Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Moses is born, exposed, taken up, and adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh. Second, in verse 11, he kills an Egyptian and flees to Midian, where he marries Sephora, and from her begets Gershom and Eliezer.
Vulgate Text: Exodus 2:1-25
1. There went out after this a man from the house of Levi, and he took a wife of his own kindred. 2. She conceived and bore a son; and seeing him comely, she hid him for three months. 3. And when she could no longer conceal him, she took a basket of bulrushes, and daubed it with bitumen and pitch: and she placed the infant within, and exposed him in the sedge on the bank of the river, 4. his sister standing at a distance and watching the outcome. 5. And behold, the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the river, and her maidens were walking along the bank of the stream. When she saw the basket among the papyrus reeds, she sent one of her handmaids, and when it was brought 6. she opened it, and seeing within it a little child crying, she had compassion on him, and said: This is one of the children of the Hebrews. 7. The child's sister said to her: Shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to you, who can nurse the infant? 8. She answered: Go. The girl went and called her mother. 9. To whom the daughter of Pharaoh said: Take this child and nurse him for me; I will give you your wages. The woman took him and nursed the child: and when he was grown, she delivered him to the daughter of Pharaoh. 10. And she adopted him as her son, and called his name Moses, saying: Because I drew him out of the water. 11. In those days, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his brethren: and he saw their affliction, and an Egyptian striking one of his Hebrew brethren. 12. And when he had looked this way and that, and saw no one present, he slew the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13. And going out the next day, he saw two Hebrews quarreling, and he said to the one who was doing the wrong: Why do you strike your neighbor? 14. He answered: Who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? Moses was afraid and said: How has this matter become known? 15. And Pharaoh heard of this affair and sought to kill Moses, who, fleeing from his sight, stayed in the land of Midian, and sat down beside a well. 16. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, who came to draw water; and having filled the troughs, they wished to water their father's flocks. 17. Shepherds came and drove them away: and Moses rose up, and having defended the girls, he watered their sheep. 18. When they returned to Raguel their father, he said to them: Why have you come back sooner than usual? 19. They answered: An Egyptian man delivered us from the hand of the shepherds; moreover he drew water with us and gave drink to the sheep. 20. And he said: Where is he? Why have you let the man go? Call him that he may eat bread. 21. So Moses swore that he would dwell with him. And he took Sephora his daughter as his wife, 22. who bore him a son, whom he called Gershom, saying: I have been a stranger in a foreign land. And she bore another, whom he called Eliezer, saying: For the God of my father, my helper, has rescued me from the hand of Pharaoh. 23. Now after a long time the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel, groaning because of their labors, cried out, and their cry went up to God from their works. 24. And He heard their groaning, and remembered the covenant that He had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25. And the Lord looked upon the children of Israel, and acknowledged them.
Verse 1: "There Went Out After This a Man from the House of Levi"
Amram, a man of Levi, a man from the descendants of Levi: this Amram was the son of Kohath, the grandson of Levi, the great-grandson of Jacob, and the father of Moses. Alexander Polyhistor, as cited by Eusebius, Book IX of the Preparation for the Gospel, last chapter, relates that Amram was born 14 years before the death of Joseph, that is 57 years after Jacob's entry into Egypt, and consequently begot Moses at the age of 77, and died 20 years before the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt; for he himself lived 137 years, as is clear from chapter 6. Eusebius however in the Chronicle says Moses was born in the 70th, not the 77th, year of Amram.
And he took a wife of his own kindred. -- In Hebrew it is, "he took a daughter of Levi." This was Jochebed, the mother of Moses, who is likewise called a daughter of Levi in Numbers 26:59. Hence Abulensis thinks that Jochebed was truly and properly a daughter of Levi, and the aunt of her husband Amram: so that Levi, at the age of 110, begot Jochebed in Egypt; and she, when she was 68 years old, bore Moses, who in the 80th year of his life led the people out. For by the law of nature, marriage between an aunt and nephew is not absolutely forbidden, but only by positive law, which had not yet been enacted, but was enacted later, in Leviticus 18. Thus Moses through his mother was a grandson, and through his father a great-grandson, of Levi.
But it is more true that Jochebed was not a daughter but a granddaughter of Levi; nor an aunt but a cousin of Amram: for our translator expressly teaches this in chapter 6, verse 20, where he calls her the cousin of Amram; and the Septuagint there, who call her the daughter of Amram's uncle; and the Chaldean, who calls her the daughter of Amram's aunt. Therefore where here and in Numbers 26 she is called a daughter of Levi, understand that she was a Levite woman, that is, descended from the stock of Levi, as our translator renders it: for thus the daughters of Judah are called those who are descended from Judah. So Vatablus, Pererius, and others. For Moses adds this both so that it may be clear that Moses and Aaron were Levites by both maternal and paternal descent, and to signify that the Hebrews had already begun to marry women of their own tribe, and thus that God had gently begun to establish the distinction of tribes.
Let Calvin's reproach therefore be dismissed, that Moses was born from an incestuous marriage.
Verse 2: "She Conceived and Bore a Son"
Moses. Josephus adds that Amram, the father of Moses, was anxious about Moses already conceived and soon to be born, on account of Pharaoh's decree of infanticide, and when he earnestly prayed to God for the child, God appeared to him and said: "Know that I have at heart both the public welfare of your people and your private glory: for this child, by whose birth the Egyptians have condemned your offspring to death, will be born to you, and he will free his nation from Egyptian servitude. Soon the birth confirmed the oracle, for the mother gave birth so easily, contrary to the custom of women in labor, that she escaped the notice of the watchers." The words of St. Stephen in Acts 7:25 support this oracle.
Moses was born in the year of the world 2374, from the flood not in the year 714, as the codex of Pererius has, but 717; from the birth of Abraham 425 (Porphyry therefore erred, who pretends that Moses lived in the time of Semiramis, who succeeded Ninus, in whose 43rd year Abraham was born), in the 135th year after Jacob's entry into Egypt. This is clear: for the flood occurred in the year of the world 1656 and lasted one year; thence, in the 292nd year from the flood, Abraham was born; Abraham at the age of 75 received the promise from God, from which until the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt and the giving of the law at Sinai, 430 years elapsed, which are divided thus: 213 elapsed from the promise made to Abraham until the descent of Jacob into Egypt; and another 215 elapsed from the descent of Jacob into Egypt until the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt; and Moses was born 80 years before the departure.
Second, Moses was born 516 years before the reign of David, and 560 years before the construction of Solomon's temple: for from the departure of the Hebrews out of Egypt until the building of the temple, 480 years elapsed, as is clear from 1 Kings chapter 6, verse 1. Add to these the 80 years of Moses' life until the departure, and you will have 560 years.
Third, Moses was born 985 years before the Babylonian captivity; 1576 years before Christ; 802 years before the beginning of the Olympiads, that is, the Olympic games; 825 years before the founding of Rome. See the chronological table that I set out at the beginning of Genesis.
