Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance 9004235779, 9789004235779, 9789004258549

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Illuminating Moses

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Commentaria Sacred Texts and Their Commentaries: Jewish, Christian and Islamic Founding Editors

Grover A. Zinn Michael A. Signer (ob.) Editors

Frans van Liere Lesley Smith E. Ann Matter Thomas E. Burman Robert A. Harris Walid Saleh

VOLUME 4

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/comm

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Illuminating Moses A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance

Edited by

Jane Beal

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Illuminating Moses : a history of reception from Exodus to the Renaissance / edited by Jane Beal. pages cm. -- (Commentaria, ISSN 1874-8236 ; VOLUME 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-23577-9 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-25854-9 (e-book) 1. Moses (Biblical leader) I. Beal, Jane, editor of compilation. BS580.M6I45 2013 222’.1092--dc23 2013028010

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1874-8236 ISBN 978-90-04-23577-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-25854-9 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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Contents Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  vii List of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   xi List of Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  xv xvi Introduction: Illuminating Moses from Exodus to the Renaissance . .    1 Jane Beal The Roles of Moses in the Pentateuch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   19 Robert D. Miller II Moses in the Prophets and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible. . . . . . .   37 Tawny Holm Moses: A Central Figure in the New Testament. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   59 Larry J. Swain Moses and the Church Fathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   81 Christopher A. Hall Moses and the Paschal Liturgy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  103 Luciana Cuppo-Csaki The Prophecy of Moses in Medieval Jewish Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . .  117 Howard Kreisel Epic and Romance, Narrative and Exegesis: Moses in the Minor Midrashim. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  143 Rachel S. Mikva “The Destiny of All Men”: Rabbinic and Medieval Justifications for the Death of Moses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  167 Devorah Schoenfeld Legifer, Dux, Scriptor: Moses in Anglo-Saxon Literature . . . . . . . . . . . .  185 Gernot Wieland The Biblical-Moral Moses: Type or Stereotype?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  211 Deborah L. Goodwin

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Primus doctor Iudaeorum: Moses as Theological Master in the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  237 Franklin T. Harkins “Like a Duck from a Falcon”: Moses in Middle English Biblical Literature, the Mystery Cycles, and Piers Plowman B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  263 Gail Ivy Berlin Moses and Christian Contemplative Devotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  305 Jane Beal “Types and Shadows”: Uses of Moses in the Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . .  353 Brett Foster Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  407 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  431 440

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Acknowledgements One of my favorite verses in the Bible occurs in Exodus: “And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families” (Exod. 1:21). The writer of Exodus, traditionally believed to be Moses, said this about Shiprah and Puah, two Israelite midwives who refused to kill newborn baby boys when ordered to do so by Pharaoh. As both a medievalist and midwife, I see a special double meaning in these words, for it seems that God not only gave these women their own families, but the families of Israel. As the editor of this book, Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance, I have had the privilege of being a kind of midwife for the contributors who have written its chapters, and they have become to me a special kind of scholarly family. With them, I have colabored to help bring the book forth from the womb of their scholarly souls into the world of interested readers. I am very thankful to all of them: Robert Miller II, Tawny Holm, Larry Swain, Christopher Hall, Luciana Cuppo-Csaki, Haim (Howard) Kreisel, Rachel Mikva, Devorah Schoenfeld, Gernot Wieland, Deborah Goodwin, Franklin T. Harkins, Gail Ivy Berlin, and Brett Foster. Each of them joined the project at different stages, but all of them have waited a long time for Illuminating Moses to make its appearance at last. The idea for this for book first emerged as part of a discussion held by ROAMERS (Researchers on Ancient, Medieval et Renaissance Subjects), a group of faculty researchers at Wheaton College in Illinois. I was facilitating it in 2004, and I thought it would be a good idea for the group to coauthor a book on the Song of Solomon. However, my colleague, Timothy Larsen, the McManis Professor of Christian Thought, suggested that we write a book about Moses instead. Everyone else agreed to this (though only one of these dear colleagues, Brett Foster, eventually wrote a chapter for a book). Yet this is where the idea for the book was conceived, and I am thankful to Timothy Larsen and ROAMERS for the beginning. I first proposed the book to Baylor University Press, and an editor there turned down the proposal because I was suggesting a book by multiple authors. He said he would be willing to consider it if I wrote the whole thing myself. I cheerfully replied that this would be quite impossible, and proceeded to look for another publisher, but not before taking this editor up

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on another piece of advice he gave me: to focus each chapter in the book on one or more of the particular roles of Moses in the Jewish and Christian cultures who received and responded to them from the Exodus to the Renaissance. I am thankful to this editor for the way he helped me to shape the as yet unformed life of this book at an early prenatal stage. While serving as Vice-President and then President of the Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (SSBMA) between 2006-2008, I turned to my research society colleagues at our annual meetings at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan for help in finding an interested press. E. Ann Matter and Grover Zinn, together with others, had been thinking of starting a journal called Commentaria, an idea that eventually became the series housed by Brill “dedicated to outstanding monographs or edited volumes that address subjects within the general area of the interpretation (exegesis) of the sacred texts of three major religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.” Grover Zinn and Michael Signer became the founding editors, and Frans van Liere, Lesley Smith, E. Ann Matter, Thomas E. Burman, and Robert Harris, all members of the SSBMA, became the series editors. They expressed genuine interest and support for my gradually growing book on Moses. Before he passed away, Michael Signer in particular gifted me with several specific ideas for shaping the breadth, chronological structure, and cultural coverage represented in Illuminating Moses. He also kindly connected me to Haim Kreisel, who authored a key chapter. I am grateful to Michael, to my editorial colleagues at Commentaria, and to my fellow SSBMA members for their help in making this book the valuable resource it has become. I am also grateful to Elizabeth Teviotdale, the primary coordinator of the International Congress on Medieval Studies, for the many sessions she has approved for the Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages over the years. In May 2006, she approved the session in which I presented on “Moses and the Biblia pauperum,” and in May 2008, she specifically allowed me to coordinate a roundtable discussion, “Illuminating Moses in the Middle Ages,” with some other contributors to this volume, Gernot Wieland and Devorah Schoenfeld. This latter session enabled us to discuss our research and writing in person rather than only over the vast distances covered by the internet. It was also at the Congress that I first met Larry Swain, Rachel Mikva, Deborah Goodwin, Franklin T. Harkins, and Gail Ivy Berlin, who later connected me to Tawny Holm, so I really am quite

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indebted to those who make the Congress possible because they have facilitated the progress of this book in many ways—but especially by creating a place for medievalists to gather, exchange ideas, and work together. While I imagined that this book would finally be born in 2009, as it turned out, some contributors were not able to complete necessary chapters, so they left the project, and new contributors joined it instead, making it stronger. I am very thankful to all of the writers, but especially to three Jewish women writers, my fellow scholars, who came on board at later dates: Rachel Mikva, Gail Ivy Berlin, and Tawny Holm. Meeting Rachel and hearing her paper on Moses at the Congress seemed providential at the time (and still does), for which I am grateful. Gail’s scholarship has always interested me, and her essay on Moses in Middle English literature is just what I had hoped. I am deeply appreciative of Tawny’s excellent work and her willingness to work quickly on the second chapter, which turned out to be the final one submitted for the book and so broke the waters, as it were, so Illuminating Moses could emerge at last. I am especially thankful to Frans van Liere, who provided extensive corrections and suggestions on the entire draft of the book not once, but twice. In many ways, he fulfilled the role of co-editor. Frans, blessings on your head! I am also thankful to Joshua Valle, Lisa Eary, and Amy Currier, all of whom helped compile or expand the bibliography for the book from the footnotes of the contributors’ essays at various stages in the manuscript’s development. I am thankful to Brill for providing me with an advance with which to pay my first research assistant, Joshua Valle; to Calvin College, which paid Lisa Eary; and to Colorado Christian University for providing me with a faculty development grant with which to pay Amy Currier, the last of my research assistants for this project. My colleague, Gregory Morrison, a librarian at Wheaton College, helped me track down missing bibliographic information at the last minute, help for which I am truly grateful. I deeply appreciate the work of Marcella Mulder and Michael J. Mozina at Brill as well as the anonymous readers who patiently reviewed the volume and approved it for publication, including E. Ann Matter, who reviewed my own contribution to the volume. In the course of working on this book, I unfortunately suffered recurring bouts of severe tendonitis, and I am honestly thankful to the inventors of MacDictate, whose software enabled me use my voice rather than my hands to compose the acknowledgements, preface, and other parts of the volume. Without such technological assistance, I am not sure how this book could have come out. But now that it is finally here, I celebrate

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this book as a new life with a diverse community of readers, hoping that Illuminating Moses will be a blessing for many years to come. Finally, I would like to express my thankfulness to my cousin, T.J. Friend, whose training in biblical studies, and specifically the Greek New Testament, enabled him to assist me with some last minute editing issues relating to the representation of the Greek language in Greek lettering. I dedicate this book to my goddaughter, Julia Jane Padiki Tetteh, whose birth I attended in Davis, California in 2002, just six months after I completed my doctoral studies in medieval literature: When you came into the world, you reminded me of Moses—because you were drawn across the water from West Africa to California to be born—and your birth was a miracle. I am so glad I was there with you and your mother on the day you took your first breath. Me sumo osané waa!

