על שינוי השמות ח׳On the Change of Names 8
א׳
1[57] The frame of mind which shrank from Him and fell spontaneously won God’s high approval by thus acknowledging of the Existent that it is He alone Who stands and that all below Him are subject to change and mutation of every kind. He addresses him with an insistence which is also a call to partnership. “And I,” He says, “—see, My covenant is with thee” (Gen. 17:4).
ב׳
2[58] The meaning suggested is to this purport—there are very many kinds of covenant, assuring bounties and gifts to the worthy, but the highest form of covenant is “I myself.” He shews and points to Himself, as far as He can be shewn Who is above all shewing, by the words “And I,” and adds, “behold my covenant,” the beginning and the fountain of all bounties is “I myself.”
ג׳
3[59] For to some God is wont to extend His benefactions by other means, earth, water, air, sun, moon, heaven, and other agencies not material, but to others by Himself alone, making Himself the portion of those who receive Him.
ד׳
4[60] On these He presently bestows as their due a different name. “Thy name shall not be called Abram (Ἀβράμ),” we read, “but Abraham (Ἀβραάμ)” (Gen. 17:5).
ה׳
5Some of the quarrelsome and captious type of people who wish to attach blame where it is not due, not so much to material things as to actions andideas, and wage war to the death against what is holy, when they find anything which seems to them to fall short in propriety if taken literally, while really it is a symbol of the nature-truth which loves concealment, make no careful search for that truth, but disparage it and hold it up to obloquy. And this they do especially with the changes of names.
ו׳
6[61] Not long ago I heard the scoffing and railing of a godless and impious fellow who dared to speak thus: “Vast and extraordinary indeed are the gifts which Moses says come from the hand of the Ruler of all. What a boon He is supposed to have provided by adding a single letter, an alpha, and again by another addition of a rho, for He 〈turned Abram (Ἀβράμ) into Abraham (Ἀβραάμ) by doubling the alpha, and〉 Abraham’s wife Sarai (Σάρα) into Sarah (Σάρρα) by doubling the rho.” And in a sneering way he ran over the list of such cases without a moment’s pause.
ז׳
7[62] Well, it was not long before he paid the penalty which his wicked folly called for. For a slight and trivial cause he hastened to hang himself, and thus even a clean death was denied to the unclean miscreant.