Fourth, Moses was born not 900 years, as Lactantius would have it, Book IV, Chapter 5, but 430 years before the Trojan War, and therefore he long preceded Homer, who was at least a hundred years after the Trojan War: hence consequently Moses long preceded the seven sages of Greece; for they were far later than Homer and lived in the times of Cyrus; and long after them came Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, in the times of Alexander the Great.
Fifth, in the time of Moses, around the 33rd year of Moses, says Torniellus, Cecrops was the first king in Attica, who founded Athens, after whom nearly all the events occurred that the Greeks narrate about their heroes, gods, wars, and other memorable things. So Eusebius in the Chronicle, and Cyril, Book I Against Julian. Finally, Moses was born at the time when the most celebrated astronomer Atlas flourished, whom they therefore imagined to support heaven on his shoulders, and who was the brother of Prometheus the natural philosopher, whom they fancied to have transformed stones into men; and this Atlas was the maternal grandfather of Mercury the elder, whose grandson Mercury the younger, surnamed Trismegistus, also was. So Eusebius in the Chronicle, and St. Augustine, Book XVIII of the City of God, Chapter 8. Moses therefore was far older than Trismegistus: hence both Trismegistus and Plato and the rest of the Gentile sages drew their wisdom from Moses and the Hebrews, as Eusebius and others teach. See Genesis, Chapter 12, verse 40.
"Seeing him comely, she hid him for three months." The infant, says Josephus, was so beautiful that he captivated the eyes of those who looked at him and held them fixed. St. Stephen, Acts chapter 7:20, instead of "comely" translates it as "pleasing to God." Whence it is clear that this beauty was more than natural, and was implanted in Moses by God, signifying that he was pleasing to God, dear and important to Him; and so through this beauty of Moses, not so much human as divine, his parents were confirmed in the oracle they had received about Moses, and in their faith, and were encouraged to hide him; nor did they doubt that by this means he would escape safely from the waters, with God as his protector, and this is what the Apostle says, Hebrews 11:23: "By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they did not fear the king's edict." See what was said there. St. Ephrem, in his Oration on the Transfiguration of Christ, considers that Moses was sanctified in his mother's womb: for this beauty of his body, flowing from the beauty of his soul, seems to indicate this. But this conjecture is too slight to establish such a privilege, and an exemption from the common law of original sin in which we are all born, especially since no one else has asserted this.
Aptly Marsilio Ficino, in his commentary on Plato's Symposium, called beauty the flower of goodness, and Pacatus in his Panegyric of Theodosius: "Every most august beauty," he says, "is believed to derive much from heaven. Your virtue merited the empire, but beauty added its support to virtue: the former ensured that it was necessary for you to become prince, the latter that it was fitting." Theophylact adds, on Hebrews 11:23, that the parents had wished to expose Moses when he was born, but the child sweetly smiled, and was preserved on that account. So much, he says, was everything in him divine.
Verse 3: "And When She Could No Longer Conceal Him"
The search and infanticide having flared up again. For it is clear from Aaron and his contemporaries that many infants had escaped when the tyranny had relaxed.
She took a basket of bulrushes -- that is, a small chest made of rushes, or woven of rushes like wicker, and daubed on the outside with pitch and bitumen to keep out water; in which the mother placed the infant and exposed him in the rush-bed or sedge, where an uncertain outcome gave a surer hope of life than at home, where certain death was to be inflicted by the relentless searchers -- a harsh measure indeed, but necessary, and done with a mercy trusting in God's providence. Therefore Calvin wrongly accuses these parents of Moses of cowardice and bestial cruelty for this exposure of their child: for they could not otherwise preserve the life of Moses except by exposing him. But they exposed him as safely as they possibly could, namely in a well-secured basket and in a safe place, and they gave him his sister as a guard, who could help him as best she might. Hence the Apostle highly praises the faith and courage of these parents. It seems therefore that the parents had received the oracle that Josephus recounts about the birth and deliverance of Moses, and therefore exposed him not out of fear, but out of certain trust in God.
Allegorically, Moses in his cradle prefigured Christ: for both were exposed, the one to the whim of fortune, the other for the salvation of mankind; the one in a basket of rushes, the other in a wicker cradle and manger; the one in the sedge of a river, the other in a cave by a public road; the one received by an Egyptian woman and nurtured as her son, the other adored by the Gentiles through the Magi and declared God and king of all by divine and royal gifts.
She exposed him in the sedge. -- Pagninus translates: in the rush-bed. Sedge is a place where sedges grow; sedge (carix) is a tall plant, shaped like a sword, and pointed at the tip. Hence it is clear that Moses was exposed in a marshy place, with stagnant waters from the Nile, yet fenced in by thick rushes and sedges, so that the basket, and the infant exposed in it, could not be swept away by the force of the water. Josephus therefore errs when he narrates that this basket of Moses was cast into the middle of the river and carried away by the waters; and that the king's daughter sent swimmers and ordered the basket to be drawn from the waters and brought to her.
Moreover, God willed that Moses should suffer these things, so that he might know the misery of his fellow tribesmen suffering the same, and might free and lead them out of this misery. Learn here a moral lesson: God made us wretched for this reason, that from our own wretchedness we might learn how to have compassion on our neighbor. For, as St. Bernard says, in his work On the Steps of Humility: "A sick man feels for a sick man, and a hungry man for a hungry man, all the more intimately as they are closer in condition; for just as pure truth is seen only by a pure heart, so a brother's misery is more truly felt by a wretched heart; but in order to have a wretched heart on account of another's misery, you must first acknowledge your own, and you will find your neighbor's state of mind in your own, so that from yourself you may know how to help him. Following the example of our Savior, who willed to suffer so that He might know how to have compassion, and might learn mercy from the things He suffered."
Allegorically, Moses here, exiled from home and exposed in a basket in the sedge, was a type of the Christ Child: first, laid by His Mother in a manger, because there was no room for Him in the inn; second, exposed to the fury of Herod and fleeing Him into Egypt. Whence St. Paulinus teaches that Christ suffered in Moses and in all the Saints; for writing to Aper, who, despising the world, was in turn despised by it, he says thus, Epistle 1: "Rightly you glory and say in exultation that you believe yourself to be a Christian because those who loved you have begun to hate you, and those who feared you to despise you. From the beginning of the ages Christ has suffered and triumphed in all His own. In Abel slain by a brother, in Noah mocked by a son, in Abraham a pilgrim, in Isaac offered in sacrifice, in Jacob a servant, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed, in the Prophets stoned and cut asunder, in the Apostles tossed about on land and sea, and in the many crosses of the blessed Martyrs frequently put to death. He Himself suffers reproaches in you, and the world hates Him in you."
St. Cyprian teaches the same, in his book On the Praise of Martyrdom: "Though the claws, rebounding from his hardened ribs, return to the wound, and though as the lashes strike, the strap comes back tearing away part of the body, he stands immovable, yet stronger than his torments, revolving this alone within himself: that in that cruelty of the executioners, Christ, for Whom he suffers, suffers more than he himself suffers," and, as he says further on, "as if adorned by sharing in the blood of Christ."
