Homilies on Numbers 7.1–7.6

As the Apostle says, “All these things happened to them in figure, but they were written for our admonition.” I ask, then, what admonition we receive from what was read to us: that Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses and were rebuked for it, and that Miriam was even made leprous. So great was the concern over this rebuke that, while Miriam completed the time of a week in leprosy, the people of God did not make its way toward the land of promise, nor was the tabernacle of testimony moved. First, then, I am admonished by this event, and usefully and necessarily admonished, not to speak against my brother, not to speak evil of my neighbor, not to open my mouth to disparage not only the saints but any of my neighbors at all. You see how great God's indignation at this was, how great a punishment followed. Indeed we see God moved with similar indignation against this sin in the Psalms too, saying: “Sitting, you spoke against your brother, and against your mother's son you laid a stumbling block.” Likewise in another psalm, in the person of a righteous man who knows that this displeases God most, it is said: “Him who secretly slandered his neighbor I pursued.” With all these words of divine Scripture, then, as with swords sharp on both edges, let us cut away the vice of slandering brothers and disparaging saints; for leprosy follows those who speak against others and disparage them, whom … call kakologoi, that is, evil-speakers. But after this let us pass from the moral understanding to the mystical. Although a few things were already said in the previous treatment, we shall add what seems to have been lacking. Let us see, then, who it is that speaks against Moses, who speaks evil of him. Not only the Jews but also the heretics who reject the law and the prophets: they too speak against Moses. Indeed, they are even accustomed to charge him with a crime, saying that Moses was a murderer because he killed the Egyptian; and they put together many other things with blasphemous mouth, either against him or against the prophets. These, then, who speak against Moses have leprosy in their soul and are lepers in the inner man, and therefore they are held outside the camp of the church of God. So whether they are heretics who disparage Moses, or members of the church who speak against brothers and speak evil of their neighbors, we must not doubt that all who are driven by this vice are lepers in their soul. And Miriam indeed, with Aaron the high priest interceding, is healed on the seventh day; but we, if through the vice of slander we have incurred leprosy of the soul, will remain lepers in the soul and unclean until the end of the week of the world, that is, until the time of the resurrection, unless, while there is time for repentance, we are corrected and, turning to the Lord Jesus and supplicating him through repentance, are cleansed from the uncleanness of our leprosy. But I think that it is not only that former people, nor only the heretics we mentioned above, who speak against Moses; everyone who understands his writings wrongly, and who receives the spiritual law in a carnal way, disparages Moses, because from spiritual words he teaches people carnally. You have heard what judgment slanderers and evil-speakers bring on themselves and what condemnation they earn; hear now how much benefit they confer on those they slander. We never find that God spoke such great praises of Moses as we now see spoken when he was disparaged by men.

Hear, then, what the Holy Spirit relates in what follows, and with what praises he exalts Moses. “And the Lord came down,” it says, “in a pillar of cloud and stood at the door of the tabernacle of testimony. And Aaron and Miriam were called, and they both stood, and he said to them: Hear my words. If there is a prophet of the Lord among you, I will make myself known to him in visions, and in dreams I will speak to him. Not so with my servant Moses, who is faithful in all my house: mouth to mouth I will speak to him, in clear form and not in riddles, and he has seen the glory of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord's wrath came upon them, and they departed; and the cloud departed from the tabernacle, and behold, Miriam became leprous like snow.” See what punishments the slanderers brought on themselves, and what praise they won for the one they slandered: for themselves disgrace, for him splendor; for themselves groaning, for him glory; for themselves reproach, for him magnificence. Yet before Moses took the Ethiopian woman, it is not written that God spoke to him in clear form and not in riddles; but when he took the Ethiopian woman, then God says of him, “Mouth to mouth I will speak to him, in clear form and not in riddles.” For