Thus far, as I sang, the waters spread open upon the lands; now the order of the song opens the earth amid the waves. There the flood before sought out those it would destroy; now to the flood, kindled with full fury, the thousands of a people doomed to perish will run of their own accord. If my utterance does not attain eloquence worthy of the proclamation of so great a deed, yet the will suffices in divine praise, and the vow is shown by the servant's offering. But if anyone cannot render thanks in words, he has no small virtue even in believing the deeds—the signs which the elect of old went forth to work.
Among these, that one stands out far more excellent, which, wrought in the Red Sea, the most celebrated series of the Scriptures reports; in whose sacred weight there was the greater pledge of deeper meanings, and the fairer form of the salvation prefigured surpasses the deed, fair in the telling—that salvation which, great enough in its histories and greater in its figures, brought forth a life conceived from the pregnant covering. The people, long oppressed, endured hard labors in a foreign land, while, subjected, it served the Pelusian nation; whom the measure of daily toil—with the weight of thick clay and the tale of bricks—vexed and afflicted by the fraud of the savage tyrant. He, gnashing that the crowd he hated grew, grieved that his slaves increased. For he had commanded that, whatever males the light had seen, every skilled midwife should straightway kill, and that cunning should suppress the male sex at its birth.
But yet the mothers, turning away, fled such deeds, and refuse to destroy the forbidden offspring, since God persisted to spread abroad the holy people; and the more the blind mind draws on its cruel wishes, the more increase the beginnings of the tender nation. Meanwhile the Father had seen from his heavenly seat, and had looked with a serene face upon the afflicted band. Now the sacred bush had given harmless flames from its kindling, and, green, had remained amid the ruddy heat; by which sign the devoted ardor might know, in holy hearts, that the thorns of our mind grow hot and shine with a pious fire that would not consume. Straightway the chosen prophets bore the commands, when Moses first sets forth such words to the king:
'The people wearied by the long weight of servitude, shoulders oppressed by baskets, and worn necks, and the palms which constant work has made grow hard—now the time of release is at hand: let go those who beseech, that at last they may pay their vows to the heavenly Lord and fulfill the rites given by ancestral ordinance.' He, raging, says: 'What is the cause of so great a tumult, or what new God demands the people with an omen sent? Forsooth these idle cares touch heavenly things—that a Lord should now wish to take from their masters their ancient slaves, and send commands to swollen rebels. Who might this God be, whom I must needs obey? Or what is dreadful to a king lofty upon his scepters? But too much does idleness lead your minds astray;
and unless the rest granted to you had cherished you in your idleness, no time would be worn away in superfluous words. If a heavier burden shall chastise and restrain these idle fancies, the unlawful daring will cease to attempt the forbidden. But you who, with your standard-bearing leadership, instruct such vows, and subvert the people with vain mouth, shun my sight, and beware my countenance. For I swear by the Pharian day, and by your courses, most mighty Nile, and by Anubis of the divine voice, when he barks rabid, that it shall not go unpunished if I bring these words again to my tribunal.' The law-giving hero happened to bear a rod in his hand; leaning on this staff while his right hand guided his step, he casts it, flung down close by, with a strong blow. Then—wondrous to tell—the moved wood began to creep, not as it puts forth insensible branches on a shoot,
moving only those fruits which it causes to grow; but, creeping with a bend and with the use of a changed body, bearing sense and soul, the rod began to run, and, transformed, soon becomes a serpent. Terrified, he stood fixed, and the black tyrant then grew pale forever in his face. But lest the attendant standing by, with wavering countenance, should see him confounded, succumbing to such a sign, he dissembles, refusing to believe the deed done by supreme command, and, unwilling that it be thought divine, willing it to be reckoned the tricks of the eyes, he then summons whatever magicians, or those learned in spells, attempting with dire deceits the unlawful art of Egypt, to bring their far-fetched staves, compelling that the minister perform the marvels shown with a funereal muttering.
Then at command they rush together from every side, and each man arms his own rods, steeped in a wicked drug; the cast rods yield hollow appearances, and serpents merely seeming terrify the deluded eyes with their deceiving form. Yet not for long did the magicians swell with pride; all that they thought they had wrought is devoured, for the horned serpent, still biting, first swallowed in its jaws the dragons feigned by art. After Moses brought the display of his power to a close and, grasping the tail of the victor, lifted it from the earth, the serpent withdraws back into the wood, its face recedes, and the wandering coils grew rigid as the body hardened. Why say more? It becomes the rod as before, whereby the priest thereafter showed very many signs in the time that followed. But the guilty fury of Pharaoh, gnashing dreadfully...
