{
"language": "en",
"title": "On the Life of Moses",
"versionSource": "https://www.nli.org.il/en/books/NNL_ALEPH001216057/NLI",
"versionTitle": "Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1935",
"status": "locked",
"license": "Public Domain",
"versionNotes": "",
"actualLanguage": "en",
"languageFamilyName": "english",
"isSource": false,
"isPrimary": true,
"direction": "ltr",
"heTitle": "על חיי משה",
"categories": [
"Second Temple",
"Philo"
],
"text": {
"Book I": {
"Introduction": [
"INTRODUCTION TO DE VITA MOSIS I AND II",
"The first of these two treatises covers, as is stated at the beginning of the second, the early life and education of Moses and the main facts of his work as King; that is, as the leader of the Israelites in their escape from Egypt and adventures in the wilderness. It runs on very straight-forwardly and does not call for any detailed analysis. There is only one attempt at allegory, viz. the reflections on the meaning of the vision of the Burning Bush.",
"The second treatise is far more complicated. It treats the character of Moses under three heads, the legislative, the high-priestly and the prophetic, a method which necessarily precludes any chronological arrangement. The first division as it stands begins with some general remarks on the need of these three qualifications as adjuncts to the ideal king (1–11), and proceeds to base the glory of Moses as a legislator first on the permanence of his laws (12–16), secondly on the respect paid to them by other nations (17–24) in support of which he adds an account of the making of the Septuagint (25–44). To these is to be added the greatness of the law-book itself, but this passes away into a justification of the scheme by which the legislative element is preceded by the historical, and this is followed by a dissertation on how the historical part records the punishment of the wicked and the salvation of the good, this last including a detailed account of Noah and the Ark (45–65).",
"In the second division the discussion of Moses as priest leads to a detailed description of the tabernacle and its appurtenances (66–108 and 136–140), the priest’s vesture with its symbolism (109–135), the appointment of the priests and Levites (141–158) and this last to an account of the part played by the Levites in punishing the idolatry of the Golden Calf (159–173), and finally of the vindication of the superiority of the priests by the blossoming of Aaron’s rod (174–186).",
"The third division treating of Moses as prophet is subdivided according as his pronouncements are made from an oracle given in answer to his question or from his own prophetic inspiration (181–191). Four examples are given of each: of the former, (a) the sentence on the blasphemer (192–208), (b) on the Sabbath-breaker (209–220), (c) special regulations as to the Passover (221–232), (d) the law of inheritance (233–245). As examples of the latter he gives Moses’ prophecies (a) of the destruction of the Egyptians (246–257), (b) of the manna (258–269), (c) of the slaughter of the idolaters (270–274) and (d) the destruction of Korah and his companions (275–287). The treatise ends with a few sections about the end of Moses. Altogether the two books, between them, cover most of the story of Moses as given in the Pentateuch, the only really serious omission being that of the theophany on Sinai."
],
"": [
[
"[1] I purpose to write the life of Moses, whom some describe as the legislator of the Jews, others as the interpreter of the Holy Laws. I hope to bring the story of this greatest and most perfect of men to the knowledge of such as deserve not to remain in ignorance of it;",
"[2] for, while the fame of the laws which he left behind him has travelled throughout the civilized world and reached the ends of the earth, the man himself as he really was is known to few. Greek men of letters have refused to treat him as worthy of memory, possibly through envy, and also because in many cases the ordinances of the legislators of the different states are opposed to his.",
"[3] Most of these authors have abused the powers which education gave them, by composing in verse or prose comedies and pieces of voluptuous licence, to their widespread disgrace, when they should have used their natural gifts to the full on the lessons taught by good men and their lives. In this way they might have ensured that nothing of excellence, old or new, should be consigned to oblivion and to the extinction of the light which it could give, and also save themselves from seeming to neglect the better themes and prefer others unworthy of attention, in which all their efforts to express bad matter in good language served to confer distinction on shameful subjects.",
"[4] But I will disregard their malice, and tell the story of Moses as I have learned it, both from the sacred books, the wonderful monuments of his wisdom which he has left behind him, and from some of the elders of the nation; for I always interwove what I was told with what I read, and thus believed myself to have a closer knowledge than others of his life’s history."
],
[
"[5] I will begin with what is necessarily the right place to begin. Moses was by race a Chaldean, but was born and reared in Egypt, as his ancestors had migrated thither to seek food with their whole households, in consequence of the long famine under which Babylon and the neighbouring populations were suffering. Egypt is a land rich in plains, with deep soil, and very productive of all that human nature needs,",
"[6] and particularly of corn. For the river of this country, in the height of summer, when other streams, whether winter torrents or spring-fed, are said to dwindle, rises and overflows, and its flood makes a lake of the fields which need no rain but every year bear a plentiful crop of good produce of every kind, if not prevented by some visitation of the wrath of God to punish the prevailing impiety of the inhabitants.",
"[7] He had for his father and mother the best of their contemporaries, members of the same tribe, though with them mutual affection was a stronger tie than family connexions. He was seventh in descent from the first settler, who became the founder of the whole Jewish nation. "
],
[
"[8] He was brought up as a prince, a promotion due to the following cause. As the nation of the newcomers was constantly growing more numerous, the king of the country, fearing that the settlers, thus increasing, might shew their superiority by contesting the chief power with the original inhabitants, contrived a most iniquitous scheme to deprive them of their strength. He gave orders to rear the female infants, since her natural weakness makes a woman inactive in war, but to put the males to death, to prevent their number increasing throughout the cities; for a flourishing male population is a coign of vantage to an aggressor which cannot easily be taken or destroyed.",
"[9] Now, the child from his birth had an appearance of more than ordinary goodliness, so that his parents as long as they could actually set at nought the proclamations of the despot. In fact we are told that, unknown to all but few, he was kept at home and fed from his mother’s breast for three successive months.",
"[10] But, since, as is often the case under a monarch, there were persons prying into holes and corners, ever eager to carry some new report to the king, his parents in their fear that their efforts to save one would but cause a larger number, namely themselves, to perish with him, exposed him with tears on the banks of the river, and departed groaning. They pitied themselves being forced, as they said in their self-reproach, to be the murderers of their own child, and they pitied him too, left to perish in this unnatural way.",
"[11] Then, as was natural in so strangely cruel a situation, they began to accuse themselves of having made bad worse. “Why did we not cast him away,” they said, “directly he was born? The child who has not survived to enjoy a kind nurture is not usually reckoned as a human being. But we meddlers actually nurtured him for three whole months, thus procuring more abundant affliction for ourselves and torture for him, only that when he was fully capable of feeling pleasure and pain he should perish conscious of the increased misery of his sufferings.” "
],
[
"[12] While they departed ignorant of the future, overcome by grief and sorrow, the sister of the infant castaway, a girl still unmarried, moved by family affection, remained at a little distance, waiting to see what would happen, all this being brought about, in my opinion, by the providence of God watching over the child.",
"[13] The king of the country had but one cherished daughter, who, we are told, had been married for a considerable time but had never conceived a child, though she naturally desired one, particularly of the male sex, to succeed to the magnificent inheritance of her father’s kingdom, which threatened to go to strangers if his daughter gave him no grandson. ",
"[14] Depressed and loud in lamentation she always was, but on this particular day she broke down under the weight of cares; and, though her custom was to remain at home and never even cross the threshold, she set off with her maids to the river, where the child was exposed. Then, as she was preparing to make her ablutions in the purifying water, she saw him lying where the marshland growth was thickest, and bade him be brought to her.",
"[15] Thereupon, surveying him from head to foot, she approved of his beauty and fine condition, and seeing him weeping took pity on him, for her heart was now moved to feel for him as a mother for her own child. And, recognizing that he belonged to the Hebrews, who were intimidated by the king’s orders, she considered how to have him nursed, for at present it was not safe to take him to the palace.",
"[16] While she was still thus debating, the child’s sister, who guessed her difficulty, ran up from where she stood like a scout, and asked whether she would like to take for his foster-mother a Hebrew woman who had lately been with child.",
"[17] When the princess agreed, she brought her own and the babe’s mother in the guise of a stranger, who readily and gladly promised to nurse him, ostensibly for wages. Thus, by God’s disposing, it was provided that the child’s first nursing should come from the natural source. Since he had been taken up from the water, the princess gave him a name derived from this, and called him Moses, for Möu is the Egyptian word for water."
],
[
"[18] As he grew and thrived without a break, and was weaned at an earlier date than they had reckoned, his mother and nurse in one brought him to her from whom she had received him, since he had ceased to need an infant’s milk. He was noble and goodly to look upon;",
"[19] and the princess, seeing him so advanced beyond his age, conceived for him an even greater fondness than before, and took him for her son, having at an earlier time artificially enlarged the figure of her womb to make him pass as her real and not a supposititious child. God makes all that He wills easy, however difficult be the accomplishment.",
"[20] So now he received as his right the nurture and service due to a prince. Yet he did not bear himself like the mere infant that he was, nor delight in fun and laughter and sport, though those who had the charge of him did not grudge him relaxation or shew him any strictness; but with a modest and serious bearing he applied himself to hearing and seeing what was sure to profit the soul.",
"[21] Teachers at once arrived from different parts, some unbidden from the neighbouring countries and the provinces of Egypt, others summoned from Greece under promise of high reward. But in a short time he advanced beyond their capacities; his gifted nature forestalled their instruction, so that his seemed a case rather of recollection than of learning, and indeed he himself devised and propounded problems which they could not easily solve.",
"[22] For great natures carve out much that is new in the way of knowledge; and, just as bodies, robust and agile in every part, free their trainers from care, and receive little or none of their usual attention, and in the same way well-grown and naturally healthy trees, which improve of themselves, give the husbandmen no trouble, so the gifted soul takes the lead in meeting the lessons given by itself rather than the teacher and is profited thereby, and as soon as it has a grasp of some of the first principles of knowledge presses forward like the horse to the meadow, ",
"[23] as the proverb goes. Arithmetic, geometry, the lore of metre, rhythm and harmony, and the whole subject of music as shown by the use of instruments or in textbooks and treatises of a more special character, were imparted to him by learned Egyptians. These further instructed him in the philosophy conveyed in symbols, as displayed in the so-called holy inscriptions and in the regard paid to animals, to which they even pay divine honours. He had Greeks to teach him the rest of the regular school course, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries for Assyrian letters and the Chaldean science of the heavenly bodies.",
"[24] This he also acquired from Egyptians, who give special attention to astrology. And, when he had mastered the lore of both nations, both where they agree and where they differ, he eschewed all strife and contention and sought only for truth. His mind was incapable of accepting any falsehood, as is the way with the sectarians, who defend the doctrines they have propounded, whatever they may be, without examining whether they can stand scrutiny, and thus put themselves on a par with hired advocates who have no thought nor care for justice."
],
[
"[25] When he was now passing beyond the term of boyhood, his good sense became more active. He did not, as some, allow the lusts of adolescence to go unbridled, though the abundant resources which palaces provide supply numberless incentives to foster their flame. But he kept a tight hold on them with the reins, as it were, of temperance and self-control, and forcibly pulled them back from their forward course.",
"[26] And each of the other passions, which rage so furiously if left to themselves, he tamed and assuaged and reduced to mildness; and if they did but gently stir or flutter he provided for them heavier chastisement than any rebuke of words could give; and in general he watched the first directions and impulses of the soul as one would a restive horse, in fear lest they should run away with the reason which ought to rein them in, and thus cause universal chaos. For it is these impulses which cause both good and bad—good when they obey the guidance of reason, bad when they turn from their regular course into anarchy.",
"[27] Naturally, therefore, his associates and everyone else, struck with amazement at what they felt was a novel spectacle, considered earnestly what the mind which dwelt in his body like an image in its shrine could be, whether it was human or divine or a mixture of both, so utterly unlike was it to the majority, soaring above them and exalted to a grander height.",
"[28] For on his belly he bestowed no more than the necessary tributes which nature has appointed, and as for the pleasures that have their seat below, save for the lawful begetting of children, they passed altogether even out of his memory.",
"[29] And, in his desire to live to the soul alone and not to the body, he made a special practice of frugal contentment, and had an unparalleled scorn for a life of luxury. He exemplified his philosophical creed by his daily actions. His words expressed his feelings, and his actions accorded with his words, so that speech and life were in harmony, and thus through their mutual agreement were found to make melody together as on a musical intrument.",
"[30] Now, most men, if they feel a breath of prosperity ever so small upon them, make much ado of puffing and blowing, and boast themselves as bigger than meaner men, and miscall them offscourings and nuisances and cumberers of the earth and other suchlike names, as if they themselves had the permanence of their prosperity securely sealed in their possession, though even the morrow may find them no longer where they are.",
"[31] For nothing is more unstable than Fortune, who moves human affairs up and down on the draughtboard of life, and in a single day pulls down the lofty and exalts the lowly on high; and though they see and know full well that this is always happening, they nevertheless look down on their relations and friends and set at naught the laws under which they were born and bred, and subvert the ancestral customs to which no blame can justly attach, by adopting different modes of life, and, in their contentment with the present, lose all memory of the past."
],
[
"[32] But Moses, having reached the very pinnacle of human prosperity, regarded as the son of the king’s daughter, and in general expectation almost the successor to his grandfather’s sovereignty, and indeed regularly called the young king, was zealous for the discipline and culture of his kinsmen and ancestors. The good fortune of his adopters, he held, was a spurious one, even though the circumstances gave it greater lustre; that of his natural parents, though less distinguished for the nonce,",
"[33] was at any rate his own and genuine; and so, estimating the claims of his real and his adopted parents like an impartial judge, he requited the former with good feeling and profound affection, the latter with gratitude for their kind treatment of him. And he would have continued to do so throughout had he not found the king adopting in the country a new and highly impious course of action. The Jews,",
"[34] as I have said before, were strangers, since famine had driven the founders of the nation, through lack of food, to migrate to Egypt from Babylon and the inland satrapies. They were, in a sense, suppliants, who had found a sanctuary in the pledged faith of the king and the pity felt for them by the inhabitants.",
"[35] For strangers, in my judgement, must be regarded as suppliants of those who receive them, and not only suppliants but settlers and friends who are anxious to obtain equal rights with the burgesses and are near to being citizens because they differ little from the original inhabitants.",
"[36] So, then, these strangers, who had left their own country and come to Egypt hoping to live there in safety as in a second fatherland, were made slaves by the ruler of the country and reduced to the condition of captives taken by the custom of war, or persons purchased from the masters in whose household they had been bred. And in thus making serfs of men who were not only free but guests, suppliants and settlers, he showed no shame or fear of the God of liberty and hospitality and of justice to guests and suppliants, Who watches over such as these.",
"[37] Then he laid commands upon them, severe beyond their capacity, and added labour to labour; and, when they failed through weakness, the iron hand was upon them; for he chose as superintendents of the works men of the most cruel and savage temper who showed no mercy to anyone, men whose name of “task-pursuer” well described the facts.",
"[38] Some of the workers wrought clay into brick, while others fetched from every quarter straw which served to bind the brick. Others were appointed to build houses and walls and cities or to cut canals. They carried the materials themselves day and night, with no shifts to relieve them, no period of rest, not even suffered just to sleep for a bit and then resume their work. In fact, they were compelled to do all the work, both of the artisan and his assistants, so that in a short time loss of heart was followed necessarily by bodily exhaustion.",
"[39] This was shown by the way in which they died one after the other, as though they were the victims of a pestilence, to be flung unburied outside the borders by their masters, who did not allow the survivors even to collect dust to throw upon the corpses or even to shed tears for their kinsfolk or friends thus pitifully done to death. And, though nature has given to the untrammelled feelings of the soul a liberty which she has denied to almost everything else, they impiously threatened to exert their despotism over these also and suppressed them with the intolerable weight of a constraint more powerful than nature."
],
[
"[40] All this continued to depress and anger Moses, who had no power either to punish those who did the wrong or help those who suffered it. What he could he did. He assisted with his words, exhorting the overseers to show clemency and relax and alleviate the stringency of their orders, and the workers to bear their present condition bravely, to display a manly spirit and not let their souls share the weariness of their bodies, but look for good to take the place of evil.",
"[41] All things in the world, he told them, change to their opposites: clouds to open sky, violent winds to tranquil weather, stormy seas to calm and peaceful, and human affairs still more so, even as they are more unstable.",
"[42] With such soothing words, like a good physician, he thought to relieve the sickness of their plight, terrible as it was. But, when it abated, it did but turn and make a fresh attack and gather from the breathing-space some new misery more powerful than its predecessors.",
"[43] For some of the overseers were exceedingly harsh and ferocious, in savageness differing nothing from venomous and carnivorous animals, wild beasts in human shape who assumed in outward form the semblance of civilized beings only to beguile and catch their prey, in reality more unyielding than iron or adamant.",
"[44] One of these, the cruellest of all, was killed by Moses, because he not only made no concession but was rendered harsher than ever by his exhortations, beating those who did not execute his orders with breathless promptness, persecuting them to the point of death and subjecting them to every outrage. Moses considered that his action in killing him was a righteous action. And righteous it was that one who only lived to destroy men should himself be destroyed.",
"[45] When the king heard this, he was very indignant. What he felt so strongly was not that one man had been killed by another whether justly or unjustly, but that his own daughter’s son did not think with him, and had not considered the king’s friends and enemies to be his own friends and enemies, but hated those of whom he was fond, and loved those whom he rejected, and pitied those to whom he was relentless and inexorable."
],
[
"[46] When those in authority who suspected the youth’s intentions, knowing that he would remember their wicked actions against them and take vengeance when the opportunity came, had thus once got a handle, they poured malicious suggestions by the thousand from every side into the open ears of his grandfather, so as to instil the fear that his sovereignty might be taken from him. “He will attack you,” they said, “he is highly ambitious. He is always busy with some further project. He is eager to get the kingship before the time comes. He flatters some, threatens others, slays without trial and treats as outcasts those who are most loyal to you. Why do you hesitate, instead of cutting short his projected undertakings? The aggressor is greatly served by delay on the part of his proposed victim.”",
"[47] While such talk was in circulation, Moses retired into the neighbouring country of Arabia, where it was safe for him to stay, at the same time beseeching God to save the oppressed from their helpless, miserable plight, and to punish as they deserved the oppressors who had left no form of maltreatment untried, and to double the gift by granting to himself that he should see both these accomplished. God, in high approval of his spirit, which loved the good and hated evil, listened to his prayers, and very shortly judged the land and its doings as became His nature.",
"[48] But, while the divine judgement was still waiting, Moses was carrying out the exercises of virtue with an admirable trainer, the reason within him, under whose discipline he laboured to fit himself for life in its highest forms, the theoretical and the practical. He was ever opening the scroll of philosophical doctrines, digested them inwardly with quick understanding, committed them to memory never to be forgotten, and straightway brought his personal conduct, praiseworthy in all respects, into conformity with them; for he desired truth rather than seeming, because the one mark he set before him was nature’s right reason, the sole source and fountain of virtues.",
"[49] Now, any other who was fleeing from the king’s relentless wrath, and had just arrived for the first time in a foreign land, who had not yet become familiar with the customs of the natives nor gained exact knowledge of what pleases or offends them, might well have been eager to keep quiet and live in obscurity unnoticed by the multitude; or else he might have wished to come forward in public, and by obsequious persistence court the favour of men of highest authority and power, if none others, men who might be expected to give help and succour should some come and attempt to carry him off by force.",
"[50] But the path which he took was the opposite of what we should expect. He followed the wholesome impulses of his soul, and suffered none of them to be brought to the ground. And, therefore, at times he showed a gallant temper beyond his fund of strength, for he regarded justice as strength invincible, which urged him on his self-appointed task to champion the weaker."
],
[
"[51] I will describe an action of his at this time, which, though it may seem a petty matter, argues a spirit of no petty kind. The Arabs are breeders of cattle, and they employ for tending them not only men but women, youths and maidens alike, and not only those of insignificant and humble families but those of the highest position.",
"[52] Seven maidens, daughters of the priest, had come to a well, and, after attaching the buckets to the ropes, drew water, taking turns with each to share the labour equally. They had with great industry filled the troughs which lay near,",
"[53] when some other shepherds appeared on the spot who, disdaining the weakness of the girls, tried to drive them and their flock away, and proceeded to bring their own animals to the place where the water lay ready, and thus appropriate the labours of others.",
"[54] But Moses, who was not far off, seeing what had happened, quickly ran up and, standing near by, said: “Stop this injustice. You think you can take advantage of the loneliness of the place. Are you not ashamed to let your arms and elbows live an idle life? You are masses of long hair and lumps of flesh, not men. The girls are working like youths, and shirk none of their duties, while you young men go daintily like girls.",
"[55] Away with you: give place to those who were here before you, to whom the water belongs. Properly, you should have drawn for them, to make the supply more abundant; instead, you are all agog to take from them what they have provided. Nay, by the heavenly eye of justice, you shall not take it; for that eye sees even what is done in the greatest solitude.",
"[56] In me at least it has appointed a champion whom you did not expect, for I fight to succour these injured maidens, allied to a mighty arm which the rapacious may not see, but you shall feel its invisible power to wound if you do not change your ways.”",
"[57] As he proceeded thus, they were seized with fear that they were listening to some oracular utterance, for as he spoke he grew inspired and was transfigured into a prophet. They became submissive, and led the maidens’ flock to the troughs, after removing their own."
],
[
"[58] The girls went home in high glee, and told the story of the unexpected event to their father, who thence conceived a strong desire to see the stranger, which he showed by censuring them for their ingratitude. “What possessed you,” he said, “to let him depart? You should have brought him straight along, and pressed him if he showed reluctance. Did you ever have to charge me with unsociable ways? Do you not expect that you may again fall in with those who would wrong you? Those who forget kindness are sure to lack defenders. Still, your error is not yet past cure. Run back with all speed, and invite him to receive from me first the entertainment due to him as a stranger, secondly some requital of the favour which we owe to him.”",
"[59] They hurried back and found him not far from the well, and, after explaining their father’s message, persuaded him to come home with them. Their father was at once struck with admiration of his face, and soon afterwards of his disposition, for great natures are transparent and need no length of time to be recognized. Accordingly, he gave him the fairest of his daughters in marriage, and, by that one action, attested all his noble qualities, and showed that excellence standing alone deserves our love, and needs no commendation from aught else, but carries within itself the tokens by which it is known.",
"[60] After the marriage, Moses took charge of the sheep and tended them, thus receiving his first lesson in command of others; for the shepherd’s business is a training-ground and a preliminary exercise in kingship for one who is destined to command the herd of mankind, the most civilized of herds, just as also hunting is for warlike natures, since those who are trained to generalship practise themselves first in the chase. And thus unreasoning animals are made to subserve as material wherewith to gain practice in government in the emergencies of both peace and war;",
"[61] for the chase of wild animals is a drilling-ground for the general in fighting the enemy, and the care and supervision of tame animals is a schooling for the king in dealing with his subjects, and therefore kings are called “shepherds of their people,” not as a term of reproach but as the highest honour.",
"[62] And my opinion, based not on the opinions of the multitude but on my own inquiry into the truth of the matter, is that the only perfect king (let him laugh who will) is one who is skilled in the knowledge of shepherding, one who has been trained by management of the inferior creatures to manage the superior. For initiation in the lesser mysteries must precede initiation in the greater. "
],
[
"[63] To return to Moses, he became more skilled than any of his time in managing flocks and providing what tended to the benefit of his charges. His capacity was due to his never shirking any duty, but showing an eager and unprompted zeal wherever it was needed, and maintaining a pure and guileless honesty in the conduct of his office.",
"[64] Consequently the flocks increased under him, and this roused the envy of the other graziers, who did not see anything of the sort happening in their own flocks. In their case it was felt to be a piece of luck if they remained as they had been, but with the flocks of Moses any failure to make daily improvement was a set-back, so great was the progress regularly made, both in fine quality, through increased fatness and firmness of flesh, and in number through their fecundity and the wholesomeness of their food.",
"[65] Now, as he was leading the flock to a place where the water and the grass were abundant, and where there happened to be plentiful growth of herbage for the sheep, he found himself at a glen where he saw a most astonishing sight. There was a bramble-bush, a thorny sort of plant, and of the most weakly kind, which, without anyone’s setting it alight, suddenly took fire; and, though enveloped from root to twigs in a mass of fire, which looked as though it were spouted up from a fountain, yet remained whole, and, instead of being consumed, seemed to be a substance impervious to attack, and, instead of serving as fuel to the fire, actually fed on it.",
"[66] In the midst of the flame was a form of the fairest beauty, unlike any visible object, an image supremely divine in appearance, refulgent with a light brighter than the light of fire. It might be supposed that this was the image of Him that IS; but let us rather call it an angel or herald, since, with a silence that spoke more clearly than speech, it employed as it were the miracle of sight to herald future events.",
"[67] For the burning bramble was a symbol of those who suffered wrong, as the flaming fire of those who did it. Yet that which burned was not burnt up, and this was a sign that the sufferers would not be destroyed by their aggressors, who would find that the aggression was vain and profitless while the victims of malice escaped unharmed. The angel was a symbol of God’s providence, which all silently brings relief to the greatest dangers, exceeding every hope."
],
[
"[68] But the details of the comparison must be considered. The bramble, as I have said, is a very weakly plant, yet it is prickly and will wound if one do but touch it. Again, though fire is naturally destructive, the bramble was not devoured thereby, but on the contrary was guarded by it, and remained just as it was before it took fire, lost nothing at all but gained an additional brightness.",
"[69] All this is a description of the nation’s condition as it then stood, and we may think of it as a voice proclaiming to the sufferers: “Do not lose heart; your weakness is your strength, which can prick, and thousands will suffer from its wounds. Those who desire to consume you will be your unwilling saviours instead of your destroyers. Your ills will work you no ill. Nay, just when the enemy is surest of ravaging you, your fame will shine forth most gloriously.”",
"[70] Again fire, the element which works destruction, convicts the cruel-hearted. “Exult not in your own strength” it says. “Behold your invincible might brought low, and learn wisdom. The property of flame is to consume, yet it is consumed, like wood. The nature of wood is to be consumed yet it is manifested as the consumer, as though it were the fire.”"