Jane Beal, Ph.D. Colorado Christian University

list of abbreviations

LIST OF Abbreviations List of Books of the Bible Cited with Their Abbreviations Amos 1 Chronicles 2 Chronicles Daniel Deuteronomy Exodus Ecclesiastes Ezekiel Ezra Genesis Hosea Isaiah Jeremiah Job Joshua 1 Kings 2 Kings Leviticus Malachi Micah Nehemiah Numbers Proverbs Psalms Ruth 1 Samuel 2 Samuel Song of Solomon

Amos 1 Chron. 2 Chron. Dan. Deut. Exod. Eccl. Ezek. Ezra Gen. Hosea Isa. Jer. Job Josh. 1 Kings 2 Kings Lev. Mal. Mic. Neh. Num. Prov. Ps. or pl. Pss. Ruth 1 Sam. 2 Sam. Sg. The Apocrypha

Ecclesiasticus Sirach

Ecclus Sir.

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list of abbreviations The New Testament 

Acts of the Apostles Apocalypse Colossians 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Ephesians Galatians Hebrews James John 1 John Jude  Luke Mark Matthew 1 Peter Romans 1 Timothy 2 Timothy Revelation

Acts Apoc. Col. 1 Cor. 2 Cor. Eph. Gal. Heb. Jas. John 1 John Jude  Luke Mark Matt. 1 Pet. Rom. 1 Tim. 2 Tim. Rev.

Versions and Sections of the Bible  Authorized (King James) Version Douay Version Geneva Bible Hebrew Bible NIV Septuagint New Testament Old Testament Tyndale’s Bible Vulg.

AV DV Geneva Bible HB New International Version LXX NT OT Tyndale’s Bible Vulgate

Other Abbreviations AA AD

Auctores Antiquissimi anno domini

list of abbreviations BCE ca. CCCM CCSL CE DtrH JSOT MGH MS PL v. vv.

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Before the Common Era circa Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis Corpus Christianorum Series Latina Common Era Deuteronomic History Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Monumenta Germaniae Historica manuscript Patrologia Latina verse verses A Note on Capitalization

In general, Bible, Scripture, and Scriptures are capitalized. Exodus is capitalized when it refers to the book of Exodus in the Bible and the Exodus from Egypt. Law is capitalized when it refers to the Torah, the Law of Moses, the Old Law or the New Law, but not when it refers to law as a concept or in general; Torah is always capitalized. When giving any of the proper or titular names of God, the name is capitalized (e.g., God, Divine Name, Son of God). The personal pronoun, when used to refer to God, is not capitalized. Promised Land is capitalized.

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List of Contributors Jane Beal, Colorado Christian University Gail Ivy Berlin, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Luciana Cuppo-Csaki, Independent Scholar Brett Foster, Wheaton College Deborah L. Goodwin, Gustavus University Christopher A. Hall, Eastern University Franklin T. Harkins, Fordham University Tawny Holm, Pennsylvania State University Howard Kreisel, Ben Gurion University Rachel S. Mikva, Chicago Theological Seminary Robert D. Miller II, The Catholic University of America and Department of Old Testament Studies, University of Pretoria Devorah Schoenfeld, Loyola University of Chicago Larry J. Swain, Bemidji State University Gernot Wieland, University of British Columbia

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introduction

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Introduction: Illuminating Moses from Exodus to the Renaissance Jane Beal In counter-reformation Spain, Teresa of Avila lived as a contemplative nun in the order of Discalced Carmelites, of which she was, together with John of the Cross, the co-founder. She wrote, among other works, her spiritual treatise on prayer: El Castillo Interior (or, in English, The Interior Castle).1 A masterpiece in the tradition of Christian mysticism, the book imagines the soul as a round crystal castle in which there are many mansions (or rooms),2 and the contemplative person who journeys deeper into each one draws closer to God in a seven step process that includes vocal prayer, mental prayer, affective prayer, acquired recollection, infused contemplation, the prayer of quiet, the prayer of union, spiritual betrothal, and spiritual marriage.3 In Teresa’s fourth of eleven chapters on the Sixth Mansion, which focuses on suffering and spiritual betrothal, she uses Moses as a key example in her discussion of the revelation of mysteries in the state of rapture or ecstasy in prayer: I do not know if I am right in what I am saying, for although I have heard of the incident, I’m not sure if I remember it correctly. Moses, again, could not describe all that he saw in the bush, but only as much as God willed him to; yet, if God had not revealed secret things to his soul in such a way as to make him sure of their truth, so that he should know and believe Him to be God, he would not have taken upon himself so many and such arduous labors. Amid the thorns of that bush, he must have learned marvelous things, for it was these things that gave him courage to do what he did for the people of Israel. Therefore, sisters, we must not seek out reasons for understanding the hidden things of God; rather, believing as we do, in his 1 Teresa of Avila’s other works include her Vida (before 1657), El Camino de Perfección (before 1567), Meditations on the Song of Songs (1567), Relaciones, Conceptos del Amor, Exclamationes, Las Cartas (1671) and her poems, published posthumously, Todas las poesías (1841). 2 The title contains an allusion to the words of Jesus: “In my father’s house, there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would not have told you” (John 14:2). 3 For a succinct summary of each of these stages, see Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R, “Introduction,” in Interior Castle: The Text with a Spiritual Commentary, ed. and trans. Dennis J. Billy, Classics with Commentary (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2007), 13-16.

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jane beal great power, we must clearly realize that it is impossible for worms like ourselves, with our limited powers, to understand his greatness. Let us give him hearty praise for being pleased to allow us to understand some part of it.4

In this brief passage, Moses’ experience of theophany at the burning bush (Exodus 3) acts as a precedent, a parallel, and a metaphor for contemplative visionary experience, which, according to Teresa, could involve seeing images and understanding a great deal more than simply what was seen and then, when returning to a normative state, forgetting certain details even while the overall import remained deep in the soul. Interestingly, Teresa admits at the beginning of the passage that her recollection of Moses’ experience of the burning brush might not be remembered correctly in all of its details. Yet this does not prevent her from drawing conclusions from what she does remember and understand: namely that, like Moses, she and her sisters should not seek out the reasons for the hidden things of God, because they cannot possibly understand his greatness, but they can be grateful for the revelation that helps them to understand in part. This humility is basic to medieval and Renaissance contemplative life (the first rung on the ladder, as it were) while Teresa’s use of Moses draws on earlier spiritual writings. For those interested in the diverse understandings of Moses and their application in various communities over time, Teresa’s use of Moses raises a simple question: why was Moses so important? Clearly, the representation of Moses in the Bible intensely impacted later Judeo-Christian literature, history, and theology. This impact begins with the book of Exodus, the reception of Moses in the Prophets, the Writings of the Hebrew Bible, and the gospels and epistles of the Judeo-Christian New Testament. It continues in late-antique Jewish and Christian writings, and it flourishes in medieval Jewish philosophy and midrashim as well as scholastic writings in history and theology and Middle English vernacular literature. Within the contemplative tradition of Christian mysticism, Moses’ experiences with God served as a powerful example of the possibility of experiencing union with God, a union that contemplatives understood as spiritual marriage. Meanwhile, Renaissance Protestant and Catholic individuals living the active life—poets, politicians, artists, and others—shed light on the changing uses of and responses to the example of Moses. 4 Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, trans. Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R, 191-92.

