On the Life of Moses 427–429

After all this he approaches the mountain of rest. He does not set foot on the land below, toward which the people below looked by promise; he no longer tastes earthly food, having learned to live on the food that flows from above; but having come up to the very top of the mountain … For by these things we are taught that, having passed through so many achievements, he is then deemed worthy of this lofty name, to be called the servant of God — which is equal to saying that he became superior to everything. For no one could serve God without becoming superior to everything in the world. This is for him the end of the life of virtue, accomplished through the word of God. The history calls this a death — a living death, which no grave follows, over which no tomb is heaped, which brings no dimness to the eyes and no corruption to the face. What, then, are we taught by what has been said? To look throughout our life to one end: to be called the servant of God by the life we have lived. For when you have defeated all the enemies — the Egyptian, the Amalekite, the Idumaean, the Midianite — and have crossed the water, been enlightened by the cloud, been sweetened by the wood, drunk from the rock, and tasted the food from above; when by purity and chastity you have made yourself a road for the ascent of the mountain, and having come there have been instructed in the divine mystery by the sound of the trumpets, and in the darkness hard to see into have drawn near to God through faith, and there have been taught the mysteries of the tabernacle and the dignity of the priesthood; when you become the stonecutter of your own heart, so that the divine oracles are engraved on it by God; when you destroy the golden idol, that is, wipe greedy desire out of your life; when you are raised so high as to show yourself invincible to the sorcery of Balaam — and when you hear “sorcery,” understand with me the manifold deceit of this life, by which human beings, as though drugged by Circe’s bowl, depart from their own nature and are reshaped into the forms of irrational animals; when you have passed through all these things, and the rod of the priesthood blossoms in you, drawing no moisture from the earth for its sprouting but having the power for fruit from within, and that a nut, whose first taste is bitter and astringent but whose inside is sweet and good to eat; when everything that rises up against your dignity goes to destruction, going under the earth like Dathan or consumed by fire like Korah — then you will draw near to the end. By “end” I mean that for the sake of which everything is done: the end of farming is enjoyment of the crop, the end of building a house is living in it, the end of trading is wealth, and the end of the labours in the games

is the crown. So too the end of the lofty way of life is to be called the servant of God; and with it is seen not being buried under a tomb, that is, life becoming bare and free of the evil things that drag behind it. The account names another mark of this service: that neither was the eye dimmed nor the face corrupted. For the eye that is always in light, how could it be dimmed … adorning … These things, man of God, Caesarius, our brief discourse sets before you concerning the perfection of the life of virtue. It has sketched the life of the great Moses as a kind of original in the form of beauty, so that each of us, by imitating his pursuits, may copy in ourselves the stamp of the beauty shown us. For of Moses’ having achieved the perfection possible, what more trustworthy witness could be found for us than the divine voice, which says to him, “I knew you above all”? And that he was named the friend of God by God himself; and that, choosing rather to perish with all the people unless the Divine were graciously propitiated for their offences, he stayed God’s anger against the Israelites, God turning aside his own judgment so as not to grieve his friend. All such things are clear testimony and proof that Moses’ life ascended to the highest limit of perfection. Since, then, what we were seeking was the perfection of the virtuous way of life, and perfection has been found through what has been said, it is time for you, noble friend, to look to the example, and, carrying over into your own life what has been contemplated through the loftier anagogical sense of what was told as history, to be known by God and to become his friend. For this is truly perfection: not to be separated from the life of vice slavishly, out of fear of punishment, nor to do good in the hope of rewards, trading on the virtuous life with a mercantile and contractual disposition; but, disregarding all things, even the things laid up in hope in the promises, to consider only one thing fearful, falling from God’s friendship, and only one thing honourable and desirable