Glaphyra in Pentateuchum

For then he will understand, and he will enter into the holy land, that is, the Church. For that those who do not depart from the worship according to the law are held fast by corruption, Christ himself will make clear, saying: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. But this was the mystery, not among those in the law at any time, but among those who have received the faith, and have been justified in Christ, and richly possess the better instruction than the legal, I mean the evangelical. Under corruption, then, and as it were in the law, not yet having discharged through faith the mother of death, I mean sin, such persons are also far from Christ. But if they should wish to loose the sandal, that is, corruption, which cannot justify, and truly to receive the life-giving grace, they will then draw near to him who justifies the ungodly, that is, to Christ, through whom and with whom be the glory to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

BOOK 2 OF THE GLAPHYRA ON EXODUS.

Concerning the sacrifice of the lamb. 1. That therefore in Christ alone we escape the power of death, and, as the wise disciple has set it down for us, "There is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," one may learn also in many other ways, if he chooses. For there are countless bright and transparent images in the God-inspired Scripture that flash forth the power of the mystery. Come then, let us gather what is useful for this, and let us show it through what follows. Moses and Aaron came forward; and having come to Pharaoh, they said plainly: "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Send forth my people, that they may celebrate a feast to me in the wilderness." And Pharaoh said, "And who is he, that I should hearken to his voice so as to send forth the sons of Israel? I do not know the Lord, and I will not send Israel forth." And they say to him: "The God of the Hebrews has called us. Let us go, then, a journey of three days, that we may sacrifice to our God, lest perhaps death or slaughter meet us." And the king of Egypt said to them: "Why, Moses and Aaron, do you pervert my people from their works? Go, each of you, to his own works." For the stricken Pharaoh, being full of devilish folly, says that he does not know who the God of the Hebrews is.

But since Egypt was being laid waste by frequent and unbearable plagues, and the land of the Egyptians was being destroyed little by little—now their waters being transformed into blood, now locusts and hail brought upon the land, gnats and frogs swarming, and moreover a darkness poured over them for three days—he promised reluctantly, and not willingly, that he would let them go; yet he was stubborn, and after this again fierce and hardened, and altogether difficult to move to choose, I say, to release Israel from so long a slavery. Then God was considering to send the destroyer upon the firstborn of the Egyptians. But since it was necessary that the chosen ones should not perish together with the impious races, for love's sake because of the fathers, God fashioned the law concerning the Passover; and he very much commanded that the mystery of Christ be accomplished beforehand for the wrath. Through which it will again be possible to understand that it is impossible for death to be abolished through Moses or the law. The precious blood of Christ drives away the destroyer and delivers the sanctified from corruption. For he is life from life, and God of all things, as God from God. The sacred Scripture therefore spoke thus: And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: This month is the beginning of months for you; it is the first for you among the months of the year. Speak to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, saying: On the tenth of this month let each one take a sheep according to the houses of the fathers, a sheep according to the house. But if those in the house are too few, so that they are not sufficient for a sheep, he shall take with himself his neighbor who is near him.

Then, having determined that it was necessary to receive it, he further ordains what sort of sacrifice it ought to be, and when and how it must be offered. For it shall be, he says, perfect, without blemish, a year old for you; you shall take it from the lambs and from the kids, and it shall be kept by you until the fourteenth day of this month. And all the multitude of the congregation of the sons of Israel shall slay it toward evening; and they shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel in the houses in which they eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs. You shall not eat of it raw, nor boiled in water, but roasted with fire, its head with its feet and its inner parts. You shall not leave any of it until morning, and you shall not break a bone of it. But what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. And the lawgiver adds to these things what follows, teaching what the bearing of the guests ought to be, and in what manner, having been equipped, it is fitting for them to partake of the most sacred common meal. For thus you shall eat it, he says: Let your loins be girded, and your sandals on your feet, and your staffs in your hands; and you shall eat it in haste. For it is the Passover of the Lord. And the slaughter of the sheep will benefit them, and in what manner, revealing it very well: And I will pass through the land of Egypt, and I will strike every firstborn from man to beast, and on all the gods of the Egyptians I will execute vengeance; I am the Lord.

And the blood shall be for you a sign upon your houses in which you shall be there. And I will see the blood, and I will shelter you, and there shall not be among you a plague of destruction, when I strike in the land of Egypt. Then again after other things: Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, he says, and from the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. And having defined the punishment of the transgressor, he adds again: And the first day shall be called holy, and the seventh day shall be a called holy to you. The divine oracle indeed stands thus; but having again gone through it in part, I shall attempt to apply the meaning fitting to each, referring the power of the significations in many ways to Christ himself. 2. The time of the sacred service is therefore defined at the beginning of the year, in the first month; for Christ is the beginning of all things, since he is not even recent, on account of his generation from God the Father before the ages. And he sanctifies at all times, from the beginning to the end, but as in the month of new things is the festival. For the old things have passed away, according to the voice of the blessed Paul: Behold, all things have become new. And human nature too has sprouted anew toward what was in the beginning in Christ. And since the sons of Israel were still slaves and living under a tyrannical hand—for they still had that of the Egyptians—such things were ordained; the word again darkly hinting that the soul of man cannot otherwise run back to freedom from sin, and escape the greed of the devil, and come to the things above

a city from its sojourn in the world, except through participation in Christ and his love for humanity, according to what was said by him to the foolish Jews: Amen, amen I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin; the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. If then the son sets you free, you will truly be free. And again: Amen, amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves; of which the land into which they were hastening to move from Egypt might well be understood as a type of the promise. But the sheep is taken from the tenth day of the month, and is kept until the fourteenth, so that it may be slaughtered toward evening. And for what reason? someone may perhaps ask; for the account is truly deep. For what, tell me, prevented it from being taken on the first day of the month? And what then persuaded God to legislate that what had been kept for five days should be sacrificed thus toward evening? For we will find the number of five days, beginning from the tenth. That the lamb is not taken on the first day, but on the tenth of the month, seems to signify that many times went before, and there were certain long ages before us, according to which he was always, and is, and shall be God. But this present age of ours enters immediately after those, as through a period of five days of the road just now mentioned to us, divided into five times. And the parable of the Savior, having this form, will clarify the matter under inquiry very well for us:

The kingdom of heaven is like a man, a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said: Go also into my vineyard, and whatever is just I will give you. And they went away. Again, about the sixth hour and the ninth, he did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he says to them: Why have you stood here all day idle? They say to him: No one has hired us. He says to them: Go also into my vineyard. Do you see, then, in these things, most clearly and plainly, that the present age is divided into five periods? And first we will reckon that in which Adam, our forefather, still had his dwelling in paradise; second after that, indicated as it were at the third hour, that in which Noah and those with him were; third, as at the sixth, that in which God over all called Abraham to the knowledge of the truth; the fourth, as at the ninth hour again, that of Moses, clearly, and the prophets. About the eleventh, that is, in the fifth period, when the day was already drawing to a close and the present age was, as it were, already coming to its end, Christ hired the nations, called to the knowledge of him by no other in the former and past periods. Therefore, beyond all others, those who are last say: No one has hired us.

The sheep, then, is taken on the first day of the five-day period, that is, on the tenth, which holds the figure of the beginning of the age, and having been kept until the last time, that is, until the fourteenth, it is slaughtered toward evening; so that you may again understand that the mystery of Christ is neither new nor recent, but was kept in the foreknowledge of the Father, and that from the very foundation of the world. But he died for us in the last times of the age, while the intelligible and divine light was not yet shining forth, and while the earth was still steeped in the darkness of ignorance, and the rulers of this darkness were defiling the hearts of all with their deceits. For this reason the Savior also said when he came among us, I am the light of the world. And the saints are called lights in the world, holding forth the word of life; and moreover this also: And you are the light of the world, they rightly hear, because they are able to enlighten those who are in darkness.

But you will marvel again, finding in this yet another mystical dispensation. For the lamb is slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the month, when the lunar cycle has its own glory full, and illuminates the inhabited world as it were with a bastard light, yet nevertheless begins to wane little by little, and as if of necessity now contracts the honor and grace that dwells in it;

So that you may understand from this, being led by hand, as it were, from an image and shadow of the reality set before you to the apprehension of the truer things, that the ruler of the night—that is, the devil, made manifest through the moon as in a type (for the moon has been appointed to the rule of the night)—was glorified throughout the whole inhabited world, and just as though implanting a bastard light, the wisdom of the world, in the hearts of those who wander, he procured for himself the fullest glory. But Christ died for us and on our behalf, the true Lamb, the one who takes away the sin of the world, and he destroyed the glory of the devil. For it must cease and be consumed little by little, since the multitude of the nations, hastening now to ascend to peace and love toward God through conversion and faith toward him. And this, then, was what was sung long ago in the Psalms concerning Christ: Righteousness shall rise up in his days, and abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away. For righteousness rose up in the days of Christ through faith, and abundance of peace through the turning toward God. And in addition to these things, the ruler of the night has also been taken away, that is, the devil. And observe how he does not say that the moon will be simply destroyed, but rather taken away; for as he has already previously destroyed, and it is surely clear, that the devil is taken away in exchange for man. Let them take, then, he says, each one a sheep according to his house. For Christ is perfect in each one and dwells there through participation in the Holy Spirit, and he is not divided, as Paul says.

Except, he says, if they are so few as not to be sufficient for a sheep, he shall take with himself his neighbor who is near him. For those who do not have it in themselves to be able by themselves to understand perfectly the mystery of Christ, or who are not sufficient for the comprehension of him because of the weakness of their own understanding, will again partake, having received their fellow believers as co-workers, as it were, and helpers. For through mutual admonition we are sometimes able to ascend even to greater contemplations than are according to our measure. Just as, indeed, that wise eunuch also inquired of Philip, listening to the prophecy concerning Christ: I beg you, of whom does the prophet speak, of himself or of some other? You see how, having taken his neighbor (for we are all near to one another, as many as are for the one and common word of faith), he was shown forth as already a partaker of the intelligible sheep through his searching. For he thought it right immediately also to be baptized, and indeed he was baptized. And let the sheep, he says, be perfect. For all the things befitting God were in Christ. But let it be also male, the lawgiver declared. For he was and is the one who instills into all of us the seeds of the knowledge of God, and as it were a desirable land. Just as the prophetic word also says, fulfilling humanity to God and the Father through the gospel proclamations. But in addition to these things, let it be also of a year, either with respect to time, so that it may not be as imperfect, the year not yet having been fulfilled upon it; or because they were going to celebrate the most God-befitting feast of the passion each year, those who gain the good things from the passion.

He says to take from the lambs and from the kids. The lamb is understood as a clean and blameless sacrifice according to the law, while the race of kids is always offered on the altar for sins. You will find this also in Christ. For he was the same both as a blameless victim, offering himself to God and the Father as a sweet-smelling savour, and as a kid slain for our sins. And after the slaughter, he commands to smear the doorposts of the houses and the lintel with the blood, wishing to signify nothing else, as it seems to me, than that by the august and precious blood of Christ we secure our earthly house, that is, the body, driving out the death that comes from transgression through participation in the life. For life and sanctification is participation in Christ. And by confounding the destroyer himself, putting the plotting demon far away through the anointing, we put to death the passions that arise from fleshly motions. You will understand the doors of the house just mentioned by us to be the senses in us; through which the quality of things is ministered to the hearts of all, and the measureless multitude of desires is poured in. The prophet Joel also names them doors, saying: As some thieves will enter through our windows; for they were not smeared with the blood of Christ. He commands the flesh to be eaten in this night, that is, in the present age. For thus Paul also called it, saying: The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. In these words he clearly called the age to come the day, which Christ himself illuminates.

They shall eat the meats, he says, in this age. For as long as we are in this world, through his holy flesh and precious blood, we shall still partake of Christ in a more substantial manner. But when we have arrived at the day of his power, as it is written, and have ascended to the splendor of the saints, we shall be sanctified again in another manner, as the dispenser and giver of the good things to come knows. Moreover, the partaking of his holy flesh and likewise the drinking of the saving blood contains a confession of the passion and of the death of Christ which was shown forth for our sake in the economy. For thus he himself says somewhere, when he was laying down for his own disciples the laws concerning the mystery: As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim my death. Therefore in the present age, through the participation in what has just been named, we shall reasonably proclaim his death; but when he comes in the glory of the Father, we shall no longer appropriately offer him the confession concerning the passion, but we shall know him clearly as God, face to face, as Paul says. For we shall glorify him, he says, as Lord. For having died once, he dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him, according to the voice of Paul. Therefore he also said: Even if we knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so. For then we shall know him more brightly, not from what he is as man, but from what he is as true God, the economy having now been completed, for which he also became flesh.

