Literatura del Segundo Templo sobre Génesis 18:11

[8] Then too there shines upon them the light of Isaac—the generic form of happiness, of the joy and gladness which belongs to those who have ceased from the manner of women (Gen. 18:11) and died to the passions—Isaac, whose heart is in the pursuit of no childish sports, but those which are divine. When all this is come to pass, then will be cast forth those preliminary studies which bear the name of Hagar, and cast forth too will be their son the sophist named Ishmael.

§ 8. ἐπιλάμψῃ … μεταδιώκων. The obvious way of taking this difficult and probably corrupt passage, namely to translate ἀποθανόντων τὰ πάθη χαρᾶς καὶ εὑφροσύνης by “died to the passions (or ‘feelings’) of joy and gladness,” must be wrong, for as Isaac is regularly regarded as embodying these qualities (e.g. Leg. All. iii. 218), it is impossible that his parents should be thought of as discarding them at his birth. Two lines of correction seem possible, (a) as adopted in the translation, to bring χαρᾶς and εὐφροσύνης into co-ordination with εὐδαιμονίας, (b) to co-ordinate them with παιδιάς by reading χαρὰς καὶ εὐφροσύνας. This in itself would still leave untouched the awkward gen. abs. ἐκλιπόντων and ἀποθανόντων, to say nothing of the difficulty involved in applying the phrase ἐκλιπεῖν τὰ γυναικεῖα (used of Sarah in Gen. 18:11) to Abraham also. These difficulties, however, might be removed by reading also ἐκλιπόν … ἀποθανόν (ἀπομαθόν?) … μεταδίωκον. (a) certainly as it stands leaves the sentence almost intolerable. Perhaps the least drastic correction would be to expel ὁ Ἰσαάκ as a gloss, put in its place καὶ τῶν and insert ὁ before καὶ παιδιάς. Thus the whole sentence will run, ἐπιλάμψῃ δὲ καὶ τὸ εὐδαιμονίας γένος καὶ τῶν ἐκλιπόντων τὰ γυναικεῖα καὶ ἀποθανόντων τὰ πάθη χαρᾶς καὶ εὐφροσύνης, ὁ καὶ παιδιάς, etc. The participial genitives in this case though still clumsy are less unnatural, and the difficulty of the application of ἐκλιπεῖν, etc., to Abraham is avoided as the phrase becomes a general statement. The obvious difficulty involved in (b) that it ascribes to Isaac what belongs to Sarah may be met by supposing that Philo equates Sarah’s “ceasing from the manner of women” with the conception of Isaac (cf. De Post. 134).

[28] “Let us go to Dothaim” (ibid.). Now “Dothaim” means “thorough quitting.” So their words are a guarantee that, not in any half-and-half way but out-and-out, have they set themselves to study how to forsake and quit all that does not contribute to virtue. In like manner we read, “Sarah was quit of her experience of what belongs to women” (Gen. 18:11); and the passions are by nature feminine, and we must practise the quitting of these for the masculine traits that mark the noble affections.