On the Life of Moses 373–389

For one who looks to Moses and to the cloud — through both of whom guidance comes to those who advance in virtue: in this part Moses would be the commands of the law, and the cloud the guidance that goes before the law — he, with his mind cleansed in the crossing of the water, having put to death and separated from himself what is foreign, tastes Marah, that is, the life separated from pleasures, which at first seems bitter and unpleasant to those who taste it but gives a sweet sensation to those who have accepted the wood. Then, after delighting in the beauties of the gospel palms and springs, being filled with the living water, which is the rock, taking the heavenly bread into himself, and showing his manhood against the foreigners — the cause of his victory being the outstretched hands of the lawgiver, which foreshow the mystery of the cross — he is then brought to the contemplation of the transcendent nature. The road to such knowledge is purity for him: purity not only of the body, cleansed by certain sprinklings, but also of the garments, washed in water from every stain. This means that whoever is to approach the contemplation of what is must be pure in all respects, so as to be pure and spotless in both soul and body, having washed away the dirt of each in the fitting way, so that we may appear pure also to him who sees what is hidden, and our outward decorum may agree with the inner disposition of the soul. For this reason, before the ascent of the mountain, the garments are washed at the divine command, the riddle of the garments showing us the decorous covering of life. No one would say that this visible dirt on garments becomes a hindrance to the ascent for those going up to God; rather, I think, the garment fittingly names the covering of the pursuits of this life. When this has been achieved, and the herd of irrational animals has been driven far from the mountain, he then approaches the ascent of lofty thoughts. That no irrational animal is allowed to appear on the mountain signifies, in our understanding, that in the contemplation of intelligible things one goes beyond the knowledge that comes from the senses. For it is proper to the nature of irrational animals to be governed by sense alone, without thought: sight leads them, and hearing often stirs their impulse toward something, and all the other means by which sense becomes active have much room among irrational animals. But the contemplation of God, neither according to what appears nor according to … For it is truly a steep and hard-to-approach mountain,

theology, whose foot the great mass of people barely reaches. (But if someone is a Moses, he would go up as well, containing in his hearing the sounds of the trumpets, which the account of the history says grew stronger as they went on.) Truly the trumpet that strikes the hearing is the proclamation about the divine nature: great even at first, but greater, and reaching the hearing more, at the last. The law and the prophets trumpeted the divine mystery of the economy in human form; but the first sounds were too weak to reach disobedient hearing. Therefore the dullness of hearing of the Jews did not receive the sound of the trumpets. But as they went on, as the account says, the trumpets grew stronger. For the last sounds, those made through the preaching of the Gospel, reached the hearing, since the Spirit sounding through the instruments made the sound nobler and more intense in what followed. The instruments sounding one spiritual note would be the prophets and apostles, of whom, as the Psalm says, “their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.” And if the multitude cannot contain the voice that comes from above, but entrusts Moses to learn the secrets himself and to teach the people whatever doctrine he learns through the teaching from above, this too belongs to the ordering of the Church: not all thrust themselves forward to grasp the mysteries; they choose from among themselves one who is able to contain the divine things, and willingly lend their hearing to him, holding as trustworthy whatever they hear from the one initiated into divine things. “For not all,” he says, “are apostles, nor all prophets.” This is not kept now in many of the churches. For many who still need purification from their past lives, unwashed and stained in the covering of their life, putting forward their irrational sense, dare the divine ascent; and so they are overthrown by their own reasonings. For heretical conceptions are simply stones that bury the very inventor of the wicked doctrines. What, then, does it mean that Moses came within the darkness and so saw God in it? What is now narrated seems somehow contrary to the first theophany: then the Divine was seen in light, now in darkness. Let us not think that this too is out of harmony with the sequence of our anagogical contemplation. By this the Word teaches that the knowledge of godliness becomes light at first to those in whom it arises; for what is understood as opposed to godliness is darkness, and the turning away from darkness comes about by sharing in light. But as the mind advances, and through ever greater and more perfect attention comes to an understanding of true apprehension, the nearer it approaches contemplation, the more it sees that the divine nature cannot be contemplated. For leaving behind everything that appears — not only what sense grasps