For the words about the incarnation will, in all likelihood, be idle, but the greater knowledge will enter in, and a certain divine understanding will shine forth in us from him, of salvation in a glory befitting God. And he commands that the meats of the lamb be eaten roasted in fire, because those who ascend to the apprehension of Christ must be hot in spirit. And Paul also commands them to be fervent in spirit. But they shall also eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs, he says, hinting through a riddle that those who have become partakers of Christ ought to nourish their own soul with unleavened, that is, most pure desires, accustoming themselves to a life that is guileless and unmixed with wickedness; and that they should not for this reason shrink from the bitterness that comes from trials, according to what was said by someone: Child, if you come to serve God, prepare your soul for trial, make straight your heart and endure. But you shall not eat of it raw, he says. What then is this also? The one who eats it raw does not eat it for digestion; but neither does such food yield at all to the teeth. And those who do not finely examine the word concerning Christ through searching, and refine and test it by fire, would reasonably do this, according to what is sung by David: And in my meditation a fire shall be kindled. And again he forbids eating it boiled in water, meaning that the more watery and slack understanding concerning him will not be good food for those

...indicating this to the minds of the faithful. But a more watery conception about him is the opinion that he is not God by nature, but to relegate him to the rank of created things; and some, in their ignorance, do not shrink from doing this, dragging the things said about him in the economy because of the incarnation over to their own will, and making them, as it were, food for the impiety that dwells in them. Therefore, he says, you shall not eat what is boiled in water, but only what is roasted with fire, for the reason already given, and because the oracles of the Lord are fiery. For all the words concerning his divinity are hot, and have nothing watery or chilled in them, according to the one who says again in the book of Psalms: Your oracle is exceedingly fiery, and your servant has loved it. And again he commands them to eat the head together with the feet and the entrails, wishing the whole knowledge of the mystery concerning him to be established wholly in the minds of the faithful. For one must know before all things that he was in the beginning, the Word being God, in the Father and with the Father; that is, the head, being the beginning of the whole mystery. Secondly, that though he is God, he will come again, as judge to put an end to the economy concerning us; for the feet signify this to us, being the end of the whole body. And you will understand the entrails as the hidden and, as it were, middle word of the incarnation. Therefore through these things the faith is complete; and Christ is whole and perfect in us through such knowledge. For it is for this reason that I would suppose John to have said: The one who is, who was, who is coming. Then again the lawgiver commands, saying:

You shall not leave any of it until morning, figuratively, as it seems, through these words preventing the postponements that are not good with respect to the will to understand perfectly. For let not, he says, the perfect and true knowledge of him be sent into delay, nor let some keep for themselves for a later grace the perfect participation in him, having once partaken and wholly about to touch. This, indeed, is what those do who have tasted through catechesis of the doctrines concerning Christ, but who preserve the illumination through the Spirit, and the grace through baptism, for a long and overdue delay, the one in old age, he says. For great indeed is the harm that comes from this and unexpectedly. For most of all, even if they attain their own counsels, the hope is not safe. But when the goal has again come to its end for him, he is sanctified, yet he has only the forgiveness of offenses, and he brings the talent back dry to his own master, having had no leisure to work it. But also, a bone of it shall not be broken, he says. For bones are always uneaten by our teeth. Such, in human minds, is also the white, so to speak, and hidden Word of his divinity. For that the Son is by nature, and that he has been begotten from God the Father, rightly understanding we believe, but we no longer seek, according to the voice of the saint. For who knows how to speak the manner of his generation? And how is the prophet not true when he cries out: Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken from the earth.

Therefore in these things the bones mean the firmness of the doctrines that are beyond understanding. The lawgiver does not permit us to crush these; but the heretics who distort what is right crush them altogether for themselves. For they pry into the manner of the divine and ineffable generation, suffering from some incomparable folly, and they do not receive into their mind what is written: Who has measured the heaven with a span? What therefore we reasonably refuse—the crushing of the bones of the lamb—we have soberly deemed unfit, but by faith we receive the things that are beyond us. It is necessary indeed to remember that the written word was also taken in a more historical sense concerning our Savior, since the soldiers of Pilate did not break his legs, as it is written. But what is left over from it, he says, must be burned until morning. And again by naming morning he means the illumination into the age to come, when we shall see our own king and God face to face, no longer as now in a riddle and in a mirror, and in shadow, and in part, as Paul says. Since, therefore, at that time the vision of him as in a riddle is going to be done away with in a manner through brighter knowledge, he says that what is left over from it until morning will again be burned with fire, as it were in a type. And he commands those who partake to have such a form: Let your loins be girded, he says, and your sandals on your feet, and your staffs in your hands. And you shall eat it with haste. It is the Passover of the Lord.

Therefore, being girded about the loins would be a symbol of swiftness and of youthful-mindedness, according to what was said by God to the righteous Job: Gird up your loins like a man. And again, concerning someone in the prophets: And he shall be girded with righteousness as to his loins, meaning, swift and courageous for righteousness. And the sandal signifies the readiness of the mind to walk without delay toward whatever God wills. Since Paul also writes with this meaning: And having shod your feet with the readiness of the Gospel of peace. And in addition to this, the prophet Jeremiah also says: And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways? And the staff in the hand indicates the hope that supports us and sustains us for endurance, according to what is written in the prophets: Hope in the Lord, and be supported in God. And again he commands the lamb to be eaten with haste, clearly and very plainly indicating that the one who has come to have a share in Christ must not appear sluggish or slack in good works, but bringing earnestness intense and boiling toward whatever he thinks will profit him. And again, consider the blessed Paul writing: Do you not know that those who run in a stadium all indeed run, but one receives the prize? Run in this way, that you may obtain it. And thinking that we ought to hunt down what is profitable from every direction, I will come to another meaning.

He does not wish the one sanctified through Christ to be seen as living luxuriously and loosely, but the law puts upon him the attire befitting travelers, suggesting these two things, as is likely: either that the things in type and shadow will one day pass over and run toward the truth; or that it is fitting for the one who has once partaken of Christ, employing his eagerness toward the good as swift and most nimble feet, to go toward every virtue, running past the abominable pleasure in the world. And he immediately adds the reason why the one just named by us ought to be seen as such, saying, "It is the Passover of the Lord," that is, a passing over. For we pass over from the life in the world to a citizenship pleasing to God. Then again immediately, he makes clear to them what and how great the benefit they gain from this is: for he promises to strike every firstborn in the land of Egypt; but to those who have eaten the lamb, he says the blood will be a sign, so that from this they come under his protection, so as not to be destroyed when he strikes in the land of Egypt. For God punishes the disobedient and unruly, and the one who has no share in the holiness that comes from Christ. But he acknowledges only those, and deems them worthy of good care, who appear anointed with the blood of the true lamb, and he does not permit the sanctified one to perish together with the impious, but assigns them exceptional benevolence. And for seven whole days he commands those who have eaten the sacred lamb to turn to unleavened bread.

...most pure desires, as it seems to me, and far removed from all meanness, persuading those sanctified through Christ to turn their own soul away from them. And let the first day and the seventh day be called holy, he says. For holy is our time at the beginning of creation, when the forefather Adam had not yet gone out of paradise through transgression, but was living in it and still keeping the commandment given. And holy again is the time also in the last days, through Christ, who justifies in faith those who come to him, and restores them again to that state in which we were in the beginning. Therefore in these things the whole mystery concerning our Savior was prefigured for us. Wherefore also he said very well to the Jews: If you believed Moses, he says, you would believe me; for he wrote concerning me. Concerning the setting apart of the firstborn. 1. We have been redeemed from our ancient manner of life handed down from our fathers, according to what is written: Not with corruptible things, silver or gold, but with the precious blood of a lamb without blemish and without spot, Christ, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested at the last time. Since he is God by nature, and in the form and equality of God and the Father, and since the Only-begotten has also been named firstborn, he appeared on earth and conversed with men. For he said somewhere concerning us in the Psalms to the Father and God in the heavens: I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to you.

For taking human nature upon himself, and in his providential condescension bringing his own concerns down to our level, he is not ashamed to call us brothers, since we have been called to sonship through him. For it is true, and it has been attested by the facts themselves, that the Father has given his own Son as the ransom for the salvation of us all. Therefore, as Paul says, We were bought with a price, and we are not our own. But one died for all, so that all might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for us. That, then, each of those saved through Christ—those who have richly gained, as it were, a conformity to him through sanctification in the Spirit—owes his own life to God, would become clear from the all-wise Moses addressing the more ancient generations: And it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and gives it to you, that you shall set apart to the Lord every male that opens the womb; every one that opens the womb from your herds, or among your cattle, as many males as are born to you, you shall sanctify to the Lord. Every one that opens the womb of a donkey you shall exchange for a sheep; but if you do not exchange it, you shall redeem it. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. And when the assembly was gathered together at times in Horeb, he comes with the same words, and again lays down the law, saying as follows: The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. Thus you shall do with your calf, and your sheep, and your beast of burden. Seven days it shall be under its mother, and on the eighth day you shall give it back to me. And you shall be holy men to me. 2.

Accordingly, the God of all things fittingly asks for the dedication of all things, and he insists that we must consecrate to him the males. For since the firstborn of the Egyptians have perished, but the beloved Israel has been saved with his whole household and has escaped the destroyer, having been smeared with the blood of the lamb as a type of Christ who for our sake was among the dead, in order that he might abolish death, for this reason those who have been saved would justly no longer be their own; rather, it would be fitting that the one who risked danger on their behalf should now possess them as his own. For in the same way that those who are able to deliver those who have already become subject to barbarians, and to free them from the slavery that unexpectedly came upon them by enduring the battle against those men, all but hold the rank of master thereafter, acquiring those who were captured by their own blood—by this same reasoning, I think, our Lord Jesus Christ also, having bound the swarm of unclean demons and having given his own blood for us, and having thus put death away and destroyed corruption, makes us his own thereafter, so that we live no longer our own life but rather his. For if he had not died for us, we would not have been saved; and if he had not been among the dead, the harsh power of death would not have been shaken. Thus also the inspired Paul has taught in the mysteries, saying of those who have been saved through Christ: I have been crucified with Christ; and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who

...of him who loved me and gave himself for me. Just as the people of Israel lived, so to speak, the life of the slain lamb, so too we no longer live our own life, but the life of Christ who died for us, even though he rose again. For he was life by nature, as God. Our life must therefore be holy, for such is the life of Christ. And if we have chosen to live holily, we shall richly possess his admirable image, having been made conformable to him who for our sake became as we are, and to the Only-Begotten as God, and to the Firstborn because of his humanity, we shall truly be a sacrifice, an offering and acceptable to God the Father. Therefore the firstborn males are sanctified, because Christ is understood in the image. For just as mothers brought their infants, and our Lord Jesus Christ received them and welcomed them most gladly, and addressed the holy disciples: Suffer the little children, and do not hinder them from coming to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven—so also here you will understand: God the Father loves the firstborn, as shining forth in the image of Christ. But only the males of the firstborn are chosen. For it was necessary, it was necessary that the beauty most fitting to Christ be saved for him, and for those who are formed in his image as in the species of the firstborn. For he is at once firstborn and male, because he knows no weakness unto sin; and the type of weakness is the female. Therefore we who bear the image of Christ must reject the mindset that is effeminate, and shake off utterly, as truly accursed and detested by God, what is soft and slack and weak, and endure what is wanton.

and manly zeal for the necessity of choosing, I say, to accomplish virtue. But every one that opens the womb of a donkey is exchanged for a sheep. And what is the reason? For the donkey is unholy and profane according to the law, but the sheep is sacred; and therefore it is also brought on behalf of the donkey. Again the law hints to us in these things that even the profane is holy in Christ, and the unholy, and through him both the acceptable and the unacceptable. For since we were sinners and unclean, he himself became a holy sacrifice on our behalf, and for a sweet-smelling savor. For he died for sinners, the righteous for the unrighteous, the clean for the unclean, just as a sheep for a donkey. But the firstborn of men are redeemed by gifts, as is reasonable, that is, by a price of those being approved beforehand. For what reason? Because what has been wholly dedicated and sanctified to God had to be sacrificed somewhere without fail. But God, who created all things in incorruption, rejects the killing of men. For he did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living, as it is written. Nor indeed does he rejoice equally in the unclean demons who are being destroyed; but rather he commands the ransom to be paid on his behalf, almost plainly confessing that we owe our own life to him. For this is what he will add, commanding the so-called didrachma to be paid. But the true ransom, and that for all, let Christ himself be understood, through whom and in whom we have conquered corruption; for he gave himself for us. But he said that the lamb must fulfill seven days under its mother, and be brought on the eighth. For it was not, once born from the womb, immediately slaughtered;

But God formed it, gently brought to manhood by the milk of its mother and strengthened a little, then, yes then, to be fitly disposed for a sweet savour. And this too would be a type of a mystical and necessary matter, which has been observed even to this day among us who are accustomed to consecrate rational flocks to God who rules over all. For we do not bring those who have been called at once, and who have just crossed over to the beginnings of faith, and who are still uninitiated, to the divine and bloodless sacrifice; but rather we first instruct them by catechizing, and, so to speak, while they are still running under their mother, that is, the Church, and fatten them, as it were, with infant-appropriate and tender milk, with the word. And indeed the inspired Paul writes to those not yet perfect in habit, saying: I fed you with milk, and not with solid food. For you were not yet able, but neither even now are you able. And again in another Epistle: For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. For he is a child. But solid food is for the perfect, for those who by reason of habit have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. Those, then, who have been brought to manhood and well nourished by the words of catechesis, we bring forward at the eighth, that is, when the time has passed by in which they were in infancy, and another time after that has entered in, at which the mystery of Christ might be set before them in due season and fittingly. For the eighth signifies to us the time of the resurrection, when Christ, having endured death on our behalf, came to life again, to whom we are conformed, dying in a spiritual sense through holy baptism, so that we may also attain to the resurrection. And Paul will confirm this, writing:

For we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Being brought to birth again, then, through faith into the knowledge of the truth, and already enriched with conformity to our Lord Jesus Christ, the firstborn for our sake and in us; then drinking rational and guileless milk, ascending to the measure of the stature of his fullness, according to what is written, then indeed, then at last we shall all be sacred, and an offering to God; dying to the world, but living holy lives to God in a spiritual sense. For this, I think, is what is meant by the firstborn of the cattle being slaughtered at his altar. And the inspired Paul also writes to those thus sanctified: For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Sacred, then, is the death of the saints, and something of this sort the blessed David seems to me to have looked up and seen: Precious, he says, in the sight of the Lord is the death of his holy ones. And the manner of the thoughts just spoken by us would be fitting, as I judge, not only for those who turn from the nations to the knowledge of the truth, but especially for those called from the legal worship to the justification in Christ and the sanctification in the Spirit. For the lamb, that is the calf, was fed seven days under its mother;

It was brought on the eighth day, in a riddling way, I think, with God hinting at something (for the law is a shadow), that it was necessary for those who were to be sacred and were going to be brought back to God as a sweet-smelling savor to be first trained through types and, as it were, by lessons not very manly but rather more suited to infants. And the season most fitting for such a perfection is the mystery of Christ, which is signified through the eighth day. Inaccessible, then, was God through the legal worship, but he could become accessible through Christ alone. For through him we have obtained access, as after the seventh day—that is, the sabbath-keeping according to the law having already passed by, or the legal worship being universal and more general, as it were, in part. For the law perfected nothing; but Christ brings to this. For those who have believed are complete for virtue, and have perfection in knowledge through Christ; for we have his mind, and through him and with him, with God and the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be the glory unto the ages of ages. Amen. Concerning Marah, and the wood shown to the blessed Moses. 1. The Israelites, departing from the land of the Egyptians and scarcely stripping off the hard-to-bear yoke of slavery, were going through the middle of the sea as on dry land, and passing through this too without toil. For the waters were congealed like a wall, yielding to the divine nod.

