八書卷問答（創世記至路得記） 第 1 章 第 14/17 段

Why then are the curses more numerous than the blessings? Because promises of freedom do not benefit wicked servants as much as threats of the lash do.

How is one to understand the statement, "The Lord God has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this day"? In the same way as the statements, "He gave them over to a debased mind," and "He gave them over to dishonorable passions," and "The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh."

For God is the cause of good things, but not the cause of evil things.

For he points out what must be done, and turns men away from the opposite, but he does not force the will of men; rather, he yields to their free will.

And since, though able to prevent the opposite things from happening, he permits them, and does not consent to prevent them, so that what is done should not come about by force and necessity — for the voluntary character of virtue is what is praiseworthy — he called this permission a "cause."

Similar to this is what is said in the holy Gospels:

"He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart."

And yet he set in motion every means, so that they might enjoy salvation:

working wonders, healing maimed limbs, nourishing them in the wilderness, giving command to the elements — he, then, is not himself the cause of their unbelief.

Why then did the evangelist cite the prophetic testimony? In order to show that the Lord God was ignorant of none of these things, but foretold them long beforehand.

"For," he says, "in hearing you shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive."

In this same way one must also understand what is stated here:

"The Lord did not give you a heart to know"

"and eyes to see and ears to hear, until this day."

But if it was he himself who did not give them the ability to see, to hear, and to reason, why then does he both curse and punish those who transgressed involuntarily? But I think it superfluous to dwell at length on this.

For it is clear even to the utterly senseless that he who offered such great teaching does not take away sight, but rather guides the way, gives light, and points out the straight road.

And what follows also teaches this:

"For," he says, "it is not with you alone that I make this covenant and this oath, but also with those who stand here with you today before the Lord your God, and with those who are not here with you today."

Now some, when rebuking their servants and disciples, are accustomed to say:

"God has blinded your heart, God has deafened your ears."

Something of this sort the prophet has also done here, accusing them of their folly through customary turns of phrase.

How is one to understand: "If anyone hears the words of this curse and blesses himself in his heart, saying,"

"It shall be well with me, though I walk in the error of my heart"? The passage has described the one who is insolent against the divine commandments.

For many transgress the divine law through negligence,

while many others despise the commandments through self-will and arrogance.

It is this latter one that he has indicated here — one who deliberately chooses the opposite way and prefers the path that leads astray over the straight one.

Against this one he threatened utter destruction, so that he might become an example of piety both to those who see and to those who hear.

And teaching them that he is ignorant of nothing that happens in secret, he added:

"The hidden things belong to the Lord your God, but the things revealed belong to you and to your children forever."

"Just as you," he says, "know the things that happen openly, so also to me the very movements of your thoughts are plain."

He also introduces the discourse concerning repentance.

For, he says, if, having transgressed the divine commandments, you fall into the curses, and, taken captive by the spear, receive the yoke of slavery, and then, employing sound reasoning, seek out the causes of your slavery and propitiate the lawgiver, he, in his mercy, will bring you back and restore to you your ancestral land.

And this has happened many times, as the Book of Judges clearly teaches, and as do the histories of the Books of Kingdoms and of Chronicles.

Later, however, having raged madly against the Savior, they were scattered over every land and sea.

And though four hundred years have now passed, they have not obtained a recall.

He also demonstrated how easy it is to keep the laws:

"For," he says, "this commandment which I command you today is not too hard for you, nor is it far off."

"It is not in heaven," he says,

so that one should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us, that we may hear it and do it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that one should say:

"Who will cross to the far side of the sea for us and get it for us and make it heard by us, that we may do it?" "You have no need," he says, "of wings for flight, nor of ships for a voyage abroad, in order to be taught what must be done;"

"but the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands, to do it."

By "mouth" he indicates the meditation on the divine oracles, and by "heart," the eagerness of the soul;

and by "hands," the performance of the commandments.

The divine Paul also made use of this testimony:

"For," he says, "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

"For with the heart one believes unto righteousness;"

"and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation."

And he has also set forth the rewards of keeping the laws and of transgressing them — life and death.

Why did the lawgiver command that this book be read to them after seven years? Because, being occupied with waging war and besieging cities, they had no leisure;

And indeed, after the victory, dividing the land by tribes, and by clans, and by families, and man by man,

then building, and farming, and doing the other things which those who have received dominion over a foreign land must necessarily do.

