Life of Moses 1 part 8/8

Having marked rods from each tribe with the names of those who gave them, he places them at the altar, so that the rod might become a testimony of the ordination from above, having been made conspicuous beyond the others by a certain divine wonder.

And when this had happened, the rods of the others remained what they were, but that of the priest, taking root in itself—not by any foreign moisture, but by the power placed in it from God—budded forth branches and fruit, and the fruit came to full ripeness.

And the fruit was an almond; when this had come to be, all the subject people were trained to good order.

And it is fitting to understand, by the fruit which Aaron's rod budded, what kind of life the one in the priesthood ought to have: self-controlled, austere, and hardened in his outward life, but containing within, in the hidden and unseen, the edible part, which is then revealed when in time the food has ripened, and the astringent husk bursts off, and that woody covering of the edible part is worn away.

But if you should observe the life of some so-called priest to be apple-like, sweet-scented, and rosy-hued—such as are many who are decked out in fine linen and purple, fattened at luxurious tables, drinking strained wine, anointed with the finest perfumes, and all the other things that seem sweet to the ready taste of those who pluck the life of indulgence—you would do well to apply the gospel saying to such a man, that:

"Looking at the fruit, I do not recognize through the fruit the priestly tree."

The fruit of the priesthood is one thing, and this is another.

That fruit was self-control, but this one is luxury.

That one was not fattened from earthly moisture, but into this one flow many channels of pleasures from below, by which the autumn-fruit of such a man's life is over-ripened to such a bloom.

But when the subject people had become pure of this passion too, then he traverses the alien land, with the law leading along the royal highway, no deviation taking place on either side.

For the deviation to the sides is perilous for the traveler.

For just as, if two precipices should narrow a single path on the high ridge, there is danger for the one walking along it of being turned aside from the middle on this side or that (for perhaps on either hand the gulf from the precipice awaits the deviation), so the law wills that the one following in its footsteps should not abandon the way which, as the Lord says, is narrow and straitened—neither to the left and ill-omened side, nor to what is reckoned the right.

And this saying is a doctrine, defining that the virtues are to be seen in a mean, because every vice is naturally enacted either by a deficiency or by an excess of virtue—as in the case of courage, cowardice is a certain deficiency of virtue, and rashness an excess;

and that which is clean of both of these is seen in the midst of the neighboring vices and is virtue.

In the same way also all the other things that are pursued toward the better are somehow held in between by their evil neighbors.

Wisdom holds the mean between cleverness and simplicity.

Neither the prudence of the serpent is praiseworthy, nor the innocence of the dove, if each of these must be taken by itself alone.

But the disposition blended from the midst of these two becomes virtue.

The one deficient in temperance is licentious, the one in excess has had his conscience seared, as the Apostle defines.

For the one is poured out unrestrainedly into pleasures, while the other abhors even marriage as equal to adultery.

But the disposition seen in the midst of these is temperance.

And since, as the Lord says, this world lies in the wicked one, and what is opposed to virtue—which is wickedness—is alien to those who follow the law, the one who journeys through this world in his life will safely complete this necessary journey of virtue, if he keeps to the truly royal road that has been trodden and made white by virtue, nowhere turning aside through vice to the impassable ways that lie alongside.

And since, as has been said, with the ascent of virtue the plotting of the adversary also rises together, finding correspondingly the occasions for each man's deviation into evil, then, when the people had grown to a greater stature in the life according to God, the adversary lays hold of another plot, after the manner of those skilled in warfare, who, judging the frontal array of those superior in strength hard to overcome, by certain ambushes and snares outgeneral the opponent.

Thus the general of vice no longer leads out his power face-to-face against those strengthened by law and virtue, but works out his plot by certain ambushes in secret.

He therefore calls into alliance against those plotted against by him the art of sorcery, which the narrative says was a certain seer and augur, having from some operation of demons a doubtless harmful power against his adversaries, and hired by the ruler of the Midianites in order to harm by a curse those living for God—the seer who turned the curse into blessing.

But we understand, by the sequence of what has been contemplated before, that sorcery is not effective against those who live in virtue, but that those fortified by divine help prevail over every plot.

