Exodus 34

What does it mean that the Lord now says through Moses, "You visit the iniquity of fathers on their sons and grandsons"? In these two passages a different sense is found, but the mind of the hearer is taught to inquire subtly along the path of discernment. We inherit original sin from our parents, and unless we are washed by the grace of baptism, we bear even our parents' sins, because up to that point we are one with them. So God will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon their sons, for, through original sin, the soul of the offspring is stained by the guilt of the parent. But then God does not visit the iniquity of fathers on their sons, because, when we are freed from original guilt through baptism, we no longer have our parents' guilt but only the guilt for sins we ourselves committed. This passage can also be understood in another way, because when each one imitates the iniquity of his sinful parent, he is rendered guilty through his parent's fault. But whoever does not imitate the iniquity of his parent is not burdened with his sin. Thus it happens that the sinful son of a sinful father pays the penalty not only for his own sins, which he committed, but also for his father's sins. For he does not fear to add his own malice to his father's vices, even though he knows that the Lord is angered by them. It is just that a man who does not fear to imitate the ways of his wicked father before a busy judge is forced in this present life to pay the penalty for the faults of his wicked father. So Scripture says, "The soul of my father is mine; … the soul that sins, that one will die." For in the flesh sons sometimes perish for their father's sin. But when the original sin that comes from the parents' iniquity is forgiven, it is no longer kept in the soul. What does it mean that small children are often snatched away by demons, unless the son's flesh suffers to punish the father? For the wicked father is struck at in his very self and refuses to sense the force of the blow. Generally he is struck in his sons, so that he burns painfully, and the father's sorrow is visited on the son's flesh, insofar as the father's evil heart is punished by the son's suffering. But when the sons who are punished for their fathers' guilt are not little children but already grown, what else should we understand except that they are suffering the punishments of those people whose deeds they imitated? Thus Scripture says rightly, "To the third and fourth generation." For the sons can see the lives of the parents they imitate up to the third and fourth generation. Punishment extends up to them, for they saw what they would imitate sinfully.

When the Lord handed over to you the land of the Canaanites, he said, "Take care, therefore, not to make a covenant with these inhabitants of the land that you are to enter; else they will immediately become a snare among you." Now we believe that by the grace of baptism all sins and offenses have been banished from us. If we afterward make a covenant with those same sins and vices, doubtless this covenant will become a snare for us because of our consent to avarice or dissipation.

"You shall make for yourself no molten gods." You see that he forbids the making of images because of idolatry and that it is impossible to make an image of the bodiless, invisible and uncircumscribed God. "You saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke.…" And St. Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, says, "Being therefore God's offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man."

All the heretics have gone astray by not understanding the mystery of his nativity. The statement "He who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord" is more applicable to the special nativity of the Savior than to that of all humanity. For Christ alone opened the closed doors of the womb of virginity, which nevertheless remained permanently closed. This is the closed east door, through which only the high priest enters and leaves, and nevertheless it is always closed.

The forty-day fast of Lent draws its authority from the Old Testament, from the fasts of Moses and Elijah, and from the gospel, because the Lord fasted that many days, showing that the gospel is not at variance with the Law and the Prophets. The Law is personified by Moses, the Prophets by Elijah, between whom the Lord appeared transfigured on the mountain.

And like this holy man the blessed Moses also was twice deemed worthy to go unto the thick darkness and to receive the law upon the tablets; and he was made pure by fasting like unto this, and then he was deemed worthy of the terrible sight.

Every soul is beautiful which is considered by the standard of its own virtues. But most beautiful, true and lovely, which can be contemplated by him alone who has purified his mind, is that of the divine and blessed nature. He who gazes steadfastly at the splendor and graces of it receives some share from it, as if from an immersion, tinging his own face with a sort of brilliant radiance. Whence Moses also was made resplendent in face by receiving some share of beauty when he held converse with God. Therefore he who is conscious of his own beauty utters this act of thanksgiving: "O Lord, in your favor, you gave strength to my beauty."

In Moses he depicted for you a parable: his cheeks, ashen with age, became shining and fair, a symbol of old age that in Eden again becomes young.

