commands was drawn away from the stubborn hold of his associations and how the mind did not remain for ever deceived nor stand rooted in the realm of sense, nor suppose that the visible world was the Almighty and Primal God, but using its reason sped upwards and turned its gaze upon the intelligible order which is superior to the visible and upon Him who is maker and ruler of both alike.