Verse 4: "His Sister Standing at a Distance"
Miriam, a rather grown girl, 10 or 11 years old, sent by her mother, says Josephus. Her mother had instructed her what to do and what to say -- namely, that if it happened that some passing Egyptian should be moved to pity for the exposed child, as she hoped, and should seek a way to save the child, she should offer that person the child's own mother as nurse, as she indeed did, as is clear from what follows.
Verse 5: "The Daughter of Pharaoh"
Thermuthis by name, says Josephus, and from him others generally: Philo adds that she was Pharaoh's sole heiress, and without children, though she had been married for a long time.
To bathe in the river -- near the palace, in a place both enclosed and private, or, as Philo says, among the thick and dense growth of rushes and reeds; for it is not credible that a royal woman would have wished to bathe in an open place.
Along the bank of the stream -- along the bank of the river; in Hebrew it is, "at the hand," that is, at the side of the river.
When she saw the basket among the papyrus reeds -- that is, in the sedge filled with sedges, rushes, and papyrus: for in Egypt papyrus grows, just as rushes grow in our lands, in marshy places or on the banks of rivers. Now papyrus is a small tree or shrub, growing near the Nile, with an oblique root, triangular sides, ten cubits long, and tapering to a point: from the leaves of papyrus, by splitting a thin membrane with a needle, they make paper for writing, which is therefore called papyrus; and hence our papers, although made from beaten linen, because they serve the same use of writing, are called papyrus: from the wood of the papyrus they also build boats, whence that verse of Lucan, Book IV: "When the Nile covers everything, the Memphian skiff is stitched of absorbent papyrus." And Ovid, Book XV of the Metamorphoses: "And through the sevenfold streams of the papyrus-bearing Nile."
Moreover Herodotus, Book II, writes that the Egyptians build their boats from reed. See Pliny, Book XIII, Chapter 11.
Verse 6: "This Is One of the Children of the Hebrews"
What suggested this to her was the cruel edict of her father about destroying the infants of the Hebrews; and when she looked upon the circumcised child, she could not doubt that he was a Hebrew: for at that time the Egyptians had not yet adopted circumcision, which they accepted later, as Jeremiah chapter 9, verse 25 teaches, and Theodoret here, and Diodorus Siculus, Book I of the Antiquities, Chapter 2, and Herodotus, Book II.
Verse 8: "Her Mother"
In Hebrew, "the mother of the child"; but the same woman was her own mother who was the mother of her little brother, namely Jochebed. She nourished -- in Hebrew, nursed -- Moses.
Verse 10: "And She Adopted Him as Her Son"
How did her father Pharaoh, the hostile enemy of the Hebrews, permit this? I answer that the heart of the king is in the hand of God, and was by Him inclined to love so beautiful a child, says Josephus. Philo adds that Thermuthis, since she was childless, pretended to be pregnant and to have given birth to Moses, as if Moses were not her adopted but her natural son. The Apostle seems to suggest the same thing, Hebrews 11:24, when he says that Moses, when grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; therefore he had previously been regarded as her genuine son. Why then, when Pharaoh died, did not Moses but another (as I shall say at verse 11) succeed to the kingdom? Perhaps because the mother's fraud and Moses' adoption were discovered.
Hence Moses was also educated in royal fashion in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, says St. Stephen, Acts 7:22. For, as Plato says: "Wisdom is most useful and necessary for one in power, so that in the one the body of the prince, and in the other his soul, may be sustained and adorned." Again, the same Plato: "The care that is given to planting and shaping young trees," he says, "should equally be given to begetting and educating children; but in the latter there is labor, in the former pleasure. We must beware, however, lest we seem drowsy in this matter and more than vigilant in that." To someone who asked him: "What inheritance should be left to one's children?" he answered: "That which fears neither hailstorm, nor violence, nor even Jupiter himself." Hence he himself, who never ceased to encourage the young to live happily, would frequently say: "Prefer labor to leisure, unless you think rust is better than splendor." Again: "Consider the contrary nature of virtue and pleasure; for to the momentary sweetness of pleasure, perpetual regret, pain, and torment are attached; to virtue, on the contrary, after brief pains, even eternal delights after death are added." Therefore to a certain student who was lavishly grooming his skin, he said: "How long, O wretch, will you continue to build yourself a prison?" At another time: "The wise," he says, "place the soul in first rank, the body in second, money in third. So in the Republic, let the first place be given to virtue, the second to bodily strength, the third to money, which is the servant of virtue and the body." For this reason he recommended wakefulness, as the friend of wisdom and chastity. But he detested prolonged sleep, as the parent of evil enticements and sins, and very like death; he also forbade eating twice a day and becoming satiated.
Furthermore, the wisdom of the Egyptians was twofold, say Philo and Justin, Question 25 to the Orthodox. First, open and available to all, namely Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Second, Hieroglyphic, which through symbols teaches the most important mysteries of Physics, Theology, and Political science; Moses therefore learned all these, and even medicine, says Clement. Hence the same Clement, Book VI of the Stromateis, says that Moses in his rites and laws occasionally uses the hieroglyphic method of the Egyptians, that is, he conveys them through symbols and enigmas; and this is most evident in the garments of the priests, the Cherubim, the ark, and the construction of the tabernacle. See what was said in Canon 27. Marcus Varro, as cited by St. Augustine, Book XVIII of the City of God, Chapter 4, teaches that the Egyptians first learned their letters, with Isis as their teacher, a little more than two thousand years before his own time. There is no doubt that Jacob, Joseph, and the Hebrews dwelling in Egypt for 215 years taught them very many things; hence concerning Joseph as ruler of Egypt it is said in Psalm 104: "That he might instruct their princes and teach their elders wisdom," so that it is not surprising that in the teachings and laws of the Egyptians many things very similar to the doctrine and law of the Hebrews are found in Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.
Philo further adds that tutors were summoned from Greece for Moses at great expense, to teach him the liberal arts; Chaldeans, to teach him the science of the stars, especially that which contains predictions of the future; and Assyrians, to teach him their letters, inasmuch as he was destined by the hopes of all to be the successor to the ancestral throne, and was called the younger king: and that Moses applied himself most zealously to his education, following not the customs of the Egyptians, but the ancestral traditions of his forefathers. Note here that Philo uses a certain exaggeration; for Moses was prior and more ancient not only than all the sages of Greece, but even than all who wrote anything among the Greeks. Indeed Cadmus, from whom the Greeks received their letters, was much later than Moses, as Eusebius teaches, Book X of the Preparation for the Gospel, Chapter 3. How then does Philo say that tutors were summoned for Moses from Greece?
Josephus narrates yet another thing about Moses, on whose authority let it rest, namely that Pharaoh placed a diadem on the infant Moses' head, but Moses pulled it off onto the ground and trampled it with his feet; and when the Egyptians took this as a bad omen, as if this child would be destructive to Egypt, and the divine seer who had predicted that such a child would be born affirmed that Moses was that very child and wanted to kill him, Thermuthis snatched Moses away and saved him.