A reading from Exodus has been recited to us, one that may either spur us on to the search for understanding or drive us back from it. It spurs on minds that are studious and free; it drives back those that are idle and preoccupied. For it is written: "Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, and his face was glorified and the color of his countenance, and they were afraid to approach him." And a little after: "Moses," it says, "placed a veil over his face. But when he entered into the sight of the Lord, to speak with him, he laid the veil aside." Now the Apostle, expounding these things with that magnificent understanding which he employs in the rest, of which he said: "but we have the mind of Christ," says: "for if the ministry of death, formed in letters upon stones, was in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze upon the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which is done away: how shall not the ministry of the spirit be rather in glory?" And again a little later he says: "and not as Moses put a veil over his face, that the sons of Israel might not gaze upon the face of his countenance. For their perceptions were dulled; for until this present day, when Moses is read, the veil is placed over their heart." Who would not marvel at the greatness of the mysteries? Who would not be filled with dread at the mark of the dulled heart? The face of Moses was glorified, but the sons of Israel could not "gaze upon the face of his countenance," the people of the synagogue could not "gaze" upon it. But if anyone can have a manner of life and a way of living more eminent than the rest of the common crowd, he is able to behold the glory of his countenance. For even now, as the Apostle says, "a veil is placed over the reading of the Old Testament," and even now Moses speaks with glorified countenance, but we cannot behold the glory that is in his countenance. And the reason we cannot is that we are still the common people and have no more of zeal, no more of merit, than the rest of the multitude. But since the holy Apostle says: "yet the same veil remains over the reading of the Old Testament," the pronouncement of so great and such an Apostle would cut off from us every hope of understanding, had he not added: "but when anyone shall have turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." Therefore he says that the cause of the veil's removal is our turning to the Lord. From which we ought to gather these indications: that so long as, when we read the divine Scriptures, the understanding lies hidden from us, so long as the things that are written are obscure and closed to us, we have not yet turned to the Lord. For if we had turned to the Lord, without doubt the veil would be taken away.

But let us see also what this very thing, "to turn to the Lord," may be. And that we may know more plainly what it is to be turned, we must first say what it is to be turned away. Everyone who, when the words of the law are recited, is occupied with common tales, is turned away. Everyone who, "when Moses is read," carries anxiety about the affairs of the world, about money, about profits, is turned away. Everyone who is bound tight by cares for possessions and stretched out by desire for riches, who is eager for the glory of the age and the honors of the world, is turned away. But even one who seems indeed a stranger to these things, yet stands by and hears the words of the law and is intent in face and eyes, yet wanders in heart and thoughts, is turned away. What then is it to be turned? If we turn our backs on all these things and, in zeal, in deeds, in mind, in solicitude, give our labor to the word of God, if we "meditate on his law day and night," if, setting all else aside, we are at leisure for God and exercise ourselves in his testimonies—this is to be turned to the Lord. If you wished your son to know the letters that men call liberal, to know the discipline of grammar or of rhetoric, would you not render him free and unoccupied from all else, would you not make him, setting the rest aside, devote his labor to this one study, would you not see that he lack nothing at all—tutors, teachers, books, expenses—until he carries off the perfected work of the study he has purposed? Which of us has so turned himself to the studies of the divine law, which of us has given such labor? Who seeks the divine letters with as much zeal and toil as he has sought the human? And what do we complain of, if we are ignorant of what we do not learn? Some of you, as soon as they have heard the things that are read recited, straightway depart. There is no inquiry among yourselves about the things that were read, no comparing together, nowhere a remembering of that commandment by which the divine law admonishes you: "ask your fathers and they will tell you, your elders and they will declare to you." Others do not even patiently wait for this very thing, until the readings are recited in the church. And others, even if they are recited, do not attend to them, but in the more remote places of the Lord's house are occupied with secular tales. Of whom I have made bold to say that, "when Moses is read," there is now no longer "a veil over their heart," but a kind of partition and wall has been set up. For if he who is present, who hears and is intent and reconsiders and examines what he hears, and questions and learns what he cannot attain—if he can scarcely reach the freedom of knowledge, then he who hides away his ears, that he may not hear, and turns his back upon the face of the reader, how is he to be said to have a veil laid over his heart, to whom not even the very veil of the letter—by which the sense is veiled, which is the sound of the voice—has come near? It is therefore an evident figure, of how the face of Moses is made glorious; for the things he speaks have glory, but this is covered and hidden, and all his glory is within.