For this reason he commanded that the reading should take place in the seventh year, after their release from these labors.

This also the prophet Isaiah has done:

For he says, 'Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.'

This also the divine Jeremiah:

For he says, 'The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth trembled yet more, says the Lord.'

For since the lawgiver called these as witnesses of the threat, it is fitting that, after the transgression of the laws, they are said both to have shuddered and to have been astonished.

And the patriarch Abraham, and Abimelech, king of the Gerarites, called it 'the well of the oath,' since it was there that they made their covenant with an oath.

How is one to understand the saying, 'I will provoke you to jealousy by that which is not a nation; by a foolish nation I will anger you'? Those who have believed in Christ the Savior are not one nation, but countless nations.

And these too were once foolish and senseless, as the blessed Paul says:

'For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, going astray, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures,' and so forth.

'Just as you,' he says, 'having forsaken the one God, have preferred many falsely-named gods, so I, having rejected the one people, will grant salvation to all the nations.'

'But you, though you have honored gods that do not exist, did not thereby make them gods.'

'But I will fill the foolish nations with divine wisdom;'

'and you, seeing this, will waste away with envy.'

How is one to understand, 'Rejoice, O nations, with his people, and let all the angels of God strengthen him'? Both many myriads from the Jews believed in the Master Christ, and also the greater part of the nations throughout the world;

but it was those who believed from among the Jews who brought the teaching to the nations,

for the divine apostles were from the Jews.

Foretelling these things, then, the prophet said:

'Rejoice, O nations, with his people' — that is, with those who believed from among the Jews;

'and let all the angels of God strengthen them' — namely, those who have believed in him.

For indeed, when our Savior was born, a choir of angels hymned the divine loving-kindness, crying out:

'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.'

And the archangel Gabriel had already foretold that unsown and unwedded travail.

And in the contest against the devil, the hosts of angels were present.

For he says, 'Angels came and ministered to him.'

And they were present at the Passion, and after the resurrection they sat by the tomb and said to the women:

'Why do you seek the living among the dead?' And after the ascent into the heavens, they said to the sacred apostles:

'Why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven.'

And an angel disclosed to Cornelius the matters concerning the great Peter.

And the divine apostle said, on the ship, to those sailing with him:

'There appeared to me an angel of the God whose I am.'

And one who so wished could find many more such instances.

Having said these things concerning those who believed, the prophet, moreover, foretells also the punishments of the unbelieving, and makes clear the causes of these punishments.

'For the blood of his sons is being avenged, and he will take vengeance and render justice to his enemies, and will repay those who hate him;'

'and the Lord will cleanse the land of his people.'

He has called 'sons of God' the saints whom the murderers slew.

For, to leave aside the slaughter of the prophets and the saving passion of the Master, they stoned the ever-victorious Stephen to death, and slew the great James with a club;

and to gratify them, Herod also put to death the other James; and they dared many other bloody murders besides;

and they plundered the houses of those who had believed in the Lord.

And the divine apostle has made this clear in the Epistle to the Hebrews:

'and,' he says, 'you accepted with joy the plundering of your possessions.'

And writing to the Thessalonians, he spoke thus:

'For you became imitators of the saints who are in Judea;'

'for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and please not God, and are contrary to all men.'

These things the Lord also charged against them in the parable of the vineyard, saying that of the servants, one they beat, another they killed, and another they stoned;

for this reason he scattered them throughout the whole world.

Concerning these things, the Master, while requiring of us — as of those who are perfect in virtue — the utmost virtue, and being long-suffering toward other men who commit great transgressions, does not extend this same forgiveness to the saints.

For the lowly man is pardoned in mercy, but the mighty will be mightily tested.

And the Lord says this in the sacred Gospels:

'For from him to whom little is given, little will be required; but from him to whom much is given, much will be required.'

One must know this also, that the Master administers different things by different means.

Just as, indeed, he did not permit this great prophet to lead the people into the land of promise, lest the Israelites should venerate him as God;

for it is clear that those who deified lifeless things, and called the image of a calf a god, would have venerated all the more, as a god, the one who had become the minister of so many good things to them;

for this reason God, who wisely governs our affairs, also made his tomb unknown.

