על חיי משה, ספר בOn the Life of Moses, Book II
א׳
1[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.
ב׳
2[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.
ג׳
3[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.
ד׳
4[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.
ה׳
5[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.
ו׳
6[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.
ז׳
7[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.
ח׳
8[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.
ט׳
9[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.
י׳
10[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.
י״א
11[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.
י״ב
12[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.
י״ג
13[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,
י״ד
14[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.
ט״ו
15[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.
ט״ז
16[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.
י״ז
17[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.
י״ח
18[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.
י״ט
19[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.
כ׳
20[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.
כ״א
21[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?
כ״ב
22[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.
כ״ג
23[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.
כ״ד
24[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.
כ״ה
25[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.
כ״ו
26[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,
כ״ז
27[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.
כ״ח
28[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.
כ״ט
29[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.
ל׳
30[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.
ל״א
31[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.
ל״ב
32[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.
ל״ג
33[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.
ל״ד
34[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.
ל״ה
35[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.
ל״ו
36[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.
ל״ז
37[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.
ל״ח
38[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.
ל״ט
39[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,
מ׳
40[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.
מ״א
41[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,
מ״ב
42[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.
מ״ג
43[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.
מ״ד
44[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.
מ״ה
45[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.
מ״ו
46[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.
מ״ז
47[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.
מ״ח
48[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.
מ״ט
49[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.
נ׳
50[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.
נ״א
51[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.
נ״ב
52[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.
נ״ג
53[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,
נ״ד
54[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.
נ״ה
55[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,
נ״ו
56[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.
נ״ז
57[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.
נ״ח
58[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.
נ״ט
59[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.
ס׳
60[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,
ס״א
61[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.
ס״ב
62In 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,
ס״ג
63[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.
ס״ד
64[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.
ס״ה
65[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.
ס״ו
66[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.
ס״ז
67[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.
ס״ח
68[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.
ס״ט
69[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.
ע׳
70[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.
ע״א
71[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.
ע״ב
72[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.
ע״ג
73[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.
ע״ד
74[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,
ע״ה
75[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.
ע״ו
76[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.
ע״ז
77[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.
ע״ח
78[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,
ע״ט
79[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.
פ׳
80[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.
פ״א
81[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.
פ״ב
82[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.
פ״ג
83[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.
פ״ד
84[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.
פ״ה
85[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.
פ״ו
86[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.
פ״ז
87[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.
פ״ח
88[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.
פ״ט
89[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.
צ׳
90[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,
צ״א
91[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.
צ״ב
92[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.
צ״ג
93[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.
צ״ד
94[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.
צ״ה
95[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.
צ״ו
96[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.
צ״ז
97[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.
צ״ח
98[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,
צ״ט
99[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,
ק׳
100[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.
ק״א
101[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.
ק״ב
102[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,
ק״ג
103[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,
ק״ד
104[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.
ק״ה
105[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.
ק״ו
106[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.
ק״ז
107[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.
ק״ח
108[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.
ק״ט
109[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.
ק״י
110[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.
קי״א
111[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.
קי״ב
112[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.
קי״ג
113[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.”
קי״ד
114[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.
קי״ה
115[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.
קי״ו
116[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.
קי״ז
117[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.
קי״ח
118[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.
קי״ט
119[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.
ק״כ
120[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.
קכ״א
121[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.
קכ״ב
122[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.
קכ״ג
123[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.
קכ״ד
124[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.
קכ״ה
125[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.
קכ״ו
126[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.
קכ״ז
127[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.
קכ״ח
128[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.
קכ״ט
129[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.
ק״ל
130[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.
קל״א
131[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.
קל״ב
132[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.
קל״ג
133[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.
קל״ד
134[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.
קל״ה
135[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.
קל״ו
136[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.
קל״ז
137[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.
קל״ח
138[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.
קל״ט
139[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.
ק״מ
140[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.
קמ״א
141[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.
קמ״ב
142[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.
קמ״ג
143[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.
קמ״ד
144[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.
קמ״ה
145[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.
קמ״ו
146[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.
קמ״ז
147[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.
קמ״ח
148[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.
קמ״ט
149[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.
ק״נ
150[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.
קנ״א
151[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.
קנ״ב
152[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.
קנ״ג
153[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.
