על שינוי השמות ל״וOn the Change of Names 36
א׳
1[193] The virtuous man then spoke truly virtuous words and “with his mind.” But the wicked man sometimes gives admirable expression to noble thoughts, but his actions are most vile and their method equally so. Such a one is Shechem, the son of folly, for his father is Hamor whose name is translated by “ass,” while his own is interpreted as “shoulder,” the symbol of toil. The toil which is fathered by unintelligence is miserable and full of affliction, just as that which has intelligence for its congener is profitable.
ב׳
2[194] Thus the oracles say that Shechem spake “according to the mind of the virgin” after first humiliating her (Gen. 34:2, 3). Are not these words “according to the mind of the virgin” added with exact thought so as almost to shew that his actions were the opposite of his words? For Dinah is incorruptible judgement, the justice which is the assessor of God, the ever virgin, for the word “Dinah” by interpretation is either judgement or justice.
ג׳
3[195] The fools who attempt to seduce her by their plottings and their practices repeated day by day seek by means of specious talking to escape from conviction. Now they should either make their actions conform to their words or if they persist in iniquity keep still. For by keeping still men say evil is halved. And so Moses by rebuking him who adjudges the chief honours to creation and only the second to the imperishable God says, “Thou hast sinned, be still” (Gen. 4:7).
ד׳
4[196] For to rant and boast of evil doings is a double sin. But what regularly happens with the multitude is this: they are ever addressing words of friendship and fairness to the maiden Virtue, but they let no occasion slip without using it to outrage and maltreat her if they can. What city is not crowded with those who hymn virtue the ever virgin?
ה׳
5[197] They tear to pieces the ears of all they meet with such disquisitions as these, prudence is necessary, imprudence is harmful, temperance deserves our choice, intemperance our hatred; courage is worthy of perseverance therein, cowardice of avoidance; justice is profitable, injustice unprofitable; holiness is honourable, unholiness disgraceful; piety is praiseworthy, impiety blameworthy; right purposing, speaking and acting is most conformable to man’s nature, wrong purposing, speaking and acting most alien to the same.
ו׳
6[198] With a perpetual string of this or suchlike talk they deceive the law-courts, the theatres, the council-chambers and every gathering and group of men, like people who set handsome masks on the ugliest of faces to prevent the ugliness being detected by the eyes of others.
ז׳
7[199] But it is all useless. The vindicators will come strong and doughty, inspired with zeal for virtue. They will strip off all this complication of wraps and bandages which the perverted art of the talkers has put together, and beholding the soul naked in her very self they will know the secrets hidden from sight in the recesses of her nature; and then exposing to every eye in clear sunlight her shame and all her disgraces they will point the contrast between her real character, so hideous, so despicable, and the spurious comeliness which disguised in her wrappings she counterfeited.
ח׳
8[200] And the champions who stand ready to repel such profane and impure ways of thinking are two in number, Simeon and Levi, but they are one in will. That is why in the blessings, while their father ranked them under a single head (Gen. 49:5), because their minds are in concord and harmony and their purpose set in one and the same direction, Moses ceases even to mention the pair, but compresses the whole of Simeon into Levi (Deut. 33:8), and thus blending the two natures he makes them one, bearing the stamp of a single form, and unites hearing with action.