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Basing their understanding upon events depicted in Exodus, many lateantique, medieval, and early modern writers recognized Moses as the author of the first five books of the Bible, the leader of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, and the recipient and disseminator of the Law (Torah).5 These same writers often expanded upon the details of the life and work of Moses, and in the process, revealed the needs of their Jewish and Christian communities for an exemplary biblical model to imitate in matters of law, exegesis, and education. As Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance shows, the example of Moses shaped community standards and influenced the exercise of individual piety for over a thousand years among groups of people who differed widely in geographical location, ethnic heritage, and religious convictions. The figure of Moses inspired very different, even conflicting, responses from the peoples and groups he influenced. So in one sense, this book is an intellectual history, tracing the reception of one person, Moses, and a complex of ideas associated with him. It seeks to illuminate Moses in order to empower our understanding of his tremendous influence on Judeo-Christian culture. To begin well, it is relevant to recall the biography of Moses in the Bible. The Life of Moses in Exodus According to the biblical book of Exodus, Moses was the son of two unnamed Jews enslaved in Egypt during a time when Pharaoh issued a decree that all newborn Hebrew boys should be put to death. He miraculously survived this genocidal command when his mother placed him in a basket that she set afloat on the Nile. It was later discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter who chose to adopt the baby as her own son and, at the instigation of Moses’ sister Miriam, gave him to his own mother to be breastfed. When Moses grew up, he slew an Egyptian who was oppressing an Israelite slave. Realizing what he had done, he fled to Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of the high priest, and became the father of a son, Gershom. Working as a shepherd in the desert, Moses happened upon a burning bush that did not burn up. Through it, God revealed himself and his plan for Moses to deliver the Israelites from the Egypt and make their 5 It appears that the depiction of Moses first receiving the Law and later copying it on a second set of tablets became the basis for the widespread belief among orthodox Jews and Christians that he wrote the first five books of the Bible.

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way to a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:17). Although Moses was initially hesitant to accept the job, he received a staff and powerful signs that he would succeed as well as the promise that his brother Aaron would speak for him, since he was afraid that he was slow of speech and tongue (Exod. 4:10-17). When Moses returned to Egypt, after a difficult-to-interpret incident involving Zipporah in the circumcision of their son to prevent Moses’ death, Moses reunited with his brother Aaron, told the elders of the people of Israel what God had said, and showed them signs. Than he went to Pharaoh and told him that the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded Pharaoh to let his people go. Thus began a titanic struggle between Moses and Pharaoh that led to the ten plagues of Egypt: the water turned to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the death of Egyptian livestock, the boils, the hail, the locusts, the darkness, and the death of the firstborn, before which Passover was established and after which the Israelites plundered the Egyptians before their Exodus from the land of their bondage (Exod. 7-12). When they left, Moses took the bones of their ancestor Joseph with them. According to Exodus, God led the Israelites through the desert by pillars of cloud and fire until they came to the Red Sea. Pharaoh pursued them, and the Israelites believed they were trapped, but Moses, at the Lord’s direction, lifted up his staff and stretched out his hand over the sea and divided it so that the people crossed over on dry land. Pharaoh and his chariots, his horses and their riders, were thrown into the sea as it collapsed upon them. They were drowned, which fulfilled Moses’ word to the people: “For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again” (Exod. 14:13). God provided for his people in the desert through a series of miracles: bitter water made sweet, manna from heaven, water from the rock, the defeat of the Amalekites, and at Sinai, the gift of the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic law (Exod. 15-20). Yet there were problems—as when Aaron gathered up gold from the people to make the Golden Calf, and they worshiped it, committing the idolatry the Lord expressly forbade. When Moses saw what the people were doing, he broke the tablets upon which the Lord had written the Ten Commandments (which compelled him to carve new ones), but succeeded in stopping his people from continuing their idolatrous worship, so he could intercede with the Lord to keep the newly established covenant with them. He oversaw the construction of the tabernacle and the arc of the covenant and the tent of meeting as well as the institution of Aaron and his sons as priests, thus establishing important

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features of the traditional worship of the Israelite people of their God (Exod. 36-40, Lev. 8). Many other things happened in the desert, where Moses led his people for forty years, including the opposition of Moses’ siblings, Miriam and Aaron, to his leadership at one time (with the result that Miriam was punished by becoming leprous and only healed after seven days because Moses interceded for her); the budding of Aaron’s staff; the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up to heal the people after a plague of snakes had bitten them; and the establishment of the succession of Joshua to Moses. When he was very old, Moses died without entering the Promised Land, revered by his people, and the Israelites were anticipating that God would raise up another great prophet from among them (Exod. 18). Yet that was not the end of the story. Because of the incredible impact of Moses on the formation of Israel and later emergence of Christianity, people of faith were drawn to meditate on Moses’ life, seeking to fill in the gaps left by the narrative provided in the Bible. This book, Illuminating Moses, follows the chronological arc of those meditations in a narrative fashion; each chapter is devoted to one cultural group and historical moment. Moses from the Exodus to the Renaissance The life of Moses in Exodus provided a foundation upon which later writers built a very large house with incredibly diverse rooms. Within each, the same Moses could be admired for very different things, for the believers from different traditions used the Bible used in a variety of ways. The chapters in Illuminating Moses explore the dynamic figure of Moses in this extraordinary house. In his chapter, “The Roles of Moses in the Pentateuch,” Robert Miller II begins by acknowledging that although Moses is traditionally recognized as the author of the first five books of the Bible, modern scholarship has seen the Pentateuch/Torah as being composed by multiple writers. He reviews the “quest for the historical Moses,” as originally pursued by Martin Noth and John Van Seters, but then goes on to propose another useful mode of approach, not from a historicist perspective but from a folklorist one. As he observes, “None of this means that there is not a historical Moses and that the tales do not include historical information. But in the Pentateuch, history has become memorial. Memorial revises history, reifies memory,

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and makes myth out of history.”6 So Miller examines elements of the hero’s journey as articulated by folklorists Otto Rank, Joseph Campbell, and Lord Raglan as they apply to the endangered youth, heroic adulthood, and sacrificial death of Moses. The chapter provides a useful overview of the life of Moses together with a scholarly awareness of how that life has been received in modern times. Tawny Holm, in her chapter, “Moses in the Prophets and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible,” specifically considers the occurrence of Moses’ name and allusions to him in the Deuteronomistic history, the Prophetic literature, the Psalms, and the Persian and Hellenistic era literature of the Bible. She notes the plethora of Mosaic references in Joshua, wherein Joshua himself is depicted as a “new Moses,” and she contrasts this with the dearth of references in later prophetic books. The life of Moses is used as the pattern not only for Joshua, but also for the judges Huldah and Deborah, the prophet Elijah, and the king Josiah. In Holm’s opinion, while King David is clearly the most often mentioned and consequently probably the most important person in later biblical books, Moses is arguably the second most important. Moses is mentioned eight times in the Psalms, Psalm 90 is specifically attributed to him,7 and interestingly, the five books of the Psalms correspond structurally to the five books of the Torah. Yet his name goes unmentioned in most of the Writings otherwise, except briefly in Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Daniel. Commonly, “the law of Moses” is used as a standard against which the people of Israel are measured and found to fall short. In the Jewish ordering of the biblical books, the Hebrew Bible ends with Chronicles, but in the Christian ordering, the Old Testament ends with Malachi. As Holm observes, “Furthermore, in the concluding verses of Malachi, the last book of the Prophets, Moses is connected to the ­prophet Elijah in a manner that looks both backward to Israel’s past and forward to a future messianic prophet (Mal. 3:22; English versions, Mal. 4:4).”8 Larry Swain picks up here, considering the representation of Moses in his chapter, “Moses as a Central Figure in the New Testament.” He first considers Moses in Second Temple literature, including his presence in the book of Ben Sira, Jubilees, and The Assumption of Moses. Moses has a 6 Miller, “Biography,” p. 24. 7 In Jewish tradition, Psalms 90-100 are attributed to Moses. 8 Holm, “Prophets and the Writings,” p. 57.