],
[
"[71] After showing to Moses this miraculous portent, so clearly warning him of the events that were to be, God begins in oracular speech to urge him to take charge of the nation with all speed, in the capacity not merely of an assistant to their liberation, but of the leader who would shortly take them from Egypt to another home. He promised to help him in everything:",
"[72] “For,” he said, “suffering, as they do, prolonged ill-treatment, and subjected to intolerable outrages, with no relief or pity for their miseries from men, I have taken compassion on them Myself. For I know that each severally, and all unitedly, have betaken themselves to prayers and supplications in hope to gain help from Me, and I am of a kindly nature and gracious to true suppliants.",
"[73] Now go to the king of the land, and fear not at all, for the former king from whom you fled in fear that he meant mischief is dead, and the land is in the hands of another who does not remember any of your actions against you. Take with you also the elders of the nation, and tell him that the people has received a command from Me to make a three-days’ journey beyond the bounds of the country, and there sacrifice according to the rites of their fathers.”",
"[74] Moses knew well that his own nation and all the others would disbelieve his words, and said: “If they ask the name of him who sent me, and I cannot myself tell them, will they not think me a deceiver?”",
"[75] God replied: “First tell them that I am He Who IS, that they may learn the difference between what IS and what is not, and also the further lesson that no name at all can properly be used of Me,",
"[76] to Whom alone existence belongs. And, if, in their natural weakness, they seek some title to use, tell them not only that I am God, but also the God of the three men whose names express their virtue, each of them the exemplar of the wisdom they have gained—Abraham by teaching, Isaac by nature, Jacob by practice. And, if they still disbelieve, three signs which no man has ever before seen or heard of will be sufficient lesson to convert them.”",
"[77] The signs were such as these. He bade him cast on the ground the rod which he carried, and this at once took life and began to creep, and became that high chief of the reptile kingdom, a huge serpent grown to full strength. Moses quickly leaped away from the creature, and, in his fright, was starting to fly, when he was recalled by God, and, at His bidding and inspired by Him with courage,",
"[78] grasped its tail. It was still wriggling, but stopped at his touch, and, stretching itself to its full length, was metamorphosed at once into the rod which it had been before, so that Moses marvelled at the double change, unable to decide which was the more astonishing, so evenly balanced was the profound impression which each made upon his soul.",
"[79] This was the first miracle, and a second followed soon. God bade him conceal one of his hands in his bosom, and, after a little while, draw it out. And when he did as he was bid, the hand suddenly appeared whiter than snow. He did the same again, put it in his bosom and then brought it out, when it turned to its original colour and recovered its proper appearance.",
"[80] These lessons he received when he and God were alone together, like pupil and master, and while the instruments of the miracles, the hand and the staff, with which he was equipped for his mission were both in his own possession.",
"[81] But the third had its birthplace in Egypt. It was one which he could not carry with him or rehearse beforehand, yet the amazement which it was sure to cause was quite as great. It was this: “The water,” God said, “which thou dost draw from the river and pour on the land will be blood quite ruddy, and not only its colour but its properties will be completely changed.”",
"[82] Moses evidently felt that this too was credible, not only because of the infallibility of the Speaker, but through the proofs he had already been shewn in the miracles of the hand and the staff.",
"[83] But, though he believed, he tried to refuse the mission, declaring that he was not eloquent, but feeble of voice and slow of tongue, especially ever since he heard God speaking to him; for he considered that human eloquence compared with God’s was dumbness, and also, cautious as he was by nature, he shrank from things sublime and judged that matters of such magnitude were not for him. And therefore he begged Him to choose another, who would prove able to execute with ease all that was committed to him.",
"[84] But God, though approving his modesty, answered: “Dost thou not know who it is that gave man a mouth, and formed his tongue and throat and all the organism of reasonable speech? It is I Myself: therefore, fear not, for at a sign from Me all will become articulate and be brought over to method and order, so that none can hinder the stream of words from flowing easily and smoothly from a fountain undefiled. And, if thou shouldst have need of an interpreter, thou wilt have in thy brother a mouth to assist thy service, to report to the people thy words, as thou reportest those of God to him.”"
],
[
"[85] Moses, hearing this, and knowing how unsafe and hazardous it was to persist in gainsaying, took his departure, and travelled with his wife and children on the road to Egypt. During the journey he met his brother, to whom he declared the divine message, and persuaded him to accompany him. His brother’s soul, in fact, had already, through the watchful working of God, been predisposed to obedience, so that without hesitation he assented and readily followed.",
"[86] When they had arrived in Egypt, one in mind and heart, they first summoned the senators of the nation secretly, and informed them of the oracles, and how God had, in pity and compassion for them, assured them liberty and departure from their present to a better country, and promised to be Himself their leader.",
"[87] After this they were now emboldened to talk to the king, and lay before him their request that he should send the people out of his boundaries to sacrifice. They told him that their ancestral sacrifices must be performed in the desert, as they did not conform with those of the rest of mankind, but so exceptional were the customs peculiar to the Hebrews that their rule and method of sacrifices ran counter to the common course. ",
"[88] The king, whose soul from his earliest years was weighed down with the pride of many generations, did not accept a God discernible only by the mind, or any at all beyond those whom his eyes beheld; and therefore he answered insolently: “Who is he whom I must obey? I know not this new Lord of whom you speak. I refuse to send the nation forth to run loose under pretext of festival and sacrifices.”",
"[89] Then, in the harshness and ferocity and obstinacy of his temper, he bade the overseers of the tasks treat the people with contumely, for showing slackness and laziness. “For just this,” he said, “was what was meant by the proposal to hold festival and sacrifice—things the very memory of which was lost by the hard pressed, and retained only by those whose life was spent in much comfort and luxury.”",
"[90] Thus they endured woes more grievous than ever, and were enraged against Moses and his companion as deceivers, abusing them, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, and accusing them of impiety in that they appeared to have spoken falsely of God. Whereupon Moses began to show the wonders which he had been previously taught to perform, thinking that the sight would convert them from the prevailing unbelief to belief in his words.",
"[91] The exhibition of these wonders to the king and the Egyptian nobles followed very quickly;"
],
[
"so, when all the magnates had collected at the palace, the brother of Moses took his staff, and, after waving it in a very conspicuous manner, flung it on the ground, where it immediately turned into a serpent, while the onlookers standing round were filled with wonder, fell back in fear, and were on the point of running away.",
"[92] But all the wizards and magicians who were present said: “Why are you terrified? We, too, are practised in such matters, and we use our skill to produce similar results.” Then, as each of them threw down the staff which he held, there appeared a multitude of serpents writhing round a single one;",
"[93] that one, the first, showed its great superiority by rising high, widening its chest and opening its mouth, when with the suction of its breath it swept the others in with irresistible force, like a whole draught of fishes encircled by the net, and, after swallowing them up, changed to its original nature, and became a staff.",
"[94] By this time, the marvellous spectacle had refuted the scepticism in every ill-disposed person’s soul, and they now regarded these events not as the works of human cunning or artifices fabricated to deceive, but as brought about by some diviner power to which every feat is easy.",
"[95] But, though they were compelled by the clear evidence of the facts to admit the truth, they did not abate their audacity, but clung to their old inhumanity and impiety as though it were the surest of blessings. They did not show mercy to those who were unjustly enslaved, nor carry out the orders which had divine authority, since God had shown His will by the proofs of signs and wonders, which are clearer than oracles. And therefore a severer visitation was needed, and volley of those blows whereby fools whom reason has not disciplined are brought to their senses.",
"[96] The punishments inflicted on the land were ten—a perfect number for the chastisement of those who brought sin to perfection. The chastisement was different from the usual kind,"
],
[
"for the elements of the universe—earth, fire, air, water—carried out the assault. God’s judgement was that the materials which had served to produce the world should serve also to destrov the land of the impious; and to show the mightiness of the sovereignty which He holds, what He shaped in His saving goodness to create the universe He turned into instruments for the perdition of the impious whenever He would.",
"[97] He distributed the punishments in this wise: three belonging to the denser elements, earth and water, which have gone to make our bodily qualities what they are, He committed to the brother of Moses; another set of three, belonging to air and fire, the two most productive of life, He gave to Moses alone; one, the seventh, He committed to both in common; and the other three which go to complete the ten He reserved to Himself. ",
"[98] He began by bringing into play first the plagues of water; for, since the Egyptians had paid a specially high homage to water, which they believed to be the original source of the creation of the All, He thought well to summon water first to reprove and admonish its votaries.",
"[99] What, then, was the event which so soon came to pass? The brother of Moses, at the command of God, smote the river with his staff, and at once, from Ethiopia to the sea, it turned into blood, and so did also the lakes, canals, springs, wells and fountains and all the existing water-supply of Egypt. Consequently, having nothing to drink, they dug up the ground along the banks; but the veins thus opened spouted up squirts of blood, which shot up as in haemorrhages, and not a drop of clear liquid was anywhere to be seen.",
"[100] Every kind of fish died therein, since its life-giving properties had become a means of destruction, so that a general stench pervaded everything from all these bodies rotting together. Also a great multitude of men, killed by thirst, lay in heaps at the cross-roads, since their relatives had not the strength to carry the dead to the tombs.",
"[101] For seven days the terror reigned, until the Egyptians besought Moses and his brother, and they besought God, to take pity on the perishing. And He Whose nature is to show mercy changed the blood into water fit for drinking, and restored to the river its old health-giving flood free from impurity."
],
[
"[102] For a very short time they relaxed, but soon betook themselves to the same cruelty and lawlessness as before, and seemed to think that either justice had disappeared utterly from amongst men, or that those who had suffered one punishment could not be expected to receive a second blow. But, like foolish children, they were taught once more by experience not to despise the warning. For chastisement, dogging their steps, slowed down when they tarried, but when they hastened to deeds of wickedness quickened its pace and overtook them.",
"[103] For once more the brother of Moses, at God’s command, stretched forth and brought his rod upon the canals and lakes and fens; and, as he stretched it, a multitude of frogs crept up, so numerous that not only the market-places and all the open spaces, but all the farm-buildings as well, and houses and temples and every place, public or private, was filled with them, as though it were nature’s purpose to send one kind of the aquatic animals to colonize the opposite region, since land is the opposite of water.",
"[104] The people, who could neither go out into the streets, because the passages were occupied by the frogs, nor yet stay indoors, because they had already crept up even to the tops of the houses and taken up the inmost recesses, were in the most unhappy and desperate straits.",
"[105] So, after the king had promised them to permit the Hebrews to leave the land, they fled for refuge to those who had helped them before; and they made intercession with God, and when their prayer was granted some of the frogs went back into the river, and others died at once and lay in heaps at the cross-roads, to which the Egyptians added the piles of those which they brought out of their houses, because of the intolerable stench arising from the dead bodies, and bodies of a kind which, even when alive, is highly displeasing to the senses."
],
[
"[106] But, having thus obtained a short breathing-space from punishment, and, like athletes in the arena, rallied their forces, only to gain fresh strength for evil-doing, they quickly returned to their familiar wickedness, forgetful of the evils which they had suffered so long. ",
"[107] Then God stayed from using water to afflict them, and used the earth instead; but appointed the same minister of chastisement, who once more, when bidden, struck the ground with his staff, when a stream of gnats poured forth, and spread like a cloud over the whole extent of Egypt.",
"[108] Now the gnat is a very small creature, but exceedingly troublesome, for it not only causes mischief to the surface of the body, and produces an unpleasant and very noxious itching, but it forces its way inside through the nostrils and ears, and also flies into and damages the pupils of the eyes, if one does not take precautions. And what precautions would be possible against such a stream, especially when it is a chastisement sent by God?",
"[109] Someone perhaps may ask why He punished the land through such petty and insignificant creatures, and refrained from using bears and lions and panthers and the other kinds of savage beasts which feed on human flesh; and, if not these, at any rate the asps of Egypt, whose bites are such as to cause immediate death.",
"[110] If such a person really does not know the answer, let him learn it: first, God wished to admonish the inhabitants of the land rather than to destroy them, for had He wished to annihilate them altogether He would not have taken animals to co-operate in His visitation, but calamities sent direct from heaven—pestilence and famine.",
"[111] And after this the inquirer should be taught a further lesson, and one that is needed throughout life. What is this? When men make war, they look round to find the most powerful auxiliaries to fight beside them, and so compensate for their own weakness; but God, the highest and greatest power, needs no one. But if, at any time, He wills to use any as instruments for His vengeance, He does not choose the strongest and the greatest, of whose might He takes no account, but provides the slightest and the smallest with irresistible and invincible powers, and through them wreaks vengeance on the evil-doers. So it was in this case.",
"[112] For what is slighter than a gnat? Yet so great was its power that all Egypt lost heart, and was forced to cry aloud: “This is the finger of God”; for as for His hand not all the habitable world from end to end could stand against it, or rather not even the whole universe. "
],
[
"[113] Such, then, were the punishments in which the brother of Moses was the agent. We have now, in due course, to examine those which were administered by Moses himself, and to shew what were the parts of nature which went to their making. We find that air and heaven, the purest portions of the universe, took on the succession to earth and water in that admonition of Egypt which Moses was appointed to superintend.",
"[114] First, he began to cause disturbance in the air. We must remember that Egypt is almost the only country, apart from those in southern latitudes, which is unvisited by one of the year’s seasons—winter. The reason may be, some say, that it is not far from the torrid zone, and that the fiery heat which insensibly emanates thence warms all its surroundings. It may be, again, that the clouds are used up beforehand by the flooding of the river at the summer solstice.",
"[115] The river begins to rise as the summer opens, and ceases when it ceases, and during that time the Etesian winds sweep down opposite to the mouths of the Nile and put a stop to its outflow through them. For, as the sea rises to a great height through the violence of the winds, extending its huge billows like a long wall, it coops the river up within; and then as the stream which flows from the upland springs, and the other which should find its way out but is driven inland by the obstacles which face it, meet each other, prevented as they are from expanding by the banks which compress them on either side, the river naturally rises aloft.",
"[116] Another possible reason is that winter is unneeded in Egypt. For the river, by making a lake of the fields, and thus producing the yearly crops, serves the purpose of rainfall.",
"[117] And, indeed, nature is no wastrel in her work, to provide rain for a land which does not want it. At the same time she rejoices to employ her science in works of manifold variety, and thus out of contrarieties form the harmony of the universe. And therefore she supplies the benefit of water to some from heaven above, to others from the springs and rivers below.",
"[118] Such was the condition of the land, enjoying springtime at mid-winter, the seaboard enriched by only slight showers, while the parts above Memphis, where the royal palace of Egypt was, experienced no rainfall at all, when suddenly a complete change came over the air, and all the visitations which belong to severe winter fell upon it in a body: rainstorms, a great quantity of heavy hail, violent winds, clashing and roaring against each other, cloudbursts, continuous claps of thunder and flashes of lightning and constant thunderbolts. These last provided a most marvellous spectacle, for they ran through the hail, their natural antagonist, and yet did not melt it nor were quenched by it, but unchanged coursed up and down and kept guard over the hail.",
"[119] Intense was the despondency to which the inhabitants were reduced, not only by the disastrous onset of all these things, but by the strangeness of the event. For they thought, as indeed was the case, that divine wrath had brought about these novel happenings; that the air in a way unknown before had conspired to ruin and destroy the trees and fruits, while at the same time many animals perished, some through excessive cold, others stoned to death, as it were, through the weight of the falling hail, others consumed by the fire, while some survived half-burnt and bore the marks of the wounds inflicted by the thunderbolts as a warning to the beholders."
],
[
"[120] When the plague abated, and the king and his surroundings recovered their courage, Moses, at God’s command, stretched his rod into the air, and then a violent south wind swooped down, gaining force and intensity throughout the day and night. This in itself was a source of much mischief, for the south wind is dry and produces headache and makes hearing difficult, and thus is fitted to cause distress and suffering, particularly in Egypt which lies well to the south, where the sun and the planets have their orbits, so that when the wind sets it in motion the scorching of the sun is pushed forward with it, and burns up everything.",
"[121] But it also brought with it a huge multitude of creatures which destroyed the plants, locusts that is, who poured forth ceaselessly like a stream, and filling the whole air devoured whatever the lightnings and hail had left, so that nothing any longer could be seen growing in all that great country.",
"[122] Then those in authority, reluctantly brought to a full realization of their own evil plight, approached the king and said: “How long will you refuse to grant these men leave to depart? Do you not yet understand that Egypt is destroyed?” The king yielded, or appeared to do so, and promised to comply if he were relieved from the dire scourge. And when Moses prayed again, a wind from the sea caught and scattered the locusts.",
"[123] But, when they were scattered, and the king was sick to death at the thought of releasing the people, a plague arose greater than all that had gone before; for, in bright daylight, darkness was suddenly overspread, possibly because there was an eclipse of the sun more complete than the ordinary, or perhaps because the stream of rays was cut off by continuous clouds, compressed with great force into masses of unbroken density. The result was that night and day were the same, and indeed what else could it seem but a single night of great length, equivalent to three days and the same number of nights?",
"[124] Then, indeed, as we are told, some who had thrown themselves on their beds did not dare to rise from them, while others, when any of the needs of nature pressed, felt their way along the walls or any other object, proceeding with difficulty as though they were blind. For the light of artificial fire was partly quenched by the prevailing storm wind, partly dimmed to the point of disappearance by the depth of the darkness, so that sight, the most indispensable of the senses, though sound in itself, was helpless and unable to see anything; and the other senses were discomfited,",
"[125] like subjects when their queen has fallen. For men could not bring themselves to speak or hear or take food, but lay tortured in silence and famine with no heart to use any of the senses, so entirely overwhelmed were they by the disaster, until Moses again took pity and besought God, Who made light to take the place of darkness, and day of night, with bright open sky all around."
],
[
"[126] Such, we are told, were the plagues inflicted through the agency of Moses alone, namely the plague of hail and lightning, the plague of the locusts, and that of the darkness which was proof against every form of light. One was committed to him and his brother together, which I will at once proceed to describe.",
"[127] They took in their hands, at God’s bidding, ashes from a furnace, which Moses scattered in the air, and then dust suddenly fell upon men and the lower animals alike. It produced an angry, painful ulceration over the whole skin, and, simultaneously with this eruption, their bodies swelled with suppurated blisters, which might be supposed to be extravasations from inflammation lurking beneath.",
"[128] Oppressed as they naturally were by the extreme painfulness and soreness of the ulceration and inflammation, they suffered in spirit more or no less than in body from the exhaustion which their miseries produced. For one continuous ulcer was to be seen stretching from head to foot, the sores scattered over every particular limb and part of the body being concentrated into a single form of the same appearance throughout. So it was until, again by the intercessions which the lawgiver made on behalf of the sufferers, the distemper was lightened.",
"[129] Rightly indeed was this chastisement committed to the two in common: to the brother because the dust which came down upon the people was from the earth, and what was of earth was under his charge; to Moses because the air was changed to afflict them, and plagues of heaven and air belonged to his ministration."
],
[
"[130] The three remaining chastisements were self-wrought, without any human agent, each of which I will proceed to describe as well as possible. In the first, a creature is employed whose ferocity is unequalled in all nature—the dog-fly. This name, which the coiners of words in their wisdom have given it, well expresses its character, for it is a compound formed from the two most shameless animals of the land and the air—the dog and the fly. Both these are persistent and fearless in their assaults, and if one attempts to ward them off meet him with a perseverance which refuses to be beaten, until they have got their fill of flesh and blood.",
"[131] The dog-fly has acquired the audacity of both, and is a creature venomous and vicious, which comes with a whirr from a distance, hurls itself like a javelin, and, with a violent onrush, fastens itself firmly on its victim.",
"[132] On this occasion the assault was also divinely impelled, so that its viciousness was doubled, prompted by avidity due not only to nature but to divine providence, which armed the creature and roused it to use its force against the population.",
"[133] After the dog-fly there followed again a chastisement brought about without human co-operation, the death of the live-stock ; for great herds of oxen and sheep and goats, and every kind of beast of burden and other cattle, perished as by a single agreed signal in a single day, whole droves at a time, thus presaging the destruction of men which was about to follow, just as we find in epidemics. For pestilential disorders are said to be preluded by a sudden murrain among the lower animals."
],
[
"[134] After this came the tenth and final judgement, transcending all its predecessors. This was the death of the Egyptians, not of the whole population, since God’s purpose was not to make a complete desert of the country, but only to teach them a lesson, nor yet of the great majority of the men and women of every age. Instead, He permitted the rest to live, but sentenced the first-born only to death, beginning with the king and ending with the meanest woman who grinds at the mill, in each case their eldest male child.",
"[135] For, about midnight, those who had been the first to call their parents father and mother, first to be called sons by them, all in full health and robust of body, were suddenly cut off wholesale without apparent cause, and no household, as we are told, was spared this calamity.",
"[136] When dawn came, every family, seeing their dearest thus unexpectedly dead, who, up till the evening, had shared their home and board, were naturally struck with profound grief and filled the whole place with their lamentations. And so, since in this general disaster the same emotion drew from all a united outcry, one single dirge of wailing resounded from end to end of the whole land.",
"[137] And, as long as they stayed in their houses, everyone, ignorant of his neighbour’s evil plight, bewailed his own only; but, when they came forth and learned what had befallen the rest, their grief was straightway doubled. To the personal sorrow, the lighter and lesser, was added the public, greater and heavier, since they lost even the hope of consolation. For who could be expected to comfort another if he needs consolation himself?",
"[138] And, as so often happens in such circumstances, they thought that their present condition was but the beginning of greater evils, and were filled with fear of the destruction of those who still lived. Consequently, bathed in tears and with garments rent, they rushed together to the palace and cried out against the king as the cause of all the dire events that had befallen them.",
"[139] If, they said, at the very beginning, when Moses first entreated him, he had suffered the people to go forth, they would have experienced none at all of these happenings; but, as he indulged his usual self-will, the rewards of his contentiousness had been promptly reaped by themselves. Then they exhorted each other to use all speed in driving the people from the whole country, and declared that to detain them even for a single day, or rather only for an hour, would bring upon them a deadly vengeance."
],
[
"[140] The Hebrews, thus hunted as outcasts from the land, and conscious of their own high lineage, were emboldened to act as was natural to them, as freemen and men who were not oblivious of the injustices which malice had inflicted on them;",
"[141] for they took out with them much spoil, which they carried partly on their backs, partly laid on their beasts of burden. And they did this not in avarice, or, as their accusers might say, in covetousness of what belonged to others. No, indeed. In the first place, they were but receiving a bare wage for all their time of service; secondly, they were retaliating, not on an equal but on a lesser scale, for their enslavement. For what resemblance is there between forfeiture of money and deprivation of liberty, for which men of sense are willing to sacrifice not only their substance but their life?",
"[142] In either case, their action was right, whether one regard it as an act of peace, the acceptance of payment long kept back through reluctance to pay what was due, or as an act of war, the claim under the law of the victors to take their enemies’ goods. For the Egyptians began the wrongdoing by reducing guests and suppliants to slavery like captives, as I said before. The Hebrews, when the opportunity came, avenged themselves without warlike preparations, shielded by justice whose arm was extended to defend them."
],
[
"[143] With all these plagues and punishments was Egypt admonished, none of which touched the Hebrews, though they dwelt in the same cities and villages and houses, and though earth, water, air, fire, the constituent parts of that nature which it is impossible to escape, joined in the attack. And the strangest thing of all was that the same elements in the same place and at the same time brought destruction to one people and safety to the other.",
"[144] The river changed to blood, but not for the Hebrews; for, when they wished to draw from it, it turned into good drinking-water. The frog tribe crept from the water on to the land, and filled the market-places, the farm buildings and houses, but held aloof from the Hebrews alone, as though it knew how to distinguish who should be punished and who should not.",
"[145] Neither the gnats, nor the dog-flies nor the locusts, which did so great damage to plants and fruits and animals and men, winged their way to them; neither the rainstorm nor the hail nor the thunderbolts which fell continuously reached as far as them. That most painful ulceration was not felt, or even imagined, by them. When the others were wrapped in profound darkness, they lived in clear radiance with the light of day shining upon them. When the first-born of the Egyptians was slain, no Hebrew died, nor was it likely that they should, when even the murrain, by which numberless cattle perished, did not involve a single herd of theirs in the destruction.",
"[146] Indeed, I think that everyone who witnessed the events of that time could not but have thought of the Hebrews as spectators of the sufferings of others, and not merely spectators in safety, but learners thereby of the finest and most profitable of lessons—piety. For never was judgement so clearly passed on good and bad, a judgement which brought perdition to the latter and salvation to the former."
],
[
"[147] The departing emigrants had among them over six hundred thousand men of military age, while the rest of the multitude, consisting of old men, womenfolk and children, could not easily be counted. They were accompanied by a promiscuous, nondescript and menial crowd, a bastard host, so to speak, associated with the true-born. These were the children of Egyptian women by Hebrew fathers into whose families they had been adopted, also those who, reverencing the divine favour shewn to the people, had come over to them, and such as were converted and brought to a wiser mind by the magnitude and the number of the successive punishments. ",
"[148] The appointed leader of all these was Moses, invested with this office and kingship, not like some of those who thrust themselves into positions of power by means of arms and engines of war and strength of infantry, cavalry and navy, but on account of his goodness and his nobility of conduct and the universal benevolence which he never failed to shew. Further, his office was bestowed upon him by God, the lover of virtue and nobility, as the reward due to him.",
"[149] For, when he gave up the lordship of Egypt, which he held as son to the daughter of the then reigning king, because the sight of the iniquities committed in the land and his own nobility of soul and magnanimity of spirit and inborn hatred of evil led him to renounce completely his expected inheritance from the kinsfolk of his adoption, He Who presides over and takes charge of all things thought good to requite him with the kingship of a nation more populous and mightier, a nation destined to be consecrated above all others to offer prayers for ever on behalf of the human race that it may be delivered from evil and participate in what is good.",
"[150] Having received this office, he did not, like some, take pains to exalt his own house, and promote his sons, of whom he had two, to great power and make them his consorts for the present and his successors for the hereafter. For in all things great and small he followed a pure and guileless policy, and, like a good judge, allowed the incorruptibility of reason to subdue his natural affection for his children.",
"[151] For he had set before him one essential aim, to benefit his subjects; and, in all that he said or did, to further their interests and neglect no opportunity which would forward the common well-being.",
"[152] In solitary contrast to those who had hitherto held the same authority, he did not treasure up gold and silver, did not levy tributes, did not possess houses or chattels or livestock or a staff of slaves or revenues or any other accompaniment of costly and opulent living, though he might have had all in abundance.",
"[153] He held that to prize material wealth shews poverty of soul, and despised such wealth as blind; but the wealth of nature which has eyes to see he highly honoured and zealously pursued, more perhaps than any other man. In dress and food and the other sides of life, he made no arrogant parade to increase his pomp and grandeur. But, while in these he practised the economy and unassuming ways of a private citizen, he was liberal in the truly royal expenditure of those treasures which the ruler may well desire to have in abundance.",
"[154] These treasures were the repeated exhibition of self-restraint, continence, temperance, shrewdness, good sense, knowledge, endurance of toil and hardships, contempt of pleasures, justice, advocacy of excellence, censure and chastisement according to law for wrong-doers, praise and honour for well-doers, again as the law directs."
