Homilies on Numbers 0.1–2.2

To speak to you, brother, in the words of the blessed martyr: “You do well to remind me, dearest Donatus.” For I remember that I promised to gather whatever sayings of the old man Adamantius I might find on the law of Moses, and to translate them into Latin for our people to read. But the time for keeping that promise has been, not “timely,” as he says, but stormy and troubled for us. For what room is there for the pen where enemy weapons are feared, where the devastation of cities and countryside is before our eyes, where people flee through the perils of the sea, and not even exile itself is free from fear? For, as you yourself saw, the barbarian who was setting fire to the town of Rhegium was kept from us only by the narrowest strait, where the soil of Italy is parted from Sicily. Placed in such circumstances, what security could there be for writing, and above all for translating, where the task is not so much to set out one's own thoughts as to fit another's? Yet whenever a night struck our minds with less fear of an enemy assault and, as if to console our troubles and lighten our exile, gave us at least a brief leisure for work by lamplight, whatever we found on the book of Numbers, whether in the style of homilies or among what are called the Excerpts, we have gathered from various places into one order and arranged, as best we could, for this Roman tongue, at your urging; and you yourself, Ursacius, helped our labor in very many places, since in your great eagerness you thought the service of the young secretary slow. But I want you to know, brother, that this reading opens paths to the understanding but does not discuss everything that is written item by item, as you have read in the books of exposition; so that the reader too is not left idle but, as it is written, may prick his heart and bring forth understanding, and, on hearing a good word, may as a wise man add to it. Therefore, as with everything I have found written on the law, … I strive to explain what you have enjoined on me. For now only the short discourses on Deuteronomy are lacking; if the Lord helps and gives health to my eyes, we wish to join them to the rest of the body of the work, although our most beloved son Pinianus, whose devout household we accompany in its flight for love of chastity, enjoins other tasks as well. But pray together that the Lord may be present, give peace to our times, grant grace to those who labor, and press out the fruit of our work for the progress of those who read.

Not all are worthy of the divine numbers; rather, those who ought to be included within God's number are marked out by certain particular prerogatives. Clear evidence of this is contained in this book, which is entitled Numbers. In it we are told that by God's command neither are women brought into the count, no doubt because of the obstacle of female weakness, nor any of the slaves, as being degenerate in life and morals. Not even any of the Egyptians who had been mixed in among them is counted, plainly as foreigners and barbarians; only Israelites are counted, and not all of them, but those from twenty years old and upward. Nor is age alone taken into account; it is also asked whether one shows strength fit for war. For the word of God specifies that everyone who goes forth in the strength of Israel is to be counted. So not age alone, but strength too is required in an Israelite. The age of boyhood is not counted, nor is it thought fit for the divine reckoning, unless perhaps they are firstborn or descend from the priestly or Levitical stock. These alone among the boys are brought into the count. Of the women, none at all is brought. What then? Can these things be empty of mysteries? Is the Holy Spirit, who dictated these things to be written, to be believed to have taken care only that we should know who were counted in that people at that time and who remained uncounted? And what profit will come from this to those who desire to be instructed in the sacred volumes? What use is it to have learned these things? What does the soul gain toward salvation if it knows that part of the people was counted in the desert and part left uncounted? But if, following Paul's judgment, we believe that the law is spiritual and hear spiritually what it contains, great profit for the soul will appear in what is written. For the present reading teaches me that if I pass beyond the folly of boyhood, if I cease to be a child in understanding and, having become a man, put away the things of a child, if, I say, I become a young man, and such a young man as overcomes the evil one, I shall be seen fit to be among those of whom it is written, “all who go forth in the strength of Israel,” and I shall be reckoned worthy of the divine numbers. But as long as there is in any of us either a childish and slippery mind, or a womanish and slack sluggishness, or we bear Egyptian and barbarous ways, we do not deserve to be held by God in the holy and consecrated number. For in Solomon those who perish are said to be without number, whereas all who are saved are numbered. And would you have me show you that the number of the saints is kept with God? Hear how David speaks of the stars of heaven: “He numbers the multitude of the stars and calls them all by name.” And the Saviour not only set his chosen disciples under a number, but even says that the hairs of their head are numbered: “But even the hairs of your head are numbered.” In this he certainly did not mean that those hairs are numbered which are usually cut off with iron and thrown away, or which fall out with age and perish; rather, those hairs of the head are numbered with God which were in the Nazirites, in whom was the power of the Holy Spirit for overthrowing foreigners. So he called the virtues of the soul and the multitude of thoughts, which were brought forth from the ruling part of the mind as from the head of the apostles, the hairs of the head. But we have come to this by a kind of digression; now let us return to our subject.

