Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The Hebrews, in the absence of Moses, cast and worship a golden calf; whereupon God wishes to destroy them. Moses prays for them, and in verse 15, descending from the mountain, he breaks the tablets of the law, burns the calf, kills the idolaters, and again prays repeatedly for the people, saying, verse 32: "Either forgive them this sin, or blot me out of Your book."
Vulgate Text: Exodus 32:1-35
1. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, they gathered against Aaron and said: "Arise, make us gods that may go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him." 2. And Aaron said to them: "Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me." 3. And the people did as he commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. 4. And when he had received them, he fashioned them by casting, and made of them a molten calf, and they said: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt." 5. And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and cried out with the voice of a herald, saying: "Tomorrow is the solemnity of the Lord." 6. And rising in the morning, they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. 7. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Go, go down; your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have sinned. 8. They have quickly turned aside from the way that you showed them; and they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.' 9. And again the Lord said to Moses: "I see that this people is stiff-necked; 10. let Me alone, that My wrath may blaze against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make you into a great nation." 11. But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: "Why, O Lord, does Your wrath blaze against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12. Let not the Egyptians say, I pray: 'He cunningly led them out, to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the earth.' Let Your anger cease, and be appeased regarding the wickedness of Your people. 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, saying: 'I will multiply your offspring like the stars of heaven; and all this land of which I have spoken, I will give to your offspring, and you shall possess it forever.'" 14. And the Lord was appeased, so as not to do the evil which He had spoken against His people. 15. And Moses returned from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of testimony in his hand, written on both sides, 16. and made by the work of God; the writing also of God was engraved on the tablets. 17. Now when Joshua heard the tumult of the people shouting, he said to Moses: "The howl of battle is heard in the camp." 18. He answered: "It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee; but I hear the voice of singers." 19. And when he had come near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dances; and being very angry, he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20. And seizing the calf that they had made, he burned it and ground it to powder, which he scattered in the water, and gave it to the children of Israel to drink. 21. And he said to Aaron: "What has this people done to you, that you should bring upon them so great a sin?" 22. And he answered: "Let not my lord be angry; for you know this people, that they are prone to evil. 23. They said to me: 'Make us gods that may go before us; for as for this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.' 24. And I said to them: 'Which of you has gold?' They brought it and gave it to me; and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out." 25. So when Moses saw that the people were stripped (for Aaron had stripped them on account of the shame of their defilement, and had set them naked among their enemies), 26. and standing at the gate of the camp, he said: "If anyone is the Lord's, let him join me." And all the sons of Levi gathered to him; 27. and he said to them: "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Let every man put his sword on his thigh; go and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let every man slay his brother, and his friend, and his neighbor." 28. And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and there fell on that day about twenty-three thousand men. 29. And Moses said: "You have consecrated your hands today to the Lord, each one in his son and in his brother, that a blessing may be given to you." 30. And on the next day, Moses said to the people: "You have committed a very great sin; I will go up to the Lord, to see if in any way I may be able to entreat Him for your crime." 31. And returning to the Lord, he said: "I beseech You: this people has sinned a very great sin, and they have made for themselves gods of gold. Either forgive them this offense, 32. or if You will not, blot me out of Your book which You have written." 33. And the Lord answered him: "Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. 34. But you, go and lead this people where I have told you; My angel shall go before you. But on the day of visitation I will visit this sin of theirs also." 35. The Lord therefore struck the people for the guilt of the calf, which Aaron had made.
Verse 1: Arise, Make Us Gods That May Go Before Us
"Gods," that is, a God; for they were asking for only one. Hence Aaron, in satisfying them, made only one calf. But in the Hebrew language the names of God -- such as Elohim, Adonai, Shaddai -- are plural, and the Hebrews sometimes join singular verbs and adjectives to them, sometimes plural ones, as can be seen in Joshua XXIV, 19, and Deuteronomy V, 26, in the Hebrew.
The Latin translator here imitated this Hebraism by translating "gods" rather than "god," and this in order to set before the eyes more clearly the idolatry of the people: for idolaters, besides the one true God, believe in and worship another, so that according to them multiple gods must be posited; and because they, just as they turned aside from the one God to a second, so easily slide from this one into many others. St. Jerome noted this in Daniel III: "This," he says, "they call the custom of Sacred Scripture, that it should call a single idol by a plural name."
Note here the astonishing ingratitude and blindness of the people toward Moses and God. For they despise Moses, their leader, so kind and generous, because they are impatient at his delay; they seek gods as leaders, but ones that do not yet exist and that Aaron must make; they spurn the true God, who had freed them from the harsh slavery of Egypt through so many and such great miracles, who was leading them to Canaan, with whom shortly before they had entered into a solemn covenant in Chapter XXIV, who had given them the spoils of the Egyptians -- and now, despising God, they consecrate those spoils to an idol, namely the calf.
You will say: The Hebrews had the pillar as their guide on the way; why then do they seek other guides, namely gods, to go before them? I answer: This pillar had stood fixed the whole time that Moses was on the mountain, and did not move to lead the way before the Hebrews; but they wanted to break camp and hasten quickly to the promised land. Therefore they ask not for mortal leaders, who might be taken from them as Moses was, but for gods, such as they had seen in Egypt, so that Aaron might fashion for them an image of a calf or bull, namely Apis, into which a divine power might enter, give oracles, and lead the way into Canaan.
For as for this Moses, the man. The Hebrews speak of Moses contemptuously, as if of an unknown person. Josephus asserts that some of them thought Moses had been eaten by wild beasts, others that he had been taken up by God. Rabbi Solomon fables that a demon displayed a bier of Moses in the air to the Hebrews, so that they would think he was dead.
Verse 2: Take the Earrings
In Hebrew, "break off the earrings" -- fittingly, for they were about to lose, as a judgment upon themselves, the true ornaments of the ears, namely the words of God written on the tablets of the law, says Tertullian, Scorpiace, Chapter III. And St. Ambrose, writing to Romulus, explaining this passage says: "Fittingly the earrings are taken from the women, lest Eve should again hear the voice of the serpent. And therefore, because they had heard sacrilege, from their melted earrings was forged the image of sacrilege; likewise their rings, because they could no longer possess the seal of faith."
From the ears of your wives, and of your sons and daughters. Aaron did not dare to refuse this deed entirely -- namely the idol -- lest he be killed by the riotous mob; but he tried to divert it by this demand, calling for the golden earrings of their wives and daughters, which he thought these greedy and exceedingly vain women would grudgingly remove from themselves and give for an idol. But their perversity and misplaced generosity -- women otherwise most avaricious -- overcame all this. So say Theodoret, Abulensis, Cajetan, and Lipomanus. We see similar conduct among Christians from time to time: they pour out all their wealth on fleshly pleasures, pomp, and luxury, yet they grudgingly give a farthing to Christ; and therefore often what Christ does not receive, the treasury seizes.