],
[
"[155] And so, as he abjured the accumulation of lucre, and the wealth whose influence is mighty among men, God rewarded him by giving him instead the greatest and most perfect wealth. That is the wealth of the whole earth and sea and rivers, and of all the other elements and the combinations which they form. For, since God judged him worthy to appear as a partner of His own possessions, He gave into his hands the whole world as a portion well fitted for His heir.",
"[156] Therefore, each element obeyed him as its master, changed its natural properties and submitted to his command, and this perhaps is no wonder. For if, as the proverb says, what belongs to friends is common, and the prophet is called the friend of God, it would follow that he shares also God’s possessions, so far as it is serviceable.",
"[157] For God possesses all things, but needs nothing; while the good man, though he possesses nothing in the proper sense, not even himself, partakes of the precious things of God so far as he is capable. And that is but natural, for he is a world citizen, and therefore not on the roll of any city of men’s habitation, rightly so because he has received no mere piece of land but the whole world as his portion.",
"[158] Again, was not the joy of his partnership with the Father and Maker of all magnified also by the honour of being deemed worthy to bear the same title? For he was named god and king of the whole nation, and entered, we are told, into the darkness where God was, that is into the unseen, invisible, incorporeal and archetypal essence of existing things. Thus he beheld what is hidden from the sight of mortal nature, and, in himself and his life displayed for all to see, he has set before us, like some well-wrought picture, a piece of work beautiful and godlike, a model for those who are willing to copy it.",
"[159] Happy are they who imprint, or strive to imprint, that image in their souls. For it were best that the mind should carry the form of virtue in perfection, but, failing this, let it at least have the unflinching desire to possess that form.",
"[160] And, indeed, we all know this, that meaner men emulate men of distinction, and set their inclinations in the direction of what they seem to desire. Thus, when a ruler begins to shew profligacy and turn to a life of luxury, the whole body almost of his subjects gives full vent to the appetites of belly and sex beyond their actual needs, save in the case of some who, blessed by the gifts of nature, possess a soul kindly and propitious and free from viciousness;",
"[161] whereas, if that ruler adopt a more severe and more serious rule of life, even the very licentious are converted to continence and are eager, either through fear or shame, to create the impression that, after all, their aims are like to his. In fact the worse, even in madness, will never be found to condemn the ways of the better.",
"[162] Perhaps, too, since he was destined to be a legislator, the providence of God which afterwards appointed him without his knowledge to that work, caused him long before that day to be the reasonable and living impersonation of law."
],
[
"[163] So, having received the authority which they willingly gave him, with the sanction and assent of God, he proposed to lead them to settle in Phoenicia and Coelesyria and Palestine, then called the land of the Canaanites, the boundaries of which were three days’ journey from Egypt.",
"[164] The course by which he then led them was not the straight road. He avoided this, partly because he was apprehensive that if the inhabitants, fearing to lose their homes and personal liberty, offered them opposition, and war ensued, they might return by the same road to Egypt, and thus, exchanging one enemy for another, the new for the old, might be mocked, derided and subjected to hardships worse and more painful than what they underwent before. Partly, too, he wished by leading them through a long stretch of desert country to test the extent of their loyalty when supplies were not abundant but gradually grew scarcer and scarcer.",
"[165] Therefore, leaving the straight road, he found one at an angle to it, and, thinking that it extended to the Red Sea, began the journey. It was then, we are told, that there occurred a prodigy, a mighty work of nature, the like of which none can remember to have been seen in the past.",
"[166] A cloud shaped like a tall pillar, the light of which in the day-time was as the sun and in night as flame, went before the host, so that they should not stray in their journey, but follow in the steps of a guide who could never err. Perhaps indeed there was enclosed within the cloud one of the lieutenants of the great King, an unseen angel, a forerunner on whom the eyes of the body were not permitted to look."
],
[
"[167] But the king of Egypt, seeing, as he thought, that they had lost their way and were traversing a rough and pathless desert, was pleased to find that disaster had befallen their journey, since he judged them to be shut in without an outlet. And, repenting that he had let them go, he essayed to pursue, expecting that he would make the multitude return in fear to renewed slavery, or massacre them wholesale if they proved refractory.",
"[168] Then he took with him all his cavalry, javelineers, slingers, mounted archers, and all his other light-armed troops, and gave the six hundred finest of his scythed chariots to the men of rank that they might follow in suitable state and take part in the campaign. With unabated rapidity he rushed to the attack, and pushed on eagerly, wishing to come upon them suddenly and unforeseen. For the unexpected ill is ever more troublesome than the expected, since a negligently, compared with a carefully, guarded force is more liable to be successfully attacked.",
"[169] While he pursued them with these intentions, hoping to win an uncontested victory, they, as it happened, were already encamped on the shores of the sea. And, just as they were preparing to take their early meal, first a mighty din was heard, caused by the host of men and beasts coming on at full speed; and, at the sound, they poured out of their tents, standing on tiptoe to look around and listen with both ears. Then, shortly afterwards, high on the hill, appeared the enemy’s forces, armed and drawn up for battle."
],
[
"[170] At this strange, unexpected sight, they were panic-stricken. They were not ready to defend themselves, for lack of the necessary weapons, for their expedition was not for war but for colonization. They could not fly, for the sea was behind them, the enemy in front, and on either side the depths of the trackless desert. So, in the bitterness of their hearts, broken down by the greatness of their misfortune, they acted as men often act in such troubles, and began to accuse their ruler.",
"[171] “Was it because there were no tombs in Egypt where our dead bodies could be laid that you brought us out to kill and bury us here? Is not any slavery a lighter ill than death? You enticed this multitude with the hope of liberty, and then have saddled it with the greater danger which threatens its life.",
"[172] Did you not know our unarmedness, and the bitterness and savage temper of the Egyptians? Do you not see how great are our troubles, how impossible to escape? What must we do? Can we fight unarmed against the armed? Can we fly, surrounded as in a net by merciless enemies, pathless deserts, seas impassable to ships, or, if indeed they are passable, what supply of boats have we to enable us to cross?”",
"[173] Moses, when he heard these words, pardoned them, but remembered the divine messages, and, using his mind and speech simultaneously for different purposes, with the former silently interceded with God to save them from their desperate afflictions, with the latter encouraged and comforted the loud-voiced malcontents. “Do not lose heart,” he said, “God’s way of defence is not as that of men.",
"[174] Why are you quick to trust in the specious and plausible and that only? When God gives help He needs no armament. It is His special property to find a way where no way is. What is impossible to all created being is possible to Him only, ready to His hand.” Thus he discoursed, still calm and composed;",
"[175] but, after a little, he became possessed, and, filled with the spirit which was wont to visit him, uttered these oracular words of prophecy: “The host which you see armed to the teeth you shall see no more arrayed against you. It shall all fall in utter ruin and disappear in the depths, so that no remnant may be seen above the earth. And this shall be at no distant time, but in the coming night.”"
],
[
"[176] Such was his prediction. But at sunset a south wind of tremendous violence arose, and, as it rushed down, the sea under it was driven back, and, though regularly tidal, was on this occasion more so than usually, and swept as into a chasm or whirlpool, when driven against the shore. No star appeared, but a thick black cloud covered the whole heaven, and the murkiness of the night struck terror into the pursuers. Moses now, at God’s command,",
"[177] smote the sea with his staff, and as he did so it broke and parted into two. Of the waters thus divided, one part rose up to a vast height, where the break was made, and stood quite firmly, motionless and still like a wall; those behind were held back and bridled in their forward course, and reared as though pulled back by invisible reins; while the intervening part, which was the scene of the breaking, dried up and became a broad highway. Moses, seeing this, marvelled and was glad, and in the fullness of his joy encouraged his men and bade them move on with all speed.",
"[178] And, when they were about to begin the passage, a most extraordinary sign occurred. The guiding cloud, which at other times stood in front, turned round to the back of the multitude to form its rearguard, and thus posted between the pursuers and pursued regulated the course of the latter and drove them before it under safe protection, but checked and repelled the former when they strove to advance. When the Egyptians saw this, tumult and confusion prevailed everywhere among them. In their terror their ranks fell into disorder. They tumbled over each other, and sought to escape, but it was of no avail; for,",
"[179] while the Hebrews with their women and children, still mere infants, crossed on a dry road in the early dawn, it was otherwise with the Egyptians. Under the north wind the returning tide was swept back, and hurled its lofty billows upon them. The two sections of the sea rolled upon them from either side, united and submerged them, horses, chariots and all, with not even a torchbearer left to announce to the people of Egypt the sudden disaster.",
"[180] This great and marvellous work struck the Hebrews with amazement, and, finding themselves unexpectedly victorious in a bloodless conflict, and seeing their enemies, one and all, destroyed in a moment, they set up two choirs, one of men and one of women, on the beach, and sang hymns of thanksgiving to God. Over these choirs Moses and his sister presided, and led the hymns, the former for the men and the latter for the women."
],
[
"[181] They set out from the sea coast, and travelled for some time, no longer in any fear of danger from the enemy. But after three days the water failed, and thirst once more reduced them to despondency. Again they began to grumble at their lot, as though nothing good had befallen them hitherto. For, under the onset of the present terror, we always lose sense of the pleasantness of past blessings.",
"[182] Then they saw some springs and ran to draw from them, full of joy, but in their ignorance of the truth were deceived. For the water was bitter, and, when they had tasted it, the disappointment broke them down. Their bodies were exhausted and their souls dejected, not so much for themselves as for their infant children, the sight of whom, as they cried for something to drink, was more than they could face without tears.",
"[183] Some of the more thoughtless, men of feeble piety, even denounced the past events as not having been intended for their benefit, but rather to bring them into worse misfortunes. It were better, they said, to die thrice, not merely once, at the hands of enemies, than to perish, or worse than perish, by thirst. To depart from life swiftly and easily is, in the eyes of the wise, the same thing as never dying, and death in the true sense is that which comes slowly and painfully, whose terrors appear not in the state of death, but only in the process of dying.",
"[184] While they were engaged in such lamentations, Moses again addressed his supplications to God, that, knowing the weakness of His creatures, and particularly of mankind, and the necessities of the body, which depends on food, and is tied to those stern mistresses, meat and drink, He should pardon the despondent and also satisfy the needs of all, not at some distant time but with a boon bestowed promptly and swiftly, considering the inborn short-sightedness of mortality, which desires that assistance should be rendered quickly and at the moment. Hardly had he so prayed,",
"[185] when God sent in advance the power of His grace, and, opening the vigilant eye of the suppliant’s soul, bade him lift and throw into the spring a tree which he shewed him, possibly formed by nature to exercise a virtue which had hitherto remained unknown, or possibly created on this occasion for the service which it was destined to perform. Moses did as he was bid,",
"[186] whereupon the springs became sweet, and were converted into drinkable water, so that no one could even guess that they had originally been bitter, since no trace or tang remained to remind one of its former badness."
],
[
"[187] When they had relieved their thirst with double pleasure, since the unexpectedness of the event gave a delight beyond the actual enjoyment, they filled their water-vessels and then resumed their journey, feeling as though they had risen from a banquet and merry-making, and elated, with the intoxication not of wine, but of the sober carousal which the piety of the ruler who led them had invited them to enjoy. ",
"[188] They then arrived at a second halting-place, one well wooded and well watered, called Elim, irrigated by twelve springs beside which rose young palm-trees, fine and luxuriant, to the number of seventy. Anyone who has the gift of keen mental sight may see in this clear signs and tokens of the national blessings. For the nation has twelve tribes,",
"[189] each of which, in virtue of its piety, will be represented by the well which supplies piety in perennial streams and noble actions unceasingly, while the heads of the whole nation are seventy, who may properly be compared to the palm, the noblest of trees, excellent both in its appearance and in the fruit which it bears. Also it has its life-giving principle, not, like the others, buried in its roots, but mounted aloft, seated like a heart in the very centre of the branches which stand around to guard it as their very queen.",
"[190] Such, too, is the nature of the mind of those who have tasted of holiness. Such a mind has learned to gaze and soar upwards, and, as it ever ranges the heights and searches into divine beauties, it makes a mock of earthly things, counting them to be but child’s-play, and those to be truly matters for earnest care."
],
[
"[191] After this no long time had elapsed when they were famished for want of food. It seemed as though the forces of necessity were taking turns to attack them. For those stern mistresses, hunger and thirst, had parcelled out their inflictions and plied them with these successively, with the result that when one was relaxed the other was upon them. This was most intolerable to the victims, since, often when they thought they had got free of thirst, they soon found the scourge of hunger waiting to take its place.",
"[192] And the presence of the dearth was not their only hardship; there was also the despair of obtaining provisions in the future. The sight of the deep, wide desert, utterly barren of fruits, filled them with despondency. All around there was nothing but rough, broken rocks, or plains where the soil was full of salt, or very stony mountains, or depths of sand stretching upwards steep and high, and again no rivers, spring-fed or winter torrent, no well, no tilth, no woodland of trees, either cultivated or wild, no living creature either of the air or of the land, save reptiles that vent poison for the destruction of mankind, such as snakes and scorpions.",
"[193] Then, remembering the teeming fertility of Egypt, and contrasting the abundance of everything there with the lack of everything here, they were roused to anger, and expressed their feelings to each other in such words as these: “We left the country in the hope of freedom, and yet we have no security even of life. Our leader promised us happiness; in actual fact, we are the most miserable of men.",
"[194] What will be the end of this long, interminable journey? Every traveller by sea or land has set before him some goal to come to, market or harbour for the one, city or country for the other; we alone have before us a pathless wilderness, painful journeying, desperate straits. For, as we proceed, there opens out before us, as it were, an ocean, vast, deep, impassable, ever wider day by day. He exhorted and puffed us up with his words,",
"[195] and filled our ears with empty hopes, and then tortures our bellies with hunger, not providing even the barest nourishment. With the name of colonization he has deceived this great multitude, and first carried us from an inhabited to an uninhabited world, then led us on to the grave along the road which brings life to its end.”"
],
[
"[196] Moses, when reviled in this way, was indignant not so much at their denunciations of himself as at their instability of judgement. For, after experiencing strange events outside the customary without number, they should have ceased to be guided by anything that is specious and plausible, but should have put their trust in him of whose unfailing truthfulness they had received the clearest proofs.",
"[197] But, on the other hand, when he considered the want of food, as great a misfortune as any that can befall mankind, he forgave them, knowing that the multitude by its very nature is an unstable thing, shaken by the circumstances of the moment, which produce oblivion of the past and despondency of the future. So, while they were all thus overwhelmed by affliction,",
"[198] and expecting the extreme misfortunes which they believed to be close at hand, ready to attack them, God, moved partly by the clemency and benevolence to man which belongs to His nature, partly too by His wish to honour the ruler whom He had appointed, and still more to bring home to them the greatness of that ruler’s piety and holiness as shewn in matters both clear and obscure, took pity on them and healed their sufferings.",
"[199] He, therefore, devised new and strange forms of benefaction, that by clearer manifestations they might now be schooled not to shew bitter resentment if something did not at once turn out as they would have it, but bear it patiently in expectation of good to come.",
"[200] What, then, did happen? On the morrow about daybreak, a great quantity of dew lay deep around the whole camp, showered noiselessly by God; a strange, extraordinary rain, not water, nor hail, nor snow, nor ice, such as are produced by the changes in the clouds at the winter solstice, but of grains exceedingly small and white, which, poured down in a continuous flow, lay in heaps in front of the tents. It was an incredible sight; and, in astonishment thereat, they asked their leader, “What is this rain, which no man ever saw before, and for what purpose has it come?”",
"[201] Moses, in answer, possessed by divine inspiration, spoke these oracular words: “Mortals have the deep-soiled plainland given over to them, which they cut into furrows with the plough, and there sow their seed, and perform the other tasks of the husbandman, thus providing the yearly fruits, and through them abundance of the necessaries of life. But God has subject to Him not one portion of the universe, but the whole world and its parts, to minister as slaves to their master for every service that He wills.",
"[202] So now it has seemed good to Him that the air should bring food instead of water, for the earth too often brings rain. What is the river of Egypt, when every year it overflows and waters the fields with its inroads, but a rainpour from beneath?”",
"[203] This work of God was strange enough even if it had stopped at this point, but actually there were other facts still stronger enhancing its marvels. For the men brought vessels from every quarter, and collected the grains, some on their beasts, others in burdens on their shoulders, thinking thus to store up provisions to last for later use.",
"[204] But, as it turned out, it was impossible to store or hoard them, since it was God’s purpose to bestow gifts ever new. For when they took a sufficient stock for their needs at the time, they consumed it with pleasure, but anything they left for the morrow they found did not keep, but changed and stank and was full of such life as is regularly bred in putrescence. This they naturally threw away, but found other food prepared for them, rained upon them with the dew every day.",
"[205] A special distinction was given to the sacred seventh day, for, since it was not permitted to do anything on that day, abstinence from works great or small being expressly enjoined, and therefore they could not then gather what was necessary, God rained a double supply the day before, and bade them bring in what would be sufficient for two days. And what was thus collected kept sound, nor did any of it decay at all as in the previous case."
],
[
"[206] There is something still more wonderful to be told. During all that long period of forty years in which they journeyed, the food required was supplied according to the rules just mentioned, like rations measured out to provide the allotment needed for each.",
"[207] At the same time, they learned to date aright the day of which they had dearly longed to have knowledge. For, long before, they had asked what was the birthday of the world on which this universe was completed, and to this question, which had been passed down unsolved from generation to generation, they now at long last found the answer, learnt not only through divine pronouncements but by a perfectly certain proof. For, as we have said, while the surplus of the downpour decayed on the other days, on the day before the seventh it not only did not change, but was actually supplied in double measure.",
"[208] The method they employed with the food was as follows: At dawn they collected what fell, ground or crunched it and then boiled it, when they found it a very pleasant form of food, like a honey-cake, and felt no need of elaborate cookery.",
"[209] But in fact, not long after, they were well supplied with the means of luxurious living, since God was pleased to provide to them abundantly, and more than abundantly, in the wilderness all the viands which are found in a rich and well-inhabited country. For in the evenings a continuous cloud of quails appeared from the sea and overshadowed the whole camp, flying close to the land, so as to be an easy prey. So they caught and dressed them, each according to his tastes, and feasted on flesh of the most delicious kind, thus obtaining the relish required to make their food more palatable."
],
[
"[210] Though this supply of food never failed and continued to be enjoyed in abundance, a serious scarcity of water again occurred. Sore pressed by this, their mood turned to desperation, whereupon Moses, taking that sacred staff with which he accomplished the signs in Egypt, under inspiration smote the steep rock with it.",
"[211] It may be that the rock contained originally a spring and now had its artery clean severed, or perhaps that then for the first time a body of water collected in it through hidden channels was forced out by the impact. Whichever is the case, it opened under the violence of the stream and spouted out its contents, so that not only then did it provide a remedy for their thirst but also abundance of drink for a longer time for all these thousands. For they filled all their water vessels, as they had done on the former occasion, from the springs that were naturally bitter but were changed and sweetened by God’s directing care.",
"[212] If anyone disbelieves these things, he neither knows God nor has ever sought to know Him; for if he did he would at once have perceived—aye, perceived with a firm apprehension—that these extraordinary and seemingly incredible events are but child’s-play to God. He has but to turn his eyes to things which are really great and worthy of his earnest contemplation, the creation of heaven and the rhythmic movements of the planets and fixed stars, the light that shines upon us from the sun by day and from the moon by night, the establishment of the earth in the very centre of the universe, the vast expanses of continents and islands and the numberless species of animals and plants, and again the widespreading seas, the rushing rivers, spring-fed and winter torrents, the fountains with their perennial streams, some sending forth cold, other warm, water, the air with its changes of every sort, the yearly seasons with their well-marked diversities and other beauties innumerable.",
"[213] He who should wish to describe the several parts, or rather any one of the cardinal parts of the universe, would find life too short, even if his years were prolonged beyond those of all other men. But these things, though truly marvellous, are held in little account because they are familiar. Not so with the unfamiliar; though they be but small matters, we give way before what appears so strange, and, drawn by their novelty, regard them with amazement."
],
[
"[214] After traversing a long and pathless expanse, they came within sight of the confines of habitable land, and the outlying districts of the country in which they proposed to settle. This country was occupied by Phoenicians. Here they had thought to find a life of peace and quiet, but their hopes were disappointed.",
"[215] For the king who ruled there, fearing pillage and rapine, called up the youth of his cities and came to meet them, hoping to bar their way, or, if that were not feasible and they attempted violence, to discomfit them by force of arms, seeing that his men were unwearied and fresh for the contest, while the others were exhausted with much journeying and by the famine and drought which had alternately attacked them. Moses,",
"[216] learning from his scouts that the enemy was not far distant, mustered his men of military age, and, choosing as their general one of his lieutenants named Joshua, hastened himself to take a more important part in the fight. Having purified himself according to the customary ritual, he ran without delay to the neighbouring hill and besought God to shield the Hebrews and give a triumphant victory to the people whom He had saved from wars and other troubles still more grievous than this, dispersing not only the misfortunes with which men had menaced them but also those so miraculously brought about in Egypt by the upheaval of the elements and by the continual dearth which beset them in their journeying.",
"[217] But, when they were about to engage in the fight, his hands were affected in the most marvellous way. They became very light and very heavy in turns, and, whenever they were in the former condition and rose aloft, his side of the combatants was strong and distinguished itself the more by its valour, but whenever his hands were weighed down the enemy prevailed. Thus, by symbols, God shewed that earth and the lowest regions of the universe were the portion assigned as their own to the one party, and the ethereal, the holiest region, to the other; and that, just as heaven holds kingship in the universe and is superior to earth, so this nation should be victorious over its opponents in war.",
"[218] While, then, his hands became successively lighter and weightier, like scales in the balance, the fight, too, continued to be doubtful; but, when they suddenly lost all weight, the fingers serving them as pinions, they were lifted on high like the tribe that wings its way through the air, and remained thus soaring until the Hebrews won an undisputed victory and their enemies were slaughtered wholesale, thus justly suffering the punishment which they wrongly strove to deal to others.",
"[219] Then, too, Moses set up an altar, and called it from the event “Refuge of God,” and on this, with prayers of thanksgiving, he offered sacrifices in celebration of the victory."
],
[
"[220] After this battle he came to the conclusion that, since it was now the second year of their travels, he ought to inspect the land in which the nation proposed to settle. He wished them, instead of arguing ignorantly in the usual way, to obtain a good idea of the country by first-hand report, and with this solid knowledge of the conditions to calculate the proper course of action.",
"[221] He chose twelve men corresponding to the number of the tribes, one headman from each, selecting the most approved for their high merit, in order that no part of the nation might be set at variance with the others through receiving either more or less than they, but all might get to know through their chieftains the conditions in which the inhabitants lived, as they would do if the emissaries were willing to report the full truth.",
"[222] When he had chosen them, he spoke as follows: “The conflicts and dangers which we have undergone and still endure, have for their prize the lands which we hope to apportion, a hope which we trust may not be disappointed, since the nation which we are bringing to settle there is so populous. To know the places, the men and their circumstances, is as useful as the ignorance of them is mischievous.",
"[223] So we have appointed you that with the aid of your sight and intelligence we may be able to survey the state of the country. Become, then, the ears and eyes of all this great multitude, to give them a clear apprehension of what they require to know.",
"[224] There are three things which we desire to learn: the size and strength of the population, whether the cities are favourably situated and strongly built, or the contrary, and whether the land has a deep, rich soil, well-adapted to produce every kind of fruits from cornfields and orchards, or on the other hand is thin and poor. Thus shall we counter the number and power of the inhabitants with equal forces, and the strength of their position with machines and siege engines. Knowledge of the fertility or unfertility of the land is also indispensable, for if it is poor it would be folly to court danger to win it.",
"[225] Our arms and engines and all our power consist solely in faith in God. Equipped with this, we shall defy every terror. Faith is able to overpower, and more than overpower, forces the most invincible, in physique, courage, experience and number, and by it we are supplied in the depths of the desert with all that the rich resources of cities can give.",
"[226] Now the season which has been found to be best for testing the goodness of a land is spring, which is now present; for in springtime the different crops come to their fullness and the fruit-trees begin to shew their natural growth. Yet it might be better to wait till summer is at its height, and bring back fruits as samples of the wealth of the land.”"
],
[
"[227] When the spies heard this, they set out on their errand, escorted by the whole multitude, who feared that they might be taken and slain, thus entailing two heavy misfortunes, the death of the men who were as eyesight to their particular tribe, and concerning the foe that lay ready to attack them ignorance of the facts which it would be useful to know.",
"[228] The men took with them scouts and guides to the road, and followed behind them. And, when they came near to their destination, they quickly ascended the highest of the mountains in the neighbourhood and surveyed the country. Much of it was plainland bearing barley, wheat and grass, while the uplands were equally full of vines and other trees, all of it well timbered and thickly overgrown and intersected with springs and rivers which gave it abundance of water, so that from the lowest part to the summits the whole of the hill country, particularly the ridges and the deep clefts, formed a close texture of umbrageous trees.",
"[229] They observed also that the cities were strongly fortified, in two ways, through the favourable nature of their situation and the solidity of their walls. And, on scrutinizing the inhabitants, they saw that they were countless in number and giants of huge stature, or at least giant-like in their physical superiority both in size and strength.",
"[230] Having marked these things, they stayed on to get a more accurate apprehension, for first impressions are treacherous and only slowly in time get the seal of reality. And, at the same time, they were at pains to pluck some of the fruits of the trees, not those in the first stage of hardening, but fruits darkening to ripeness, and thus have something which would naturally keep in good condition to exhibit to the whole multitude.",
"[231] They were especially amazed by the fruit of the vine, for the bunches were of huge size, stretching right along the branches and shoots and presenting an incredible spectacle. One, indeed, they cut off, and carried it suspended from the middle part of a beam, the ends of which were laid on two youths, one in front and another behind, a fresh pair at intervals relieving its predecessors, as they continually were wearied by the great weight of the burden.",
"On vital matters, the envoys were not of one mind."
],
[
"[232] Indeed, there were numberless contentions among them, even during the journey before they arrived back, though of a lighter kind, as they did not wish that their disputes or conflicting reports should produce faction in the mass of the people. But, when they had returned, these contentions became more severe.",
"[233] For, while one party, by dilating upon the fortifications of the cities and the great population of each and by magnifying everything in their description, created fear in their hearers, the others belittled the gravity of all that they had seen, and bade them not be faint-hearted but persist in founding their settlement in the certainty that they would succeed without striking a blow. No city, they said, could resist the combined onset of so great a power, but would fall overwhelmed by its weight. Both parties transmitted the results of their own feelings to the souls of their hearers, the unmanly their cowardice, the undismayed their courage and hopefulness.",
"[234] But these last numbered but a fifth part of the craven-hearted, who were five times as many as the better spirited.",
"Courage confined to few is lost to sight, when timidity has the superiority of numbers: and that, we are told, happened on this occasion; for the two who gave a highly favourable account were so outweighed by the ten who said the opposite that the latter brought over the whole multitude into dissent from the others and agreement with themselves.",
"[235] With regard to the country, they all stated the same, unanimously extolling the beauty of both the plain and hill country. “But of what use to us,” at once cried out the people, “are good things which belong to others, and moreover are strongly guarded so that none can take them away?” And they set upon the two, and nearly stoned them in their preference of the pleasant-sounding to the profitable, and of deceit to truth.",
"[236] This roused their ruler’s indignation, who, at the same time, feared lest some scourge should descend upon them from God for their senseless disbelief in His utterances. This actually happened. For the ten cowardly spies perished in a pestilence with those of the people who had shared their foolish despondency, while the two who alone had advised them not to be terrified, but hold to their plan of settlement, were saved, because they had been obedient to the oracles, and received the special privilege that they did not perish with the others."