For that the one mentioned practiced the divination by augury is testified by the narrative in the words where it says both that he had oracles in hand and consulted the birds, and before these, that through the braying of the donkey he was instructed concerning the matter set before his zeal—whose utterance, because he was accustomed to consult the voices of irrational creatures by a certain demonic operation, Scripture related as articulate, showing that those already taken captive by such a deception of demons go so far as to receive, in place of reason, the instruction that arises for them, by a certain observation, from the voice of irrational creatures; and that he, attending to it, was taught through the very things by which he was deceived the invincibility of the power against which he had been hired.

For indeed in the gospel narrative too, the band of demons, the Legion, had been prepared for resistance against the Lord's authority.

But when the one who holds power over all drew near, it cries out the surpassing power and does not conceal the truth—that this is the divine nature, who in the appointed times will bring punishment upon those who have sinned.

For the voice of the demons says:

"We know who you are, the Holy One of God, and that you have come before the time to torment us."

Which indeed happened then also, when the demonic power accompanying the seer taught Balaam the invincibility and irresistibility of the people.

But we say, fitting the narrative to what has been examined before, that the one who wished to curse those living in virtue

could not send forth any grievous and discordant voice, but turned the curse into blessing.

And what we understand is this: that the reproach of reviling does not touch those who live according to virtue.

For how shall the one who owns nothing be reviled for covetousness? And how shall anyone trumpet abroad profligacy against the one who has withdrawn and lives in solitude, or wrath against the gentle, or arrogance against the modest-minded, or any other reproachable thing against those known by the opposites—those whose aim is to present a life unassailable to reproach, so that, as the Apostle says, the one on the opposing side may be put to shame, having nothing to say? For this reason the voice of the one taken up to curse says:

"How shall I curse whom the Lord does not curse?" That is to say:

"How shall I revile the one who has given no material for reviling, whose life, because it looks to God, is unwoundable unto vice?" Yet not because the inventor of vice failed in this did he altogether cease from his device against those he plotted against, but he turns his device toward his own kind of wrestling, again enticing nature toward evil through pleasure.

For truly pleasure, set forth as a kind of bait for every vice, easily draws the more greedy souls onto the hook of destruction.

And it is especially through licentious pleasure that nature, off its guard, is dragged toward evil.

For those who had prevailed over weapons, and had shown every assault of iron weaker than their own strength, and had routed by force the phalanx of their adversaries, were wounded through pleasure by the womanly darts.

And they became stronger than men, but weaker than women.

For no sooner did the women appear to them, putting forth their forms in place of weapons, than at once they took on forgetfulness of the tension of their manly courage, dissolving their ardor into pleasure.

And they were in those circumstances in which it is likely those would be who had raged with mad lust for the unlawful intercourse with the foreign women.

And kinship with evil was estrangement from the alliance with the good.

For at once the Deity was warred against by them.

But Phinehas the zealous did not wait for the sin to be purged by the vote from above.

Rather, he himself became at once both judge and executioner.

For, moved to wrath against those who had raged with lust, he did the priest's work, purging the sin with blood—not the blood of some innocent animal that had no share in the defilement of licentiousness, but of those joined together with one another in vice, upon whom the spear-point, passing at once through the two bodies, stayed the movement of the divine justice, mingling pleasure with the death of the sinners.

And it seems to me that the narrative lays up a certain soul-profiting counsel for men, by which we are taught that, although there are many passions which war against the reasonings of men, no other passion has such strength against us as to be put on a par with the disease of pleasure.

For that those Israelites, all at once—they who had been shown stronger than the Egyptian cavalry, who had overpowered the Amalekites, who had appeared fearful to the nation after them, and who afterward had prevailed over the phalanx of the Midianites—that these, at the mere sight of the foreign women, were enslaved to the disease, shows nothing else, as has been said, than that pleasure is a foe of ours hard to fight and hard to contend with, which, having mastered those unconquered by arms at its mere appearance, raised against them the trophy of dishonor, branding their shame as on a pillar under the witness of the light.

For it showed men, through itself, to be brute beasts—men whom the beastly and irrational impulse toward licentiousness persuaded to forget human nature, no longer even concealing the abomination, but parading in the dishonor of the passion and glorying in the defilement of shame, wallowing like swine openly in the filth of impurity before one another's eyes.