Verse 4: He Fashioned It by Casting
The sculptor therefore composed the form of the calf out of earth, clay, or similar material, and with a stylus (as the Hebrew has it) he shaped the eyes, ears, mouth, and other parts of the calf; then into this mold he poured the melted gold of the earrings, and thus the golden calf was pressed out of it.
And he made of them a calf. From this the vanity of the fable of the Rabbis is evident, by which they try to free their Aaron from the crime of idolatry, saying that this calf was not fashioned by Aaron's skill, but by the work of Egyptian magicians, of whom many in that great rabble had followed the Hebrews leaving Egypt; for Aaron, they say, forced by the people, only threw the gold into the fire -- for thus Aaron excuses himself before Moses in verse 24 -- but the magicians, by the power of a demon, shaped it into the form of a calf. This opinion was partly accepted by Monceau, who recently and ingeniously tried to excuse Aaron from idolatry in his Aaron Vindicated, but this book of his (as I had forewarned) was noted at Rome and placed in the class of prohibited books.
For this opinion expressly contradicts Scripture here, which asserts that Aaron made the calf, that is, caused it to be made by a goldsmith. For thus it reads: "When he (Aaron) had received them, he fashioned them by casting, and made of them a molten calf." Again, verse 5: "And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it (the calf), and cried out with the voice of a herald, saying: 'Tomorrow is the solemnity of the Lord (of the calf).'" Therefore it was not just the idol, that is the calf, but Aaron also built an altar to it, dedicated it, and proclaimed a feast. What could be clearer? Finally, Moses, in Deuteronomy IX, 20, confesses his brother's crime, saying: "I entreated the Lord for my brother, because He wished to destroy him." Aaron therefore yielded to fear and to the raging people, and did not dare to resist them out of fear of death. More truthfully and courageously, Rabbi Moses of Gerona, cited by Lipomanus, accuses not the Egyptians but Aaron and his fellow Hebrews, saying: "No punishment has befallen you, O Israel, in which there is not at least an ounce of the iniquity of the calf."
Fittingly a calf. This calf was Apis, the Egyptian bull, also called by another name Serapis: so say Clement, Book VI, Constitutions 20, and Lactantius, Book IV, Chapter X. They describe him thus: Apis, they say, was black of body, with a white forehead, and marked by a white spot on his back, and was not permitted to exceed a certain number of years of life; and therefore they would mourn him when plunged into a lake and dead, and when another was found they rejoiced wonderfully. See Alexander ab Alexandro, Book VI of the Geniales, Chapter II.
Furthermore, that the Hebrews here did not cast an entire calf but only the head of a calf is expressly attested by St. Cyprian, in his book On the Advantage of Patience, near the end, where he calls it a "bull's head"; Ambrose, Epistle 62; Lactantius, Book IV, Chapter X; Augustine, on Psalm LXXIII; Jerome on Amos V, and often elsewhere. Hence some think the Hebrew word seraphim derives from this, meaning as it were "the face of a bull"; for schor in Hebrew means "bull," and appaim or appim means "face." Therefore also the calves that Jeroboam made and set up in Dan and Bethel, against which all the Prophets thunder so vehemently -- since they were made in imitation of this calf of Aaron, as is evident from III Kings XII, 28 -- it is likely that only the heads of calves were made, and therefore they are sometimes called "calves" (masculine) and sometimes "heifers" (feminine): for from the head alone, the sex can hardly be distinguished.
Although, if the head of this calf did give any indication of sex, it is more likely to have been that of a heifer than of a bull-calf; for Herodotus, Book II, teaches that female cattle especially were sacred to Isis among the Egyptians. Hence Josephus, Book VIII, Chapter III, says that Jeroboam's calves were heifers; the Septuagint also calls them heifers, III Kings XII, 28 and following. Therefore this calf is to be understood not as male but as female, if indeed the sex was indicated, as I have said. For bos (ox) in Latin refers to both female and male. So says Ribera on Hosea X, number 12. There is a deep silence about this calf in Josephus; evidently he did not wish, writing for pagans to whom he wanted to commend his nation, to defame it with so foolish a crime of idolatry.
Molten. Here again you should dismiss the nonsense of Rabbi Solomon, who imagines that this calf was alive, that it walked and ate; and that when Aaron saw this, he built an altar to it. He proves this from Psalm CVI, where it says: "They exchanged their glory for the likeness of a calf that eats hay." But the foolish man does not notice that the text does not say "into a calf," but "into the likeness" -- that is, an idol -- "of a calf that eats hay." For this idol of a calf was cast from gold, as is stated here: it was therefore golden and lifeless, not alive and animate. So say Lyranus and Abulensis, who refutes him at length and with great effort.
These are your gods, O Israel. The Chaldean paraphrase: "These are your fear, O Israel," that is to say: These are your gods, whom you ought to fear and worship. Thus the foolish fear gold and stones, but do not fear God, who holds their breath and their soul in His hand, to cast it down to hell or raise it up to heaven.
Verse 5: He Built an Altar Before It
And when Aaron saw this -- namely, not the calf walking about, as Rabbi Solomon explains, but the crowd thus congratulating one another and acclaiming the calf: "These are your gods, O Israel."
He built an altar before it -- the idol of the calf. Remarkable was this fall of Aaron, that to gain the favor of the people, and perhaps because in the absence of Moses he was seeking the leadership and command of the people, he now built an altar to the calf not out of fear but of his own accord, and decreed a dedication and feast for it; and he even attributed and imposed on the calf the Tetragrammaton name (for this is what is in the Hebrew), which is incommunicable and belongs to the true God alone. Who can trust in himself and his own holiness? Who does not work out his salvation with fear and trembling?
Heretics object: Therefore the whole Church with its head can fail and apostatize from God; for thus Aaron the pontiff failed here, along with the entire people. I reply that Aaron had not yet been created pontiff: Moses therefore was the head and pontiff of the people, and he did not fail; the Levites also did not fail, as is evident from verse 26. Therefore neither the head nor the body of the Church failed. Moreover, Aaron did not fail in faith, but in the profession of faith: just as Peter, in denying Christ, did not lose his faith, but sinned against the confession of it -- let him be on guard, when he sees Aaron, Origen, Tertullian, and similar cedars of Lebanon falling, and falling so shamefully and deeply?
Verse 6: The People Sat Down to Eat
The people sat down to eat -- from the peace offerings sacrificed to the calf, so as to celebrate its feast and solemnity with a common, sacred banquet.
And they rose up to play -- dancing, singing, leading choruses; for Moses descending from the mountain saw these, verse 19. See here how foolish and impure merriment is a daughter of gluttony, as St. Gregory teaches, Moralia I, 5. Epicharmus in Athenaeus, Book II, deplores the same abuse of sacrifices among the Gentiles: "From the sacrifice," he says, "came a feast, from the feast came drinking, from the drinking a revel, from the revel a sport, from the sport a trial, from the trial a condemnation, from the condemnation fetters, gangrene, and punishment." Hence they called drinking-bouts methas because meta to thyein, that is, after the sacrifices, they indulged in pleasure and drunkenness. St. Ambrose, Epistle 36 to Sabinus: "When someone," he says, "begins to indulge in luxury, he begins to deviate from the true faith. Thus he commits two great crimes: the disgraces of the flesh and the sacrileges of the mind, etc.; whoever has gorged and immersed himself in pleasures of this kind falls into the snares of perfidy. For the people sat down to eat and drink, and demanded that gods be made for them."