It is fitting to know this also, that Moses holds the type of the Law; wherefore the Law also bears the name 'Moses':

For, he says, 'they have Moses and the prophets.'

And, 'to this day, whenever Moses is read.'

'Death reigned from Adam until Moses.'

For just as we call 'Isaiah' not only the prophet himself but also his book, and 'Jeremiah' and 'Ezekiel' not only the men but also their books;

and we call 'the Apostle' not only the herald of the truth himself, but also his book — so likewise the Law has been named 'Moses,' while Joshua the son of Nun is a type of the Savior of the world.

Just as, then, Moses led the people out of Egypt, while Joshua led them into the promised land, so the Law frees those who obey it from impiety, while the grace of the Gospels leads them into the kingdom of heaven.

How are the blessings of the tribes to be understood? First the prophet recalled the divine manifestation that occurred on Mount Sinai.

For, he says, 'the Lord will come from Sinai, and he appeared to us from Seir, and he shone forth from Mount Paran with the myriads of Kadesh;'

'at his right hand were angels with him.'

And in the wilderness of Paran, and in Seir, they enjoyed divine providential care.

By 'Kadesh' here he does not mean the wilderness, but the interpretation of the name.

For 'Kadesh' in the Hebrew language signifies 'the holy one.'

He said, then, that many myriads of holy angels were present with the Master, who deemed them worthy of his own providential care.

And he has necessarily added:

'And all who are sanctified are under his hands, and these are under you.'

For even though they possess an invisible nature, yet they are subject to your dominion;

And he foretells that the one who now has chosen Israel will, a little later, also call all the nations, and will himself be ruler and king of both these and those.

'For,' he says, 'there shall be a ruler in the beloved one, when the peoples are gathered together with the tribes of Israel.'

Having said these things, he first blesses Reuben, and dissolves the paternal curse, setting brotherly love in opposition to the transgression committed against the father.

For it was possible for him, as lawgiver, to change the curse into a blessing.

'Let Reuben live and not die, and let him be many in number.'

For since the father had said:

'Like water, do not boil over' — that is, do not be inflamed unto excessive begetting — he prayed for him a multitude of descendants, fittingly.

Then, passing over the natural order, he offers the blessing to Judah, on account of the Master who sprang forth from that line according to the flesh.

'For it is evident,' says the divine Apostle, 'that our Lord has arisen out of Judah.'

And he also foretells the Davidic kingdom.

'Hear, O Lord,' he says, 'the voice of Judah, and may he come to his people.'

'His hands shall contend for him, and you shall be a helper against his enemies.'

Having thus blessed the royal tribe, he passes on to the priestly one:

'Give to Levi his Manifestations, and his Truth to the holy man.'

Upon the breast of the priest lay the oracle.

And this had the Manifestation and the Truth:

for many things were manifested beforehand from it;

and the Truth is joined to the Manifestations, because of the truthfulness of what was manifested.

'...him at Peira, the Trial; they reviled him at the water of Antilogia, the Strife.'

He recalled the things that had happened concerning him and his brother:

'He who says to his father and his mother, "I have not seen you";'

'and did not acknowledge his brothers, and disowned his sons — he kept your sayings, and preserved your covenant.'

This word teaches the perfection of the priests.

For it is fitting for the priest to despise all things pertaining to ordinary life, and to devote himself continually to the divine priestly service.

For this reason he neither assigned them any portion of land, nor legislated for them to possess property, but ordained that they should receive the firstfruits and the tithes from all the people, so that, being freed from worldly cares, they might perform in holiness the sacred office entrusted to them.

Indeed, Aaron the first high priest was not even permitted to mourn for his dead sons; rather, it says thus:

'Having consecrated themselves, they shall declare your ordinances to Jacob, and your law to Israel;'

'they shall place incense in your wrath continually upon your altar.'

This also happened when the people were being punished.

For Aaron, by offering the incense, stopped the death sent by God.

Then he asks for them the divine blessing:

'Bless, O Lord, his strength, and accept the works of his hands.'

For those who minister also have need of bodily strength, so that nothing might hinder their zeal.

'Strike through the loins of his enemies who have risen against him, and let those who hate him not rise up.'

By these words he curbs the insolence of those who tyrannize.

