ON THE CHANGE OF NAMES (DE MUTATIONE NOMINUM)
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION
1. Abraham became ninety-nine years old, and the Lord was seen by Abraham and said to him, “I am thy God: be well pleasing before Me and become blameless.
2. And I will set my covenant between Me and between thee.…”
3. And Abraham fell upon his face and God spake to him, saying:
4. “And I, behold my covenant is with thee.…
5. And thy name shall no longer be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham.…”
15. And God said to Abraham, “Sarai thy wife, her name shall not be called Sarai. Sarah shall be her name.
16. And I will bless her, and give thee a child from her, and I will bless her, and she shall be for nations, and kings of nations shall be from her.”
17. And Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and he spake in his mind, saying, “Shall a son be born to one of a hundred years, and shall Sarah being ninety years bear a son?”
18. And Abraham said to God, “Let this Ishmael live before thee!”
19. And God said to Abraham, “Yes, behold Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac.…
20. But as for Ishmael, behold I have heard thee, and behold I have blessed him, I will increase him, I will multiply him; he shall beget twelve nations.
21. But my covenant I will establish to Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to thee at this season in the other year.”
“Abraham was ninety-nine years old, and the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am thy God.’ ” After a passing remark on the significance of ninety-nine as indicating the approach to the sacred hundred (1–2) we go on to “appeared” or “was seen.” Now God cannot be seen by the eye, but only by the mind (3–6), and indeed God in His essence cannot be apprehended by mind, any more than mind can apprehend itself. And so Moses was told that he could only see what was behind God, not His face (7–10). It follows that no proper name can be given to the God Who IS, and when in Exodus He calls Himself the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob it must be regarded as a κατάχρησις or licence of language (11–14). We must infer then that what appeared to Abraham was not God the Existent but His sovereign potency which in Scripture is called the Lord (15–17), and yet this sovereign potency also says “I am thy God.” Is not God the God of all men? we may ask. No, He is Lord to the bad, God to the earnest striver, God and Lord to the perfect (18–19). Thus He is spoken of as God to Moses, but Lord to Pharaoh and Lord God to Israel (19–23). But not only is God the good man’s God, but also the good man is God’s man, and we must remember that only by living up to the latter relation can we reach the former (24–26). Now while the Existent is absolute His potencies are relative. Kings, benefactors and makers must rule, benefit and make something (27–28). When God is called man’s God, it implies that God has made him, but God did not make the bad at all, and those between good and bad only through His subordinates, as the “Let us make” in Genesis shews (29–31). Therefore to have God for maker in the full sense is the highest honour. Who then are those who can claim this? Philo at first seems to limit the claim to the detached and ascetic kind who have risen entirely above all that is bodily (32–33). But such, he acknowledges, are rare: a thought which he supports with the phrase, “Enoch was not found,” and indeed philosophers have laid down rightly or wrongly that the wise man and wisdom do not actually exist (34–38). We must admit therefore the pos̨sibility of a more social form of goodness which can claim God for its maker, and this is indicated in the next words, “Be well pleasing before Me,” which have a different meaning from “Be well pleasing to Me,” for he who serves men is not only well pleasing to God but well pleasing before God (39–42). This double duty to man and God is symbolized by the two robes of the high priest and other duplicates, and the very fact that God existed before creation and only created out of His beneficence shews that we must combine supreme reverence for Him with due regard for the human nature which He has made (43–46).
The next words, “And become blameless,” may indicate that an abstinence from sin is a lower stage than the positive virtue which the Stoics called κατόρθωμα. But Philo does not lay stress on this, for he feels that to man subject so constantly to temptation, such abstinence is the most that can be asked (47–51), and indeed it is to the blameless that God promises to set His covenant “between Me and thee,” that is, to let nothing but His grace stand between the two (51–53).
When Abraham heard the promise he fell upon his face, where “fell” indicates the acknowledgement that God stands but humanity cannot stand, and “face” means sense, speech and mind, all of which lie prostrate unless God give the power to stand (54–56). Then comes the reassurance, “And I, behold my covenant is with thee,” words which to Philo’s mind suggest that God is Himself the covenant, and thus some more essentially divine gift is implied than those which God covenants to give to men in general. This special gift is then explained as the bestowal of a new name, and this brings Philo to the subject which occupies the next sixty sections and has somewhat unduly supplied the traditional name of the treatise (57–59).
That the divine blessing should take the form of adding an alpha to the name Abram and subsequently of a rho to that of his wife has, Philo tells us, attracted the jeers of the profane, and he mentions the miserable end of one such scoffer (60–62). As a matter of fact he agrees with the criticism if taken literally, and only differs in the inference he draws. That God should add letters to names, and that this should be held a divine benefaction, is absurd (63–64), but this only points to the conclusion that a change of name stands for a change of nature. Philo repeats the explanation given several times elsewhere that Abram which means “uplifted father” stands for the Chaldean, the astrologer, while Abraham is the “elect father of sound,” where father means mind, the father of sound or speech, and the whole therefore stands for the elect or wise mind. The change then is really a moral change from the study of God’s works to the study of God Himself, in fact from astrology to piety, and the text may be taken as a divine instruction that studies of the former kind are of no real value (66–67). So too the change of Sarai’s name to Sarah, that is from “my sovereignty” to “sovereign,” indicates the superiority of generic wisdom to wisdom as shown in the individual (77–80).
From these two cases which belong to the subject of the treatise Philo proceeds to deal with others outside it. Jacob the supplanter or wrestler is naturally renamed as Israel who sees God, because the divine vision is the guerdon which awaits the athlete soul (81–82). But it is a curious fact that while Abraham after the renaming is never called Abram, the names of Jacob and Israel are constantly interchanged in the subsequent narrative. To explain this Philo goes back to the familiar antithesis of Abraham as virtue acquired by teaching and Jacob as virtue acquired by practice. Abraham the scholar who has God Himself as teacher advances to knowledge continuously. The Practiser who has only his own will to urge him has many periods of weariness when he returns to his old nature, and this is supported by the observation that Abraham gets the new name from God, Jacob from the angel (83–87). Again, Isaac has no other name‚ and this is appropriate to the Self-taught, who by instinct is perfect from the first, and has not, like Abraham, to learn, or Jacob, to practise (88). In Joseph we have a change of another kind. His original name means addition, and describes the superfluities which the conventional mind desires, but Pharaoh renames him Psonthonphanech or “mouth which judges in answer,” and thus brings out the fact that the man of wealth and prosperity is supposed by the world to be able to pronounce with wisdom on all sorts of questions (89–91). In a somewhat similar way the child who is called by his father Benjamin, “the son of days,” or “sunlight,” and thus represents the vainglory which seems so brilliant to the world, is recognized by the mother, that is the soul, which dies in giving birth to him, as Benoni, or the son of sorrows (92–96). And here the mention of Joseph and his mother seems to lead Philo into an irrelevant interpolation of the analogy between Reuben and Simeon on the one hand and Ephraim and Manasseh on the other. Ephraim and Manasseh shall be to me, said Jacob, as Reuben and Simeon, which Philo interprets as shewing the similarity of the gifted nature, Reuben, to memory, Ephraim, and again of Simeon, the learner, to Manasseh, recollection (97–102).
We now return to further examples of double names. In Exodus 2 Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, appears in one place to be called Raguel. Jethro the “superfluous” as in other places is taken as the type of the worldling, and there follows a curiously perverted allusion to the meeting with Moses described in Exodus 18 in which Jethro is made to advise Moses to leave the teaching of the divine ordinances for that of human convention and unequal justice (103–104). Raguel on the other hand is the “shepherding of God,” and indicates the better side of the Jethro nature, when it accepts the authority of the good shepherd, Moses. An elaborate justification of this idea follows. Jethro or Raguel is called the priest of Midian, and while Midian which means “from judgement” sometimes stands for the outcasts excluded by judgement, as it does in the story of the Midianite seduction of Israel and the vindication by Phineas (105–109), it may also stand for the rightly judging nature which is akin to the prophetic. When then we read of the seven daughters who were succoured at the well by Moses, we recognize the seven bodily faculties which after the vain attempt of the enemy to seduce them from their proper office return to their father, the mind. That father is rightly called Raguel, not Jethro, and the welcome which this father proposes in the narrative to extend to Moses indicates the same higher nature (110–120).
The next illustration is the change of Joshua’s name from Hoshea, the latter, “he is saved,” signifying a particular individual or concrete embodiment of a state, the former “salvation of the Lord,” and thus a state or condition, which is permanent, while the individual perishes. Philo brings this into comparison with the statement about Caleb, that there was another spirit in him, inferring that though there is no change of name the man himself was wholly changed (121–125). Finally we have the example of the different titles given to Moses himself. First, the name Moses, the “receiving” or “handling,” fitly given to him who receives the power of legislation; secondly, the man of God, given to him as blessing the people, and finally god to Pharaoh, this godship being especially shown in his willingness to intercede for the sinner (125–129).
Here we leave the change of names and return to the exposition of the text. But the mention of Sarah’s change of name in §§ 77–80 seems to have drawn Philo away from the discussion of the intervening verses 6–14 to those which describe her blessedness. Verse 16 runs, “I will give to thee a son from her” (130). The words “I will give” surely imply that the gift is the giver’s own to give, and thus they assert that the Isaac, whose name means “laughter,” is the spiritual Isaac, inward laughter or joy, of which God is the true parent (131). This thought of the divine parentage is illustrated by the phrase, “The Lord opened Leah’s womb,” and by the story of Tamar and Judah, which Philo allegorizes, though in a shorter form, as he does in De Fuga, and it is actually asserted by Sarah when she says “The Lord has made laughter (that is Isaac) for me” (132–137). But she also adds, “whoever shall hear (i.e. understand it) will rejoice with me,” thus suggesting that this truth is one which the pagan mind may easily misunderstand, and therefore must be reserved for the ears of the wise, and Philo accordingly presses into his service the words of Hosea, “Thy fruit is from me, the wise will understand,” bringing out the double truth that all is from God and that the wise alone understand this (138–140).
The words “from her,” ἐξ αὐτῆς, have been by some interpreted as “outside her,” i.e. by divine agency, and also as the single word ἐξαυτῆς “immediately,” but Philo himself seems to adopt the natural view that, Sarah being assumed to be Virtue or Wisdom, the phrase asserts that none but virtue can be the mother of the good (141–142). And if indeed she has been called barren it is because Virtue is barren of Evil, even as Hannah or Grace was also barren and yet was the mother of the Mystic Seven (143–144). As for “child” the singular brings out that the idea of the good is single in contrast with the many particulars, while the word itself (τέκνον) coming from τίκτω declares the reality of Virtue’s motherhood (145–147). “I will bless her and she shall be for nations” tells us that in the manifold classes or nations of things in general Virtue is the one source of well-being (148–150), and in “kings of nations shall be from her” we can trace the Stoic doctrine that the sage alone is king (151–153).
Abraham hearing this falls and laughs. Philo as always refuses to entertain the idea that Abraham and Sarah’s laughter is one of incredulity. His falling is, as before, an acknowledgement of unworthiness; the laughter is humble joy (154–156). At this point he raises the question that as Isaac, laughter or joy, is not yet born, how could Abraham laugh? (157). This strange idea, however, gives him an opportunity for a fine disquisition on anticipation. He describes how young animals and young plants show a joyous promise of their future maturity, how the dawning of day smiles in expectation of the sunrise, how hope gives joy before the fact, just as fear gives grief, and the senses anticipate the feast before it is realized, and so man could laugh while laughter is yet unborn (158–165). Again, the joyous laughter of both Abraham and Sarah teaches us that joy is only for the good. If the wicked seem to smile it has no reality (166–169), and thus the so-called joy of Egypt at the coming of Jacob and his sons was either assumed or at the most a hope that they might seduce them as they had seduced Joseph (170–171); and this supposition leads him to discuss in detail the seeming-kindly promises made to Jacob by Pharaoh, and pronounce them to be nothing more than the temptations of the bodily element which the mind of the wise rejects (172–174).
Philo now has to deal with the words so difficult on his premises, “He said in his heart, shall this happen to one of a hundred years old, and shall Sarah being ninety years old bear a son?” His first explanation stresses the words “in his heart”; they imply that the doubt, so inconsistent with Abraham’s faith, was momentary with all the rapidity of thought, and died without reaching the lips (175–180). And if it is argued that it was unworthy of him to doubt even for a moment this is asking too much. The faith of weak mortals cannot be expected to be as the unswerving faith of God (181–187). But Philo would seem himself to incline to a “more courageous” explanation that the words are really a prayer: “Oh, that this perfect birth may take place under the perfect numbers of ninety and a hundred” (188). There follow several examples of a hundred as a special number, though as for ninety he cannot say anything more than that it is the difference between the sacred ten and the more sacred hundred (189–192). This explanation demands that “said in his heart (or mind)” signifies “sincerely,” for sincerity is the mark of the virtuous, whereas the wicked do not speak in or according to their minds. Thus when Shechem, the emblem of foolish labour, is said to have spoken “according to the mind” of Dinah, the emblem of justice, we may understand that he spoke contrary to his own mind (193–195). Thus Shechem stands for the insincere who prate of virtue and deceive the multitude, but are ultimately unmasked by the champions of truth, represented by Simeon and Levi in the story of Shechem’s punishment (196–200).
Jacob’s next words are “Let this Ishmael live before thee,” each part of which has to be examined (200–201). First, since Ishmael = hearing God, this seems to distinguish the right hearing from the hearing which hears only to misuse, as did Balaam’s (202–205). This is illustrated by other cases, where Philo supposes that the “this” serves to distinguish outwardly similar but different examples (206–209). Again, “live” points to the true life of the soul, and amounts to a prayer of the same nature as Jacob’s prayer that Reuben or natural goodness should live and not die (209–216), and when he adds “before God” he prays that this God-hearing may have the inestimable blessing of realizing the divine omnipotence (216–217). But we must not suppose that the prayer for Ishmael shows despair of the birth of Isaac. It is rather the cry of the soul which feels its inadequacy to sustain God’s highest gifts (218–219). But this consciousness of our inadequacy must not prevent us from dedicating thankfully such gifts as each of us possesses. If we cannot reach the highest that is no reason why we should not cherish the little we can do (220–227), and we have illustrations of this in Abraham’s plea for Sodom if only a little goodness could be found in it, and Esau’s hope that Isaac might have some blessing yet to give, even if the best was given to Jacob (228–230). Thus the best prayer of the soul is that God should give us what befits our weakness, for “shall not the hand of the Lord suffice” to benefit low as well as high? (231–232).
It is primarily to carry on this thought that Philo here introduces the subject of the three different kinds of sin-offering and purification according to the capacity of the offerer, the sheep, the two birds and the fine flour (233–235). But this soon passes into the very different suggestion that the three are atonements for sins of thought, word and deed, otherwise expressed as mind, mouth and hand. He then goes on to shew that while sins of thought are more venial than sins of speech and these than sins of deeds (and this is recognized in the code of punishments), the first-named are really the most difficult to avoid, for thoughts cannot be controlled as language can (235–244). The appropriateness of the three offerings is explained by saying that the sheep the most useful of animals is suited to our noblest part, the mind, the birds to the winged nature of words, and the fine flour as worked by the hand to deeds which the hand commits (245–251).
To resume the exposition of the text, the divine reply to this prayer for Ishmael is, “Yes, Sarah shall bear thee a son,” where the “yes” (ναί) marks the divine assent or nod (νεύω). Thus God answers the one request by two gifts (252–255). The greater gift is the self-taught Isaac nature of which, rare as it is in its highest form, we have a foretaste in the fact that our powers of sense and mental processes are acquired without teaching (256–257). Why wonder, then, that the unlaboured virtue symbolized by Isaac should be given direct from heaven, like the manna and the automatic harvest of the sabbatical year? (258–260). Further, this child is free from womanish passion and will be rightly named “laughter,” the natural outcry of the glad (261–262). The next words, “I have blessed Ishmael, but my covenant I will stablish with Isaac,” shews that, while God gives the stronger the higher wisdom of the self-taught, he also gives the weaker the lower wisdom of the schools.
The next words are, “whom Sarah shall bear at this season and in the other year.” By season (καιρός) we may understand God Himself, the season or opportunity, which forsakes the wicked but dwells in the good, and by the “other year” is meant eternity, the life of the world of thought which was also meant when Isaac “in that year found the hundredfold crop” (264–269). Finally the words “He completed talking with him and God went up from Abraham” indicate that when we have learnt our lesson we must be left to meditate on and practise it, a truth which every good teacher knows (270).
The MS. authority for this treatise seems to be unusually weak. Wendland found only two MSS. of any antiquity (A and B), both of them according to him of the same (and inferior) family. Mangey also used two late MSS. in the libraries of New College, Oxford, and Trinity, Cambridge. I have collated the latter of these, but without any results to speak of. Perhaps this lack of MS. support may serve me as some apology for having introduced so many conjectural emendations of my own into the text.