Moreover, some conclude that this sport was impure from the fact that they appear to have played in honor of the calf (which is an especially lascivious and libidinous animal). For the calf, therefore, and with the calf, they frolicked. So says Tertullian in his book On Fasting, which he wrote, already a heretic and Montanist, against the Psychics (that is, the carnal: thus that stern and severe man called Christians and Catholics, as if they were living too loosely); for he says: "They rose up to play; understand," he says, "the modesty of Holy Scripture, which designated no sport except an impure one" (whence the Rabbis crudely explain "to play" as meaning to fornicate). For thus the Gentile Romans and Greeks put on games in honor of their gods, and said and did whatever they pleased, including the most obscene things. They also put on spectacles, which, being dedicated to idols, were equally unlawful for Christians to attend, as idol-offerings were, as Tertullian teaches in his book On Spectacles, which he wrote for this reason.
See here the blindness of carnal men, who in their sins feast in security, play and exult, when the vengeance of God hangs over them. So Balthasar feasted in delight, when he saw a hand writing on the wall, mene, tekel, peres: which brought him destruction that very night. Do you want a more recent example? Hear a memorable one. Ugolino, leader of the Guelph faction, when, with the Ghibellines either expelled or struck down, he ruled everything, on his birthday invited all his men to a banquet, where, extolling himself and his fortune, he asked one of his men whether anything was lacking to him. The man, as if prophetic, replied: "The wrath of God alone cannot long be far from such prosperous affairs." And so, as the Guelphs' strength declined, the Ghibellines, seizing arms, surrounded his house, attacked it, killed one son and one grandson who attempted to resist by force; they locked him and two sons and three grandsons in a tower, barring the doors and casting the keys into the Arno river. There by starvation, before his own eyes, in his own lap, the dying parent watched his dearest ones dying. When he cried out and begged that his enemies be content with human punishments, the opportunity for sacramental confession and holy viaticum was denied, as Paul Aemilianus relates, Book VIII of the History of the French.
Thus St. Ambrose, traveling from Milan to Rome, when he had encountered an impious host, who among other things affirmed that he had never experienced adverse fortune, turned to his companions and said: "Let us depart from here quickly, lest divine vengeance overwhelm us here. For God does not dwell in these buildings." And when Ambrose had advanced a little way with his companions, the earth opening up swallowed those buildings together with the host and his entire family.
Verse 7: The Lord Spoke to Moses
It is sufficiently clear from the end of the preceding chapter that these things happened after the tablets of the law had been received, when Moses was already descending from Sinai, and that the Lord spoke these things to him during that very descent. So says Cajetan.
Your people have sinned. "Your" -- no longer mine, who have sinned so grievously against Me, who have abandoned Me and turned to the calf. So St. Jerome on Daniel chapter 9. For "sinned," the Hebrew is schichet, that is, "corrupted," "broke," namely My covenant, and consequently their faith, way, and life.
Verse 10: Let Me Alone, That My Fury May Be Kindled Against Them
One asks: Why, if God wished to be angry and punish the people, did He reveal this to Moses who would try to prevent it? Julian the Apostate, from this passage, slanders the God of the Hebrews as being changeable, inconstant, and repenting of His own counsel. But St. Cyril, Book V against him, and Theodoret here, and St. Gregory, Moralia IX, 11 and 12, respond well to him that God did this not from changeableness of mind, but first, to show how much He values His saints and their prayers. "For the sentence of God is broken by the prayers of the saints," says St. Jerome on Ezekiel 13. This is what "let me alone" signifies, that is, as the Chaldean translates, "cease your prayer," which binds My hands. Second, to show His immense clemency; for He had not decreed the destruction of the Hebrews by an absolute and efficacious will, but by a conditional one -- if, namely, no one interposed himself as mediator and intercessor for them. He Himself wished this condition to be set, so that He might reveal His clemency, and therefore He revealed to Moses the sin of the people, so that Moses might pray for them and He, having been entreated, might spare the people. "What else," says St. Gregory, "is 'let me alone' but to offer an occasion for intercession?" And, as Theodoret says, "to say: Prevent me?"
God wished to teach us here that in anger we should do nothing rashly, which we might later regret, but should let it subside and compose our mind to calm and clemency before we say or do anything. Thus Athenodorus, bidding farewell to Augustus Caesar on account of old age, left him this admonition: "When you are angry, Augustus, say or do nothing before you have recited the twenty-four letters of the alphabet to yourself." Whereupon Augustus, seizing his hand, said: "I still have need of your presence," and kept him with himself for a whole year more, saying: "The reward of silence is safety." The witness is Plutarch in the Apophthegms of the Romans.
Therefore God is not changed here, but the things arranged by Him are changed, according to His own provident arrangement; nor again is God's sentence, pronounced against sinners, changed in God Himself, since it is eternal in God and essential to Him; but it is changed in the sinners themselves, namely in their absolution from the punishment to which He had condemned them. And this happens not from vanity or fickleness of judgment, but from the intercession of saints, or the conversion of those against whom this sentence had been pronounced. So St. Jerome on Daniel chapter 5, and St. Gregory, Moralia XX, chapter 24.
Note: When anger, fury, indignation, and other passions are attributed to God in Scripture, they do not signify any disturbance, but the pure operation and energy of God. So St. Augustine, Book I Against the Adversary of the Law, chapter 20: "Repentance," he says, "does not come after an error; the anger of God does not have the heat of a disturbed mind; the mercy of God does not have the wretched heart of one who suffers with another, from which it received its name in the Latin language; the zeal of God does not have the malice of the mind. But the repentance of God means an unexpected change of things placed in His power; the anger of God is the punishment of sin; the mercy of God is the goodness of one who helps; the zeal of God is that providence by which He does not allow those subject to Him to love with impunity what He forbids."
And I will make you into a great nation -- not so much one to be born from you, as one to be subjected to you and governed under your leadership. This is evident from Numbers 14:12, where a similar promise is repeated to Moses, as is clear from the Hebrew; therefore "into a nation" means the same as "over a nation." So Abulensis.
Verse 11: But Moses Prayed
"Such," says St. Chrysostom, Homily 12 on John chapter 1, "ought those to be to whom the care of souls has been committed, that they would rather perish with those entrusted to them than be saved without them."
St. Ambrose also, in his book On Duties II, chapter 7, marvels at the meekness of Moses: first, in swallowing up, devouring, and forgetting all the injuries inflicted on him by the people; second, in rejecting the leadership of another, greater nation offered him by God; third, in praying so earnestly for the ungrateful Hebrews. And he says this was done so that the Hebrews would love him more for his meekness than admire him for his deeds and wonders. For, as St. Gregory says, Moralia XXVII, 7: "The charity in his holy breast burned more intensely from persecution," and as if by antiperistasis sharpened itself all the more, just as heat sharpens and intensifies itself when it is surrounded and assailed by cold.