Beginning to resist the divine right hand in all things, and though recognizing the truth, yet unwilling himself to confess it, he at once ordered the prophets, driven out, to depart. They with weeping beat upon the divine ears, that the raging of the wicked nation might at last be curbed — a nation which the heavenly warnings made only the more cruelly savage, even threatening arms against the heavenly powers themselves. Then the Father, receiving the groans and tears of those who prayed, comforts the bitter suppliants with such gentle exhortation: 'Do not so submit your hearts to empty fear, my people, whom I chose, taken from the whole body of the world, and consecrated to myself alone by a special portion. Even now you shall see with how great aid I will attend your beginnings, and pursue your savage enemies.'
'I will lead forth my exalted right hand through all portents; nor will the Egyptian king be willing to yield at a few signs, so that the miracles may the more overcome his hardened mind at greater length. After these things he will even compel you, released, to depart, and will drive you from the soil: what he now denies, he will thrust upon you unbidden. You shall go, after brave battles, to great dwellings, whither the exceedingly fertile land, waiting with its rich breast, calls you, and you shall found famous cities among the conquered nations. Only trust in the promised gifts, and let glad valor bear the labors which mighty deeds shall demand, and keep itself for prosperity.' When these things were heard, a better hope receives them. They lift up their spirits, stretch their palms to the stars, conceive faith in the promises, and render thanks.
The next dawn first had sent forth its uncertain risings, and, night driven away, the pressing daybreak was bringing on the succeeding day: then blood stained the rivers, and suddenly the fields grew wet with gore. But this portent befell not the smallest waters alone: the very king of rivers reddens, nor does the Nile carry with its former light the brightness it had taken from its source. Nay rather, as if lest the ancient water should touch the mud turned aside, the blood striving to flow into a foreign channel was fleshly, yet not of flesh, nor poured from a body, nor from such slaughter as comes many at once, whereby it could make up the loss of waters from gore of its own wounding. Their nostrils stopped, oppressed and their swimming overcome, the fish, now strangers in the thickened flood, perished together, and by their death increased the corruption.
And perhaps I would think that by this sign of blood a ruin of coming disaster and death had already gone before, were not this very thing a punishment. For indeed all the expanse of Egypt, even so far as broad Canopus lies open, would soon have perished thirsting amid abundant waters, had not the Almighty scattered a swift remedy over the fields and called back the shining rivers to the valleys. Then indeed, when the plague, withdrawn, brought back rest, the tyrant, his judgment deferred, is again lifted up in pride, and despising in his mind the scourge he had barely escaped, persists in subjecting the innocent nation to the lash. But why should my pen accustom itself to go through all the perfidy of the proud one, numbering the perjuries of the smitten realm? Yet nonetheless the lies wring out a fresh portent: and the water, scarcely yet cleansed of the recent gore, covered the cities with the foul broods of croaking frogs.
The store-rooms are filled, the strewn beds, the inner chambers, the tables; the royal purple endures countless leapings, and, pressed upon by men, Pharaoh gnashes his teeth to yield to frogs. Soon, when their heaps are subdued and gathered by fire and thunder, a sounding cloud of flies goes forth into the breezes, corrupting the tainted air with its breath. There come those they call gnats, and what flights of them! — tiny bodies that commit themselves, hanging, to the light winds, and perform the office of wings with their whirring pinions. They pour themselves out alike, and fill the troubled walls. And though they fix their wounds with plunged-in beaks, the horror stirs more than the pain; but a driving wind takes even that away, the loosened annoyance ceases for a little, the fear ceasing at once, nor is the wrath felt longer than the sting stings.
