Commentary on Genesis 1 part 13/15

For it is good also to be a 'turning-aside' that inclines toward the good and is shaken away from its opposites.

For in this way also a prayer is sent up, when the psalmist says:

Let all the earth be shaken before his face.

For when this comes to pass, the earth no longer remains earth, since his countenance shines upon those on earth so that they become heavenly.

Of the same meaning is also the saying, 'He who is seated upon the cherubim, let the earth be shaken,' so that a transformation concerning it may come about.

So indeed those with the patriarch himself went out, having been changed for the better.

For they came to Canaan, which is interpreted as 'prepared.'

For it is fitting that the one now being introduced, having begun to leave behind the objects of sense, should be made ready for the reception of the more divine things.

And Abram traversed the land unto its length, as far as the place of Shechem, to the lofty oak.

Now the Canaanites at that time dwelt in the land. The literal account introduces the fact that, having recently migrated into this land, he necessarily observes its appearance as he traverses its length, and probably also its breadth, learning thoroughly its extent.

For the oracle indicates 'as far as the place of Shechem,' and also that the Canaanites dwelt upon the land.

But from this point we must necessarily pass over to the anagogical interpretation.

The holy man, having migrated away from the objects of sense — which he also pursued rightly — unto a more divine advancement, and having passed over, contemplated the length, which affords the impression that he also contemplated the height of divine things.

This very thing the blessed Paul also expresses: to know the breadth and length and depth, and the surpassing grace of God.

All these things, then, he contemplated by proceeding from the greater and being borne witness to concerning the rest.

And he comes as far as the place of Shechem, where the spring happened to be, at which Jesus sat down, wearied because He had a body consubstantial with our flesh — which plausibly suggests that from His greater occupation with theology, indicated by the 'length,' He came also to the account of the Incarnation, according to that which was said by Jesus:

Abraham desired to see my day, and he saw it and rejoiced.

And he comes to Shechem, which is interpreted as 'a shouldering,' being deemed worthy of all these things through virtuous actions.

For the shoulder, from which comes 'shouldering,' is a symbol of work, as it is said:

Set your heart upon your shoulders — and concerning one of the patriarchs:

He bowed his shoulder to labour.

So indeed it is also said concerning the man whom the Saviour assumed:

Having wrought, he received the rule; yet the work was not one from evil unto virtue — for He committed no sin — but the guarding of perfection.

Thus also in the things pertaining to the man He was king, while the God the Word possesses the eternal and connatural and essential kingship, not from work or toil.

And he comes also to the lofty oak; and since many of the trees and plants signify certain intelligible realities, as those in Isaiah, who says:

You shall go forth in joy, and be taught in gladness.

For the mountains and the hills shall leap up as they receive you in joy, and all the trees of the field shall applaud with their branches — which signify nothing sensible, but the going-forth of the refined souls, who depart not with weeping but with joy.

If death is thus bitter, yet concerning Abram it is said that he fell asleep and was gathered to his fathers, having been nourished in a good old age.

When the righteous, then, depart this life, the mountains and the hills — that is, the angels and the righteous — shall receive them in joy, rejoicing together over the one sheep.

And together with these, all the trees of the field shall applaud with rejoicing — which are the rational beings in paradise.

Instead of the bramble the cypress shall come up — in place of the fruitless and thorny, the useful and fragrant, for this is what the penitent becomes — and instead of the fleabane the myrtle shall come up, the foul odour being changed into sweet fragrance.

Since, then, we have trees understood in a spiritual sense, it is necessary also to contemplate concerning the oak to which Abram comes, seated beneath which he was deemed worthy even of a vision, when also he received the promise concerning Isaac.

Through works, then, and toils, advancing toward the heights, he goes forward, partaking of the fragrance and the contemplation of the lofty and divine thoughts.

You will also consider that which is noted in passing, that 'the Canaanites still dwelt in the land,' whether perhaps we are able to understand that for the one advancing not everything is immediately set free, but he retains something even of the old habit — for this is what the 'still' indicates — which you might understand concerning those who follow the holy man but are not yet perfect.

And the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him:

To your seed will I give this land.

And Abram built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

Fittingly, God manifests Himself to the one who has obeyed what was commanded him, making him more firmly assured by a good hope of the things expected.

For He also promises to give the land to his seed.

And fittingly the holy man too, being thankful, builds an altar to the One who had held out the promise.

And let these things be said by way of paraphrase.