Similar was the charity of Abraames the monk and bishop, who interceded and gave surety for the unbelievers who afflicted him, as Theodoret relates in his Philotheus, chapter 17. And of the innocent Religious who, in order to win over a guilty brother, performed penance with him, of whom Rufinus speaks in the Lives of the Fathers, Book IX, number 12. And of another who, to preserve a brother from falling, complied with him in all things with wonderful gentleness, of whom the same source speaks, Book V, chapter 5, number 28. And of Serapion Sindonites, who, as Palladius testifies in the Lausiac History, chapter 83, sold himself as a slave to a certain noble Manichaean, in order to convert him and his whole family from heresy, which he accomplished within two years. And of that holy monk who, to convert a fallen brother who was continually fornicating, undertook a long penance on his behalf, of whom John Moschus speaks in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 97.
Verse 12: Craftily He Led Them Out
Craftily (in Hebrew, with malice or malignity, that is, craftily and deceitfully) He led them out -- namely so that He might do them evil and destroy them in the desert.
Be appeased. In Hebrew, "repent of the evil," that is, change and revoke the sentence by which You decreed to inflict evil upon the Hebrews and to punish them for their idolatry.
Verse 14: And the Lord Was Appeased
Namely so as not to destroy the people as He had intended, but rather to chastise them with another plague, concerning which see the last verse. See what the prayers of one Moses accomplished here before God, which obtained the salvation of the entire people. Augustus Caesar, according to Plutarch, when Alexandria had been captured and the citizens were expecting the worst, said he would spare the city: first, on account of its greatness and beauty; second, on account of its founder Alexander; third, on account of his friend Arius. Far more nobly here, God spared the entire people on account of one Moses, His friend.
Verse 15: Moses Returned from the Mountain
In Hebrew, "and he looked," or "and he turned himself, and descended from the mountain." Whence it appears that Moses, having first conversed with God, having already obtained pardon for the people and the conversation being finished, looked toward the mountain and the people, and turned his face toward the descent.
Carrying the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides -- in Hebrew, "written on two sides, here and there." For they were small tablets, since Moses carried them by hand, and since they were deposited in the small ark of the testimony, they could not be either large or heavy; otherwise they would have broken the sides of the ark by their weight. But the letters of the tablets were large, so that they could be read from a distance by the people, and therefore it was necessary to write on both sides of the tablets, so that the complete Decalogue could be written on them. So Abulensis. Others think that the Decalogue was written twice on these tablets, namely once on each side, so that the Decalogue written on the tablets on both sides could be read by those standing on either side. So Lipomanus.
On account of this breaking of the tablets of the law, a fast was afterward imposed upon and established for the Jews on the seventeenth day of the fourth month, on which this breaking occurred, as is evident from the Calendar of the Hebrews, which Genebrardus translated into Latin and prefixed to his commentaries on the Psalms. That the breaking occurred on that day is evident from the fact that Moses, immediately after the promulgation of the law, which was made through an angel on Sinai on the sixth day of the third month -- as I showed in chapter 19, verses 11 and 16 -- ascended the mountain and remained there for forty days. From this it follows that he descended from the mountain to the people, and consequently broke the tablets, on the seventeenth day of the fourth month. For count forty days from the sixth day of the third month, and you will arrive at the sixteenth day of the fourth month; on the following day, namely the seventeenth, Moses descended and then broke the tablets.
Hence St. Jerome, Rupert, Ribera, and others interpret that passage of Zechariah 8:19 -- "The fast of the fourth, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be for the house of Judah" -- as follows: the fast of the fourth month was the one imposed upon the Jews on account of the broken tablets of the law; the fast of the fifth was imposed because in the fifth month the Hebrews were commanded not to ascend the mountain, but to wander for forty years on long detours toward the Holy Land, so that all who had murmured might die in the wilderness, Numbers 14. The fast of the seventh was the one imposed on account of the slaying of Gedaliah, about which see 4 Kings 25:25. The fast of the tenth was imposed because in that month Ezekiel and the others who were in the Babylonian captivity heard that Jerusalem had been captured and the Temple burned.
Verse 18: It Is Not the Noise of Those Urging to Battle
The Chaldean: it is not the voice of those crying "Strongly!"; nor of those crying "Weakly!"; or, it is neither the cry of the strong who conquer, nor of the weak who are conquered. For those who win in battle utter joyful cries of pressing or now complete victory; those who are conquered utter sad, disorderly, and mournful wails, while some are wounded, others breathe their last, others are trampled underfoot, others push others along in flight. Whence clearly R. Solomon translates: this voice is not of men crying "Victory, victory!"; nor is it the voice of the weak, crying "Woe, woe!" or "Flee, flee!"; the Septuagint: it is not the voice of those singing of flight; Oleaster: it is not the voice of those responding with strength, that is, boasting of their powers, nor of those responding with defeat, that is, that they have been cut down. What kind of voice is it, then? But a voice, he says, of those singing; the Chaldean: of those playing; the Septuagint: of those singing over wine I hear.
Verse 19: He Threw the Tablets and Broke Them
Moses did this moved by holy zeal against the public impiety, judging it absurd to bring the law of God to a drunken people who were so wickedly violating it through their idol. So St. Chrysostom, Jerome (Against Jovinian, Book II), and Ambrose (On Elijah and Fasting, chapter 6): "The tablets of the law," he says, "which abstinence received, drunkenness caused to be shattered." Mystically, it was signified that the former law -- the Old, that is -- was to be abolished, with another succeeding it, namely the Evangelical law. So St. Ambrose on Psalm 28, Augustine, Question 144, and others.
Verse 20: He Burned the Calf and Ground It to Powder
And seizing the calf which they had made, he burned it -- he cast the calf into fire with certain blended herbs, so that it might be liquefied into a mass and, as it were, reduced to charcoal.
And he ground it -- in Hebrew, "and he ground it to fineness," as if to say: Moses pounded that charcoal, or the mass extracted from the fire, and ground it into fine dust.
Which he sprinkled in the water and gave the children of Israel to drink from it. Moses sprinkled the dust of the golden calf into the torrent that descended from Sinai and passed through the camp of the Hebrews, at the time when the Hebrews came to draw water from it, and indeed in the very act of drawing water; moreover, as it seems, he even compelled them to drink from it. Moses did this out of zeal, so that the apostates might devour their idol, and so that they might learn to despise what they see cast into the privy, says St. Jerome to Fabiola.
Mystically, St. Augustine, Book XXII Against Faustus, chapter 93: The calf, he says, is the idolatry of the Gentiles, which, through the fire of the zeal of Christ the Lord, through the edge of the Word, and the water of baptism, was rather absorbed by those it tries to absorb, namely by the Gentiles themselves.