Then after this, when they had seen Pharaoh, who had risked everything with his whole army, drowned in the waters, and those once unbearable and harshly treating them without mercy piteously destroyed, they sent up songs to God, and honoring him with hymns of thanksgiving they said: Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. He became my helper and protector for salvation. For the God of all things has worked wonders usefully. For although he had shown them very many and exceedingly admirable signs in Egypt, and besides had generously granted that those who had become his own could pass through the sea itself, so that they might thereafter have a mind well established and firmly grounded in them, and indeed might believe that he is not one of the falsely named gods, that is, the inventions of human craft, and the image simply made of wood and stone; but that being Lord of all things, he commands creation as though lying beneath his feet, and whatever he chooses to accomplish he easily brings to pass. And so that they might be benefited by marveling even more greatly, he commanded them to depart more richly, and to hasten to the land promised to the fathers, with the all-wise Moses as their general and leader. Then what comes after this, the sacred Scripture will again make clear: For Moses, it says, led the sons of Israel up from the Red Sea, and brought them into the wilderness of Shur, and they journeyed three days in the wilderness, and found no water to drink. And they came to Marah, and they could not drink the water from Marah, for it was bitter.

For this reason the name of that place was called Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" But Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water was made sweet. There he established for him ordinances and judgments and statutes. And there he tested him, and said: "If you will indeed hear the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is pleasing before him, and give ear to his commandments, and keep all his ordinances, I will bring none of the diseases that I brought upon the Egyptians upon you. For I am the Lord who heals you." And they came to Elim; and there were there twelve springs of water, and seventy palm stems. And they encamped there by the waters. Consider, then, how he does not allow them, having been redeemed without discipline, nor reveling in the broad expanse of cheerfulness, to be carried along toward ease, but economically orders it so, lest going little by little into forgetfulness of the one who is able to preserve them, they should easily slip back into the deception in Egypt. For labors gather us toward God. Indeed the prophet says: "Lord, in tribulation we remembered you; in small tribulation your discipline was upon us." Passing therefore through a long and thirsty land, they came into scarcity of the necessities for life. For they did not find water to drink; and as their thirst was prolonged even to the third day, what they longed for is found by them only with difficulty. But even this was entirely useless. For the water of Marah was bitter, and not safe for those who thirst, at least as regards being able, he says, to escape death; and they are distressed at this, and they cry out against the mediator.

Moses was at a loss. Then, when God who knows all things showed him a tree, he cast it into the waters, and they were wondrously changed into a stream sweet and most drinkable. Having drunk therefore and been benefited, they marveled at the divine sign; after this they encamped also by twelve springs of waters, where there were also seventy trunks of palm trees. And they lodged there at that time in luxury. That therefore it was in faith and not otherwise that the way of salvation could be found, God was fully assuring them through shadow and types. For this reason he also commanded the lamb to be slain in Egypt, and he wanted them to believe that, having been smeared with the blood, they would escape the death that was inflicted on the firstborn. Or would one not say, and very reasonably, that what was done was a training exercise in faith? For in what way, tell me, would death have feared the slaughter of a sheep? But the matter was a type of the mystery. For Christ by his own blood rescues those who have been sanctified in faith, and shows them to be stronger than the corruption of death. But what again is the matter at Marah? Come, let us say as best we can. 2. The God-inspired Scripture likens the divine Word to water. For just as perceptible water is life-giving to bodies, so also if the divine Word should settle into a mind, it would benefit it not moderately. Therefore Christ also, speaking to the flocks of the Jews, cried out, saying: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." And to the woman from Samaria: "And everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst to the

an age. Just now, therefore, those of Israel, having abandoned the God-hating worship of the Egyptians, changed their minds to accomplish whatever God might will. But they had not yet been instructed by the laws from above, nor yet tasted the intelligible waters, and so to speak had their mind dry and thirsting within themselves. Then with difficulty they come upon Marah; but they could not drink the water, for it was bitter. Then, when Moses cast in the wood, the water was freed from its innate bitterness. What then is Marah? I would say it is the letter of the Law. For the Law is bitter, since it is a punisher. At any rate, the inspired Paul said: Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on two or three witnesses. Do you see that it was bitter and hard to bear, and perhaps even for those who wish to do right? At any rate, the inspired disciples, when some after the faith were again kindling others to the legal worship, said plainly: And now why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear? And indeed the blessed Paul calls the commandment given through the all-wise Moses a ministry of condemnation. For he said thus: For if the ministry of condemnation is glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. He also said elsewhere: The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Clearly, I think, calling the Law the letter, and again the Spirit the worship in the Spirit, that is, the evangelical worship; for the Law is bitter. And Marah is also interpreted as bitterness.

That the instruction through the law, in itself and insofar as it reaches to types, is not able to give life—to insist on this is superfluous. For no one is justified before God in the law, according to what is written. But the law itself will then indeed be life-giving, and it will be released from the bitterness according to the letter, if it becomes receptive of the mystery according to Christ; for Christ is the end of the law for salvation to everyone who believes, understood, clearly, spiritually. And a clear type of this too would be what happened at Marah. For the wood signifies the cross of the Savior, or the mystery upon it; which, if it becomes receptive to those in the law, they will find the bitter thing sweet. For to those who believe in Christ, the law is not fault-finding and punitive, but already life-giving, since the history is very well transformed for us toward spiritual contemplation, and guides us to Christ, who is life and life-giving. For then, then the law will also define for us statutes and judgments. For it will carry us straight to what seems good to it, and will point out the path to every one of the best things, and it prepares us to be outside of fears and the expectation of being punished. For every plague, it says, which I brought upon the Egyptians, I will not bring upon you. Therefore, for those in the law who have received this mystery, there is a good hope of passing over punishment. And this, I think, is what the Savior himself also said to the assemblies of the Jews at the time of his coming: Amen, amen, I say to you, that the one who hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. And again:

The one who believes in the Son is not judged. Having therefore received the righteous acts of Christ, then indeed, then we shall also come to Elim, which is "ascent." For we are led up from our ancient infancy to a mind that is freshly disposed, and having arrived at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we shall delight in the springs of intelligible waters. And these twelve depict for us the choir of the holy apostles; and we shall also encounter the seventy trunks of palm trees. For it is written that after the holy apostles the Lord appointed another seventy. And that the divine disciples are truly springs, pouring forth for us the divine and saving and necessary word unto life, the God of all would very well show to those who have been justified in the law, saying thus: "Draw water with gladness from the springs of the Savior." And concerning every holy one the divine Psalmist says, "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree." And do not be surprised at this. Since Christ himself is also named by such a title in the God-inspired Scripture. For somewhere again the intelligible bride, that is, the Church, said concerning the bridegroom from above and from heaven—I mean Christ—: "I said, I will go up upon the palm tree; I will grasp its heights." For the plant is always flourishing, sweet and well-rooted, and having its heart whitened. And such in a certain intelligible way is Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father, with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen. Concerning the manna and the quail. 1.

But the God of all things again works wonders, and passes from strength to strength, as it is written; and for the impossible he finds ways, providing for his own glory everywhere, and demonstrating in many ways that it belongs to him alone to accomplish without toil even things beyond reason, and that by us the wonder ought reasonably to follow upon them, so that through all things God might be seen, not as one of the men of craft, that is, wickedly set apart, but by nature and truly. For from the things gloriously accomplished one might behold even the pure nature quite effortlessly; to which belongs, as its own good, the all-strong and unconquerable against whatever it may choose to do. And with this belongs also the forbearance of evil. One might see what I mean, and very clearly, even in what has just been set before us. For it is written, that on the fifteenth day, in the second month, when they had gone out from the land of Egypt, all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against both Moses and Aaron, and the sons of Israel said to them: Would that we had died, struck by the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, and ate bread to the full! Because you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill all this congregation with famine? And the Lord said to Moses: Behold, I rain down for you bread from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather the day's portion day by day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law. And it shall be on the sixth day, that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be double what they gather day by day.

For the firstborn of the Egyptians, as I have already said, had perished; and the children of Israel were being sent out of the land, not even being allowed, so to speak, to provision themselves. For they carried out their dough before their kneading-troughs were leavened. Having provisioned themselves simply with whatever came to hand, they went out in haste, and the fear was equal both for the Egyptians who pursued and for those who underwent the pursuit. For the former expected that those already destroyed would soon be added to, unless, yielding to the divine nod, they drove Israel out of the land; while the latter thought that if they were overtaken while intending to depart and making their escape, they would certainly enter into the final struggles for their lives, and would be in danger without mercy. They were going out, then, not at all having taken thought for the things needed for a journey, and barely snatching up what was in their hands, and, so to speak, having necessarily stolen from what lay at home the most easily carried things, which indeed they had also eaten up, and then, being at a loss as to whence in the wilderness the necessities of life would come to them, they slipped into a desire for the food in Egypt, and they forget that they had been delivered from the worst of all things and from slavery in Egypt, and they have, as it were, cried out against the help; and they are angry that they have been ransomed, and they prefer the surfeit of an unclean belly to the freedom so longed for and most prayed for by all men. And the matter throws the mediator, that is, Moses, into confusion. But God promises that he will immediately supply them with an abundance of foods, and he still deals gently with those who have offended no little.

For to be willing to receive from him the things that sustain life would carry no blame at all; but their grumbling grieves him greatly. For indeed the Savior himself taught us to say in prayers: Give us today our bread for the day. But if we say this, we shall in no way blame the Master, but rather we shall ask from him the things suited for life. But the peoples of the Jews, when they ought to have asked for food, are angry because they have been redeemed, and they most senselessly insult this revered and admirable grace, as though it had sent them out from the sweetest things—bread, I mean, and meat. Therefore they grumble and cry out impiously. But God bears with evil, and promises them an unexpected abundance. And indeed with ineffable power he sends down at evening the quail, and at dawn the manna. And as the divine David said, He gave them bread of heaven; man ate the bread of angels. And he has fully assured them through actual experience and events that God is able both to give bread and to prepare a table in the wilderness, just as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ also, performing equal wonders, by breaking five loaves satisfied many in the wilderness, when twelve baskets of remnants were gathered up. But the modes of the miracle-working are altogether beyond busy inquiry; therefore let the things beyond understanding be honored by faith, and let God be heard by all who have marveled: I know that you can do all things, and nothing is impossible for you. 2. But in these matters let our account concerning perceptible things be.

What, then, would be the meaning of the spiritual contemplation, or what of the law's riddle is it necessary to investigate diligently, since we are very eager to hunt down the truth? We shall know, then, also through these things, that without dispute the legal dispensation is behind the evangelical way of life, and is not free from charges of flesh-loving, but it has been released—not from earthly desire—whereas the divine and evangelical one is both spiritual and blameless, and has incomparable beauty. And we shall receive the demonstration and assurance for each, examining the argument on both very thoroughly from the God-inspired Scripture. For it came to pass, it says, that evening came, and quails came up and covered the camp. And when morning came, as the dew ceased round about the camp, behold, upon the face of the desert, a fine thing like coriander, white as frost upon the ground. And when the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another: What is this? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them: This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat; this is the word which the Lord has commanded. Gather from it, each one for the gomor that is fitting for him, according to the head, according to the number of your souls. Each one with those who dwell in tents with you shall gather. And the sons of Israel did so, and gathered, the one much and the one little, and measured the gomor; and the one with much did not have more, and the one with little did not have less, each one for what was fitting for himself. And Moses said to them: Let no one leave any of it until morning.

And they did not listen to Moses, but some of them left part of it until the morning, and it bred worms and became foul. And Moses was embittered against them. And again after other things: And Moses said to them, This is the word which the Lord has spoken: Holy sabbaths, a rest to the Lord, tomorrow. Whatever you bake, bake; and whatever you boil, boil; and all that is left over, leave it in store until the morning. And they left part of it until the morning, just as Moses had commanded them, and it did not become foul, nor did a worm come to be in it. Each one, then, he commanded to gather what was sufficient for himself. But he in no way restrains by deed, if perchance one should choose even to gather for those who are absent, and to be made radiant by the law of love. But he utterly forbids keeping it until the morning, and he said to do this only before the sabbath, so that the law of idleness might not be dishonored. For it was not possible at all to find any on the sabbath, since God did not permit it, but, so to speak, through this even compelled them to refrain from work on the sabbath. But some have taken little heed of the divine oracles, and kept it before the sabbath, and, as the sacred Scripture says, It became foul and bred worms. And Moses was embittered; and they rushed out and gathered on the sabbath, and God was provoked. For it is written thus: And it came to pass on the seventh day, some of the people went out from the

of the people to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said to Moses: How long will you refuse to hear my commandments and my law? See, the Lord has given you this day as a Sabbath. For this reason he himself gave you on the sixth day bread for two days; let each of you sit in your houses, let none of you go out from his place on the seventh day. And what word would there be from us that is fitting and most appropriate to what has been said? Why is it that in the evening the quail came, but the manna was given in the light and at dawn? I think indeed that it is fitting to inquire diligently; and before other things, what the quail is, and what the manna is a shadow of. 3. That, then, the life of the Jews was not free from fleshly desires may reasonably be understood, and it will clearly convict them of seeking to make the meats in Egypt their food, and of having their mind overcome by the impulses toward this, and all but tyrannized. But the things that are ours would not be seen in these. For we have been sanctified in Christ, and we are beyond fleshly uncleanness. The divine Paul will testify, writing: But those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And what is "they have crucified"? In place of: they have handed over to death, clearly the intelligible death, because of not enduring to live according to the flesh, nor indeed choosing to think on things temporal, but rather putting to death the members that are on the earth—fornication, passion, evil desire—and walking on the earth, yet earnestly longing for the citizenship above. For he remembers the cry of the sacred Scripture: Walk in the Spirit, and you will certainly not fulfill the desire of the flesh.