It is worthwhile to contemplate the words 'God appeared to Abram'; for since God is invisible, as is demonstrated in the Gospel where it is said, 'No one has ever seen God,' and 'Not that anyone has seen the Father,' and Paul also saying concerning God:

Whom no one of men has seen nor is able to see — which signifies that He is by nature invisible.

For some of the visible things we do not see, yet we are able to see them, even if this does not actually follow.

Those things belong to the nature of the visible.

But the invisible is such not because of its not being seen, but rather it is not seen because it is invisible.

It is clear, then, that seeing is twofold: the one according to sense-perception, the other according to the understanding;

and the one is apprehensive of visible things, the other of invisible things — which latter is the pure mind, according to which God appeared to Abram.

The account has yet another observation.

For it is not said, 'Abram saw God,' but 'God appeared to Abram.'

For insofar as it depends on the created nature and its weakness, the matter is not attainable;

but insofar as it depends on God's love for mankind, it becomes possible, since He of His goodness gives Himself over to the understanding of Himself.

But if ever 'saw' stands in place of 'appeared,' as in Isaiah:

I saw the Lord seated, and so forth — let us be instructed from what came to pass with regard to Abram, that this happens when God gives Himself over.

It is sometimes also applied to intellectual apprehension, as Paul, writing to the Romans, says:

For His invisible attributes, from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that are made, are clearly seen.

And Moses too, when entreating God—of whom he held the conviction that He is invisible—said:

'Let me see Thee knowably,' and again:

For He manifests Himself to those who do not disbelieve in Him.

For if that which is seen were of a visible nature, it would also be possible for it to appear to the unbelieving; but as it is, it has been said:

He manifests Himself to those who do not disbelieve in Him, whose understanding has been illumined by the divine light.

But with sensible things the matter stands the reverse.

For first we see them; then, when the impression from sense-perception has arisen in the understanding, we conceive them.

But the intelligible realities offer themselves to be known, the mind not taking the initiative except only insofar as it prepares itself for apprehension, but rather following after that which has appeared.

And sometimes the conception concerning God arises from the contemplation of creation, according to the text: For from the beauty of created things their Author is by analogy discerned—as also when God appeared to Abram.

For the name 'God' is on the whole joined together with the work of creation, as in the text: In the beginning God made the heaven, and: Let there be light—while the appellation 'Lord' is spoken then, when the Law was being given.

Let there be light—the appellation of the Lord being uttered then, when the Law was provided.

Thus indeed, having beheld God through the all-harmonious order of the universe, he departed from the error of many gods which he had learned from his father; and consequently God offers Himself for the holy man's apprehension after the instruction that came by hearing, which took place in the words: Depart from thy land and from thy kindred.

One must reckon the soul's 'hearing' to be the obedient assent to the things laid before it, and its 'eye' to be, after progress, the most firm application and comprehension of the instructions.

For one must know that the same things can be known in different ways: in a more elementary manner by the beginner, and in a manner proper to one who has advanced through the apprehension of God.

He also promises to give the land to his seed—that land concerning which the Saviour said:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; and in the Psalms:

Wait upon the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt thee to inherit the land—clear it is that this is not the land which we tread and sow (of that he was king), but the heavenly one, which is the most perfect knowledge of God.

This the righteous shall inherit and shall dwell upon it forever and ever; but with the sensible land this shall not be.

This land, then, God promises to give to the seed of the holy man; and here by 'seed' he means the child.

For often a difference between 'seed' and 'child' is found.

For if one has become someone's child, to that person he has also become his seed; yet not, because he is seed, does he thereby also become a child.

For it may happen that it is not formed nor brought to completion nor fully figured, as the Scripture says.

And just as in bodily things there is seed that does not become a child, and a child that is also seed, so too in the things pertaining to soul and understanding.

The Saviour, then, says to those who said that 'We have Abraham as father':

If ye are Abraham's children, do the works of Abraham;

for it is from these works that one becomes a child.

Those whom He said were not children of Abraham, He says are his seed, declaring:

I know that ye are Abraham's seed—so that it is clear that seed and child are not the same, but that they are seed insofar as they have received their succession from Abraham and have reaped nurture from him, yet did not imitate his conduct; and it was possible, had they employed their aptitude, for them also to have become children.

Here, then, since a promise is given to the seed, we take 'the seed' to mean the child.

Abraham's seed are His servants, the sons of Jacob His chosen ones.

And that it is sometimes shown that seed and child are not the same, Paul writes:

For not all who are of Israel are Israel—but that one concerning whom the Saviour said:

yet not these concerning whom it was said:

Behold Israel according to the flesh.