“And the Lord spoke,” it says, “to Moses in the desert of Sinai”: namely all that we summed up above in a brief account, where it is commanded that everyone from twenty years and upward who goes forth in the strength of Israel be counted. If anyone, then, goes forth in strength, he is counted; and not in just any strength, that is, not in the strength of the Egyptians, nor of the Assyrians, nor of the Greeks, but in the strength of Israel: he is counted before God. For there is a strength of soul which the philosophers of the Greeks teach. But it does not belong to God's number, for it is exercised not for God but for human glory. There is also a strength of the Assyrians and of the Chaldeans, which is proclaimed in the pursuits of astrology. But that is not Israelite strength, and therefore it does not belong to God. There is also a strength of the Egyptians in what they call secret wisdom, but this is not added to God's reckoning. Only Israelite strength is counted before God. This is the strength that is taught by God, that is learned through the divine Scriptures, that is handed down by the faith of the gospel and the apostles. And therefore he says that only those are to be counted who go forth in the strength of Israel. But let us also consider why the people is not counted as soon as it has come out of Egypt. For Pharaoh was still pursuing. Nor even when it crossed the Red Sea and came into the desert is it said to be counted. For they had not yet been tested, not yet attacked by the enemy. They fight against Amalek and conquer. But not even then are they counted, for one victory is not enough for one who is striving toward perfection. They receive manna as food and draw water to drink from the rock that followed; but not even then are they counted, for the things that are judged fit for numbering had not yet grown up in them. The tabernacle of testimony is built, but not even then has the time for counting the people come. The law is given through Moses, the custom of sacrifices is handed down, the rite of purifications is taught, the laws and sacraments of sanctification are established, and then the people is brought to the count by God's command. Write these things, O hearer, in your heart doubly and triply. See how much you must pass through, how much endure, through how many advances, how many temptations, in how many battles you must fight and conquer, so that you may belong to the divine number, may be held in some account with God, may be worthy to be numbered among the holy tribes, may be visited and enrolled in the census of the numbering by God's priests Aaron and Moses. You must first take up the law of God, the law of the Holy Spirit; you must offer sacrifices, complete purifications, and carry out everything the spiritual law teaches, so that one day you may belong to the Israelite number.

I see something still greater in this book of Numbers by way of mystery. For the plan of the tribes, the distinction of ranks, the grouping of families, and the whole arrangement of the camp reveal to me signs of great sacraments, as the apostle Paul scatters for us the seeds of spiritual understanding. Come, then, let us now see what all this plan of numbers, what this diversity of ranks, contains in mystical understanding. We have a sure expectation of the resurrection of the dead, when those who are alive, who remain, will not precede at the coming of Christ those who have fallen asleep, but, joined and united with them, will be caught up in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, leaving behind the corruption of this earthly place and the dwellings of death, whether all are to remain in the air, as Paul declares, or some are to be transferred to paradise or to some other place among the many mansions that are with the Father. But the place of transfer and the glory will doubtless be granted according to the merits and acts of each, and each will be in the rank that the merits of his deeds have earned him; as the same Paul also testifies, saying of those who rise: “But each in his own order.” So it will happen in the resurrection that one will be enrolled by spiritual signs in the tribe of Reuben, because he had something in his conduct, acts, or life similar and akin to Reuben himself; another in the tribe of Simeon, perhaps for his obedience; another in the tribe of Levi, I believe one who presided well over the priesthood, or who by ministering well gained a good standing for himself; another in the tribe of Judah, no doubt one who bore a kingly spirit and ruled well the people within him, that is, the thoughts of the mind and the reflections of the heart. And each will be joined to each of the tribes according to what he had akin to each of them in acts or in conduct. So there will be ranks of this kind in the resurrection of the dead, as the Apostle indicates, and the type and figure of these ranks seems to be prefigured here in this book. And also the fact that the position of the camps and the order of encampment is described with a certain grouping and connection of the tribes doubtless pertains to some state in the resurrection of the dead. That three tribes are said to be placed to the east, three to the west, three also to the south, and the last three to the north, which is called a harsh wind; and that the tribe of Judah, which is royal and from which our Lord arose, is set to the east: I do not think this idle; nor that Issachar and Zebulun are joined to it; nor that this number three is arranged in four parts. Although they have different qualities according to their positions, all are nevertheless contained within the number of the trinity. And the fact that through these four parts the same trinity is always gathered into one number is doubtless because all who come from the four parts of the world and call on the name of the Lord, reclining with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, are enrolled under the one name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let these things be pointed out by us in general for those who