Life of Moses 1 part 5/8

What, then, do we find in these things, the history proceeding by sequence? That the mystery of the wood, through which the water of virtue becomes drinkable to the thirsty, brings us to the twelve springs and the seventy palm trees—that is, to the teaching of the Gospel, in which the springs are the twelve Apostles, the Lord having chosen so many for this need, and having made the word gush forth through them, as also one of the Prophets foretold the grace welling up from the Apostles, in which he says:

"In the churches bless God the Lord, from the springs of Israel"; and the seventy palm trees would be those, throughout the whole inhabited world apart from the twelve disciples, ordained as apostles, being so many in number as the history says the palm trees were.

But it is fitting, I think, to hasten the journey through the discourse, having, by means of the few things we have set forth, made the contemplation of the remaining encampments easy for the more diligent.

And the encampments would be virtues, in which the one who follows the pillar of the cloud, proceeding in order, encamps and rests.

Passing over, then, in the discourse the resting-places in between, I will make mention of the wonder-working at the rock, whose nature, resistant and solid, became drink for the thirsty, the resistance being dissolved into the softness of water.

But it is no labor to fit the sequence of the history to the contemplation according to elevation.

For he who has left the Egyptian dead in the water, and has been sweetened by the wood, and has reveled in the apostolic springs, and has rested under the shade of the palm trees—this one now becomes also receptive of God.

For the rock, as the Apostle says, is Christ—dry and resistant to the unbelieving, but, if one brings to it the rod of faith, becoming drink to the thirsty and flowing into those who receive Him;

for, He says, "I and My Father will come and will make Our abode with him."

And it is worthwhile not to pass by this too unconsidered: that after crossing the sea, and after the water was sweetened for the travelers of virtue, and after that luxuriant resting-place at the springs and the palm trees

and after drinking from the rock, then the failing of the Egyptian provisions comes to be complete.

And thus, no foreign food being left to them—which they had taken as provision out of Egypt—the food flows down from above, being at once manifold and yet of a single kind.

For what appeared was of a single kind, but the quality had the manifoldness, arising in each suitably according to the form of his desire.

What, then, is it that we learn? Through how many purifications it behooves one to cleanse himself of the Egyptian and foreign life, so as to empty the wallet of his soul of all the food according to vice, with which the Egyptians make their bread, and thus to receive within himself, with a pure soul, the food coming down from above—which no sowing from husbandry made spring up for us, but a ready bread, sown by none and ploughed by none, coming down from above yet found upon the earth.

And you certainly understand, through the riddle according to the history, this true food: that the bread which came down from heaven is not some incorporeal thing.

For how could the incorporeal become food for a body? But what is not incorporeal is altogether a body.

And the body of this bread neither ploughing nor sowing cultivated, but the earth, remaining such as it is, is found full of such divine food, of which the hungry partake—being instructed beforehand, through this wonder-working, in the mystery according to the Virgin.

This untilled bread, then, is also the Word, varying its power, according to the multiform character of the quality, in correspondence with the aptitudes of those who eat.

For it knows how to be not only bread, but also to become milk and meat and vegetables and whatever may be suitable and agreeable to the one who partakes—as he teaches who sets such and so great a table before us, Paul the divine Apostle, who makes the word a firmer and meatier food for the more perfect, and vegetables for the weaker, and milk for those who are like infants.

And whatever wonders the history recounts concerning that food are doctrines for the life according to virtue.

For it says that the partaking of the food was set equally before all, in no way—according to the difference of the gatherers' strength—either exceeding the need or falling short of it.

And this is, according at least to my account, a kind of counsel set before the community, that those who furnish the means of living from these material things should not pass beyond the limits of need, but should know well that there is one measure of eating for nature in the case of all—the daily enjoyment—in which, even if many times more than the need be prepared, the belly has no nature to pass beyond its own measures, nor is it stretched out together with the insatiability of the preparation.

But, as the history says, neither did the one who took much have too much (for he has nowhere to store the surplus), nor did the one who took little have too little (for the need, drawn together toward what was found, was measured out to match).

But that, for those who hoard the surplus, insatiability is transformed into the generation of worms—the word, through these things, cries out in a manner to the covetous, that everything beyond need, encompassed by this covetous desire, becomes, on the following day—that is, in the life expected—a worm to the one who hoarded it.