but also whatever the mind thinks it sees, the mind always presses farther in, until by the intensity of its searching it slips through to what is unseen and incomprehensible, and there sees God. For the true knowledge of what is sought lies in this, and the seeing consists in this: in not seeing. For what is sought transcends all knowledge, enclosed on every side by incomprehensibility as by a darkness. Therefore the lofty John too, who was in this luminous darkness, says, “No one has ever seen God,” defining by this negation that knowledge of the divine essence is beyond the reach not only of human beings but of every intelligible nature. So when Moses had grown greater in knowledge, he then confesses that he saw God in darkness, that is, he then came to know that the Divine is by nature that which is above all knowledge and comprehension. For “Moses entered,” it says, “into the darkness where God was.” Who is God? “He who made darkness his hiding place,” as David says, who was initiated into the secrets in the same sanctuary. When he arrived there, he is taught again through the darkness what he had already been taught through the darkness, so that, I think, the doctrine about this might become firmer for us, being attested by the divine voice. For the divine word forbids, first of all, that the Divine be likened by human beings to any of the things that are known, since every concept that arises from some comprehensive image, by way of conjecture and guesswork about the nature, fashions an idol of God and does not proclaim God. The virtue of godliness is divided in two: what concerns the Divine, and the right ordering of character — for purity of character is also a part of godliness. Having learned first what must be known about God (and to know was to know nothing about him of what is known by human comprehension), he is then taught the other form of virtue, learning by what pursuits the virtuous life is achieved. After this he comes into the tabernacle not made with hands. Who will follow one who journeys through such places and is raised so high in mind? Taking, as it were, peak after peak, by his ascent through lofty things he always becomes higher than himself. First he left the foot of the mountain, separated from all who were too weak for the ascent. Then he receives with his hearing the sounds of the trumpets, raised up along with the height of the ascent. After this he slips into the invisible sanctuary of the knowledge of God; and he does not stay even there, but passes on to the tabernacle not made with hands. Truly whoever is raised through such ascents arrives at this end. For it seems to me that in another sense too the heavenly trumpet becomes, for the one who ascends, a teacher of the way into what is not made with hands. For the arrangement of the wonders in the heavens, which proclaims the wisdom displayed in the things that are and tells the great glory of God through what appears — as it is said, “The heavens declare the glory of God” — by the clarity and resonance of its teaching

becomes a loud-voiced trumpet, as one of the prophets says, “God sounded the trumpet from above.” Whoever is purified and sharp in the hearing of the heart, having received this sound — I mean the sound that arises from the contemplation of the things that are and leads to the knowledge of the divine power — is guided by it to penetrate in thought to the place where God is. This Scripture calls darkness, which signifies, as has been said, the unknown and unseen; and coming into it, he sees that tabernacle not made with hands, which he shows to those below by a material imitation. What, then, is that tabernacle not made with hands? The one shown to Moses on the mountain, to which he is commanded to look as to an archetype, in order to show the wonder not made with hands through a handmade construction. “See,” it says, “that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” There were golden pillars set on silver bases and likewise with silver capitals; there were other pillars again, conspicuous, whose capitals and bases were of bronze, and the part between the ends silver. All these had a core of wood that does not admit rot. All around, to outward view, the gleam of such materials was poured out; and an ark likewise shone with pure gold, and what supported its gold covering was also wood that does not admit decay. In addition there was a lampstand, single at the bottom of its base but divided at the top into seven branches, holding up an equal number of lamps on the branches. The material of the lampstand was gold, with nothing hollow in its construction and nothing supported by wood. Besides these there was an altar and a mercy seat, and the so-called cherubim, by whose wings the ark was overshadowed. All these were gold, not giving a bright colour only on the surface but the same throughout, the material reaching to the depth. Besides these there were varied curtains of the weaver’s art, with different flowers woven one after another into the beauty of the fabric; by them the part of the tent that was visible and could be entered by some of those who performed the sacred service was divided from the part that was secret and not to be entered. The front part was called holy, the hidden part the holy of holies. In addition there were lavers, censers, the enclosure of hangings outside, curtains of hair, and skins dyed red, and whatever else the account describes. What account could understand exactly of what things not made with hands these are imitations, and what profit the material imitation of what Moses saw there brings to those who see it? But it seems right to me to leave the exact account of these things to those who by the Spirit have the power to search out the depths of

God, if there is anyone such as to speak mysteries in the Spirit, as the Apostle says. What we say by conjecture about the meaning before us we will leave to the judgment of our readers, to be thought rejectable or acceptable as a mind practised in judging may reckon. We say, then — since Paul has partly uncovered the mystery in these things, and we take a small starting point from what he said — that Moses was taught beforehand in a type the mystery of the tabernacle that contains the universe. This tabernacle would be Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Not made with hands in his own nature, he accepts being constructed when this tabernacle must be pitched among us; so that the same is in a way both unconstructed and constructed: uncreated in that he exists before, but having become created in that he accepted this material composition. Perhaps what is said is not unclear to those who have received the mystery of our faith exactly. For there is one alone of all that is, which both was before the ages and came to be at the end of the ages. It had no need of coming to be in time — for how could what is before times and ages need a temporal birth? — but for our sake, who by our ill counsel had corrupted our being, it accepted to come to be as we are, so that it might bring back again into being what had come to be outside being. This is the only-begotten God, who contains the universe in himself and yet pitched his own tabernacle among us too. If so great a good is called a tabernacle, let the lover of Christ not be troubled, as though the connotation of the word diminished the majesty of God’s nature. No other of the names is worthy of the nature signified either; all fall alike short of exact signification, both those thought small and those in which some greatness of meaning is perceived by supposition. But just as all the others, each according to some meaning, are piously said to indicate the divine power — physician, shepherd, protector, bread, angel, vine, way, door, dwelling, water, rock, spring, and whatever else is said of him — so, in a meaning befitting God, he is also named by the word “tabernacle.” For the power that contains all things that are, in which all the fullness of the godhead dwells, the common shelter of the universe, who contains all things in himself, is properly called a tabernacle. And the vision must fit the name, each of the things seen leading by the hand to the contemplation of some conception befitting God. Since, then, the great Apostle says that the veil of the tabernacle below is the flesh — because, I think, it is composed of the variety of the four elements — perhaps he too, having been in a vision of the tabernacle in the supercelestial

