על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב ל״גThat the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 33
א׳
1But the crowning purport of righteousness is to give us full rest “from the earth which the Lord God hath cursed.”
ב׳
2[123] By this is meant wickedness, which has set up its abode in the souls of the unwise, like some fell disease. Yet we may find in the righteous man a safeguard against it, for he has in his righteousness a sovereign remedy.
ג׳
3So when he has thus routed evil things, he is filled with joy, as Sarah was; for she says, “the Lord hath made for me laughter,” and goes on, “for whosoever shall hear, will rejoice with me” (Gen. 21:6).
ד׳
4[124] For God is the Creator of laughter that is good, and of joy, so that we must hold Isaac to be not a product of created beings, but a work of the uncreated One. For if “Isaac” means “laughter,” and according to Sarah’s unerring witness God is the Maker of laughter, God may with perfect truth be said to be Isaac’s father. But he gives to Abraham, the wise one, a share in His own title, and by the excision of grief He has bestowed on him gladness, the offspring of wisdom.
ה׳
5[125] If, therefore, a man be capable of hearing the poetry which God makes, he is of necessity glad himself, and he rejoices with those who had an ear for it already. God is an author in whose works you will find no myth or fiction, but truth’s inexorable rules all observed as though graven on stone. You will find no metres and rhythms and tuneful verses charming the ear with their music, but nature’s own consummate works, which possess a harmony all their own. And even as the mind, with its ear tuned to the poems of God, is glad, so the speech, being in tune with the conceptions of the understanding, and, if we may so speak, lending its ear to them, cannot but rejoice.