But you, expounding these things in a low and grovelling manner, charge great weakness against God, if you so understand these things crudely and do not examine the power of what is said. For thus Moses too would be judged a transgressor of the Law; for he himself, having commanded that no likeness be made, whether of things in heaven or things on earth or in the sea, afterwards made a bronze serpent himself, and, setting it up on a sign, commanded those who had been bitten to look upon it; and they were saved by looking to it.
Shall the serpent, then, be understood to have saved the people at that time—the serpent which, as I said before, God cursed in the beginning, and will destroy by the great sword, as Isaiah cries? And shall we so foolishly accept such things, as your teachers say, and not as symbols? Shall we not rather refer the sign to the image of the crucified Jesus, since Moses too, by the stretching out of his hands together with the one surnamed Jesus, also brought about the victory of your people?
For thus we shall cease to be at a loss concerning the things the Lawgiver did. For it was not by abandoning God and turning to a beast—through which the transgression and disobedience took its beginning—that he persuaded the people to hope. And these things were both done and spoken with much understanding and mystery through the blessed prophet; and there is nothing which anyone can justly find fault with among the things said or done by all the prophets without exception, if you have the knowledge that is in them.
But if your teachers expound to you only why female camels are not mentioned in such a place, or what the so-called female camels are, or why so many measures of fine flour and so many measures of oil are in the offerings—and these in a low and creeping manner—but never dare to speak of or expound the great things worthy of inquiry, or even, when we expound them, charge you neither to listen at all nor to come into fellowship of discourse, shall they not justly hear what our Lord Jesus Christ said to them: 'Whitewashed tombs, outwardly appearing beautiful but inwardly full of dead men's bones; tithing the mint, but swallowing the camel; blind guides'?
If, then, you do not despise the teachings of those who exalt themselves and wish to be called 'Rabbi, Rabbi,' and approach the prophetic words with such earnestness and understanding that you may suffer at the hands of your own people the same things which the prophets themselves suffered, you cannot at all derive any profit from the prophetic writings.