Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 59 part 8/33

As for what is written: 'And you shall keep this day throughout your generations as a lawful ordinance forever'—which in Greek is called 'aiónion'—it is not to be understood as though any of these passing days could be eternal; but that thing is eternal which this day signifies. Just as when we say that God Himself is eternal, we certainly do not call these two syllables eternal, but that which they signify. Yet it must be carefully examined in what sense Scripture is accustomed to call something eternal; lest perhaps it has called that solemnly 'eternal' which men count it wickedness to omit or to change of their own accord.

For one thing is what is commanded to be done until it is accomplished—as it was commanded that the ark should encircle the walls of Jericho seven times—and another thing is when it is commanded that something be observed in such a way that no limit of observance is fixed: whether daily, or by months, or solemnly by years, or at fixed intervals of many or of some years. Either, then, Scripture called it 'eternal' because they should not dare of their own accord to cease celebrating it, or, as I said, so that not the signs themselves of things, but the things which are signified by them, should be understood to be eternal. 'And there was a great cry in the land of Egypt; for there was no house in which there was not one dead there.' Could there not have been some house that had no firstborn?

Since, then, only the firstborn were dying, how was there no house that did not have a dead one? Or had this too been arranged divinely by God's foreknowledge, that in absolutely all the houses in which the Egyptians were smitten there should be firstborn? Certainly the Egyptians who dwelt in the land of Goshen are not to be thought immune from this plague; for it was a matter of men or of animals, not of the land—that is: the firstborn men and animals were dying by a hidden and angelic stroke; nothing was done in the land or in the sky, as with the frogs or the locusts or the darkness, whereby the inhabitants might be afflicted.

For since the land of Goshen had been exempt from such plagues, without doubt the benefit reached also those Egyptians who were dwelling in that same land together with the Hebrews; yet by this plague all their firstborn were smitten. 'And the children of Israel did as Moses had commanded them, and they asked of the Egyptians vessels of gold and silver, and raiment. And the Lord gave His people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and they lent to them; and they despoiled the Egyptians.' This had already been done before the deaths of the Egyptian firstborn; but now it is repeated by way of recapitulation. For it was narrated when it was done. For how now could it be that, in so great a mourning over the deaths of their own, they should lend those things to the children of Israel?

unless perhaps someone should say that even by this plague the Egyptians who dwelt with the Hebrews in the land of Goshen were not smitten. What is it that He says: 'And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dipping it in the blood which is by the door, you shall smear the lintel and both doorposts'? For it is asked what blood He calls 'by the door,' since He certainly wishes the blood of that lamb to be understood, by whose immolation the Passover is made. Or does He consequently command in this way—though He has kept silent about it—that the same lamb be slain by the door? Or, what is more credible, did He therefore say:

'from the blood which is by the door,' is it because he who is about to smear the lintel and doorposts will place the very vessel, in which he caught the blood, by the door, so that he may have it at hand when he dips? 'And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides the equipment' (or 'the reckoning'), if that is the right way to interpret what the Greek says by 'aposkeuén.' By which word Scripture indicates that not only movable goods but also moving things are signified, where Judah, speaking to his father, says: 'Send the boy with me, and we will rise up and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and our substance.'

For there the Greek has 'aposkeué' where the Latin translated 'substance' (substantia), which our translators sometimes render 'reckoning' (census), just as now I chose to say 'equipment' (instructum)—provided that by that name both men and beasts of burden, or all cattle, be understood. Whether even wives too can be understood there, I do not know. Yet since Scripture records six hundred thousand men on foot, adding and saying 'apart from the equipment or reckoning or substance,' or by whatever other word 'aposkeué' is better translated, it is manifest that men too are signified—whether among the servants, or the women, or those of an age not fit for military service—so that we may understand the six hundred thousand men on foot to consist only of those who could be armed in a military column.

But it is usually asked whether the Hebrews could have reached so great a number during those years in Egypt which the number considered in the Scriptures can show. And first, how many those years were is no small question. For God says to Abraham, when that sacrifice of the three-year-old heifer, the she-goat, the ram, the turtledove, and the pigeon had been offered—before not only Isaac but not even Ishmael yet had been born: 'Knowing you shall know that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own, and they shall reduce them to servitude and shall afflict them four hundred years.' If, then, we take the four hundred years so as to be understood as under servitude to the Egyptians, it was no small span of time in which the people were thus multiplied.

