Miscellanies 5.1.8

“Where, then, is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” it says. And again: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the understanding I will set aside,” clearly of these who are wise in their own conceit and contentious. Very finely, then, Jeremiah says: “Thus says the Lord: Stand on the roads and ask for the eternal paths, which is the good way, and walk in it, and you will find purification for your souls.” Ask, he says, and inquire of those who know, without contention and dispute. Having learned the way of truth, let us walk straight without turning, until we come upon what we long for. Fittingly, then, the king of the Romans (his name was Numa), being a Pythagorean, was the first of all men to found a temple of Faith and Peace. And to Abraham, who believed, “it was counted as righteousness.” He, pursuing the lofty philosophy of what happens in the air and the elevated philosophy of what moves in the heavens, was called Abram, which is interpreted “elevated father.” But later, looking up to heaven, whether seeing the Son in the Spirit, as some explain, or a glorious angel, or otherwise recognizing a God greater than creation and all its order, he received the alpha, the knowledge of the one and only God, and was called Abraham, becoming, instead of a natural philosopher, wise and a lover of God. For it is interpreted “elect father of sound”; for the uttered word sounds, and its father is the mind, and the mind of the good man is chosen.