But when that plague was removed, others follow more grievously: all the cattle is consumed, and one night carried off all the herds; nor do the ruinous portents weary only the guilty beasts: the plague turns to flesh, bringing the pains that boils rouse. Swelling wounds settle deep in the limbs, and a burning, sacred fire lay upon the stricken members. Here too the sickness is thought to happen by chance: but it is the disease of the mind that presses on the crises of the body. That day passes; then at last, on the following light, the sky is shaken with thunder, and the gathered clouds flash with terrible splendor; the lightning strikes all things, driving thunderbolts; the elements in the troubled air threaten the earth with all deaths at one time. Into the fires is set hail huge in body, coming not as the rainy cloud is wont to come to the lands:
but it falls wheresoever, falling so as to crush, and to make ruin even by weight alone; so the hail's cold is joined to the burning flames in the air, and nature, keeping both for slaughter, assigns each its part. This rain of hail first gives havoc with scattered deaths; then the locust-grub rises to consume the remaining crop, and the locust, bruising the ground with its jointed leg. But hardened pride, taught by these evils and now inured by frequent peril, reckoned it a trifling thing. There follows swiftly a heavier plague to avenge the wrath. On the new morning the rising sun had scattered the blind shadows, and gladly it was shining with the face of a serene radiance, when a black cloud, rising, spreads itself across the midst of heaven, and shuts up the new-born day, its light driven off.
The dense night gathers into a mass, the buried air perishes, and groping hands felt the thick darkness, and the breath, sick and beaten back, is vexed; and if anyone should rouse the sleeping fires by blowing, or wish to call up flames, the lights are smothered and killed, nor do their motions quiver, restrained by the weight of darkness: in whatever place the dark horror found each man, it held him fast; he saw no one, nor was he seen by any. You would believe that the thousands of living men, all squalid alike, had entered the infernal houses, or that perhaps, the barrier of the earth being torn away, the fatherland of the filthy abyss had migrated up to those above, and, the light put to flight, had subjected the world to its own laws. This darkness lost three days within one night; the land, fitly paying for its perjuries, bore these losses;
for the rest of the world the shining sky still held in light, and elsewhere the seasons marked off their accustomed courses. Moses meanwhile continues his tears, fasts, and vows, and, frequent and ever-wakeful, presses on with prayers, supported by the solace of his elder brother. The Creator instructs them both at the same time in holy things, and forms them by what mystic victim they should unfold the solemn rite. You see how Egypt, crushed and sweating out its guilt with much slaughter, groans, sufficiently smitten on every side, yet persisting unmoved with rebellious neck? Nor do these plagues, not long to be endured, but go before its ruin. Whatever swells with pride is sick, nor is there any sound cause in the proud one; the swollen mind shows death conjoined to it. One grief still remains to avenge all, and after the nine, the tenth shall strike down the deserving with slaughter.
Now learn the perpetual customs of the sacred rites, and hold them by proper worship in a law that shall abide. Of all the months which the circle of the year encompasses, let this one be the head and chief — which the Gentiles call by the name of war, but do you only call it the first: and when it has added twice-seven nights, then in the late evening you shall give the beginnings to the sacred rites. Take a gentle lamb of the full time, one that lacks blemish and gives a pure fleece upon its body. This animal you shall slay at the festival; the blood of its bright body shall mark both doorposts. This shall give the sign of the care of the salvation to be kept.
When the striker shall carry out the silent slaughter without a wound, he will see the threshold wet with sacred gore; wishing only to pass over such houses, the mark of the blood guards your dwellings from the scattered deaths. So, O Christ, may your sign, set upon our foreheads, save us above all things: so, at last, may the holy blood — of the lamb long since foreshown, which is poured out — be believed, when poured upon the doorposts, to have hallowed the houses of your own amid the burning funerals of a falling world, and by its shedding to distinguish your own from every destruction. While the sword runs through those not marked out from death, do you recognize your own figure in the people to be saved.