But that there were not so many years Scripture testifies by the most evident indication. For some think that four hundred and thirty years should be reckoned from when Jacob entered Egypt until the people were freed thence through Moses, since in Exodus it is written: 'And the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, they and their fathers, was four hundred and thirty years.' But they wish the years of their servitude to be four hundred, on account of what is written in Genesis: 'Knowing you shall know that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own, and they shall reduce them to servitude and shall afflict them four hundred years.'

But since the years of servitude are reckoned after the death of Joseph—for while he was living they not only did not serve there but even reigned—the question is how the four hundred and thirty years in Egypt are to be reckoned. For Jacob entered in the thirty-ninth year of his son, since Joseph was thirty years old when he appeared before Pharaoh and began to reign under him; and when the seven years of plenty had passed, in the second year of the famine, Jacob entered Egypt with his other sons. And therefore Joseph was then passing his thirty-ninth year, who, having completed one hundred and ten years of his life, died. He lived, then, in Egypt after his father's coming to him seventy-one years:

and if we subtract these from four hundred and thirty years, the years of servitude will remain—that is, after Joseph's death—not four hundred but three hundred and fifty-nine years. But if we suppose that we ought to reckon from the time when Joseph began to reign under Pharaoh, so that Israel is understood to have then in some manner entered Egypt, when his son was raised there to such great power, then even so it will be three hundred and fifty; which Tychonius wishes to be taken as four hundred, so that a part is understood for the whole—that is, from the whole hundred a portion of fifty—and he proves that Scripture is accustomed to use this rule of speech. But if—what can be said with somewhat more probability—we take Israel to have then entered Egypt

namely when Joseph began to be sold thither, we shall have to subtract yet another thirteen years, so as to take three hundred and thirty-seven years for four hundred. But since Scripture records that Kohath the son of Levi, the grandfather of Moses, entered Egypt with his grandfather Jacob, and says that he lived one hundred and thirty years, while his son Amram, the father of Moses, lived one hundred and thirty-seven, and says that Moses was eighty years old when he freed the people from Egypt—even if Kohath had then, in the year he died, begotten the father of Moses, and that Amram too had begotten Moses in the last year of his life—the years reckoned, one hundred and thirty and one hundred and thirty-seven and eighty, make three hundred and forty-seven years, not four hundred and thirty. But if anyone should say that Kohath the son of Levi was born in the last year of Joseph's life,

nearly seventy years can be added to that sum, because Joseph lived seventy-one years in Egypt after his father's coming. Wherefore even thus: the seventy years of Joseph's life from Jacob's entrance into Egypt until the birth of Kohath—if he be asserted to have been born then—and the one hundred and thirty years of Kohath himself, and the one hundred and thirty-seven of his son Amram the father of Moses, and the eighty of Moses himself, make four hundred and seventeen years, not four hundred and thirty. Accordingly, that reckoning which Eusebius followed in his chronological history is supported by transparent truth.

For he reckons the four hundred and thirty years from that promise by which God called Abraham to go forth out of his land into the land of Canaan; because the Apostle too, when he praised and commended the faith of Abraham in that promise by which he means Christ to be understood as prophesied—that is, the promise by which God promised Abraham that in him all the tribes of the earth should be blessed—says: 'Now this I say, that the covenant confirmed by God, the law which was made four hundred and thirty years after, does not annul it, so as to make the promises void.' From that promise, then, by which Abraham was called and believed God, the Apostle says the law was made four hundred and thirty years after; not from the time when Jacob entered Egypt.

Then this is sufficiently indicated by the very Scripture of Exodus too; for it did not say: 'the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in the land of Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years,' but it plainly said: 'which they sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, they and their fathers.' And by this it is manifest that the time also of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must be reckoned—from when Abraham began to sojourn in the land of Canaan, that is, from that promise in which the Apostle praises his faith, up to that time when Israel entered Egypt. For during all that time the fathers sojourned in the land of Canaan, and thereafter the seed of Israel in Egypt.