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growing role to play in these writings, a role that took on legendary proportions and endowed Moses with new qualities of saintliness and the ability to receive divine revelation on an epic scale. In Hellenistic Alexandria, in the writings of Aristobulus the Historian, Moses becomes the source of the philosophies of Plato and Pythagoras. Artapanus writes a novel about Moses (in which he instructs Orpheus and raises Pharaoh from the dead) while Ezekiel the Tragedian writes a play about him. During the Second Temple period, Philo of Alexandria makes him both a mystic and a supreme philosopher. In Greco-Roman Israel, Josephus conceives of Moses as a nationalistic hero who represents God’s chosen people. Meanwhile, the community at Qumran and the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other rabbis now inherit a grander Mosaic figure than appears in the Torah alone. They are the scribes dedicated to interpreting the law of Moses, and they become involved in debates over who truly sits in Moses’ seat. Into this already complex picture comes the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth and his followers, the disciples, the apostle Paul, and the emerging Christian church, who have great respect for Moses and an almost typological belief that Jesus is the “Second Moses.” What this may mean is expounded in the Gospels, of which Matthew and John are taken as exemplary, and in the writings of Paul as well as the letter to the Hebrews. Swain succinctly concludes after his analytical survey, “For the New Testament, while the strategies differ somewhat, the early Christians conclude that Moses is in some way subservient to Jesus because Jesus is the Prophet Moses foretold and the Son of God. Thus, all early Christians concluded that Jesus superseded Moses.”9 This understanding sets the stage for the church fathers and their understanding of Moses. As Christopher Hall shows, the church fathers tended to read the Old Testament and the New Testament not only historically but also typologically, in relation to one another, and to see Moses and Jesus in similar relation. Furthermore, typological connections were reinforced through allegorical readings of Scripture. As Hall writes, such interpretive methods inspired the “exegetical imaginations” of the church fathers. These men tended to admire Moses quite highly, to see Christian tradition as a continuation built on the Mosaic foundation, but also to critique the shortcomings, as they saw them, of both Moses and the Law, and to replace Moses with Christ and the law with grace. This tendency was actually hard-fought and hard-won against unorthodox opposition to the 9 Swain, “New Testament,” p. 80.

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inclusion of the Old Testament, together with the Law and the important person of Moses, in the canonical Bible of the Church. For in late antiquity, various heretical sects, including the Marcionites, Gnostics, and Manichees, objected to the retention of the Old Testament at all. Several church fathers rose to the defense of Moses and the Old Testament, including Augustine in his rebuttal of Marcion and Origen in his answers to Celsus and Apellus. Both they and other church fathers, including Chrysostom, Tertullian, Cyprian, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Gregory of Nyssa, meditated extensively on the life of Moses and its relation to the life of Christ. As Christopher Hall writes, summing up the perspective of the Church fathers, “In a word, Moses leads to Jesus, and Jesus in turn sheds greater light on the meaning of Moses.”10 Specific events from the life of Moses were interpreted allegorically, including, for example, how both of his hands were upheld over the battlefield when the Israelites contended with the Amalekites—a posture that both Tertullian and Cyprian saw as prefiguring Christ’s hands lifted up over the world when he was crucified to redeem humanity from sin. Equally important, the life of Moses was seen as a model of the spiritual life for Christians. Thus, despite dispute, Mosaic apologetics led to the retention of the life of Moses, the Pentateuch, and the Old Testament in the Scriptures of the orthodox Christian Church along with a typological and allegorical method of exegesis to facilitate understanding them in relationship to Christ, the Gospels, and the New Testament overall. Luciana Cuppo-Csaki adds another dimension to our understanding of Moses in the patristic period through her analysis of the liturgies associated with the Paschal mysteries. While it is commonly known that the sacrifice of Isaac, and thus the persons of Abraham and Isaac, plays an important part in the remembrances associated with Easter, the role of Moses is perhaps less recognized. Cuppo-Csaki is careful to point out that the Paschal liturgies acknowledge Moses as the lawgiver who relates how to celebrate the Passover correctly, is an inspired writer of sacred texts, and acts as God’s unquestioned spokesman. This is consistently so across all liturgies of the patristic period. Cuppo-Csaki examines the liturgy of the Irish, Roman, African, and Alexandrian churches, between 270 AD and 590604 AD, glancing at an important letter by Columbanus of Bobbio on the matter of the dating of the celebration of Easter as well, to demonstrate this. Readers are left with a deeper understanding of how the authority of 10 Hall, “Church Fathers,” p. 86.

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Moses was received not only by the Church fathers, but also by the popular masses of Christians in attendance at Easter services. It was precisely this growing number of Christian believers in the West and their beliefs about Moses that compelled Jewish thinkers from the diaspora to articulate their own clear understanding of Moses as the “master of the prophets” and giver of the Law. Although Jesus said he did not come to overturn the Law, but to fulfill it, and added even further that not even “a jot or tittle” of the Law would pass away (Matt. 5:17-18), still the patristic exegetics of supersession and the Christian view of the Law as an “old testament” or former covenant, required response from Jews living among Christians. Thus Jewish philosophers sought to show the continued binding nature of the Law while seeking to understand how and why it was originally transmitted. In his chapter, “The Prophecy of Moses in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” Howard Kreisel considers the perspectives of Jewish philosophers, primarily from the tenth to the fifteenth century, on how Moses received the revelation of the Torah at Sinai (did he literally, audibly and visibly, perceive God or did he do so, at some level, imaginatively?) and on why Moses was considered worthy to receive the revelation (was he specially prepared, and/or was he the most perfect man, intellectually and morally, who ever lived?). By surveying the thought of Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, Nissim of Marseilles, Levi Gersonides, and Hasdai Crescas, Kreisel is able to show a shining thread that continues to be woven throughout the tapestry of Jewish philosophical thought: even when these thinkers provide a rationalistic or naturalistic explanation for prophecy in general, they tend to see Moses as an exceptional prophet who experienced God with his senses in a way later prophets did not, and this affirmation of Moses’ experience on Mount Sinai was meant to confirm the divine origin and immutable nature of the Law he received. At the conclusion of his chapter, Kreisel turns to a consideration of Baruch Spinoza, a Jewish intellectual in seventeenth-century Holland, who believed, Kreisel writes, that the “only truly divine law is the knowledge and love of God, and the moral virtues to practice justice and righteousness this love mandates, which is revealed to the human intellect, and not the Law of Moses, which is concerned only with the ordering of the state and its security.”11 Spinoza’s rejection of traditional rabbinic interpretation of Scripture led to him being ostracized by his Jewish community (yet he did 11 Kriesel, “The Prophecy of Moses,” p. 136.

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not convert to the Catholic Church even though he apparently believed in the importance of Jesus);12 it also laid the foundation for modern interpretations of Scripture as an exceptional human text, with an important role to play in history, but divine neither in origin nor in implication. At the same time that Jewish philosophers were seeking to explain the how and why of Moses’ prophetic experience, in frequently rationalistic or naturalistic terms, Jewish writers of midrashim were developing a popular picture of Moses rich in imaginative detail—and in the conventions of romance and epic heroism—that made Moses nothing less than magical for a medieval popular audience. As Rachel Mikva points out in her chapter, “Epic and Romance, Narrative and Exegesis: Moses and the Minor Midrashim,” Moses was already well situated within biblical narrative to become the ideal protagonist in seventh through twelfth-century midrashim, such as The Chronicles of Moses, Midrash vaYosha and Midrash Petirat Moshe. She identifies these as prototypical Jewish short stories. The minor midrashim of the Middle Ages drew on previous traditions in antiquity and late antiquity in providing additions to the biography of Moses in the Bible, including, among other things, that he was nursed by a Hebrew woman because he refused to be nursed by an Egyptian woman; that he played with Pharaoh’s crown as a child and, when his life was threatened because Pharaoh’s advisers saw this as portending Moses’ overthrow of Pharaoh’s government in the future, he was directed by the angel Gabriel to take up a burning ember rather than gold when presented with a choice between the two, and with it, to burn his own mouth (thus explaining his speech impediment while saving him from death); and that as a 12 Spinoza wrote in His Political Theological Tract that “We may be able quite to comprehend that God can communicate immediately with man, for without the intervention of bodily means He communicates to our minds His essence; still, a man who can by pure intuition comprehend ideas which are neither contained in nor deducible from the foundations of our natural knowledge, must necessarily possess a mind far superior to those of his fellow men, nor do I believe that any have been so endowed save Christ. To Him the ordinances of God leading men to salvation were revealed directly without words or visions, so that God manifested Himself to the Apostles through the mind of Christ as He formerly did to Moses through the supernatural voice. In this sense the voice of Christ, like the voice which Moses heard, may be called the voice of God, and it may be said that the wisdom of God (i.e. wisdom more than human) took upon itself in Christ human nature, and that Christ was the way of salvation.” However, he admitted in a letter to Henry Oldenburg that he could not understand the doctrine of certain churches, namely “that God took upon himself human nature,” which, he wrote, would “seem no less absurd to me than a statement that a circle had taken on the nature of a square.” For discussion, see Brandon, “Spinoza’s Christ,” Siris (http://branemrys.blogspot.com/2008/03/spinozas-christ.html)—accessed 19 June 2012.