God willed that Moses, the future leader of the people, should be educated in the court of Pharaoh, so that he might learn and absorb royal refinement, elegance of manners, greatness of spirit, generosity, and the other virtues of a king, as one who would be the ruler of a people. Second, so that later, when he would be God's ambassador to Pharaoh on behalf of the people, he would have greater authority with him, especially when accompanied by so many signs, wonders, and plagues.
"And she called his name Moses, saying: Because I drew him out of the water." Philo, Josephus, Clement of Alexandria, Book I of the Stromateis, Procopius, and Rabanus think that Moses is an Egyptian name: for mos in Egyptian signifies water, or, as Josephus says, the Egyptians call water mo; and ises means saved: so that Moses means the same as "saved from water." But I say that Moses is a Hebrew name, signifying "drawn" or "extracted," namely from the waters; for its root is the Hebrew masa, which means to draw or to extract. Therefore the Egyptian mother who adopted him gave the Hebrew infant a Hebrew name: this is clear from the Hebrew text, which reads: vatticra shemo Mosheh... vattomer: ki min hammaim meshitihu, that is, "and she called his name Moses, and she said: Because I drew him out of the waters": where it is plainly clear that he was called Moses from the Hebrew meshitihu, which means "I drew him out," namely from the waters.
Note first, that the genuine form is "Moses," while "Moyses" is a corruption: thus other proper Hebrew names have also been corrupted among the Greeks and Latins. The Hebrew, that is Moses, reversed by anastrophe, is the same as hasschem, that is "the name" itself, namely the celebrated, great, powerful, and terrible name to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Again, "name" means the virtue, efficacy, and admirable power that was given to Moses. Third, Clement of Alexandria reports that Moses, before he was exposed by his parents, was called Joachim, and afterwards was called Moses by Pharaoh's daughter; that he also had a third name after he was assumed into heaven, being called Melchi. Again, Aben Ezra and R. Abraham say that Moses was called Monion by the Egyptians. Pererius likewise holds that an Egyptian name was given to Moses by Pharaoh's daughter, meaning the same thing as the Hebrew "Moses," and that the name Moses was afterward imposed on him by the Hebrews. But all these things are uncertain: for neither Sacred Scripture, nor Josephus, nor Philo reveal any other name than Moses, whose etymology they also give, as though he was so called both by the Hebrews and by the Egyptians; for in the following chapters, Pharaoh and the Egyptians address him only as Moses; and also the historians of the Gentiles -- Tacitus, Trogus, Justinus, and others -- always call him Moses. From the happy event, therefore, of his extraction from the waters, Moses received his name, and this by a favorable omen and signification: namely, that he himself would likewise extract and liberate the children of Israel from the waters of affliction, and lead them through the Red Sea on dry foot. "It was a fitting divine retribution," says St. Augustine (Sermon 89, On the Seasons), "that the murderer should be punished by his own affections (Pharaoh through Moses), and should perish by his daughter's provision, he who had forbidden the midwives to let children be born."
Allegorically, Cyril says: The mother who enclosed her son (Moses) in a basket is the Synagogue, which cast out Christ born from her as a stranger; but Pharaoh's daughter, that is, the Church of the Gentiles, received Him, and this at the waters of Baptism. And Prosper says: "When Pharaoh's daughter descended to Moses, that is, when the wisdom of this world came to Christ, washed by the spiritual flood, she laid aside her pride, and receiving the small one as though she were great, joined to the Church by humble grace, she who had been a daughter became the mother of Christ." Theodoretus adds: The mother again received her son to be raised from the Gentile Egyptian woman, because Israel will receive the faith of Christ from the Church of the Gentiles in the last times. Moses, therefore, born during Pharaoh's persecution, signifies Christ born during the persecution of Herod and the devil, who oppressed the whole world under his yoke. Moses hidden for three months signifies Christ hidden in the Old Law for a threefold period, namely that of the Judges, Kings, and Pontiffs. Moses cast into the river by his parents signifies Christ immersed in the waters of passion and death by the Jews, whom the Egyptian woman, that is the Gentile world, received and treated magnificently and splendidly, seeing His elegance in heavenly wisdom, life, and morals.
Tropologically, Hugh of St. Victor in his Allegory on Exodus I says: Moses is anyone in the river of the present age; the king's daughter is the grace of God, which adopts us, rescued from the flow of the world, as children of God, and delivers us to the Hebrew mother, that is, to the Church passing into heaven, to be nourished.
Verse 11: "After Moses Had Grown Up"
In those days (when Moses was completing his fortieth year of age, as St. Stephen says, Acts 7:23), after Moses had grown up. -- Josephus and very many of his followers relate that Moses, appointed by Pharaoh to lead the Ethiopian war, routed the Ethiopians; that he captured the royal city of Saba, which was afterward called Meroe by Cambyses after his sister's name, through the surrender of Tharbis, daughter of the king of the Ethiopians; and that Moses then married her according to their agreement. Torniellus assigns this war of Moses to the year 40 of Moses' life, when Amenophis, under whom Moses was born, had already died and Orus was reigning, if we believe Eusebius. Indeed, whatever the truth about this war may be -- which Theodoret and others call fabulous -- there is no doubt that Moses passed over many things about himself out of a desire for humility, for during those forty years in which he lived at court almost as a prince, he was neither idle nor inactive. The author of the Historia Scholastica and others add that this Tharbis was the Ethiopian woman on whose account Miriam and Aaron murmured against Moses, Numbers 12. Again, that when Moses, having won the victory, wished to return to Egypt and Tharbis would not let him go, he -- being most skilled in astronomy -- carved two images on gems, of such virtue and power that one would bring remembrance and the other forgetfulness; and having set them in matching rings, he kept the one of memory for himself and gave the one of forgetfulness to Tharbis; and she, putting it on, at once forgot Moses, and so he was able to return to Egypt. But these are fables and trifles.
He went out to his brethren. -- The Hebrews call all those "brethren" who belong to the same family or nation.
And he saw their affliction. -- Philo adds that Moses often visited his Israelites laboring and afflicted, and consoled them, and admonished the taskmasters to be gentle, and that thus the courtiers gradually began to regard him with suspicion, and finally reported him to the king as one dissenting from him and plotting revolution, and filled the king's ears with calumnies. Behold the courage of Moses, professing himself an Israelite and choosing rather to be afflicted with the people of God than to have the pleasure of temporal sin (Hebrews 11:25). Moses therefore despised the kingdom of Egypt, confessing himself a Hebrew and thereby denying that he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter. On this account, says Ambrose (on Psalm 118), he was made by God "a god to Pharaoh," that is, superior to him and terrible to him. For this reason also Philo calls Moses a miracle of nature: for to seek, I do not say royal dignity, but even royal friendship, is an ordinary work of nature; but to spurn these things, indeed to detest them, is plainly extraordinary and therefore a miracle, and all the more so because he scorned them not for his own advantage, but for the public good and the sake of his nation. So Philo. This is the true loftiness of soul: to set piety above a kingdom. This is the highest dignity, which made him worthier of a king's dignity than the king himself. For greater is he who despises dignity than he who looks up to it and accepts it. For the former is superior to honor, the latter inferior; the former is the master of pomp, the latter its slave; the latter hungers for glory like a beggar, the former disdains it like a lord.
