Sidenote: Exod. xxiv. 6.
1. YOU were perplexed, you tell me, when reading that Moses, after
offering sacrifice and the immolation of salutary victims to the Lord,
put half of the blood in basons, and sprinkled half on the altar, to
know what could be the purport of this. But why need you doubt and
inquire of me, when for the sake of the faith, and of acquiring Divine
knowledge, you have traversed the whole world, and night and day have
devoted the whole time of your life to constant reading? Thus with your
keen intellect you have embraced all the objects of the understanding,
and are wont to prove as concerns even the books of philosophy, how
far they deviate from the truth, many of them being so futile that the
words of their writers perished sooner than their life.
2. But since gathering words, like money, is of great profit, and
great increase is thereby obtained for the general good of trade, I
cannot refrain from mentioning how wonderful is that division of the
blood. For part of it seems to signify the moral, and part the mystical
discipline of wisdom. That part which is put into basons is moral, that
which is sprinkled on the altar is mystical; in that by the Divine gift
and a certain inspiration it is instilled into men’s minds, that the
sentiments they conceive of God may be suitable and full of faith.
Sidenote: 2 Cor. xii. 4.
Sidenote: Acts vii. 55.
Sidenote: Ps. cx. 1.
Sidenote: Deut. xxxiv. 10, 11.
3. Moreover, they who have spoken of His majesty, and of heavenly
things, whether apostles or holy prophets, have only dared to speak of
such things as were shewn them by revelation. Hence Paul has testified
in his Epistle that he was _caught up into Paradise, and heard words
which it is not lawful for a man to utter_; Stephen also _saw the
heavens opened, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God_, and
the Prophet David saw Him sitting on His right hand. And what shall
I say of Moses, of whom the Scripture says that _there arose not such
a prophet since in Israel, who knew the Lord face to face, in all the
signs and the wonders which he did in the land of Egypt_.
Sidenote: S. John xx. 22.
Sidenote: Exod. iv. 12.
4. The mystical part therefore is offered to God, Who by the brightness
of the Divine Wisdom, Whose Father and Parent He is, quickens the
vigour of the soul, and enlightens the mind. But the Wisdom of God
is Christ, on Whose breast John lay, that from that secret source of
wisdom he might be known to have imbibed Divine mysteries. He himself,
conscious of his gift, has recorded this, for he dreaded to claim for
himself, and to ascribe to his own genius that which he had received.
The Lord also said to the Apostles, opening their mouths, _Receive
ye the Holy Ghost_, whereby He declared that He is the same Who said
to Moses, _I will open thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt
say_. Wherefore this wisdom, divine, unspeakable, unadulterated and
incorruptible, pours her grace into the minds of her saints, and
discloses to them knowledge that they may behold her glory.
5. But that is the discipline of moral wisdom which is poured into
basons, and is taken and drank from them. The basons therefore are the
organs of the senses. The basons are the two eyes, the ears, the nose,
the mouth and other parts suitable to this function; for the eyes are
the recipients and ministers of sight, the ears of hearing, the nose
of smell, the mouth of taste, and so with the rest. Into these basons
that Word in Whom is the Headship of the priestly and prophetic office
poured the half of His blood; that He might quicken and animate the
irrational parts of our nature, and endow them with reason.
6. Again, having rehearsed and proclaimed the precepts of the Law to
the people, and being about to explain the meaning of that mystical ark
of the testimony, and of the candlestick, and of the censers, he slew
victims, and offered sacrifice, sprinkling half of the blood on the
sacred altar, and putting half in basons.
Sidenote: Heb. iv. 12.
7. A division therefore is made between that mystical or divine and
moral wisdom. For the Λόγος is a divider of souls and of virtues:
the Λόγος is the _Word of God, quick and powerful_, which pierces
and penetrates even to the dividing asunder of the soul, and which
also distinguishes and divides virtues, whose minister, Moses, by the
division of the blood, distinguished the kinds of virtue.
8. And forasmuch as nothing is so emphatically declared in the Law as
Christ’s Advent, or prefigured as His Passion, consider whether this
be not the saving victim which God the Word offered by Himself, and
sacrificed in His own body. For first both in the Gospel and also in
the Law He taught us moral discipline, and manifested it in His own
patience and in very act and deed, transfusing into our lives and
senses, as if into basons, the very substance and marrow as it were of
wisdom, and quickening thereby men’s minds to be a seed-plot of virtue,
and instructed in piety, and then, drawing near the altar, He poured
out the blood of His offering.
Sidenote: Prov. ix. 2.
9. Should you choose then to understand it thus, the sense is pious;
the interpretation also which follows that of Solomon is, if you prefer
it, equally concordant, namely, that whereas the prophet Moses put the
blood into basons, this is the same blood whereof it is written that
_Wisdom hath mingled her wine_, bidding men to forsake foolishness,
and seek after understanding. From the bason then we drink wisdom,
discipline, understanding, correction, amendment of life, regulation of
habits and counsels, the grace of piety, increase of virtue, a fountain
of plenty.
Sidenote: S. John i. 29.
Sidenote: Ib. xix. 34.
10. But by this sprinkling the blood on the Altar you may understand
the cleansing of the world, the remission of all sins. For He sprinkles
that blood on the Altar as a Victim to atone for the sins of many. For
the Victim is a Lamb, but a Lamb not of irrational nature but of divine
power, of Which it is said, _Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away
the sin of the world_. For not only has He cleansed with His blood the
sins of all men, but has also gifted them with divine power. Does not
He seem to you to have indeed shed his blood, from Whose side blood and
water flowed over the very altar of his Passion?
Farewell; love me as you do, with the affection of a parent.