Verse 22: You Know This People, That They Are Prone to Evil
The Septuagint: hormen tou laou toutou to hormema, that is, "you know the fury, the eagerness, and the almost raging impulse of this people," which, namely, I alone could not resist.
Verse 24: I Cast It into the Fire, and This Calf Came Out
I cast it into the fire (so that, melted from there, it might flow into the cast form of a calf), and this calf came out. Aaron therefore does not deny the crime, but minimizes it with his words, so as to soften his brother's anger.
For Aaron had stripped him (both of their earrings, as I said, and by the permission of God) on account of the disgrace of their filth. In Hebrew: "for a mockery to their enemies." For the Hebrew word schimtsa means a hissing, a whisper, a derision, a mockery. So the Septuagint. Our translator explains more distinctly both evils that befell the people from Aaron's calf, and says first, that on account of the filth -- that is, their idol of the calf (for the Hebrews call idols gillulim, that is, dung, because they are to be abominated as filth and dung, as is said in Deuteronomy 7, last verse) -- the people had been stripped of their former honor, which was that this people was and was considered the people of God. For that honor had now through the calf been turned into disgrace, so that the Hebrews were now a mockery to their neighboring enemies. He says second, that this people, deserted by God, stood as if naked and unarmed among so many and such fierce enemies. Whence he says: "And he had placed them naked among their enemies."
Verse 25: Moses Saw That the People Were Stripped
The Jerusalem Targum translates it thus: Moses seeing that the Hebrews had been stripped of the golden crown that had been on their heads with the Tetragrammaton name, as a sign of liberty and obedience. For the Hebrews seem, especially the leaders, after the law was received on Sinai, as a sign of the faith and obedience promised to God, to have adorned their heads with beautiful crowns, with the Tetragrammaton name inscribed on them. In the following year, when the tabernacle was erected, this was granted to Aaron alone, as the Lord had commanded Moses on the mountain, Exodus chapter 28, verse 39. So R. Solomon, and Jerome Prado on Ezekiel chapter 24, page 312: "Stripped," he says, means "deprived of his hair," that is, despoiled of his locks, deprived of his crown and diadem, which he had worn as a badge of liberty.
But this is mere conjecture, says Abulensis; for Scripture makes no mention of these crowns bearing the Tetragrammaton name. Indeed, the Tetragrammaton name is assigned solely to the pontiff on the plate, and the Hebrews attributed this name to him alone at all times. Second, the adornment of which the Hebrews were stripped was taken away by Aaron, as follows; for it says: "For Aaron had stripped them." But Aaron did not take away crowns from the Hebrews, but earrings to fashion the calf. Third, the Hebrews after the sin did not lay aside their adornment, and therefore not crowns either, if they had any; for they lay aside this adornment only at God's command in the following chapter, verse 6. Again, Vatablus translates: he rejected -- seeing that Moses saw that the people had been exposed, that is, that their infamous idolatry had been uncovered, by which they had deserted their God who had led them out and protected them, among the neighboring nations, which therefore could have attacked and oppressed the Hebrews. But this interpretation too is less fitting, and less corresponds to the Hebrew para, which does not mean to uncover, but to strip, to weaken, to render unwarlike and feeble.
I say therefore that the people had been stripped both of their earrings, which they had given to Aaron to make the calf, and consequently and more importantly (for the loss of earrings was a small matter) of their honor, and of the help and assistance of God, whom they had deserted through this crime of theirs. So that if enemies had then attacked them, with God in anger withdrawing His patronage, the people would undoubtedly have been overthrown and slaughtered, as happened in Numbers 14:45. And this could easily have happened, since the neighboring enemies knew that the Hebrews had now through this calf deserted their God, and therefore had in turn been deserted by Him by whom they had always been so miraculously led out and protected, and therefore could most easily be overthrown, conquered, and destroyed by them.
Verse 26: If Anyone Is the Lord's, Let Him Join Me
Standing in the gate of the camp -- in the entrance of the camp; for the camp of the Hebrews was not surrounded by a wall like a city, so as to have gates properly so called.
If anyone is the Lord's, let him join me -- as if to say: Whoever is not a servant and worshiper of the calf, but of Jehovah, that is, of the Lord, and whoever has zeal for the Lord, to avenge the injury done to Him through this calf, let him ally himself with me.
And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him. Hence it appears that most of the Levites did not consent to the sin of the people and the worship of the calf, and that it displeased them. Indeed, R. Solomon and Abulensis think that none from the tribe of Levi consented to this idolatry. But this is false: for Aaron consented and made the calf; and many of the Levites followed Aaron as the head of the tribe of Levi. Again, many Levites were slain here by their own: therefore they had been participants in the crime and the calf. The antecedent is evident from verse 29, where Moses says to the Levites who were the avengers: "You have consecrated your hands today to the Lord, each one in his son and in his brother, that a blessing may be given you."
You will ask: How then are all the sons of Levi said here to have gathered to Moses, if some of them were slain? I reply: They are called "all," that is, nearly all, almost all; very many gathered to Moses. For the word "all" in Scripture sometimes signifies not absolutely all, but a great multitude, as is evident from Judges chapter 20, verse 11, where all Israel is said to have gathered, although the men of Jabesh Gilead were absent, as is stated in the following chapter, verse 8. Similarly in 2 Kings 16, and chapter 17, verse 14.
Note here the zeal of Moses and the Levites for the glory of God, against the idol and the idolaters. Similar, though different in manner, was the zeal of the Christian soldiers whom Julian the Apostate sought by trickery to lead into idolatry. For when he invited them to receive a gift from his hand, and on withdrawing to cast certain grains of incense, as a mark of honor, into the fire before him and his attendants -- who interpreted this ceremony as made to idols and as a tacit renunciation of Christianity -- these soldiers, when they discovered the Emperor's intention and deceit after the fact, went furiously to Julian and cried out: "We have not received gifts, Emperor, but have been condemned to death; we were not summoned for honor, but branded with disgrace. Grant this favor to your soldiers: slaughter and slay us for Christ, under whose sole command we serve. Repay fire with fire: for His sake reduce us to ashes. Cut off the hands that we criminally extended; the feet with which we wickedly ran. Give your gold to others who will not later regret having received it. Christ is enough and more than enough for us, whom we esteem above all things." Julian, inflamed with anger and grudging them the glory of martyrdom, punished them with exile. Gregory of Nazianzus narrates the matter at length in his first Oration Against Julian.
With similar zeal Gideon overthrew the altar of Baal, Judges chapter 6, verse 31. Gideon was imitated by Wolfred, martyr of Sweden, who preaching to the people said: "If your god Tostan is powerful, let him avenge himself"; and seizing an axe he cut the idol to pieces. For this he was pierced by a thousand swords from the bystanders and fell. So Crantzius Metropolitanus, Book IV, chapter 8.
Verse 27: Thus Says the Lord God of Israel
Moses, as ruler and leader of the people, had the power of the sword over them, and this from God: for he had been appointed leader by Him, not by the people. But here is added the will and command of the Lord, to further incite the Levites to avenge the offense against God.