קנ״ד
154[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.
קנ״ה
155[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.
קנ״ו
156[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.
קנ״ז
157[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.
קנ״ח
158[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.
קנ״ט
159[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.
ק״ס
160[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.
קס״א
161[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.
קס״ב
162[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.
קס״ג
163[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.
קס״ד
164[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.
קס״ה
165[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.
קס״ו
166[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.”
קס״ז
167[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.
קס״ח
168[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.
קס״ט
169[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.”
ק״ע
170[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.
קע״א
171[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.
קע״ב
172[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.”
קע״ג
173[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.
קע״ד
174[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.
קע״ה
175[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.
קע״ו
176[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.
קע״ז
177[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.
קע״ח
178[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.
קע״ט
179[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.
ק״פ
180[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.
קפ״א
181[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.
קפ״ב
182[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.
קפ״ג
183[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.
קפ״ד
184[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.
קפ״ה
185[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.
קפ״ו
186[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.
קפ״ז
187[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.
קפ״ח
188[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.
קפ״ט
189[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.
ק״צ
190[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.
קצ״א
191[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.
קצ״ב
192[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.
קצ״ג
193[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.
קצ״ד
194[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.
קצ״ה
195[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.
קצ״ו
196[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.
קצ״ז
197[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.
קצ״ח
198[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.
קצ״ט
199[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.
ר׳
200[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.
ר״א
201[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.
ר״ב
202[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.
ר״ג
203[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.
ר״ד
204[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.
ר״ה
205[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.
ר״ו
206[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.
ר״ז
207[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.
ר״ח
208[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.
ר״ט
209[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?
ר״י
210[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.
רי״א
211[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.
רי״ב
212[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.
רי״ג
213[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.
רי״ד
214[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.
רי״ה
215[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;
רי״ו
216[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.
רי״ז
217[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?
רי״ח
218[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.
רי״ט
219[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.
ר״כ
220[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.
רכ״א
221[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.
רכ״ב
222[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.
רכ״ג
223[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.
רכ״ד
224[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.
רכ״ה
225[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.
רכ״ו
226[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.
רכ״ז
227[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.
רכ״ח
228[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.
רכ״ט
229[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.
ר״ל
230[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.
רל״א
231[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.
רל״ב
232[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.
רל״ג
233[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.”
רל״ד
234[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.
רל״ה
235[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.
רל״ו
236[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.”
רל״ז
237[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.
רל״ח
238[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.
רל״ט
239[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.
ר״מ
240[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.
רמ״א
241[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.
רמ״ב
242[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.
רמ״ג
243[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.
רמ״ד
244[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.
רמ״ה
245[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.
רמ״ו
246[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.
רמ״ז
247[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.
רמ״ח
248[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.
רמ״ט
249[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.
ר״נ
250[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.
רנ״א
251[250] But, while in these helpless straits, they were at death’s door with consternation
רנ״ב
252the 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.
רנ״ג
253[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.
רנ״ד
254[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.”
רנ״ה
255[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:
רנ״ו
256[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:
רנ״ז
257[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.
רנ״ח
258[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.
רנ״ט
259[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.
ר״ס
260[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.
רס״א
261[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.”
רס״ב
262[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.
רס״ג
263[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.
רס״ד
264[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.
רס״ה
265[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.
רס״ו
266[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.
רס״ז
267[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.
רס״ח
268[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.
רס״ט
269[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.
ר״ע
270[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.
רע״א
271[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.
רע״ב
272[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.
רע״ג
273[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.
רע״ד
274[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.”
רע״ה
275[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.”
רע״ו
276[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.
רע״ז
277[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.
רע״ח
278[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.
רע״ט
279[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.
ר״פ
280[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.
רפ״א
281[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.
רפ״ב
282[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.
רפ״ג
283[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.”
רפ״ד
284[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.
רפ״ה
285[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.
רפ״ו
286[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.
רפ״ז
287[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.
רפ״ח
288[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.
רפ״ט
289[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.
ר״צ
290[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.
רצ״א
291[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.
רצ״ב
292[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;
רצ״ג
293[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.
רצ״ד
294[292] Such, as recorded in the Holy Scriptures, was the life and such the end of Moses, king, lawgiver, high priest, prophet.