The mind of the Jews, then, is dim, and very easily overcome by the assaults of the passions; for it still lusts after fleshly things, and is defeated by the more earthly things. And these things, as I said, are signified to us through the quail. Yet God grants them to those who seek, not himself drawing them into desires, nor yet giving them to be wholly swept away by passions; because the excellence unto life, and that which is wholly sanctified, was not kept for those in the law, but rather for those in the Spirit. Therefore God also promised through the prophet a new covenant, not according to that first one, because it does not have the blamelessness; but another, and spiritual, able to perfect the believers in conscience. And see, as it were in the evening, the flight of the quails comes toward the Synagogue of the Jews. For it says: And it came to be evening, and the quail came up; the matter hinting to us obliquely that the lover of earthly things is not even in the intelligible light, but as in night and darkness. And the fact is truly so; for the mind of the Jews has not been released from ignorance and hardness, that is, from the intelligible mist. Therefore Christ also addressed them, saying: I am the light of the world. So then, those who have not yet believed are in mist and, as it were, in darkness; for they have not come to the light. And Christ said somewhere concerning the Pharisees and the peoples under their hand: Leave them; for they are blind, guides of the blind. The mind of the Jews, then, is lightless; therefore they are sick according to the flesh, and all but hang upon the more earthly things.

Let us consider, then, that the manna is a shadow and type of the teachings and gifts that come through Christ, which are both from above and from heaven, and have nothing earthly about them; rather, they are free even from fleshly abomination, and are truly food not of men only, but of angels as well. For the Son has revealed the Father in himself to us, and through him we have been entrusted with the doctrine concerning the holy and consubstantial Trinity, and we have been right well guided into every path of virtue. And the food of spirits is the right and genuine knowledge that is in these things. And the supply of the teachings through Christ would be as in light and day. Therefore the manna was given down to the more ancient ones, while the day was shining through and the light was being scattered abroad. For the day was shining through in us who believe, according to what is written, and the light-bringer rose in the hearts of all, and the sun of righteousness rose up, that is Christ, the giver of the intelligible manna. For that

that sensible manna was still as in an image, but the true manna is he himself, he will fully assure us, saying to the Jews: Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. For our Lord Jesus Christ turns us back to unending life, both by the precepts for godliness and through the mystic blessing.

He himself, then, is truly the divine and life-giving manna, and through him it is so. And the one who has eaten this is better than corruption and is exempt from death—not those who ate the perceptible manna. For the type was not salvific, but it counterfeited the form of the truth. God commanded the manna, sending it down from above like rain, that each should gather what was sufficient for himself, and that they should gather it together, if any so wished, for those dwelling in the same tent. For he says, "Each of you, gather with your tent-mates," and he says, "you shall not leave any of it until morning." For we must be filled with the divine and evangelical teachings. Since Christ distributes the grace that comes from him to small and great in equal measure, and likewise feeds all unto life, he wills that the stronger gather together with the others, and labor for their brethren, and lend their own toils to them, and make them sharers in the gifts from above. And this, I think, is what was said to the holy apostles: "Freely you received, freely give." For as it were gathering the manna in great abundance for themselves, they hastened to distribute it to those dwelling in the same tent—that is, the Church. For the divinely inspired disciples continued to admonish, to instruct, to lead people toward everything praiseworthy, and to set before all without envy for participation the grace they themselves had been enriched with from Christ. And indeed the blessed Paul writes to certain people: "For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established.

If, however, the phrase "Each one with your tent-mates, gather" is understood in another way—that is, not all in a scattered heap, nor mixed together, but by family, or by tents, let them make the gathering—you will understand it as follows. For we must together with those of the same faith partake of the divine words, and seek the intelligible manna; not senselessly to be carried off together with the heterodox, and, one might almost say, with those of alien race. And this indeed we do, driving away from the Churches the heterodox and the perverse, while together with those who are our own in the faith we are enriched with the food from heaven. It has been said, "Do not leave it until the morning," the law again hinting that the use of types, when the time has passed in which they were still useful and necessary, is altogether and in every way brought under judgment and punishment; for what was kept bred worms. And this too would be a clear indication of punishment and corruption. For all those will be under corruption and punishment who keep the shadow after the manifestation of the truth. We say that those have suffered something of this sort to whom the blessed Paul writes: "You have been severed from Christ, you who are justified in the law; you have fallen from grace." And again: "Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being completed in the flesh? You suffered so many things in vain—if indeed in vain." Therefore he forbids keeping it until the morning, so that through "the morning" you may understand the time after the law, in which the presence of Christ shone forth and the divine light dawned upon us. But they kept it until the morning, those of Israel who were about to keep the Sabbath, and this God was commanding.

What, then, is this—that what was gathered beforehand on the Sabbath is to be guarded, yet no longer destroyed, nor is Moses to be embittered against those who have kept it? For having come through faith to the sabbath-rest understood in Christ—that is, to cessation and rest from sins—we do not reject as useless the instruction of the law that has been heaped up in us and, as it were, laid up beforehand, guiding us by the hand to Christ; for the law is a pedagogue. But having it rather together with the teachings of the gospel, we shall not be far from praising what is fitting, and God is not embittered against those who do this. And indeed the Savior himself, teaching this, says to us: Every scribe who has been made a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a man, a householder, who brings out of his treasure things new and old. So the manna heaped up in us through the law is blameless, even if it is kept in the spiritual sabbath-rest. For we who keep sabbath in Christ encounter the shadows through Moses, in order that we may seek the truth in them. But he placed under curse and penalty the gathering on the Sabbath—or rather, God did not let the manna descend. For keeping sabbath spiritually in Christ, we shall no longer gather the things that are in types. For we shall not cling to fleshly circumcision, nor shall we sacrifice oxen or sheep, but we shall rather thrust aside the coarse element of the types, having the truth itself, that is, Christ. 4. Sufficient, then, as I think, and clear is the account we have given in the matters set before us.

Since we find this chapter also in the book called Numbers, and in other additions of narratives, I thought it necessary not to pass over untested the things that were passed over in silence in Exodus. For in this way the understanding would be more abundant for those who read. It is written, then: "And the mixed multitude that was among them lusted with a lust, and the children of Israel sat down and wept, and said: Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt for free, and the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dry, and our eyes are on nothing except the manna." Then he adds to these things: "And Moses heard them weeping throughout their tribes, each one at his door. And the Lord was greatly angered with wrath, and it was evil before Moses." Consider, then, how easily Israel is led astray, and is not able to benefit others as it should; but it is sick in its weakness, and in its own affairs alone. For the mixed multitude fell sick with that most outlandish and most abominable lust; but those who ought to have rebuked them chose rather to be persuaded to think the more fitting things, and they were sick worse. And the inspired Moses is not moderately distressed, and he said clearly to the God of all that he alone would not be able to endure so heavy and unbearable a labor. And as proof of the matter, he brought forward the exceedingly impossible and hard to obtain, saying: "From where shall I give meat to this people to eat?

Having already come to such a state of despondency that he now wished in some way to die, he says, "If you deal with me in this way, kill me in your destroying, so that I may not see my own misery." He also commands that chosen men be appointed to assist him and share his care—men from the whole congregation, seventy in number. For the Lord said to Moses: "Gather for me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you yourself know to be elders of the people and their scribes, and you shall bring them to the tent of witness, and they shall stand there with you, and I will come down and speak there with you. And I will take away from the spirit that is upon you and place it upon them, and they shall help you bear the impulse of the people; and you shall not bear them alone." When this had been done (for he immediately appointed those who were more distinguished than the others), the God of all filled them with the Holy Spirit; then after this, yielding to the desires of those who were weeping, he sent down the quail for them. And those around the camp, gathered in heaps, collected what lay there rejoicing greatly; but they devoured it in beastly fashion, sparing nothing in their greed and self-indulgence. And when a countless multitude of birds had been gathered and heaped up for them, and the eating of flesh continued for the days of a month, at last disease fell upon them, and as the prophet says, "Hades widened his soul,

And he opened his mouth, so as not to cease. For the flesh, he says, was still in their teeth, before it failed. And the Lord was angered against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague, and the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had lusted. For since they lacked no good things, but rather richly enjoyed the provisions of manna beyond reproach, they lusted for meats and name leeks, cucumbers and melons, onions and garlic. Therefore, having eaten, they perished not long after. For God gives the quail, not praising the desire, but rather assuring them through events that nothing is impossible for him. And after this he punishes accordingly those who have fallen into shameful pleasures. The wretched Jews suffered something of this kind at the time of the coming of our Savior. For those things were shadows of these, and the events of old prefigured the later ones as types. For when the truer manna, Christ, had come down to us from above and from heaven, and was able to turn us away and promised us life without end, they, in their lack of understanding, chose in opposition the use of earthly things, truly the most watery according to the world, and so necessarily they offended not only the God of all, but also Moses himself, the divine. For it is written, that the Lord was angered with wrath against his people, and it was evil before Moses. For the mind of the saints always follows the judgments of God.

That the people of the Jews everywhere preferred the temporal and fleshly things to the good things from above, one may learn again from the Gospel parable. For those invited to the dinner wished to gather for the wedding feast; but they went away, he says, one to his own field, and another to his merchandise. And the excuse was, for the one, "I have married a wife," and for the other, "I have bought a field, and I cannot come." That Moses himself also cried out against the disobedience of the Jews, our Lord Jesus Christ will confirm, saying: "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you have hoped. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote concerning me." And Moses considers it very burdensome that Israel should still be able to endure. But God sanctified others, seventy in number, just as we have already said. For the law alone, of which Moses would reasonably be understood as the type, is not able to lead us by the hand. For this reason also many others, seventy, are appointed, to fill up what was lacking in that one, and they have appeared as in a perfect number. For the number seventy would be significant of this. And who are these again? Those who after Moses were brought forward through Christ to lead, of whom the beginning and fathers are the divine disciples. And God is said to take away from the Spirit that is upon Moses, and to put it in those who were chosen, and for no other reason than that we might believe that by the one and holy Spirit God sanctifies both the saints before us and ourselves.

For just as the Father is one, and the Son likewise is one, so also the Holy Spirit is one—both the Spirit in the prophets and in us is one. And being one, it would not reasonably be conceived as divided among many, but it is undivided even in the great distribution of gifts, and perfectly present in all. One must observe that God over all commanded the chosen men to be gathered together to the number of seventy. But the number does not come to fullness, for two were lacking, Modad and Eldad. Yet God, by his Spirit, visited even these who were lacking, for they prophesied in the camp. And some of those around Moses were jealous, and indeed said they ought to be restrained. But he, foreseeing the mystery of Christ, said, "Would that the Lord give prophets to his people, whenever the Lord gives his Spirit upon them." And through these things we shall understand that the law had gathered many into its net and brought them to God to be trained as children toward the mystery of Christ. Nevertheless it was not able to bring all; even these who were lacking the Holy One sanctified.

Christ. For those from the nations have been called to the knowledge of the truth, not through Moses or the law, but rather by the power of God and the Father, who reveals his own image—that is, the Son—to those who do not know him; and having called them, he set them apart as holy, anointing them with the Spirit. And those under the law are jealous of those in Christ who have been justified by faith and sanctified in the Spirit. Yet Moses had rejoiced, having foreknown the mystery. Therefore the peoples of the Jews do not think the things of Moses, when they unreasonably envy the saints in Christ. So then, as if recalling our discourse to its beginning, we say this: In the first chapter it was clearly shown that the people of the Jews were still carnal, but that the people of those in faith and in Christ is different, truly better and befitting holiness, and that the perceptible manna fulfilled the shadow and type of the gifts that come through Christ. And besides these things we were taught that if we keep the shadows of the law, and that even after the time when the realities are ready, we shall offend God and shall be hateful even to the saints themselves. For Moses was embittered against those who had kept the manna. And in the second chapter it is possible to see that the Jews, dishonoring the spiritual manna and turning away from the things above and through Christ, but inclining as it were to the more earthly things and bent without measure toward foul pleasures, have manifestly perished. For it was altogether necessary to regard the things from God as better, and to be crowned by faith in the Savior and Redeemer of us all—I mean Christ—through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father with the Holy Spirit forever.

Amen. On the three signs that came about through Moses. 1. No one could contemplate the divine nature, whatever it is. For it is wholly invisible, and indeed beyond all mind, and surpasses the power of reason; it is known by itself alone. And you will learn this from the cry of Christ: "No one knows," he says, "who the Son is except the Father; nor does anyone know who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him." The Only-begotten, then, has shown us the surpassing beauty of God the Father, setting himself forth as a bright image. Therefore he says: "The one who has seen me has seen the Father." And we have beheld the Son both with the eyes of the heart and with those of the flesh, when he lowered himself into emptiness and came down among us—though he is God, existing in the form and equality of God the Father, and begotten of him by nature. And indeed Baruch spoke, pointing, I think, to the Word himself: "This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him. He has devised every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his child, and to Israel his beloved. After this he appeared on earth, and conversed with men." And the divine David also clearly cried out beforehand to us: "God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and he has called the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting; from Zion is the splendor of his beauty. God will come openly, our God, and he will not keep silence." For he came down in the form of fire upon Mount Sinai. But that those things were a type, and nothing else, Christ assures us.