],
[
"[237] This event was the reason why they did not come sooner to the land where they proposed to settle. For, though they could have occupied the cities of Syria and their portions of land in the second year after leaving Egypt, they turned away from the road which led directly thither and wandered about, travelling with difficulty, through long, pathless tracts, which appeared one after the other, bringing endless weariness of soul and body, the punishment they needs must endure for their great impiety.",
"[238] For thirty-eight years in addition to the time already spent, the span of a generation of human life, they went wayworn up and down, tracing and retracing the trackless wilds till at last in the fortieth year they succeeded in reaching those boundaries of the country to which they had come before.",
"[239] Near the entrances there dwelt, among others, some kinsfolk of their own, who, they quite thought, would join in the war against their neighbours and assist the new settlement in every way, or, if they shrank from this, would at the worst abstain from force and remain neutral. For the ancestors of both nations,",
"[240] the Hebrews and the inhabitants of the outlying districts, were two brothers with the same father and mother, and twins to boot. Both had become the parents of an increasing family, and, as their descendants were by no means unfruitful, both households had spread into great and populous nations. One of these had clung to the homeland, the other, as has been said, migrated to Egypt on account of the famine, and was returning after many years.",
"[241] The latter in spite of its long separation maintained the tie of relationship, and though it had to deal with men who retained none of their ancestral customs, but had abandoned all the old ways of communal life, considered that it was proper for humane natures to pay some tribute of goodwill to the name of kinship.",
"[242] The other, on the contrary, had upset all that made for friendship. In its customs and language, its policy and actions, it shewed implacable enmity and kept alive the fire of an ancestral feud. For the founder of the nation, after having of his own accord sold his birthright as the elder to his brother, had later reclaimed what he had surrendered, in violation of their agreement, and had sought his blood, threatening him with death if he did not make restitution; and this old feud between two individual men was renewed by the nation so many generations after.",
"[243] Now the leader of the Hebrews, Moses, though an attack might have won him an uncontested victory, did not feel justified in taking this course because of the above-mentioned kinship. Instead, he merely asked for the right of passage through the country, and promised to carry out all that he agreed to do, not to ravage any estate, not to carry off cattle or spoil of any kind, to pay a price for water if drink were scarce and for anything else which their wants caused them to purchase. But they refused these very peaceful overtures with all their might, and threatened war if they found them overstepping their frontiers, or even merely on the threshold."
],
[
"[244] The Hebrews were incensed at the answer, and were now starting to take up arms when Moses, standing where he could be heard, said: “My men, your indignation is just and reasonable. We made friendly proposals in the kindest spirit. In the malice of their hearts, they have answered us with evil.",
"[245] But the fact that they deserve to be punished for their brutality does not make it right for us to proceed to take vengeance on them. The honour of our nation forbids it, and demands that here too we should mark the contrast between our goodness and their unworthiness by inquiring not only whether some particular persons deserve to be punished, but also whether the punishment can properly be carried out by us.”",
"[246] He then turned aside and led the multitude by another way, since he saw that all the roads of that country were barricaded by watches set by those who had no cause to expect injury but through envy and malice refused to grant a passage along the direct road.",
"[247] This was the clearest proof of the vexation which these persons felt at the nation’s liberation, just as doubtless they rejoiced at the bitter slavery which it endured in Egypt. For those who are grieved at the welfare of their neighbours are sure to enjoy their misfortunes, though they may not confess it.",
"[248] As it happened, the Hebrews, believing that their feelings and wishes were the same as their own, had communicated to them all their experiences, painful and pleasant, and did not know that they were far advanced in depravity and with their spiteful and quarrelsome disposition were sure to mourn their good fortune and take pleasure in the opposite.",
"[249] But, when their malevolence was exposed, the Hebrews were prevented from using force against them by their commander, who displayed two of the finest qualities—good sense, and at the same time good feeling. His sense was shown in guarding against the possibility of disaster, his humanity in that on kinsmen he had not even the will to take his revenge."
],
[
"[250] So, then, he passed by the cities of this nation; but the king of the adjoining country Chananes by name, having received a report from his scouts that the host of wayfarers was at no great distance, supposed that they were disorganized and would be an easy conquest if he attacked them first. He, therefore, started with a strongly armed force of such younger men as he had around him, and by a rapid attack routed those who first met him, unprepared as they were for battle; and, having taken them captive, elated at the unexpected success he advanced further, expecting to overpower all the rest.",
"[251] But they, not a whit daunted by the defeat of the vanguard, but infused with courage greater even than before, and eager to supply by their zealousness the deficiency caused by the capture of their comrades, worked upon each other not to be faint-hearted. “Let us be up and doing,” they cried. “We are are now setting foot in the country. Let us shew ourselves undismayed and possessed of the security which courage gives. The end is often determined by the beginning. Here, at the entrance of the land, let us strike terror into the inhabitants, and feel that ours is the wealth of their cities, theirs the lack of necessities which we bring with us from the desert and have given them in exchange.”",
"[252] While they thus exhorted each other, they vowed to devote to God the cities of the king and the citizens in each as firstfruits of the land, and God, assenting to their prayers, and inspiring courage into the Hebrews, caused the army of the enemy to fall into their hands.",
"[253] Having thus captured them by the might of their assault, in fulfilment of their vows of thank-offering, they took none of the spoil for themselves, but dedicated the cities, men and treasures alike, and marked the fact by naming the whole kingdom “Devoted.”",
"[254] For, just as every pious person gives firstfruits of the year’s produce, whatever he reaps from his own possessions, so too the whole nation set apart the kingdom which they took at the outset, and thus gave a great slice of the great country into which they were migrating as the firstfruits of their settlement. For they judged it irreligious to distribute the land until they had made a firstfruit offering of the land and the cities."
],
[
"[255] Shortly afterwards they also found a spring of good water in a well situated on the borders of the land. This supplied the whole multitude with drink, and their spirits were enlivened thereby, as though the draught were strong wine rather than water. In their joy and gladness, the people of God’s choice set up choirs around the well, and sang a new song to the Deity, Who gave them the land as their portion and had, in truth, led them in their migration. They did so at this point because here, for the first time, when they passed from the long expanse of desert to set foot in a habitable land, and one which they were to possess, they had found water in abundance, and therefore they judged it fitting not to leave the well uncelebrated.",
"[256] For, as they were told, it had been dug by the hands of no common men, but of kings, whose ambition was not only to find the water but so to build the well that the wealth lavished upon it should shew the royal character of the work and the sovereignty and lofty spirit of the builders. ",
"[257] Moses, rejoicing at the succession of unexpected happinesses, proceeded further, after distributing his younger men into vanguard and rearguard and placing the old men, womenfolk and children in the centre, so as to be protected by those on either side if any enemy host should attack either in front or behind."
],
[
"[258] A few days after, he entered the land of the Amorites, and sent ambassadors to the king, Sihon by name, with the same demands as he had made to his kinsman before. But Sihon not merely answered the envoys insolently, and came nigh to putting them to death, had he not been prevented by the law of embassies, but also mustered his whole army, and went to the attack thinking to win an immediate victory.",
"[259] But, when he engaged, he perceived that he had no untrained or unpractised fighters to deal with, but men who were truly masters in warfare and invincible, men who had shortly before performed many great feats of bravery and shown themselves strong in body, mettlesome in spirit, and lofty in virtue, and through these qualities had captured their enemies with abundant ease, while they left the spoil untouched in their eagerness to dedicate the first prizes to God.",
"[260] So, too, on this occasion, mightily fortified by the same resolutions and armoury, they went out to meet the foe, taking with them that irresistible ally, justice, whereby also they became bolder in courage and champions full of zeal. The proof of this was clearly shewn.",
"[261] No second battle was needed, but this first fight was the only one, and in it the whole opposing force was turned to flight, then overthrown and straightway annihilated in wholesale slaughter.",
"[262] Their cities were at once both emptied and filled—emptied of their old inhabitants, filled with the victors. And, in the same way, the farm-houses in the country were deserted by the occupants, but received others superior in every way."
],
[
"[263] This war caused terrible alarm among all the nations of Asia, particularly among those of the adjoining territories, since the expectation of danger was nearer. But one of the neighbouring kings, named Balak, who had brought under his sway a great and populous portion of the East, lost heart before the contest began. As he had no mind to meet the enemy face to face, and shrank from a war of destruction waged freely and openly with arms, he had recourse to augury and soothsaying, and thought that, if the power of the Hebrews was invincible in battle, he might be able to overthrow it by imprecations of some kind.",
"[264] Now, there was at that time a man living in Mesopotamia far-famed as a soothsayer, who had learned the secrets of that art in its every form, but was particularly admired for his high proficiency in augury, so great and incredible were the things which he had revealed to many persons and on many occasions.",
"[265] To some he had foretold rainstorms in summer, to others drought and great heat in mid-winter, to some barrenness to follow fertility, or again plenty to follow dearth, to some rivers full or empty, ways of dealing with pestilences, and other things without number. In every one of these his reputation for prediction made his name well known and was advancing him to great fame, since the report of him was continually spreading and reaching to every part.",
"[266] To him Balak sent some of his courtiers, and invited him to come, offering him gifts at once and promising others to follow, at the same time explaining the purpose for which his presence was required. But the seer, actuated not by any honourable or sincere feelings, but rather by a wish to pose as a distinguished prophet whose custom was to do nothing without the sanction of an oracle, declined, saying that the Deity did not permit him to go.",
"[267] The envoys then returned to the king without success, but others, selected from the more highly reputed courtiers, were at once appointed for the same purpose who brought more money and promised more abundant gifts.",
"[268] Enticed by those offers present and prospective, and in deference to the dignity of the ambassadors, he gave way, again dishonestly alleging a divine command. And so on the morrow he made his preparations for the journey, and talked of dreams in which he said he had been beset by visions so clear that they compelled him to stay no longer but follow the envoys."
],
[
"[269] But, as he proceeded there was given to him on the road an unmistakable sign that the purpose which he was so eager to serve was one of evil omen. For the beast on which he happened to be riding, while proceeding along the straight road,",
"[270] first came to a sudden stop, then, as though someone opposite was thrusting it by force or causing it to rear, it fell back and then again swerved to right and left and floundered hither and thither unable to keep still, as though heady with wine or drink; and, while repeatedly beaten, it paid no regard to the blows, so that it almost threw its rider, and, even though he kept his seat, caused him as much pain as he gave.",
"[271] For the estates on either side had walls and hedges close by, so that when the beast in its movements dashed against these, the feet, knees and shins of its master were crushed and lacerated by the pressure.",
"[272] It was evidently a divine vision, whose haunting presence had for a considerable time been seen by the terrified animal, though invisible to the man, thus proving his insensibility. For the unreasoning animal showed a superior power of sight to him who claimed to see not only the world but the world’s Maker.",
"[273] When, cat last, he did discern the angel standing in his way, not because he was worthy of such a sight, but that he might perceive his own baseness and nothingness, he betook himself to prayers and supplications, begging pardon for an error committed in ignorance and not through voluntary intention.",
"[274] Yet even then, when he should have returned, he asked of the apparition whether he should retrace his steps homewards. But the angel perceived his dissimulation, for why should he ask about a matter so evident, which in itself provided its own demonstration and needed no confirmation by word, as though ears could be more truthful than eyes or speech than facts? And so in displeasure he answered: “Pursue your journey. Your hurrying will avail you nought. I shall prompt the needful words without your mind’s consent, and direct your organs of speech as justice and convenience require. I shall guide the reins of speech, and, though you understand it not, employ your tongue for each prophetic utterance.”"
],
[
"[275] When the king heard that he was now near at hand, he came forth with his guards to meet him. The interview naturally began with friendly greetings, which were followed by a few words of censure for his slowness and failing to come more readily. Then came high feasting and sumptuous banquets, and the other usual forms of provision for the reception of guests, each through the king’s ambition of more magnificence and more imposing pomp than the last.",
"[276] The next day at dawn Balak took the prophet to a hill, where it chanced that in honour of some deity a pillar had been set up which the natives worshipped. From thence a part of the Hebrew encampment was visible, which he shewed as a watchman from his tower to the wizard.",
"[277] He looked and said: “King, do you build seven altars, and sacrifice a calf and a ram on each, and I will go aside and inquire of God what I should say.” He advanced outside, and straightway became possessed, and there fell upon him the truly prophetic spirit which banished utterly from his soul his art of wizardry. For the craft of the sorcerer and the inspiration of the Holiest might not live together. Then he returned, and, seeing the sacrifices and the altars flaming, he spake these oracles as one repeating the words which another had put into his mouth.",
"[278] “From Mesopotamia hath Balak called me, a far journey from the East, that he may avenge him on the Hebrews through my cursing. But I, how shall I curse them whom God hath not cursed? I shall behold them with my eyes from the highest mountains, and perceive them with my mind. But I shall not be able to harm the people, which shall dwell alone, not reckoned among other nations; and that, not because their dwelling-place is set apart and their land severed from others, but because in virtue of the distinction of their peculiar customs they do not mix with others to depart from the ways of their fathers.",
"[279] Who has made accurate discovery of how the sowing of their generation was first made? Their bodies have been moulded from human seeds, but their souls are sprung from divine seeds, and therefore their stock is akin to God. May my soul die to the life of the body that it may be reckoned among the souls of the just, even such as are the souls of these men.”"
],
[
"[280] Balak suffered tortures inwardly as he listened to these words, and, when the speaker ceased, he could not contain his passion. “Are you not ashamed,” he cried, “that, summoned to curse the enemy, you have prayed for them? It seems that all unconsciously I was deceiving myself in treating you as a friend, who were secretly ranged on the side of the enemy, as has now become plain. Doubtless also your delay in coming here was due to your secretly harbouring a feeling of attachment to them and aversion for me and mine. For, as the old saying goes, the certain proves the uncertain.”",
"[281] The other, now liberated from the possession, replied: “I suffer under a most unjust charge and calumny, for I say nothing that is my own, but only what is prompted by God, and this I do not say or you hear now for the first time, but I said it before when you sent the ambassadors to whom I gave the same answer.”",
"[282] But the king, thinking either to deceive the seer or to move the Deity and draw Him from His firm purpose by a change of place, led the way to another spot, and from an exceedingly high hill shewed the seer a part of the enemy’s host. Then again he set up seven altars, and, after sacrificing the same number of victims as before, sent him away to seek good omens through birds or voices. ",
"[283] In this solitude, he was suddenly possessed, and, understanding nothing, his reason as it were roaming, uttered these prophetic words which were put into his mouth. “Arise, O King, and listen. Lend me a ready ear. God cannot be deceived as a man, nor as the son of man does He repent or fail to abide by what He has once said. He will utter nothing at all which shall not certainly be performed, for His word is His deed. As for me, I was summoned to bless, not to curse.",
"[284] There shall be no trouble or labour among the Hebrews. Their God is their shield for all to see, He Who also scattered the fierce onset of the ills of Egypt, and brought up all these myriads as a single man. Therefore, they care nothing for omens and all the lore of the soothsayer, because they trust in One Who is the ruler of the world. I see the people rising up as a lion’s cub, and exulting as a lion. He shall feast upon the prey, and take for his drink the blood of the wounded, and, when he has had his fill, he shall not betake himself to slumber, but unsleeping sing the song of the victorious.”"
],
[
"[285] Highly indignant at finding the soothsayer’s powers thus unexpectedly hostile, Balak said: “Sirrah, do not either curse or bless, for the silence which avoids danger is better than words which displease.” And, having said this, as though in the inconstancy of his judgement he had forgotten what he said, he led the seer away to another place from which he shewed him a part of the Hebrew host and begged him to curse them.",
"[286] Here the seer proved himself to be even worse than the king; for, though he had met the charges brought against him solely by the true plea that nothing which he said was his own but the divinely inspired version of the promptings of another, and therefore ought to have ceased to follow, and departed home, instead, he pressed forward even more readily than his conductor, partly because he was dominated by the worst of vices, conceit, partly because in his heart he longed to curse, even if he were prevented from doing so with his voice.",
"[287] And, having arrived at a mountain higher than those where he had stood before, and of great extent, he bade them perform the same sacrifice after again erecting seven altars, and bringing fourteen victims, two for each altar, a ram and a calf. But he himself did not go again, as was to be expected, to seek for omens from birds or voices, for he had conceived a great contempt for his own art, feeling that, as a picture fades in the course of years, its gift of happy conjecture had lost all its brilliance. Besides, he at last realized that the purpose of the king who had hired him was not in harmony with the will of God.",
"[288] So, setting his face to the wilderness, he looked upon the Hebrews encamped in their tribes, and, astounded at their number and order, which resembled a city rather than a camp, he was filled with the spirit, and spoke as follows:",
"[289] “Thus saith the man who truly sees, who in slumber saw the clear vision of God with the unsleeping eyes of the soul. How goodly are thy dwellings, thou host of the Hebrews! Thy tents are as shady dells, as a garden by the riverside, as a cedar beside the waters.",
"[290] There shall come forth from you one day a man and he shall rule over many nations, and his kingdom spreading every day shall be exalted on high. This people, throughout its journey from Egypt, has had God as its guide, Who leads the multitude in a single column. ",
"[291] Therefore, it shall eat up many nations of its enemies, and take all the fatness of them right up to the marrow, and destroy its foes with its far-reaching bolts. It shall lie down and rest as a lion, or a lion’s cub, full of scorn, fearing none but putting fear in all others. Woe to him who stirs up and rouses it. Worthy of benediction are those who bless thee, worthy of cursing those who curse thee.”"
],
[
"[292] Greatly incensed by this, the king said: “Thou wast summoned to curse the enemy, and hast now thrice invoked blessings on them. Flee quickly, for fierce is the passion of wrath, lest I be forced to do thee some mischief.",
"[293] Most foolish of men, of what a store of wealth and presents, of what fame and glory, hast thou robbed thyself by thy madness. Thou wilt return from the stranger’s land to thy own with nothing good in thy hand, but with reproaches and deep disgrace, as all may see, having merely brought such ridicule on the lore of the knowledge on which thou didst pride thyself before.” ",
"[294] The other replied: “All that has been said hitherto was oracles from above. What I have now to say is suggestions of my own designing.” And, taking him by the right hand, he counselled him in strict privacy as to the means by which, as far as might be, he should defend himself against the army of the enemy. Hereby he convicted himself of the utmost impiety; for, “Why,” we might ask him, “do you put forth your own personal counsels in opposition to the oracles of God? That were to hold that your projects are more powerful than the divine utterances.”"
],
[
"[295] Well, then, let us examine these fine injunctions of his, and see how they were contrived to gain an unquestioned victory over the truths which have ever the power to prevail. His advice was this. Knowing that the one way by which the Hebrews could be overthrown was disobedience, he set himself to lead them, through wantonness and licentiousness, to impiety, through a great sin to a still greater, and put before them the bait of pleasure.",
"[296] “You have in your countrywomen, king,” he said, “persons of pre-eminent beauty. And there is nothing to which a man more easily falls a captive than women’s comeliness. If, then, you permit the fairest among them to prostitute themselves for hire, they will ensnare the younger of their enemies.",
"[297] But you must instruct them not to allow their wooers to enjoy their charms at once. For coyness titillates, and thereby makes the appetites more active, and inflames the passions. And, when their lust has them in its grip, there is nothing which they will shrink from doing or suffering.",
"[298] Then, when the lover is in this condition, one of those who are arming to take their prey should say, with a saucy air: ‘You must not be permitted to enjoy my favours until you have left the ways of your fathers and become a convert to honouring what I honour. That your conversion is sincere will be clearly proved to me if you are willing to take part in the libations and sacrifices which we offer to idols of stone and wood and the other images.’",
"[299] Then the lover, caught in the meshes of her multiform lures, her beauty and the enticements of her wheedling talk, will not gainsay her, but, with his reason trussed and pinioned, will subserve her orders to his sorrow, and be enrolled as a slave of passion.”"
],
[
"[300] Such was his advice. And the king, thinking that the proposal was good, ignoring the law against adultery, and annulling those which prohibited seduction and fornication as though they had never been enacted at all, permitted the women, without restriction, to have intercourse with whom they would. Having thus received immunity,",
"[301] so greatly did they mislead the minds of most of the young men, and pervert them by their arts to impiety, that they soon made a conquest of them. And this continued until Phinehas, the son of the high priest, greatly angered at what he saw, and horrified at the thought that his people had at the same moment surrendered their bodies to pleasure and their souls to lawlessness and unholiness, shewed the young, gallant spirit which befitted a man of true excellence.",
"[302] For, seeing one of his race offering sacrifice and visiting a harlot, not with his head bowed down towards the ground, nor trying in the usual way to make a stealthy entrance unobserved by the public, but flaunting his licentiousness boldly and shamelessly, and pluming himself as though his conduct called for honour instead of scorn, he was filled with bitterness and righteous anger, and attacking the pair whilst they still lay together he slew both the lover and his concubine, ripping up also her parts of generation because they had served to receive the illicit seed.",
"[303] This example being observed by some of those who were zealous for continence and godliness they copied it at the command of Moses, and massacred all their friends and kinsfolk who had taken part in the rites of these idols made by men’s hands. And thus they purged the defilement of the nation, by relentlessly punishing the actual sinners, while they spared the rest who gave clear proof of their piety. To none of their convicted blood-relations did they shew pity, or mercifully condone their crimes, but held that their slayers were free from guilt. And, therefore, they kept in their own hand the act of vengeance, which in the truest sense was laudable to its executors. Twenty-four thousand,",
"[304] we are told, perished in one day. And with them perished, at the same moment, the common pollution which was defiling the whole host. When the purging was completed, Moses sought how to give to the high priest’s son, who had been the first to rush to the defence, such reward as he deserved for his heroism. But he was forestalled by God, Whose voice granted to Phinehas the highest of blessings, peace—a gift which no human being can bestow—and, besides peace, full possession of the priesthood, a heritage to himself and his family which none should take from them. "
],
[
"[305] Since, now, their internal troubles were entirely at an end, and, further, all those who were suspected of desertion or treachery had perished, it seemed to be a very suitable opportunity for waging war against Balak who had both plotted and executed mischief on so vast a scale. In the plotting he had been served by the soothsayer, who, he hoped, would be able by his curses to destroy the power of the Hebrews; in the execution by the licentiousness and wantonness of the women, who had caused the ruin of their paramours, of their bodies through lust, of their souls through impiety.",
"[306] However, Moses did not think well to employ his whole army, knowing that over-large multitudes fall through their own unwieldiness, and, at the same time, he thought it was an advantage to have reserves to reinforce those who bore the first brunt. He accordingly selected the flower of his men of military age, one thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand, that is, corresponding to the number of the tribes, and chose as commander-in-chief Phinehas, who had already given proof of his courage in that capacity; and after favourable sacrifices he dispatched his armed men, with words of encouragement to the following effect: “The contest before you is not to win dominion,",
"[307] nor to appropriate the possessions of others, which is the sole or principal object of other wars, but to defend piety and holiness, from which our kinsfolk and friends have been perverted by the enemies who have indirectly caused their victims to perish miserably.",
"[308] It would be absurd, then, if, after having slain with our own hands those who transgressed the law, we should spare the enemies who committed the graver wrong; if, after putting to death those who learned the lesson of wrongdoing, we should leave unpunished the teachers who forced them to it, and are responsible for all they did or suffered.”"
],
[
"[309] So, braced by these exhortations, with the native gallantry of their souls kindled to a flame, they went forth to the contest as to certain victory with indomitable resolution, and in the engagement shewed such a wealth of strength and boldness, that they made a slaughter of their opponents, and returned themselves all safe and sound without a single one killed or even wounded.",
"[310] Indeed, any spectator who did not know the facts would have supposed that they were returning not from a war or pitched battle but from those military reviews and displays of arms so frequently made in peace-time, which serve as drilling and practising grounds, where training for hostilities is carried on among friends.",
"[311] They proceeded to destroy the cities utterly by demolition or fire, so that no one could have told that they had ever been inhabited. And, having carried off prisoners more than they could count, they felt justified in putting the men and women to death, the former because these iniquitous designs and actions had been begun by them, the women because they had bewitched the younger Hebrews and thus led them into licentiousness and impiety and finally to death; but to the boys who were quite young and the maidens they shewed the mercy which their tender age secured for them.",
"[312] Having greatly enriched themselves with much booty from the palaces and private houses, and also from the country homesteads, since there was as much to be got from the estates as from the cities, they returned to the camp laden with all the wealth obtained from their enemies.",
"[313] Moses praised the general, Phinehas, and the combatants for their exploits, and also because they had not rushed to gain the prizes, nor thought of taking the spoil for themselves alone, but put it into a common stock, that those who had stayed behind in the tents might have their share. But he gave orders that they should stay outside the camp for some days, and that the high priest should purge from bloodshed those members of the united army who returned after being actually engaged.",
"[314] For, though the slaughter of enemies is lawful, yet one who kills a man, even if he does so justly and in self-defence and under compulsion, has something to answer for, in view of the primal common kinship of mankind. And therefore purification was needed for the slayers, to absolve them from what was held to have been a pollution."
],
[
"[315] However, after a short time, he went on to distribute the spoil, giving half to the campaigners, who were a small number compared with those who had remained inactive, while the other half he gave to those who had stayed in the camp. For he considered that it was just to give them a part of the prizes, seeing that their souls at least, if not their bodies, had taken part in the conflict. For reserve troops are not inferior in spirit to the actual fighters, but take a second place only in time and because the first place is preoccupied by others.",
"[316] And, now that the few had taken more, because they were in the forefront of danger, and the many less, because they had remained in the camp, he thought it necessary to dedicate the firstfruits of all the spoil. So the reserves contributed a fiftieth, and those who had led the advance a five-hundredth. The offerings of the latter class he ordered to be given to the high priest, and those of the former class to the temple servants, who were called Levites.",
"[317] But the commanders of hundreds and thousands, and the rest of the company of officers who led the various divisions, voluntarily made a special offering of firstfruits in acknowledgement of the preservation of themselves and their fellow-combatants, and of the victory whose glory no words could describe. These offerings were all the golden ornaments which each of them obtained from the spoil, and very costly vessels also made of gold; all of which Moses took, and, honouring the piety of the donors, laid them up in the consecrated tabernacle as a memorial of their thankfulness. Admirable indeed was the system of distributing the firstfruits.",
"[318] The tribute of the non-combatants, who had shewn a half-excellence by a zeal unaccompanied by action, he assigned to the temple servants; that of the fighters, who had hasarded bodies and souls, and thus displayed a complete measure of manly worth, he gave to the high priest, the president of the temple servants, that of the commanders of divisions, being the gift of captains, to the captain all, even God."
