על שינוי השמות כ״הOn the Change of Names 25
א׳
1[141] So much for the phrase “I will give to thee.” We must now explain “from her.” Some understand by it that which comes into being outside her, thinking that in the judgement of right reason the best decision is that the soul should declare that nothing good belongs to herself, but all is an addition from outside, through the high benevolence of God Who showers His gifts of grace.
ב׳
2[142] Others take it as “immediate,” “with speed.” They say that ἐξ αὐτῆς is equivalent to “straightway,” “at once,” “without postponement,” “without delay,” and this is the way in which the gifts of God are wont to be given, outrunning even the moments of time. There is a third class who say that virtue is the mother of any good that has come into being, receiving the seeds of that being from nothing that is mortal.
ג׳
3[143] Again, some ask whether the barren can bear children, since the oracles earlier describe Sarah as barren and now admit that she will become a mother. Our answer to this must be that it is not in the nature of a barren woman to bear, any more than of the blind to see or of the deaf to hear. But as for the soul which is sterilized to wickedness and unfruitful of the endless host of passions and vices, scarce any prosper in childbirth as she. For she bears offspring worthy of love, even the number seven according to the hymn of Hannah, that is, grace, who says “The barren hath borne seven, but she that is much in children hath languished” (1 Sam. 2:5).
ד׳
4[144] She applies the word “much” to the mind which is a medley of mixed and confused thoughts, which, because of the multitude of riots and turmoils that surround it, brings forth evils past all remedy. But the word “barren” she applies to the mind which refuses to accept any mortal sowing as fruitful, the mind which makes away with and brings to abortion all the intimacies and the matings of the wicked, but holds fast to the “seventh” and the supreme peace which it gives. This peace she would fain bear in her womb and be called its mother.