Good is Limitless
No Good has a limit in its own nature but is limited by the presence of its opposite, as life is limited by death and light by darkness … Just as the end of life is the beginning of death, so also stopping in the race of virtue marks the beginning of the race of evil.
Whoever pursues true virtue participates in nothing other than God, because he is himself absolute virtue. Since those who know what is good by nature desire participation in it, and since this good has no limit, the participant’s desire itself necessarily has no stopping place but stretches out with the limitless.
Beacon of Life
Consider Abraham your father, and Sarah who gave you birth. Scripture gives this admonition to those who wander outside virtue. Just as at sea those who are carried away from the direction of the harbor bring themselves back on course by a clear sign, upon seeing either a beacon light raised up high or some mountain peak coming into view, in the same way Scripture by the example of Abraham and Sarah may guide again to the harbor of the divine will those adrift on the sea of life with a pilotless mind.
Perhaps, then, the memory of anyone distinguished in life would be enough to fill our need for a beacon light and to show us how we can bring our soul to the sheltered harbor of virtue where it no longer has to pass the winter amid the storms of life or be shipwrecked in the deep water of evil by the successive billows of passion.
Unity of Sight and Hearing in Illumination
At high noon a light brighter than the sunlight dazzled his eyes. Astonished at the strange sight, he looked up at the mountain and saw a bush from which this light was flaming up like a fire … The light’s grace was distributed to both senses, illuminating the sight with flashing rays and lighting the way for the hearing with undefiled teachings. The voice from the light forbade Moses to approach the mountain burdened with lifeless sandals. [1]
The Tablets as a Type of Christ
This tabernacle would be Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God, who in his own nature was not made with hands, yet capable of being made when it became necessary for this tabernacle to be erected among us. Thus, the same tabernacle is in a way both unfashioned and fashioned, uncreated in preexistence but created in having received this material composition. … For there is one thing out of all others which both existed before the ages and came into being at the end of the ages. … This one is the Only Begotten God, who encompasses everything in himself but who also pitched his own tabernacle among us.
Human nature at its beginning was unbroken and immortal. Since human nature was fashioned by the divine hands and beautified with the unwritten characters of the Law, the intention of the Law lay in our nature in turning us away from evil and in honoring the divine. When the sound of sin struck our ears, that sound which the first book of Scripture calls the “voice of the serpent,” but the history concerning the tables calls the “voice of drunken singing,” the tables fell to the earth and were broken. But again the true Lawgiver, of whom Moses was a type, cut the tables of human nature for himself from our earth. It was not marriage which produced for him his “God-receiving” flesh, but he became the stonecutter of his own flesh, which was carved by the divine finger, for the Holy Spirit came upon the virgin and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. When this took place, our nature regained its unbroken character, becoming immortal through the letters written by his finger. The Holy Spirit is called “finger” in many places by Scripture.
The skin dyed red and the coverings made of hair, which add to the decoration of the tabernacle, would be perceived respectively as the mortification of the sinful flesh and the ascetic way of life. By these the tabernacle of the church is especially beautified. By nature these skins do not have in themselves a vital power, but they become bright red because of the red dye. This teaches that grace, which flourishes through the Spirit, is not found in men unless they first make themselves dead to sin. … The woven hair, which produced a fabric rough and hard to the touch, foreshadows the self-control which is rough and consumes the habitual passions.
Adornment of the Heart
From this we learn that the upper part of the outer garment, which is in a particular way an adornment of the heart, is composed of many varied virtues. Now the violet is interwoven with purple, for kingliness is joined to purity of life. Scarlet is mixed with linen because the bright and pure quality of life in some way mingles with the redness of modesty. The gold which lends radiance to these colors foreshadows the treasure reserved for such a life. The patriarchs engraved on the shoulders make a great contribution to our adornment, for men’s lives are adorned by the earlier examples of good men.
Ascent of the Soul
If nothing comes from above to hinder its upward thrust (for the nature of the Good attracts to itself those who look to it), the soul rises ever higher and will always make its flight yet higher—by its desire of the heavenly things straining ahead for what is still to come, as the Apostle says. Made to desire and not to abandon the transcendent height by the things already attained, it makes its way upward without ceasing, ever through its prior accomplishments renewing its intensity for the flight. Activity directed toward virtue causes its capacity to grow through exertion; this kind of activity alone does not slacken its intensity by the effort, but increases it.
Once having set foot on the ladder which God set up (as Jacob says), [Moses] continually climbed to the step above and never ceased to rise higher, because he always found a step higher than the one he had attained. … He shone with glory. And although lifted up through such lofty experiences, he is still unsatisfied in his desire for more. He still thirsts for that with which he constantly filled himself to capacity, and he asks to attain as if he had never partaken, beseeching God to appear to him, not according to his capacity to partake, but according to God’s true being.
Notes:
- ^1. Synesthesia; Or consider passages in the New Testament where God speaks audibly to people in the same place and at the same time, but each receives a slightly different message or impression from the encounter.