These things, then, concerning the difference between seed and child;

but we must return to the text set forth.

Abram, therefore, builds an altar, being moved in thanksgiving, offering up sacrifices spiritually—even though he was performing the symbol—concerning which it was said: to offer up spiritual sacrifices well-pleasing to God; and: Sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise; and: Offer a sacrifice of righteousness and hope upon the Lord.

And it is necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens be cleansed by these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these. Such an altar, then, does he build who advances and, having followed Him who called, and having come to be outside his land and kindred and his father's house, was at last counted worthy to see God, He Himself having deemed it fitting to appear to the holy man.

And he departed thence to the mountain east of Bethel, and there he pitched his tent, with the sea on the west and Angai on the south.

What the literal text signifies is not obscure;

but with respect to the anagogical sense it signifies that he passed over to a loftier progress and state.

It is made clear by 'the mountain'—and not simply 'to the mountain,' but that of the house of God;

for this is what 'Bethel' is interpreted to mean, which is not only that, but also, together with others, according to what is said in the Song of Songs:

My beloved is like a gazelle or a young fawn of the deer upon the mountains of Bethel.

For there are many mountains and hills in the house of God, as from the text: Behold, He comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills;

and at each stage of progress it is possible to ascend to a hill, and from the hill to a mountain, and from lowlier mountains to higher ones;

for this is recognized both in the introductory stages of the virtues and in the virtues themselves.

But one is the mountain above all, our Saviour and Lord, concerning whom it is said:

In the last of the days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest—which is other than the rest of the mountains, so that the holy man says, for the sake of teaching, that some may not go astray:

Why do ye suppose, ye curdled mountains? Then, teaching about the most eminent mountain, he says:

The mountain of God is a fertile mountain, a curdled mountain, a fertile mountain.

Why do ye suppose, ye curdled mountains, at the mountain which God was pleased to dwell in? Which signifies the Lord who became man.

For the incarnation is made clear through this expression, as also in Job:

Didst Thou not milk me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese? For the Saviour alone is of a virgin;

or is this said concerning others? For no other has had such a constitution.

Wherefore Job did not say 'I was curdled,' but 'Thou didst curdle me like cheese';

for what the Spirit has wrought, this the sowing of the seeds effects in others, at God's command.

And this same one is also 'fertile' from the presence of the Spirit and of the power of the Most High.

And by the common account all, and the very temple of the Saviour, exist from God according to creation, but in a special manner in the case of the Lord;

for He used it as an instrument for the incarnation.

And just as the whole earth is a creation of God, yet the temple had a special status because from there God gave His oracles, so also in the case of the things previously spoken of.

And that wherever God gives His oracles, that place is called His house, Jacob bears witness, saying:

How fearful is this place!

This is nothing other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

One must not, then, give heed if many should call themselves christs, according to what is said:

Many shall come in my name, saying:

For one is the mountain in which God was pleased to dwell;

for the good pleasure of His dwelling formed it, and not a man.

To this mountain, then, advancing in his understanding, Abram burns his offering.

At any rate, when He came, it bore witness to Him, saying:

And it is well said, too, that this mountain lies toward the east.

For whatever conception of this mountain you may form, it is luminous.

For it is called wisdom, word, life, truth, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

All these are lights that rise—not many lights according to substance, for they have one underlying subject, the Son of God—but according to their differing operations.

Toward the east, then, of the house of God—which is illuminated throughout—came the holy man, led by the hand of the virtues.

It is also possible to call the manifold teachings of piety 'the east,' through which Abram, having come, pitched his tent—which he employed for his advances, for this is what the tent signifies—while the house of God abides permanent.

'For I will pass through in the place of the wondrous tabernacle, even to the house of God.'

Having passed through the tent, then, he pitches it toward the house that ever abides, after which there is no other ascent.

This is said also in another psalm:

'How beloved are your dwellings, O Lord of hosts!'

'My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord.'

For he who has not yet reached the courts holds his love within the tents, advancing and awaiting perfection, in saying:

'My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God,' when he comes to be in that state after which there is no other, into which those who have arrived are pronounced blessed, as the psalm says:

'Blessed are all who dwell in your house'—not those who sojourn, but those who dwell.

For this—sojourning—belongs to those in the tents and in their advances; but to those who dwell belongs coming into the house of God, in which they are counted blessed as those who praise him unto the ages of ages, which signifies the end that is above all, into which he pitched his tent, having passed through by means of advances and now laying claim to perfection—into which he will come who obeys the exhorting word:

'Guard your foot whenever you go to the house of God, and draw near to hear.'