now that Moses has come to us and been joined to this Ethiopian woman of ours, the law of God is recognized no longer in figures and images as before, but in the very form of the truth; and what was formerly indicated in riddles is now fulfilled in clear form and in truth. And therefore he who set out the clear forms of the figures and riddles says: “For we know that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” You see how Paul resolves the riddles of the law and teaches the clear forms of the riddles, and says that the rock was in a riddle with Moses before he was joined to this Ethiopian woman of ours. Now, in clear form, the rock is Christ. For now God speaks mouth to mouth through the law. Formerly baptism was in a riddle, in the cloud and in the sea; but now, in clear form, regeneration is in water and in the Holy Spirit. Then the manna was food in a riddle; but now, in clear form, the flesh of the Word of God is true food, as he himself says: “My flesh is truly food, and my blood is truly drink.” So now, then, Moses, placed among us and joined to this Ethiopian woman, either himself speaks to us, or God speaks to him, not in riddles but in clear form. To this is added: “And he has seen,” it says, “the glory of the Lord.” When did Moses see the glory of the Lord? I say: then, when the Lord was transfigured on the mountain, and Moses was present with him together with Elijah, and they talked with him. And therefore he rightly adds in what follows: “And why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” This saying is clearly directed at those who appear to accept the Gospels but disparage Moses; and they are rightly rebuked, because, though they learn through the Gospel that Moses together with Elijah saw the glory of the Lord, they have dared to disparage the law and the prophets. And therefore let us not speak against Moses, nor disparage the law, but let us be not only hearers of the law but also doers, so that we may deserve to be glorified together with Moses himself. And I think that those too give occasion for disparaging Moses who, for example, when the book of Leviticus or the reading from Numbers is read, do not show how these things written in riddles ought to be understood in clear form, that is, who do not expound spiritually what is read in the law. For those who hear the rite of sacrifices, or the observance of sabbaths, or other similar things recited in church are necessarily offended and say: “What need is there for this to be read in church? What use to us are Jewish precepts and the observances of a rejected people? These things belong to the Jews; let the Jews see to them.” So, lest stumbling blocks of this kind befall the hearers, effort must be given to the knowledge of the law, and, since the law is spiritual, everything that is read must be understood and explained accordingly, lest through the fault, or rather the sloth and negligence, of teachers Moses be disparaged by the unskilled and unlearned. Rather, let us turn to the Lord, that he may take away from us the veil of the letter, so that the face of Moses may appear to us not unsightly but glorious and comely, and we may not only not slander him but even give him praise and glory for the greatness of his meanings. “And the anger of the Lord's wrath came upon them, and they departed, and the cloud withdrew from the tabernacle, and behold, Miriam became leprous like snow.” The anger of the Lord's wrath comes upon those who speak evil and disparage. But as for its saying, “and the cloud withdrew from the tabernacle, and behold, Miriam became leprous like snow,” we must consider more carefully that the cloud withdraws first and then she is filled with leprosy: to show that even if the grace of the Holy Spirit is in someone, and he slanders and disparages, it withdraws from him after the slander, and so his soul is filled with leprosy. For that former people too had the grace of God in itself; but after they stretched out the tongues of their blasphemy against the true Moses, our Lord Jesus Christ, the cloud departed from them and passed over to us on the high mountain, when our Saviour was transfigured and a shining cloud overshadowed his disciples, and a voice came from the cloud, saying: “This is my most beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” After this, then, Miriam became leprous like snow. As long as the cloud was present, Miriam was not leprous, but only when it departed. For as long as God's visitation was among that people, it was not leprous; but when it departed, the shame of its face covered it. But let us too fear lest perhaps we drive this cloud away from us by speaking evil, doing evil, thinking evil; for then the leprosy of sin will appear in us, when the grace of God has deserted us.