For the peoples of the Jews thought that they had truly beheld the ineffable nature, with Moses intervening and standing around them in Horeb, and gathering them into assembly beneath Mount Sinai. And since the piercing sound of trumpets, darting upward, was stunning those who heard, they thought among themselves that they had also become hearers of the divine voice. But that they were thinking these things childishly, God has made plainly clear, saying thus: You have heard his voice, but you have not seen his form. And you do not have his word abiding in you, because the one whom he sent, him you do not believe. Therefore we who have believed have beheld the Father in the Son, and we have received his Word. For this reason we have also been redeemed; for he has saved us—not an elder, not an angel, not the law given through Moses, but the Lord himself, according to what is written. And that what I say is true, we shall know also from what is written. It stands thus: And he said, it says: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses turned away his face. For he was afraid to look upon the presence of God. Observe the weakness of the law. For God reveals himself as the God of all; but while he presents himself openly, Moses turns away his face. And this would be a clear sign to us that not even the sons themselves beheld the God-befitting glory of the Son, while he reveals himself and all but brings them to knowledge. Therefore he also said through the voice of Isaiah: I was found by those who did not seek me; I became manifest to those who did not inquire for me. I said: Behold, I am here for the nation that did not know me.

All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people. Therefore they have not beheld the glory of Christ, turning away the eyes of their mind. And this, I think, is what was said about them through the voice of the prophet: And they turned their backs and their faces against me. And the divine Paul also writes: Until this very day, at the reading of the Old Testament, the same veil remains unlifted, because it is abolished in Christ. But until today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we who have believed do not shrink from looking boldly before God, but as the same divine Paul again said: With unveiled face we reflect the glory of the Lord. Moses, then, turns away his face. Then, when God says that he ought to go together with the elders of the sons of Israel to the stricken Pharaoh, making clear that God has summoned the Israelites to sacrifice to him in the wilderness; and when he adds that they will need to despoil the Egyptians, a woman receiving from her neighbor and her housemate vessels of silver and gold, and clothing; Moses, it says, answered and said: But if they do not believe, nor listen to my voice (for they will say, God has not appeared to you), what shall I say to them? And the Lord said to him: What is this in your hand? And he said: A rod. And he said: Throw it on the ground.

And he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. And the Lord said to him: Stretch out your hand and take hold of its tail. So he stretched out his hand and took hold of the tail, and it became a rod in his hand, so that they may believe you that the Lord God of your fathers has appeared to you, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For Moses was afraid lest he should seem to the sons of Israel to be a lover of falsehood and a teller of idle tales, saying that the God of all had appeared to himself, and that he had said he commanded that they ought henceforth firmly to depart from the greed of the Egyptians. For this reason he was bidden to work wonders and to do things beyond human nature, God transforming the rod into a serpent, so that he might be understood to be truly not a deserter but a bearer of the oracles from above and from God. For the true sign, which we all have believed, is the descent of the Word among us, which is signified by the rod that fell to the ground. How and in what manner, I shall try again to say as best I can. 2. The God-inspired Scripture likens to a rod the Word that sprang from God, because all things are supported by him: By the word of the Lord, it says, the heavens were established. And, The Lord supports the righteous. We have indeed been brought to the Father through the Son, and he himself hints that this is true, saying: And I will drive them under my rod. And a rod is also in another sense a symbol of kingship; and the God and Father of all reigns through the Son. The rod of Aaron that budded in the holy of holies would signify him.

the one from the root of Jesse, and the one who spiritually comforts us all, and who supports those who have believed so that they are well established, according to what is sung in the Psalms to the God and Father of all: Your rod and your staff, these have comforted me. The rod, then, is the Son. But as long as he was as it were in the hand of the Father and in the heights of the Godhead, not yet having become as we are, we wretched ones continued godless in the world; and we wandered, serving the creation, and were subjected to the greed of unclean spirits. But when he had, so to speak (it will be said somewhat more bodily for the sake of usefulness to contemplation), left the heights of his own glory and, as it were, the hand of the Father, and came down from heaven to earth, and became as we are, and was conformed to those on earth who are full of wickedness (for the Son called them wicked, saying thus: If you then, being wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him)—we say that he, so to speak, transformed him into a serpent, only because of his likeness to us and his having become in an equal form. Man is wicked, if compared to the gentleness of God. The rod, then, has changed into a serpent. For the Only-begotten has become man, and was reckoned among the lawless, and has been called wicked with us, although by nature he is good, or rather the good itself.

But that we have received the Only-Begotten who came to be among us, while the peoples of the Jews did not love him (for they have run away from him, as it were), would become clear through the sacred Scriptures. For Moses fled from his face. For thinking him to be wicked, they did not take courage in faith, but rather they killed him and crucified him with wicked men. Nevertheless, that in due time he will be grasped from Christ, and it is known that he is in no way wicked, but is rather a support and spiritual strength for those who believe, we shall know from the very event that occurred. For when Moses was fleeing, God turns him back. And when he took hold of the serpent, it became a rod in his hand. Therefore, to those who do not know him, he seems to be wicked, because of his likeness to us; but if one should take hold of him through faith, he finds a rod and a support. The divine sign upon the rod is therefore sufficient, and is able to persuade those of Israel, that is, all those upon the earth, that God has visited them. But since for those who are very sick hearing is difficult, and for those who have fallen outside the hope of being able to escape the burdensomeness of the things hanging over them, more wonders were needed; for such people are scarcely called to gentleness. 3. Again God said to the sacred Moses, clearly: Put your hand into your bosom. And he put his hand into his bosom, and his hand became leprous like snow. And he said again: Put your hand into your bosom.

And he brought his hand into his bosom, and he brought his hand out of his bosom, and again it was restored to the color of his flesh. It is most fitting for God, then, that he is able to deliver from leprosy. But the passions that have by now reached such a degree of savagery as not even to endure yielding to the very experience of physicians would need, in their own case, perhaps only the authority from above, to which nothing is resistant, and all things are passable and easily accomplished; and leprosy is an incurable disease. That, therefore, the things despaired of among men, and the things impossible with us, are possible with him, and God of all has allowed nothing at all to be thought too steep, he showed through healing the leprous hand of Moses; so that those who are called—that is, those of the blood of Israel—might know from this that even if they had a misfortune hard to escape, being yoked to the wickedness of the Egyptians, and having suffered, as it were, a disease of the utmost kind, namely slavery under them, yet the physician is resourceful, and knows and is able easily to carry past the things of the passions that are very hard to escape, and this without toil and not in a long time. For as soon as Moses brought his hand into his bosom, it was released from sickness. But the matter hinted at something else for us, as I think. For those of Israel, spending long times in Egypt, leapt away from the gentleness from above and inherited from their fathers, and rather in customs

having settled in local customs and sunk very deeply into degradation, according to the voice of the prophet: They have served the creation rather than the Creator. And they have slipped down into every kind of uncleanness, and they have come to have a mind all but dead and grown cold. For leprosy is a sign of uncleanness and deadness. But through the wonder he has been initiated into the mystery, that if God should receive them and, so to speak, take them back into his bosom, they will not have their uncleanness hard to turn away, but they will very easily shake off the defilement from the intelligible deadness. And thus, then, is our account of this matter. But that the mystery of Christ was again sketched out in shadow, as it were, in the hand of Moses that was leprous and then cleansed, I shall attempt to explain. Therefore, that All things came to be through the Son, and without him nothing came to be, the inspired evangelist John very clearly testifies. And since the Father is active through him in everything, for this reason the God-inspired Scripture names the Son as the hand, the arm, and the right hand of the Father. And indeed the inspired Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For the wretched Jews have remained hard and unyielding, and greatly sick with disobedience. And David said that the heavens themselves were established by the word of the Lord; and through the voice of the prophets God and the Father affirmed, saying: I have established the heaven with my hand. And he has addressed others also: For I am your God who strengthened you, and helped you, and secured you with my right hand, my righteous one.

The custom of the divinely inspired Scripture, then, is to call the Son a hand. Observe, therefore, Moses' hand being hidden in his bosom, then brought out and seen in leprosy; and again brought back into his bosom, and at once freed from the affliction. Considering the mystery and the manner of the incarnation, and eagerly striving to discern in what way and how it may be, we shall find that something of this sort has happened. For the Son was, in some way, in the bosom of God the Father, and through him the Father made all things. For he himself is the exalted arm, the hand mighty in all things, the wondrous right hand. But since in a certain manner he went out into his own place, having become man, and took our infirmities, according to the voice of the prophet, he came into reproach and uncleanness. For the nature of man is unclean in relation to God, if indeed what the prophet Isaiah says is true: All our righteousness is as a filthy rag. Therefore, as far as pertains to human nature, the all-holy one, who dwells in inaccessible light, came into an appearance of uncleanness. For thus the wretched Jews also have erred; and so they called him a drunkard and a Samaritan, and one born of fornication, and in addition to these, a sinner. For they said somewhere to the man blind from birth who had been healed: Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. But I think they would never have been possessed to such a point of folly, if they had known him to be God by nature, as to say such a thing and open an unguarded mouth against him.

But he who became in appearance of uncleanness as a man, when, conducting the stewardship most skillfully ordered for our sake, he ascended to the Father and came to be in his bosom—then, then indeed he also thrust away that very appearance of having been with us in deadness and uncleanness. And he is glorified as God, glorified by all as Lord, as Holy of holies, as one who illumines the creation, and grants to the spirits of men, and indeed to those on earth, the power to trample down utterly whatever is able to defile. And that the Son economically for our sake accepted human things, and came to be under law, and was reckoned also among the lawless, and has gone back up again to the honor and glory that is innate and was his in the beginning, he will assure us, saying himself to the Father in the heavens: Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was. You see that he seeks release from the things that have intervened, and did not make the stewardship with the flesh something unwilling, but was hastening toward the

...the glorious dignity of the Godhead and the majesty that is exalted above all things? For this reason also the blessed Paul says, "Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him." For he has come back to life from the dead, and has sprung up to the Father with his flesh. But no longer, he says, do we know him according to the flesh—that is, no longer as one who is in the passions of the flesh, I mean the natural and blameless passions. For before the precious cross, he is said both to have hungered and to have grown weary from the journey, and to have become deeply grieved; and he himself endured death on the wood for our sake. But now, we do not know him as being in these things. For having died once, he no longer dies. For Christ is incorruptible, life by nature and the provider of life, since he has shone forth even from the Father who is life. 4. But after what was wondrously accomplished upon the leprous hand, he makes them more secure by a third sign. For he said again: "But if they do not believe you for these two signs, nor listen to your voice, you shall take water from the river and pour it upon the dry land; and the water which you take from the river shall become blood upon the dry land." Consider, then, again the disobedience of the Jews foreknown. For they are always slow and dull of understanding, and hard to bring over to the truth. For they disobeyed the manner of the incarnation, and the things wondrously accomplished in between. But late and with difficulty they believed the last sign—if not, perhaps, all of them, yet at any rate the remnant according to the election of grace, as the blessed Paul writes. And what is the last sign?

The death on the tree, and the revival of Christ that is yoked to death and immediately neighboring it. That the death of the Savior was given as a sign to the sons of Israel, and that the great and wondrous mystery of the resurrection from the dead itself was given, would become clear through the Savior's own words. For once the Pharisees came with an exhibition of countless signs, mocking and saying: "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." And he said to them: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights." And the death of Emmanuel has gained not only many from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles, to see without hardship. For he said again, at one time: "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself," and at another time: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the earth dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Do you see how through a vivid example he showed us the fruit that comes from death? Therefore the Savior's words were, then, the final sign for us, in which also is the faith not only of those from Israel, but also, as I said, of those from the other multitude—I mean that from the Gentiles. In what way, then, was this very thing signified? "You shall take," he says, "from the water of the river, and pour it out upon the dry land; and the water, whatever you take from the river, shall become blood upon the dry land.

For water is a type, or sign, of life; for it is truly necessary for this, and more serviceable to those on earth. Therefore, just as from a river—from the Father who gives life to all things—the Son himself sprang forth as life in truth. For just as there is light from light, so also life from life. That he did not subsist outside but is from God the Father by nature, Moses was taught; and no less were we ourselves. For you shall take, it says, from the water of the river. Then he was commanded to pour this out onto the earth. And this is, in a riddling manner, the mystery of the incarnation. For the Only-begotten, being life, and as begotten without effluence from God the Father as from life, was mingled in a certain way with humanity from the earth, just as, to be sure, water with earth. For in Christ all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily; and he has been brought together, so to speak, with human nature, and in a way that one could neither conceive nor express; except that the water was changed into blood. For the life according to nature, that is, the Word from God the Father, by an economic union—I mean the union with the flesh, that is, with the whole of humanity and our nature—has also come, in appearance, to the point of enduring death itself. For we say that he also died for us, not suffering this in his own nature (for he would never die, being life), but appropriating the death of his own flesh. For consider how, if Moses had not poured out the water onto the earth, it would not have been changed into blood—which is a clear sign of death. For the Word from God, when conceived outside the flesh, is life and life-giving.