And thus the four hundred and thirty years were completed from the promise up to the exodus of Israel out of Egypt, when the law was given on Mount Sinai—which does not annul the covenant so as to make the promises void. In the seventy-fifth year of his life, then, Abraham, as Scripture says, went out into the land of Canaan and begot Isaac when he was a hundred years old. So there are twenty-five years from the promise until the birth of Isaac. To these are added all the years of Isaac's life, that is, one hundred and eighty; they make two hundred and five. Then Jacob was a hundred and twenty years old; for the twins, he himself and Esau, were born to their father at sixty. And ten years after, Jacob entered Egypt when he was a hundred and thirty years old, while Joseph was thirty-nine.

Accordingly there are two hundred and fifteen years from the promise up to Jacob's entrance into Egypt. But Joseph, from that thirty-ninth year of his age in which his father found him in Egypt, lived seventy-one years, because all the years of his age were one hundred and ten. When, therefore, seventy-one are added to two hundred and fifteen years, they make two hundred and eighty-six years. There remain one hundred and forty-four or five, in which the people of Israel is understood to have served in Egypt after Joseph's death. How greatly they could have been multiplied in these years—if human fecundity be considered, with the help of Him who willed them to be exceedingly multiplied—it is found to be no wonder that the people went out of Egypt with six hundred thousand men on foot, apart from all the rest of the array;

where there were also servants, and the female sex, and the age unfit for war. As for what God said to Abraham: 'Knowing you shall know that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own, and they shall reduce them to servitude and shall afflict them four hundred years,' it is not to be understood as though the people of God were in that harshest servitude for four hundred years; but because it is written: 'In Isaac shall your seed be called,' from the year of Isaac's birth until the year of the departure from Egypt are reckoned four hundred and five years.

Since, then, you have subtracted from the four hundred and thirty the twenty-five which are from the promise until the birth of Isaac, it is no wonder if Scripture willed to call the four hundred and five years a round sum of four hundred; for Scripture is accustomed so to name periods of time that whatever slightly exceeds or falls short of the sum of a more perfect number is not counted. So then, what it says—'they shall reduce them to servitude and shall afflict them'—is not to be referred to the four hundred years, as though they had held them in servitude for so many years; but the four hundred years are to be referred to what was said:

'your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own,' because whether in the land of Canaan or in Egypt that seed was a sojourner, before they took the land as an inheritance by God's promise—which came to pass after they were freed from Egypt. So that a hyperbaton is here to be understood, and the order of the words is: 'Knowing you shall know that your seed shall be a sojourner in a land not its own for four hundred years,' while that which is interposed is to be understood: 'and they shall reduce them to servitude and shall afflict them,' in such a way that this interposition does not pertain to the four hundred years. For in the last part of this sum of years, that is, after Joseph's death, it came to pass that the people of God endured harsh servitude in Egypt.

What does it mean, when He was giving precepts concerning the Passover: 'And it shall be to you a sign upon your hand'? Is it understood as 'upon your works,' that is, that you ought to prefer it to your works? For the Passover, on account of the slaying of the sheep, pertains to faith in Christ and to the blood by which we were redeemed. But this faith is to be set before works, so that it may be in some manner 'upon the hand' against those who gloried in the works of the law. Concerning which matter the Apostle speaks and treats much, who wishes faith to be set before works in such a way that good works depend upon it and are anticipated by it—not that it should seem to be repaid, as it were, by the merits of good works. For faith pertains to grace; but if of grace, then no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.

'But when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, because it was near. For God said: Lest perhaps the people repent, when they see war, and return to Egypt.' Here it is shown that all things ought to be done which can rightly be done by counsel, in order to avoid what is adverse, even when God is most manifestly the helper. 'And in the fifth generation the children of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt.' Does He mean 'generation' to be reckoned in hundreds of years, and therefore 'in the fifth generation' because after four hundred and thirty years? Or is this rather to be understood by the generations of men, from Jacob himself who entered Egypt up to Moses who went out with the people?

For Jacob is found first, Levi second, Kohath third, Amram fourth, Moses fifth. These the Latin translator calls 'generations' (progenies), which the Greeks call 'geneai,' which in the Gospel are called 'generationes' and are numbered only by successions of men, not by number of years. 'And Moses said: Be confident and stand, and see the salvation which is from the Lord, which He will work for you this day. For as you have seen the Egyptians this day, you shall not add to see them again forever.' How are these words to be understood, since the Israelites afterward did see the Egyptians? Or is it because those who then were seeing them did not see them any longer—because both those who were pursuing them died, and all these too, each on the day of his death?

