De Mutatione Nominum

When, therefore, you hear that "Pharaoh and all his servants rejoiced on account of the arrival of Joseph’s brethren," [*](Genesis xlv. 16. ) do not think that they rejoiced in reality, unless perhaps in this sense, that they expected that he would become changed from the good things of the soul in which he had been brought up, and would come over to the profitless [*](Exodus iv. 14. ) [*](Isaiah xlviii. 22. ) [*](Genesis xlv. 16. )

The mind, then, which is devoted to pleasure, having entertained these hopes, does not think that it is sufficient to attract the younger men, and those who are as yet only attending the schools of temperance, by its allurements; but it looks upon it as a terrible thing, if it cannot also bring over the elder reasoning, the more impetuous passions of which have now passed their prime;

for in a subsequent passage Joseph says to them, proposing injuries to them as though they were benefits, "Now, therefore, bringing with you your father and all your possessions, come hither to me;" [*](Genesis xlv. 18. ) speaking in this way of Egypt and of that terrible king who drags back all our paternal inheritance and the good things which really belong to us and which have advanced beyond the body (for by nature they are free), endeavouring by force to surrender them to a very bitter prison, having, as the holy scripture tells us, "appointed as guardian of the prison Pentaphres, the eunuch and chief cook," [*](Genesis xxxix. 1. ) who was a man in great want of all that is good, and who had been deprived of the generative parts of the soul; and who was also unable to sow and to plant any of those things which bear upon instruction; but who like a cook slew the living animals, and cut them up and divided them in different portions limb by limb, and who wallowed about in dead and lifeless bodies and things equally, and who, by his superfluous preparations and refinements, excited and stirred up the appetites of the profitless passions, which it was natural to expect that those who were able to tame them should mollify.

And he also says, "I will give unto you of all the good things of Egypt, and you shall eat of the marrow of the earth." [*](Genesis xlv. 18. ) But we will say unto him, We who keep our eyes fixed on the good things of the soul do not desire those of the body. For that most delicious desire of the former things, when once implanted in the mind, is well calculated to engender a forgetfulness of all those things which are dear to the flesh.

Something like this, then, is the falsely named joy of the foolish. But the true joy has already been described, which is adapted only to the virtuous, "Therefore, falling [*](Genesis xlv. 18. ) [*](Genesis xxxix. 1. ) [*](Genesis xlv. 18. )

On which account that pride which was wise in its own conceit, having been thrown down, and the feeling which is devoted to God having been raised in its place, and being established around the only unalterable being, he, immediately laughing, said in his mind, "Shall a child be born to one who is a hundred years old, and shall Sarrah, who is ninety years old, have a child?"

Do not fancy, my good friend, that that word, "he said" not with his mouth but "in his mind," [*](Genesis xvii. 20. ) has been added for no especial use; on the contrary, it is inserted with great accuracy and propriety. Why so? Because it seems by his saying, "Shall a child be born to him who is a hundred years old?" that he had a doubt about the birth of Isaac, in which he was previously stated to believe; as what was predicted a little before showed, speaking thus, "This child shall not be thy heir, but he who shall come out of thee;" and immediately afterward he says, "Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness."

Since then it was not consistent for one who had already believed to doubt, he has represented the doubt as of no long continuance, extending only as far as the mouth and the tongue, and stopping there at the mind which is endowed with such celerity of motion; for, says the scripture, "he said in his mind," which nothing, and no person ever so celebrated for swiftness of foot, could ever be able to outstrip, since it outruns even all the winged natures;

on which account the most illustrious of all the Greek poets appears to me to have said:— "Swift as a winged bird or fleeter thought." [*](Homer. Odyssey vii. 171. ) Showing by these words the exceeding speed of its promptitude, placing the thought after the winged bird as a sort of climax; for the mind advances at the same moment to very many things and bodies, hurrying on with indescribable impetuosity, and without a moment’s lapse of time it speeds at once to the borders of both earth and sea, bringing together and dividing infinite magnitudes by a single word; and at the same time it soars to such a height above the earth, that it penetrates [*](Genesis xvii. 17. ) [*](Genesis xvii. 20. ) [*](Homer. Odyssey vii. 171. )

For the fervid and glowing heat of that region does not suffer it to rest tranquil; on which account, overleaping many things, it is borne far beyond every boundary perceptible by the outward senses, to that which is compounded of ideas and appearances by the law of kindred. On which account in the good man there is a slight change, indivisible, unapportionable, not perceptible by the outward senses, but only by the intellect, and being in a manner independent of them.