Let each one kill his brother, etc. -- as if to say: Let each one kill whoever he meets, even if most closely bound to him. For nearly all among the people were guilty and complicit in the idolatry of the calf, and this they sufficiently revealed both by their voices, their adornment, their dances, their drunkenness, and other ways. Others, cited by Rupert and Abulensis, hold that the guilty were distinguished from the innocent by drinking the ashes of the calf: for from this the guilty contracted a golden beard or golden lips, while others contracted a disease. But these are Jewish fables.
See how Moses, the meekest of mortals, put on severity and wrath for God, so that by the punishment of a few he might reconcile God to the whole people. For this is holy anger, which is angry at sin. "For anger is the whetstone of virtue"; and: "He has no mind who has no anger." So Archidamus said to one who praised Charilaus for being equally mild to everyone: "Who can," he said, "justly be praised, who shows himself mild even to the wicked?" See St. Basil, Sermon On Anger, and Gregory, Moralia XX, 6, and Pastoral Rule III, chapter 23. "Behold," says Gregory, "(Moses) who sought the life of all at the cost of his own death, extinguished the lives of a few by the sword: within he was kindled by the fires of love, without by the zeal of severity. As a strong ambassador on both sides, he pleaded the cause of the people before God by prayers, and the cause of God before the people by swords. Within, loving, he resisted divine wrath by supplication; without, being severe, he consumed guilt by striking. He aided all more quickly through the offense of a few; and therefore God heard him more quickly when he acted for the people, because He saw what he was prepared to do against the people for God. In governing the people, therefore, Moses combined both, so that neither discipline was lacking to mercy, nor mercy to discipline."
Tropologically, St. Ambrose to Romulus: "He," he says, "is the true Levite, the avenger and champion of God, who kills the flesh and the body of passions and vices, in order to save the soul, so that it may no longer be the flesh of sin, but of God. For who is more a brother or neighbor to the soul than the flesh?" And a little before: "The holier ministries of the Levites are chosen for this above others, whose portion is God. For they do not know how to spare their own, who know nothing as their own, because to the saints God is everything."
Verse 28: There Fell About Twenty-Three Thousand Men
So the Roman Bibles consistently read, and the older Latin texts generally; likewise St. Gregory on 1 Kings 14, Rupert, and nearly all the ancient commentators after St. Jerome. So also reads St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 10; whence it is also probable that the Septuagint (which Paul usually follows) read the same, namely eikosi treis chiliadas (twenty-three thousand), instead of eis trischilious (three thousand), as it now reads. And certainly among so great a multitude of sinners, three thousand is a small number, especially since elsewhere, as in Numbers 25, twenty-four thousand were slain for a similar idolatry.
On the contrary, the Hebrew, Chaldean, Latin, Complutensian, and Royal editions, Tertullian (Scorpiace 3), St. Ambrose (Epistle 56 to Romulus), Isidore, Rabanus, and Philo read three thousand, not twenty-three thousand. Where this variation or error arose is uncertain. Lyranus thinks that our translator included those who, in verse 35, are said to have been struck by the Lord, and that these were twenty thousand. But this is conjecture, and our translator is not translating that passage here, but the present one, in which the Hebrew now has only three thousand; for those in verse 35 were struck not on this day, but afterward. Perhaps the error originally arose in the Hebrew from the fact that some scribe wrote the letter caph, which is the mark for twenty among the Hebrews, as an abbreviation for "twenty," and others afterward took the caph as if it were a mark of similitude, accepting it as "about."
See here what one magnanimous leader can do. Chabrias rightly said: "An army of deer led by a lion is more terrible than an army of lions led by a deer."
Like a timid deer, Aaron yielded to the idolaters and lost the camp of a people faithful and strong like lions. Like a fearless lion, Moses invaded the camp, subdued it, and slaughtered twenty-three thousand; and so he withstood the wrath of God, and from deer made them lions again. Thus the Thebans, like timid deer, always served before and after Epaminondas, but as long as Epaminondas their lionhearted leader lived, they dominated others; so that one Epaminondas was worth more than the entire republic of the Thebans, says Plutarch in his Life. Such was Alfonso, king of Aragon, whose saying was: "I do not shrink from dangers however great, without which no one has ever achieved glory." So Panormitanus in his Life. Hence also Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, coming to Henry king of England to incite him to war for the Holy Land, when the king offered him a great weight of gold for the purpose, replied: "We need not money, but an emperor." And so he urged the king -- but did not persuade him -- to go himself as war leader ahead of others into the Holy Land. So Paul Aemilianus, Book VI of the History of the French.
Verse 29: You Have Consecrated Your Hands Today to the Lord
Hence the Levites, on account of their zeal, merited the blessing and the priesthood. Hear Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse 9: "Who said to his father and to his mother: I do not know you; and to his brothers: I do not recognize them; and they did not know their own sons. They kept Your word and guarded Your covenant, Your judgments, O Jacob, and Your law, O Israel: they shall place incense in Your wrath, and a holocaust upon Your altar." So also Phinehas, on account of similar zeal, by which he slew those who were fornicating and worshiping Beelphegor, merited the high priesthood, Numbers 25:15.
Verses 30-31: Moses Returns to the Lord
From this it is gathered that Moses, on the day after his descent from the mountain -- where he had been for forty days -- ascended the mountain again, and remained there another forty days, to receive the second tablets of the law, as will be clear in chapter 34, verse 28.
If by any means I may be able to entreat Him. For what was said in verse 14 -- "the Lord was appeased" -- understand this as meaning that He would not destroy the entire people in a single slaughter and disaster, as He had intended. Therefore Moses rightly feared that God, remembering so great an offense, might destroy the people piecemeal, part by part. Lest He do this, Moses ascended the mountain again to pray and entreat. Note: Moses prefaced his prayer with justice and just punishment of the sin; for this is an effective disposition for entreating God, as I taught from St. Gregory on verse 27.
Verses 31-32: Blot Me Out of Your Book
One asks, in what sense Moses desired to be blotted from the book of life, and whether this prayer is lawful and holy.
First, Cajetan understands it of the book, that is, the decree of leadership, as if Moses were saying: Either forgive, or blot me from Your book in which You designated me leader of another nation, if You destroy this one of mine.
Second, St. Jerome (to Algasia) and St. Gregory (Moralia X, 7) take it of the book of the living, not in heaven but in the present life, as if to say: Either forgive, or kill me and take me from this life.
Third, Hugh of St. Victor responds that Moses said this not from reason, but from the impulse of human emotion; for no one can be blotted from the book of life.
Fourth, others take it as the book of the law or rather of the office of lawgiver, as if to say: Either forgive, or blot and remove me from this office, that I may not be the people's lawgiver.