An Egyptian man striking one of the Hebrews. -- Philo says this Egyptian was one of the taskmasters who had been accustomed to beat the Hebrews so unjustly under their heavy burdens. St. Stephen (Acts 7), instead of "striking," says he was treating him with violence. The Hebrews relate that this Egyptian had committed adultery with this Hebrew's wife, and that therefore, when a quarrel arose, he struck him; but this is their customary fabrication. It is certain that this blow was severe and outrageous, either in itself, or from the circumstances, or from what had preceded, as Philo says, so that the striker deserved to be punished with death: for otherwise Moses would have had neither the authority and right, nor the will, to kill him.
Verse 12: "He Hid the Slain Egyptian in the Sand"
"Slain," that is, killed; for he buried and hid him in the sand.
You may ask whether Moses committed this killing justly and rightly. For it seems that Moses, since he was living a private life, had received no authority for this either from God or from man.
First, the Hebrews, even the ancient ones, as Clement of Alexandria attests (Stromata, Book 1), excuse Moses on the grounds that he killed the Egyptian not with a sword, but by pronouncing over him the tetragrammaton name of Jehovah, in the way that St. Peter killed Ananias and Sapphira by a word alone. But this is a fiction: for to "strike" means to wound not with a word but with a sword or other weapons. Furthermore, the name Jehovah had not yet been revealed to Moses at that time. For God first assigned it to Himself, and revealed it to Moses in Exodus 6:3.
Second, St. Augustine (Against Faustus, Book 22, ch. 70) blames this deed of Moses as done beyond the order of authority and justice; and he attributes it to Moses' zeal, but excessive and unrefined, which, he says, was producing signs that were indeed flawed but of great fruitfulness. For this excessive zeal signified that Moses, once he was refined and had learned to guide and temper this zeal with reason, would be a distinguished and courageous leader of the people. Hence also Oecumenius (on the Epistle of Jude) relates that the devil, in his dispute with Michael over the body of Moses, said that Moses was not worthy of burial because he had unjustly killed the Egyptian and had buried him not in a tomb but in sand.
Third, St. Ambrose (On the Duties of the Clergy, Book 1, ch. 36), St. Thomas, and the Burgensian attribute this deed of Moses to just defense, by which he was bound by charity to defend the Hebrew who was being unjustly attacked. "For he who does not defend a companion from injury when he can, is as much at fault as the one who commits the injury," says St. Ambrose. For, as Toletus says (on Luke 12, annotation 27), at that time there was no judge who could avert the injury, and the injury was present and did not allow for any delay: therefore it was Moses' duty at that moment to intervene.
Cajetan adds that these taskmasters were public enemies and oppressors of the Hebrews, and that therefore it was lawful for the Hebrews to kill them if they could, just as in a just war it is lawful to kill an enemy and invader anywhere.
Fourth -- and this is the clearest and most solid explanation -- Moses did this having obtained authority from divine inspiration. For God was moving Moses to this killing, so that he might begin to act as the avenger of His people and kill a public enemy. For this is what St. Stephen says (Acts 7:25): "He avenged the oppressed man by striking the Egyptian; and he supposed that his brethren would understand that God was giving them deliverance through him." Moses therefore knew, and even thought that others generally knew, that he had already been designated by God as the leader and avenger of the Hebrews, and that God wanted him to prepare himself for this leadership through this just killing and vindication. And so St. Stephen here seems to confirm the account of Josephus, who relates that an oracle was given to his father Amram about his son Moses being the future avenger and liberator of the Hebrews. So St. Augustine here, Rupertus, St. Thomas, and others.
Symbolically, St. Ambrose notes (On Cain and Abel) that Moses was fit to kill the Egyptian because he had first killed in himself the ambition for honor and kingship. "He lays hands upon himself, as it were," he says, "who kills the pleasures of his own body. Moses therefore killed the Egyptian man; but he would not have killed him, had he not first destroyed in himself the Egyptian of spiritual wickedness -- the honor of royal pleasures."
Allegorically, Moses, by striking the Egyptian, freed the Hebrew; that is, Christ, by breaking the power of the devil, freed the human race. The Egyptian is hidden in sand, because the devil and his temptations are hidden in temporal goods, which like sand are worthless, weak, and unstable. So Pererius.
Verse 13: "How Has This Matter Become Known?"
He said -- within himself, that is, he thought; for just as there is a word of the tongue, so also there is a word of the mind.
How has this matter become known? -- In Hebrew, "truly the matter has become known." Our translator more deeply grasped Moses' emotion and expressed it with a mark of wonder, as if to say: "Can it really be? Has this matter truly become known?" But the meaning comes to the same thing. Note: The Hebrews use "word" metonymically for a deed or thing of which the word is the indicator and sign; thus it is said: "No word shall be impossible with God" (Luke 1:37), that is, no thing; and the shepherds say in Luke chapter 2: "Let us see this word that has come to pass" -- meaning Christ just born.
See here how inconstant are the honors of the court, how unstable and changeable is the happiness of the world. Behold Moses, adopted as the king's son, is driven into exile. Truly did Philo say (in the book That God is Unchangeable): "Just as the ebb of the sea follows shortly after its flow, so the flowing away of transient things soon follows their abundance." Hear also Seneca: "Most well-known," he says, "is the saying of one who had grown old in the service of kings. When someone asked him how he had achieved the rarest thing at court -- old age -- he replied: 'By receiving injuries, and often giving thanks.'"
Verse 15: "Who, Fleeing"
At the opportune time, when it pleased God, he would return and take counsel for his people. Hence the Apostle says of Moses (Hebrews 11:27): "By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the anger of the king," as if to say: Even though Moses fled, he did not lose heart, nor did he cast away the hope of liberating Israel; but he firmly persuaded himself that he would return at his appointed time and liberate Israel -- although there is also another more genuine sense of that passage, as I said in my commentary on Hebrews 11.
So St. Athanasius, when he was being driven into exile from Alexandria by the command of Julian the Apostate, and saw the Christians around him weeping, said: "Be of good courage; for it is a cloud that will soon pass away." So Sozomen (Book 5, ch. 14). And so it happened; for shortly after, a monk named Julian, foreseeing in the Spirit the death of Julian the Apostate, said to his companions: "The wild boar, the enemy of the Lord's vineyard, has paid the due penalties for his crimes against Christ, and lies dead, so that he may no longer lay snares for Christians." It was soon discovered that this had truly occurred at the very moment the monk was speaking, as Theodoret attests (Book 3, ch. 9).
Note here: A faithful and holy person can never be truly driven into exile; for everywhere he is received by God, who is his father, his homeland, and every good. So St. Cyprian (Epistle 66 to the Thibaritani): "He is not alone," he says, "whose companion in flight is Christ; he is not alone who, preserving the temple of God, wherever he may be, is not without God."