That in whatever place the holy lamb shall be slain, and the victim shall offer its holy body as food, duly hallowed, each one may celebrate the promises of the life to come, the wicked leaven torn out from the double heart, and that pure unleavened bread may nourish the shining minds. The ruler had finished commanding to the men the laws and covenants of the Paschal feast, which at once they all together took up; they gladly perform the banquets, and the solemn meal is arranged with a new rite, which, once established, may pass on to late descendants. It was night, and all things were taking their midnight rest, and the shadow had now just divided the balanced hours: behold, the angel comes with silent motion through the dreadful stillness, sent to rage with drawn sword:
Nor is the sentence of the sudden death dealt out confusedly, but every firstborn falls by lot, and it is seen from afar whom the ordained order of the appointed death seeks in the darkness: the firstborn perish, and those alone are chosen for death whom the first dawn brought forth to the light. Servants perish along with masters, and the sons of the mighty fall mingled with the common folk: one dies as base as he whom the purple of a lofty couch held as he died. These lie on the bare earth, that one is veiled in silk; on unequal beds the bodies are laid low in death. Cruel death fears no one, takes account of none of those honors by which men are distinguished only among the living. It is moved by no pity at the poor man's weeping, nor is it corrupted by any gold to spare the rich. The healthy departs before the sick, the younger before the aged: against death alone none may contend.
Yet this alone is the difference whereby the dead differ among themselves: that the righteous live by their merits, who fill out their allotted times. Although death may take these away, it can never take them utterly; and though man, created by the right of death's power out of a clay frame, begotten of mortal seed, and returned to earth, dies, yet in the deeds of the just nothing is thought lost to death for any of them. Therefore, when the confused hall suddenly sees its offspring struck down, weeping mothers run to the funerals, beat their breasts with fists, tear their hair with their nails, and hasten to rend their dark cheeks. Nor did they long bewail their masters; soon each one's own grief seizes all, one cry sounds in the air, not from one weeping but many, no house free from death, confounding the uproar with voice; then with much torchlight the funeral of the peoples is tended in every part of the city.
A just judgment compels the deserving to mourn. And while each keeps his laments for his own grief, the mournings delay the funeral rites, and the unburied crowd lay for a while, its lot of a tomb deferred; and unless at last one places them, empty of life and lacking honor, either on the bare earth or burns them with fire, scarcely could a gathered band find an urn to enclose so many. Then a sad company stands about the king with troubled murmuring, uttering complaints with lowly voice: 'Alas! all too hostile to our affairs is the power of the Hebrew people, for whom the avenging right hand so often makes every evil do battle, for whom at last the whole world fights, and to whose angry heaven prosperity succeeds. Surely it is some secret of God, and a greater power, that rages against these scepters, and avenges that very nation by the ruin of our city;
the perishing elements save their conquerors alone, and by falling redeem them. Behold, Egypt lies low, no longer to be repaired. And would that the divine hand still bore its punishments and loss upon the living through the fields, and had not emptied deceived Canopus with sudden slaughter in so great a mourning: at last spare the land, and drive out the causes of ruin, while the havoc is lighter; while anyone is still held in the light; while there remains one to press their backs, to thrust them from the border — and lest, if perchance they should wish in their heart to linger, Egypt should fail to drive out the calamity by casting out the guest. Let our grief at the funeral of our sons move you; let perhaps your own grief move you; or let a few pledges survive, which, being saved, may wipe away such great sorrows, and repair the losses of the mutilated nation.' At these words the people shed tears;
the proud prince himself is broken into weeping, and confesses himself vanquished. But while these things are being discussed in the troubled hall, the Hebrews, by the zeal of their prophets and by heavenly warnings, fashion all the best things for the sacred rites, and seek them for the feasts, and the very many vessels which the solemn worship demands. Ornaments too, and garments, necklaces, gems, they ask for as if to be returned: nor is the host slow to lend, and, unknowing, the rival hand enriches the trembling people. What mouths worthy of your praises may now be opened, O highest Father, who thus use so savage an enemy for good? The adversary consents, bestows gifts unwilling, which they, sent away, may carry off with them; nor is it enough to release the oppressed only — the departing are enriched with wealth, and restored liberty takes up new treasures.
Amid the raging furies in the hostile abode, the fleeing people plunders its master, and deceives him though he sees, empties him though present, so that you would think them not so much driven out to depart as migrating gladly; thus the wealth of greedy Pharaoh is carried off — whom you might then believe, the wages being paid, to have paid off the long labor of their servitude. Sometimes even things contrary to right prove to profit, and the things which an evil man willed for ill recur changed to good, God turning them to the right hand; and the force of hatred, destroying only the guilty, leads them into the wounds it plotted, and compels the one who set them to fall into the snares prepared for his brother. Meanwhile the ministers, going out from the trembling king, urge them to hasten their flight, and compel them though willing, hurry them on eagerly, press upon those already hastening, and think to drive out their ruins along with the expelled nation.