For in this way he will be able to dwell in the house, saying:

'That I may dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days.'

One must know that through these things the divine way of life is symbolically indicated, even though the person of Abram still admits of further perfecting;

for he has not yet been renamed.

Toward the sea he pitches his tent, being firm and unshaken because he holds fast perfectly to virtue, so that he might say:

'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution?' and so forth—which things, in calling 'the sea,' you would not err.

For wherever the holy man may be, even in perfection, he has the storm lying in wait, together with the mutability of created nature; but the perfect man, reining this in like a charioteer, checks the working of evil, remaining in the very potency of virtue—which is a blessed thing.

For this belongs to one who is good and who exists in virtue; since even the wicked man exists within the potency of virtue, having turned to evil by his own choice and not having guarded himself as he was made good.

The same man also pitches his tent at Angai toward the south, fittingly, since he has arrived at the mountain of the house of God and is wholly illuminated from the east—which are the virtues according to their several kinds—and makes no account of any of the things that stand against him; for not even the towering waves from the sea overturn his well-founded edifice; inasmuch as he has transformed the words of Jesus into deeds, coming to be within a feast.

for this is how 'Angai' is interpreted.

For the great feast is the perfecting of virtue.

For this too the psalmist says:

'With a voice of exultation and thanksgiving, the sound of those keeping festival.'

For he who exults in the presence of the Spirit and gives confession—not as one sinning and repenting, but as one giving thanks—keeps festival; for the word 'confession' stands in place of 'thanksgiving,' as in, 'I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.'

'And he built there an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.'

Fittingly, he who had crossed over both to the aforesaid mountain and to the house of God, and had been illuminated by the east, and had trodden down the adversaries so that they now frighten no one, raised an altar of thanksgiving, upon which he offers the sacrifice of praise and of righteousness according to what was said earlier concerning the spiritual sacrifice, which is the whole system of the virtues.

'And he called upon the name of the Lord'—which someone taking it superficially will say means that he named the altar he built 'of the Lord';

but it is possible to say, in a more mystical and loftier sense, that he called upon the name of the Lord not with bare syllable but in very deed, his mind making its petition to God, working the virtues not for the sake of anything else but for the Good itself.

For according to this understanding, the Savior too, when teaching them to pray and to say 'Our Father,' did not train them to do this by mere utterance, but that they might present themselves as sons and no longer call upon God as Father in vain.

In this way we hear also ......

'No one says "Lord Jesus" except in the Holy Spirit'; and this does not belong to those who say it merely by utterance and in vain.

So Abram made the building of the altar composed of virtues for the Lord, and for his sake and not for the sake of another.

'And Abram set out and, having journeyed, encamped in the wilderness.'

Since the literal sense is not obscure, the meaning according to the deeper sense must be stated.

For even if one is perfect, he is not delivered from those who make war; and even if he is still an infant, like the Corinthians, to whom Paul writes, saying:

'No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man;

and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.'

But to the Ephesians he writes as to those already perfect, counting himself also among them:

'For our wrestling is not against blood and flesh.'

He does not say 'it has not been,' but 'our wrestling is not';

for it once was, when he supposed himself to be fleshly, sold under sin, thereby signifying those in such a condition, to whom it is fitting to say, as he himself writes:

'I buffet my body and bring it into servitude, lest by any means, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.'

But he has the battle by using heavenly weapons, inasmuch as it is against spiritual things in the heavenly realms.

So then, to make war belongs to the perfect man, just as Abram too, having taken his stand at the house of God according to what has been explained, himself became conformed to it, as it is said:

'They who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion.'

Having become so great, then, and knowing that the hostile phalanx would not keep away from him, he encamped—just as Jacob, when about to meet Esau, who was a great enemy and envied him, saw the camp of God;

for God, preparing the athlete for courage, had to show him that he had allies fighting on his side.

And Elisha too, when about to be assailed by the king of Syria, had around him a divine army, which the prophet's servant, being ignorant of it, was afraid, but afterward took courage from the opening of his eyes.

It is well, too, that he encamped in the wilderness.

So indeed the Savior too is tempted in the wilderness.

'Like a tempest it would pass through the wilderness, coming from the wilderness out of the land'—which things signify temptation.

So Abram encamped in the wilderness;

for temptations for the most part occur outside the cities, because there men find themselves without help from their fellow men.

'For a brother helped by a brother is like a fortified city.'