So St. Augustine (Sermon on St. Cyprian): "Do you think, O tyrant, that you can banish a man of God from his homeland to a foreign land? You are mistaken; in Christ he is nowhere an exile, in the flesh he is everywhere a pilgrim." So St. Gregory Nazianzen says: "For me (Oration 28), every land is my homeland, and no land is my homeland" -- because, namely, my homeland is heaven, and because I regard the whole earth as my homeland and am a cosmopolite, that is, a citizen of the world.
So St. Basil: "I do not know exile," he says, "since I am not confined to any place; and I do not regard this land which I now inhabit as my own, and whatever land I may be cast into, I consider it mine. Or rather, to speak more correctly, I know that the whole earth belongs to God, of which I am a stranger and pilgrim." The witness of this is Gregory Nazianzen (Oration 20, which is in praise of St. Basil).
Hugh of St. Victor (Didascalicon, Book 3, last chapter): "He is still delicate," he says, "for whom his homeland is sweet; he is already strong, for whom every soil is his homeland; he is perfect, for whom the whole world is exile. The first fixed his love on the world, the second scattered it, the third extinguished it."
Midian. -- Midian was a city founded by Midian, son of Abraham by Keturah, and from him the entire region was called Midian. How true is that saying of Sirach 2: "My son, when you come to serve God, prepare your soul for temptation!" Behold how many temptations assault Moses all at once as he follows God's calling and leaves the court: poverty, disgrace, contempt -- not only from the Egyptians, but also from the ungrateful Israelites, for whose sake he was enduring all these things -- the king's plots, mortal dangers, flight, exile. But Moses' resolute piety is overcome by none of these evils, not even by the ingratitude of those he served, for looking not to men but to God, "he endured as seeing the invisible" (Hebrews 11:27). See here how true is that saying of St. Mark the Hermit: "God, knowing our weakness, does not usually bestow anything great on anyone without a preceding calamity."
Allegorically, Rupertus notes that St. Stephen asserts in Acts 7 that the fathers of the Jews rejected Moses, Samuel, and David, as a type and figure of the Jews who would reject Christ: who therefore, fleeing, married a foreign wife, namely the Church of the Gentiles.
Note: While Moses was living in Midian (in the year 67 of Moses' life, says Torniellus, which was the 31st year of Cecrops, the first king of the Athenians), there occurred that famous flood of Deucalion among the Gentiles in Thessaly. It is called "Deucalion's" because Deucalion reigned there at that time, and he himself with a few others escaped this flood by reaching Mount Parnassus in a small boat; whence he is said to have restored the human race. So St. Augustine (City of God, Book 18, ch. 10).
At that same time also occurred the conflagration of Phaethon, as though fire and water had conspired together for the destruction of men: for the heat of the sun was so great that it seemed to have scorched the entire world. From this arose the fable of Phaethon: namely, that Phaethon, son of the Sun, badly guiding the chariot of the sun, set the earth ablaze. So Eusebius, Cyril, Orosius (Book 1, ch. 10), and from these, Torniellus.
Verse 16: "The Priest of Midian"
The Chaldean renders this: "to the prince of Midian." Indeed, Artapanus (cited by Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, Book 9, last chapter) calls this Raguel the king of Arabia, of which Midian is a part. The Hebrew cohen properly signifies "priest"; but because the priesthood, as the noblest and most divine office, at that time generally belonged to princes or heads of families, such as Melchizedek, Noah, and Abraham; and because a prince and magistrate ought above all to promote the worship of God and whatever pertains to His glory -- hence cohen also signifies "prince," as is clear from 2 Samuel 8:18, where the sons of David are said to have been "priests," that is, as the Septuagint renders it, aularchae, that is, princes of the court.
Raguel could therefore have been both a priest and a prince: a priest, I say, at that time indeed of idols, because the Midianites were idolaters; but afterward, seeing the wonders that God worked through Moses, he recognized and worshipped the true God, as is clear from Exodus 18 -- although St. Cyril (On Worship in Spirit, Book 3, fol. 54) and Abulensis think he had worshipped the one Most High God even before then, but alongside many other gods of his nation.
Demetrius the historian, says Eusebius (cited above), relates that Abraham from Keturah begat Jecshan, from whom was born Dedan, as is clear from Genesis 25:3, from whom descended Raguel the father of Jethro, whose daughter Moses took as wife. He adds that Moses was tall of stature and fair-haired, with rather long hair and beard, and altogether of very great dignity in stature and countenance.
They wished to water the flocks. -- The pastoral art was then noble, whatever Calvin may object, and even noble virgins practiced it with the admirable chastity of those times, as we saw Rachel and Leah doing in Genesis.
Verse 17: "Having Defended the Girls"
They drove them away -- driving their cattle to the water which the girls had drawn, to enjoy, like lazy men, the labors of others, says Philo.
Having defended the girls. -- Hugh of St. Victor thinks that Moses brought companions with him, with whose help he resisted the shepherds. Everywhere Moses sowed seeds of charity, as defender of the innocent, the oppressed, and of justice; thus he won for himself the favor of Raguel and Sephora as his wife. This is the mark of a prudent man, of a Christian: to bind everyone to oneself through kindness. So "Christ went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil" (Acts 10:38). Even the pagan Scipio saw this dimly, who observed Polybius' precept never to leave the forum without making someone more his friend or well-wisher, says Plutarch.
Verse 18: "To Raguel"
The Hebrews, Lyranus, and Abulensis relate that Raguel had four names: for first he is called here Raguel; second, in the following chapter, he is called Jethro, meaning "adding," because he added one chapter to the law, concerning the organization of the people through tribunes, centurions, leaders of fifty, and leaders of ten (Exodus 18); third, he is called the Kenite (Judges 4:11); fourth, he is called Hobab, meaning "loving," because he loved the law of God and was converted to Judaism, as will be evident in Exodus 18. But others more probably think that Hobab was not Raguel, but Raguel's son, of whom Numbers 10:29 speaks.
Verse 19: "An Egyptian Man"
Such Moses appeared to be from his clothing and attire; perhaps he had also told the girls, when they inquired, that he came from Egypt.
Verse 20: "That He May Eat Bread"
That is, take food, dine with us. For "bread" among the Hebrews, by synecdoche, signifies any kind of food.
Verse 21: "Moses Swore That He Would Dwell with Him"
Scripture here, aiming at brevity, leaves much to be understood: namely, that the daughters returned to the spring, and that Moses, persuaded by the father's words, led them home; that he was warmly welcomed by him; that his character was immediately tested; that after many words back and forth, they finally came to an agreement that he would dwell with him, and confirmed this with an oath; and finally that he married his daughter Sephora.
Note: For "he swore," the Hebrew is joel, which, although it properly means "he willed, consented, acquiesced" -- and so the Septuagint, the Chaldean, Vatablus, and others render it here -- nevertheless by metathesis and by interchange of the letters, it is the same as "he swore," as is clear from 1 Samuel 14:25: "And Saul adjured the people"; the Hebrew there is joel.
Verse 22: "Whom He Called Gershom"
In Hebrew: "because he said" -- for it gives the reason why he called him "Gershom": namely that Moses himself had been a stranger and sojourner in Midian. For ger means "stranger," and sham means "there."