But since he has dwelt in the flesh, then, then they say he also died according to the human nature. This, then, is the extraordinary and manifest sign, by which both the remnant of Israel has been gathered into faith, and the multitude of the Gentiles itself has been brought in together. For who would not turn to obedience, seeing death, once terrible and hard to encounter for those on earth, now weakened, and corruption abolished, and human nature raised up to the hope of unending life? For just as we died together with Adam, so we have been raised together with Christ, and the inspired Paul will testify, writing to us: For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. For he redeemed us with his own blood, and made his own life the ransom for the life of all. 5. But although such revered wonders had been accomplished, Moses was at a loss, overcome by cowardice, and had not yet taken courage for the mission. When he was to go to Pharaoh at God's command, to proclaim clearly that he should let Israel go, to sacrifice to me in the wilderness, he was exceedingly terrified at the matter, and openly offered the objection that he was admittedly weak in speech and had a defective tongue: For I am not eloquent before yesterday, nor before the third day, nor from the time you began to speak to your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Because he was indeed insufficient for the redemption from the yoke of slavery, he affirmed it clearly and said: I beg, Lord, appoint another who is able, whom you will send.

But when God promised to grant him a tongue and to widen his mouth, and said that he himself is the giver of wisdom and speech, he kept making his refusal longer, saying that another ought to be appointed who was able. So then he offends God in this matter. For, it says, the Lord was angered with wrath against Moses and said: Is not Aaron your brother, the Levite? I know that he will surely speak for you. And to this he adds: He shall be your mouth, and you shall be to him the things pertaining to God. Do you see the slowness of tongue of the Word, long ago foreshadowed as in the inspired Moses? For the law is not sufficient for the proclamation of the oracles, nor is it eloquent or well-spoken, so as to set forth the precise knowledge of what is beneficial, as indeed Christ does, the true Levite, of whom Aaron was also a type. For the law given through Moses barely leads us back to the first principles of the words of God, and it is an elementary guide for infants, a tutor of the foolish, bringing in to us through type and shadow only a very dim knowledge of what must be done. But the one who is truly most sufficient and great, our high priest and mighty for a mission—that is, Christ—has handed down the truth freed from shadows. For he is not slow or sluggish of tongue, nor short in speech like Moses, but exceedingly eloquent, especially as the Word of wisdom of God and the Father.

But see how the law is not sufficient to rescue from slavery those who are under the intelligible Pharaoh, that is, Satan, nor could the divine Moses have benefited the earth at all, although he won the most radiant glory for virtues, unless Christ were with him and aiding him. And you may learn that this is so and has been truly said by us because of Aaron being yoked together with him. Moses speaks, and Aaron makes the word clear. For unless the law be understood spiritually, with Christ revealing to us the things in it, what is declared will be dark and unclear to the hearers. And indeed the Jews, not having the interpreter of Moses' things, that is, Christ, have remained ignorant. Therefore the divine Paul also said: For until this very day, the same veil remains upon the reading of the Old Testament, not being unveiled, because it is abolished in Christ. But until today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Correctly, then, the God of all said to the hierophant Moses concerning Aaron, that he will surely speak to you, and he will be your mouth; but you shall be to him the things pertaining to God. And surely we do not say that Moses is closer to God and nearer than Emmanuel. For the one is Son and from God the Father by nature, while the other is among servants with us, even if he be called genuine. Yet somehow the things pertaining to God seem to have belonged to him.

For Christ was given oracles by the law as a man, and he kept the things of Moses. For he was circumcised on the eighth day, and he made the contribution of the didrachma, although by nature he was a free Son. He also ate the Passover, although again he himself was the true lamb who takes away the sin of the world. In this way Moses is said to have become for him the things pertaining to God. But that Israel was also going to disobey the very divine signs wrought through Christ, Moses would show, not even assigning faith to the wonders themselves. Therefore we shall put the person of Moses upon those from Israel, when they have been called through him and have been instructed by the laws given through him. That the law, then, is not sufficient for redemption, but the precious blood of Christ is enough for us for this (for through it alone death has been conquered), would become clear and very easily even from these things again. For the wondrous Moses departed from the Midianites, taking his wife and children, and was now reaching Egypt, fulfilling very well the things commanded by God. But when he was now not far from the Egyptians, the God of all said to him: As you go and return to Egypt, see all the wonders which I have given in your hands; you shall do them before Pharaoh. And after other things: But you shall say to Pharaoh: Thus says the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I said to you: Send out my people so that they may serve me. But you were not willing to send them out; see then, I will kill your firstborn son.

And it came to pass, it says, in the way at the lodging place, the angel of the Lord met him and sought to kill him. And Zipporah took a stone and circumcised the foreskin of her son, and fell at his feet and said, "The blood of the circumcision of my child has stood." And he departed from her, because she said, "The blood of the circumcision of my child has stood." For the angel, in form like ours, was leaping upon him and attempted to destroy him, but was scarcely entreated, when Zipporah circumcised her son—I mean Gershom, who was also the firstborn, and is interpreted as "sojourner." Now whom the destroyer attempted to destroy, the sacred Scripture has not clearly indicated; but perhaps it was Moses, and he was driven off unwillingly by the circumcision of the child here. Again the type makes clear that death has also been conquered in the blood of Christ. And the holy multitude of the fathers has been saved, or rather the whole race both above and before him. For he died for all, and the death of all has been loosed in him. For not in the blood of prophets, but in the blood of Christ, the youngest, and with him we escape the destroyer. For to this end, it says, Christ died and lived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. But if the destroyer is not said to leap upon Gershom, and not rather upon the blessed Moses, you will again understand that other point. For not through the circumcision according to the law, that is, the circumcision according to the flesh and

Death has been driven away from the perceptible, but through the circumcision in Christ, through the Spirit, which he worked in the firstborn and new people, and in the one who is a sojourner on earth but is again inscribed as belonging to the things above and heavenly; which the noetic Zipporah, that is, the Church, the one from Midian and from the Gentiles, has circumcised with a stone. And this too would be a type of the Spirit, both because of its all-powerfulness and unbreakableness, and indeed because it is also from a rock. For the Spirit is Christ's; and the Rock is Christ, as also the wise Paul writes. But one must know that also Joshua, who came to be after Moses long ago, circumcised the sons of Israel with stone knives, mystically signifying to us the circumcision made without hands in Christ, by which death also is defeated, which is the noetic circumcision of evil, the putting away of wickedness and pleasures. For concerning circumcision according to the flesh, the divine Paul writes to us: Circumcision is nothing. And the wise and sacred word has cried out to us: Be circumcised in Christ, through whom and with whom be the glory to God and the Father, with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen. Of the Glaphyra on Exodus, Book 3. Concerning the struck rock. 1. Enter through the narrow gate, Christ cried out to his own friends; calling the narrow gate, I think, and the constricted entrance the suffering of affliction, and the endurance worthy of every word, according to which it would be possible, and very richly so, for those who have chosen to think on things above to be well reputed, and to be made radiant by exercises for courage and virtue. For just as to be best in battles bears witness to the manliness of the one who bears arms;

Thus he would make the man who is strong and noble—strong, I mean, to accomplish the virtue that pleases God—bright and illustrious and filled with all praise, by his being very well able to endure the labors that come from being tested. And indeed the Savior's disciple has assured us that such a man will be altogether and in every way worthy of regard, saying: Blessed is the man who endures temptation, because when he has been proved, he will receive the crown of life. And those who have by now been driven on to this strength, and have taken up the glory so illustrious, say: You have tested us, O God; you have tried us with fire, as silver is tried with fire. You have laid afflictions on our back. You have set men over our heads. We have passed through fire and water; you have tested us for refreshment. For labor ends in luxury, and afflictions widen the straight road for those who strive nobly. The knower of hidden things—that is, God—knows all things before their coming to be (for all things are naked and laid bare to him); but he waits for the outcome of events, and for the strength shown by those who are tested in due season, so that they may appear worthy of rewards not only to him by foreknowledge, but may rather be applauded as having played the champion's part, and as having been testified to in virtue by their very deeds, both by angels and by men. For this reason the blessed Paul also says concerning himself and the other saints, as those who have striven well and conquered: that they became a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.

Israel, then, is tested in many ways, so that even if he still appears to be sick in his weakness, God might be admired for his exceedingly great gentleness in bearing with those who do wrong, and the mystery might be sketched out for us more fully in each of the events that occurred. Just now, having gone through the account of the quail and indeed of the manna, we showed that Israel was not a little sick with weakness and love of pleasure. But behold, again, and not after a long time, he is seen being stirred up. For it is written again thus: And all the congregation of the sons of Israel set out from the wilderness of Sin, by their camps, through the word of the Lord, and they encamped in Rephidim; and there was no water for the people to drink. And the people quarreled with Moses, saying, Give us water, that we may drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you quarrel with me? And why do you test the Lord? And the people thirsted for water there, and the people grumbled against Moses, saying, Why is this, that you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do with this people? Yet a little while and they will stone me. And the Lord said to Moses, Go before this people. And take with you some of the elders of the people, and the rod with which you struck the river, take in your hand, and go. Behold, I stand there before you come to the rock in Horeb. And you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and my people shall drink.

Moses did so before the sons of Israel, and he named the name of that place Temptation and Reviling, because of the reviling of the sons of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" And these things the divine oracle said to us in Exodus; but in Numbers, as it were, it will set forth a fuller narrative, which I think it is also necessary to cite, so that by examining each point rightly and with precision, we may have sufficient knowledge of what happened long ago in a typological sense, and in addition to these things, the beauty of spiritual contemplation. It is written, then: And the sons of Israel came, and all the congregation, into the wilderness of Sin, in the first month, and the people remained at Kadesh, and Miriam died there, and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation, and they gathered together against Moses and Aaron. And the people reviled Moses, saying, "Would that we had perished in the destruction of our brothers before the Lord! And why did you bring the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness to kill us and our children? And why did you bring us up out of Egypt to come to this evil place? A place where there is no sowing, nor fig trees, nor vines, nor pomegranates, nor water to drink." And Moses and Aaron came from the presence of the congregation to the door of the tabernacle of witness. And they fell on their face, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it will give its waters; and you shall bring out for them water from the rock, and you shall give drink to the congregation and their cattle. And Moses took the rod that was before the Lord, just as the Lord commanded, and Moses and Aaron assembled the congregation before the rock. And he said to them: Hear me, you disobedient ones; shall we not bring out water for you from this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with the rod twice; and much water came out, and the congregation drank, and their cattle. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: Because you did not believe to sanctify me before the sons of Israel, for this reason you shall not bring this congregation into the land that I gave to them. This is the water of contention, because the sons of Israel reviled before the Lord, and he was sanctified among them. For they had gone through dry land, and passing by a land of great thirst, then dissolving under the labors of the journey, and if anything slight of the things accustomed to grieve them should happen, they made their outcry against Moses and Aaron hard to bear. And though they had become spectators of the greatest and most admirable divine signs, and had learned by experience the surpassing nature of the divine power, they still feared lest perhaps it might grow weak with respect to what I call the need to distribute the life-sustaining things, and to provide them with food from every side, and to make the supplies of waters; but they are defeated by faint-heartedness, having a childish and unmanly mind.

And if they can lay hold of even a small thing of the kind that naturally causes pain, they leap at once upon the pedagogue and cry out impiously that he has become a mediator for them at all, and that through him they have been called to freedom. And they count blessed those who perished by the faint-heartedness that came before, because they had been entangled in a desire for the flesh-pots of Egypt; then, having devoured the deadly quail, they were condemned to death. For this reason they say, Would that we had died in the destruction of our brothers before the Lord. And why did you bring us up into this wilderness, to kill us and our cattle? O what malice, how unbearable is the disposition, and how very ready the mind is for despondency! When they thirsted a little, the evils in Egypt were henceforth better in their eyes than the things from God; and the yoke of slavery, once bitter, was now somehow sweet; and Pharaoh, though harsh, was no longer hard to bear; the clay was not hated, nor the savagery of the taskmasters, but all things were now pleasant. For the sluggishness of their understanding persuades them to arrive at such a depth of folly. But hear, if you please, also the accusations against the mediation of Moses: For why, they say, did you bring us out of Egypt to come to this evil place? A place where there is no sowing, nor fig trees, nor vines, nor pomegranates, nor water to drink. Observe how he is carried away, as it were, toward cowardice, and nods irresistibly toward temporary pleasures, and is greatly taken with worldly delights; and he accepts the satiety of the belly. But he spits out hope, and does not hold fast to the land promised to the fathers.

not understanding that the excellent things of the gifts are mediated altogether and in every way by labors. For no one could acquire the finest of prizes without sweat. Israel, then, does not know how to excel, nor to resist the assaults of the passions with youthful vigor. Since indeed the matter had not been preserved for those under the law; but it had been prepared beforehand rather for those in Christ. But it was fitting that God, being provoked, should not deem them worthy even of the supply of waters; but so that, although they had come to such a degree of stupidity, they might be benefited unto faith through other wonders, Moses is commanded to strike the rock with the rod. But God did not fail to know that he too, having been faint-hearted a little at the uprisings of the peoples, would waver concerning the faith. Therefore he says in Exodus: Take with you from the elders of the people, and take in your hand the rod with which you struck the river, and you shall go. Behold, I stand there, before you come to the rock in Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and my people shall drink. And in Numbers: Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother. And speak to the rock before them, and it shall give them the waters. And you shall bring out for them water from the rock, and you shall give the congregation to drink. Observe that, confirming them unto faith, he brings forward in remembrance the wonder-working in Egypt, saying: Take in your hand the rod with which I struck the river. As if saying: The rod that turned a great river into blood by the ineffable power of God who accomplishes such things will bring forth the water from the rock very easily.