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young man, after killing the Egyptian who was beating an Israelite, his neck turned to marble when Pharaoh would have cut his head off with a sword for punishment. In every case, these details were added in response to unanswered questions in Scripture or to elaborate on details given in the biblical narrative. In short, the minor midrashim of the Middle Ages weave all these elements together to fashion an expanded exegetical narrative. Noting the incorporation of these midrashim in prayer books and the likelihood of their having been rooted in synagogue Torah recitation and performative exegesis, Mikva sees the development of these narrative patterns in part as responses to Islamic short story traditions and Western Christian romance narratives, such as the King Arthur legend, and the growing fascination with the importance of character development, internal motivation, and narrative contextualization. Her literary analysis is key to our understanding of the reception of Moses in the Middle Ages. While Mikva gives a survey of Moses’ developing biography, Devorah Schoenfeld focuses on its conclusion in “The Destiny of All Men: Rabbinic and Medieval Justifications for the Death of Moses.” The death of Moses presented an interpretive crux to Jewish readers because of the differences between the two versions of story of Meribah given in Numbers 20 and Deuteronomy 17. Interpreters specifically wondered if Moses sinned when he struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it to bring forth water has God instructed him. If he had sinned, what was the nature of the sin? If Moses were without sin and yet God took his life without allowing him to enter the Promised Land, why did Moses have to suffer death? These questions obviously would lead readers to contemplate whether Moses, a righteous man, suffered unjustly—and whether God himself was just. Midrashic commentaries that developed between the third and the ninth centuries, exemplified in Schoenfeld’s analysis by the Sifre, Midrash Tahuma, and Midrash Rabbah on Deuteronomy, suggested two possible answers: yes, Moses was guilty of sin and died because of it, and no, Moses was not guilty of sin, and God’s justice was questionable. In the later Middle Ages, French and Spanish Jewish exegetes were aware of these two interpretations from the classical rabbinic period. Their work is preserved in the Mikraot Gedolot (which is sometimes known as the Rabbinic Bible and can be compared, in a sense, to the Latin Glossa Ordinaria, for both have a similar page layout with the Scriptures centrally placed and commentaries arranged around the central text).13 The French school, led by 13 The Mikraot Gedolot or Rabbinic Bible was first printed in 1516-17 by Daniel Bomberg in Venice (with many errors); Bomberg printed it again in 1524-25, basing the printing on

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Rashi, held that Moses did sin and died for his sin. The Spanish school, influenced by Maimonides and represented by Nahmanides and Avraham Ibn Ezra as well, were less definitive on this question—sometimes refusing to comment on it and other times rejecting any exact specification of what Moses’ sin was. Although neither the French nor the Spanish Jewish exegetes fully adopted the earlier rabbinic tradition that questioned God’s justice, they were well aware of the commentary tradition on the death of Moses, and they preserve knowledge of those debates in their own peshat and midrashic interpretations of Scripture. From the continent, Gernot Wieland turns our attention to insular considerations in his chapter, “Legifer, Dux, Scriptor: Moses in Anglo-Saxon Literature,” focusing on how Anglo-Latin and Old English writings in England treat Moses. Alcuin, Aldhelm, and Bede acknowledge Moses in three significant roles: lawgiver, leader, and writer. Yet the mentions of the man are few, apparently because the Anglo-Latin authors saw him as incomplete without knowledge of the revelation contained in the New Testament. Diverse Old English poems make mention of Moses, but in general, do not discuss him at length. The primary exception to this is the Old English poetic paraphrase, Exodus. Yet here it becomes readily apparent that Moses, although a main character, does not conform to a Germanic ideal of heroism. Even within an Old English paraphrase of a book attributed to Moses’ authorship and featuring him as a protagonist, his role and its relevance for Old English culture is not expanded. This is particularly notable because, even though the patristic writings provide the possibility of typological importance for Moses, even typology is not widely used by AngloSaxon writers to emphasize the importance of Moses. In her chapter, “Biblical-Moral Moses: Type or Stereotype?,” Deborah Goodwin returns us to the continent and to the considerations raised by Devorah Schoenfeld about what happened at the waters of Meribah and the death of Moses—only this time, the analysis focuses on Christian exegetical interpretations of Scripture among the Scholastics. Goodwin begins by surveying some early Christian views expressed in the New Testament, as well as those expressed by Augustine in his City of God, before turning to a survey of opinions between the ninth and the twelfth centuries. Notable among the early allegorical interpretations was the tendency to the text of Ben Hayyim (still with errors). This latter text has been reprinted many times. A corrected edition is underway, by Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, under the direction of M. Cohen.

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see the rock Moses struck as Jesus and the water that poured out of it as prefiguring the water that poured forth from his side when he was pierced on the Cross. Between the ninth and eleventh century, two other allegorical interpreters with distinctly supersessionist understandings of Moses as a figure of the Old Law were writing: Hrabanus Maurus and Rupert of Deutz. Yet by the twelfth century, among the scholastics, a new emphasis on the “plain sense,” the literal or historical meaning, of Scripture began to emerge. This was especially championed by the Victorines, as Beryl Smalley elaborated in her seminal work, The Bible in the Middle Ages. This movement particularly influenced Peter Comestor, author of the Historia scholastica. As Goodwin points out, Peter Comestor had a “vigorous and sympathetic” view of Moses. Perhaps under the influence of Jewish exegete Rashbam, his near contemporary, he viewed the people and not Moses himself as to blame for what happened at the waters of Meribah. Most strikingly, he actually rewrote the story from Numbers 20 in his historical synthesis. In his version, God actually commands Moses to strike the rock! This completely absolves Moses, of course, of wrongdoing. Goodwin speculates that Peter Comestor’s particularly positive view of Moses may have been influenced by Josephus’ glowing portrayal of Moses in the Jewish Antiquities and Hugh of St. Victor’s understanding of the Old Testament Law as having sacramental value for ancient Israelites as well as by his appreciation of the historical context of Scripture, his awareness of contemporary Jews in France, and the need to reconcile Jewish law and Christian practices emerging in his time. In any case, as a result, Peter bequeaths to later ages a view of Moses as an admirable type, not a stereotype. If Peter Comestor had a high view of Moses, then the thirteenth-century Dominican “Master of the Sacred Page,” Thomas Aquinas, had an even higher one as Franklin T. Harkins shows in his chapter, “Primus Doctor Iudaeorum: Moses as Theological Master in the Summa Theologie of Thomas Aquinas.” In Italy, where he wrote the Summa theologiae, Thomas had the opportunity to meditate extensively on a key role that he understood Moses to have played in history: the first teacher of the Jews. As Thomas Aquinas shows in his masterful summation of medieval theology, Moses was “simply the greatest of all,” not only as a prophet but also as a teacher who fittingly accommodated his knowledge of the Trinity, creation, and Christ to the ability of his students, the Jews who had been set free from slavery in Egypt, to understand. Thomas clearly saw himself as following in the footsteps of this great teacher in his own role as a teacher of Dominicans.

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Gail Ivy Berlin brings us back to England. Like Rachel Mikva’s chapter on midrashim, she gives us insight on popular understanding of Moses through literary analysis of his appearances in Middle English literature in her chapter, “‘Like a Duck from a Falcon’: Moses in Middle English Biblical Literature, the Mystery Cycles, and Piers Plowman B.” She notes that within the Middle English literary corpus, Moses is typically treated in terms of three broad categories: his life, his laws, and his figurative value. She begins with a consideration of Middle English lives of Moses as they are related in the paraphrase Genesis and Exodus (circa 1250), which draws on Peter Comestor’s Historia scholastica, and in two chronicles: one prose, the Latin Polychronicon compiled by Ranulf Higden and translated into English by John Trevisa, and the other verse, the Cursor Mundi. Apocryphal information is added to the biblical narrative in the chronicle biographies, which include the story of how Moses would not nurse at the breast of an Egyptian woman and how he played with Pharaoh’s crown. The latter story is particularly important to late medieval Christians because it prefigured Christ’s entry into Egypt as an infant when, according to another apocryphal tradition, all the idols fell down in recognition of the true divinity of Jesus. Berlin observes that the Middle English lives of Moses look very much like the childhood of the saints in other medieval writings, full of “pious behaviors, signs and miracles.”14 The laws of Moses, particularly the Ten Commandments, proliferate across Middle English genres and tend to be included in didactic treatises that serve as guides to salvation together with lists of and meditations on the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Acts of Mercy. Interestingly, the Ten Commandments have quite a bit of variation in Middle English, often beginning with Christ’s summary of the law (love God and love your neighbor) and occasionally including interpolations summarizing other important biblical principles (such as, for example, “help the needy so that they may not die”). Yet neither Richard Rolle nor John Wyclif mention Moses in their treatises on the Decalogue, apparently evincing the same reluctance Gernot Wieland noted among educated Anglo-Saxon commentators (and apparently for similar reasons). The figurative potential of Moses and every one of his actions and interactions recorded in the book of Exodus is fully realized in Middle English literature, from Chaucerian allusions to the burning bush as an image of the Holy Spirit conceiving Jesus within Mary, to the receipt of the Ten 14 Berlin, “Middle English Literature,” p. 267.