The sojourner had now nearly completed a hundred lustra in your realms, O Egypt, from the time long ago when the ancient patriarch Jacob had led thither his household with twice-six offspring, and his dear grandchildren, through whom, as a fruitful father, the thousands increased. At last the people goes forth, and soon, in joined column, leaves the dreadful land bereft of light and mourning. For the nearing day had not yet brought forth its risings: this night, festal to God, will be yearly for those who return to the sacred rites, this night solemn to the nation which is freed from the enemy. In the first rank the law-giving leader shone conspicuous, going before the columns with his brother joined to him. After whom the warlike cohorts arrange their arms, and lead strong squadrons in ordered strength.
They bear arms on their shoulders, swords hang at each man's left side, the helmet gleams upon the head, and the iron light vies with the whitening moon. Others lean on javelins, and whirl shields on their left arms, and rehearse battles with rapid wheeling. A part rejoices also in quivers, and fits the swift arrows for shooting, ready to meet the enemy; or, if perchance they should pursue the fleeing backs of men, the winged darts stand ready to overtake the very winds. The fearful multitude marches through the rearmost columns, not unequal in number to the stars when the sky is painted with them, or to the moved sea seething with curling waves, or to however many sands the wave rolls up on the shore, or to however many drops the moist clouds drip. The Egyptian satraps marvel, nor can they believe that they let so many go:
it pleases them to have cast out so many enemies. But you, Egypt, shall not be saved by this battle-line of hard iron. Though you crowd yourself with countless bands of foot-soldiers, one Author shall fight for all the thousands. But the people, moderating its step on the slow path, pursued the journey it had taken up, going before with the leaders who had set out only so far as slow old age, or infancy crawling with untried years, can bear, lest the labor should grieve, by its going, the frail age and sex before the mature. Thus the heavenly One dispenses all things, and stands by the exulting people. Therefore, when the thousands had settled in the marked-out camp, and the armed foot-soldiers had walled about the unarmed multitude, then at early evening a flame, like to a standing column, resting upon them, shone forth in the pure air:
yet not as when a dread fire flashes in the familiar sky, when the portents of heaven, revealed to the lands, threaten a year sad with diseases, or with wars and disasters; but shining with rays, and bright with a joyful light, it showed a shining fire to the wondering camp. The shadows flee away, and the neighboring stars give place. The men were astounded at first, it terrified all, and the novelty struck fear; then, by use of the light, little by little the heavenly radiance commends itself to their love. Now the greater part of the night had spent the nocturnal hours, and the rolling day was near at hand by its approaching lot; before the eyes of all, the column was seen to move through the sky, and, the people watching, took the way. At once the holy fathers perceived that it must be followed, and that it was the leader of leaders;
glad with so great a guide, they soon broke off delay, and strive to leave the camp. Then, as each tribe, first allotted the task, takes the road in order, the rest of the throng follows. Amid these things the returning light opens up bright heaven, and the flaming column grows pale when the sun is seen. The whole fire that had blazed is turned into a cloud, but persists in the appearance of a form stretched above the sky. The third hour had wiped away the nocturnal moistures, and the climbing sun had overcome the morning shadows: behold, a thing new to tell — the cold cloud, kept in the serene sky, was bidden to set itself against the burning ray, and, most thin, prepares a dense covering.
So, with the heat cast round about, the crowd, in the region where the eastern land burns, feels not its native heat, so that you would believe the evening besprinkles them with gentle breeze, or that soothing winds pour out moist coolness. Yet this cloud was not given a form suffused with foul heat, nor so bristling with a thickened face as when the clouds put forth strong storms to terrify the mighty; but such as when the moist rainbow has beheld the sun — so great was the outstretched appearance of the beautiful column. By night it was fire, and, kindled, bore light; when the sun scorched, it gave the moisture of chill dew. Leading these alternating lots with the season, nature changed its turns; the discordant substance rendered a concordant use by its own gifts. If it stayed, the men stayed; if it moved, they followed. Even if it seemed to hang there for many days,
the columns beneath it would delay, their rampart fixed. This divine care continued frequent for forty years, while you, O Judaea, traverse the vast recesses of the desert, the way strengthening the bindings of the feet, while in so long a time the garments, unworn, kept their substance, and the old cloaks are made to endure with ever-new softness. So they would be long-lived, because there was no destructive wear. While the shining manna bore sacred food to the people, and earthly men saw the fruit of heaven; through which manna a sublime figure foretold beforehand the pure body to be eaten, born from a womb without seed; whereby salvation, to be fed, might take food from the heavenly seat, God gliding down to the holy altars. By this sign the high priest, the rock being struck, brought forth watering draughts for the thirsting peoples.
