על הגירת אברהם כ״בOn the Migration of Abraham 22
א׳
1[124] Let us pray then that, like a central pillar in a house, there may constantly remain for the healing of our maladies the righteous mind in the soul and in the human race the righteous man; for while he is sound and well, there is no cause to despair of the prospect of complete salvation, for our Saviour God holds out, we may be sure, the most all-healing remedy, His gracious Power, and commits it to His suppliant and worshipper to use for the deliverance of those who are sickly, that he may apply it as an embrocation to those soul-wounds which were left gaping by the sword-edge of follies and injustices and all the rest of the horde of vices.
ב׳
2[125] The most patent example is righteous Noah, who, when so many parts of the soul had been swallowed up by the great Flood, valiantly riding upon the waves that buoyed him up, stood firm high above every peril, and, when he had come safe through all, put forth from himself fair roots and great, out of which there grew up like a plant wisdom’s breed and kind; which, attaining goodly fertility, bore those threefold fruits of the seeing one, even of “Israel,” that mark the threefold divisions of eternity, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob;
ג׳
3[126]for in the All virtue is, shall be, has been: covered with a dark shadow, it may be, by men’s missings of the due season but revealed again by due season that ever follows in God’s steps. In such due season does “Sarah” who is sound sense, give birth to a man-child, putting forth her fruit not according to the changes of the year measured by lapse of time, but in accordance with a fitness and fulness of season that time does not determine: for it is said “I will certainly return unto thee according to this season when the time comes round; and Sarah thy wife shall have a son” (Gen. 18:10).