And the one who hears certainly understands, through this worm, the endless worm that is brought to life through covetousness.

And that on the Sabbath alone the stored thing endured, undergoing no such corruption, contains a kind of counsel of this sort: that there are times when the covetous disposition must be employed, in those things in which the gathered store does not admit corruption—then becoming useful to us, when, having passed beyond the preparation of this life, we come to be in the inactivity after death.

For the day before the Sabbath is, and is called, the Preparation for the Sabbath.

And this would be this present life, in which we make ready for ourselves the things of the coming life—in which (coming life) no work of those things now permitted us is accomplished, neither husbandry, nor commerce, nor military service, nor any other of the things zealously pursued here, but, passing our time in complete inactivity of such works, of the things now

—sown by us during this life, we shall reap the fruits—incorruptible, if the seeds of life were good; but corrupting and destructive, if such things the husbandry of this life caused to spring up for us.

For "the one who sows to the Spirit," it says, "from the Spirit will reap eternal life;"

"but the one who sows to the flesh, from the flesh will reap corruption."

But the readiness toward the better alone is properly named Preparation, and is surely ratified by the law, whose stored thing is incorruptibility.

But what is conceived from the contrary is neither Preparation, nor is so called;

for the deprivation of good things one would not reasonably name Preparation, but rather a falling-away from Preparation.

Therefore the history legislates for men only the Preparation rightly accomplished toward the better, leaving the contrary, through the omission, to be understood by the intelligent.

And just as, in the military musters, the commander of the campaign first provides the rations, and then in this way gives the password for the war, in the same manner the soldiers of virtue too, having received the mystical rations, thus stir up the war against the foreigners, with Joshua, the successor of Moses, leading the battle.

Do you see by what sequence the discourse proceeds? So long as the man is weaker, having been ill-treated by the wicked tyranny, he does not ward off the enemy by himself;

but there is another who fights on behalf of the weak, striking the enemy with successive blows.

But when he has been freed from the slavery of those who ruled over him, and has been sweetened by the wood, and has rested his labor in the resting-place of the palm trees, and has known the mystery of the rock, and has partaken of the heavenly food, then he no longer wards off the enemy by another's hand, but, as one who has now passed beyond the age of childhood and reached the prime of youth, himself grapples with the adversaries by himself, using as his general no longer Moses the servant of God, but God Himself, of whom Moses became the servant.

For the law, given from the beginning in a figure and shadow of things to come, remains useless for battle in the true contests; but the fulfiller of the law and successor of Moses is the general—the one foreshadowed through his sharing the name of the one who then commanded the army.

And the people, if it sees the lawgiver's hands lifted up, becomes superior to the enemy in the battle-line; but if let down, it gives way.

And the holding of the hands on high by Moses signifies the contemplation of the law through the loftier conceptions, while the bending down toward the earth signifies the lowly and grovelling exposition and observance of the law according to the letter.

And the priest lifts up the hands of Moses when they have grown heavy, using as a fellow-worker the one related to him by kindred.

Neither is this outside the sequence of the things contemplated.

For the true priesthood, through the Word of God conjoined with it, raises up again to the heights the operations of the law that had been cast to the earth in the heaviness of the Jewish understanding, and props up with the stone the law that is falling to the ground, so that it, having been set upright in the posture of the stretching out of the hands, may point out its own aim to those who behold.

For truly, to those able to behold, in the law especially the mystery according to the cross is contemplated.

Wherefore the Gospel somewhere says that from the law the iota and the tittle do not pass away, signifying through what is said both the slanting line and the perpendicular, by which the figure of the cross is delineated—which, beheld then also in Moses, who is understood in place of the law, becomes a trophy and a cause of victory to those who see.

Again, by a certain consequent ascent toward the higher things of virtue, the discourse leads our understanding by the hand.

For he who has both been empowered through the food, and has shown his power in the grappling with the adversaries, and has become victor over those arrayed against him, is then brought to that ineffable knowledge of God—the word teaching us through these things what sort, and how many, things it behooves one to have first accomplished aright in his life, in order that he may at some time dare

—in mind to approach the mountain of the knowledge of God, and to receive the sound of the trumpets, and to enter into the gloom where God is, and to inscribe upon the tablets the divine characters; and, if these be broken through some fault, again to set before God the hand-hewn tablets and to re-engrave, with the divine finger, the letters that had been effaced in the first.

