On Sobriety 4

¹We have shewn, then, that it is Moses’ wont in many places to call a person young, thinking not of his bodily vigour, but only of his soul, and the spirit of rebelliousness which it displays. And now we will go on to shew that he applies the name of elder not to one who is bowed down with old age, but to one who is worthy of precedence and honour. ²Everyone who is versed in the sacred books knows that the wise Abraham is represented as more short-lived than almost all his forefathers. And yet, I think, to not a single one of these, long though their span of life beyond comparison was, is the term elder applied, but only to Abraham. This is seen by the words of the oracles, “Abraham was an elder advanced in years, and God blessed him in everything” (Gen. 24:1). ³The phrase thus set before us seems to me to be an explanation of the reason why the Sage is called elder. For when through the watchful care of God the rational part of the soul is brought into a good condition and reasons rightly not merely in one direction, but wherever it applies itself, the thoughts which it thinks are “older” and itself must needs be older also. ⁴Thus too it is Moses’ way to give the name of “elder” to those counsellors of the God-beloved, whose apportioned number was that of seven times ten. For we find “gather to me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom thou thyself knowest that these are elders” (Numb. 11:16). ⁵We see then that not the men of senior age, whom the common herd regard as initiators to the holy mysteries, but those whom the Sage alone knows were held worthy by God of the title of “elders.” For those whom the Sage like a good money-changer rejects from the currency of virtue are all men of dross, men with the spirit of youth-like rebellion in their souls. But those whom he has willed to consider as known to him are tested and approved and must needs be elders in heart and mind.