“And Aaron looked at Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses: I beg you, my lord, do not lay sin upon us, for we did not know that we were sinning. Let her not become like one dead, and like an abortion cast out of its mother's womb, and it devours half of her flesh.” In this he wishes to show that that people was indeed formed in the womb of its mother, the synagogue, yet could not attain a perfect and complete birth. For just as an abortion is an imperfect and unformed birth, so that people too was for some time within its mother's womb, that is, within the teaching of the synagogue, but, as sins intervened, it could not be formed to completeness and brought to life; and therefore they were cast away like an imperfect and unripe abortion, sin, as it says, consuming half of its flesh. Yet sometimes an abortion is also good. An abortion is called good when compared with others, as Ecclesiastes too says: “And I said: an abortion is better than he.” Who is “he”? “He who goes in vanity,” it says, “and walks in darkness.” So he does not call the abortion good absolutely, but better than a life led in vanity and in the darkness of ignorance. And he makes a kind of comparison of the individual cases. For Ecclesiastes himself also says elsewhere that the dead are better than the living; and if you compare the abortion with these again, you may say that it is better than both. If, then, one considers who are the living and who the dead, than whom the abortion is better because it has not even tasted the first beginnings of the life of this world, you will find what the differences in this comparison are. Consider, then, that he named as living there only those of whom it is said in the Psalms: “Surely every man living is vanity.” [It is better,] then, than every man who lives in vanity. For not every life is in vanity, but the life that is according to the flesh and according to the errors and pleasures of the world: this is the life of vanity; and above it is everyone who has died to this life and who says, “But the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” and of whom it is said, “So you have died with Christ.” These, then, are better than those who are living. But above these the abortion is said to be, because, although it seems to have come in the flesh, it has taken up none of the beginnings of this life of vanity. Yet Ecclesiastes introduces another, it seems, better even than this, of whom he says: “And best above these two is he who has not yet been born”: that is, he who has not come even to the confinement of a fleshly womb and the injury of bodily birth. And this very saying of Ecclesiastes, “I praised all the dead more than the living, those who are alive until now,” how does it not clearly show that he calls better those who are dead to the world, and declares inferior those who live to the world? For if you wish to understand it according to the letter, how are the dead to be praised more than the living? For one is usually praised for what he has done by good will and purpose; but this common death comes to no one by will or by purpose. How, then, will anyone seem worthy of praise for what he suffers against his purpose? Otherwise Pharaoh king of Egypt, who was drowned in the sea, will be praised above Moses, who escaped alive from the sea; and the Egyptians who died in the waters will be praised more than the people of God, who passed on dry ground through the midst of the sea. Do not, then, understand it so; but know that you are to be praised as dead when you can say: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” If you have renounced the world, if you have cast off vices, if you are no longer moved to sin but have died to sin, you are better than one who lives to sin, and this death in you will be praiseworthy. For no one is praised for this common death, which comes to each by the law of nature. These things, though said by way of digression, still had to be mentioned at the place where the divine word says that Miriam, for the fault of slander and as the penalty of her rebuke, was made like an abortion, so that we might learn that there is a blameworthy abortion and also a praiseworthy one. Indeed the Apostle too, knowing that among the orders we mentioned above there is a praiseworthy order of abortion, says of himself: “And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me,” reckoning himself above the living and above the dead, but after those who have not yet been born. Miriam, then, becomes like an abortion. For that people could not be formed to perfection in the law, as Paul too declares, saying: “For the law brought nothing to perfection.” And the same Apostle kindly says of some who had fallen from the faith and turned, as it were, into an abortion, and whom he was restoring again to the perfect pattern of birth: “My little children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.”