For their descendants saw the descendants of those. Or is 'you shall not see them as this day' to be understood as 'not as this day pursuing you and as enemies and coming against you in so great a column,' so that there is no question at all even about the 'forever' which He here placed—because although both will see each other at the time of the resurrection, they will certainly not see them as this day? What does it mean that the Lord said to Moses: 'Why do you cry to me?'—since Scripture said nothing about Moses' words, nor recorded him as praying? Unless it is because He willed it to be understood that Moses did this by the silence of his voice, so that he cried out with his heart. 'And you, lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea.' This is that rod by which wonders were being wrought, which is now said to be Moses';

but then it was said to have been his brother's, when Moses himself worked through it. 'You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them up.' It is no wonder that 'earth' is put for 'water.' For that whole extreme or lowest part of the world is reckoned under the name of 'earth,' according to what is often said: 'God who made heaven and earth'; and in the distribution of that Psalm, having mentioned the heavenly things, it says: 'Praise the Lord from the earth,' and it goes on to include in the praise those things too which pertain even to the waters. 'You sent your Spirit and the sea covered them.' Behold, now for the fifth time the Spirit of God is mentioned, so that in this number we may take also what was said: 'This is the finger of God.' First, where it is written: 'The Spirit of God moved over the waters'; second, where it is said:

'My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh'; third, where Pharaoh says to Joseph: 'Since the Spirit of God is in you'; fourth, where the enchanters of the Egyptians say: 'This is the finger of God'; fifth, in this canticle: 'You sent your Spirit and the sea covered them.' But let us remember that the Spirit of God is mentioned not only in reference to benefits but also to vengeance. For what else did He say above too: 'And by the Spirit of your wrath the water was divided'? So then this Spirit of God was, against the Egyptians, the Spirit of His wrath, to whom the dividing of the waters was harmful, so that as they entered they might be overwhelmed by the returning waters; but to the children of Israel, to whom it was profitable that the water was divided, that Spirit was not the Spirit of God's wrath.

Whence it is signified that, on account of diverse operations and effects, the Spirit of God is differently named, though He is one and the same—at least He who is also received as the Holy Spirit in the unity of the Trinity. Accordingly, I do not think that any other than the same One is signified where the Apostle says: 'For you have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry: Abba, Father'; because by that same Spirit of God—that is, by the finger of God, by which the law was written on tablets of stone—fear was struck into those who did not yet understand grace, so that by the law they might be convicted of their own weakness and sins, and the law might become for them a tutor by whom they might be led to the grace which is in the faith of Jesus Christ.

But concerning this Spirit of adoption and of grace, that is, concerning this work of the Spirit of God by which grace and regeneration unto eternal life is imparted, it is said: 'But the Spirit gives life,' whereas above it was said: 'The letter kills'—that is, the written law only commanding, without the help of grace. 'And they came to Marah, and could not drink of Marah; for it was bitter.' If the name of that place was called 'bitterness' for this reason, that they could not drink water there because it was bitter—for 'Marah' is interpreted 'bitterness'—how did they come 'to Marah,' unless because Scripture called by that name the place into which they came, by which it was already being called when these things were being written? For these things were certainly written later than they occurred.

'And the Lord showed him a tree, and he cast it into the water, and the water was made sweet.' Was there a kind of tree having this power, or could God, who was doing such great wonders, do this by any tree whatever? Yet this seems to be signified by what was said, 'He showed him,' as though there already was such a tree by which this could be done—unless perhaps it was a place where no trees at all were to be found, so that this very thing was part of the divine help, that the Lord showed him a tree where there was none, and by the tree made the waters sweet, prefiguring the glory and grace of the cross. But even in such a nature of the tree, who is to be praised except the Creator and Revealer? 'And the Lord said to Moses: Behold, I will rain upon you bread from heaven;

and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion for a day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.' This testing is a proving, not a seduction unto sin; nor is it a proving so that God may come to know, but so that He may show men to themselves, whereby they may become more humble in asking for help and in acknowledging the grace of God. Moses and Aaron say to the people, among other things: 'Because the Lord has heard your murmuring, which you murmur against us. But what are we? For your murmuring is not against us, but against God.' They did not wish to be reckoned as being of as great worth as God—for they said: 'What are we?'—so that those men might know they had murmured against Him who had sent these, and who was working through these.