],
[
"[319] All these wars were fought and won without crossing the river of the land, the Jordan, against the inhabitants of the rich and deep-soiled country on the outer side, where there was much expanse of plain fit for growing corn and providing excellent fodder for cattle.",
"[320] When the two cattle-breeding tribes, who were a sixth part of the whole host, surveyed this country, they besought Moses to let them take their allotments there and settle down at once; for the region, they said, was very well suited to give pasturage and grazing to cattle, being well supplied with water and grassland and producing of itself abundance of herbage for maintaining sheep.",
"[321] Moses, however, considered that they were either claiming to have precedence in the distribution and to take their prizes before they were due, or else were shirking the wars which awaited them, where more kings, whose possessions were situated on the inner side of the river, were still lying ready to resist them. Consequently, he was greatly incensed, and answered them angrily in these words:",
"[322] “Are you, then, to settle down here to enjoy an undeserved leisure and idleness, leaving your kinsfolk and friends to the agony of the wars which still remain? And are the prizes to be given to you alone, as though success was complete, while battles and labours and tribulation and supreme dangers await the others?",
"[323] Nay, it is not just that you should reap peace and its blessings, while the others are struggling with wars and countless ills, or that the whole should be a mere appendage to the parts, whereas, on the contrary, it is only on the merits of the whole that the parts are held deserving of their portion.",
"[324] You have all equal rights with us; one race, the same fathers, one house, the same customs, community of laws, and other things innumerable, each of which strengthens the tie of kinship and the harmony of goodwill. Why, then, when you have been adjudged an equal share in the greatest and most vital matters, should you seek an unfair preference in the distribution, with the arrogance which a ruler might shew to his subjects or a master to his slaves?",
"[325] You ought, indeed, to have learnt a lesson from the blows which others have suffered; for wise men do not wait till the calamity is upon them. As it is, though your own kin supplies you with examples of warning in your fathers who inspected this land, and in the misfortune of them and those who shared their craven-heartedness, all of whom perished save two, though you should not let your name be associated with any such as these, so senseless are you that you follow after cowardice and forget that it will make you an easier prey. And you upset the ardent resolution of those who are fully disposed to manliness, whose spirits you paralyse and unnerve. Therefore, in hastening to sin,",
"[326] you will be hastening to punishment also; for it is the way of justice to be slow to move, but, when it is once moved, it overtakes and seizes the fugitives.",
"[327] When all the enemies are destroyed, and there is no prospect of war still awaiting us; when all the confederates have on scrutiny been found guiltless of desertion from the ranks or from the army, or of any other action which is the sequel of defeat, but have proved their constancy both of body and spirit from first to last; when finally the whole country has been cleared of its former inhabitants, then will the prizes and rewards for valour be given to the tribes on equal terms.”"
],
[
"[328] The two tribes listened to this admonition meekly, as true-born sons to a very kindly father. For they knew that he did not speak with an arrogance founded on official authority, but out of solicitude for them all and respect for justice and equality, and that his detestation of evil was never meant to cast reproach but always to bring those capable of improvement to a better mind. “You are naturally indignant,” they replied, “if you have got the idea that we are eager to leave the confederacy and take our portions before they are due.",
"[329] But you must clearly understand that no form of virtuous conduct, however toilsome it may be, alarms us. And by virtuous conduct we understand that we should obey you, great leader as you are, and be backward in no danger, and take our place in all the coming campaigns until the happy consummation is reached.",
"[330] We will, therefore, as before, take our place in the ranks, and cross Jordan with our full equipment, and give none of our armed men any excuse to stay behind; but our sons who are mere children and our daughters and our wives and our great stock of cattle will be left behind, if you permit, after we have built houses for the women and children and sheds for the animals, since otherwise, caught before we return, in a position unfortified and unprotected, they might meet with disaster at the hands of raiders.”",
"[331] Moses’ face was kindly and his tones milder, as he replied as follows: “If you are true to your words, the apportionments which you have asked shall remain secure to you. Leave your women and children and cattle, as you demand, and cross the river yourselves in your battalions with the rest, fully armed and arrayed for the fight, ready to engage at once if necessary.",
"[332] Later, when all the enemy are destroyed, and, peace having been made, the victors divide the land, you too will return to your people to enjoy the good things that fall to your share and reap the fruits of the lot that you have chosen.”",
"[333] When they heard these promises from his lips, filled with joy and courage, they settled their people and cattle safely in positions strongly protected against assault, in most cases by artificial fortifications. Then, taking up their arms, they rushed to the field more eagerly than the other confederates, as though they would wage the war alone or at any rate be the first of all to enter the conflict. For the acceptance of a gift beforehand increases a man’s readiness to support his comrades. He feels that he is not a free giver, but is repaying a debt which he cannot escape.",
"[334] We have now told the story of Moses’ actions in his capacity of king. We must next deal with all that he achieved by his powers as high priest and legislator, powers which he possessed as the most fitting accompaniments of kingship."
]
],
"Appendix": [
"APPENDIX TO DE VITA MOSIS I",
"§ 11. Conscious of the increased misery, etc. This idea, which does not seem very applicable to a three-months-old infant, is mentioned as a common, though mistaken, feeling about the death of older children in Tusc. Disp. i. 93 “idem, si puer parvus occidit, aequo animo ferendum putant; si vero in cunis ne querendum quidem … ‘Nondum gustaverat,’ inquiunt, ‘vitae suavitatem; hic autem iam sperabat magna, quibus frui coeperat.’ ”",
"§ 22. Like the horse to the meadow. The proverb appears with ἱππεύς instead of ἵππος in Plato, Theaetetus 183 D ἱππέας εἰς πεδίον προκαλεῖ Σωκράτη εἰς λόγους προκαλούμενος, and so in Lucian, Pseudosophistes 8. On the other hand ἵππος as here in Lucian, Piscator 9.",
"§ 23. Assyrian letters. Whatever Philo understood by this, he may have got the idea from Herodotus iv. 87, where Herodotus records the erection by Darius on the Bosporus of two stelae, one inscribed with Ἀσσύρια γράμματα, the other with Ἑλληνικά.",
"§ 263. Balaam’s ass (see footnote). Philo’s omission of any mention of the ass speaking may no doubt be due to the feeling that the story might seem ridiculous to the Gentile readers, whom he certainly has in view. But he quite possibly may have felt that it was one of the many passages which could only be accepted in a spiritual sense, like the mythical (μυθῶδες) account of the creation of Eve from the rib of Adam. In the one place where he mentions this part of the story, De Cher. 32–35, he gives the interpretation that the ass stands for the “unreasoning rule of life,” i.e. ordinary life pursuits, which the fool unjustly blames when things go wrong.",
"§ 304. πληγή (in Num. 25:8, 9). Not only is Philo’s mistake in taking this as = “slaughter” very natural, but are we sure that the LXX did not intend it? The word does not seem to be used in the LXX, in the historical books at least, of a pestilence as excluding other forms of divine visitation, except perhaps in 1 Chron. 21:22, and on the other hand is constantly used of a slaughter, e.g. 1 Sam. 4:10. Psalm 106(105):30 speaking of the incident takes it as a plague, but uses the θραῦσις of Num. 16:48, 49. Whether Paul understood it as a plague or a slaughter is not clear (1 Cor. 10:8)."
]
},
"Book II": {
"": [
[
"[1] The former treatise dealt with the birth and nurture of Moses; also with his education and career as a ruler, in which capacity his conduct was not merely blameless but highly praiseworthy; also with the works which he performed in Egypt and during the journeys both at the Red Sea and in the wilderness—works which no words can adequately describe; further, with the troubles which he successfully surmounted, and with his partial distribution of territories to the combatants. The present treatise is concerned with matters allied and consequent to these.",
"[2] For it has been said, not without good reason, that states can only make progress in well-being if either kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings. But Moses will be found to have displayed, and more than displayed, combined in his single person, not only these two faculties—the kingly and the philosophical—but also three others, one of which is concerned with law-giving, the second with the high priest’s office, and the last with prophecy.",
"[3] On these three I have now elected to write, being forced to the conviction that it is fitting that they should be combined in the same person. For Moses, through God’s providence, became king and lawgiver and high priest and prophet; and in each function he won the highest place. But why it is fitting that they should all be combined in the same person needs explanation.",
"[4] It is a king’s duty to command what is right and forbid what is wrong. But to command what should be done and to forbid what should not be done is the peculiar function of law; so that it follows at once that the king is a living law, and the law a just king. ",
"[5] But a king and lawgiver ought to have under his purview not only human but divine things; for, without God’s directing care, the affairs of kings and subjects cannot go aright. And therefore such as he needs the chief priest-hood, so that, fortified with perfect rites and the perfect knowledge of the service of God, he may ask that he and those whom he rules may receive prevention of evil and participation in good from the gracious Being Who assents to prayers. For surely that Being will grant fulfilment to prayers, seeing that He is kindly by nature and deems worthy of His special favour those who give Him genuine service.",
"[6] But, since to this king, lawgiver and high priest who, though possessed of so generous a heritage of fortune’s gifts, is after all but a mortal creature, countless things both human and divine are wrapped in obscurity, Moses necessarily obtained prophecy also, in order that through the providence of God he might discover what by reasoning he could not grasp. For prophecy 7 finds its way to what the mind fails to reach.",
"[7] Beautiful and all-harmonious is the union of these four faculties; for, intertwined and clinging to each other, they move in rhythmic concord, mutually receiving and repaying benefits, and thus imitate the virgin Graces whom an immutable law of nature forbids to be separated. And of them it may be justly said, what is often said of the virtues, that to have one is to have all. "
],
[
"[8] First, we must speak of the legislative condition of mind. I know, indeed, that he who is to obtain excellence as a legislator should possess all the virtues fully and completely. But, since also in households there are some very nearly and others only distantly connected with the family, though all are akin to each other, so too we must suppose that some virtues are more closely associated with some situations, while others have less affinity.",
"[9] The legislative faculty has for its brothers and close kinsfolk these four in particular: love of humanity, of justice, of goodness, and hatred of evil. Each of these has its message of encouragement for everyone who is inspired with a zeal for law-making. By love of humanity he is bidden to produce for public use his thoughts for the common weal; by justice to honour equality and to render to every man his due; by love of goodness to approve of things naturally excellent, and to supply them without reserve to all who are worthy of them for their unstinted use; by hatred of evil to spurn the dishonourers of virtue, and frown upon them as the common enemies of the human race.",
"[10] It is no small thing if it is given to anyone to acquire even one of these—a marvel surely that he should be able to grasp them all together. And to this Moses alone appears to have attained, who shews distinctly these aforesaid virtues in his ordinances.",
"[11] They know this well who read the sacred books, which, unless he was such as we have said, he would never have composed under God’s guidance and handed on for the use of those who are worthy to use them, to be their fairest possession, likenesses and copies of the patterns enshrined in the soul, as also are the laws set before us in these books, which shew so clearly the said virtues."
],
[
"[12] That Moses himself was the best of all lawgivers in all countries, better in fact than any that have ever arisen among either the Greeks or the barbarians, and that his laws are most excellent and truly come from God, since they omit nothing that is needful, is shewn most clearly by the following proof.",
"[13] Anyone who takes a considered view of the institutions of other peoples will find that they have been unsettled by numberless causes—wars, tyrannies or other mishaps—which the revolutions of fortune have launched upon them. Often, too, luxury, growing to excess by lavish supplies of superfluities, has upset the laws; because the mass of people, being unable to bear “good things in excess,” becomes surfeited and consequently violent: and violence is the enemy of law. But Moses is alone in this, that his laws,",
"[14] firm, unshaken, immovable, stamped, as it were, with the seals of nature herself, remain secure from the day when they were first enacted to now, and we may hope that they will remain for all future ages as though immortal, so long as the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe exist.",
"[15] Thus, though the nation has undergone so many changes, both to increased prosperity and the reverse, nothing—not even the smallest part of the ordinances—has been disturbed; because all have clearly paid high honour to their venerable and godlike character.",
"[16] But that which no famine nor pestilence nor war nor king nor tyrant, no rebel assault of soul or body or passion or vice, nor any other evil whether of God’s sending or man’s making, could undo, must surely be precious beyond what words can describe."
],
[
"[17] Yet, though it may be rightly thought a great matter in itself that the laws should have been guarded securely through all time, we have not reached the true marvel. There is something surely still more wonderful—even this: not only Jews but almost every other people, particularly those which take more account of virtue, have so far grown in holiness as to value and honour our laws. In this they have received a special distinction which belongs to no other code. Here is the proof.",
"[18] Throughout the world of Greeks and barbarians, there is practically no state which honours the institutions of any other. Indeed, they can scarcely be said to retain their own perpetually, as they adapt them to meet the vicissitudes of times and circumstances.",
"[19] The Athenians reject the customs and institutions of the Lacedaemonians, and the Lacedaemonians those of the Athenians; nor, in the world of the barbarians, do the Egyptians maintain the laws of the Scythians nor the Scythians those of the Egyptians—nor, to put it generally, Europeans those of Asiatics nor Asiatics those of Europeans. We may fairly say that mankind from east to west, every country and nation and state, shew aversion to foreign institutions, and think that they will enhance the respect for their own by shewing disrespect for those of other countries.",
"[20] It is not so with ours. They attract and win the attention of all, of barbarians, of Greeks, of dwellers on the mainland and islands, of nations of the east and the west, of Europe and Asia, of the whole inhabited world from end to end.",
"[21] For, who has not shewn his high respect for that sacred seventh day, by giving rest and relaxation from labour to himself and his neighbours, freemen and slaves alike, and beyond these to his beasts?",
"[22] For the holiday extends also to every herd, and to all creatures made to minister to man, who serve like slaves their natural master. It extends also to every kind of trees and plants; for it is not permitted to cut any shoot or branch, or even a leaf, or to pluck any fruit whatsoever. All such are set at liberty on that day, and live as it were in freedom, under the general edict that proclaims that none should touch them.",
"[23] Again, who does not every year shew awe and reverence for the fast, as it is called, which is kept more strictly and solemnly than the “holy month” of the Greeks? For in this last the untempered wine flows freely, and the board is spread sumptuously, and all manner of food and drink are lavishly provided, whereby the insatiable pleasures of the belly are enhanced, and further cause the outburst of the lusts that lie below it.",
"[24] But in our fast men may not put food and drink to their lips, in order that with pure hearts, untroubled and untrammelled by any bodily passion, such as is the common outcome of repletion, they may keep the holy-day, propitiating the Father of All with fitting prayers, in which they are wont to ask that their old sins may be forgiven and new blessings gained and enjoyed."
],
[
"[25] That the sanctity of our legislation has been a source of wonder not only to the Jews but also to all other nations, is clear both from the facts already mentioned and those which I proceed to state. ",
"[26] In ancient times the laws were written in the Chaldean tongue, and remained in that form for many years, without any change of language, so long as they had not yet revealed their beauty to the rest of mankind. But, in course of time, the daily,",
"[27] unbroken regularity of practice exercised by those who observed them brought them to the knowledge of others, and their fame began to spread on every side. For things excellent, even if they are beclouded for a short time through envy, shine out again under the benign operation of nature when their time comes. Then it was that some people, thinking it a shame that the laws should be found in one half only of the human race, the barbarians, and denied altogether to the Greeks, took steps to have them translated.",
"[28] In view of the importance and public utility of the task, it was referred not to private persons or magistrates, who were very numerous, but to kings, and amongst them to the king of highest repute.",
"[29] Ptolemy, surnamed Philadelphus, was the third in succession to Alexander, the conqueror of Egypt. In all the qualities which make a good ruler, he excelled not only his contemporaries, but all who have arisen in the past; and even till to-day, after so many generations, his praises are sung for the many evidences and monuments of his greatness of mind which he left behind him in different cities and countries, so that, even now, acts of more than ordinary munificence or buildings on a specially great scale are proverbially called Philadelphian after him.",
"[30] To put it shortly, as the house of the Ptolemies was highly distinguished, compared with other dynasties, so was Philadelphus among the Ptolemies. The creditable achievements of this one man almost outnumbered those of all the others put together, and, as the head takes the highest place in the living body, so he may be said to head the kings."
],
[
"[31] This great man, having conceived an ardent affection for our laws, determined to have the Chaldean translated into Greek, and at once dispatched envoys to the high priest and king of Judaea, both offices being held by the same person, explaining his wishes and urging him to choose by merit persons to make a full rendering of the Law into Greek.",
"[32] The high priest was naturally pleased, and, thinking that God’s guiding care must have led the king to busy himself in such an undertaking, sought out such Hebrews as he had of the highest reputation, who had received an education in Greek as well as in their native lore, and joyfully sent them to Ptolemy.",
"[33] When they arrived, they were offered hospitality, and, having been sumptuously entertained, requited their entertainer with a feast of words full of wit and weight. For he tested the wisdom of each by propounding for discussion new instead of the ordinary questions, which problems they solved with happy and well-pointed answers in the form of apophthegms, as the occasion did not allow of lengthy speaking.",
"[34] After standing this test, they at once began to fulfil the duties of their high errand. Reflecting how great an undertaking it was to make a full version of the laws given by the Voice of God, where they could not add or take away or transfer anything, but must keep the original form and shape, they proceeded to look for the most open and unoccupied spot in the neighbourhood outside the city. For, within the walls, it was full of every kind of living creatures, and consequently the prevalence of diseases and deaths, and the impure conduct of the healthy inhabitants, made them suspicious of it.",
"[35] In front of Alexandria lies the island of Pharos, stretching with its narrow strip of land towards the city, and enclosed by a sea not deep but mostly consisting of shoals, so that the loud din and booming of the surging waves grows faint through the long distance before it reaches the land.",
"[36] Judging this to be the most suitable place in the district, where they might find peace and tranquillity and the soul could commune with the laws with none to disturb its privacy, they fixed their abode there; and, taking the sacred books, stretched them out towards heaven with the hands that held them, asking of God that they might not fail in their purpose. And He assented to their prayers, to the end that the greater part, or even the whole, of the human race might be profited and led to a better life by continuing to observe such wise and truly admirable ordinances."
],
[
"[37] Sitting here in seclusion with none present save the elements of nature, earth, water, air, heaven, the genesis of which was to be the first theme of their sacred revelation, for the laws begin with the story of the world’s creation, they became as it were possessed, and, under inspiration, wrote, not each several scribe something different, but the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter.",
"[38] Yet who does not know that every language, and Greek especially, abounds in terms, and that the same thought can be put in many shapes by changing single words and whole phrases and suiting the expression to the occasion? This was not the case, we are told, with this law of ours, but the Greek words used corresponded literally with the Chaldean, exactly suited to the things they indicated.",
"[39] For, just as in geometry and logic, so it seems to me, the sense indicated does not admit of variety in the expression which remains unchanged in its original form, so these writers, as it clearly appears, arrived at a wording which corresponded with the matter, and alone, or better than any other, would bring out clearly what was meant. The clearest proof of this is that,",
"[40] if Chaldeans have learned Greek, or Greeks Chaldean, and read both versions, the Chaldean and the translation, they regard them with awe and reverence as sisters, or rather one and the same, both in matter and words, and speak of the authors not as translators but as prophets and priests of the mysteries, whose sincerity and singleness of thought has enabled them to go hand in hand with the purest of spirits, the spirit of Moses.",
"[41] Therefore, even to the present day, there is held every year a feast and general assembly in the island of Pharos, whither not only Jews but multitudes of others cross the water, both to do honour to the place in which the light of that version first shone out, and also to thank God for the good gift so old yet ever young. But, after the prayers and thanksgivings,",
"[42] some fixing tents on the seaside and others reclining on the sandy beach in the open air feast with their relations and friends, counting that shore for the time a more magnificent lodging than the fine mansions in the royal precincts.",
"[43] Thus the laws are shewn to be desirable and precious in the eyes of all, ordinary citizens and rulers alike, and that too though our nation has not prospered for many a year. It is but natural that when people are not flourishing their belongings to some degree are under a cloud.",
"[44] But, if a fresh start should be made to brighter prospects, how great a change for the better might we expect to see! I believe that each nation would abandon its peculiar ways, and, throwing overboard their ancestral customs, turn to honouring our laws alone. For, when the brightness of their shining is accompanied by national prosperity, it will darken the light of the others as the risen sun darkens the stars."
],
[
"[45] The above is sufficient in itself as a high commendation to the lawgiver; but there is another still greater contained in the sacred books themselves, and to these we must now turn to shew the great qualities of the writer.",
"[46] They consist of two parts: one the historical, the other concerned with commands and prohibitions, and of this we will speak later, after first treating fully what comes first in order.",
"[47] One division of the historical side deals with the creation of the world, the other with particular persons, and this last partly with the punishment of the impious, partly with the honouring of the just. We must now give the reason why he began his law-book with the history, and put the commands and prohibitions in the second place.",
"[48] He did not, like any historian, make it his business to leave behind for posterity records of ancient deeds for the pleasant but unimproving entertainment which they give; but, in relating the history of early times, and going for its beginning right to the creation of the universe, he wished to shew two most essential things: first that the Father and Maker of the world was in the truest sense also its Lawgiver, secondly that he who would observe the laws will accept gladly the duty of following nature and live in accordance with the ordering of the universe, so that his deeds are attuned to harmony with his words and his words with his deeds. "
],
[
"[49] Now, other legislators are divided into those who set out by ordering what should or should not be done, and laying down penalties for disobedience, and those who, thinking themselves superior, did not begin with this, but first founded and established their state as they conceived it, and then, by framing laws, attached to it the constitution which they thought most agreeable and suitable to the form in which they had founded it. ",
"[50] But Moses, thinking that the former course, namely issuing orders without words of exhortation, as though to slaves instead of free men, savoured of tyranny and despotism, as indeed it did, and that the second, though aptly conceived, was evidently not entirely satisfactory in the judgement of all, took a different line in both departments.",
"[51] In his commands and prohibitions he suggests and admonishes rather than commands, and the very numerous and necessary instructions which he essays to give are accompanied by forewords and after-words, in order to exhort rather than to enforce. Again, he considered that to begin his writings with the foundation of a man-made city was below the dignity of the laws, and, surveying the greatness and beauty of the whole code with the accurate discernment of his mind’s eye, and thinking it too good and godlike to be confined within any earthly walls, he inserted the story of the genesis of the “Great City,” holding that the laws were the most faithful picture of the world-polity."
],
[
"[52] Thus whoever will carefully examine the nature of the particular enactments will find that they seek to attain to the harmony of the universe and are in agreement with the principles of eternal nature.",
"[53] Therefore all those to whom God thought fit to grant abundance of the good gifts of bodily well-being and of good fortune in the shape of wealth and other externals—who then rebelled against virtue, and, freely and intentionally under no compulsion, practised knavery, injustice and the other vices, thinking to gain much by losing all, were counted, Moses tells us, as enemies not of men but of the whole heaven and universe, and suffered not the ordinary, but strange and unexampled punishments wrought by the might of justice, the hater of evil and assessor of God. For the most forceful elements of the universe, fire and water, fell upon them, so that, as the times revolved, some perished by deluge, others were consumed by conflagration. The seas lifted up their waters,",
"[54] and the rivers, spring-fed and winter torrents, rose on high and flooded and swept away all the cities of the plain, while the continuous and ceaseless streams of rain by night and day did the same for the cities of the uplands.",
"[55] At a later time, when the race sprung from the remnant had again increased and become very populous, since the descendants did not take the fate of their forefathers as a lesson in wisdom, but turned to deeds of licence and followed eagerly still more grievous practices, He determined to destroy them with fire. Then, as the oracles declare,",
"[56] the lightnings poured from heaven and consumed the impious and their cities, and to the present day the memorials to the awful disaster are shewn in Syria, ruins and cinders and brimstone and smoke, and the dusky flame still arises as though fire were smouldering within.",
"[57] But while in these disasters the impious were chastised with the said punishments, it was also the case that those who stood out in excellence of conduct fared well and received the rewards which their virtue deserved.",
"[58] While the rush of the flaming thunderbolts consumed the whole land, and the inhabitants to boot, one man alone, an immigrant, was saved by God’s protecting care, because he had shewn no liking for any of the misdeeds of the country, though immigrants, to secure themselves, usually shew respect for the customs of their hosts, knowing that disrespect for these entails danger at the hands of the original inhabitants. Yet he did not reach the summit of wisdom, nor was it because of the perfection of his nature that he was deemed worthy of this great privilege, but because he alone did not fall in with the multitude, when they turned aside to licentious living and fed every pleasure and every lust with lavish supplies of fuel like a flame when the brushwood is piled upon it."
],
[
"[59] So, too, in the great deluge when all but the whole human race perished, one house, we are told, suffered no harm because the most venerable member and head of the household had committed no deliberate wrong. The manner of his preservation is a story worth recording, both as a marvel and as a means of edification.",
"[60] Being judged a fit person not only to be exempted from the common fate, but also to be himself the beginner of a second generation of mankind, by God’s commands enjoined by the oracular voice, he built a huge structure of wood, three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth and thirty in height. Inside this, he framed a series of rooms, on the ground floor and second, third and fourth stories. Then, having laid up provisions, he introduced a male and female specimen of every kind of living creature both of the land and the air, thus reserving seeds in expectation of the better times that were once more to come. For he knew that the nature of God was gracious,",
"[61] and that, though the individuals perished, the race would be preserved indestructible because of its likeness to Himself, and that nothing whose being He had willed would ever be brought to nought."
],
[
"In consequence, all the creatures obeyed him, and the erstwhile savage grew gentle, and in their new tameness followed him as a flock follows its leader. When they had all entered,",
"[62] anyone who surveyed the crew might fairly have said that it was a miniature of earth in its entirety, comprising the races of living creatures, of which the world had carried before innumerable specimens, and perhaps would carry them again.",
"[63] What he had surmised came to pass not long afterwards, for the trouble abated, and the force of the deluge diminished every day, as the rain ceased and the water that had covered every land partly disappeared under the heat of the sun, partly subsided into the beds of water torrents and into chasms and the other hollows in the earth. For, as though by God’s command, every form of nature, sea, springs and rivers, received back what it had lent as a debt which must be repaid; for each stream subsided into its proper place.",
"[64] But when the sublunary world had been purged, when earth rising from its ablutions shewed itself renewed with the likeness which we may suppose it to have worn when originally it was created with the universe, there issued from the wooden structure himself and his wife and his sons and his sons’ wives, and with the household, moving like a herd, the various animals which had been assembled there came forth to beget and reproduce their kind.",
"[65] These are the guerdons and the prizes of the good, by which not only they themselves and their families won safety and escaped the greatest dangers, which, with the wild uprising of the elements as their weapon, stood menacingly over all and everywhere, but also became leaders of the regeneration, inaugurators of a second cycle, spared as embers to rekindle mankind, that highest form of life, which has received dominion over everything whatsoever upon earth, born to be the likeness of God’s power and image of His nature, the visible of the Invisible, the created of the Eternal. "
],
[
"[66] We have now fully treated of two sides of the life of Moses, the royal and the legislative. We must proceed to give account of the third, which concerns his priesthood. The chief and most essential quality required by a priest is piety, and this he practised in a very high degree, and at the same time made use of his great natural gifts. In these, philosophy found a good soil, which she improved still further by the admirable truths which she brought before his eyes, nor did she cease until the fruits of virtue shewn in word and deed were brought to perfection.",
"[67] Thus he came to love God and be loved by Him as have been few others. A heaven-sent rapture inspired him, so markedly did he honour the Ruler of the All and was honoured in return by Him. An honour well-becoming the wise is to serve the Being Who truly IS, and the service of God is ever the business of the priesthood. This privilege, a blessing which nothing in the world can surpass, was given to him as his due, and oracles instructed him in all that pertains to rites of worship and the sacred tasks of his ministry."
