על שינוי השמות י״אOn the Change of Names 11
א׳
1[77] We will now deal with the case of Sarah his wife. Her name Sarai (Σάρα) is changed to Sarah (Σάρρα) by the addition of one letter, rho. These are the names, now for the facts indicated by them. Sarai means my sovereignty, Sarah sovereign.
ב׳
2[78] The former is a symbol of specific virtue, the latter of generic, and in the same measure as the genus is greater than the species is the second name greater than the former. The species is small and perishable, the genus is large and imperishable.
ג׳
3[79] And the gifts which God wills to bestow are great and immortal in exchange for small and perishable, and to give such is a work well suited to Him. Wisdom in the good man is a sovereignty vested in himself alone, and its possessor will not err if he says “The wisdom in me is my sovereignty.” But in the wisdom which is its archetype, the generic wisdom, we cease to have the sovereignty of the particular individual, but sovereignty its very self.
ד׳
4[80] And therefore that specific wisdom will perish with its possessor, while the other which like a seal gave it its shape, being free from all mortal element, will continue for ever imperishable. So too with the arts: the specific arts perish with their owners, the geometricians, the grammarians, the musicians: the generic arts remain imperishable. Incidentally another lesson suggested at the same time is that every virtue is a queen and a sovereign and a ruler of the course of human life.