על שינוי השמות מ׳On the Change of Names 40
א׳
1[224] Well may we commend those members of the scouting party who tried to pluck up by the roots the trunk of virtue and carry it away, and when they could not, took at least a branch and a single cluster, which was all they could carry (Num. 13:24), as a specimen and part of the whole.
ב׳
2[225] We should indeed pray that our course may lie amid the collected body of the many virtues. But if this be too great for human nature, let us be content whenever it be granted to consort with one of the specific virtues, with temperance, or courage, or justice or humanity. Let the soul carry in its womb and bring to the birth one good thing at least and not be unfruitful and barren of them all.
ג׳
3[226] Would you lay upon your own son such injunctions as these? If you do not treat your servants kindly, neither must you have neighbourly dealings with your equals. If you do not behave well to your wife, you must not honour your parents either. If you despise your father and mother, you must also shew impiety towards God. If you delight in pleasure, you must not refrain from covetousness. Do you covet great riches? Then also give way to vain conceit.
ד׳
4[227] What, I would ask, do you mean that it is wrong to use self-control in some things if you cannot do so in all? The son would surely reply, What do you mean, father? Would you have your son become either completely bad or completely good, and will you not be satisfied if he chooses the midway course in preference to the extremes?
ה׳
5[228] It was such a feeling that made Abraham, in the case of the destruction of Sodom, begin with fifty and end with ten (Gen. 18:24 f.) when he besought and supplicated that if the means of complete release to liberty (Lev. 25:10), which is symbolized by fifty, be not forthcoming in created beings, the lower training, which is numerically reckoned as ten, may be accepted to respite the soul which stands on the verge of condemnation.
ו׳
6[229] The trained have the advantage over the untrained, and those who are familiar with the culture of the schools over minds untuned to the muse; they start with better opportunities for growth, because as a rule from boyhood they have been bathed in a stream of ideas which deal with endurance and self-control and every virtue. And therefore if these have not entirely scoured and washed away their iniquity in the cleansing process, they are in a moderate and half-way degree purged.
ז׳
7[230] Esau’s words to his father seem to have a like meaning: “Hast thou one blessing, my father? bless me also, O my father” (Gen. 27:38). For different blessings should be set apart for different persons: perfect blessings for the perfect, half-way for the imperfect, just as we find with men’s bodies: for the healthy and the sick require different exercises and different diet, and in all other matters which affect their way of living the same treatment is impossible. The healthy need what agrees with them to prevent their falling sick at all, and the sick need what fits their condition to bring them round to better health.
ח׳
8[231] Since then the goods which nature has to bestow are many, grant me, O Lord, that which befits me in Thy sight, though it be but the smallest, looking to one thing only, that the gift be such as I can bear with ease, not one that slight as it is will bring me, poor weakling, fainting to the ground.
ט׳
9[232] And what do we suppose is meant by the words, “Shall not the hand of the Lord suffice?” (Num. 11:23). Surely this, that the powers of the Existent reach everywhere to benefit not only the highly placed but also those of lowlier reputation. And on these He bestows what befits them, according to the soul-measurements and appraisements of each, measuring and appraising in Himself by the rule of equality the due proportion to each.