Then he confirms it in another way, adding, "Behold, I will stand there." For you will not be alone, he says, nor would you again be the one to accomplish the wonder; but I will show the rock to be the mother of many waters, I will prepare the wonder beforehand, and I will await your service. Speak to the rock, and I will be the power of the words. But although he ought to have taken courage from such voices, Moses grew faint. For he said: "Hear me, you rebels; shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" Then he strikes the crag twice with the rod; as though nothing of the expected things would come to be, even if the rock were perhaps struck down. He struck twice; although he had transformed the things in Egypt into blood by the killing of the rod once for all. Nevertheless God was giving the stream, although he was not moderately provoked by these things; so that no appearance of weakness on his part might be recorded in the suspicions of the senseless. But Moses is rebuked, he says: "For you yourselves shall not bring this assembly into this land which I have given to them, because you did not believe me to sanctify me before the sons of Israel." Come then, again reshaping the form of the history into the mystery of Christ, let us speak what is fitting, tracing out the divine Scriptures, and striving to set straight the power of the meanings in the sacred Writings, as seems very good. 2. Therefore, in the first month, when Mariam had died, the people thirsted. Then, at God's command, he strikes with the

With his rod the inspired Moses struck the rock, while the elders of the people stood by him, and Aaron as well. And they themselves speak to the rock; and it pours forth the stream abundantly, and gives drink to the congregation and their cattle, as it is written. What then do we say is hinted at again by the death of Miriam, or who at all would be understood, and what is it that brings this to a necessary demonstration, by his saying that she died as in the first month? Let us therefore accept that Moses signifies the law, and Aaron the priesthood; but the person of Miriam we will assign to the worship that is in the law. And indeed God said through the voice of a holy one to Jerusalem that had slipped from the yoke: "And I sent before your face Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam." Do you see what was placed alongside Moses and Aaron to lead Israel? For while the all-wise Moses mediated, and Aaron presided—that is, the dignity of the priesthood through the worship in types—Israel according to the flesh then gained the worship of God. And that the person of Miriam is necessarily brought in together with Moses and Aaron, it is easy to understand effortlessly from this too: for when Pharaoh perished together with his own guards in the Red Sea and was drowned with his whole army, Moses sang the thanksgiving and composed the hymn. And the dancing women came out, and Miriam took her timbrel, as it is written, sending up together with the melodies perhaps some heavy and piercing sound. But the enigma of the true contemplation in types was subtle.

For the character of the song and the sound of the timbrels would have hinted that the law itself—that is, Moses—and, moreover, along with him Miriam—that is, the worship in shadows and types—proclaim the supernatural and wondrous power of God who rules over all. Therefore one might assign the person of the worship in the law to Miriam, just as, of course, the person of the law to Moses and the person of the priesthood to Aaron. So then, when Miriam died in the first month—that is, at the beginning of the year, according to the laws of the Hebrews, when the mystery of the holy Passover itself is also celebrated—the people thirsted. For in the first month of the year, which is also called the month of new things, the worship in shadows and types has all but died, and was in a manner drawn back and removed from the midst. How, or in what manner? For the only-begotten Word of God shone upon us in the form that is ours, as in the month of new things. Therefore the speaker himself also said: I am present, as the hours upon the mountains, and as in the month of new things. Thus he was calling the Church from the Gentiles, saying: Rise up, come, near to me, my fair one, my dove, because behold, the winter has passed, the rain has gone away, it has gone on its way. The flowers have appeared in our land, for the season of pruning has arrived. For we have sprouted in Christ to newness of life, and the time of his visitation has been shown to us as a spring—the intelligible spring—making the nature of man to flourish and bear fruit. For then, then, when the worship in shadows had been drawn back and Miriam had, as it were, died, the people thirsted and came into a scarcity of intelligible waters.

But the stream of Christ has flowed richly—I mean again the oracles given through him—and the mystical pedagogy in spirit and truth. And the divine Paul, understanding this, writes: "For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. And the rock was Christ." And he is likened to a rock because of its unbreakable and immovable nature. For the divine and supreme nature is established in its own good things. What manner, then, the water was given forth, it is necessary to observe. For when the elders of the law had gathered together, and Aaron stood by, words were being spoken to the rock. But Moses strikes it twice. For when the elders of the people and the priests had run together, those according to the law

being led as children—that is, Israel in the person of Moses—they spoke against Christ, and by accusing him before Pilate, and by shamelessly crying out, "Away, away, crucify him!" Then they grieved him with two blows. For they killed the author of life. And adding, as it were, a second blow to the first, they wished to persuade others that he remained among the dead. For Christ came back to life, having trampled death. But when the soldiers came saying this—the very men who had been appointed by them as guards of the tomb—they gave orders to say this too, recklessly, that his disciples had stolen him away by stealth, slandering the venerable mystery of the resurrection itself. Therefore the blow came in twofold form. But the rock poured forth its stream richly, even though Israel had acted insolently against him, and it gave drink to the whole synagogue, and flooded the inhabited world with its sacred and divine streams. For thus he promised to grant himself to us, saying through the prophet: "Behold, I turn toward them like a river of peace, and like a winter torrent flooding the glory of the nations." And David also sings somewhere: "The rushings of the river gladden the city of God." And indeed also to the Father and God in the heavens: "How you have multiplied your mercy, O God; and the sons of men will hope in the shadow of your wings. They will be made drunk from the richness of your house, and you will give them drink from the winter torrent of your delight. For with you is the fountain of life." And observe that, when their unbelief had run ahead, Moses strikes the rock with the rod. For Israel, disobedient, acted insolently against Christ.

Moses was rebuked, and Aaron with him. For you shall not bring in, he says, the sons of Israel into the land which I gave to them. But he will bring us into the inheritance of the holy ones, and into the truer land of the promise—not the law that consists in types, nor the weakness in shadows of the priesthood according to him. For we shall not be made acceptable through bloods, nor indeed shall we be distinguished before God by the more earthbound boasts; but we shall rather walk into the city above, and we shall come to the inheritance of the fathers, having Christ as our leader, through whom and with whom be glory to God and the Father, with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen. Concerning the descent upon Mount Sinai, and the presentation of Israel. 1. Our Lord Jesus Christ, to the flocks of the Jews who do not accept the redemption through faith, but greatly despise the benefit of the ordinances given through him, and who think for themselves that the law through Moses will suffice, and that it alone is enough for their reconciliation with God, spoke, saying: No one comes to the Father except through me. And again: I am the way, and I am the door. And in saying these things he will by no means speak falsely, since he is the truth. And God and the Father is not approachable in any other way except through the only-begotten Son according to nature; for the one who has known him will surely also know the Father from whom he shone forth. Therefore he also said to those who chose to disobey him, and who claim to know the God of all: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.

For Moses was a pedagogue to the ancients, a mediator and leader, and a carrier of the laws from God, and excellent among the saints. For he heard God saying clearly: I know you above all, and you found favor with me. Nevertheless, the law is not strong, nor is it able to procure union with God perfectly; but through the mediation of Christ we gain this as well. For he himself is our peace, according to the Scriptures; and in him alone is perfection in knowledge, and every good gift, and he has all but brought us through himself to the Father. Therefore he also said: I will that just as I and you are one, so they also may be one in us. Therefore Moses was a mediator, but as in type and shadows; the true mediator is Christ, to whom we have been joined relationally, if indeed it is true that he descended into our condition and became man, so that we too might become partakers of his divine nature, being united to God by participation in and the grace of the Holy Spirit. And these things again

We shall know, fixing the eye of our mind upon the Holy Scriptures. For, it says, the Lord said to Moses: Go down, testify to the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow. And let them wash their garments, and let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people, and you shall set bounds for the people round about, saying: Take heed to yourselves that no one go up into the mountain, or touch any part of it. Everyone who touches the mountain shall surely die. No hand shall touch it; for he shall be stoned with stones, or shot through with a dart; whether beast or man, he shall not live. But when the voices and trumpets and the cloud depart from the mountain, they shall go up into the mountain. For since the Israelites, while serving as slaves in Egypt and having been defiled by their false worship, used to bow down to human inventions, and brought their worship to things made of stone, or rather of other material, suffering from a pitiable delusion, and, as the prophet says, saying to the wood, You are my God, and to the stone, You begot me—for this reason then, necessarily, since the Creator wished to bring them back from that ancient and profane false worship to the knowledge of the truth, so that they might not seem, deceived by the words of Moses, to be worshipping a God who does not exist, for this reason usefully he also deems them worthy of the vision of God in types. For things seen are wont to be honored with a more assured faith. He therefore promises that he will come down openly, and not after long.

But that they might know that those who are called to this honor, so as to become at once obedient hearers and beholders of God—that is, of his divine and ineffable glory—must by all means also possess the purity most dear to him, and ought to be freed from fleshly uncleanness, and in addition to this to be well-clad, so that the form of the festival might be rightly and fittingly represented. For it is truly a festival and worthy of admiration to be deemed worthy of so radiant a vision. Moreover he commands them also to be purified, and to abstain from the company of women, and to extend their continence to the third day. And he ordered that even the garments themselves be washed. And when this had been carried out: It came to pass, it says, on the third day, when morning had come, that there were voices and lightnings, and dark clouds upon Mount Sinai. The sound of the trumpet rang out loudly. And all the people in the camp were terrified. And Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood beneath the mountain. And the whole of Mount Sinai was smoking because God had descended upon it in fire; and the smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace; and all the people were greatly amazed. And the sounds of the trumpet kept going forward, growing exceedingly stronger. Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice. For by the mind the supreme and most exalted nature, and that which is beyond every created thing, is scarcely seen. But since the things of the divine vision were being accomplished for them in a manner needful through more manifest events, for this reason the manner of the dispensation proceeded thenceforth through many terrors.

For there were voices and lightnings falling together, and a dark cloud was gathered, so that the creation might be seen also ministering, and submitting its neck as a servant to the God of all. Moses therefore brought out Israel in great terror and set them before the mountain, that they might be convinced they would suffer nothing from those who wrong them, but would meet with a gentle and good Master, having been instructed beforehand, as he says somewhere. And when the mountain was burning, there were immediately smokes darting upward, and the upright sound of a trumpet—faint at first, but second after this and advancing shortly, to a weighty and fuller utterance. Then the God of all descends in the form of fire upon Mount Sinai, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain. And Moses went up, and the Lord said to Moses, saying: Go down, testify to the people, lest perhaps they draw near to God to understand, and a multitude of them fall. And let the priests who draw near to the Lord God be sanctified, lest perhaps he remove from them

Lord. And Moses said to God: The people will not be able to go up to Mount Sinai, for you testified to us, saying: Set the mountain apart, and sanctify it. And the Lord said to him: Go, descend, go up, you and Aaron with you. But let not the priests and the people go up to God, lest the Lord destroy them. For he commands only the mediator to go up to the mountain—I mean Moses—and he receives no one else, and he shows the mountain to be untrodden for them. And he threatened death, if anyone should choose to despise this. Not seeking to be suspected of being cruel, or harsh, or hard of access—for it is altogether foolish to think so—but so that they might know and understand that it belongs to those exceedingly set apart and in the highest pre-eminences, of honor and glory, to be able to be near to God. And it was also in another way among the most absurd things, that they, having been raised in the customs of the Egyptians and knowing that the precincts of the unclean demons were not accessible to those who wished, scarcely rejoiced in those who had been chosen out, having been purified all around, perhaps somewhere according to the laws among them, to be in the innermost drinking-cups, and then to think that they had drawn near in no way to the God of all, and to look down upon the places so revered and sacred, in which his divine and ineffable glory appeared. And in another way: for I say it is necessary that we love to hunt through many ways what contributes to benefit. It was not necessary that peoples and a leader be honored with equal honors by God: the one who was going to be a pedagogue, and those under him; the servant of the law, and those for whom the laws exist.

But it was surely better, and indeed wise, and most useful for those who would be subject to him, that the glory allotted to him should be more distinctly set apart. And that what I say is true, you will understand through another instance. For the Lord of all said to Moses the hierophant: Behold, I come to you in a pillar of cloud, so that you may hear me speaking to you, and they may believe you forever. So all things were being accomplished in order and by divine dispensation. 2. But, as I said, in the beginning there was a kind of shadow-sketch, as it were, of the coming of our Savior, who was to shine upon those on earth, as on the third day, in the last time, at which the Word also became flesh and appeared to us, according to the Scriptures; and it foretold the purification that was to be set before believers in due seasons by him and through him. For he says: Testify to the people, and let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai. And what then is the manner of this preparation, Moses makes clear, saying thus: For three days, he says, do not come near a woman. And he affirmed plainly that even their garments themselves must be washed. But in the requirement to say that they should not lie with women, and to abstain from intercourse with them, the mortification of the pleasures of the flesh is very clearly signified. And in the requirement that even their garments themselves be cleansed, there is somehow depicted for us the purification through water—clearly also through the Spirit, which removes defilements. For as the blessed Paul writes: Those who have chosen to mind the things of Christ, and who walk in the Spirit, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

And they put to death the members upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire. But they make for themselves a bright garment, the grace from above, or even Emmanuel himself. For, he says, put on our Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts. But these things Moses commanded those at that time to do. And we too have heard even the law itself proclaiming in riddles what is pleasing to Christ, both purification through water and the putting to death of fleshly desires. For the law commanded that those who had been defiled be sprinkled with water, for the cleansing of the flesh, and that the one with a discharge be sent out of the camp as unclean—ridiculing, I think, the matter of incontinence, and declaring the pleasure of the flesh to be profane. Therefore we too, who have been justified in Christ and sanctified through the Spirit, have been commanded to hate even the defiled garment of the flesh. The law, then, is a preparer, and it foretells the beauty of the gifts that come through Christ, as still in coarse types. But let us examine, if it seems good, the very manner of the manifestation. For it came to pass, he says, on the third day, when morning had come, that there were voices and lightnings, and a dark cloud upon Mount Sinai. A sound of a trumpet resounded loudly. For the Only-Begotten had come and had descended from the heavens, as I said, not in the first season, nor in the beginnings of this age.

