על שינוי השמות ל״גOn the Change of Names 33
א׳
1[175] Such indeed is the joy falsely so-called of the fool. The true joy has been described above, the joy which befits the virtuous alone. “And so Abraham fell and laughed” (Gen. 17:17). He fell not from God but from himself, for in clinging to the immovable Being he stood, but fell from his own conceit.
ב׳
2[176] And so when the spirit which is wise in its own conceits had been thrown to the ground and the spirit of love to God raised up and firmly planted round Him who alone never bends, he laughed at once and said in his mind, “Shall this happen to one of a hundred years old, and shall Sarah being ninety years old bear a son?”
ג׳
3[177] But do not think, good reader, that when “he said” is followed by “in his mind” instead of “with his mouth,” the addition has little meaning. No, it is made with very careful purpose. Why so? Because in saying “Shall this happen to one of a hundred years,” he seems to doubt the birth of Isaac in which in an earlier place he was said to believe, as was shown by the oracular words delivered a little time before. Those ran, “He shall not be thine heir, but one who shall come from thee,” and then immediately followed the words, “And Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:4, 6).
ד׳
4[178] So then, since doubt was not consistent with his past belief, Moses has represented the doubt not as long-lived, or prolonged to reach the mouth and tongue, but staying where it was with the swiftly moving mind. For, says the text, “He said in his mind,” which none of the creatures whose swiftness of foot we admire can outrun, and indeed no form of bird nature has such speed.
ה׳
5[179] This is, I think, the reason why the poet most highly esteemed among the Greeks says, “like a bird’s wing or a thought.” He is showing the swiftness of the mind’s intensity, and to bring this out more strongly he puts thought after the bird’s wing. For the mind moves at the same moment to many things material and immaterial with indescribable rapidity and reaches at once the boundaries of land and sea, covering and dividing distances of infinite magnitude. At the same time it leaps so high from the earth that it passes through the lower to the upper air and scarcely comes to a stop even when it reaches the furthermost sphere of the fixed stars.
ו׳
6[180] For its fiery fervent nature forbids it to rest and its onward journey carries it across wide spaces outside the limits of all this world of sense to the world framed from the ideas to which it feels itself akin. So then in the case of the virtuous man the swerving was short, instantaneous and infinitesimal, not belonging to sense but only to mind, and so to speak timeless.