What, then, are we taught by the account? That we, having learned how great a strength toward evil the disease of

pleasure has, should as far as possible settle our own life far from such a neighborhood, lest the disease should find some passage against us, like some fire working its wicked flame through proximity.

For this Solomon teaches, saying in the Wisdom not to touch the live coal with bare foot, nor to lay fire in one's bosom, since it is in our power to remain in freedom from passion so long as we are far from what kindles it.

But if we should come so close as to touch this burning heat, the fire of desire will become lodged in the bosom, and so the burning will follow upon the foot, and the corruption upon the bosom.

And in the Gospel the Lord, by his own voice, that we might be guarded far from such an evil, cut out, as a kind of root of the passion, the desire that arises through seeing, teaching that the one who receives the passion by sight gives the disease a road against himself.

For the wicked passions, like a plague, once they have taken hold of the vital parts, are stopped only by death.

But I think there is no need to prolong the discourse, since the whole life of Moses has been set forth as an example of virtue for those who read.

For to the one who has stretched himself toward the higher life, what has been said would prove no small provision for the way toward true philosophy.

But to the one who is soft toward the labors undertaken for virtue, even if many times more than what has been said were written, no gain would come from the abundance.

Nevertheless, that there be no forgetting of the definition given in the preface—wherein our discourse maintained that the perfect life is such that no boundary of perfection hinders its progress, but the ever-occurring increase of life toward the better is the soul's road to perfection—it would be well, having brought the discourse to the end of Moses' life, to show that the definition of perfection rendered to us is secure.

For he who through so many ascents was lifted up throughout his whole life was not at a loss to become again higher than himself, so that, I think, through all things his life might be seen like an eagle's, above the clouds and aloft, circling about the upper air of the spiritual ascent.

He was born when it seemed an injustice among the Egyptians for a Hebrew to be born.

When the tyrant was then punishing the newborn by law, he becomes superior to the destructive law, being preserved—at first by those who bore him, but afterward by those very ones who had laid down the law.

And those by whom his death had been zealously sought by law brought to bear every forethought, not only for his life, but also for his distinguished upbringing, leading the young man through all wisdom.

Afterward he becomes superior to human honor and higher than royal dignity, having judged it stronger and more kingly to have the guard of virtue, instead of bodyguards and royal adornment, and to be adorned with virtue's own ornament.

After this he rescues his kinsman and strikes down the Egyptian with a blow—we understanding, through the examining contemplation, both the enemy of the soul and its friend.

Then he makes stillness the teacher of the lofty lessons, and so is enlightened in his understanding by the light that shone forth from the bush.

And then he makes haste to share with his kinsmen the good things that had come to him from God.

In these things he made a twofold display of power: the defensive against the adversaries, which he showed in manifold and successive plagues, and the beneficent toward his kinsmen.

He leads so great a people on foot through the sea, having prepared for himself no fleet of ships, but having built for them faith for the crossing; he makes the deep dry land for the Hebrews, and dry land sea for the Egyptians.

He set before himself a table from the food from above.

He stretched out his hands for the destruction of the Amalekites.

He was encompassed by the tabernacle above.

By the laws he set life aright.

He brought to a successful issue the last wars in the manner described.

At the end of his good deeds he chastised licentiousness through the priesthood.

For this the wrath against the passion that came about through Phinehas hinted at.

After all these things, he approaches the mountain of rest.

He does not set foot on the lower land toward which the lower people looked by the promise.

He no longer tastes earthly food, he who had practiced living by the food that flows from above; but having come up to the very summit of the mountain, like some skilled sculptor, having wrought with precision the whole statue of his life, at the topmost point of the work he set, not an end, but a peak upon his work.

For what does the narrative say concerning him? That "Moses the servant of the Lord died by the word of God, and no one knew his burial, and his eyes were not dimmed, and his face was not corrupted."

For we are taught through these things that, having become such through so many good deeds, he was then deemed worthy of this lofty name, so as to be called the servant of God—which is the same as to say that he became superior to all.