Consider also of what sort this is: that in the law the face of Moses is indeed reported as glorified, though it be covered with a veil; but his hand, put "within his bosom," is recorded as "made leprous like snow." In which there seems to me to be most fully depicted the form of the whole law; for in his face is designated the word of the law, in his hand its works. Since, therefore, "by the works of the law no one was to be justified," nor could the law bring anyone "to perfection," for that reason the hand of Moses is made "leprous" and is hidden away "in his bosom," as though destined to have no perfect work; but his face is glorified, yet is covered with a veil, because his word has the glory of knowledge, but hidden. Whence also the prophet says: "unless you hear in secret, your soul shall weep," and David says: "the uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom you have made manifest to me." In the law, therefore, Moses has his face alone glorified, and his hands have no glory, nay rather even disgrace; but neither do his feet. In short, he is commanded to loose his sandal; thus there was no glory in his feet—though this too came about not without the form of some mystery; for the feet are the last part of a man. It was shown, therefore, that in the last times Moses would loose his sandal, so that another might receive the bride, and that she would be called "the house of the unshod" "unto this present day." Moses, therefore, has nothing else glorious in the law except his face alone; but in the Gospels he is wholly glorified, entirely. For hear what it says in the Gospels: "when Jesus had ascended into a high mountain, taking with him Peter and James and John, and was transfigured there before them; and behold," it says, "there appeared Moses and Elijah in glory, speaking with him." Here it is not reported that his face was glorified, but that he wholly "appeared in glory," speaking with Jesus; and there is fulfilled for him that promise which he received on Mount Sinai, when it was said to him: "you shall see my hinder parts." He saw, therefore, his hinder parts. For he saw the things that were done in the latter and last days, and he rejoiced. For just as Abraham longed to see the day of the Lord "and saw it and rejoiced," so also Moses longed to see the day of the Lord "and saw it and rejoiced"; and necessarily "he rejoiced," because now he descended from the mountain glorified not in face alone, but ascended from the mountain wholly glorified. "Moses rejoiced," without doubt, because he now beheld present, and confirming his own words, the one of whom he had said: "the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brethren, like myself; him you shall hear in all things." And that he might not hesitate in anything, he hears the Father's voice saying: "this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him." Moses long ago said: "him you shall hear": now the Father says: "this is my Son, hear him," and points out present the one of whom he speaks. Moses seems to me also to rejoice for this reason: that he too now in a certain manner lays aside "the veil, being turned to the Lord," when the things he foretold are evidently fulfilled, or when the time comes that the things he had covered over might, through the Spirit, be revealed.