But these interpretations do not satisfy the burning charity and petition of Moses, nor do they fit these and the following words, nor the very response of the Lord, who replies that He will blot out not Moses but those who have sinned from His book -- namely the book of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven. For the book of life, or the book of God, everywhere in Scripture signifies the enrollment of those who are elected, either absolutely or inchoatively, to eternal life -- the enrollment, I say, and the recording in the divine mind and memory, which is the book of eternal predestination. This is evident from Daniel 12:1; Revelation 13:8 and 17:8, and chapter 21, verse 27; Philippians 4:3. So teach St. Augustine, City of God XX, chapter 15; St. Ambrose on Psalm 68; Ansbert and Haymo on Revelation 3; Rupert here; and St. Bernard, Sermon 12 on the Song of Songs.
Fifth, therefore St. Augustine (Question 147), Lyranus, Abulensis, Lipomanus, and others more probably judge that this is a hyperbole, which only signifies Moses' vehement desire for the salvation of the people. It is as if a son, seeing a servant most dear to him being justly cast out of the house, should say to his father: Do not cast this man out, or if you cast him out, cast me out too. For thus Moses also says: Either forgive the people, or blot me out -- not because he truly wished to be blotted out (for that was impossible), but so that by this expression he might somehow reveal his immense desire, which he could not effectively reveal in any other way. Hence Moses does not say: Blot me out, provided You forgive them, as if he desired to make an exchange of himself for the people and their absolution; but rather: if You do not do this, blot me out. Hence also St. Augustine (Question 147) says that Moses said this with confidence, as if to say: Either forgive the people, or blot me from Your book; but I know that You will not blot me out; therefore it remains that You forgive and spare the people.
But Rupert says beautifully: We ought not to compress words spoken by Moses seriously and most gravely into a feeble meaning, just because we, being poor and cold, are ignorant of the riches of Moses' soul burning with charity; nor should we reduce this excess of Moses' charity to demand according to our ordinary laws of charity and prudence. I say therefore: The words of Moses explicitly signify what I reviewed in the fifth exposition; implicitly, however, they contain more. The sense therefore is: If You do not forgive the people, blot me out of Your book, that is: If You do not forgive them, I do not wish to be written in Your book; for I would rather be blotted out than have the people not forgiven. Either therefore forgive them, or blot me out; for it is intolerable to me to be written in Your book and to have my people blotted out of it. For I value the people more, I love them more than myself. And so implicitly, with Paul, I wish to be made anathema for the people, and to be blotted out of Your book, so that they, having received forgiveness from You, may be written in it. For I would rather that I alone be blotted out, than that so many millions of people be blotted out.
This sense can be more readily drawn from the Hebrew; for it reads thus: if You forgive, and if not, blot me out of Your book which You have written. These words, broken and concise on account of vehement emotion, can be completed thus: If You forgive, blot me out of Your book, that is: I wish to be blotted out so that You may forgive them; punish me so that You may spare them; I offer myself as a ransom and expiatory sacrifice for my people. And if You do not forgive them, again I pray and say: Blot me out of Your book, because I cannot bear to see myself written in the book and my people blotted out of it -- that is, that I should be saved and my people should perish. Either therefore write both and save both; or if You wish to blot out and destroy one of the two, rather blot out and destroy me alone than the entire people. For I would rather that Your glory be celebrated by the whole people than by me alone; I would rather that so many thousands of those present and of those to be born from them in the future should worship, praise, and love You, than that I alone should be happy through You. I would also rather that the whole people be saved and blessed than I alone. For Moses presses God with this dilemma, as it were, and almost compels Him to forgive the people.
Hence St. Chrysostom, on Romans chapter 9, teaches that Moses and Paul transcended in thought not only all the struggles and deaths of the present life, but also, for the sake of God, whom they loved more than themselves, rising above the heavens and angels and despising all invisible things, not only sought but truly and seriously wished to fall from the very enjoyment of God, from blessedness and ineffable glory (for this is what the book of life, or the book of God, signifies), saying, as it were: Blot me out of Your book, that is, so that I may not attain to eternal blessedness, to which You have enrolled me. From there, I say, blot me out rather than blot out and destroy this people, Yours and mine. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius on Romans chapter 9, Cassian, Conference XXIII, chapter 6, St. Bernard, Sermon 12 on the Song of Songs.
You will say: To wish to be deprived of eternal blessedness is contrary to charity, and is a sin; therefore Moses did not wish this. I respond that Moses here only compared his own glory, insofar as it was his own personal blessedness and good, with the glory of God and the salvation of so great a people, and preferred to lack his own rather than to endanger the glory of God -- both among the Gentiles, who would have reproached the people and God if God had destroyed His people in the desert, and among the Hebrews themselves, who would all have perished forever and would have blasphemed God in hell. Nor did Moses look further into the matter, but wholly carried away by love of God and His glory, he did not consider other things attached to this his vow; or certainly, if he did consider what is objected, he thought that charity on the way is the same as that in the homeland, and would not be essentially more perfect or more intense there than it is here. But the accidental perfection of charity flowing from the enjoyment of God, as well as the inclination to enjoy God, he set aside, and he allowed himself to fall from these by this vow of his, inasmuch as in exchange there would be restored to him both greater grace and essential charity through this heroic act by which he loved God so greatly; nor did he doubt that God would most abundantly reward him through other graces.
Moreover, greater glory would also be restored to God, to be spread through so many thousands of people, which therefore he fervently desired from God, so that in order to obtain from God the safety of God's glory, and at the same time of the people whose leader he had been appointed by God, he desired to be deprived of his own blessedness -- indeed, as Chrysostom says in his Homily On the Cross and the Thief, he desired to be a partaker of the punishment to be inflicted on the idolatrous people, and wished to perish with them, as the same author says in his Homily On Love Toward Persecutors, as if Moses were saying: Either forgive the people, or if You cast them out from You and from Your house, cast me out together with them. For I cannot be torn or separated from this people of mine and Yours; I cannot bear to see this people of mine and Yours perish. Indeed, if they perish, let me perish with them also, so that I may thus attest the love which I bear, burning in my breast, toward Your people, and consequently toward You, O Lord.
This vow of Moses therefore flowed from charity, and Moses believed that charity toward both God and the people demanded this vow from him, as it were. For Moses directed this vow of his toward this end: that through it he might obtain pardon for the people, and thus more greatly promote the glory of God among the people. And therefore he did not doubt that this very thing would be pleasing to God Himself. And so there was no sin here: for although Moses implicitly asked to lack beatific love, he did not ask for a diminution of friendship with God or of charity. Indeed, rather, these prayers of his show a sign and burning desire of the greatest charity. Some, however, extend the vow of Moses even to this point -- namely, to a diminution or deprivation of grace. For they say it was lawful for him to wish to be deprived of his own grace alone, so that through this, so many thousands of the people might be endowed with grace. For charity inclines one to seek and procure the greater glory of God. But the glory of God is greater if many thousands partake of the grace of God, and love and worship God, than if I alone should do so. Therefore, if one of the two must be chosen, the former seems to be chosen. But whatever may be said about this matter, whether it be lawful or not, the book of life in Scripture is not the book of grace, but of glory -- that is, of predestination to eternal happiness. Therefore Moses here wished for a deprivation of glory, not of grace.