For no one could be God's servant without having become superior to all things in the world.

And this for him is also the end of the life according to virtue, brought to its completion by the word of God—which indeed the narrative calls a death, a living death, which no grave succeeds, over which no tomb is heaped, which brings neither dimness to the eyes nor corruption to the face.

What, then, are we taught through what has been said? To look through life toward one end: to be called servants of God by reason of the things we have lived.

For when you have overcome all your enemies—the Egyptian, the Amalekite, the Edomite, the Midianite—and have crossed the water, and been enlightened by the cloud, and been sweetened by the wood, and drunk from the rock, and tasted of the food from above, and through purity and chastity have made for yourself the ascent up the mountain, and there, having come, been instructed in the divine mystery by the sound of the trumpets, and in the dense darkness, hard to see through, have drawn near to God by faith, and there been taught the mysteries of the tabernacle and the dignity of the priesthood; when you have become a stone-carver of your own hearts, so as to engrave in them the divine oracles from God; when you have made the golden idol vanish—that is, if you have wiped covetous desire from your life; when you have been so exalted as to appear invincible against the sorcery of Balaam (and hearing "sorcery," understand for me the manifold deception of this life, by which men, drugged as by some Circean cup, depart from their own nature and are remolded into the forms of irrational beasts); when through all these things you have become, and the rod of the priesthood has budded in you—the rod that draws to its budding no moisture of earth, but has from within itself the power of the fruit, and of a fruit of the almond, whose first encounter is bitter and astringent, but whose inner part is sweet and edible; when everything that rises up against your dignity passes into vanishing, becoming underground like Dathan or consumed by fire like Korah—then you will draw near to the end.

And by "end" I mean that for the sake of which all things come to be—as the end of farming is the enjoyment of the fruits, the end of building a house is dwelling, the end of trade is wealth, and the end of the toils in the contests is the crown.

So also the end of the lofty life is to be called the servant of God; with which is contemplated the not being buried in the tomb—and this is that one's life become bare and unencumbered of the wicked appendages.

And the discourse says there is yet another token of this servitude: that neither was the eye dimmed nor the face corrupted.

For how shall the eye that is always in light be dimmed by a darkness from which it has been estranged? And the one who has accomplished incorruption in his whole life admits no corruption whatever upon himself.

For the one who has truly become according to the image of God, and has nowhere turned aside,

bears upon himself the marks of the divine character, and is conformed in all things by his likeness to the archetype, adorning his own soul with the incorruptible and the unchangeable and that which is unmingled with any vice.

These things, O man of God, Caesarius, this brief discourse of ours sets before you concerning the perfection of the life according to virtue, having sketched for you, as a kind of archetype in a form of beauty, the life of the great Moses, so that each one of us, through imitation of his pursuits, might transcribe within ourselves the character of the beauty shown to us.

For who could be found for us a more trustworthy witness that Moses had achieved the attainable perfection than the divine voice which says to him:

"I have known you beyond all"—and also his being named the friend of God by God himself, and his choosing rather to perish together with all, unless the Deity in mercy and benevolence should be propitiated toward those also for the offenses in which they had sinned—staying the wrath against the Israelites, when God turned aside his own judgment, so as not to grieve his friend.

And all such things are a clear testimony and demonstration that the life of Moses had ascended to the highest boundary of perfection.

Since, then, this was what was sought by us—what the perfection of the virtuous life is—and the perfect has been found through what has been said, it is time for you, O noble one, to look to the example and to apply to your own life the things contemplated by the higher anagogy concerning what was said historically:

transferring it to your own life, so as to be known by God and to become his friend.

For this is truly perfection: no longer to separate oneself from the life of vice through servile fear of punishment, nor to do the good by the hope of rewards—trafficking in the virtuous life with a kind of commercial and contractual disposition—but, looking past all things, even those laid up in promises through hope, to count fearful only this: to fall away from the friendship of God; and to judge this alone honorable and lovely for ourselves: to become a friend of God—which is, according to my reckoning, the perfection of life. And whatever may be found by you, when your understanding has been raised toward what is more magnificent and more divine (and much, I well know, will be found), the gain will surely be common to all, in Christ Jesus. Amen.