This is the primary meaning of the price which the soul that craves liberty pays for its deliverance and ransom. But it may be that the prophet also means to show another truth and one that we could ill spare, namely that every wise man is a ransom for the fool, whose existence could not endure for an hour, did not the wise provide for his preservation by compassion and forethought. The wise are as physicians who fight against the infirmities of the sick, alleviate them or altogether remove them, unless the violence of the malady’s impetuous course overpower the careful treatment of the physician. It was such overpowering evil that destroyed Sodom, when no good could balance the vast sum of evil that weighed down the scale. If there had been found in Sodom the number fifty, the number which brings the message of redemption from slavery and full liberty to the soul (Lev. 25:10 ), or any of the numbers which wise Abraham named in succession from fifty downwards till he reached the lower limit of ten, the number sacred to education, the mind would not have perished in such shameful downfall (Gen. 18:24 ff.). Yet we should try, as well as we may, to save even those whom the evil within them is bringing to certain ruin, and follow the example of the good physicians, who, though they see that there is no hope for the patient, yet render their services gladly, lest others should think, in the event of some disaster which they did not expect, that it is due to the physician’s neglect. And if some seed of recovery should appear in him, however little, it should be cherished as we fan an ember with every care. For we may hope that the germ may grow and spread, and that thus the man may lead a better and more stable life. For my own part, when I see a good man living in a house or city, I hold that house or city happy and believe that their enjoyment of their present blessings will endure, and that their hopes for those as yet lacking will be realized. For God for the sake of the worthy dispenses to the unworthy also His boundless and illimitable wealth. I know indeed that they cannot escape old age, but I pray that their years may be prolonged to the utmost. For I believe that, as long as they may live, it will be well with the community. So when I see or hear that any of them are dead, my heart is sad and heavy. Not for them. They have reached in the due course of nature the end we all must reach. They have lived in happiness and died in honour. It is for the survivors that I mourn. Deprived of the strong protecting arm, which brought them safety, they are abandoned to the woes which are their proper portion, and which they soon will feel, unless indeed nature should raise up some new protectors to replace the old, as in the tree which sheds its now ripened fruit, her agency makes other fruits grow up to give sustenance and pleasure to those who can pluck them. As then in a city good men are the surest warrant of permanence, so in the commonwealth of the individual composed of soul and body, the strongest force to ensure stability belongs to those aspirations of the reason to wisdom and knowledge, which the lawgiver in his parable calls on grounds already stated “ransom” and “firstborn.” And thus too he speaks of the cities of the Levites as “ransomed for ever” (Lev. 25:32), because the worshipper of God has reaped eternal freedom, and, while in the continuous flux of the soul change succeeds change, healing also succeeds healing in him. For the saying that the cities may be redeemed not once for all, but for ever, suggests the thought that for the worshipper with perpetual change goes perpetual liberation. The one is incidental to mortal nature, the other stands firm through the grace of the Benefactor, who is that worshipper’s portion and possession.
On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 37
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