For you see that Christ is the steadfast rock that stands firm, who, being struck, gave forth abundant waters, and offered drink to his own from the sacred wound. Meanwhile the Hebrews, glad, went, the column leading, by foot through the lands and by sight through the sky. Behold, again wrath settled in the Egyptian minds, and the people, fierce beyond measure, arms with these words its last furies, now with death near at last: 'O error too much mocking foolish minds, and sleights wrought in cloudy fraud enough! Is it not shameful that a servile nation should thus be snatched away with impunity, without any contest, that so great a horde of sojourners, with no one hindering, departing has deserted the emptied lands? The fields lie empty, the towns cease from their begun walls. The accustomed work does not rise up, nor does the farmer in the fields ply the strong hoes with worn edge.'
'The turbulent tax-gatherer is idle, and with no bustle do the levies resume the accustomed taxes. Nay rather, let the army rush in with arms taken up, and bring back the unwarlike band and the fugitive foster-children. And if servile daring has so kindled them that they wish to fight with all their strength, soon let the whole band perish, confused with the common people: let the mothers, mingled amid the raging arms, perish with confounded breast, and let our darts pierce the children joined to their breasts. Let each one, seeing his offspring fall before his face, wish, his throat offered, to hasten his own death. Let the last lot make the bereaved people drink our sorrows: so, living, let it lose all things, then perish; let them, lying beneath the dense slaughter of the field, commit their unburied corpses to the sad sky.'
'Then, when the sword has sated all its furies, let the victorious right hand recall the fleeing treasures.' With such blasts they sharpened their roused wraths, while God derided them — He who alone despises every attempt that plots vain things with obstinate fear, and scatters the counsel of the leaders, their action made void. Therefore they demand war, the fervid youth snatches up arms, foaming horses are led, and the steeds, mighty in trappings, eagerly bear shining bridles. The warlike procession gleams; the axles set beneath the chariots draw them with gilded pole; then the rest of the youth is clad in steel, or girt about with tawny bronze. These rejoice under the vast covering of breastplates, which the clinging, close ring weaves for itself, and the chained plates clatter over the bodies.
But for others, the scales meeting together with thin iron, where each, mounting jointly through the overlapping edges, is interlinked, the compacted lattice of sewn metal had made bristling garments by a different art. And yet, amid all the flashing weapons of the eager men, the most terrible thing was their aspect: for who could gaze upon the raging faces, which one could scarcely behold even glad? The faces enclosed in helmets, and the iron garment had girded the angry gloom with the light of arms. The gathered host advances; the king himself drives the snorting horses with his chariot; yet, hedged about on every side with weapons, he lay concealed, the spear-shafts making a dense forest. The earth is shaken, beaten by wheels and by weight; the packed youth narrowed the broad ground, and shut up the roads; whatever of valor Egypt could have, all of it approaching death leads on.
Meanwhile the Hebrew people had pitched its camp beside the reddening deep, where Migdol stands near the sea, believing with untroubled minds that the enemies were left behind. While they settle, and prepare to rest with rampart fixed, they see dusty clouds rising into the sky. At first uncertain, soon the savage columns appear; yet the neighboring evening, under the setting sun, does not permit the hostile parties to join battle. The tyrant, having entrenched, deferred the war until daylight — and perhaps his burning wrath would not yet have been restrained, nor could his fury have kept the truces of the night, and he might have wished to anticipate the dawn with standards set in motion, had not the flaming column, chancing to halt behind them, by its interposition in the midst divided the two nations. Yet the king himself, contemplating the wondrous light, so fears the fire, because, hot in passion, he burns with rage.
