Book 3 · Section 33

(33) What is the meaning of the statement, "He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be upon every one, and every one's hand shall be upon him, and he shall dwell over against all his brethren?" (#Ge 16:12). If we look to the letter of the statement, up to this time Ishmael has not any brothers, for he was the first child of his parents. But the sacred writer is here figuring a certain nature, too secret to be thoroughly investigated; for he has set forth the figure of his future character. And such a figure evidently represents the sophist whose mother is erudition or wisdom. But the sophist himself is a man of wild opinions; since the wise man as being civilized is fitted for living in cities, and for urbanity, or for statesmanlike and political companionship; but he who is wild and a man of wild opinions is immediately also quarrelsome. And it is on this account that the sacred writer makes an addition, saying, "His hand shall be upon every one, and every one's hand shall be upon him;" for the abundance of science and the use of erudition is able to contradict all men. As those men of the present day who are called academicians and inquirers, consistently setting no bounds to the determinations of their will and resolution, and among the different opinions which they investigate preferring neither this nor that one, admit those men to be philosophers who attack the opinions of every sect; and those whom it has been usual to call opposers of will, as if they called them theleµmachoi or theleµmamachoi, because they in the first place raise contentions and declare themselves the champions of their national sect, not to be convinced or put down by those who oppose them. But they are all kinsmen, and as it were brothers of the same womb, being the offspring of one mother, namely, of philosophy. And it is on this account that he says, "And he shall dwell over against all his brethren;" for in good truth the academician and the inquirer are diametrically opposed to sects, finding fault in each of them with their certain limitation of the resolution.