Yet the holy Apostle's meaning must be reconsidered, and it must be pondered what he had in view when, having said: "but if anyone shall have turned to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away," he added: "now the Lord is the Spirit," by which he seems as it were to interpret what the Lord is. For who does not know that "the Lord is the Spirit"? But surely in this place it was not the Lord's nature or substance that was being treated, that he should say "the Lord is the Spirit"? Let us see, then, whether not only "when Moses is read," but also when Paul is read, "a veil" may be "placed over" our "heart." And plainly, if we hear negligently, if we bring no zeal to erudition and understanding, not only the Scripture of the law and the prophets, but even that of the Apostles and the Gospels is covered from us with a great veil. But I fear lest, through excessive negligence and dullness of heart, the divine volumes be for us not only veiled but even sealed, so that, "if a book to be read is given into the hands of a man who does not know letters, he says: I do not know letters; if it is given into the hands of a man who knows letters, he says: it is sealed." Whence it is shown that we must not only apply zeal to learning the sacred letters, but must also entreat the Lord and "day and night" beseech him, that the Lamb "from the tribe of Judah" may come and himself, taking the "sealed book," may deign to open it. For he it is who, "opening the Scriptures," kindled the hearts of the disciples, so that they said: "was not our heart burning within us, when he opened to us the Scriptures?" May he, therefore, even now deign to open to us what it is that he inspired his Apostle to say: "now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." I indeed, so far as I can perceive according to the smallness of my understanding, think that the Word of God, according to what concerns the hearers—as we have often already said—is named now "the way," now "the truth," now "the life," now "the resurrection," now also "flesh," but now "spirit." For although he truly received the substance of flesh from a virgin, in which he both endured the cross and inaugurated the resurrection, yet there is a place where the Apostle says: "even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer." Since, therefore, even now his word summons the hearers to a subtler and spiritual understanding, and wishes them to perceive nothing carnal in the law, he says that whoever wishes "the veil to be taken away" from his heart "let him turn to the Lord"—not as to a Lord according to the flesh—for there is this too, since "the Word was made flesh"—but as to a Lord according to the spirit. For if he turns as to a Lord according to the spirit, he will come from carnal things to spiritual, and will pass from servitude to liberty: for "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And that what is said may become still more evident, let us make use also of other meanings of the Apostle. To certain ones, whom he had perceived to be incapable, he says: "I judged myself to know nothing else among you save Christ Jesus, and him crucified." To such ones as these he did not say that "the Lord is the Spirit," nor did he say to them that Christ is the "wisdom" of God. For "they could not recognize Christ according to that which is wisdom," but according to that which is "crucified." But those to whom he said: "we speak wisdom among the perfect, yet a wisdom not of this age nor of the princes of this world, who are brought to nothing, but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery," did not need to receive the Word of God according to that which "was made flesh," but according to that which is "wisdom hidden in a mystery." So, therefore, in this place also, to those who are summoned from the carnal to the spiritual understanding, it is said: "now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And that he might show that he himself has now arrived at the liberty of knowledge and has been stripped of the servitude of the veil, he adds to these words and says: "but we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord." If, therefore, we too beseech the Lord that he may deign to take the veil from our heart, we can grasp the spiritual understanding—provided, however, that we turn to the Lord and seek the liberty of knowledge. But how can we find liberty, we who serve the age, who serve money, who serve the desires of the flesh? I rebuke my own self, I judge my own self; I convict my own faults; let those who hear look to what they think of themselves. I meanwhile say that, so long as I am in bondage to any one of these things, I am not turned to the Lord, nor have I attained liberty, so long as such affairs and solicitudes bind me tight. Of that affair and solicitude by which I am bound tight, I am the servant; for I know it is written that "each one is delivered as a servant to that by which he is overcome." Even if the love of money does not overcome me, even if care for possessions and riches does not bind me, yet I am greedy of praise and pursue human glory, if I hang upon the faces and words of men—what this man thinks of me, how that man regards me, that I may not displease him, that I may please him. So long as I seek these things, I am their servant. But I would wish at least by this to be sufficiently in earnest, if I might become free, if I might be released from the yoke of this foul servitude and arrive at liberty according to the Apostle's admonition, who says: "you were called unto liberty, do not become the servants of men." But who will grant me this manumission? Who will free me from this most shameful servitude, save he who said: "if the Son shall free you, you shall be truly free"? But indeed I know that a servant cannot be granted liberty unless he serves faithfully, unless he loves his Lord. And therefore let us too serve faithfully and "with our whole heart and with our whole soul and with our whole strength love the Lord our God," that we may be worthy to be granted liberty by Christ Jesus his Son our Lord, "to whom be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen."

The shadows bring forth the truth, even if they are not at all the truth themselves. Because of this, the divinely inspired Moses placed a veil upon his face and spoke thus to the children of Israel, all but shouting by this act that a person might behold the beauty of the utterances made through him, not in outwardly appearing figures but in meditations hidden within us.

For so long as a man does not attend to the spiritual meaning "a veil lies upon his heart," in consequence of which veil, in other words his duller understanding, the Scripture itself is said or thought to be veiled. This is the explanation of the veil which is said to have covered the face of Moses when he was speaking to the people, that is, when the law is read in public. But if we turn to the Lord, where also the Word of God is and where the Holy Spirit reveals spiritual knowledge, the veil will be taken away, and we shall then with unveiled face behold in the holy Scriptures the glory of the Lord.

But the preacher should know how to avoid drawing the mind of his hearer beyond its strength, lest, so to speak, the string of the soul, when stretched more than it can bear, should be broken. For all deep things should be covered up before a multitude of hearers, and scarcely opened to a few. For hence the Truth in person says, "Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord has appointed over his household, to give them their measure of wheat in due season?" Now by a measure of wheat is expressed a portion of the Word, lest, when anything is given to a narrow heart beyond its capacity, it be spill. Hence Paul says, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As it were to babes in Christ, I have given you milk to drink, and not meat." Hence Moses, when he comes on from the sanctuary of God, veils his shining face before the people; because in truth He shews not to multitudes the secrets of inmost brightness. Hence it is enjoined on him by the Divine voice that if any one should dig a cistern, and not cover it, and an ox or ass should fall into it, he should pay the price, because when one who has arrived at the deep streams of knowledge covers them not up before the brutish hearts of his hearers, he is adjudged as liable to penalty, if through his words a soul, whether clean or unclean, be caught on a stumbling-stone. Hence it is said to the blessed Job, "Who hath given understanding unto the cock?"