And it profited nothing to die by degrees: they go toward the one destruction which shall shut up all, the sea spreading open before them. The people, shut up in the place, trembles, and, terrified, awaits the end with the coming day, having contrived no weapons nor any turns of war, but with raised voice beseeching the prophets: 'O thrice and four times blessed are they whom Egypt bore off by death, for whom, even in the broad earth, she prepared an urn by the last lot for the dead! Worthy are they who cannot feel such great sorrows, nor see the slaughter of their offspring, nor their captured pledges. We are given as food to the birds, nor shall our bodies be laid, stored in the seat of a tomb, but in the vast desert.' Such words the men utter; all the multitude answered with mournings, and the throng rages about in kindled uproar. Then the holy leaders began to recount the promises, and to console the fear, and to wipe away the weepings with their words.
'We beseech you, lay aside from your mind these thankless fears; having experienced much, do not think that the things which the heavenly gifts promise by such great signs are to be despaired of. Can it ever slip from your faithless hearts, that Egypt, smitten with so many evils, and the ground which, sinking beneath the scourges, felt them — that you and all yours have lived safe amid the enemy in his afflicted realm? What need be said of things past? Surely you see how the guardianship of the mediating column takes care that we may have nothing to fear from a hostile fraud. Nay rather, lift up your minds, upraised with firm hope. For the last day is fixed for the nation tomorrow, which now, boasting of war, trusts in the arms it has taken up; the battle shall not so go, nor shall you meet weapons with weapons opposed, nor shall the triumph come to you by your own sweat this time;
it shall be fought by the wrath of heaven, whereby the battles shall be waged for you at God's peaceful nod.' Intent on such things, the prophets lifted up the downcast hearts of the men, calming their fear with holy voice. But a strong wind with burning blast scorched the deep, consuming the abyss all night long, while the Father, against nature, hurls thunderbolts at the waves, and the blast burns, and the wave seethes in the struck flood. Now the dreadful battle-line of dawn had scarcely reached the morning time, and the shining dawn was scattering the first blushes over the world, when at once all the Egyptians burst forth from their grim camp, and the roused youth roars on every side. But after the din came to the ears of the fearful people, and the terror of the blaring trumpet struck their breasts, they seize and take up the way, where the nearest shores of the sea, marked with red water, beckon them.
When the people came to the highest edges of the sea, at once the reverence of the water yielded, led by God, and opened up a way for those to whom the enemy had shut off the land. The engine which the scene of the hanging water had built had suspended the bridled waters in the lofty air. The chosen nation of God, fleeing and outstripping its pursuers, advances through the midst, fixing its footprints on the earth in the region of the sea; the rocks of the deep are trodden, and the running track grinds the bare ooze. The scorching sun inserts its gaze into the parted waves, and touched the never-seen earth with a new light; and the longer ray strove to descend so great a space, and scarcely brought its wearied radiance to the depths. The Egyptian tyrant at first believed that the Hebrews were shut out, and, repulsed by the flood and turned to flight, were giving their backs.
He bids the columns hasten with such a word: 'Behold, the fugitive nation, shirking the impending war, again deserts the field, and, trusting in the help of its feet, retreats; do you only press them with arms, and press upon them, now shut in; the sea will do the rest.' Scarcely had he spoken these things when they leap forward, and rush in their course to reach the shore. When they came, they see the basins of the drying deep offer an unaccustomed way, and, the recess laid open, they see, as it were, the trembling waves fled before the pious Hebrews treading them; they see these too descend safe by the dry path, secure of the sea and of themselves, fearing not arms, nor the very sea that suffers restraint for the harm of the wicked. The column halted for a little, with restrained motions, and the drawn bridles held the horses in check.
And someone, to whose heart a changed spark was then giving even a slight warmth, perchance spoke thus: 'What God twists the world from its ancient hinge with a new law, and changes its turns, and troubles what is established? For if nature is preserved in created things, what is the cause of this portent-bearing way? What, in short, remains — if the sea is crossed on foot — but that the fields be furrowed with ships, and the heaven run down from its pole, that the infernal regions rise up to those above, that the burning zone of the sky grow cold, that Scorpio set fire to the wind-chilled Bear? Unless the trusted order of things has been overturned by these signs, let no one, with me as guide, descend into the savage sea; let the path that leads the enemy be suspect to me. For if the deity willed equal wars, he would have shut in the fugitive column with a barrier.'
