מי יורש קנייני אלוה נ״חWho is the Heir of Divine Things 58
א׳
1[284] The words “nourished with peace” are not a pointless addition, but mean that the greater part of the human race are with little exception “nourished” for war and all its attendant evils. Now war sometimes arises from things outside us, waged against us by ill-repute and poverty and mean birth and the like. Sometimes it arises from intestine enemies—in the body, sicknesses, maimings, complete disablements of the senses and numberless other calamities piled on each other; in the soul, passions, diseases and infirmities of mind, the fierce and bitter insurrections, the inexpugnable despotisms of folly and injustice and their fellow usurpers.
ב׳
2[285] So, then, if a man be “nourished with peace” he will depart, having gained a calm, unclouded life, a life of true bliss and happiness.
ג׳
3When will this be found? When there is welfare outside us. welfare in the body, welfare in the soul, the first bringing ease of circumstance and good repute, the second health and strength, the third delight in virtues.
ד׳
4[286] For each part needs its own proper guards. The body is guarded by good repute and unstinted abundance of wealth, the soul by the complete health and soundness of the body, the mind by the acquired lore of the various forms of knowledge. Such is the meaning of the text. For that he is thinking of a peace other than that which states enjoy is clear to those who are versed in the holy Scriptures. For Abraham underwent great and severe wars, which he is shewn to have fought to the finish.
ה׳
5[287] And further, the mere leaving of his fatherland, to emigrate without any possibility of dwelling there again, to be borne hither and thither and to wander over desolate and untrodden roads were in itself a grievous war for one who had no divine message or promise wherein to trust. Still more he had, to crown this profusion of terrors, a third, famine (Gen. 12:10), an evil worse than migration and war.
ו׳
6[288] What kind of peace, then, was his? For surely to be a homeless emigrant, to be confronted by kings with overwhelming forces and to feel the stress of famine would seem to indicate not one war only, but many and manifold.
ז׳
7[289] But if we turn to the allegorical exposition of the words, each of these three proves to be an evidence of peace pure and simple. For dearth and famine of passions, the rout of enemies in the shape of wrongdoings, the migration from the creed of the Chaldeans to the creed of the lovers of God, that is, from the created and sensible to the intelligible and creative Cause—these build up the fabric of good order and stability.
ח׳
8[290] To him who enjoys a peace like this Moses promises a goodly old age, not meaning, we may be sure, the life of long duration, but the life lived wisely. For the welfare of a day ranks as far above multitude of years, as the briefer daylight above an eternity of darkness. It was a wholesome saying of a man of prophetic gifts that he would rather live a single day with virtue than ten thousand years in the shadow of death (Ps. 84[83] 11) where under the figure of death he indicates the life of the wicked.
ט׳
9[291] And Moses in the present instance shews the same by the facts he records rather than by words. For this Abraham, whom he here describes as destined to a goodly old age, is represented by him as more short-lived than practically all who went before him. Thus he shews to us, who are his scholars in wisdom, who it is whose old age is happy, to the end that we should not look with favour on all the abounding vanity of the outward body, a vanity full of shame and rich in reproaches, but recognizing in right judgement and stability of soul that goodly old age, which both in name and nature is twin brother of “reward,” give it its rightful title and testify to its truth.
י׳
10[292] Learn then thy lesson and hear how the lawgiver tells us that happy old age and longest span of life is only for the good, but briefest is the life of the wicked, since he is ever studying to die or rather has died already to the life of virtue.