For what reason did he place Benjamin, who was actually the last-born, fourth in order? Because this tribe possessed the metropolis:

for in it the Temple was built.

Therefore he fittingly placed the holy place in sequence right after the priestly tribe.

And the blessing likewise foretells this.

'Beloved by the Lord,' he says, 'he shall dwell in confidence.'

And he also showed the reason for this confidence:

'and God overshadows him all the days, and he has rested between his shoulders.'

For, dwelling continually near the divine temple, he enjoyed divine care.

As for 'he has rested between his shoulders,' he said this concerning God, who, having commanded the temple to be built in Jerusalem, made his own manifestation there.

After these tribes, he blessed Joseph, and bestowed the blessing at once upon the two tribes descended from him.

'From the blessing of the Lord is his land:'

'from the seasons of heaven and the dew, and from the springs of the deep below, and, in due season, the produce of the sun's turnings, and from the conjunction of the months, and from the tops of the everlasting hills.'

He asked for him the good things bestowed from heaven — the fruits provided by the earth:

which the rains water, the dews nourish, and the sun ripens according to the cycles of the seasons and months.

And these are borne not only by the level ground, but also by the mountainous land:

And to confirm the blessing, he recalled the God who appeared in the bush.

And he says that Joseph also obtained the birthright, and that for this reason the tribe was divided into two, and the one became two;

since the firstborn received a double portion.

And teaching also the power of the tribes, he likened them to a unicorn and a bull:

and he set Ephraim before Manasseh, in accordance with the blessing of their forefather.

And to Zebulun and to Issachar — the one as dwelling on the coast, the other as his neighbor — he prayed for victory in wars, divine assistance, and the good things from the sea.

'Nations,' he says, 'they shall utterly destroy, and they shall call upon him there, and they shall offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and they shall suck the abundance of the sea and the trade of those who dwell on the coast.'

For those who dwell near the sea enjoy not only the fruits of their own land, but also the goods brought from everywhere.

And he likened Gad to a lion:

for thus also the patriarch Jacob had said:

'Gad — a raiding band shall raid him, but he shall raid at their heels.'

And to Naphtali also he declared prosperity from land and sea:

for he too dwelt near the sea, having Galilee to the south;

and this also the prophet and the evangelist have said:

'The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and the rest who dwell on the coast, Galilee of the nations:'

'the people sitting in darkness saw a great light.'

As for 'fullness of what is acceptable,' Symmachus rendered it 'fullness of good pleasure':

But it conveys the same meaning.

Indeed, for Asher as well he asks both the fruitfulness of the land and abundance from the sea.

For indeed the words, 'He shall dip his foot in oil, and his sandal shall be iron and bronze,' indicate the abundance of good things.

Why then did he not bless Simeon? Reuben had brotherly affection as ground for a blessing.

for it was through that love that he was released from the curse.

And Levi obtained the blessing on account of the great Moses.

For the one who loosed the curses of others loosed his own all the more.

But Simeon had no such occasion by which to obtain the blessing.

I think that he was in fact the ringleader of the plot against Joseph, and proof of this is that that admirable man released all the others, but commanded that this one alone be seized, bound, and shut up in prison.

Nevertheless, he too shared in the blessing.

For he gave not only a particular blessing to each tribe, but also a common blessing to the whole people.

'Israel,' it says, 'shall dwell in confidence, alone, upon the land of Jacob, upon a land of grain and wine, and the heaven shall be overcast with dew for you.'

He added many other things besides to this common blessing.

After the blessings, however, the Lord God showed the prophet the whole land.

but he prevented him from entering it.

And this prefigures what was said by our Savior:

'Many prophets and kings and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.'

'And it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses, saying:'

'Moses my servant is dead.'

'Now therefore arise, cross over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land which I am giving them.'

The all-wise Paul taught us that the old covenant was a type of the new.

'For all these things,' he says, 'happened to them as types, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.'

And writing to the Galatians he spoke thus:

'It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman.'

'But the son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, while the son by the free woman was born through the promise.'

'These things are spoken allegorically.'

'For these women are two covenants,' and so forth.

And he wrote this not so as to discard the historical narrative, but comparing the type to the truth—Abraham to God, the women to the two covenants, the sons to the two peoples.

So then, here too, one must understand Moses as representing the law.

and Joshua, who shares his name with that Savior, as the Savior himself.