wish to grasp briefly the mystical content of this whole sacred volume, so that, taking from them an occasion of spiritual understanding, each may pursue a similar inquiry in the rest, or, if God reveals more to anyone, a higher and loftier one. For I truly judge myself unequal to expounding the mysteries this book of Numbers contains, and much more inferior to those the volume of Deuteronomy encloses. And therefore we must hasten to come to Jesus, not that son of Nun, but to Jesus Christ. First, however, using Moses as our tutor and laying aside with him the rudiments of infancy, let us so press on to the perfection of Christ. For Moses did not put down many wars. But Jesus put down all wars and gave peace to all, so that it is written that “the land rested from wars.” The land of promise, the land of inheritance, the land that flows with milk and honey, is distributed by Jesus. “For blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land” through Jesus. And you will find that types and images of that distribution too went before. For it is not idle that the land is divided to some beyond the Jordan, to others on this side of the Jordan, to some first, to others second, to some even third, and so in order the inheritance of the land is divided, where each may rest under his fig tree and under his vine, and there may no longer be anyone to terrify him. All these things, foreshadowed by magnificent mysteries, the Lord Jesus himself will fulfill in the day of his coming, no longer through a mirror and in an enigma, but face to face in truth, for each according as he himself knows the merits of each, he who is the knower of the heart, to whom be glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.

The first reading of Numbers taught that the army of God, which went out of the land of Egypt and made its way through the desert, was visited, that is, counted, by Moses and Aaron, and separated tribe by tribe and enrolled under a fixed number: when we were expounding this together with the whole content of the book, we said that it was a pattern written out of how the people of God, going out of the Egypt of this world and hastening to the land of promise, that is, either to the place of virtues or to the glory and inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, is led by certain orders and grades of merit. And by these things we showed the magnificence of the good things to come foreshadowed in the images of the law. But now the beginning of this reading which was read today teaches us how the order of the camp is arranged by those who are bound over to God and do not entangle themselves in worldly affairs. For it says: “Let the sons of Israel encamp each according to his order and according to his standards and according to the houses of their families; let them encamp opposite, around the tabernacle of testimony.” Moses says: “Let a man march in the camp according to his order and according to his standards and according to the houses of their families”; and Paul says: “Let all things be done decently and in order.” And does it not seem to you that it is one Spirit of God who speaks both in Moses and in Paul? Moses commands that they march in order in the camp; Paul enjoins that everything in the church be done in order. And Moses, who served the law, orders that order be kept in the camp; but Paul, as a minister of the gospel, wants the Christian to be orderly not only in his actions but in his very dress; and therefore he says: “Likewise women in orderly dress.” Hence I think that they wish order to be kept not only in clothing and dress, but give us to understand that there is also an order in the soul, of which it may be said that each ought to march according to his order. This order is shown chiefly by the fruit of works, but no less by the greatness of one's understanding. For it often happens that one who has a lowly and abject mind and savors earthly things sits in the lofty rank of the priesthood or in the chair of a teacher, while one who is spiritual, and so free from earthly conduct that he can examine all things and himself be judged by no one, either holds the rank of a lower ministry or is even left among the common crowd. But this is to despise the statutes both of the law and of the gospel and to do nothing in order. And if any of us is anxious about food and drink and spends all his care on worldly affairs, but assigns one or two hours of the whole day to God and comes to church for prayer, or hears the word of God in passing, while spending his chief care on the concerns of the world and of the belly, he does not fulfill the commandment that says a man should march according to his order, or that says all things should be done in order. For the order established by Christ is to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and to believe that these things will be added to us in second place. Let a man, then, march according to his order. Do you think that those who exercise the priesthood and glory in the priestly order march according to their order and do everything worthy of that order? Likewise, do you think the deacons march according to the order of their ministry? And how is it that we often hear people blaspheme and say, “Look at what kind of bishop, or what kind of presbyter, or what kind of deacon!”? Are not these things said when a priest or a minister of God has dared in some way to go against his order and do something against the priestly or Levitical order? And what shall I say of virgins, or of the continent, or of all who appear to be in the profession of religion? If they do anything shameless or wanton or impudent, does not Moses at once rebuke them and say, “Let a man march according to his order”? Let each, then, recognize his order and understand what is worthy of the order he has taken up, and so weigh his actions, and so too his speech, and govern his very gait and dress, that it may agree with the profession of his order, lest he hear God say to him: “Because of you my name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.”