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Commandments as foreshadowing Pentecost, to the eating of manna in the desert as pre-figuring the sacrament of the Eucharist. Middle English writers draw from a deep well of traditional allegorical interpretation as they proliferate these correspondences. With such typological connections, they water the fertile imaginations of both the mystery cycle playwrights and William Langland, the author of the extraordinary, fourteenth-century dream vision Piers Plowman. Within the plays, Berlin sees two attitudes toward Moses emerging: one which valorizes him, especially as God’s representative opposing Pharaoh, and another which defames his law, especially in contrasting it with the New Law of Christ. The mystery cycles, and specific plays in them such as Pharaoh and The Woman Caught in Adultery, exemplify these contrasting tendencies and their dramatic effect. Off stage and on the page, within the elaborate poem, Piers Plowman, Moses is associated with the allegorical figure of Hope, and through this figure, William Langland “begins by honoring the Moses of the Ten Commandments, moves on to challenging the sufficiency of the Decalogue for salvation, and ends by demonstrating its limits—very much like the mystery plays.”15 In “Moses and Medieval Christian Contemplative Devotion,” I explore the role of Moses in the medieval Christian practices of lectio divina and contemplative prayer. In late antiquity, Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Egeria wrote treatises that show particular interest in Moses’ experiences before the burning bush (Exodus 3), receiving the law in a cloud on Sinai (Exodus 19 and 24), and communing with God before the arc of the covenant in the tabernacle. Their allegorical interpretations of these passages in relation to contemplative visionary experiences as well as spiritual marriage to God laid the groundwork for later medieval contemplative responses to Moses that can be seen in the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard von Bingen, and Bonaventura. In the later Middle Ages, Meister Eckhart, Birgitta of Sweden and the English author of the Cloud of Unknowing responded intimately and imaginatively to the figure of Moses in a period when he is curiously absent from the writings of other contemplatives, especially in England. The tradition of the Biblia pauperum, arising in the medieval period and continuing to flourish in the incunabula of the early Renaissance, reveals the importance of Moses in manuscript illustrations and early printed wood-cuts that pair him with key events in the life of Christ. Later in the Renaissance, Christian devotional practices 15 Berlin, “Middle English,” p. 293.

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continued to thrive in Counter-Reformation Spain, so this chapter concludes with an examination of the treatment of Moses in the Interior Castle of Teresa of Avila and the writings of St. John of the Cross. This sets the stage for Brett Foster’s chapter on the reception of Moses in the early modern period, “‘Types and Shadows’: Uses of the Moses in the Renaissance.” He begins with Milton’s grand allusions to Moses in Paradise Lost, with literary analysis that makes it clear that Milton regarded Moses as a divinely-gifted poet and hymn-maker, a view shared by John Donne as well, who compared Philip Sidney and Mary Sidney, when they finished their poetic translation of the Psalter, to Moses and Miriam singing as they departed Egypt. From Milton and Renaissance poets, Foster turns to a consideration of Protestant reformers, who tended to treat Moses as an ally against vices like magic, superstition, and idolatry. Erasmus appreciated Moses as a contemplative; Calvin rejected charges against Moses of performing magic; Tyndale valorized Moses as a fellow iconoclast and, in keeping with his own work, as a translator who composed the Bible in the mother tongue of the Jews so they could understand it. Not surprisingly, Luther was an exception to the general tendency among Protestants to value Moses highly. He contrasted Moses’ Law with the faith of Abraham and described him as “Hercules with the club,” a bully metaphor, with Hercules representing an overpowering idea of Moses and the club representing the Law. He even went so far as to question the traditional Christian typological association between Moses and Jesus. Nevertheless, the reception of Moses in both Protestant England and Catholic Rome can be characterized as positive overall, but with a tendency to use aspects of this most admirable historical and religious figure for specific rhetorical purposes. The words of Moses (“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt …” [Exod. 20:2]) were incorporated into the Book of Common Prayer and spoken by Anglicans. Moses was a key character in a play by John Dale, “A Comedy Concerning Three Laws,” and he figured in the poetry of Edmund Spenser and George Herbert. Outside of literature, it became cultural common practice to associate him with royal and heroic figures like Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, and Sir Francis Drake. In Rome, Moses loomed large in the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance. In literature, he could appear in dynamically different roles. For Machiavelli, Moses was, as Foster characterizes the depiction, “pragmatic, fierce, and populist”; for Egidio da Viterbo, a humble Augustinian, Moses was a key figure of piety overcoming might. Both St. Francis and Michel-

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angelo were called a “second Moses.” Michelangelo, meanwhile, painted Moses in the Sistine Chapel, which contributed to the tradition of seeing Moses as a type of Pope. Later, Michelangelo would make an enormous statue of Moses for the tomb of Julius II. It was visited, according to one contemporary, by the Jewish community in Rome every Saturday as it was being constructed. Audiences for the Idea of Moses It may not be an exaggeration to suggest that there were two general audiences who received the figure of Moses and the complex of ideas associated with him between the writing of Exodus and the flourishing of the Renaissance: a popular one and a highly educated one. Not surprisingly, the educated views of the writers of the Hebrew Bible, the Church fathers, Jewish rabbis, Jewish and Christian philosophers alike, Scholastics, and Protestant reformers have been plentifully documented in their writings. Perhaps surprisingly, popular perceptions have survived (and, at the same time, been shaped) in inter-testamental literature (the novel of Artapanus, the play of Ezekiel the Tragedian, the Antiquities of Josephus), the minor midrashim (with their epic and romance elements), and Middle English and Renaissance literature (poetry, plays and prose treatises) as well. Within the Christian tradition, the church liturgy acted as a bridge between the highly educated audience who created it and the popular audience who received it, communicating a variety of ideas—including ones about Moses, especially in the Paschal liturgy. Like the liturgy, contemplatives, too, held a middle space between a smaller, highly educated audience and a larger, popular audience for their understandings of Moses. As their extant writings about their mystical experiences reveal, many Christian contemplatives perceived Moses primarily through things that they heard; they could not always read Latin texts, including the biblical text, that explored the life of Moses. When they dictated or, in some cases, wrote their contemplative treatises (often in vernacular languages) and referred to Moses within them, they did so prayerfully (and therefore thoughtfully), but usually without the same access to book learning as men educated in universities. It is worth noting, furthermore, that the mystical tradition tended to emphasize the importance of spiritual humility and affective devotion over and above philosophical inquiry and intellectual endeavor, so book learning had less importance for contemplatives. Nevertheless, the

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powerful impact of Moses on culture created shared ways of understanding him among all types of audiences. Across time, geography, and a multiplicity of culturally varied communities, Moses clearly emerges as the leader of the Exodus from Egypt, lawgiver, prophet (or even “Master of the Prophets”), writer of the Torah (or Pentateuch), an extraordinary psalmist and poet, and a typological figure, a key antecedent whose fulfillment is seen in Joshua, the judges Huldah and Deborah, the prophet Elijah, and the king Josiah in the Hebrew Bible, Jesus in the Christian New Testament, and such diverse people as St. Francis, Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, the Sidneys, Sir Francis Drake, Michelangelo, and the Pope in the Renaissance. Within the traditions of allegorical and midrashic interpretation, almost every aspect of Moses’ life came to be recognized, admired and used for its rich symbolic potential in exegesis, liturgy, history, politics, literature, art, and architecture.16 The audiences of Moses’ story, as told in the Bible, were able to perceive the great symbolic potential and figurative beauty of the idea of Moses. They recognized extraordinary correspondences between things as apparently different as the burning bush in the desert and the Holy Spirit filling the womb of Mary when Jesus was conceived, the passage through the Red Sea and the sacramental power of baptism, and the bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the desert and the crucifixion of Christ.17 These understandings had a tremendous impact on Jews and Christians for thousands of years. Ultimately, Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance seeks to sets forth the larger picture of the reception of Moses and his powerful impact on Judeo-Christian cultures from Exodus to the Renaissance. The hope of those who have written this book is that interested readers will see the value of focusing our mutual attention on a deeper understanding of this rich and colorful picture. Thus not only Moses, but we also, may be illuminated. 16 Regrettably, this volume does not have specific chapters on Moses in art or in Islam due to space limitations, though they are certainly discussed at times throughout the volume. Fortunately, these subjects are covered in greater detail elsewhere. For the reception Moses in art, see Ruth Mellinkoff, The Horned Moses in Medieval Thought and Art (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970; repr. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 1997); for the reception of Moses in Islam, see Brannon Wheeler, Moses in the Qu’ran and Islamic Exegesis (Richmond: Curzon, 2001). 17 For visual representations of these correspondences, see, for example, Biblia pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition, ed. Avril Henry (Cambridge: Scolar Press, 1987) and The Bible of the Poor: Biblia pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition of the British Library Blockbook C.9 d.2., ed. Albert C. Labriola and John W. Smeltz (Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press, 1990).