But it would be better, by sequence according to the order of the history, to fit the thought to the elevation.

For whenever the one who looks toward Moses and the cloud (through both of which the guidance comes to those who advance according to virtue—and in this part Moses would be the legal precepts, and the cloud the one that leads the way before the law), the one who, with a mind purified, in the crossing of the water has put to death and separated from himself the foreign element, tastes of Marah—that is, of the life separated from pleasures, which, appearing at first bitter and unpleasant to those who taste it, affords a sweet sense to those who have received the wood—then, having reveled in the beauties of the evangelical palm trees and of the springs, and having become full of the living water, which is the rock, and having taken within himself the heavenly bread, and having played the man against the foreigners, for whom the cause of victory is the stretching out of the hands of the lawgiver, foreshadowing the mystery of the cross—then he is brought to the contemplation of the transcendent nature.

And the way for him toward such knowledge is purity—not of the body alone, sanctified by certain sprinklings, but also with the garments washed clean of every stain by water.

And this is that the one who is to approach the contemplation of the things that are must be clean throughout, so as to be pure both in soul and in body, and to have washed off correspondingly the filth in each, undefiled, so that we may appear pure also to the One who sees the hidden things, and the seemliness according to outward appearance may agree with the inward disposition of the soul.

On this account, before the ascent up the mountain, by the divine command the garments are washed, the seemly clothing of life being intimated to us by the riddle of the garments.

For one could not say that this sensible filth of the garments becomes a hindrance to the ascent for those going up toward God, but I think the garment is well named the clothing of the practices according to this life.

And when this has been rightly accomplished, and the herd of irrational beasts has been driven as far as possible from the mountain, thus he approaches the ascent of the lofty conceptions.

And the not allowing any of the irrational beasts to appear upon the mountain signifies, according to our supposition, the passing beyond the knowledge that arises from sense-perception in the contemplation of intelligible things.

For it is proper to the nature of the irrational beasts to be managed by sense alone, apart from understanding.

Of those creatures, sight takes the lead, and hearing has often moved the impulse toward something.

And all the rest, through which sense becomes active, have much place among the irrational beasts.

But the contemplation of God is effected neither according to what appears, nor according to what is heard, nor is it grasped by any of the customary conceptions;

for neither has eye seen, nor ear heard, nor is it among the customary things that ascend upon the heart of man.

But the one who is to approach the understanding of the lofty things must purify his manner beforehand from every perceptual and irrational movement, and, having washed out of his understanding every opinion arising from some preconception, and having separated himself from the customary association with his own housemate—that is, sense-perception, which is in a manner the consort and housemate of our nature—and having become clean of this, must thus dare the mountain.

For theology is, in truth, a mountain truly steep and hard of access, whose foot the multitude scarcely reaches.

But if one should be a Moses, he might come even far up the ascent, taking in by his hearing the sounds of the trumpets, which the word of the history says become stronger as one advances.

For truly the trumpet that strikes the hearing is the proclamation concerning the divine nature—great, indeed, even at first

—appearing so, yet greater and more reaching the hearing in the last things.

The law and the prophets trumpeted the divine mystery of the dispensation according to man, but the first voices were too weak to reach the disobedient hearing.

Therefore the dullness of hearing of the Jews did not receive the voice of the trumpets.

But advancing, as the word says, the trumpets became stronger.

For the last voices, those that came about through the evangelical proclamations, reached the hearing, the Spirit thus sounding through the instruments more resoundingly in what followed, and making the sound more vigorous.

And the instruments, sounding the note in the Spirit, would be the prophets and apostles, of whom, as the psalmody says, "their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the inhabited world."

And if the multitude does not contain the voice that comes from above, but entrusts to Moses to know by himself the ineffable things, and to teach the people whatever doctrine he chances to have learned through the teaching from above—this too belongs to the things administered in the Church: that not all should thrust themselves in toward the apprehension of the mysteries, but, having selected from among themselves the one able to contain the divine things, should hold out their hearing to him with good will, deeming trustworthy everything they hear from the one initiated into divine things.

For "not all are apostles, neither are all prophets," it says.

But this is not now kept in the many of the churches.

For many, still needing purifications from the things they have lived through—certain unwashed and stained ones, defiled by the clothing of life, putting forward their own irrational sense-perception—dare the divine ascent, whence they are stoned by their own reasonings.