Note: These sons of Moses were not born as soon as he came to Midian, in his 40th year, but long after, namely shortly before his return from Midian to Egypt, which occurred in his 80th year. This is clear from the fact that on this return he placed his wife with these children on a donkey, as is said in chapter 4, verse 20. They were therefore still small children at that time.
And she bore another. -- Our translator, following the Septuagint, inserts the name of Moses' second son here, so as to enumerate Moses' sons together, even though it does not appear in the Hebrew at this place, but in Exodus 18:4: from which the Septuagint and our translator copied it; or rather, it fell out of the Hebrew here. For the Hebrew text is occasionally defective, as Bellarmine shows (On the Word of God, Book 2, ch. 11). The name Moses gave to his second son was Eliezer, meaning "My God is my helper," in order to teach the faithful: first, to bear exile and all adversities bravely, relying on God; second, to regard their children not as incentives to greed but as monuments of divine generosity, by which they are stirred to thanksgiving and obedience to God; third, always to be mindful of God and to name their children after a saint or with a holy name; fourth, by their very name he wished to admonish his children to consider where and how they were born, what they owe to God, and finally whom they ought to imitate.
Verse 23: "After a Long Time the King of Egypt Died"
That is, the one under whom Moses was born, adopted, and sought for death: for the sequence of the history seems to require this. This reasoning compelled Gerard Mercator, following not Eusebius but Manetho, to hold that all these events which Moses has narrated up to this point occurred under Armesesmian, or King Ramesses, whom he reports to have reigned for a very long time, namely 66 years.
But since we have no more reliable chronographer here than Eusebius, whom Catholics generally follow, we shall say more solidly with them that at this time not only did that Pharaoh under whom Moses was born die, but also two others who succeeded him in the kingdom and were of the same disposition and hatred toward the Jews. For these events seem to have occurred shortly before -- and, if we believe Torniellus, one year before -- Moses' leadership and the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt, when Moses was completing his 79th year, a period during which neither Ramesses nor any other king of Egypt reigned. Moses says here, therefore, with the liberation of the Hebrews now at hand, that the king who afflicted them died with his followers, to indicate that with these tyrants dead, the Hebrews groaned and cried out to God, that He might raise up a more merciful Pharaoh for them, or rather send a liberator to rescue them from Egyptian servitude. The sense, therefore, is this: When the king and the other tyrants had died, the Hebrews earnestly invoked God for their liberation; and God heard them, and the following year -- which was Moses' 80th -- He sent Moses to liberate them.
They cried out. -- The Hebrews here, roused by the scourge of servitude and returning to their hearts, cry out more fervently to God after the death of the tyrants, as though a greater opportunity for hoping for liberty now presented itself -- since God alone could free them. Thus tribulation teaches us to call upon God. It is commonly said: "He who does not know how to pray, let him go to sea"; for there the waves and dangers will teach him to pray and to cry out to God and the saints.
And their cry went up to God from their labors. -- The Chaldean renders: "on account of their labors." Hence theologians teach that the oppression of the poor is a sin that cries to heaven, which by its enormity provokes God to swift vengeance upon the oppressors and liberation of the oppressed.
Verse 24: "And He Remembered His Covenant"
By anthropopathism, here and elsewhere, memory and remembrance are attributed to God: because if God were a man who had hitherto permitted the Hebrews to be afflicted, He would rightly be said to have forgotten them; but now, intending to liberate them, He would be said to remember the covenant made with the Patriarchs, by which He promised to be their God and the God of their offspring, with a special and extraordinary providence toward them.
Verse 25: "And the Lord Looked upon the Children of Israel"
So the Roman and Hebrew texts read. "And He looked upon and knew" (as the Hebrew adds) "His people," by intending to liberate them swiftly and to show Himself merciful to them.
Note the words: "He heard, He remembered, He looked upon, He knew." For all these repeat and emphasize God's wonderful care, love, and providence for His people, and that His great and swift help and mercy would soon be at hand. The Septuagint translates: "and He was known to them," that is, by liberating them, as if to say: God's care and providence toward them became known to them when through Moses He began and undertook to liberate them. Hence our translator renders it: "and He liberated them," for the Septuagint's "liberated" here signifies an action begun, not completed.
Tertullian on Patience: Remedies for Every Adversity
In this chapter and the preceding one there is a notable moral passage on the fruits of adversity and patience, and its example in Moses and the Hebrews, who grew through adversity and became a people, a Church, and a kingdom of God. Tertullian (whom St. Cyprian and others followed) wrote a distinguished book On Patience, in which (ch. 5) he shows that the sins of the devil and of all men are to be ascribed to impatience. In the following chapters he demonstrates what an excellent antidote for life patience is, and this against all adversities.
First, against the loss of wealth and possessions, in chapter 8 he gives these remedies of patience:
First: "In almost every place," he says, "we are admonished by the Lord's Scriptures to despise the world. Hence the Lord Himself is found in no riches."
Second: "The Lord always justifies the poor and condemns the rich in advance; for the root of all evils is covetousness."
Third: "Nothing is ours, since all things are God's, to whom we ourselves also belong."
Fourth: "He who is stirred by impatience at loss, by placing earthly things before heavenly, sins against God through his neighbor. Let us therefore willingly lose earthly things and guard heavenly ones: let the whole world perish, provided I gain patience."
Fifth: "Patience in losses is a training in generosity; for it makes us ready to share and to give alms: he who does not fear to lose is not reluctant to give."
Sixth: "It is the custom of pagans to apply patience to all losses, since they perhaps value money above the soul; but for us it is fitting to lay down not the soul for money, but money for the soul, whether voluntarily in giving, or patiently in losing."
Seventh: "Our very soul and body, exposed in this world to injury from all, we bear about, and we endure the patience of that injury. Far be it from a servant of Christ that patience, prepared for the greater temptations, should fail in trivial ones."
Second, against harsh words and blows, in the same chapter he gives these remedies of patience:
First: "The Lord admonishes: To him who strikes you on the cheek, turn the other also. Let another's wickedness be worn out by your patience."
Second: "You punish that wicked man more by enduring his blows; for he will be beaten by the One for whose sake you endure."
Third: "Consider the Lord's saying: When they curse you, rejoice."
Fourth: "The Lord Himself was cursed in the law, and yet He alone is blessed; let us servants therefore follow the Lord, and let us be cursed patiently, that we may be blessed."
Fifth: "Otherwise I shall be tormented, at least by mute impatience."
Sixth: "He who injures you does so in order that you may grieve, because the fruit of the injurer lies in the grief of the injured; therefore, when you overthrow his fruit by not grieving, he himself must grieve at the loss of his fruit. Then you will not only go unharmed, but will moreover be delighted by your adversary's frustration and defended by his pain."
Third, against grief at the death of loved ones, in chapter 9 he gives these consolations of patience:
First: "Read the Apostle, 1 Thessalonians 4: 'Do not be grieved concerning those who sleep,' etc."