sanctuaries, was initiated through the Spirit into the mysteries of paradise. It would be well, attending to his partial interpretation, to fit the whole contemplation of the tabernacle to that part. The clarity of the tabernacle’s riddles may come to us through the Apostle’s own words. For he says somewhere of the Only-begotten, whom we have understood to be the tabernacle, that in him all things were created, visible and invisible, whether thrones or authorities or principalities or dominions or powers. So the silver-gleaming and gold-beaten pillars, the carrying poles and the rings, and those cherubim that cover the ark with their wings, and everything else the description of the building of the tabernacle contains — if one looks to things above in one’s inquiry — are the supercosmic powers contemplated in the tabernacle, which by the divine will hold up the universe. Those are our true carrying poles, sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation, who are threaded as through rings into the souls of those being saved, and through themselves lift up to the height of virtue those who lie on the earth. When the Word says that the cherubim cover with their wings the mysteries lying in the ark of the covenant, it confirms the contemplation of the tabernacle we have given. For we have learned that this is the name of the powers seen around the divine nature, which Isaiah and Ezekiel beheld. Let not the ark of the covenant covered with wings surprise the hearing; in Isaiah too one can learn the like, said in a riddle by the prophet about the wings: here it is the ark, there the face, as though what is understood in both were one. This seems to me to hint at the incomprehensibility of the contemplation of the secret things. And if you hear of lamps held up in many branches from a single lampstand, so that the light shines everywhere abundantly and plentifully, you would not be mistaken in reckoning that the manifold radiances of the Spirit shine forth in this tabernacle, as Isaiah says, dividing the brightness of the Spirit sevenfold. The mercy seat, I think, needs no interpretation, since the Apostle has uncovered what was hidden, saying that God set him forth as a mercy seat for our souls. When I hear of the altar and the altar of incense, I understand the worship of the heavenly beings perpetually performed in this tabernacle. For he says that not only the tongue of those on earth and under the earth, but also of those in heaven, sends up praise to the beginning of all things. This is the sacrifice pleasing to God, “the fruit of lips,” as the Apostle says, and the fragrance of prayers. And if skin dyed red and woven hair are seen among these, the sequence of contemplation will not be broken. For the prophetic eye, in the vision of divine things, beheld there the saving passion appointed beforehand,

which is signified in each of the things mentioned: the red interpreting the blood, and the hair the deadness. For hair has no share in the body’s sensation, and so it properly becomes a symbol of deadness. When, then, the prophet looks at the tabernacle above, these are the things he sees through these figures. But if one contemplates the tabernacle below — since Paul often calls the Church Christ — it would be well to give these names to those who serve the divine mystery, whom the Word also calls pillars of the Church: apostles, teachers, and prophets. For not only Peter and John and James are pillars of the Church, nor was John the Baptist alone the burning lamp; all who support the Church through themselves and become luminaries through their own works are called both pillars and lamps. “You are the light of the world,” the Lord says to the apostles. And again the divine Apostle bids others be pillars, saying, “Be steadfast and immovable.” And he built Timothy into a fine pillar, making him (as he says in his own words) “a pillar and foundation” of the Church of truth. In this tabernacle the sacrifice of praise and the incense of prayer, offered at dawn and at evening, are seen continually. The great David gives us to understand this when he directs the incense of prayer to God as a sweet fragrance, and offers the sacrifice by lifting up his hands. One who hears of lavers will surely understand those who wash away the defilement of sins through the mystical water. John was a laver, washing in the Jordan in the baptism of repentance; Peter was a laver, bringing three thousand at once to the water; Philip was the laver of Candace’s servant; and all who administer the grace are lavers for all who share in the gift. As for the curtains, which are joined to one another and enclose the tabernacle all around, one who takes them to be the loving and peaceful concord of believers would not miss what is fitting; so David interpreted, saying, “who makes your borders peace.” The skin dyed red and the curtains of hair, which contribute to the adornment of the tabernacle, might fittingly be understood as the putting to death of the sinful flesh, of which the red-dyed skin is a riddle, and as the rough way of life in self-control; by these above all the tabernacle of the Church is made beautiful. For skins, which have no natural vital power in themselves, become bright with the red dye; this teaches that the grace that blossoms through the Spirit comes about only in those who make themselves dead to sin. And if modest shame too is signified by the Word through the red dye, I leave the judgment to whoever wishes. The weaving together of hair, producing a rough and … fabric,