“And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying: O God, I beg you, heal her.” And who ought to pray to the Lord for the healing of that people, if not Moses? Moses prays for them. And perhaps this was what he was conversing about with the Lord Jesus Christ when he was transfigured on the mountain, asking him that when the fullness of the Gentiles had come in, then all Israel might be saved. “And the Lord said to Moses: If her father had spat in her face, would she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be separated seven days outside the camp, and after this she shall come in.” What does “if her father had spat in her face, would she not be ashamed seven days” mean? We have taken Miriam to stand for the synagogue; her father spat in her face. To be spat on in the face is a sign of repudiation. Indeed it is written in the law, where it is commanded that the next of kin marry the widow of his kinsman, that if the kinsman wishes to refuse the marriage, his sandal is to be removed and he is to be spat on in the face; and this is given as a sign of repudiation. Hence Miriam, that is, that people, when it is repudiated, is said to be spat on in the face by God. We also have the meaning of spittle in another place, when Isaiah says: “All the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are reckoned as spittle.” It is shown in this, then, that that people too has been cast away like the other nations, which are reckoned as spittle. And truly, if you consider that former honor, when the high-priestly order flourished among them, when they had the insignia of the priests, the Levitical ministries, the majesty of the temple, the splendor of the prophets, and when they enjoyed heavenly fellowship upon earth, what honor was that, what glory! And again, if you look now at the great disgrace in which they shudder, without temple, without altar, without sacrifice, without prophet, without priesthood, without any heavenly visitation, scattered through the whole earth and living as fugitives, who would not clearly recognize that her father has spat in her face and covered their face with shame? So she is separated outside the camp for seven days. We have also said above that these seven days signify the week of this world. For in the week of days the substance of the whole visible creation appears to have been produced: things that were not, were made. But in the week of the whole world, by a certain secret dispensation known to God alone, the things then produced are unfolded. Meanwhile, during this week in which Miriam is separated, the camp of the sons of Israel does not move, but they stand shut in one place, and there is no advance at all for them until Miriam is cleansed of her leprosy.

“And after this,” it says, “the people set out from Hazeroth and encamped in the desert of Paran.” Hazeroth is interpreted “perfect house.” So the people sets out from the perfect houses after Miriam has been cleansed, and comes to Paran, which is interpreted “visible mouth.” It seems to me that the visible mouth can be understood as the Word made flesh, the invisible become visible; and that this signifies that after the end and completion of all the things that were to be done in regard to that people has come, then it passes over and comes to him whom formerly it did not believe to be the Word made flesh. “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Send men and let them view the land of the Canaanites, which I [give] to the sons of Israel as a possession,” and so on; where it is related of the spies of the land, who were sent and report that the land is indeed good and wonderful, but that the sons of giants live in it, in whose sight the people of God seem like locusts. And most despair of being saved from the sons of giants; Jesus, however, does not despair, but strengthens the faith of the people together with Caleb, who is of the tribe of Judah, and they say: “If God loves us, he will bring us into this land.” What, then, is this land according to the spiritual understanding, which is indeed a holy land and a good land, but is inhabited by the ungodly? Who are these enemies who live in the land of the saints? And how are they to be cast out, so that, once they are cast out, the saints may take their place? Let us go back to the Gospels; let us go back to the Apostle. The Gospels promise the saints the kingdom of heaven. The Apostle says: “But our citizenship is in heaven.” In heaven, then, is the place of inheritance that is promised to the saints. And do we think that there is now no adversary in these places promised to you, whom you must drive out from there by fighting, so that you may fly up free to the places promised you? And how is it that the Lord says that from the days of John the Baptist “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force”? For unless there were those against whom violence is done, there would never be those who must be driven and thrust out from there, and it would never be said that the kingdom of heaven is to be seized by force. And unless there were those with whom we have a contest and battle, the Apostle would never say: “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world, of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Of these too, it seems, we should understand that saying of God divinely spoken through the prophet, where he says: “And my sword has been made drunk in heaven.” It is necessary, then, that the spiritual forces of wickedness which are said to be in the heavenly places, and who are the true Canaanites, be conquered by you, so that you may pass unhindered to the heavenly kingdoms and dwell there in their place. Know, however, that they are giants. Everyone who resists God is called a giant. Whoever, then, opposes God and is contrary to