And so the Savior, as I said before, is tempted in the wilderness, so that the meaning may be of this kind:

the soul that comes into temptation sees itself, as it were, bereft of any ally, God ordering this by his providential dispensation;

for if he revealed to them beforehand the outcome, and that they would conquer the temptation, the accomplishment would be no great thing;

for they would neither send up any prayer nor do anything else.

and again he shows them that God fights alongside them, so that not even so should they lose heart.

And so it is with men; but to the Savior, after the temptation, angels appear—and these for ministry—so that the willfully wicked, had the angels appeared before this, might not say that the victory belonged to the angels.

And what is the ministry of the angels but the standing-guard over the souls that obey God? For they were not present for the sake of giving help.

And so too he rebukes Peter for wishing to fight in excess on his behalf, saying:

'Or do you think that I could not call upon my Father, and he would at once give me more than twelve legions of angels?' Thus he has no need of any ally.

'And there came a famine upon the land.'

And Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, because the famine prevailed upon the land.

But according to the deeper meaning, this is what it signifies.

The wise of God are above the earth, not belonging to it;

in this earth, then, a famine came to pass;

for upon those who are minded on earthly things there often comes a famine of hearing the word of the Lord, if they should be worthy of it, though later it is at some time restored to them again.

For this reason, too, Abram comes into Egypt to sojourn, not to settle, going down together with those who suffered the famine, not to dwell there;

for those about Daniel likewise came to be in Babylon not because of sins, but that they might help those who had been carried off thither on account of their sins.

For God spares those who sin, in so far as it is possible for them to repent.

And just as physicians are sent where there is great harm or sickness, not that they themselves may share in the disease, but that they may heal the sick, so the saints came into the confusion and into Babylon, not being inhabitants there;

for they possessed nothing worthy of it, which is proper to those who dwell there.

And it came to pass, when Abram drew near to enter into Egypt, that Abram said to Sarah his wife:

I know that you are a fair-faced woman;

it shall be, then, that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife,' and they will kill me, but they will keep you alive;

say, then, that I am his sister, so that it may go well with me on your account, and my soul may live because of you.

As regards the literal sense, he adapts himself with prudence to the pleasure-loving disposition of the Egyptians, trusting that God, who had brought him out of his own land, would not overlook his marriage; and he suggests to her to say to them that she is his sister, so that, this being said first and alone, they might not take up the notion that she is his wife, thereby deceiving them through this.

For there existed sister-marriage both in Egypt and in his own land, as he later said:

For indeed she is truly my sister;

she therefore deceives them with a wise deception, being instructed to say this only, and first of all.

For it being likely that laws concerning adultery were kept among the Egyptians, Abram reckoned that, in order that they might not seem to be adulterers, they would treacherously murder him.

These things, then, are for the sake of the literal sense;

but as regards the deeper meaning, those who go from virtue to vice are said to go down into Egypt:

Woe to those who go down into Egypt.

Here it is not set down that he 'went down,' but that he 'entered in';

for his going down is an entering in.

For every earnest man goes down together with those who stumble, not himself stumbling, but leading them away from their stumbling;

and just as one becomes a Jew to the Jews though not being a Jew, and lawless to the lawless though not being lawless, so one goes into Egypt without becoming Egyptian.

Wherefore let others go down there, but he enters in;

for it was not their vice that brought him down, but a certain dispensation being carried out.

The virtuous man often enters into Egypt, making use of alien learning, that from it he may fashion something useful, just as the blessed Paul did when he cited from Aratus, 'For we are also his offspring,' in order to carry on what follows, and the words 'To an Unknown God,' and 'Cretans are always liars';

and thus too he exhorts us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Having entered, as we said, into Egypt, he subordinates certain things to virtue, so that he may say that she is his wife;

the earnest and perfect man does not say without qualification to those who are inferior that virtue is his own, lest he bring envy upon them, but he says that she is his sister, giving the second place to those who would be joined to his own virtue, that he may go down together with the weak, and so they may long for her as though she were set forth for common possession, to receive her.

Thus indeed, often wishing to instruct someone, we make our contemplations common—such as those concerning providence—so that thereafter he too may receive her unto himself.

The evangelical teaching, then, is the noble spouse of the earnest man;

yet he does not snatch her for himself alone, even though he speaks of her among the perfect, but he makes her common to all, just as Paul says:

I would that all men were even as I myself;

for those who have become such will know that this instruction is the consort of the perfect man;

For wisdom bears prudence for a man, and 'I,' says the perfect one, 'became a lover of her beauty'—of wisdom, that is;

and the wise man wishes to impart of his own to all;

for thus they will not even be envious.