The Ideal Lawgiver
Moses, through God’s providence, became king and lawgiver and high priest and prophet.
But to command what should be done and forbid what should not be done is the peculiar function of law; so that it follows at once that the king is a living law and the law a just king. But a king and lawgiver ought to have under his purview not only human but divine things ; for, without God’s directing care, the affairs of kings and subjects cannot go aright. He needs the chief priesthood, so that, fortified with perfect rites and the perfect knowledge of the service of God, he may ask that he and those whom he rules may receive prevention of evil and participation in good from the gracious Being, Who assents to prayers and deems worthy of His special favour those who give Him genuine service. Since to a mortal creature countless things both human and divine are wrapped in obscurity, Moses necessarily obtained prophecy also, in order that through the providence of God he might discover what by reasoning he could not grasp.
Beautiful and all-harmonious is the union of these four faculties; for, intertwined and clinging to each other, they move in rhythmic concord, mutually receiving and repaying benefits, and thus imitate the virgin Graces whom an immutable law of nature forbids to be separated. And of them it may be justly said, what is often said of the virtues, that to have one is to have all.
The Law of the Universe
The laws were the most faithful picture of the world-polity, … they seek to attain to the harmony of the universe and are in agreement with the principles of eternal nature. Therefore all those to whom God thought fit to grant abundance of the good gifts of bodily well-being and of good fortune in the shape of wealth and other externals—who then rebelled against virtue, and, freely and intentionally under no compulsion, practised knavery, injustice and the other vices, thinking to gain much by losing all, were counted, Moses tells us, as enemies not of men but of the whole heaven and universe, and suffered not the ordinary, but strange and unexampled punishments wrought by the might of justice, the hater of evil and assessor of God. For the most forceful elements of the universe, fire and water, fell upon them, so that, as the times revolved, some perished by deluge, others were consumed by conflagration.
A Servant of God is a Microcosm
Thus is the high priest arrayed when he sets forth to his holy duties, in order that when he enters to offer the ancestral prayers and sacrifices there may enter with him the whole universe, as signified in the types of it which he brings upon his person, the long robe a copy of the air, the pomegranate of water, the flower trimming of earth, the scarlet of fire, the ephod of heaven, the circular emeralds on the shoulder-tops with the six engravings in each of the two hemispheres which they resemble in form, the twelve stones on the breast in four rows of threes of the zodiac, the reason-seat of that Reason which holds together and administers all things. For he who has been consecrated to the Father of the world must needs have that Father’s Son with all His fullness of excellence to plead his cause, that sins may be remembered no more and good gifts showered in rich abundance.
Perhaps, too, he is preparing the servant of God to learn the lesson, that, if it be beyond him to be worthy of the world’s Maker, he should try to be throughout worthy of the world. For, as he wears a vesture which represents the world, his first duty is to carry the pattern enshrined in his heart, and so be in a sense transformed from a man into the nature of the world ; and, if one may dare to say so—and in speaking of truth one may well dare to state the truth—be himself a little world, a microcosm.
Sacrifice
If the worshipper is without kindly feeling or justice, the sacrifices are no sacrifices, the consecrated oblation is desecrated, the prayers are words of ill omen with utter destruction waiting upon them. For, when to outward appearance they are offered, it is not a remission but a reminder of past sins which they effect. But, if he is pure of heart and just, the sacrifice stands firm, though the flesh is consumed, or rather, even if no victim at all is brought to the altar. For the true oblation, what else can it be but the devotion of a soul which is dear to God? The thank-offering of such a soul receives immortality, and is inscribed in the records of God, sharing the eternal life of the sun and moon and the whole universe.
Soul in a Nutshell
Just as in a nut, beginning and end are identical, beginning represented by seed and end by fruit, so it is with the virtues. There, too, it is the case that each is both a beginning and an end; a beginning in that it springs from no other power but itself, an end in that it is the aspiration of the life which follows nature. This is one reason why the nut is a type of virtue, but there is another given which is even clearer than that. The shell- formed part of the nut is bitter, and the inner layer which surrounds the fruit like a wooden fence is exceedingly solid and hard; and, as the fruit is enclosed in both these, it is not easy to get at. In this Moses finds the parable of the practising soul, which he thinks he can rightly use to encourage that soul to virtue and teach it that it must first encounter toil.
Near Death Prophesying
Afterwards the time came when he had to make his pilgrimage from earth to heaven, and leave this mortal life for immortality, summoned thither by the Father Who resolved his twofold nature of soul and body into a single unity, transforming his whole being into mind, pure as the sunlight.
Then, indeed, we find him possessed by the spirit, no longer uttering general truths to the whole nation but prophesying to each tribe in particular the things which were to be and hereafter must come to pass. Some of these have already taken place, others are still looked for, since confidence in the future is assured by fulfilment in the past.
He prophesied with discernment while still alive the story of his own death ; told ere the end how the end came; told how he was buried with none present, surely by no mortal hands but by immortal powers; how also he was not laid to rest in the tomb of his forefathers but was given a monument of special dignity which no man has ever seen; how all the nation wept and mourned for him a whole month and made open display, private and public, of their sorrow, in memory of his vast benevolence and watchful care for each one of them and for all.