על שינוי השמות ל״זOn the Change of Names 37
א׳
1[201] So when he understood the promise and spoke “according to his mind” these words, so full of reverence and pious awe, the man of worth was moved by a twofold feeling, faith towards God, distrust of the creature. It is natural then that he should pray in these words, “Let this Ishmael live before thee” (Gen. 17:18), and each of the phrases here included, namely, “this,” “live,” “before Thee,” are applied by him appropriately. I say appropriately because many are deceived by the application of the same terms to denote different things.
ב׳
2[202] What I mean by this should be considered. Ishmael by interpretation is “hearing God,” but the divine truths are heard by some to their profit, by some to the harm of themselves and others.
ג׳
3Observe that dealer in augury, Balaam. He is described as “hearing the oracles of God and knowing knowledge from the Most High” (Num. 24:16),
ד׳
4[203] but what did he profit from such hearing or such knowledge, he who attempted to bring ruin on the soul’s best eye which alone has been trained to see God? But yet what he willed he could not, so strong was the Saviour’s invincible might. Therefore, stabbed by his own madness, he received many wounds and perished “in the midst of the wounded” (Num. 31:8) because with his soothsayer’s mock wisdom he defaced the stamp of heaven-sent prophecy.
ה׳
5[204] Rightly then it is “this Ishmael” for whose health alone the man of virtue prays, because of those others who do not hear with honest mind the holy instructions, whom Moses absolutely forbade to resort to the assembly of the Ruler of all. Such as in their pride extol their own mind and senses as the sole causes of all that happens amongst men—
ו׳
6[205] these are they who have spiritually lost the organs of generation by crushing or complete mutilation; such again as love the creed which holds that gods are many and pays all honour to that fellowship of deities—these are the children of the harlot who knows not the one husband and father of the virtue-loving soul,—are not all such with good reason expelled and banished? (Deut. 23:1, 2).
ז׳
7[206] The parents too who accuse their son of wine-bibbing seem to make a like use of the pronoun. They say “This son of ours is disobedient” (Deut. 21:20), and thus by the addition of “this” they shew that they have other sons, strong-willed and self-controlling, who obey the injunctions of right reason and instruction. For these two are the soul’s parents who can never lie, and to be accused by them is the greatest disgrace, as their praise is the highest glory.
ח׳
8[207] To take another instance, “It is this Moses and Aaron whom God bade lead the sons of Israel from Egypt” (Ex. 6:26), or “These are they who talked with Pharaoh the king” (ibid. 27). In neither of these cases must we suppose that the words are used carelessly and that the demonstrative pronouns served no other purpose than to indicate the names.
ט׳
9[208] For since Moses is mind at its purest, and Aaron is its word, and each have been trained to holy things, the mind to grasp them as a God should and the word to express them worthily, the professors of false wisdom mimic and debase this authentic coin, and say that what they think of the most excellent is just, and what they say of it worthy of praise (Ex. 7:11). And so that when the spurious is set beside the authentic we may not be deceived by the likeness of the stamp he has given us a touchstone by which they may be distinguished.
י׳
10[209] What is this touchstone? It is that he brought out of the land of the body the mind which could see and which loved wisdom and the vision. For he who could do this is “This Moses,” and he who could not, who had but the name and clothed himself with a multitude of grand-sounding titles, is made a laughing-stock.
י״א
11When he prays that Ishmael may live, he is not concerned with the life of the body, but prays that what he hears from God may abide for ever with the soul and stir him into living flame;