],
[
"[68] But first he had to be clean, as in soul so also in body, to have no dealings with any passion, purifying himself from all the calls of mortal nature, food and drink and intercourse with women.",
"[69] This last he had disdained for many a day, almost from the time when, possessed by the spirit, he entered on his work as prophet, since he held it fitting to hold himself always in readiness to receive the oracular messages. As for eating and drinking, he had no thought of them for forty successive days, doubtless because he had the better food of contemplation, through whose inspiration, sent from heaven above, he grew in grace, first of mind, then of body also through the soul, and in both so advanced in strength and well-being that those who saw him afterwards could not believe their eyes.",
"[70] For we read that by God’s command he ascended an inaccessible and pathless mountain, the highest and most sacred in the region, and remained for the period named, taking nothing that is needed to satisfy the requirements of bare sustenance. Then, after the said forty days had passed, he descended with a countenance far more beautiful than when he ascended, so that those who saw him were filled with awe and amazement; nor even could their eyes continue to stand the dazzling brightness that flashed from him like the rays of the sun. "
],
[
"[71] While he was still staying on the mount, he was being instructed in all the mysteries of his priestly duties: and first in those which stood first in order, namely the building and furnishing of the sanctuary.",
"[72] Now, if they had already occupied the land into which they were removing, they would necessarily have had to erect a magnificent temple on the most open and conspicuous site, with costly stones for its material, and build great walls around it, with plenty of houses for the attendants, and call the place the holy city.",
"[73] But, as they were still wandering in the desert and had as yet no settled habitation, it suited them to have a portable sanctuary, so that during their journeys and encampment they might bring their sacrifices to it and perform all their other religious duties, not lacking anything which dwellers in cities should have. It was determined,",
"[74] therefore, to fashion a tabernacle, a work of the highest sanctity, the construction of which was set forth to Moses on the mount by divine pronouncements. He saw with the soul’s eye the immaterial forms of the material objects about to be made, and these forms had to be reproduced in copies perceived by the senses, taken from the original draught, so to speak, and from patterns conceived in the mind.",
"[75] For it was fitting that the construction of the sanctuary should be committed to him who was truly high priest, in order that his performance of the rites belonging to his sacred office might be in more than full accordance and harmony with the fabric."
],
[
"[76] So the shape of the model was stamped upon the mind of the prophet, a secretly painted or moulded prototype, produced by immaterial and invisible forms; and then the resulting work was built in accordance with that shape by the artist impressing the stampings upon the material substances required in each case.",
"[77] The actual construction was as follows. Forty-eight pillars of the most durable cedar wood, hewn out of the finest trunks, were encased in a deep layer of gold, and each of these had two silver bases set to support it and a golden capital fixed on the top. For the length of the building,",
"[78] the craftsman put forty pillars, half of them—that is a row of twenty—on each side, with no interval left between them, but each joined and fitted on to the next, so as to present the appearance of a single wall. For the breadth he set right inside the remaining eight, six in the central space and two in the corners on either side of the centre, one on the right and one on the left; also four others at the entrance, like the rest in everything else, except that they had one base instead of the two of the pillars opposite, and after these, at the very outside, five, differing only in their bases, which were of brass.",
"[79] Thus the whole number of pillars visible in the tabernacle, leaving out the two in the corners, hidden from view, amounted to fifty-five, that is to the sum of successive numbers from one to the supremely perfect ten. ",
"[80] But if you choose to exclude the five in the propylaeum adjoining the open-air space which he has called the court, there will be left the most sacred number, fifty, the square of the sides of the right-angled triangle, the original source from which the universe springs. This fifty is obtained by adding together the inside pillars, namely the forty made up by the twenties on each side, then the six in the middle, leaving out the two hidden away in the corners, and then the four opposite which support the veil.",
"[81] I will now give my reason for first counting the five with the fifty and then separately. Five is the number of the senses, and sense in mankind inclines on one side to things external, while on the other its trend is towards mind, whose handmaiden it is by the laws of nature. And therefore he assigned the position on the border to the five pillars, for what lies inside them verges on the inmost sanctuary of the tabernacle, which symbolically represents the realm of mind, while what lies outside them verges on the open-air space and court which represent the realm of sense.",
"[82] And therefore the five differ from the rest also in their bases which are of brass. Since the mind is head and ruler of the sense-faculty in us, and the world which sense apprehends is the extremity and, as it were, the base of mind, he symbolized the mind by the gold and the sense-objects by the brass.",
"[83] The dimensions of the pillars were as follows: the height, ten cubits, the breadth, one-and-a-half, so that the tabernacle might appear equal in all its parts."
],
[
"[84] He also surrounded it with the most beautiful pieces of woven work of various colours, using without stint materials of dark red and purple and scarlet and bright white, for the weaving. For he made ten curtains, as he calls them in the sacred writings, of the four kinds of material just mentioned, twenty-eight cubits in length and extended to four cubits in breadth. Thus we find in them ten, the supremely perfect number, four which contains the essence of ten, twenty-eight, a perfect number, equal to the sum of its factors, and forty, the most prolific of life, which gives the time in which, as we are told, the man is fully formed in the laboratory of nature. ",
"[85] The twenty-eight cubits of the curtains were distributed as follows: ten along the roof, that being the breadth of the tabernacle, the rest extended along the sides, nine on each to cover the pillars, but leaving one cubit free from the floor, that this work so magnificent and worthily held sacred should not trail in the dust.",
"[86] Of the forty cubits which sum up the breadth of the ten curtains, thirty are taken up by the length of the tabernacle itself, that being its extent, nine by the backyard, and the remaining one by the space at the propylaeum, thus forming a bond to make the enclosing complete. On the propylaeum was set the veil.",
"[87] But in a sense the curtains also are veils, not only because they cover the roof and the walls, but also because they are woven with the same kinds of material, dark red and purple and scarlet and bright white. And what he calls the “covering” was also made with the same materials as the veil, that being placed inside along the four pillars to hide the inmost sanctuary, the “covering” outside along the five pillars, so that no unconsecrated person should get even a distant view of the holy precincts."
],
[
"[88] But, in choosing the materials for the woven work, he selected as the best out of a vast number possible four, as equal in number to the elements—earth, water, air, fire—out of which the world was made, and with a definite relation to those elements; the byssus, or bright white, coming from the earth, purple from the water, while dark red is like the air, which is naturally black, and scarlet like fire, since both are bright red. For it was necessary that in framing a temple of man’s making, dedicated to the Father and Ruler of All, he should take substances like those with which that Ruler made the All.",
"[89] The tabernacle, then, was constructed to resemble a sacred temple in the way described. Its precincts contained an area of a hundred cubits long by fifty broad, with pillars at equal intervals of five cubits from each other, so that the total number was sixty, with forty arranged on the long sides and twenty on the broad sides,",
"[90] in both cases half to each side. The material of the columns was of cedar wood overlaid by silver. The bases in all cases were of brass, and the height was five cubits. For the master craftsman thought it proper to cut down the height of what he calls the court by a complete half, in order that the tabernacle should be conspicuous by rising up to double the height. Five linen sheets like sails were attached to the pillars, both on the length and the breadth, so that no impure person could enter the place."
],
[
"[91] The plan was as follows. The tabernacle itself was set in the midst, thirty cubits long and ten broad, including the thickness of the pillars. From three aspects, namely the two long sides and the space at the back, it was the same distance from the boundary of the court, reckoned at twenty cubits. But at the propylaeum there was naturally a greater interval of fifty cubits, on account of the number of people entering. This increase was required to make up the hundred cubits of the court; the twenty of the back-space and the thirty taken up by the tabernacle being added to the fifty at the entrances.",
"[92] For the propylaeum of the tabernacle was set as the border-line between the two fifties, namely the fifty on the eastern half, where the entrance is, and the fifty on the western half, consisting of the tabernacle and the area behind it.",
"[93] At the beginning of the entrance to the court was built another very fine and large propylaeum with four pillars, on which was stretched a piece of woven work of various colours, made in the same way as those within the tabernacle and of like materials.",
"[94] With these were also made the sacred vessels and furniture, the ark, candlestick, table and altars for incense and burnt offerings. The altar for burnt offerings was placed in the open air, opposite the entrance of the tabernacle, at a distance sufficient to give the ministrants room for the daily performance of the sacrifices."
],
[
"[95] The ark was placed on the forbidden ground of the inner sanctuary, within the veils. It was coated with costly gilding within and without, and was covered by a sort of lid, which is called in the sacred books the mercy-seat. ",
"[96] The length and breadth of this are stated, but no depth, and thus it closely resembles the plane surface of geometry. It appears to be a symbol in a theological sense of the gracious power of God; in the human sense, of a mind which is gracious to itself and feels the duty of repressing and destroying with the aid of knowledge the conceit which in its love of vanity uplifts it in unreasoning exaltation and puffs it with pride.",
"[97] The ark itself is the coffer of the laws, for in it are deposited the oracles which have been delivered. But the cover, which is called the mercy-seat, serves to support the two winged creatures which in the Hebrew are called cherubim, but, as we should term them,",
"[98] recognition and full knowledge. Some hold that, since they are set facing each other, they are symbols of the two hemispheres, one above the earth and one under it,",
"[99] for the whole heaven has wings. I should myself say that they are allegorical representations of the two most august and highest potencies of Him that IS, the creative and the kingly. His creative potency is called God, because through it He placed and made and ordered this universe, and the kingly is called Lord, being that with which He governs what has come into being and rules it steadfastly with justice.",
"[100] For, as He alone really IS, He is undoubtedly also the Maker, since He brought into being what was not, and He is in the nature of things King, since none could more justly govern what has been made than the Maker."
],
[
"[101] In the space between the four and the five pillars, which may properly be called the vestibule of the temple, and is shut off by two woven screens, the inner and the outer, called respectively the veil and the covering, he set the remaining three of the equipments mentioned above. The altar of incense he placed in the middle, a symbol of the thankfulness for earth and water which should be rendered for the benefits derived from both these, since the mid-position in the universe has been assigned to them. The candlestick he placed at the south,",
"[102] figuring thereby the movements of the luminaries above; for the sun and the moon and the others run their courses in the south far away from the north. And therefore six branches, three on each side, issue from the central candlestick, bringing up the number to seven,",
"[103] and on all these are set seven lamps and candlebearers, symbols of what the men of science call planets. For the sun, like the candlestick, has the fourth place in the middle of the six and gives light to the three above and the three below it, so tuning to harmony an instrument of music truly divine."
],
[
"[104] The table is set at the north and has bread and salt on it, as the north winds are those which most provide us with food, and food comes from heaven and earth, the one sending rain, the other bringing the seeds to their fullness when watered by the showers. ",
"[105] In a line with the table are set the symbols of heaven and earth, as our account has shewn, heaven being signified by the candlestick, earth and its parts, from which rise the vapours, by what is appropriately called the vapour-keeper or altar of incense.",
"[106] The great altar in the open court he usually calls by a name which means sacrifice-keeper, and when he thus speaks of the altar which destroys sacrifices as their keeper and guardian he alludes not to the parts and limbs of the victims, whose nature is to be consumed by fire, but to the intention of the offerer.",
"[107] For, if the worshipper is without kindly feeling or justice, the sacrifices are no sacrifices, the consecrated oblation is desecrated, the prayers are words of ill omen with utter destruction waiting upon them. For, when to outward appearance they are offered, it is not a remission but a reminder of past sins which they effect.",
"[108] But, if he is pure of heart and just, the sacrifice stands firm, though the flesh is consumed, or rather, even if no victim at all is brought to the altar. For the true oblation, what else can it be but the devotion of a soul which is dear to God? The thank-offering of such a soul receives immortality, and is inscribed in the records of God, sharing the eternal life of the sun and moon and the whole universe."
],
[
"[109] Next after these, the master prepared for the future high priest a vesture, the fabric of which had a texture of great and marvellous beauty. It consisted of two garments, one of which he calls the robe and the other the ephod. ",
"[110] The robe was of a comparatively uniform make, for it was all of the dark red colour, except at the lowest extremities, where it was variegated with golden pomegranates and bells and intertwined flowers.",
"[111] The ephod, a work of special magnificence and artistry, was wrought with perfect knowledge in the kinds of materials mentioned above, namely dark red and purple and bright white and scarlet, with gold thread intertwined. For gold leaf cut into fine threads was woven with all the yarn.",
"[112] On the shoulder-tops were fitted two highly precious stones of the costly emerald kind, and on them were graven the names of the patriarchs, six for each shoulder, twelve in all. On the breast were twelve other costly stones of different colours, like seals, in four rows of three each. These were fitted into what he calls the “place of reason.” ",
"[113] This was made four-square and doubled, forming a ground to enshrine the two virtues, clear showing and truth. The whole was attached by golden chainlets to the ephod, fastened strongly to it so as not to come loose.",
"[114] A piece of gold plate, too, was wrought into the form of a crown with four incisions, showing a name which only those whose ears and tongues are purified may hear or speak in the holy place, and no other person, nor in any other place at all.",
"[115] That name has four letters, so says that master learned in divine verities, who, it may be, gives them as symbols of the first numbers, one, two, three and four; since the geometrical categories under which all things fall, point, line, superficies, solid, are all embraced in four. So, too, with the best harmonies in music, the fourth, fifth, octave and double octave intervals, where the ratios are respectively four to three, three to two, two to one and four to one. Four, too, has countless other virtues, most of which I have set forth in detail in my treatise on numbers. ",
"[116] Under the crown, to prevent the plate touching the head, was a headband. A turban also was provided, for the turban is regularly worn by eastern monarchs instead of a diadem."
],
[
"[117] Such was the vesture of the high priest. But I must not leave untold its meaning and that of its parts. We have in it as a whole and in its parts a typical representation of the world and its particular parts.",
"[118] Let us begin with the full-length robe. This gown is all of violet, and is thus an image of the air; for the air is naturally black, and so to speak a robe reaching to the feet, since it stretches down from the region below the moon to the ends of the earth, and spreads out everywhere. And, therefore, the gown, too, spreads out from the breast to the feet round the whole body.",
"[119] At the ankles there stand out from it pomegranates and flower trimming and bells. The earth is represented by the flowers, for all that flowers and grows comes from the earth; the water by the pomegranates or flowing fruit, so aptly called from their flowing juice; while the bells represent the harmonious alliance of these two, since life cannot be produced by earth without water or by water without the substance of earth, but only by the union and combination of both.",
"[120] Their position testifies most clearly to this explanation. For, just as the pomegranates, the flower trimming and the bells are at the extremities of the long robe, so too what these symbolize, namely earth and water, occupy the lowest place in the universe, and in unison with the harmony of the All display their several powers at fixed revolutions of time and at their proper seasons.",
"[121] This proof that the three elements, earth, water and air, from which come and in which live all mortal and perishable forms of life, are symbolized by the long robe with the appendages at the ankles, is supported by observing that as the gown is one, the three said elements are of a single kind, since all below the moon is alike in its liability to change and alteration, and that, as the pomegranates and flower patterns are fastened to the gown, so too in a sense earth and water are suspended on the air, which acts as their support.",
"[122] As for the ephod, consideration following what probability suggests will represent it as a symbol of heaven. For first the two circular emerald stones on the shoulder-pieces indicate, as some think, those heavenly bodies which rule the day and night, namely the sun and moon, or, as may be said with a nearer approach to truth, the two hemispheres of the sky. For, just as the stones are equal to each other, so is the hemisphere above to that below the earth, and neither is so constituted as to increase and diminish as does the moon.",
"[123] A similar testimony is given by their colour, for the appearance of the whole heaven as presented to our sight is like the emerald. Six names, too, had to be engraved on each of the stones, since each of the hemispheres also divides the zodiac into two, and appropriates six of the signs.",
"[124] Secondly, the stones at the breast, which are dissimilar in colour, and are distributed into four rows of threes, what else should they signify but the zodiac circle? For that circle, when divided into four parts, constitutes by three signs in each case the seasons of the year—spring, summer, autumn, winter—those four, the transition in each of which is determined by three signs and made known to us by the revolutions of the sun, according to a mathematical law, unshaken, immutable and truly divine.",
"[125] Therefore also they were fitted into what is rightly called the place of reason, for a rational principle, ordered and firmly established, creates the transitions and seasons of the year. And the strangest thing is that it is this seasonal change which demonstrates their age-long permanence.",
"[126] It is an excellent and indeed a splendid point that the twelve stones are of different colours and none of them like to any other. For each of the signs of the zodiac also produces its own particular colouring in the air and earth and water and their phases, and also in the different kinds of animals and plants."
],
[
"[127] There is a point, too, in the reason-seat being doubled, for the rational principle is twofold as well in the universe as in human nature. In the universe we find it in one form dealing with the incorporeal and archetypal ideas from which the intelligible world was framed, and in another with the visible objects which are the copies and likenesses of those ideas and out of which this sensible world was produced. With man, in one form it resides within, in the other it passes out from him in utterance. The former is like a spring, and is the source from which the latter, the spoken, flows. The inward is located in the dominant mind, the outward in the tongue and mouth and the rest of the vocal organism.",
"[128] The master did well also in assigning a four-square shape to the reason-seat, thereby shewing in a figure that the rational principle, both in nature and in man, must everywhere stand firm and never be shaken in any respect at all; and, therefore, he allotted to it the two above-named virtues, clear shewing and truth. For the rational principle in nature is true, and sets forth all things clearly, and, in the wise man, being a copy of the other, has as its bounden duty to honour truth with absolute freedom from falsehood, and not keep dark through jealousy anything the disclosure of which will benefit those who hear its lesson.",
"[129] At the same time, as in each of us, reason has two forms, the outward of utterance and the inward of thought, he gave them each one of the two virtues as its special property; to utterance clear shewing, to the thinking mind truth. For it is the duty of the thinking faculty to admit no falsehood, and of the language faculty to give free play to all that helps to shew facts clearly with the utmost exactness.",
"[130] Yet reason, as seen in either of these faculties, is of no value, however admirable and excellent are its lofty pronouncements, unless followed by deeds in accordance with it. And, therefore, since in his judgement speech and thought should never be separated from actions, he fastened the reason-seat to the ephod or shoulder-piece so that it should not come loose. For he regards the shoulder as the symbol of deeds and activity."
],
[
"[131] Such are the ideas which he suggests under the figure of the sacred vesture; but, in setting a turban on the priest’s head, instead of a diadem, he expresses his judgement that he who is consecrated to God is superior when he acts as a priest to all others, not only the ordinary laymen, but even kings.",
"[132] Above the turban is the golden plate on which the graven shapes of four letters, indicating, as we are told, the name of the Self-Existent, are impressed, meaning that it is impossible for anything that is to subsist without invocation of Him; for it is His goodness and gracious power which join and compact all things.",
"[133] Thus is the high priest arrayed when he sets forth to his holy duties, in order that when he enters to offer the ancestral prayers and sacrifices there may enter with him the whole universe, as signified in the types of it which he brings upon his person, the long robe a copy of the air, the pomegranate of water, the flower trimming of earth, the scarlet of fire, the ephod of heaven, the circular emeralds on the shoulder-tops with the six engravings in each of the two hemispheres which they resemble in form, the twelve stones on the breast in four rows of threes of the zodiac, the reason-seat of that Reason which holds together and administers all things.",
"[134] For he who has been consecrated to the Father of the world must needs have that Father’s Son with all His fullness of excellence to plead his cause, that sins may be remembered no more and good gifts showered in rich abundance.",
"[135] Perhaps, too, he is preparing the servant of God to learn the lesson, that, if it be beyond him to be worthy of the world’s Maker, he should try to be throughout worthy of the world. For, as he wears a vesture which represents the world, his first duty is to carry the pattern enshrined in his heart, and so be in a sense transformed from a man into the nature of the world; and, if one may dare to say so—and in speaking of truth one may well dare to state the truth—be himself a little world, a microcosm."
],
[
"[136] Outside the propylaeum, at the entrance, there was a brazen laver, for the making of which the master did not take unworked material, as is usually done, but chattels already elaborately wrought for another purpose. These the women brought, filled with fervent zeal, rivalling the men in piety, resolved to win the prize of high excellence, and eager to use every power that they had that they might not be outstripped by them in holiness.",
"[137] For, with spontaneous ardour at no other bidding than their own, they gave the mirrors which they used in adorning their comely persons, a truly fitting firstfruit offering of their modesty and chastity in marriage, and in fact of their beauty of soul.",
"[138] These the master thought good to take, and, after melting them down, construct therewith the laver and nothing else, to serve for lustration to priests who should enter the temple to perform the appointed rites, particularly for washing the hands and feet; a symbol, this, of a blameless life, of years of cleanliness employed in laudable actions, and in straight travelling, not on the rough road or more properly pathless waste of vice, but on the smooth high road through virtue’s land.",
"[139] Let him, he means, who shall be purified with water, bethink him that the mirrors were the material of this vessel, to the end that he himself may behold his own mind as in a mirror; and, if some ugly spot appear of unreasoning passion, either of pleasure, uplifting and raising him to heights which nature forbids, or of its converse pain, making him shrink and pulling him down, or of fear, diverting and distorting the straight course to which his face was set, or of desire, pulling and dragging him perforce to what he has not got, then he may salve and heal the sore and hope to gain the beauty which is genuine and unalloyed.",
"[140] For beauty of body lies in well-proportioned parts, in a fine complexion and good condition of flesh, and short is the season of its bloom. But beauty of mind lies in harmony of creed, in concent of virtues. The passing of time cannot wither it, and, as its years lengthen, it ever renews its youth, adorned with the lustrous hue of truth and of consistency of deeds with words and words with deeds, and further of thoughts and intentions with both."
],
[
"[141] When he had been taught the patterns of the holy tabernacle, and had passed on the lesson to those who were of quick understanding and happily gifted to undertake and complete the works in which their handicraft was necessary, the construction of the sacred fabric followed in natural course. The next step needed was that the most suitable persons should be chosen as priests, and learn in good time how they should proceed to bring the offerings to the altar and perform the holy rites.",
"[142] Accordingly, he selected out of the whole number his brother as high priest on his merits, and appointed that brother’s sons as priests, and in this he was not giving precedence to his own family but to the piety and holiness which he observed in their characters. This is clearly shewn by the following fact. Neither of his sons, of whom he had two, did he judge worthy of this distinction, though he would surely have chosen both if he had attributed any value to family affection.",
"[143] The installation was made with the consent of the whole nation, and, followed the directions laid down by the oracles, in a wholly new manner which deserves to be recorded. First he washed them with the purest and freshest spring water, then he put on them the sacred garments; on his brother the vesture, woven with its manifold workmanship to represent the universe, that is the long robe and the ephod in the shape of a breastplate; on his nephews linen tunics, and on all three girdles and breeches.",
"[144] The object of the girdles was to keep them unhampered and readier for the holy ministry, by tightening the loose folds of the tunics; of the breeches to prevent anything being visible which decency requires to be concealed, particularly when they were going up to the altar or coming down from above and moving quickly and rapidly in all their operations.",
"[145] For, if their dress had not been arranged so carefully, as a precaution against unforseen events, they would in their eagerness to carry out their duties with expedition reveal their nakedness and be unable to preserve the decency befitting consecrated places and persons."
],
[
"[146] When he had attired them in these vestments, he took some very fragrant ointment which was compounded by the perfumer’s art, and applied it first to what stood in the open court, namely the great altar and the laver, sprinkling it on them seven times, then to the tabernacle and each of the sacred chattels, the ark, the candlestick, the altar of incense, the table, the libation cups or bowls, the vials, and everything else which was necessary or useful in sacrifices; and finally, coming to the high priest, he anointed him on his head plentifully with the unguent.",
"[147] Having performed all this religiously, he ordered a calf and two rams to be brought. The calf he purposed to offer to gain remission of sins, showing by this figure that sin is congenital to every created being, even the best, just because they are created, and this sin requires prayers and sacrifices to propitiate the Deity, lest His wrath be roused and visited upon them.",
"[148] Of the rams, one he offered as a whole burnt offering in thanksgiving for His ordering of the whole, that gift which each of us shares according to the part allotted through the benefits which he receives from the elements: from earth, for habitation and the food which it affords; from water, for drinking and cleansing and voyaging; from air, for breathing and perception through the senses, all of which operate by means of air, which also gives us the seasons of the year; from the fire of common use, for cooking and heating, and from the heavenly variety for light-giving and all visibility.",
"[149] The other ram he offered on behalf of those who were consecrated by the sanctifying purification for their full perfection, and accordingly called it the ram of “fulfilment,” from the full rites befitting the servants and ministers of God into which they were to be initiated.",
"[150] He then took its blood and poured part of it round the altar. The rest he received in a vial which he held underneath, and smeared it on three parts of the bodies of those who were being admitted to the priesthood, on the extremity of the ear, the extremity of the hand, the extremity of the foot, in all these on the right side. In this figure, he indicated that the fully-consecrated must be pure in words and actions and in his whole life; for words are judged by the hearing, the hand is a symbol of action, and the foot of the pilgrimage of life.",
"[151] And, as in each case the part smeared is the extreme end and on the right-hand side, we must suppose the truth indicated to be that improvement in all things needs a dexterous spirit, and seeks to reach the extreme of happiness, and the end to which we must press and refer all our actions, aiming our shafts, like archers, at the target of life."
],
[
"[152] His first step, then, is to smear the unmixed blood of the single victim called the ram of fulfilment on the three parts of the priests’ bodies named above. After this, he took some of the blood at the altar, got from all the victims, and also some of the unguent already mentioned as compounded by the perfumers, and mixed the oil with the blood. He then used the mixture to sprinkle the priests and their garments, wishing to make them partakers not only of the sanctity of the outer and open court but that of the shrine within, since they were going to minister in the inner part also, all of which had been anointed with oil.",
"[153] After other additional sacrifices had been brought, some by the priests on behalf of themselves, and others by the body of elders on behalf of the whole nation, Moses entered the tabernacle, taking his brother with him. This was on the eighth and last day of the celebration, the seven preceding days having been spent by him in initiating his nephews and their father and in acting as their guide to the sacred mysteries. After entering, he gave such instruction as the good teacher gives to an apt pupil on the way in which the high priest should perform the rites of the inner shrine.",
"[154] Then they both came out, and, stretching forth their hands in front of their faces, offered prayers which befitted the needs of the nation in all sincerity and purity of heart. And, while they were still praying, a great marvel happened. There issued suddenly from the shrine a mass of flame. Whether it was a fragment of ether, the purest of substances, or of air resolved into fire by a natural conversion of the elements, it suddenly burst right through, and, with a mighty rush, fell upon the altar and consumed all that was on it, thus giving, I hold, the clearest proof that none of these rites was without divine care and supervision.",
"[155] For it was natural that the holy place should have a special gift attached to it, over and above what human handiwork had given, through the purest of elements, fire, and thus the altar be saved from contact with the familiar fire of common use, perhaps because such a multitude of evils are associated with it.",
"[156] For its activity is applied not only to the lower animals when they are roasted or boiled, to satisfy the cruel cravings of the miserable belly, but to the human beings slaughtered by the design of others, and that not in threes or fours but in assembled multitudes.",
"[157] Ere now we have known the impact of fire-carrying arrows burn up great fully-manned fleets, and consume whole cities which have smouldered down to their very foundations and wasted away into ashes, leaving no trace to shew that they were populated in the past.",
"[158] This is the reason, I imagine, why God expelled from His most pure and sacred altar the fire of common use and rained instead an ethereal flame from heaven, to distinguish between the holy and the profane, the human and the divine. For it was fitting that fire of a more incorruptible nature than that which subserves the needs of human life should be assigned to the sacrificial offerings."