Second: "We believe in the resurrection of the dead; therefore grief at death is empty, and impatience at grief is empty."
Third: "Why should you grieve, if you do not believe he has perished? Why should you bear impatiently the loss of one whom you believe will return?"
Fourth: "What you think is death is a departure, and that to a blessed life."
Fifth: "He who goes before is not to be mourned but rather longed for; why should you immoderately grieve that he has gone, whom you will soon follow?"
Sixth: "Impatience in such matters bodes ill for our hope and betrays our faith."
Seventh: "We offend Christ when we do not accept with equanimity those whom He has called away, as though they were to be pitied."
Eighth: "We resist the Apostle who says: 'I desire to depart and be with Christ'; that therefore is the best wish of Christians, and likewise our own."
Fourth, against the desire for vengeance, in chapters 9 and 10, he gives these appeasements of patience:
First: "This lust for vengeance serves either glory or malice; but glory is everywhere vain, and malice is hateful to the Lord, especially in this case, because it doubles the evil that was done once. For what difference is there between the provocateur and the provoked, except that the former is caught first in wrongdoing, the latter second?"
Second: "Both are guilty before the injured Lord, who forbids and condemns all wickedness, and who commands that evil not be repaid with evil."
Third: "What honor shall we offer the Lord, if we have arrogated to ourselves the judgment of defense (that is, of vengeance)?"
Fourth: "What do we believe that Judge to be, if not also an avenger? This He promises us, saying: 'Vengeance is mine, and I will avenge'; that is, 'patience is for Me, and I will reward patience.'"
Fifth: "He who avenges himself has taken away the honor of the sole Judge, that is, of God."
Sixth: "After vengeance follows repentance, flight, and guilt, so that we are punished in like manner."
Seventh: "Nothing undertaken with impatience can be carried through without passion; whatever is done with passion either gives offense, or collapses, or goes headlong."
Eighth: "If you defend yourself too mildly, you will go mad; if too vigorously, you will be burdened."
Ninth: "What have I to do with vengeance, whose measure I cannot control, through the impatience of my grief?"
Tenth: "If I devote myself to patience, I shall not grieve; if I do not grieve, I shall not desire to take vengeance."
Fifth, against the assaults of Satan, in chapter 11, he gives these strengtheners of patience:
First: "Despise Satan's small darts for their pettiness; yield to his greatest ones because of their overwhelming force."
Second: "Where the injury is smaller, there is no need for impatience; but where the injury is greater, there the remedy for injury -- patience -- is all the more necessary."
Third: "Let us therefore strive to endure what is inflicted by the evil one, so that our equanimity's emulation may thwart the enemy's efforts."
Fourth: "But if we bring certain things upon ourselves, either through imprudence or even deliberately, let us bear with equal patience what we must blame on ourselves."
Sixth, for crosses sent by God, he gives these supports for patience:
First: "If we believe that certain things are inflicted by the Lord, to whom should we show patience more than to the Lord?"
Second: "It is fitting for us to rejoice and be glad at the honor of divine chastisement: 'Those whom I love,' He says, 'I chastise.'"
Third: "The Lord declares the patient to be blessed, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers; rejoice when they curse you and persecute you, for your reward is very great in heaven."
Seventh, in chapter 12, he assigns these fruits of patience. The first is peace and reconciliation with one's neighbors:
First: "The patient person fulfills the law of Christ, who commands that a brother be forgiven not seven times, but seventy times seven; likewise, that we forgive our brother's offense, if we desire pardon and forgiveness from God."
Second: "And of the Apostle who says: 'Let not the sun go down upon your anger'; therefore it is not permitted for us to remain even one day without patience."
Third: "Patience reconciles quarreling spouses: it prevents one from becoming an adulterer and corrects the other."
Fourth: "The patience of the father received back the prodigal son," receives, clothes, feeds, and excuses the impatience of his angry brother.
The second fruit of patience is love, or charity.
"Love, the supreme sacrament of faith, the treasure of the Christian name, which the Apostle with all the powers of the Holy Spirit commends -- by what is it trained if not by the disciplines of patience?"
First, "Love, he says, is magnanimous: thus it takes up patience." Second, "it is beneficent: patience does no evil." Third, "it does not envy: this indeed is proper to patience." Fourth, "it does not savor of pride: it drew its modesty from patience." Fifth, "it is not puffed up, it is not insolent: and this pertains to patience." Sixth, "it is not provoked, it endures all things, it tolerates all things: certainly, because it is patient." Seventh, "rightly therefore it shall never fail; tongues are exhausted, knowledge, prophecies, but faith, hope, and love remain: faith, which the patience of Christ introduced; hope, which human patience awaits; love, which patience accompanies with God as its teacher."
The third is that patience suggests exercises of piety, chapter 13.
"What is the business of patience in the body?" First, "the affliction of the flesh, a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord." Second, "fasts joined with ashes and sackcloth." Third, "prayers and supplications." Fourth, "continence of the flesh." Fifth, "steadfastness under the cross."
Examples are given. "Isaiah is sawn asunder, armed with the powers of patience, and does not keep silent about the Lord; Stephen is stoned, and begs pardon for his enemies: Job overcomes every form of patience against every power of the devil -- whom neither his driven-off flocks, nor his sons taken away by a single rush of ruin, nor the tortures of his body excluded from patience. What a trophy did God erect over the devil in that man? What a banner of glory, when that man, at every bitter report, uttered nothing from his mouth but 'Thanks be to God'? What happened? God laughed; what happened? Satan was torn apart. Hence he recovered all things twofold."
The fourth is that patience, as it were, gives birth to the other virtues, chapter 14.
First, "it instructs humility." Second, "it awaits repentance." Third, "it appoints confession." Fourth, "it governs the flesh." Fifth, "it preserves the spirit." Sixth, "it bridles the tongue." Seventh, "it restrains the hand." Eighth, "it tramples temptations." Ninth, "it drives away scandals." Tenth, "it consummates martyrdom." Eleventh, "it consoles the poor, it moderates the rich." Twelfth, "it commends the servant to his master, the master to God." Thirteenth, "it adorns woman, it proves man; it is loved in the boy, praised in the young man, welcomed in the old man; in every sex, in every age, it is beautiful."
Eighth, he portrays the image of patience to the life, chapter 15:
First: "Her countenance is tranquil and serene." Second, "her brow is clear, not contracted by any wrinkle of sorrow or anger." Third, "her eyebrows relaxed in a cheerful manner." Fourth, "her eyes cast down with humility, not with unhappiness." Fifth, "her mouth sealed with the blush of silence." Sixth, "her complexion such as belongs to the secure and innocent." Seventh, "a frequent nodding of her head against the devil, and a threatening laugh." Eighth, "her garment white around her breast and pressed close to her body, as one who is neither puffed up nor disturbed." Ninth, "there sits on the throne of her most gentle spirit, which is not gathered by the whirlwind, does not grow dark with clouds, but is of tender serenity, open and simple, which Elijah saw the third time; for where God is, there also is His nursling, namely patience: when therefore the Spirit of God descends, inseparable patience accompanies Him."