the truth, which they do above all, is rightly called a giant. It is granted to you, then, to enter, after defeating the giants, the kingdom they lost, so that what is written may be fulfilled: “Who will take the spoils from a giant?” Hence the Lord too said in the Gospel: “No one can enter the house of the strong man and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man.” Although he has already been cast out of the heavenly house because of his pride, still, unless you conquer him, you will not enter the house of the strong man. And he must not only be conquered but also bound; for unless he is bound, our journey could by no means be safe. Now, then, as far as the comparison of human and demonic nature goes, we are locusts and they are giants; and especially if our faith is doubtful, and if unbelief terrifies us, they will truly be giants and we locusts. But if we follow Jesus and believe his words and are filled with his faith, they will be as nothing in our sight. For hear how he exhorts us and says: “If God loves us, he will bring us into this land, for it is good and its fruit is wonderful.” So the type and figure that went before in the fathers is fulfilled in us. They conquered nations and obtained their inheritance; for they obtained the whole land of Judea, the city of Jerusalem, and Mount Zion. These things were fulfilled in them; but what is said to you? “You have not come,” it says, “to things that are visible, but to things invisible. For you have come,” it says, “to the mountain of the living God, and to the heavenly city Jerusalem, and to a multitude of angels.” And elsewhere the same Apostle says: “But the Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all.” If anyone does not give credence to the words of the Apostle saying that Jerusalem is heavenly, he may also reject these words of ours. But if credence must be given to Paul's words, as it certainly must, and we believe that there is a heavenly Jerusalem after the type of this earthly one, we shall more rightly refer what seems to be written of this earthly one to that heavenly one by spiritual understanding. We have come, then, as Paul says, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and doubtless also to the heavenly Judea; and as they cast the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the other nations out of the earthly Judea, so we who have come to the mountain of God and to the heavenly kingdoms must vanquish the opposing powers and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places; and as they cast the Jebusite out of Jerusalem, and the city that had first been called Jebus was afterwards named Jerusalem, so we too must, so to speak, first expel the Jebusite from Jerusalem and so obtain his inheritance. But they did these things with visible arms, and we with invisible; they conquered in bodily battles, but we overcome in spiritual combat.

If you wish to hear how Paul, who is the teacher not only of the Gentiles but also of this warfare, fought first, hear what he writes of himself, as we also recalled above: “Our wrestling,” he says, “is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world, of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Therefore, for those who are to fight this spiritual and invisible fight, he also provides spiritual arms and invisible weapons, and says: “Put on the breastplate of love and the helmet of salvation, and take up the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.” “And take up,” he says, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” When, then, you have armed yourself with such weapons, following Jesus as your leader, do not fear those giants; for you will see how the Lord Jesus will subject them to you; and as the fathers trampled on the necks of nations, so you too will trample on the necks of demons. For he himself says to those who follow him faithfully: “Behold, I have given you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.” For Jesus always wishes to do wonderful things: he wishes to conquer giants by means of locusts, and to overcome the heavenly forces of wickedness by means of those who are on earth. And perhaps this is what he said in the Gospels, that whoever believes in him will do not only the things he himself did, but “greater than these,” he says, “he will do.” For truly it seems greater to me that a man placed in the flesh, frail and perishable, armed only with faith in Christ and with his word, should overcome giants, legions of demons. Although it is he himself who conquers in us, he nevertheless says that it is something greater that he conquers through us than that he conquers by himself. Only let us always be armed with these weapons, and let our way of life always be in heaven. Let our every movement, every act, every thought, every word be heavenly. For the more ardently we ascend there, the more headlong they will fall; and the more we are increased, the more they will be diminished. If our life is holy, if it is according to God, it will bring them death. If it is slothful and self-indulgent, it will make them powerful against us and giants. So the more we grow in virtues, the more they become inferior and weak; just as, on the contrary, if we grow weak and seek earthly things, they become stronger. And the more we spread ourselves on earth, the wider the spaces we grant them in the heavenly places. So let us rather do this: that as we increase, they decrease; as we enter, they are driven out; as we ascend, they fall, as he too fell of whom the Lord says in the Gospel: “Behold, I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven”; so that, when they have been cast down, our Lord Jesus may bring us in there and grant us to receive his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for eternal ages of ages. Amen.