hints at this rough self-control that wears away the passions that dwell with us. All such things the life of virginity displays in itself, which keeps under the flesh of those who live in this way. If the inner part, called the holy of holies, cannot be entered by the many, let us not think that this too is out of harmony with the sequence of our understanding. For truly the truth of the things that are is a holy thing, the holy of holies, incomprehensible and inaccessible to the many. Since it is set in the inner and secret parts of the tabernacle of the mystery, the understanding of what is beyond comprehension must be left unpried into: we believe that what we seek exists, yet not that it lies before the eyes of all, but that it remains secret in the inner sanctuary of the mind. Having been taught these and similar things through the vision of the tabernacle, that purified eye of Moses’ soul, raised up by such sights, is brought up again to the peak of other thoughts, as he is instructed in the vesture of the priesthood. Among these are the under-robe and the over-robe, and that breast-piece shining with the varied gleams of the stones, the head-band, the plate upon it, the leg-coverings, the pomegranates, the bells, and above all the oracle and the manifestation, and the truth contemplated on both, and the shoulder-pieces that bind these on either side, engraved with the names of the patriarchs. The very names of the vesture cut short the many details of an exact contemplation of each. For what bodily garment is called “manifestation,” or “oracle,” or “truth”? Surely this shows that it is not this perceptible clothing that the history describes for us, but an adornment of the soul, woven by the pursuits of virtue. The dye of the ankle-length robe is blue. Some of those before us who contemplated the text say that the air is signified by this dye. I cannot affirm exactly whether the bloom of such a colour is akin to the colour of the air. Yet I do not reject the account, for the meaning contributes to the contemplation of virtue. It wishes that one who is to serve God as priest, and to offer his own body for the sacred service and become a victim that is not put to death, in the living sacrifice and the rational worship, should not burden his soul with a thick and fleshy covering of life; he should make all the pursuits of life fine as a spider’s thread through purity of life, and reshape this bodily nature so as to be near to what is upward-tending, light, and airy; so that when we hear the last trumpet, we may be found weightless and light at the voice of him who gives the command, and may be carried aloft through the air together with the Lord, drawn down to the earth by no weight. So whoever, following the Psalmist’s counsel, has made his soul waste away like a spider has put on that airy

tunic reaching from the head to the ends of the feet; for the law does not want virtue to be cut short. The golden bells, ringing alternately with the pomegranates, are the brightness of good works. For there are these two pursuits by which virtue is gathered: faith toward God and a good conscience in one’s life. The great Paul adds these pomegranates and bells to Timothy’s garment when he says that he must have faith and a good conscience. So let faith sound clearly and loudly in the proclamation of the Holy Trinity, and let one’s life imitate the nature of the fruit of the pomegranate. Its surface is inedible, enclosed in a hard and bitter rind; but what lies within is pleasant to see in the varied and orderly arrangement of the fruit, and more pleasant still to taste, sweetening the sense. So the philosophic and austere way of life, though hard to take and unpleasant to the senses, is full of good hopes once ripened into its own fruit. For when our farmer opens the pomegranate of life in its own time and shows the beauty of what is stored inside, then the sharing in its own fruits becomes sweet to those who enjoy them. For the divine Apostle too says somewhere that all discipline seems for the present to be a matter not of joy but of grief — this is the part of the pomegranate that first meets those who touch it — but later it yields the peaceful fruit; this is the sweetness of the edible part within. The Word also bids that this tunic be tasselled. Tassels are spherical pendants hung on beyond need, for ornament. By these we learn that virtue must not be measured by the commandment alone, but that something should also be found by ourselves, through further things we devise, so that some addition of ornament may come to the garment. Such was Paul, who wove his own fine tassels into the commandments. For while the law commands that those who serve at the altar share with the altar, and does not forbid taking a sister about as a wife, and directs that those who proclaim the Gospel should live by it, he makes the Gospel free of charge, hungering, thirsting, and going naked. These are the fine tassels that adorn the tunic of the commandments with their own additions. Then two robes are put on over the ankle-length robe, coming down from the shoulders to the breast and the back, joined to each other by two clasps, one on each shoulder. The clasps are stones that bear in their engravings the names of the patriarchs, six on each. The weaving of the robes is varied: blue is interwoven with purple, the red of scarlet is mingled with fine linen, and through all these a thread of gold is sown, so that from this many-coloured dyeing one blended beauty