Nor is that saying of the same kind, where Peter says to Ananias: 'Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to men, but to God.' For he did not say: 'Have you dared to lie to me? You have not lied to me, but to God'—which, had he said it, would have been similar. Nor did he say thus: 'Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to the Holy Spirit, but to God'—for speaking so, he would deny that the Holy Spirit is God. But now, when he had said: 'Have you dared to lie to the Holy Spirit?'—while that man thought he had lied to men—he showed the Holy Spirit Himself to be God by adding: 'You have not lied to men, but to God.' God commands the people through Moses: 'At evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.'

Behold, 'bread' is not named for every kind of food. For under that name flesh too would be included, since it also is food; nor yet does He now call 'bread' only those things which are made from grain—for those we are properly accustomed to call 'bread'—but He calls the manna by the name of 'bread.' Nor is it without significance that He says He will give flesh at evening and bread in the morning. For something similar was signified in Elijah too, when the raven brought him food. Or perhaps by flesh at evening and bread in the morning is signified He who was delivered up for our offenses and rose again for our justification? For at evening, dead from weakness, He was buried, but in the morning He appeared to the disciples, who had risen in power.

'And Moses said to Aaron: Take one golden vessel and put into it a full gomor of manna, and you shall lay it up before God, to be kept for your generations, as the Lord commanded.' It can be asked where Aaron would place it 'before God,' when there was as yet no image, nor had the ark of the covenant yet been established. Or did He perhaps therefore speak of the future, 'you shall lay it up,' so that it might be understood that it could then be laid up before God when the ark was to be? Or rather is 'before God' said of what is done by the very devotion of offering, in whatever place it be placed? For where is God not? But that which He adds: 'And Aaron laid it up before the testimony to be kept,' rather asserts the former sense.

For in this manner Scripture said by prolepsis what was done afterward, when the tabernacle of testimony began to exist. 'And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came into the land that is inhabited; they ate manna until they came into the region of Phoenicia.' Scripture signified by prolepsis—that is, by recording in this place what was done even afterward—that the children of Israel ate nothing in the wilderness except manna. For this is what it means: 'until the land that is inhabited,' that is, which is no longer wilderness—not because as soon as they came to habitable land they ceased to feed on manna, but because not before. For the manna is signified to have ceased once the Jordan was crossed, where they ate the bread of the land.

When, therefore, they entered the habitable land before they crossed the Jordan, they could feed either on manna alone or on both foods; for this can be understood, since the manna is not said to have ceased except once the Jordan was crossed. But why in that scarcity of the wilderness they also desired flesh, when they had gone out of Egypt with their own very numerous cattle, is a great question. Unless perhaps it be said that, since throughout the wilderness there were not such great pastures, and from this the fecundity of the cattle seemed likely to be less, they spared the cattle, lest, all being consumed, even the things necessary for the sacrifices should be lacking—or whatever else can be said whereby this question may be resolved.

Yet it is more fittingly believed that they did not desire the flesh which they could have from the cattle, but that which was lacking—namely, from the waters. For those very things they did not find in that wilderness; whence to them also the 'ortygometra' was given, that is, birds which many have translated into Latin as 'quails,' though the 'ortygometra' is another kind of bird, albeit not altogether unlike quails. For God knew what they desired, and with what kind of flesh He would satisfy their desire. But since Scripture had said they craved flesh, and had not expressed what kind of flesh, therefore the question arose. 'They ate manna until they came into the region of Phoenicia.' It had already said: 'until they came to the land that is inhabited';

but because it had not expressed with precision which land it meant, by the repetition it seems to have expressed a certain precision by saying 'into the region of Phoenicia.' But it must then be believed that that land was so called; for now it is not called by this name. For there is another region, which is called Phoenicia, the region of Tyre and Sidon, through which they are not read to have passed. Although Scripture could perhaps have called it the land of Phoenicia where palm trees had already begun to be after the desolation of the wilderness, since 'palm' in Greek is so called ('phoinix'). For at the beginning of their departure they found a place where there had been seventy palm trees and twelve springs; but afterward the length of the wilderness received them, where there was no such thing, until they came to the places that were cultivated.