You will say secondly: Moses here asked for something impossible; for it is impossible for someone written in the book of God to be blotted out of it. I respond first: One who is only partially written in the book of God can be blotted out of it. Thus all the just are written in the book of life, because they begin the way to blessedness, and if they persevere in it, they will truly arrive at it; but because many do not persevere, they are therefore blotted out of it. Hence it is said in Psalm 68: "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living." But because Moses seems to speak of an absolute and perfect inscription in the book of life, I therefore respond secondly: formally, no one so inscribed can be blotted out of the book of life, for then the foreknowledge and predestination of God would be deceived or changed. Materially, however, or objectively, someone can be blotted out of it. The sense therefore is, as if he said: Either forgive them, or deprive me of eternal blessedness, to which You have assigned and enrolled me. For setting aside the foreknowledge and predestination of God, from which Moses was abstracting, it was absolutely possible for Moses to be deprived of his blessedness, which is to be blotted out of the book of life.
You will say thirdly: This vow of Moses seems disordered and imprudent, for the deprivation of his own blessedness was not an ordained means for the remission of sin and the salvation of the people. I respond: Moses considered only the nature of the thing -- that is, of this means -- in itself, but did not consider whether that means was fitting and suitable according to the order and disposition already established by God. For this was a positive matter arising from the free choice of God, which does not change the nature of things. Therefore, although the lack of blessedness was not, either of itself or by God's disposition, an ordained means for obtaining grace for the people, nevertheless in itself and by its own nature it was not unlawful, or impossible, or sinful. Hence Moses wished for it not as a natural and ordinary means, but as one which his free piety and urgent necessity and love of the people suggested to him. For he thought it necessary to strive with the utmost force before God, since the salvation of the people seemed to be in the greatest danger before Him, and since no other more effective means of defending it presented itself, he used this one, by an excess of the highest love and of a certain blind charity that transcends the common laws of ordinary prudence. But this was not a sin, but a most heroic virtue. Hence it is clear how much the glory of God must be preferred to our own advantages and to our very blessedness, and how much more any mortal sin -- which is diametrically opposed to it -- must be detested than the deprivation of blessedness, or even the fire of hell itself. Again, how greatly the salvation of souls must be valued and procured together with Moses. In a similar manner and with a similar motive as Moses, Paul wished to be made anathema from Christ for the sake of the Jews, Romans chapter 9, verse 3. From what has been said, it follows that this vow of Moses was lawful, pious, and holy, and consequently that it is lawful for anyone to conceive and imitate that same vow, as Ludovicus Molina teaches. See what was said on Romans chapter 9, verse 3, toward the end.
Blot me out of Your book which You have written -- in which, namely, You have written me together with the other elect, absolutely and perfectly: for this is what that repetition and emphasis meant, "which You have written." Hence it seems that Moses received a revelation concerning his election and blessedness; and for this reason he so confidently argues with God, as a friend with a friend. The charity and zeal of Moses were imitated by heroes of the Gentiles, but they could by no means attain or equal it, because they devoted only their bodies to temporal death for the people and their country. Thus Codrus, king of the Athenians, devoted himself: for when an oracle had declared that they would be victorious against the Thracians if the king fell, Codrus came to the enemy unknown and in vile garments, bearing a sickle, and having killed one man, was soon killed by another -- and so the Athenians were victorious. Thus Publius Decius the Roman, warring against the Albans, imagined in his sleep that he would add strength to the Romans by his death; and so he rushed into the midst of the enemy, and having killed many, was himself slain. In the same way his son Decius saved the Roman state in the Gallic war. Thus Junius Brutus ordered his two sons to be struck with the axe, because they had conspired with the Tarquins against their country and Roman liberty. Thus the triplet Horatii, offering themselves in combat for their country, and slaying therein the triplet Curiatii of Alba, asserted the sovereignty of Rome over Alba. The very same thing was done by the triplets of Tegea fighting against the triplets of Phenea. Thus the Roman Curtius, leaping armed into the chasm according to the oracle, freed his country from calamity. The very same thing was done among the Greeks by Anchurus. Thus Horatius Cocles alone sustained the assault of the enemy while his comrades cut down the bridge over the Tiber and prevented the enemy from crossing. Thus three hundred Fabii under the leadership of Fabius Maximus rushed into the camp of Hannibal, and having slain many, fell. The leader himself rushed at Hannibal, tore the diadem from him, and died with him. Thus Leonidas with three hundred Spartans rushed into the innumerable army of Xerxes, and pressed toward Xerxes himself, and tore the diadem from him, and fell pierced with spears together with him. Agesilaus, the son of Themistocles, devoted himself for his country, and entering the camp of Xerxes, killed Mardonius, thinking he was Xerxes. When the error was recognized, he placed his hand in the fire and endured the torture without any groan. Being thereupon freed from his chains, he said: "Such are all the Athenians; and if you do not believe it, I will place my left hand in as well." Xerxes, seized with fear, ordered him to be kept in custody. The same thing was done for the Romans by Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna, king of the Etruscans. Plutarch recounts all these in his Parallels. But what are these men compared to Moses, who devoted not only his body but also his soul for the people, and wished to be blotted out of the book of life and to be afflicted forever? Similar to Moses was St. Paul, wishing to be made anathema for his brethren; and Blessed Jacopone, who out of love for Christ desired to endure in this life all labors, hardships, anxieties, and pains that can be expressed in words or conceived in the mind -- indeed, after this life to be thrust into hell, so that there he might atone for and expiate his own sins, and those of men, even of the damned, and of demons (if it could be done). What shall we say to these things?
We praise the ancients, but we live according to our own times.
Verse 34: My Angel Shall Go Before You
But you, go -- that is: Do not concern yourself with what you asked for the people, but obey this command of Mine. Hence it seems that God was not entirely reconciled to the people on this occasion, since He still threatened to take vengeance. But at the end of the forty days during which Moses was with the Lord a second time on the mountain, and prayed to Him for pardon, the Lord was appeased, as is clear from Deuteronomy chapter 9, verse 19, and here in the following chapter, verse 14.
My angel will go before you -- in the pillar of fire and cloud, which he moves, and by which he goes before you as a guide and shows you the way.
But in the day of vengeance I will visit this sin of theirs also -- "In the day of vengeance" does not mean in the captivity of Babylon, or of Rome under Titus; nor on the day of judgment, nor at other times when God punished the other sins of the Hebrews; nor on that very day on which God said these things; but on that day which immediately follows, when He says:
Verse 35: The Lord Struck the People
Hence it is probable that God shortly afterward, on account of the idol of the calf, while the Hebrews were still at Horeb, sent some plague upon them -- for example, a pestilence. For this is the vengeance which He threatened them with in the preceding verse, and thus this verse corresponds perfectly to the preceding one, as the execution of His sentence and threat. For otherwise the sequence of the Lord's speech is broken here, since the things narrated in the following chapter about the conversation of Moses with the Lord must be woven together and connected in the same sequence as the conversation of Moses and God which is recounted here, just as they occurred. So Rabbi Solomon and Abulensis.