],
[
"[159] Many sacrifices were necessarily brought every day, and particularly at general assemblies and feasts, on behalf both of individuals and all in common, and for a multitude of different reasons. This piety shewn by so populous a nation made it needful to have also a number of temple attendants to help in the sacred services.",
"[160] These, again, were chosen in a very novel and unusual manner. He selected and appointed one of the twelve tribes as the most meritorious, giving them the office as the prize and reward of a deed well pleasing to God.",
"[161] The story of that deed is as follows: When Moses had gone up into the mountain, and was there several days communing privately with God, the men of unstable nature, thinking his absence a suitable opportunity, rushed into impious practices unrestrainedly, as though authority had ceased to be, and, forgetting the reverence they owed to the Self-Existent, became zealous devotees of Egyptian fables.",
"[162] Then, having fashioned a golden bull, in imitation of the animal held most sacred in that country, they offered sacrifices which were no sacrifices, set up choirs which were no choirs, sang hymns which were very funeral chants, and, filled with strong drink, were overcome by the twofold intoxication of wine and folly. And so, revelling and carousing the livelong night, and unwary of the future, they lived wedded to their pleasant vices, while justice, the unseen watcher of them and the punishments they deserved, stood ready to strike.",
"[163] But, since the continuous shouting in the camp which arose from the great masses of men gathered together carried for a long distance, so that the echoes reached even to the mountain-top, Moses, as they smote upon his ear, was in a dilemma between God’s love for him and his love for man. He could not bear to leave his converse with God, in which he talked with Him as in private with none other present, nor yet to disregard the multitude, brimful of the miseries which anarchy creates.",
"[164] For, skilled as he was to divine in an inarticulate and meaningless noise the distinguishing marks of inward passions which to others were obscure and invisible, he recognized the tumult for what it was, saw that drunkenness caused the prevailing confusion, since intemperance begets satiety, and satiety riot.",
"[165] So, drawn backwards and forwards, hither and thither, by the two sides of his being, he was at a loss what he should do. And, as he considered, this divine message came. “Go quickly hence. Descend. The people have run after lawlessness. They have fashioned a god, the work of their hands, in the form of a bull, and to this god, who is no god, they offer worship and sacrifice, and have forgotten all the influences to piety which they have seen and heard.”",
"[166] Struck with dismay, and compelled to believe the incredible tale, he yet took the part of mediator and reconciler and did not hurry away at once, but first made prayers and supplications, begging that their sins might be forgiven. Then, when this protector and intercessor had softened the wrath of the Ruler, he wended his way back in mingled joy and dejection. He rejoiced that God accepted his prayers, yet was ready to burst with the dejection and heaviness that filled him at the transgression of the multitude."
],
[
"[167] When he arrived at the middle of the camp, and marvelled at the sudden apostasy of the multitude and their delusion, so strongly contrasting with the truth which they had bartered for it, he observed that the contagion had not extended to all and that there were still some sound at heart and cherishing a feeling of hatred of evil. Wishing, therefore, to distinguish the incurable from those who were displeased to see such actions and from any who had sinned but repented, he made a proclamation, a touchstone calculated to test exactly the bias of each to godliness or its opposite.",
"[168] “If any is on the Lord’s side,” he said, “let him come to me.” Few words, indeed, but fraught with much meaning, for the purport was as follows: “Whoso holds that none of the works of men’s hands, nor any created things, are gods, but that there is one God only, the Ruler of the universe, let him join me.”",
"[169] Of the rest, some, whom devotion to the vanity of Egypt had made rebellious, paid no heed to his words, while others, possibly in fear of chastisement, had not the courage to take their place beside him, either because they feared the vengeance they might suffer at the hand of Moses or the onslaught of an insurgent mob. For the multitude always set upon those who refuse to share their madness.",
"[170] Among them all one tribe alone, known as Levites, when they heard the proclamation, came running with all speed, like troops for whom one signal is enough, shewing by their swiftness their zeal and the keenness of the inward feelings which urged them to piety.",
"[171] Moses saw them coming like racers from the starting-point, and cried: “Whether the speed which has brought you here exists not only in your bodies but in your minds shall at once be put to the proof. Take each of you his sword, and slay those whose deeds deserve a thousand deaths, who have left the true God, and wrought gods, falsely so called, from corruptible and created matter, and given them a title which belongs to the Incorruptible and Uncreated. Yea, slay them, though they be kinsmen and friends, believing that between the good there is no kinship and friendship but godliness.”",
"[172] Their readiness anticipated his exhortations, for their sentiments had been hostile to the offenders almost from the first moment that they saw their misconduct, and they made a wholesale slaughter to the number of three thousand of those who but now had been their dearest. As their corpses lay in the middle of the market-place, the multitude as they gazed felt pity for them, but, terror-struck at the still heated and wrathful resolution of the slayers, learned wisdom from fear.",
"[173] But Moses, in approval of this heroism, devised and confirmed a reward for the victors well suited to the deed. For it was right that those who had voluntarily taken up arms for the honour of God, and so quickly achieved success, should receive the priesthood, and thus be worthily promoted to be His ministers."
],
[
"[174] Now the consecrated persons consisted of more than one order. They included both those who were commissioned to penetrate to the inner shrine and offer the prayers and sacrifices and the other holy rites, and those sometimes called temple attendants who had none of these duties but had the care and guarding of the sacred building and its contents by day and night. Consequently, the strife for precedence, the cause of innumerable troubles to many persons and in many places, gained ground here also. The temple attendants made headway against the priests, and purposed to wrest their privileges from them, and they hoped to accomplish this easily, since they were many times the number of the others.",
"[175] To prevent this sedition appearing to be their own particular project, they persuaded the senior tribe of the twelve to make common cause with them, and this tribe had many adherents among the more thoughtless, who supposed it capable of taking the supremacy as its birthright.",
"[176] Moses recognized in this the rise of a grave attack upon himself, for he had chosen his brother as high priest in accordance with the oracles vouchsafed to him. But there were spiteful rumours that he had falsely invented the oracles, and had made his choice through family feeling and affection for his brother.",
"[177] He was naturally pained at this, not merely that he was distrusted when he had shewn his good faith by so many proofs, but that this distrust extended to actions which concerned the honouring of God, actions which by themselves would necessarily ensure truthfulness even in one whose character was false in everything else, for truth is God’s attendant. But he did not think good to use words to explain to them his motives, knowing that it is vain labour to try to change the convictions of those of whom the opposite opinions have already taken hold, but besought God to shew them by clear demonstration that there had been no dishonesty in his choice of persons for the priesthood.",
"[178] God commanded him to take twelve rods, corresponding to the number of the tribes, and on eleven of them to inscribe the names of the other patriarchs, but on the twelfth that of his brother who was also high priest, and then to take them into the temple, right into the inner sanctuary. Moses did as he was bidden, and eagerly awaited the result.",
"[179] On the next day, under the impulse of a divine intimation, with all the people standing near, he went in and brought out the rods. The others shewed no difference, but the one on which was inscribed the name of his brother had undergone a wonderful change. Like a goodly plant, it had young sprouts growing all over it, and was laden with abundance of fruits."
],
[
"[180] Now, the fruits were nuts, which in nature are the opposite of other fruits, for in most cases, the grape, the olive, the apple, there is a difference between the seed and the eatable part, and this difference extends to their situation, which is separate, for the edible part is outside, and the seed enclosed within. But, in the nut, seed and edible part are identical, merged in a single form, and their situation is the same inside, shielded and guarded on all sides by a double fence, composed partly of very thick shell and partly of a substance equivalent to a wooden framework.",
"[181] In this way, it signifies perfect virtue; for, just as in a nut, beginning and end are identical, beginning represented by seed and end by fruit, so it is with the virtues. There, too, it is the case that each is both a beginning and an end; a beginning in that it springs from no other power but itself, an end in that it is the aspiration of the life which follows nature.",
"[182] This is one reason why the nut is a type of virtue, but there is another given which is even clearer than that. The shell-formed part of the nut is bitter, and the inner layer which surrounds the fruit like a wooden fence is exceedingly solid and hard; and, as the fruit is enclosed in both these, it is not easy to get at.",
"[183] In this Moses finds the parable of the practising soul, which he thinks he can rightly use to encourage that soul to virtue and teach it that it must first encounter toil. Toil is bitter and stiff and hard, yet from it springs goodness, and therefore there must be no softening.",
"[184] For he who flees from toil flees from the good also, but he who patiently and manfully endures what is hard to bear is pressing on to blessedness. For in the voluptuous livers, whose souls are emasculated and whose bodies run to waste with ceaseless luxury prolonged from day to day, virtue cannot make its lodging; but it will first procure its divorce for misusage in the court of right reason, and then seek another home.",
"[185] But in very truth that most holy company, justice, temperance, courage, wisdom, follow in the train of the practisers and all who devote themselves to a life of austerity and hardship, that is to continence and self-restraint, together with simplicity and frugal contentment. For by these the highest authority within us, reason, advances to sound health and well-being, and brings to nought the formidable menace to the body, engineered in many a scene of drunkenness and gluttony and lewdness and the other insatiable lusts, the parents of that grossness of flesh which is the enemy of quickness of mind.",
"[186] Further, they say, that of all the trees which regularly bud in the spring the almond-tree is the first to blossom with a welcome promise of a plentiful crop of fruit, and the last to shed its leaves, year by year protracting the hale old age of its verdure to the longest span. Each of these facts he takes as a parable of the priestly tribe, intimating that it will be the first and last of all the human race to blossom, in that day, whenever it shall be, when it shall please God to make our life as a springtime by ridding it of covetousness, that insidious foe which is the source of our misery. "
],
[
"[187] We said above that there are four adjuncts to the truly perfect ruler. He must have kingship, the faculty of legislation, priesthood and prophecy, so that in his capacity of legislator he may command what should be done and forbid what should not be done, as priest dispose not only things human but things divine, as prophet declare by inspiration what cannot be apprehended by reason. I have discussed the first three, and shewn that Moses was the best of kings, of lawgivers and of high priests, and will now go on to shew in conclusion that he was a prophet of the highest quality.",
"[188] Now I am fully aware that all things written in the sacred books are oracles delivered through Moses; but I will confine myself to those which are more especially his, with the following preliminary remarks. Of the divine utterances, some are spoken by God in His own Person with His prophet for interpreter, in some the revelation comes through question and answer, and others are spoken by Moses in his own person, when possessed by God and carried away out of himself.",
"[189] The first kind are absolutely and entirely signs of the divine excellences, graciousness and beneficence, by which He incites all men to noble conduct, and particularly the nation of His worshippers, for whom He opens up the road which leads to happiness.",
"[190] In the second kind we find combination and partnership: the prophet asks questions of God about matters on which he has been seeking knowledge, and God replies and instructs him. The third kind are assigned to the lawgiver himself: God has given to him of His own power of foreknowledge and by this he will reveal future events.",
"[191] Now, the first kind must be left out of the discussion. They are too great to be lauded by human lips; scarcely indeed could heaven and the world and the whole existing universe worthily sing their praises. Besides, they are delivered through an interpreter, and interpretation and prophecy are not the same thing. The second kind I will at once proceed to describe, interweaving with it the third kind, in which the speaker appears under that divine possession in virtue of which he is chiefly and in the strict sense considered a prophet."
],
[
"[192] In fulfilment of my promise, I must begin with the following examples. There are four cases upon which the divine voice laid down the law in the form of question and answer and which therefore have a mixed character; for, on the one hand, the prophet asks a question under divine possession, and on the other hand the Father, in giving the word of revelation, answers him and talks with him as with a partner. The first case is one which would have enraged not only Moses, the holiest of men ever yet born, but even one who knew but a little of the flavour of godliness.",
"[193] A certain base-born man, the child of an unequal marriage, his father an Egyptian, his mother a Jewess, had set at naught the ancestral customs of his mother and turned aside, as we are told, to the impiety of Egypt and embraced the atheism of that people.",
"[194] For the Egyptians almost alone among the nations have set up earth as a power to challenge heaven. Earth they held to be worthy of the honours due to a god, and refused to render to heaven any special tribute of reverence, acting as though it were right to shew respect to the outermost regions rather than to the royal palace. For in the universe heaven is a palace of the highest sanctity, and earth is the outer region, estimable indeed in itself, but when it comes into comparison with ether, as far inferior to it as darkness is to light and night to day and corruption to incorruption and mortal man to God.",
"[195] The Egyptians thought otherwise; for, since the land is not watered like other countries by the downpour of rain but regularly every year becomes a standing water through the flooding of the river, they speak of the Nile as though it were the counterpart of heaven and therefore to be deified, and talk about the land in terms of high reverence."
],
[
"[196] And, lo, this half-bred person, having a quarrel with someone of the nation that has vision and knowledge, losing in his anger all control over himself, and also urged by fondness for Egyptian atheism, extended his impiety from earth to heaven, and with his soul and tongue and all the organism of speech alike accursed, foul, abominable, in the superabundance of his manifold wickedness cursed Him, Whom even to bless is a privilege not permitted to all but only to the best, even those who have received full and complete purification.",
"[197] Whereupon Moses, astonished at his madness and the superabundance of his audacity, though the spirit of noble indignation was strong within him and he would fain have cut him off with his own hand, feared lest he might exact too light a penalty; for to devise an adequate punishment for such impiety was beyond human powers.",
"[198] Refusal to reverence God implies refusal to honour parents and country and benefactors. And, if so, what depths of depravity remain for him to reach who besides refusing reverence dares also to revile Him? And yet even reviling is a lesser sin compared with cursing. But, when an idle tongue and an unbridled mouth put themselves at the service of lawless follies, some monstrous violation of the moral law is sure to be committed.",
"[199] Answer me, thou man, Does anyone curse God? Then what other god does he call on to make good the curse, or is it clear that he invokes the help of God against Himself? Avaunt such profane and unholy thoughts! Well may the unhappy soul purge itself, which through the ministry of that purblind sense, the ears, has been outraged by listening to such words.",
"[200] And was not the tongue of him who uttered such a blasphemy paralysed? and the ears of him who was to hear it blocked? Surely they would have been, were it not otherwise provided by justice, who holds that over nothing which is extremely good or exceedingly bad should a veil be thrown, but would have them submitted to the clearest test of their goodness or badness, that it may award approval to the one and punishment to the other.",
"[201] Moses, therefore, ordered the man to be haled to prison and put in chains, and implored God, to Whose mercy he appealed, pleading the enforcement of the senses by which we see what by rights we should not see and hear what we should not hear, to shew what should be done to the author of this impious and unholy crime, so monstrous and unheard-of.",
"[202] God commanded that he should be stoned, holding, I suppose, that stoning was the fitting punishment for a man of a hard and stony soul, and also desiring that the work of vengeance should be shared by all the people, who, as He knew, were deeply indignant and desired the death of the offender. And execution by missiles appeared to be the only mode in which so many thousands could take part.",
"[203] When this impious malefactor had paid the penalty, a new ordinance was drawn up. Previous to this, no such enactment would have seemed to be required. But unexpected disorders demand new laws as a check to offences. And so on this occasion the following law was promulgated: Whoever curses god, let him bear the guilt of his sin, but he that nameth the name of the Lord let him die. ",
"[204] Well hast thou said, thou wisest of men, who alone hast drunk deep of the untempered wine of wisdom. Thou hast held the naming to be worse than the cursing, for thou couldst not be treating lightly one guilty of the gravest impiety and ranking him with the milder offenders while thou didst decree the extreme penalty of death to one who was judged to have committed the lesser iniquity."
],
[
"[205] No, clearly by “god,” he is not here alluding to the Primal God, the Begetter of the Universe, but to the gods of the different cities who are falsely so called, being fashioned by the skill of painters and sculptors. For the world as we know it is full of idols of wood and stone, and suchlike images. We must refrain from speaking insultingly of these, lest any of Moses’ disciples get into the habit of treating lightly the name “god” in general, for it is a title worthy of the highest respect and love.",
"[206] But if anyone, I will not say blasphemes the Lord of gods and men, but even ventures to utter His Name unseasonably, let him suffer the penalty of death.",
"[207] For, even in the case of our own parents, though they are but mortals, all who have regard for the honour due to parentage abstain from using their personal names, and, leaving these unsaid, call them instead by the terms of natural relationship—father and mother—and their so addressing them is seen at once to be an indirect acknowledgement of unsurpassed benefits conferred by them and an expression of their own standing gratitude.",
"[208] After this, can we still think worthy of pardon those, who, with a reckless tongue, make unseasonable use of the most holy name of the Deity and treat it as a mere expletive?"
],
[
"[209] After this honour paid to the Parent of All, the prophet magnified the holy seventh day, seeing with his keener vision its marvellous beauty stamped upon heaven and the whole world and enshrined in nature itself.",
"[210] For he found that she was in the first place motherless, exempt from female parentage, begotten by the Father alone, without begetting, brought to the birth, yet not carried in the womb. Secondly, he saw not only these, that she was all lovely and motherless, but that she was also ever virgin, neither born of a mother nor a mother herself, neither bred from corruption nor doomed to suffer corruption. Thirdly, as he scanned her, he recognized in her the birthday of the world, a feast celebrated by heaven, celebrated by earth and things on earth as they rejoice and exult in the full harmony of the sacred number.",
"[211] For this cause, Moses, great in everything, determined that all whose names were written on his holy burgess-roll and who followed the laws of nature should hold high festival through hours of cheerful gaiety, abstaining from work and profit-making crafts and professions and business pursued to get a livelihood, and enjoy a respite from labour released from weary and painful care. But this leisure should be occupied, not as by some in bursts of laughter or sports or shows of mimes and dancers on which stage-struck fools waste away their strength almost to the point of death, and through the dominant senses of sight and hearing reduce to slavery their natural queen, the soul, but by the pursuit of wisdom only.",
"[212] And the wisdom must not be that of the systems hatched by the word-catchers and sophists who sell their tenets and arguments like any bit of merchandise in the market, men who for ever pit philosophy against philosophy without a blush, O earth and sun, but the true philosophy which is woven from three strands—thoughts, words and deeds—united into a single piece for the attainment and enjoyment of happiness.",
"[213] Now, a certain man, setting at nought this ordinance, though the echoes of the divine commands about the sacredness of the seventh day were ringing in his ears, commands promulgated by God not through His prophet but by a voice which, strange paradox, was visible and aroused the eyes rather than the ears of the bystanders, went forth through the midst of the camp to gather firewood, knowing that all were resting in their tents. But that his crime might not remain hidden, he was observed while still engaged in the wicked deed.",
"[214] For some persons who had gone out of the gates into the wilderness to pray in the quiet open solitude saw this lawless sight, a man gathering sticks for fuel, and, hardly able to control themselves, they were minded to slay him. Reflection, however, caused them to restrain the fierceness of their anger. They did not wish to make it appear that they who were but private citizens took upon themselves the ruler’s duty of punishment, and that too without a trial, however clear was the offence in other ways, or that the pollution of bloodshed, however justly deserved, should profane the sacredness of the day. Accordingly they arrested him, and took him before the ruler beside whom the priests were seated, while the whole multitude stood around to listen;",
"[215] for it was customary on every day when opportunity offered, and pre-eminently on the seventh day, as I have explained above, to pursue the study of wisdom with the ruler expounding and instructing the people what they should say and do, while they received edification and betterment in moral principles and conduct.",
"[216] Even now this practice is retained, and the Jews every seventh day occupy themselves with the philosophy of their fathers, dedicating that time to the acquiring of knowledge and the study of the truths of nature. For what are our places of prayer throughout the cities but schools of prudence and courage and temperance and justice and also of piety, holiness and every virtue by which duties to God and men are discerned and rightly performed?"
],
[
"[217] So, then, the perpetrator of this great sin against God was for the time being taken into custody. But Moses was in doubt as to what should be done to him. He knew that the action deserved death, but what would be the proper method of punishment? So, then, in spirit, he approached the judgement-seat, invisible even as the spirit which sought it, and asked of the Judge Who knows all before He hears it what His sentence was.",
"[218] That Judge declared His decision that the man should die, and by no other death but stoning; since in him, as in the earlier culprit, the mind had been changed into a senseless stone by a deed which was the perfection of wickedness, and covered practically all the prohibitions enacted for the honouring of the seventh day.",
"[219] How is this? Because not merely the mechanical but also the other arts and occupations, particularly those which are undertaken for profit and to get a livelihood, are carried on directly or indirectly by the instrumentality of fire. And, therefore, he often forbids the lighting of a fire on the seventh day, regarding it as the cause which lay at the root of all and as the primary activity; and, if this ceased, he considered that other particular activities would naturally cease also.",
"[220] But sticks are the material for fire, so that by picking them up he committed a sin which was brother to and of the same family as the sin of burning them. And his was a double crime; it lay first in the mere act of collecting, in defiance of the commandment to rest from work, secondly in the nature of what he collected, being materials for fire which is the basis of the arts."
],
[
"[221] Both the incidents mentioned above are concerned with the punishment of impious persons, ratified by means of question and answer. There are two others of a different kind: one connected with the succession to an inheritance, the other with a rite performed at apparently a wrong season. It will be better to take the latter example before the other. ",
"[222] Moses dates the first month of the year’s revolution at the beginning of the spring equinox. And, in doing so, he is not like some giving the place of honour to the actual time but rather to the gifts of nature which she raises up for men. For at the equinox the corn crops, our necessary food, become ripe, while on the trees, which are in full bloom, the fruit is just beginning to appear. This ranks second to the corn, and therefore is a later growth. For in nature what is a less pressing always comes after a really pressing necessity.",
"[223] Now, wheat and barley and the other kinds of food without which life is impossible are pressing necessities, but wine and olive oil and tree fruits do not come under this head, as men continue their life for many years and reach extreme old age without them.",
"[224] In this month, about the fourteenth day, when the disc of the moon is becoming full, is held the commemoration of the crossing, a public festival called in Hebrew Pasch, on which the victims are not brought to the altar by the laity and sacrificed by the priests, but, as commanded by the law, the whole nation acts as priest, each individual bringing what he offers on his own behalf and dealing with it with his own hands.",
"[225] Now, while all the rest of the people were joyful and cheerful, each feeling that he had the honour of priesthood, there were others passing the time in tears and sorrow. They had lost relations lately by death, and in mourning them they suffered a double sorrow. Added to their grief for their dead kinsfolk was that which they felt at the loss of the pleasure and honour of the sacred rite. For they were not even allowed to purify or besprinkle themselves with holy water on that day, since their mourning had still some days to run and had not passed the appointed term.",
"[226] These persons, after the festival, came to the ruler full of gloom and depression and put the case before him—the still recent death of their kinsfolk, the necessity of performing their duty as mourners and their consequent inability to take part in the sacrifice of the crossing-feast.",
"[227] Then they prayed that they might not fare worse than the others, and that the misfortune which they had sustained in the death of their relations might not be counted as misconduct entailing punishment rather than pity. In that case they considered that their fate would be worse than that of the dead, for they have no longer any perception of their troubles, while they themselves would be suffering a living death, in which they still retained consciousness."
],
[
"[228] Moses, hearing this, recognized the reasonableness of their claim, and also the cogency of their excuse for absenting themselves from the sacrifice; and with these was mingled a feeling of sympathy. Yet he wavered in his judgement, and oscillated as on a balance: one scale was weighed down by pity and justice, while in the other lay as a counterpoise the law of the Paschal sacrifices in which both the first month and the fourteenth day were clearly appointed for the rite. So, vacillating between refusal and assent, he besought God to act as judge and to give an oracle declaring his decision.",
"[229] And God hearkened to him and vouchsafed an answer revealing His will, touching not only those for whom the prophet interceded but those of future generations who might find themselves in the same case. And, His grace abounding further, He included in the divine edict those who for other reasons might be unable to join the whole nation in a sacred service.",
"[230] It is right to state what the pronouncements thus given were. “Mourning for kinsfolk,” He said, “is an affliction which the family cannot avoid, but it does not count as an offence.",
"[231] While it is still running its appointed course, it should be banished from the sacred precincts which must be kept pure from all pollution, not only that which is voluntary but also that which is unintentionally incurred. But when its term is finished let not the mourners be denied an equal share in the sacred services, and thus the living be made an appendage to the dead. Let them form a second set to come on the second month and also on the fourteenth day, and sacrifice just as the first set, and observe a similar rule and method in dealing with the victims.",
"[232] The same permission also must be given to those who are prevented from joining the whole nation in worship not by mourning but by absence in a distant country. For settlers abroad and inhabitants of other regions are not wrongdoers who deserve to be deprived of equal privileges, particularly if the nation has grown so populous that a single country cannot contain it and has sent out colonies in all directions.”"
],
[
"[233] Having thus discussed the case of those who, through adverse circumstances, failed to make the Paschal sacrifice with the mass of the nation, but were set upon repairing the omission if late yet as best they could, I will pass on to the final ordinance, which concerns the succession to an inheritance. This, like the others, originated in a question and answer and was thus of a mixed character.",
"[234] There was a man called Zelophehad, highly reputed and of no mean tribe, who had five daughters and no son. After the death of their father, the daughters, suspecting that they would be deprived of the property he had left, since inheritances went in the male line, approached the ruler in all maidenly modesty, not in pursuit of wealth but from a desire to preserve the name and reputation of their father.",
"[235] “Our father died,” they said, “but not in any of the risings in which, as it fell out, multitudes perished, but followed contentedly the quiet life of an ordinary citizen, and surely it is not to be accounted as a sin that he had no male issue. We are here outwardly as orphans, but in reality hoping to find a father in you; for a lawful ruler is closer akin to his subjects than he who begat them.”",
"[236] Moses admired the good sense of the maidens and their loyalty to their parent, but suspended his judgement, being influenced by another view, which holds that men should divide inheritances among themselves, to be taken as the reward for military service and the wars of which they have borne the brunt; while nature, who grants to women exemption from such conflicts, clearly also refuses them a share in the prizes assigned thereto.",
"[237] Naturally, therefore, in this wavering and undecided state of mind, he referred the difficulty to God, Who alone, as he knew, can distinguish by infallible and absolutely unerring tests the finest differences and thereby shew His truth and justice.",
"[238] And He, the Maker of All, the Father of the World, Who holds firmly knit together heaven and earth and water and air and all that each of them produces, the Ruler of men and gods, did not disdain to give response to the petition of some orphan girls. And, with that response, He gave something more than a judge would give, so kind and gracious was He, Who has filled the universe through and through with His beneficent power; for He stated His full approval of the maidens.",
"[239] O Lord and Master, how can one hymn Thee? What mouth, what tongue, what else of the instruments of speech, what mind, soul’s dominant part, is equal to the task? If the stars become a single choir, will their song be worthy of Thee? If all heaven be resolved into sound, will it be able to recount any part of Thy excellences? “The daughters of Zelophehad have spoken rightly,” He said.",
"[240] Who can fail to know how great a commendation is this testimony from God? Come now, you boasters, with your windy pride in your prosperity, and your pose of perked up necks and lifted eyebrows, who treat widowhood, that piteous calamity, as a joke, and the still more piteous desolation of orphanhood as a matter for mockery.",
"[241] Mark how the persons who seem thus lonely and unfortunate are not treated as nothing worth and negligible in the judgement of God, of Whose empire the least honoured parts are the kingdoms found everywhere in the civilized world; for even the whole compass of the round earth is but the outermost fringe of His works—mark this, I say, and learn its much-needed lesson.",
"[242] Still, though he praised the petition of the maidens and refrained from leaving them empty-handed, he did not promote them to equal honour with the men who bore the brunt of conflict. To these he assigned the inheritances as prizes suitable to their feats of valour; the women he judged worthy of charity and kindness, not of reward for services. He shows this clearly by the words He uses. He says: “Gift” and “thou shall give,” not “payment” and “thou shalt pay,” for the latter pair are used when we receive what is our own, the former when we make a free gift."