Nor indeed in the second and intermediate time, but as in the third and last, and as at dawn and at the beginning of day—that is, once the intelligible mist that is in us has already been driven away, and the night, so to speak, has passed by, and the darkness has been done away with. For the one who was supposed by deceit and greed to be the god of this age darkened the whole earth in the intelligible sense, leading it away into polytheistic error and into every kind of uncleanness. But the God and Lord of all, that is, Christ, has shone upon us and has shown forth a day truly thrice-desired; of which the inspired David also made mention, saying: This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. And the most wise Paul also wrote somewhere that The night has advanced, and the day has drawn near. And again: We are not of the night, nor of the darkness, but sons of light and sons of day. At dawn, then, and as it were on the third day, the Only-Begotten has come down. And there were lightnings on Mount Sinai, and a dark cloud. And the lightning is a type of the divine light and of the intelligible radiance—namely, of the light in the Spirit, which through Christ shines upon all things and deifies the world under heaven. For thus somewhere the prophet also cried out, saying to the God and Savior of all, Christ: Your lightning has appeared to the inhabited world. And we do not say anywhere that he was making mention of lightning that comes from rain; but, as I said just now, he wished to signify the flashing forth of the intelligible light by the name of lightning. And that the mystery of Christ is truly hard to look upon, the dark cloud would suggest.

And indeed the blessed David himself, understanding in some such way as this, as I suppose, had cried out beforehand, saying: And he made darkness his hiding place, round about him his tabernacle; dark water in the clouds of the airs. From the brightness before him the clouds passed through. For thus hidden is the mystery of Christ, so as to need initiation from above, and revelation from God. At any rate Peter heard well indeed, understanding the God the Word who appeared in flesh, and truly Son: Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in the heavens. And Paul was affirming that the mystery had been made known to himself by revelation of God. Therefore the darkness signifies the obscurity of knowledge. And the trumpet also has cried out, showing forth the melodiousness of the gospel ordinances. And indeed God said somewhere through the voice of the prophets to the assemblies of the Jews: I have set watchmen over you. Hear the voice of the trumpet. And they said: We will not hear. Therefore the nations heard, and those who shepherd the flocks among them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing evils upon this people, the fruit of their turning away, because they did not attend to my word, and they thrust away my law. For the trumpet has sounded among them through the watchmen from God, that is, the holy apostles. For watchmen have been appointed over us. But they said: We will not hear. Therefore the nations heard. And we shall find the holy disciples themselves, who said openly to the peoples of the Jews: It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first.

But since you thrust him away and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us. And he likens the sweetness of sound to a trumpet through the proclamations of Christ, and the blessed Isaiah also says concerning the time of his coming: And it shall be, in that day, they shall sound with the great trumpet. For the law is also a trumpet, but it was faint-voiced and slow of tongue. Therefore also Moses, because he cried out but scarcely to Judaea alone, in which God also became known. But the great trumpet is Christ, that is, the proclamations through him, resounding over the whole region under heaven. For he said, That this Gospel shall be proclaimed in the whole inhabited world, for a testimony to all the nations. And that the word is true, the outcome of events itself has testified. For no one has remained without hearing the glory of our Savior. And Moses, it says, brought the people of God out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the mountain of Sinai. Observe the pedagogy of Moses: he leads them toward God. For he educates them toward Christ, and he sets those who are for the time being being educated under him at the mountain; yet he does not lead them up on it. And by mountain in these words you will understand the transcendent and surpassing knowledge of the mystery concerning Christ. For it is very high, and least of all accessible to those under the law; but it is more fitting for us who have been sanctified in the Spirit. For as the Savior himself said: To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but to these it has not been given—I mean to the Jews.

And making, as it were in the form of a prayer, the words to the Father and God on our behalf, he says: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden all these things from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for so it was well-pleasing before you. Therefore Moses stands by the mountain, but he does not bring them up into it; for, as I said just now, we gain the perfect and lofty in wisdom and knowledge through Christ rather than through Moses. For the one was a servant and a tutor; but the other, as Lord of all things, has appeared as the giver of perfect knowledge to us. For in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden, according to what is written. When God had descended in the form of fire, then there were smokes leaping forth as from a furnace, and rolling out very high, and, I suppose, settling over all the people. For the Word of God has come down from heaven for our sake to us as the fire of a furnace, according to the voice of the prophet. And he himself was baptizing us in the Holy Spirit and fire; with the intelligible fire consuming the refuse within us, and melting away the filth that comes from sin, and not permitting the mind to grow cold toward outlandish pleasures; and we have been perfected in this very thing, boiling in the spirit. And this very thing Christ worked in us. Therefore he also said: I came to cast fire upon the earth. And what do I wish if it has already been kindled? Therefore in the form of fire, very much by economy, he appeared to the more ancient, except not without smoke.

We shall understand again through this that those who fall into indifference, and have chosen to despise his divine glory, must needs lament and wail. For one must shed tears in smoke. But that the God-hating and sinful will go to the outer darkness, how could anyone doubt? For there, he says, shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. That therefore the tears of those about whom the word speaks drip bitterly over their ease, the smokes were hinting at. And he added that the sounds of the trumpet also came forth, becoming very much stronger, so that at the beginning few could scarcely hear them, but later many, or rather even the whole assembly. For the trumpet, both most melodious and sending forth a piercing sound, is the gospel proclamation, just as we have already said before. But it was heard, he says, at the beginning only in Judea; but as time went on, the divine disciples went about already into all under heaven, proclaiming to all everywhere, so that from Jerusalem even to Illyricum, or rather even to the very ends of the earth, and from east to west, the sacred trumpet resounded. This, I think, is what it means for the sounds of the trumpet to become stronger. Then after this, God lays a charge upon the blessed Moses to testify to the people: Lest at any time, he says, they draw near to God to understand, and a multitude of them fall; and the priests who

Those who draw near to the Lord God, let them be sanctified, lest at any time the Lord depart from them. Consider then, consider, also from these words again, how it is impossible to draw near to God through the pedagogy of Moses. For he does not accept those who have chosen to be esteemed any longer in types and shadows; for such are the things of Moses; but he seeks rather the beauty of truth in us. And the truth is Christ, through whom we have obtained access and have come near to the Father, as if we had gone up to a mountain, the knowledge of him. For having known the Son, we have known through him and in him the Father. Therefore through him we have obtained access, not through Moses, that is, not through the law. And he clearly foretells that they themselves are to be sanctified, since the priesthood according to the law is not yet perfectly holy, as still needing sanctification; for he has not elsewhere commanded it to be sanctified. But the blameless one, and Holy of holies, is the high priest over us, Christ, and the surety of a better covenant, as Paul says. Therefore the first has also ceased. And there has been a change of the priesthood itself, since it did not have the blameless and the supremely holy. For it perfected no one according to conscience; but it brought in rather teachings of baptisms, sprinklings of purification for the cleansing of the flesh. For the power of the legal priesthood barely comes to this. Since, then, it does not have the perfectly holy, but is to be sanctified at times in Christ, when the types are transformed into truth, it has commanded to be sanctified. And adding that:

Lest at any time the Lord depart from them," he allowed them to understand, meaning that death is the penalty for those who honor the priesthood that is in the law, now that the priesthood through Christ has been displayed in the world; through whom both the peoples and that race itself, once revered and holy, is sanctified; but utterly profane, and in uncleannesses, is whatever has not been sanctified by him. For this reason he said to the assemblies of the Jews: "Amen, amen, I say to you, that unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins." And that those of Israel, having become estranged, were destined to be sent away at appointed times, and would return to God in no other way except through Christ, God will easily demonstrate when he says in the way of economy to the all-excellent Moses: "Go, descend, and ascend, you and Aaron with you." Do you see how Moses was sent away, and then does not return alone, but comes up again with Aaron accompanying and running along with him, who was a type of Christ the great high priest? For through him, as I said, the Father is accessible. And those under the law, that is, Israel, have become sent away at appointed times. They will recognize in the last times the holy and guileless high priest, that is, Christ; and they will come to God the Father through him, as it were leaping up to a mountain, the revered and great mystery of the economy, through which Christ has saved us all, through whom and with whom be glory to God the Father, with the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen. Concerning the ascent of Moses and Aaron, and Nadab and Abiud and the seventy elders of the people, to the mountain. 1. Those of the blood of Israel have been called to God through the law, Moses at that time mediating and ministering.

But as the divine Paul writes, "the law has perfected no one." Yet the perfection of it and of the prophets is understood as Christ. For every redemption is through him. Since "there is no other name under heaven among men in which we must be saved," and in him is all perfection through sanctification in the Spirit. Through him we have been called to the Father, and we shall go up to the city above with him. And indeed he said plainly: "In my Father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you: I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I come again, and I will receive you to myself, that where I am, you also may be." For as a firstfruit and, as it were, an offering of the firstfruits of humanity, he has gone up to heaven. And that he will bring us also ourselves back up, no one would doubt. For he who does not know how to lie confirms this, and has added hope to those worthy to obtain it. For we shall be citizens of heaven in due time, since he has gone up before us, as I said,

The most wise Paul will confirm that this is truly a matter of Christ, having written as follows: For Christ did not enter into handmade sanctuaries, copies of the true ones, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God on our behalf. For he was, and is, and will be God by nature, with his own Father and in the sight of the one who begot him. But he appears on our behalf because he became man, so that we too, who were cast out from the eyes of the Father because of the transgression in Adam and the sin that tyrannized us, might come again into his sight through Christ and into the state of the beginning, with the things that had intervened in between gone into nothing. We have therefore been called in Christ, and to the city above, and we are deemed worthy of the oversight of God and the Father, and through him and in him we have been taught to worship the God who is the creator of all things and the Father. The law also proclaimed this to us beforehand again in riddles. For the God of all things came down in the form of fire upon Mount Sinai, and gave laws to the people of Israel by which it was fitting for them to enter into the beginnings of righteousness. For the law is, as it were, a preliminary entrance to the more perfect things, elements and a foretelling of the teachings through Christ. And to Moses, it says, he said: Come up to God, you and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they shall worship the Lord from afar. And Moses alone shall draw near to God. But they shall not draw near. And the people shall not go up with them. When the all-wise Moses had reported these things, all the people answered with a loud voice, saying:

All the words which the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will hear. And what after this? And Moses, it says, wrote all the words of the Lord. And Moses rose early in the morning and built an altar on the mountain, and twelve stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent the young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered whole burnt offerings, and they sacrificed a sacrifice of salvation to the Lord God, young calves. And Moses took half of the blood and poured it into the basin; and the other half of the blood he poured out upon the altar. And taking the book of the covenant, he read it in the ears of the people; and they said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will hear. And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord made with you concerning all these words. And when the sacrifice was completed, and all the people had been sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, Moses went up, it says, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abiud, and seventy of the elders of the people of Israel, and they saw the place where the God of Israel stood, and the things under his feet, like the work of a brick of sapphire, and like the appearance of the firmament of heaven in purity. And of the chosen ones of Israel not one differed. And they appeared in the place of God, and they ate and drank. Come then, come, let us speak what is fitting on each of the things read, and beginning directly from the meaning of the things set before us, the things that have come to pass for us by Christ.

Just as we see written as on a tablet in the God-inspired Scripture both the Church above and in the heavens—that is, heaven itself—and also the Church on earth in likeness of the one above, and it calls them a hill and a mountain, because of the elevated and exalted state in virtue of those who dwell in them. For the mind of the saints is not lowly nor cast down, but it is raised above the more earthly mindset and fleshly desires. And it ascends rather to the height; and what was said through the voice of David is true: For the strong gods of the earth have been greatly exalted. And that it is fitting for those who have chosen to live here and have ascended to virtue for the rest, reasonably to dwell also in the mansions above, the Psalmist will again confirm, saying thus: Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? He who is innocent in hands and pure in heart, who has not taken his soul in vain, and has not sworn deceitfully to his neighbor. He has not given his silver

...at interest, and he did not take gifts against the innocent. This one shall receive blessing from the Lord, and alms from God his Savior. This is the generation of those who seek the face of the God of Jacob. 2. A mountain, then, accessible to the saints—heaven, that is, the Church of the firstborn; but to the profane and unholy, untrodden. Therefore the God of all commanded Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel to go up to the mountain. And he said, "And they shall worship the Lord from afar. And Moses alone shall draw near to God; but they shall not draw near. And the people shall not go up with them." Now the sons born of Aaron signify to us the sacred race; and the elders, those chosen by merit. And Aaron again prefigures for us Christ himself, the holy and guileless high priest, through whom we have also obtained the birth through Spirit and water, and are called a chosen race, and a royal priesthood, and a holy nation. Let us therefore go up in due seasons also to the city above, we who are chosen and holy, with Christ the great high priest present with us and leading us, who for our sake became as we are, and who together with us worships God, though he is by nature Father. And Moses draws near, but the Son is with us who are far off. For insofar as it pertains to the mystery of the dispensation with the flesh, Moses is closer to God, as mediator and definer of the law. But since the Son has come to be with us, though he is by nature God and Lord of all, for this reason he does not disdain our measure.

In a providential manner he allows himself to be understood even as coming after Moses. And indeed he came to be with us under the same law, though as God he is the lawgiver. That he came under the law is easy to see. For he was circumcised on the eighth day. He also paid the double drachma, though by nature he was free as the Son. The sacred Scripture itself will suffice, saying that Emmanuel came to be under the law. And that because of the human nature, and since he became under the law as we are, he will also be reckoned to be placed after Moses, you will understand also through other passages. For the God of all things commanded the most excellent Moses to release Israel from unbearable slavery, saying to Pharaoh: The Lord God of the Hebrews has called us. But the law admits its weakness for redemption. Then he joins to Moses, as he drew back and was about to, the divinely inspired Aaron as a type of Christ who is mighty in all things, through whom is all redemption. For he spoke thus to Moses: Behold, I have given you as a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet. You shall speak to him all that I command you, and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh. Do you see that Aaron again mediates, bearing the person of the lawgiver Moses? For this reason the blessed Paul also attributes the law itself to him, though it was abolished by God. For he writes thus: Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on two or three witnesses. Let us therefore go up as to a mountain, we the holy and chosen, to the dwellings above, while the other multitude remains below. For the people shall not go up with them, he says.