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The Roles of Moses in the Pentateuch Robert D. Miller II In four of the five books of the Torah or Pentateuch, from the book of Exodus through the book of Deuteronomy, the figure of Moses looms large. Admittedly, only fourteen of the 167 chapters of the Pentateuch deal primarily with the story of his life, but post-biblical tradition has expanded the significance of the “great man.”1 While a closer look reveals that Moses is not always spoken of in the same fashion in all of the Pentateuch,2 much scholarship of the past two centuries has been a quest for the historical Moses. This essay begins with an overview of this quest and its shortcomings. Then, using theoretical paradigms from the anthropological study of folklore and myth, the major roles Moses plays in the Pentateuch are tied to three proposed communities of authorship that were responsible for the Pentateuch’s Moses. Traditions: History and Moses One of the most important and influential works in the quest for the historical Moses was that of Martin Noth.3 Noth observed that Moses is infrequently mentioned outside of the Pentateuch.4 In the pre-exilic prophets, he appears only in Jeremiah 15:1. In later prophets, he is only in Isaiah 63:11-12 and the late addition in Micah 6:4. In other narrative material, Moses appears six times in the Deuteronomistic History: Joshua 9:24; Judges 1:16; 4:11; 1 Samuel 12:6-8; 1 Kings 8:53; and 2 Kings 18:4. Only the first two of these and the last one are independent of the Pentateuchal traditions. Thus, outside of influences emanating from the Pentateuch, Moses is negligible. 1 Brian Britt, “The Moses Myth, Beyond Biblical History,” Bible and Interpretation (July 2004), http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Britt-Moses_Myth.htm. 2 Walter Vogels, Moïse aux Multiple Visages (Montreal: Les Éditions Médiaspaul, 1997), 61. 3 Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: PrenticeHall, 1972), 1-7, 65-71, 136-41, 156-88. 4 Noth, History, 156.

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Noth concluded that Moses did not achieve his centrality until the elaboration and compilation of the Pentateuch. Within the Pentateuch, Noth considered that the figure of Moses was actually at home in only one of the various main themes of the Pentateuch, “from which only subsequently, in the process of the merging of the Pentateuchal themes, he came to dominate such a wide narrative sphere.”5 The quest then became to find “which of the Pentateuchal themes was Moses’ true traditio-historical place of origin.”6 Noth argued that the connection of Moses was weakest in the case of the theme of the revelation at Sinai.7 “The same holds true also for the theme ‘guidance out of Egypt.’”8 The commemoration of the Exodus in Deuteuronomy 6:12 and 8:14, for example, omits Moses altogether.9 Moses is also missing from the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15.10 This left the wilderness wanderings and the guidance to the Promised Land, and Noth considered stopping at this.11 Yet he proceeded, asking which element of the wilderness theme was original.12 What seemed hardest to explain as a later invention was the tradition of Moses’ marriage to a Midianite and the connection with meeting Midianites at the “mountain of God.”13 This element could not be derived from other elements in the Pentateuch. It was difficult to see why an author would have invented it, especially given the animosity towards Midianites in the biblical tradition (e.g., Judg. 6-7).14 Finally, the tradition occurs in three independent cases: Exodus; Numbers 12:1; Judges 1:16; and Judges 4:11. Noth decided it was “an historical fact” and that Moses, an Israelite leader on a journey to the Mountain of God, had married a Midianite.15 Noth, however, immediately retracted and decided it was doubtful this was the original element of the Moses tradition. Instead, he came “finally to the tradition of the grave of Moses as the most original element of the 5 Noth, History, 156. 6 Noth, History, 159. 7 Noth, History, 161-62. 8 Noth, History, 162-63. 9 H. Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses the Persian?” Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 116 (2004): 190. 10 George W. Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 57 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988): 162. 11 Noth, History, 163. 12 Noth, History, 166. 13 Noth, History, 168. 14 Roland de Vaux, The Early History of Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 330. 15 Noth, History, 168.

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Mosaic tradition still preserved.”16 Against the objection that this grave appears only in the Priestly Source and the Deuteronomistic History, Noth said it was hardly likely those writers would curse their hero Moses and bury him outside the Promised Land.17 The writers of the major Pentateuchal sources no longer knew the gravesite. They surely would not have invented a grave in such an obscure place or say that no one knew its location “to this day” if they had invented it.18 Noth concluded that “Moses” had entered Israelite tradition simply because the tomb of someone named Moses lay on the path the southern Transjordanian tribes of Israel took when advancing into the Land.19 As bizarre as this method of a “series of great subtractions”20 may seem, “for the most part, subsequent proposals have accepted the tradition-historical methodology that Noth” used.21 Few specifically fixed upon the grave, but “the history of the tradition’s development ha[s] been a rather constant preoccupation of biblical scholarship.”22 Many rested on the Midianite connection as primal.23 The most influential alternative approach has been that of John Van Seters.24 Van Seters argues for “a single literary composition by the Yahwist of all the pre-Priestly material,” and that “the belief that there must be older traditions behind the Yahwist and that the slightest duplication or tension in the text is a way to discover these is not considered valid.”25 Behind the Yahwist lay only the sixth-century Deuteronomist,26 who knows nothing of an Egyptian sojourn.27 Van Seters concluded, “The quest for the historical Moses is a futile exercise. He now belongs only to legend.”28 16 Noth, History, 169; also Rudolf Smend, “Mose als Geschichtliche Gestalt,” Historische Zeitschrift 260 (1995): 8. 17 Noth, History, 170. 18 Noth, History, 172. 19 Noth, History, 173. 20 Smend, “Mose,” 5. 21 John Van Seters, The Life of Moses (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 8. 22 Van Seters, Life, 247. 23 Herbert Schmid, Gestalt des Mose, Erträge der Forschung 237 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1986), 101-103; Henning Graf Reventlow, Die Eigenart des Jahwesglaubens, Biblicsch-Theologische Studien 66 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2004), 16. 24 Van Seters, Life. 25 Van Seters, Life, 70-71. 26 Van Seters, Life, 11. 27 Van Seters, Life, 34. 28 John Van Seters, In Search of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 23; also Smend, “Mose,” 19.

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The difficulty is how to account for apparent pre-Deuteronomic Mosaic traditions. One of these is the end of Moses’ life, especially the grave outside the settlement geography of the Deuteronomic writings.29 Another is the name of Moses, the received Hebrew pronunciation of which preserves the second-millennium BC Egyptian pronunciation.30 The various mantic elements, such as Moses and the snakes in Numbers 21:4-9, would also be unlikely to originate in Deuteronomic or later schools.31 Narrative Contexts for Moses Is, then, the quest for a historical Moses futile? It is not, if by ‘historical,’ the object is not wie es eigentlich gewesen.32 The quest is ineluctable, as scholars track down “cryptic references to his private life, dim allusions to traditions now lost, overshadowed by the present selective Vita Mosis of Deuteronomistic and Priestly origin.”33 However, the quest need not mean a search for the earliest element, as for Noth. The redactors of traditions are not onerous, but purveyors of Moses(es).34 In the Pentateuch, Moses is already a ‘received’ character. The ‘historical’ Moses has been presented in the Pentateuch according to the horizons of expectations of both the authors and the original ancient Israelite audience, “the collective memories that shaped the redactional and final figure of the biblical Moses.”35 It is best to admit that, “We can only write a history of the Moses tradition the way he was remembered in the narratives left by different religious groups and institutions in the Old Testament.”36 Literary criticism depends upon audience, and language is defined by or is defining its sitz im leben.37 29 Meindert Dijkstra, “Moses, the Man of God,” in The Interpretation of Exodus, ed. Riemer Roukema, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 44 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 19, 35. 30 Cf., inter alia, J. Gwyn Griffiths, “The Egyptian Derivation of the Name Moses,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 12 (1953): 227, 229-30; Noth, History, 159. 31 Dijkstra, “Moses,” 31. 32 Leopold von Ranke’s classic phrase “How it actually happened.” Cf. Robert D. Miller II, “How Post-Modernism (and W.F. Albright) Can Save Us from Malarkey,” Bible and Interpretation http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Miller_Malarkey.shtml. Also see: http:// www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Britt-Moses_Myth.htm. 33 Dijkstra, “Moses,” 21. 34 Orthodox religious communities of Judaism and Christianity throughout history, and to some extent today, have usually received the Pentateuch as authored by Moses himself, although most scholars of recent centuries posit some editorial activity of multiple authors. 35 Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses,” 189. 36 Dijkstra, “Moses,” 18. 37 “Situation in life.”