Let us see what is meant by “and according to their standards.” I think the standards, or signs, are those by which the particular character of each one is marked. For example, we men are all alike, yet each has a certain distinction of his own, either in the face itself, or in stature, or in posture, or in bearing, by which, for example, Paul is marked out as Paul, and Peter as Peter and not Paul. Sometimes the difference of each one's sign is given even to those who cannot see, so that from the voice and speech one recognizes that the speaker is this person or that; and by the sign of his own particular character each is known even without bodily sight. In this way I think there are also different signs in souls. One soul's movement is gentler, mild, calm, tranquil, even; another's turbulent, proud, harsher, more impetuous, more wanton. One is circumspect, cautious, provident, careful, energetic; another slothful, remiss, negligent, incautious. And in these, one more, another less. And I dare to declare that perhaps as great as the diversity in the appearance of faces among men, so great a difference is found in souls. So too I remember the most wise Solomon saying somewhere: “As faces differ from faces, so too the hearts of men differ.” But let each, as Moses says, march according to his signs; that is, let not one whose signs are lowly and despised march more proudly or more loftily than the signs of his soul demand. And so that the account of the diversity of signs may become still clearer, we shall add this too. It is certain that all who know letters, once they have learned the twenty-four elements of letters if Greek, or twenty-three if Latin, write from these everything that is to be written. Yet the alpha, for example, that Paul writes has one sign, and that which Peter writes another; and so for each person who knows letters you will find different signs of writing for each letter. Hence the handwritings of individuals are recognized by certain marks and indications of their own; and though the elements are the same, yet in the very likeness of the letters there is much unlikeness of signs. If then the example of the matter proposed is fully clear to you, come now to the movements of the mind and of souls by which they are stirred to do something. Look at the handwriting of individual men and see how, for example, Paul's soul set chastity before itself, and Peter's soul no less; yet Peter's chastity has a character of its own, and Paul's chastity another, even if it seems one and the same. Indeed, the chastity of one of them is such as requires his body to be subdued and brought into subjection, and says further: “I chastise my body, lest perhaps after preaching to others I myself should be found reprobate”; the chastity of the other is such as perhaps does not fear this. Likewise righteousness too has something particular in Paul and something in Peter; in the same way wisdom and the other virtues. And if, even in these names we have given as examples, it can be that although they are one through the Spirit of God there is nevertheless some diversity in the particular character of their virtues, how much more do all other men bear particular signs in the movements of their souls and in the virtues of the soul? Moses, perceiving this by a mystical reasoning, writes in the law that each should march in the camp according to his signs. It may also happen that by the increase of good works we come from lower signs to better and more magnificent ones. For if we have rightly understood that all these things written in the law are forms of the good things to come and of that age which we hope for from the resurrection of the dead, it is surely certain that if in the present life we have zeal for better things and, following the Apostle's example, forgetting what is behind, stretch forward to what is ahead, then in the resurrection of the dead, where, as star differs from star in glory, so the merits of each will shine, we shall surely be able to be transferred from lower signs to better and brighter ones and to be made equal to more splendid stars. And human nature can advance so far in this life that in the resurrection of the dead it may be made equal not only to the glory of the stars but even to the splendor of the sun, as it is written that the righteous will shine in the kingdom of God like the sun. Hence it is that further on too he says: “according to their standards, by the houses of their families.” Where he says “by the houses of their families,” the same word is used in the Greek as the Apostle uses where he says: “For this reason I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named.” So what Paul here calls fatherhoods, the Latin translator has there rendered families; but one and the same word stands in the Greek. These, then, are the fatherhoods or families which Paul already shows in the heavens, while Moses still describes them on earth under the figures of the law; according to these he admonishes us to march, so that we may be joined to the heavenly fatherhoods. For there are in heaven, as Paul declared above, these families or fatherhoods, whichever they should be called, among which perhaps is the one which the same Paul in another place names the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven; to which it will be our lot to be joined if we march in order and do all things in order. If nothing disorderly, nothing restless, nothing indecent is found in us, then we shall shine like the firmament, and like the stars and the sun itself we shall shine in the kingdom of God, through Christ our Lord, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.