That the law is also called by the name Moses, we have already demonstrated, making use of the testimonies of divine Scripture.

'They have Moses and the prophets,' he says.

'And to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart.'

Just as, then, according to the historical narrative, after Moses had died Joshua led the people into the promised land, so too, after the end of the law, our Jesus, having appeared, opened the kingdom of heaven to the pious people.

'For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness for everyone who believes,' he says.

'And the law and the prophets prophesied until John.'

'And from the days of John the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.'

For concerning Joshua son of Nun it says, 'the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses.'

We hear also the apostle saying:

'Now I say that Christ Jesus became a servant of the circumcision for the sake of God's truth, in order to confirm the promises made to the fathers.'

And again: 'But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem those under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.'

So then, just as he was born under the law, in the same way he was also called a servant of the circumcision.

In the same way he also said to the Jews:

'If you believed Moses, you would believe me.'

'For he wrote about me.'

For indeed they had said to Joshua the son of Nun, 'According to all that we obeyed Moses, so we will obey you also.'

Why did God, though he promised to give them every place on which they should set the sole of their foot—both the wilderness and Antilibanus, as far as the great river Euphrates—not fulfill the promise? The matter is clear, and needs no lengthy explanation.

For first it is said: 'Every place on which you set the sole of your foot, I will give it to you.'

It is likely, then, that under the generalship of Joshua son of Nun they did not set foot on that further land.

But what follows completely resolves the question.

For he added, 'as I spoke to Moses'—and he did not make the promise to him unconditionally, but rather, 'if you keep my commandments and my statutes.'

They, then, having immediately transgressed the law, did not obtain the promise in full.

But the divine apostles took possession not only of the places on which they themselves set foot, but also of those places where their all-wise writings were read.

And they turned the once-desolate wilderness into a divine paradise.

Concerning this wilderness the prophet Isaiah too spoke, saying:

'Be glad, O thirsty wilderness, and rejoice, O wilderness and its villages.'

And the Lord God, through his tongue, promised to turn the wilderness into marshes and the thirsty land into watercourses.

Again he said that this wilderness would become like Carmel.

And the heralds of truth also took Antilibanus as their inheritance.

This too hints darkly at the salvation of the nations.

since Jerusalem too was called Lebanon.

'For,' it says, 'the eagle, the great-winged one, which was foremost in entering Lebanon, plucked off the tender shoots of the cedar and the cypress.'

For he called the king of Babylon 'the eagle,' and Jerusalem 'Lebanon.'

and by the tender shoots of the cedar and the cypress, the king and the rulers.

These our Jesus sent forth not merely as spies, but as generals.

Just as the spies sent by Joshua the son of Nun saved the harlot who had believed, giving her the scarlet cord as a token of salvation, so too the apostles of our Savior turned the church—once a harlot given over to various idols—away from her former licentiousness, and made her worthy of eternal blessings.

not making use of a scarlet cord as a token, but accomplishing salvation through the all-holy blood.

Let no one, then, suppose the type of Rahab unworthy of the church.

Let him hear the apostle saying: 'For we too were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.'

And again: 'But then, not knowing God, you were enslaved to those which are by nature no gods.'

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.

Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor idolaters, nor the covetous, nor thieves, nor revilers, nor drunkards, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

So too Rahab was formerly a harlot, but she received the spies with faith, and when the king commanded that they be handed over, she did not yield, but hid them;

her faith in the God of the Hebrews, and her own words make that faith plain:

'For I know,' she said, 'that the Lord your God has given you the land, for the fear of you has fallen upon us.'

'For we have heard how the Lord God dried up the Red Sea before you, when you came out of Egypt;'

'and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed; and when we heard it, our hearts melted, and there remained no spirit in any man because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.'

True, then, is that word which the Master God spoke concerning Pharaoh:

'For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.'

For through what was done concerning him, the God of the Hebrews became manifest to all, and the agreement made by the spies also corresponds very closely to the truth.

'For,' they said, 'whoever goes out of the door of your house shall be answerable for himself, and we shall be guiltless of this oath of yours.'

And for us too, salvation comes through the Church;

and those outside it do not enjoy eternal life.

And the rest of the narrative also prefigured the truth.

For when they were about to cross the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua: