On Sobriety 2

¹Such then is the condition of the sober. But when Moses speaks of the “younger son,” the words do not denote any particular degree of age, but suggest the tendency of the temperament which loves rebelliousness and defiance. For how could Ham thus roughly defying custom and right have looked where he should not look, or how could he loudly proclaim what ought to be passed in silence, or expose to public view what might well be hidden in the secrecy of the home and never pass the boundaries of his inward thoughts, if he had not set his hand to deeds of defiance, if he had not mocked at the troubles of another, when he should rather bewail, instead of jeering at sights which call for the gloomy face that dreads the worse to come? ²Often indeed does Moses in his laws give the name of the “younger” to those who are advanced in years, and the name of “elders” on the other hand to those who have not yet reached old age, for he does not consider whether the years of men are many or few, or whether a period of time is short or long, but he looks to the faculties of the soul whether its movements are good or ill. ³Accordingly when Ishmael had apparently lived about twenty years, Moses calls him a child by comparison with Isaac, who is full grown in virtues. For we read that when Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael from his home, “he took loaves and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar and put also the ‘child’ on her shoulder,” and again “she cast down the ‘child’ under a single pine,” and “I will not see the death of the ‘child’ ” (Gen. 21:14–16). And yet Ishmael was circumcised at the age of thirteen years, before the birth of Isaac, and when the latter at about the age of seven ceased to be fed with milk, we find Ishmael banished with his mother, because he, the bastard, claimed to play on equal terms with the true-born. ⁴Still all the same, grown up as he was, he is called a child, thus marking the contrast between the sophist and the sage. For wisdom is Isaac’s inheritance and sophistry Ishmael’s, as we propose to shew in the special treatise, when we deal with the characteristics of the two. For the mere infant bears the same relation to the full-grown man as the sophist does to the sage, or the school subjects to the sciences which deal with virtues.