'Now let them depart, and let their own portents alone follow the wanderers. Nor do I fully grasp that the now-dry sea, which the deep encircles on high, does not hide its perils in the bared bottom.' A burning uproar with sedition receives these words, and the hidden sentence of impending death presses upon them. The renowned people had crossed the watery valley on foot, and, leaving the arched rollings of the emptied gulf, was after the abyss climbing up to the upper lands by the shore. The leader of the black column is carried forward, and wrath comes upon Pharaoh, called by his own name Cenchres. They alike seize the hollows of the opened sea, and invade the way. What would mad fury not dare? On this side a part of the cavalry drives the column, on that side another bids the swift four-horse chariots go with quickened goads over the fields of the seabed.
When the gnashing cavalry came into the midst of the sea, and the men's burning wrath complains of the delays of so wide a gulf, the other side trembles in the narrowed world. Then, through the lofty column with its shining cloud, a voice sent from heaven thunders, and the interpreter of the heavenly word, addressing holy Moses by name, comes and says: 'The time has come in which my commands are to be proved; now there shall be an end for Egypt, now the sentence, storming, shall punish with a final calamity the mind chastised by so many turns; let the sword succeed the scourges. Do you only now strike the parted wave with your rod, and let the waters, brought back, resume their own countenances.' He, his knee fixed at the edges of the laid-open margin, and at the shore from which the wave is absent, being bidden, soon strikes, entrusting the mysteries to the notable wood.
Hence a sudden crash begins to resound, the rushing water thunders on every side around, and the wave first closes there, where the last fate was showing the way to the Egyptian king. After the way is shut, and the flood repels the one going forward, he now repents of the gulf he has entered, and in flight attempts a late return: the trembling cohorts give their backs, and cast away their arms; the sea presses on the fugitives, and, following, meets them from in front; the wall of the down-rushing water, cast round about on every side, collapses with loosened reins. That king, ever fierce, now tamed under death itself, says: 'This victory does not yield to human wars; we are overcome, and are overthrown by heaven as our enemy. Flee, each who can, and, being vanquished, escape, O attendant, nor now hurl weapons against God with vain attempts.'
O if only human pride would consent to change hearts pricked with compunction before death! What use, in the end, is it to have set an end to evils only when the boundary presses hard, when the span of this present life is cut off by its age? 'Confess,' says Scripture, 'while whole and strong'; for if anyone comes to lay aside sin only when he can no longer sin, he is let go by his very excess. And so the host, soon to be drowned, hangs suspended, lifted upon the towering waves: raised upon a mountain of waters, it is pressed down by the weight of its weapons, and the dying bodies carry back to the clinging bottom the iron with which they were clad. When one part, its limbs first freed of arms, entwines the swimmers in wretched embraces, it perishes, deceived by the very help it sought; and those who cling together sink alike beneath an eternal burden, and, bound fast, are slain.
But others, while long they toss their wearied arms, rush upon swords and cling to the floating spears, and the sea, all of one hue, is mingled with red blood. Nay, even the conspicuous prince of the Memphite court, driving his gleaming steeds with a black charioteer, a spectator of his own destruction and the last survivor of his people, is shipwrecked in his chariot amid the waves he had entered. The battle rests while the sea does the fighting, and Israel conquers at peace, accomplishing the contest by sight alone. Then the filled valley perishes, and, the flood turned back, the level surface of the smoothed abyss is drawn out extended. Then over all the shore foul corpses are cast, and the sea displayed its triumph upon the fields.
The renowned leader describes in solemn song that excellent deed, which is chanted throughout all the world: when guilt, purged by the sacred streams, is blotted out, and the water of the childbearing font sends forth new offspring, after the ancient guilts which Eve brought forth. From this it took its discourse, the poem being first set forth, while the slender page unfolds the mournful falls of man. If anything sad there was, spoken in poor verse, may this memorable wave of the sacred triumph wipe it away — wherein joys resound, wherein every sin is taken away through the laver, and the new man lives while the old torpor dies.
Wherein good things arise, wherein harmful deeds are slain, wherein the true Israel is washed in the sacred waves, wherein the exulting, leaping throng resounds a harmonious trophy, wherein the gifts of the foreshadowing figure are fulfilled — which the holy prophet set forth through five volumes; and we with our reed-pipe follow the trumpet, and keeping the measure we now bring our slender skiff to harbor on this shore.