VIII. (40) But who Meshech is, and who her son is, must be examined in no superficial manner. Now the interpretation of the name Meshech is, “out of a kiss;” but a kiss differs from loving; for the one exhibits usually a discovery of souls united together by good-will, but the other intimates only a bare and superficial salutation when some necessity has brought the two parties to the same place. (41) For as the meaning “to stoop” (kyptein) is not contained in (anakyptein) “to lift up the head,” nor “to drink” (pinoµ) in, “to absorb” (katapinoµ), nor “a horse” (hippos) in the word (marsippos) “a bag,” so also “to love” (philein) is not necessarily contained in “to kiss” (kataphilein); since men yielding to the bitter necessities of life offer this salutation to numbers of their enemies. (42) But what that salutation is which consists of a kiss, but not of sincere friendship for us, I willexplain without any reservation or concealment. It is, forsooth, that life which exists in union with the external senses, which is called Meshech, being completely secured and defended, which there is no one who does not love, which men in general look upon as their mistress, but which virtuous men consider their handmaid, not a foreign slave or one bought with a price, but born in the house, and in some sense, a fellow citizen with themselves. Well, one class of these men have learnt to kiss this, not to love it; but the other class have learnt to love it to excess, and to think it an object of desire above all things. (43) But Laban, the hater of virtue, will neither be able to kiss the virtues which are assigned to the man who is inclined to the practice of virtue, but, making his own life to depend on hypocrisy and false pretenses, he, as if indignant, for he is not in reality affected, says, “I was not accounted worthy to kiss my children and my Daughters;”{16}{genesis 31:28.} speaking very naturally and decorously, for we have all been taught to hate irony irreconcileably. (44) Do thou, therefore, love the virtues, and embrace them with thy soul, and then you will be not at all desirous to kiss, which is but the false money of friendship; –“For have they not yet any part or inheritance in thy house? have they not been reckoned as aliens before thee? and has not thou sold them and devoured the Money?”{17}{#ge 31:14.} so that you could neither at any subsequent time recover it, after having devoured the price of their safety and their ransom. Do you pretend, therefore, to wish to kiss, or else to wage endless war against all the judges? But Aaron will not kiss Moses, though he will love him with the genuine affection of his heart. “For,” says the scripture, “he loved him, and they embraced one Another.”{18}{#ex 18:7.}
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