],
[
"[243] After signifying His will as to the petition of the orphan maids, He lays down also a more general law about succession to inheritances. He names sons first for participation in their father’s property, and daughters second, if there are no sons. In the case of the daughters His phrase is that the inheritance should be “put round” them, as though it were an external ornament, not a possession by right of kinship inalienable. For what is put round does not have an intimate connexion with what it adorns, and the ideas of close fitting and union are quite foreign to it.",
"[244] After the daughters, He names the brothers as standing third, and the fourth place He assigns to uncles on the father’s side, thereby indirectly suggesting that fathers may become the heirs of sons. For it would be foolish to suppose that, while He assigns the inheritance of a nephew to his paternal uncle, because of that uncle’s relation to the father, He withdraws from the father himself the right of succession.",
"[245] But since, in the natural order of things, sons are the heirs of their fathers and not fathers of their sons, He left unmentioned this deplorable and sinister possibility, to avoid the idea of a father and mother making profit out of their inconsolable sorrow at the untimely death of their children. But He does indirectly mention this by admitting the right of the uncles; and thus He attains both ends, the preservation of decency and the rule that the property should not go out of the family. After the uncles comes the fifth class, the nearest relations. And in all such cases it is the first in succession to whom He gives the inheritances."
],
[
"[246] Having completed this necessary account of the oracles of mixed character, I will proceed next to describe those delivered by the prophet himself under divine inspiration, for this was included in my promise. The examples of his possession by God’s spirit begin with one which was also the beginning of the prosperity of the nation, when its many myriads set out as colonists from Egypt to the cities of Syria.",
"[247] Men and women alike, they had traversed a long and pathless wilderness, and arrived at the Red Sea, as it is called. They were then naturally in great difficulties, as they could not cross the sea for want of boats, and did not think it safe to retrace their steps.",
"[248] When they were in this state of mind, a greater misfortune burst upon them. The king of Egypt, accompanied by a very formidable body of infantry and cavalry, came in hot pursuit, eager to overtake them and so chastise them for leaving the country. He had, indeed, permitted them to do so, induced by unmistakable warnings from God. But the disposition of the wicked is, as may be well seen, unstable, suspended as it were on a balance and swayed up and down by the slightest cause in opposite directions.",
"[249] Thus, caught between the enemy and the sea, they despaired each of his own safety. Some thought that the most miserable death would be a welcome blessing, while others, believing it to be better to perish by the elements of nature than to become a laughing-stock to their enemies, purposed to throw themselves into the sea, and, loaded with some heavy substances, sat waiting by the shore, so that when they saw the foe near at hand they might leap down and easily sink into the depths.",
"[250] But, while in these helpless straits, they were at death’s door with consternation"
],
[
"the prophet, seeing the whole nation entangled in the meshes of panic, like a draught of fishes, was taken out of himself by divine possession and uttered these inspired words: “Alarm you needs must feel.",
"[251] Terror is near at hand: the danger is great. In front is a vast expanse of sea; no haven for a refuge, no boats at hand: behind, the menace of the enemy’s troops, which march along in unresting pursuit. Whither can one turn or swim for safety? Everything has attacked us suddenly from every side—earth, sea, man, the elements of nature.",
"[252] Yet be of good courage, faint not. Stand with unshaken minds, look for the invincible help which God will send. Self-sent it will be with you anon, invisible it will fight before you. Ere now you have often experienced its unseen defence. I see it preparing for the contest and casting a noose round the necks of the enemy. It drags them down through the sea. They sink like lead into the depths. You see them still alive: I have a vision of them dead, and to-day you too shall see their corpses.”",
"[253] So he spake with words of promise exceeding anything they could hope for. But they began to find by the experience of facts the truth of the heavenly message. For what he prophesied came to pass through the might of God, though harder to credit than any fable. Let us picture the scene. The sea breaks in two, and each section retires. The parts around the break, through the whole depth of their waters, congeal to serve as walls of vast strength: a path is drawn straight, a road of miracle between the frozen walls on either side:",
"[254] the nation makes its passage, marching safely through the sea, as on a dry path or a stone-paved causeway; for the sand is crisped, and its scattered particles grow together into a unity: the enemy advance in unresting pursuit, hastening to their own destruction: the cloud goes behind the travellers’ rear to guide them on their way, and within is the vision of the Godhead, flashing rays of fire. Then the waters which had been stayed from their course and parted for a while return to their place: the dried-up cleft between the walls suddenly becomes a sea again:",
"[255] the enemy meet their doom, sent to their last sleep by the fall of the frozen walls, and overwhelmed by the tides, as they rush down upon their path as into a ravine! that doom is evidenced by the corpses which are floated to the top and strew the surface of the sea: last comes a mighty rushing wave, which flings the corpses in heaps upon the opposite shore, a sight inevitably to be seen by the saved, thus permitted not only to escape their dangers, but also to behold their enemies fallen under a chastisement which no words can express, through the power of God and not of man.",
"[256] After this, what should Moses do but honour the Benefactor with hymns of thanksgiving? He divides the nation into two choirs, one of men, the other of women, and himself leads the men while he appoints his sister to lead the women, that the two in concert might sing hymns to the Father and Creator in tuneful response, with a blending both of temperaments and melody—temperaments eager to render to each other like for like; melody produced by the concord of treble and bass; for the voices of men are bass and the women’s treble, and when they are blended in due proportion the resulting melody is of the fullest and sweetest harmony.",
"[257] All these myriads were persuaded by Moses to sing with hearts in accord the same song, telling of those mighty and marvellous works which I have recorded just above. And the prophet, rejoicing at this, seeing the people also overjoyed, and himself no longer able to contain his delight, led off the song, and his hearers massed in two choirs sang with him the story of these same deeds. "
],
[
"[258] It was thus that Moses began and opened his work as a prophet possessed by God’s spirit. His next utterance of this sort was concerned with that primary and most necessary matter, food; and this food was not produced by the earth, which was barren and unfruitful, but heaven rained down before daybreak, not once only but every day for forty years, a celestial fruit in the form of dew, like millet grain.",
"[259] When Moses saw it, he bade them gather it, and said under inspiration: “We must trust God as we have experienced His kindnesses in deeds greater than we could have hoped for. Do not treasure up or store the food He sends. Let none leave any part of it over till the morrow.”",
"[260] On hearing this, some whose piety had little ballast, thinking perhaps that the statement was no divine oracle but just the exhortation of the ruler, left it to the next day; but it first rotted and filled the whole extent of the camp with its stench, and then turned into worms which are bred from corruption.",
"[261] Moses, seeing this, was naturally and indeed inevitably indignant at their disobedience—to think that after witnessing wonders so many and so great, impossibilities no doubt as judged by what to outward appearance is credible and reasonable but easily accomplished by the dispensations of God’s providence, they not only doubted, but in their utter incapacity for learning actually disbelieved.",
"[262] But the Father confirmed the utterance of the prophet with two most convincing proofs. One proof He had given at the time, when what was left over corrupted and stank and then was changed into worms, the vilest of living creatures. The other He gave later, for the unneeded surplus over what was gathered by the multitude was dissolved by the sun’s rays, melted away and disappeared."
],
[
"[263] Not long after, Moses delivered a second inspired pronouncement concerning the sacred seventh day. That day has held the place of honour in nature, not merely from the time when the world was framed, but even before the heaven and all that sense perceives came into being. Yet men knew it not, perhaps because by reason of the constant and repeated destructions by water and fire the later generations did not receive from the former the memory of the order and sequence of events in the series of years. This hidden truth Moses, under inspiration, revealed in an announcement to which a manifest sign gave testimony.",
"[264] This sign was as follows: the shower of food from the air was less on the first days, but on a later day was doubled; and on those first days anything left melted and was dissolved till, after turning completely into moisture, it disappeared; but on that later day it admitted no change and remained just as it had been. Moses, when he heard of this and also actually saw it, was awestruck and, guided by what was not so much surmise as God-sent inspiration, made announcement of the sabbath.",
"[265] I need hardly say that conjectures of this kind are closely akin to prophecies. For the mind could not have made so straight an aim if there was not also the divine spirit guiding it to the truth itself.",
"[266] Now the greatness of the wonder was shown not only by the double supply of food and its remaining sound contrary to the usual happening, but by the combination of both these occurring on the sixth day, counting from the day on which the food began to be supplied from the air; and that sixth day was to be followed by the dawning of the seventh which is the most sacred of numbers. And therefore consideration will show the inquirer that the food given from heaven followed the analogy of the birth of the world; for both the creating of the world and also the raining of the said food were begun by God on the first day out of six.",
"[267] The copy reproduces the original very exactly: for, as God called up His most perfect work, the world, out of not being into being, so He called up plenty in the desert, changing round the elements to meet the pressing need of the occasion, so that instead of the earth the air bore food for their nourishment, and that without labour or travail for those who had no chance of resorting to any deliberate process of providing sustenance.",
"[268] After this, he uttered a third prophetic saying of truly marvellous import. He declared that on the sabbath the air would not yield the accustomed food, and that nothing would come down to earth as it had done before, not even the smallest morsel.",
"[269] And this proved true in the result, for it was on the day before the sabbath that he prophesied this, but on the morrow some of the weaker-minded set out to gather the food but were disappointed and returned baffled, reproaching themselves for their disbelief and hailing the prophet as a true seer, an interpreter of God, and alone gifted with foreknowledge of the hidden future."
],
[
"[270] Such was his pronouncement under divine inspiration on the matter of the food which came from heaven, but there are examples to follow which must be noted, though perhaps they may be thought to resemble exhortations rather than oracular sayings. Among these is the command given at their great backsliding from the ways of their fathers, about which I have spoken above. This was when, after fashioning a golden bull in imitation of the vanity of Egypt, they set up choirs and built altars and brought victims for sacrifice in forgetfulness of the true God and to the ruin of the high-born qualities inherited from their forefathers and fostered by piety and holiness.",
"[271] At this, Moses was cut to the heart to think that in the first place the whole people had suddenly been blinded who a few hours ago had excelled every nation in clearness of vision, and secondly, that a fable falsely invented could quench the bright radiance of truth—truth on which no eclipse of the sun or of all the starry choir can cast a shadow, since it is illumined by its own light, the intelligible, the incorporeal, compared with which the light of the senses would seem to be as night compared with day.",
"[272] He therefore became another man, changed both in outward appearance and mind; and, filled with the spirit, he cried: “Who is there who has no part with this delusion nor has given to no-lords the name of lordship? Let all such come to me.”",
"[273] One tribe came at the call, bringing with them their minds no less than their bodies, men who for some time had been breathing slaughter against the godless workers of unholiness, but sought to find a leader and captain who would have the right to tell them when and how to make this attack. When Moses found them hot with rage and brimful of courage and resolution, he was more than ever possessed by the spirit and said: “Let each of you take his sword and rush through the whole camp, and slay not only those who are strangers to you but also the very nearest of your friends and kinsfolk. Mow them down, holding that to be a truly righteous deed which is done for truth and God’s honour, a cause which to champion and defend is the lightest of labours.”",
"[274] So they slaughtered three thousand of the principal leaders in godlessness, without meeting any resistance, and thereby not only made good their defence against the charge of having been party to the shameless crime, but were accounted as the noblest of heroes and awarded the prize most suitable to their action, that is the priesthood. For it was meet that the duty of ministering to holiness should be given to those who had battled and acquitted themselves bravely in its defence."
],
[
"[275] There is another still more remarkable utterance of this kind which I may mention. It is one which I described some way back when I was speaking of the prophet in his capacity of high priest. This again came from his own mouth when again under possession, and it was fulfilled not long afterwards but at the very time when the prediction was given.",
"[276] The ministers of the temple are of two ranks, the higher consisting of priests, the lower of temple attendants; and at that time there were three priests but many thousand attendants.",
"[277] These last, puffed with pride at their own numerical superiority over the priests, despised their fewness, and combined in the same deed two trespasses, by attempting on the one hand to bring low the superior, on the other to exalt the inferior. This is what happens when subjects attack their rulers to confound that most excellent promoter of the common weal, order.",
"[278] Then, conspiring with each other, and collecting in great numbers, they raised an outcry against the prophet, declaring that he had bestowed the priesthood on his brother and nephews because of their relation to him, and had given a false account of their election, which had not really been made under divine direction, as we stated it above to be.",
"[279] Moses, greatly hurt and grieved at this, though the mildest and meekest of men, was so spurred to righteous anger by his passionate hatred of evil that he besought God to turn His face from their sacrifice; not that the All-righteous Judge would ever accept the ministries of the impious, but because the soul of one whom God loves must also do its part and not keep silence, so eagerly does it desire that the unholy may not prosper but ever fail to attain their purpose.",
"[280] While his heart was still hot within him, burning with lawful indignation, inspiration came upon him, and, transformed into a prophet, he pronounced these words: “Disbelief falls hardly on the disbelievers only. Such are schooled by facts alone, and not by words. Experience will show them what teaching has failed to show that I do not lie.",
"[281] This matter will be judged by the manner of their latter end. If the death they meet is in the ordinary course of nature, my oracles are a false invention; but, if it be of a new and different kind, my truthfulness will be attested. I see the earth opened and vast chasms yawning wide. I see great bands of kinsfolk perishing, houses dragged down and swallowed up with their inmates, and living men descending into Hades.”",
"[282] As he ceased speaking, the earth burst open under the shock of a convulsion, and the bursting was just in that part where the tents of the impious stood, so that they were borne below in a mass and hidden from sight; for the gaping sides closed again when the object was accomplished for which they had been split asunder.",
"[283] And, shortly after, thunderbolts fell suddenly on two hundred and fifty men who had led the sedition and destroyed them in a mass, leaving no part of their bodies to receive the tribute of burial.",
"[284] The quick succession of these punishments and their magnitude in both cases clearly and widely established the fame of the prophet’s godliness, to the truth of whose pronouncements God Himself had testified.",
"[285] This too we should not fail to note, that the work of chastising the impious was shared by earth and heaven, the fundamental parts of the universe. For they had set the roots of their wickedness on earth, but let it grow so high that it mounted right up to ether above.",
"[286] Therefore each of the two elements supplied its punishment: earth burst and parted asunder to drag down and swallow up those who had then become a burden to it; heaven poured down the strangest of rainstorms, a great stream of fire to blast them in its flames.",
"[287] Whether they were swallowed up or destroyed by the thunderbolts, the result was the same: neither party was ever seen again, the former hidden in the earth by the closing of the chasm which united to form level ground again, the latter consumed absolutely and entirely by the flame of the thunderbolt."
],
[
"[288] Afterwards the time came when he had to make his pilgrimage from earth to heaven, and leave this mortal life for immortality, summoned thither by the Father Who resolved his twofold nature of soul and body into a single unity, transforming his whole being into mind, pure as the sunlight. Then, indeed, we find him possessed by the spirit, no longer uttering general truths to the whole nation but prophesying to each tribe in particular the things which were to be and hereafter must come to pass. Some of these have already taken place, others are still looked for, since confidence in the future is assured by fulfilment in the past.",
"[289] It was very fitting that persons so different in the history of their birth, particularly in their descent on the mother’s side and in the manifold varieties of their thoughts and aims and the endless diversities of their practices and habits of life, should receive as a sort of legacy a suitable apportionment of oracles and inspired sayings.",
"[290] This was indeed wonderful: but most wonderful of all is the conclusion of the Holy Scriptures, which stands to the whole law-book as the head to the living creature;",
"[291] for when he was already being exalted and stood at the very barrier, ready at the signal to direct his upward flight to heaven, the divine spirit fell upon him and he prophesied with discernment while still alive the story of his own death; told ere the end how the end came; told how he was buried with none present, surely by no mortal hands but by immortal powers; how also he was not laid to rest in the tomb of his forefathers but was given a monument of special dignity which no man has ever seen; how all the nation wept and mourned for him a whole month and made open display, private and public, of their sorrow, in memory of his vast benevolence and watchful care for each one of them and for all.",
"[292] Such, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, was the life and such the end of Moses, king, lawgiver, high priest, prophet."
]
],
"Appendix": [
"APPENDIX TO DE VITA MOSIS II",
"§ 4. The king is a living law. This application of the term νόμος ἔμψυχος to the ruler (rather than as in De Abr. 4 to an exemplary person) is often met with. Cf. especially Musonius, δεῖ αὐτὸν ὥσπερ ἐδόκει τοῖς παλαιοῖς νόμον ἔμψυχον εἶναι (Stobaeus, Flor. xlvii. 67, Meineke’s edition, vol. ii. p. 274). Other examples are Archytas, νόμων δὲ ὁ μὲν ἔμψυχος, βασιλεύς, ὁ δὲ ἄψυχος, γράμμα (ibid. xliii. 132, Mein. ibid. p. 136), and Diotogenes, ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς ἤτοι νόμος ἔμψυχος ἢ νόμιμος ἄρχων (ibid, xlvii. 61, Mein. ibid. p. 260). I owe these examples to an article by Professor Goodenough in Yale Classical Studies, vol. i. pp. 56–101, on “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship.” For the other part of the dictum, that the law is a just king, cf. Quod Det. 141 and note, where Plato, Symposium 196 c οἱ πόλεως βασιλῆς νόμοι, is quoted.",
"§ 26–44. Philo’s story of the origin of the Septuagint is probably founded on and in the main agrees with the long and elaborate account in the so-called letter of Aristeas. This document is admittedly pseudonymous and not written as it claims to be by a contemporary Greek at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Its probable date is a matter of dispute, opinions ranging from 200 to 80 B.C. The chief difference is that Aristeas represents the seventy-two translators as comparing their work as they write it and producing an agreed though not an inspired version. The feasting also is more elaborate than Philo suggests, and occupies seven days, during which some question bearing on morals, particularly on the duties of kingship, is propounded to each of the translators in turn, and each of the answers is recorded. The account of the annual festival at Pharos could not of course appear in Aristeas.",
"Aristeas like Philo, as also Josephus, who gives a free paraphrase of a large part of the letter (Ant. xii. 2. 1), confines the translation to the Pentateuch. Modern criticism tends to accept the view that the version was made in the time of Philadelphus and may well have had his approval, but doubts the official co-operation of the king with the high priest and the employment of Palestinian Jews.",
"(See Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, or Thackeray’s translation of the letter with appendices.)",
"§ 38. κύρια κυρίοις ὀνόμασι. Thackeray in his version of these sections in an appendix to his translation of the letter of Aristeas, p. 92, renders “the appropriate technical words in the translation corresponded with the technical words in the original.” I do not think that κύριον ὄνομα, here at any rate, means a technical term. A κύριον ὄνομα is a word used in its literal and exact sense (without μετάφρασις or παράφρασις), and all that the phrase suggests is that each word is an exact rendering of the corresponding word in the original. The duplication serves to bring out more strongly the mutuality of the correspondence like μόνη … μόνους in § 36. See note on De Mut. 12.",
"§ 47. τὸ γενεαλογικόν. In the grammatical schools the ἐξήγησις ἱστοριῶν, i.e. the elucidation of allusions in literature, was classified according as they dealt with places (τοπικαί), dates (χρονικαί), events (πραγματικαί), and persons (γενεαλογικαί); see Usener, Kleine Schriften ii. p. 286. So in Polybius ix. 1 the γενεαλογικὸς τρόπος of historiography is opposed to ὁ περὶ τὰς ἀποικίας καὶ κτίσεις καὶ συγγενείας, i.e. the ethnological, and ὁ περὶ τὰς πράξεις τῶν ἐθνῶν καὶ πόλεων καὶ δυναστῶν, called afterwards ὁ πραγματικός, which Polybius himself adopts. No doubt the Pentateuch contains much of the “pragmatical,” but Philo’s preoccupation with character would lead him to regard it as “genealogical.” (This use of the word is ignored in L. & S.)",
"§ 65. While I have followed Cohn’s text in indicating a lacuna at this point, which is also the termination of the second book in those editions which divide the De Vita Mosis into three, the correctness of this should not, I think, be regarded as certain. The decision really depends on the interpretation put on § 46 ὑπὲρ οὖ (i.e. the legislative part of the Pentateuch) δεύτερον λέξομεν τὸ πρότερον τῇ τάξει (i.e. the historical part) πρότερον ἀκριβώσαντες. If these words, as has generally been thought and at first sight seems natural, refer to the plan of this treatise we should conclude that the following sections give the “full treatment” of the historical part and that some similar discussion on the legislative part has been lost. [It does not, however, seem to me that this need have been of any great length, or much more than a general praise of the laws to the same effect as what we find in § 52.] But I am inclined to agree with the suggestion of Professor Goodenough that the reference is to the scheme of the whole Exposition. On this view the full treatment of the historical part is being carried out in the four treatises, and the discussion of the legislation relegated to books De Specialibus Legibus, and the sections 47–65 are merely a justification of Moses’ plan of setting the historical before the legislative.",
"This will not, of course, seem convincing to those who regard the De Vita Mosis as a separate work entirely independent of the scheme of the Exposition (see General Introduction pp. xv f.). Also it may be argued that if there is no lacuna, or only a very small one, the length of the treatment of Moses as lawgiver is disproportionately short compared with what is given to him as high priest and prophet. Also it must be remembered that in the copies made by the scribes whose MSS. we possess, the book did end at § 65, and that a loss at the end of a book is more likely to occur than a lacuna in the middle.",
"§ 79. The sum of successive numbers, etc. Fifty-five is what in ancient arithmetic is called a “triangular” number being the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 … 10, and therefore = . This name is given to these numbers because the units can be arranged in the form of an equilateral triangle. Thus e.g. 10 units can be arranged so as to form an equilateral triangle with each side consisting of 4 units. This side, sometimes called the gnomon, is regarded as the base of the whole triangle, and thought to possess any allegorical virtues which belong to it. Cf. § 84, where four is said to be the essence of ten. Twenty-eight is also a triangular number, being the sum of 1 + 2 … 7, but any virtues which it possesses as such appear to be superseded by its being also the sum of its factors. The number of the Beast (666 = 1 + 2 … 36) and the Fishes in John 21 (153 = 1 + 2 … 17) are also triangular, and attempts have been made to interpret them from this point of view.",
"§ 114. (The inscription on the πέταλον.) The footnote requires supplementing and perhaps correcting. Thackeray in his note to Joseph. Bell. Iud. v. 235 states positively that the inscription has been shewn to be the “tetragrammaton” rather than “Holiness to the Lord.” He refers to a note in the Journal of Theological Studies, vol. xxvi. p. 72 by Mr. J. E. Hogg. I do not think this note does more than argue (with what success I cannot tell) that the Hebrew in Ex. 28:36 (LXX 32) and in Ex. 39:30 (LXX, 36:38)—though the prima facie meaning is “Holy to Jahve”—may mean “the sacred name Jahve,” and also that the LXX in Ex. 28 does not assert more than that the thing engraved was a “holy thing belonging to the Lord.” This last is true, but in the other passage, Ex. 39 (LXX, 36), the translators make it perfectly clear that the inscription was ἁγίασμα κυρίῳ.",
"As for Philo, in De Mig. 103, where he quotes Ex. 28 in the form πέταλον χρυσοῦν καθαρόν, ἔχον ἐκτύπωμα σφραγῖδος, ἁγίσμα κυρίῳ, it is quite possible that he takes ἁγίασμα in apposition to πέταλον or ἐκτύπωμα, and does not mention any inscription at all. The words then mean “a plate of pure gold, having the engraving (embossment?) of a signet, a sacred thing to the Lord”; not “as of a signet,” for he goes on to explain that the signet represents the ἰδέα ἰδεῶν, a phrase which, I think, refers to the Logos rather than to the Self-existent. If so, in Mos. ii. 114 and 132 he is following quite another tradition. What authorities are there for this besides himself and Josephus? Prof. Burkitt in a supplementary note in J.T.S. xxvi. p. 180 remarks that the same is stated by Bar Hebraeus, “who must ultimately have derived it from Origen,” and by Origen, who may “possibly” have derived it from Philo. Considering Origen’s well-known acquaintance with Philo, “possibly” seems a weak word. Mangey also quotes Jerome to the same effect, but Jerome also makes frequent use of Philo. Is it a Rabbinic tradition? The German translators, generally well versed in such parallels, quote nothing from this source.",
"The question then suggests itself, “Did Josephus also merely follow Philo?” If so, though it is not given among Cohn’s examples of coincidence between the two, it is the strongest evidence I have yet seen of Josephus’s use of his predecessor.",
"A further question, to which I can give no answer, is what does Philo mean by saying that the “theologian,” presumably Moses, declares that the name of the Self-existent has four letters. I do not think he anywhere shews any knowledge of the YHVH, or that it is represented by κύριος in the LXX.",
"§ 117–135. (Symbolism of the High Priest’s vesture.) A much shorter account in De Spec. Leg. i. 85–95 agrees very closely with this in substance. The chief differences are that the bells there signify the harmony, not between merely earth and water, but between all the parts of the universe, and that “Clear-shewing” and “Truth” are given a somewhat different interpretation. There “Clear-shewing” is entirely confined to the “natures in heaven” (corresponding more or less to the “rational principle in nature” of this treatise), and “Truth” only concerns men as a qualification for the “heaven” which the breastplate in both passages represents, while in this treatise both are common to both forms of λόγος. In De Mig. 102 f. the only parts noticed are the gold-plate on the head, and the flowers and the bells at the feet (the pomegranates being left unnoticed). The treatment of these two (the flowers and bells) is altogether different. The two together represent the αἰσθητά, as opposed to the νοητά (the head-gear), the flowers being the things seen, and the bells the things heard, and, while in De Vita Mosis the harmony produced by the latter is that between earth and water, in De Mig. we have the profounder idea that it is the essential harmony between the world of sense and the world of thought.",
"In Josephus’s short notice (Ant. ii. 184), besides other differences, the pomegranates signify the lightning, and the bells the thunder.",
"§ 210. Ever virgin, etc. In De Op. 100 Philo has ascribed these epithets to philosophers other than Pythagorean; in Leg. All. i. 15 to the Pythagoreans themselves. The second view is supported by the statement of Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.1. 10, that Pythagoras, likening the numbers to the Gods, called Seven Athena."
]
}
},
"schema": {
"heTitle": "על חיי משה",
"enTitle": "On the Life of Moses",
"key": "On the Life of Moses",
"nodes": [
{
"heTitle": "ספר א",
"enTitle": "Book I",
"nodes": [
{
"heTitle": "הקדמה",
"enTitle": "Introduction"
},
{
"heTitle": "",
"enTitle": ""
},
{
"heTitle": "הערות",
"enTitle": "Appendix"
}
]
},
{
"heTitle": "ספר ב",
"enTitle": "Book II",
"nodes": [
{
"heTitle": "",
"enTitle": ""
},
{
"heTitle": "הערות",
"enTitle": "Appendix"
}
]
}
]
}
}