For the heretical suppositions are, downright, certain stones that slay the very inventor of the wicked doctrines.

But what, then, does it mean that Moses comes to be within the gloom, and thus sees God in it? For it seems somehow contrary to the first theophany, what is now recounted.

For then the Divine was seen in light, but now in gloom.

Let us not suppose that this too is out of tune with the things we have contemplated according to elevation.

For through these things the word teaches that the knowledge of piety becomes, at first, light to those in whom it arises.

Wherefore what is conceived as contrary to piety is darkness;

and the turning away from darkness comes about through the partaking of the light.

But the mind, advancing, and through ever greater and more perfect attention coming to be in circumspection of the apprehension of the things that are, the more it draws near to the contemplation, by so much the more it sees the incontemplable character of the divine nature.

For, having left behind everything that appears—not only whatever sense-perception apprehends, but also whatever the understanding seems to behold—it presses ever toward the more inward, until, by the busy striving of the understanding, it slips through to the unbeheld and incomprehensible, and there sees God.

For in this is the true knowledge of the Sought, and in this is the seeing in not seeing—that the Sought is beyond all knowledge, encompassed on every side, as by a gloom, by incomprehensibility.

Wherefore also the lofty John, who came to be in this luminous gloom, says that:

"No one has ever seen God," defining by this denial that the knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable, not only to men, but also to every intelligible nature.

When, therefore, Moses had become greater in knowledge, then he confesses to have seen God in gloom—that is, then to have known that that which is the Divine by nature is what is higher than all knowledge and apprehension.

"For Moses entered," it says, "into the gloom where God was."

Who is God? The One "who made darkness His hiding place," as David says—he who was initiated in that same inner sanctuary into the ineffable things.

And the one who has come to be there is taught again, through the word, the things in which he had been instructed beforehand through the gloom—so that, I think, the doctrine concerning this may become more firmly established for us, being attested by the divine voice.

For the divine word forbids, first of all, that the Deity be likened by men to any of the things they know;

since every concept that arises from some comprehensible representation, by an approximate notion and guess at the divine nature, fashions an idol of God and does not proclaim God himself.

Now since the virtue that accords with piety is divided into two parts—that which concerns the Deity, and that which concerns the right ordering of conduct (for purity of life is also a part of piety)—Moses, having first learned what one must know about God (and to know him was to know that nothing knowable by human comprehension can be known of him), is then taught the other form of virtue, learning by what practices the virtuous life is rightly achieved.

After this he comes to be within the Tabernacle not made with hands.

Who can follow one who journeys through such things and lifts his mind to such heights—who, as though passing from peak to peak, by the ascent of lofty things ever becomes higher than himself? First he left the foothills, having separated himself from all who were too weak for the ascent.

Then he receives in his hearing the sounds of the trumpets, being lifted up together with the height of the ascent.

Upon these things he slips into the invisible sanctuary of the knowledge of God.

And he does not even remain in this, but passes over to the Tabernacle not made with hands.

For he who is exalted by such ascents truly arrives at this limit.

For it seems to me that, in yet another sense, the heavenly trumpet becomes a teacher to him who gives ear, leading toward the passage into that which is not made with hands.

For the ordered array of the wonders in heaven, proclaiming aloud the wisdom that is revealed in created things, and recounting through visible things the great glory of God, according to that which is said:

‘The heavens declare the glory of God’—this becomes a loud-voiced trumpet of teaching, clear and well-sounding, as one of the prophets says:

‘The heaven sounded the trumpet from on high.’

And he who has been purified and is keen in the hearing of his heart, having received this sound—I mean the knowledge of the divine power that comes from contemplating created beings—is led by it to penetrate in mind to where God is.

This is called ‘darkness’ by the Scripture, by which is signified, as has been said, that which is unknown and unseen; and being within it, he beholds that Tabernacle not made with hands, which he shows to those below by means of a material imitation.

What, then, is that Tabernacle not made with hands, which was shown to Moses on the mountain, toward which he is commanded to look as toward an archetype, in order to display the marvel not made with hands through a handmade construction?

For ‘See,’ he says, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’

There were golden pillars, set upon silver bases and adorned likewise with silver capitals.

Again, other pillars, whose capitals and bases were of bronze in material, but the middle between the ends was of silver.

For all these the support was wood that admits no decay; and round about, to outward appearance, was poured the gleam of such materials.

And there was likewise an ark, glistening with pure gold, and that which upheld the covering of gold was itself wood that admits no rotting.

Upon these there was a lampstand, single at the foot of its base, but divided at the top into seven branches, bearing on the branches an equal number of lamps.

The material of the lampstand was gold, having nothing hollow in its construction nor anything supported by wood.

In addition to these there was an altar, and a mercy seat, and what are called the cherubim, by whose wings the ark was overshadowed.

All these were gold, presenting their fine color not superficially on the surface, but being the same throughout, the material reaching down to the very depth.

In addition to these there were varied curtains from the artistry of weaving, with different flowers interwoven one upon another for the beauty of the fabric, by which was distinguished how much of the Tabernacle was visible and accessible to certain of those performing the sacred service, and how much was inaccessible and not to be entered.

The name of the foremost part was ‘Holy,’ and of the hidden part ‘Holy of Holies.’

In addition to these there were lavers and censers, and the outer

enclosure of the courts, and coverings of goat’s hair, and skins dyed red with crimson, and all the other things that the text sets in order—what discourse could comprehend them with precision? Of what realities not made with hands are these the imitations? And what profit does the material imitation of the things seen there by Moses bring to those who behold? But it seems to me well to leave the precise account of these matters to those who have power, through the Spirit, to search out the depths of God—if indeed there be any such, able to speak mysteries in the Spirit, as the Apostle says.

But what is said by us, conjecturing by guesswork concerning the meaning here set forth, this we shall submit to the judgment of our readers, to be deemed either rejected or accepted, as the mind of one who examines and judges may reckon.

We say, then—taking a brief starting point from what has been said, since Paul has in part laid bare the mystery in these things—that Moses was beforehand instructed by a type in the mystery concerning the Tabernacle that encompasses the universe.

And this would be Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, who, being not made with hands according to his own nature, receives being constructed when this Tabernacle must be pitched among us—so that in a certain manner he is both uncreated and created: uncreated in that he pre-exists, but created in that he received this material constitution when he became created.

Perhaps what is said is not unclear to those who have accurately received the mystery of our faith.

For there is One out of all, who both was before the ages and came into being at the end of the ages; who had no need to come into being in time (for how could that which is before times and ages need a temporal becoming?), but for our sake—who through folly were corrupted away from being—accepted to become as we are, so that he might lead back again into being that which had come to be outside of being.

And this is the Only-begotten God, who in himself contains all things, yet has pitched his own Tabernacle also among us.

And if so great a Good is called a Tabernacle, let the lover of Christ be in no way troubled, as though the connotation lying in the term diminished the majesty of the nature of God.

For no other of the names is worthy of the nature of that which is signified, but all alike fall short of exact signification—both those reckoned small and those in which some greatness of concepts is discerned by supposition.

But just as all the other names, according to some particular signification, are each piously used to indicate the divine power—such as physician, shepherd, defender, bread, vine, way, door, dwelling, water, rock, fountain, and whatever else is said of him—so too, according to a certain fitting-for-God signification, he is named also by the word ‘Tabernacle.’

For the power that comprehends all beings, in which dwells all the fullness of the Godhead, the common shelter of the universe, he who in himself contains the all, is properly named ‘Tabernacle.’

And it is necessary that the vision be suited to the name, each of the things seen leading us by the hand toward some contemplation of a God-befitting conception.

Since, then, the great Apostle says that the veil of the lower Tabernacle is the flesh—because, I suppose, it has its constitution from the varied four elements—perhaps he too, having come to be in a vision of the Tabernacle, in the supercelestial sanctuaries, to whom through the Spirit were revealed the mysteries of Paradise, it would be well, attending to his partial interpretation, to harmonize the whole contemplation of the Tabernacle with that part.

And the clarity of the riddles of the Tabernacle would come to us through the very words of the Apostle.

For somewhere he says concerning the Only-begotten—whom we have understood in place of the Tabernacle—that:

‘in him all things were created, both visible and invisible, whether thrones or authorities or principalities or dominions or powers.’

Therefore the silver-gleaming and gold-beaten pillars, and the carrying-poles and rings, and those cherubim that hide the ark with their wings, and all the other things that the description of the tabernacle-pitching contains—if one looks contemplating toward the things above,

these are the supramundane powers, contemplated within the Tabernacle, which according to the divine will uphold the universe.