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Therefore, the implied audience is the historical audience.38 The text, moreover, creates a sitz in readers’ minds. The Pentateuch creates a mental historical context for Moses, an implied audience, roles for Moses, a ‘Moses,’ and does so for particular social and theological ends. Yet there are multiple permutations of this literary Moses in the Pentateuch,39 and these reflect both the historical basis and the diverse communities behind the text.40 “Even a reader who does not read very carefully can observe that the figure of Moses and the office that he held are not depicted in exactly the same way in all the stories.”41 The figure of Moses has a “polysemic character,”42 which is the result of a “diversity of testimonies.”43 Within this figure, it is common to find “some folkloristic features.”44 In a broader sense, every “pattern for depicting particular leadership figures … derives from folklore and can best be described as heroic.”45 In this case, a theoretical framework is necessary for understanding the place of the ‘hero’ in folklore and myth.46 While there are differing views on the value of comparativism in comparative religious studies, broad analysis of similarities between peoples—each in its own context—can provide a neglected window on the origin and function of myths like the Moses characters.47 Each of the permutations or faces of Moses reflect a historical community behind the presentation. To try to establish most exactly the roles played by Moses according to the traditions in the Pentateuch, it seems best to follow initially the various stages of the Moses story, rather than to 38 Robert L. Cohn, “The Second Coming of Moses,” in Comity and Grace of Method, ed. T. Ryba, G.D. Bond, and H. Tull (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2004), 136. 39 Albert Gelin, “Moïse dans l’Ancien Testament,” in Moïse, L’Homme de l’Alliance, ed. H. Cazelles, A. Gelin, et al. (Paris: Desclée, 1955), 42; Vogels, Moïse, 61. 40 Tim Gorringe, “Three Texts about Moses,” Expository Times 118 (2007): 178. 41 Gerhard von Rad, Moses, World Christian Books 32 (London: Lutterworth Press, 1960), 7. 42 Robert Martin-Achard, “Moïse, figure du mediateur selon l’Ancien Testament” in La Figure de Moïse, ed. Robert Martin-Achard (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1978), 15. 43 Martin-Achard, “Moïse,” 17. 44 Van Seters, Life, 33. 45 George W. Coats, The Moses Tradition, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 161 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 98. 46 Robert A. Segal, “The Indispensability of Theories of Myth for Biblical Studies,” unpublished paper presented at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting (San Diego, 2007), 3. This essay is forthcoming in Myth and Scripture, ed. D. Callender and N. Walls (Atlanta: SBL Press). 47 Segal, “Indispensability,” 12-18.

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begin with Noth’s elements of traditions-history or with hypothetical Pentateuchal sources.48 That is, analysis should follow the stages of Moses’ birth, exile, confrontation with Pharaoh, Exodus, theophany at Sinai, wilderness wanderings, and death. Exploration of these steps in the Moses story, and of changing patterns of Moses’ role in them, presents marked correlation with the hero myth patterns outlined by the three most important scholars to have delineated hero patterns and also analyzed their origins, function, and subject matter: Otto Rank (1884-1939), Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), and Lord Raglan (1885-1964).49 Each of these scholars presents a matrix for folklore heroes, and each provides an explanation for the origin and function of their hero myth. In the field of mythology, the three would be considered mutually exclusive, since each offers a different explanation (and a different pattern), which they hold to be exclusively explanatory of hero myths. Yet in the case of Moses, all three patterns hold true at various points. The Moses account, of course, is the product of multiple authors over a span of centuries. Each pattern and explanation is true for that portion of the Moses material that it explains. As collective memories that shaped the redactional figure of the biblical Moses, the myths were defined by and defining their sitzen im leben. In each stage of the Moses story, Rank, Campbell, and Raglan can elucidate the textual Moses(es), the mental contexts for each Moses that the text creates, what sitz is created in the readers’ minds, and most importantly, why it is created—what the particular social and theological ends were for each creation. What follows in this essay, then, ignores other important hero myth theorists like René Girard and Jacob Arlow, not because of theoretical disagreement with them but because they do not offer both patterns for hero myths and explanations for their origin and function.50 None of this means that there is not a historical Moses and that the tales do not include historical information. But in the Pentateuch, history has become memorial. Memorial revises history, reifies memory, and makes myth out of history.51 48 Martin-Achard, “Moïse,” 11. 49 Segal, “Indispensability,” 19. 50 Segal, “Indispensability,” 19; Robert A. Segal, Myth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 98. Girard does offer significant insight in cases of “scape-goating” that might be valuable in the discussion of Moses’ late life that follows, although Girard’s treatment does not address the origin of hero myths in general. Nevertheless, an incorporation of Girard’s work would be a worthy avenue for future research. 51 Jan Davis and Isabel Wollaston, “Memorials,” in The Sociology of Sacred Texts, ed. J. Davis and I. Wollaston (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 25.

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Young Man Moses Although Otto Rank later broke with Sigmund Freud irreparably, he was a devoted disciple of Freud when he wrote Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden.52 In his model of a hero myth, the hero is the child of distinguished or noble parents. His birth is preceded by difficulty, even external prohibition on his parents’ procreation. During the pregnancy, there is a prophecy warning against his birth, threatening danger to his father. Upon birth, the hero child is surrendered to the water in a box. He is saved by lowly people and suckled by a humble woman. After he grows up, he discovers his identity and takes revenge upon his father, finally achieving rank and honors.53 This glorification of the hero, moreover, is itself the will of the gods.54 Rank illustrated this pattern from multiple ethnographic cases, and he explicitly tied Moses to this pattern.55 Rank explained this myth in Freudian terms. The exposure in water is a “symbolic expression of birth.”56 The hero is not heroic because he wins rank and honors, but because he kills his father.57 The myth is not about repressed urges of the hero, however, but about the mythmaker (or reader), who “revels in the hero’s triumph, which is in fact his own. He is the real hero of the myth.”58 The hero “represents the poet himself, or at least one side of his character,”59 or in the case of folklore, the community as a whole at that time.60 The parent-child relationship, for example, is about relationships between the present community and its perceived past.61 The similarities to the narratives about Moses, from his birth under threat of death and exposure in the Nile through his victory over Pharaoh at the Red Sea (more water), are blatant.62 This requires, however, treating 52 Segal, Myth, 101. 53 Otto Rank, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (New York: Vintage Books, 1932), 65. 54 Otto Rank and Hanns Sachs, “Investigation of Myths and Legends,” in Psychology and Myth, ed. Robert A. Segal, Theories of Myth 1 (New York: Garland, 1996), 311. 55 Rank, Myth, 82. 56 Rank, Myth, 73. 57 Segal, “Indispensability,” 21. 58 Segal, “Indispensability,” 21, italics original; Myth, 97. 59 Rank, Myth, 72. 60 Rank, Myth, 84. 61 Esther Menaker, Otto Rank: A Rediscovered Legacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 87, 130. 62 Thus, Moses is considered an Oedipus figure in Hans J.L. Jensen, “An ‘Oedipus pattern’ in the Old Testament?” Religion 37 (2007): 49-52; and Diane Cole, “Moses, the Egyptian Hebrew,” Mythosphere 2 (2000): 369-70.

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together material that a century of criticism has found to be diverse. That is an issue Rank was well aware of when working with Greek myth. He wrote: One should expect only a psychological contribution that attempts to clear the way through the undergrowth of torturous criticism toward free view and access into the understanding of epic poetry. … One must assume that it will nevertheless take into consideration the established results of various specialized investigations and that, within the context of its framework, the standard, basic questions will be respected and perhaps promoted.63

Aside from Rank’s pattern, there is structural evidence for seeing much of this material as a cogently constructed text at some point,64 and that point is the ‘myth making’ in this case. Rank was also aware that some scholars believed the Moses birth story was borrowed from that of Cyrus the Great.65 This theory, largely ignored in recent decades in favor of borrowing from the birth story of Sargon of Akkad,66 has been strongly reiterated by H. Zlotnick-Sivan.67 He holds that Moses’ Egyptian biography was “deliberate narrative inversion of Cyrus biography,” written when “the conquest of Egypt was the apogee of Persian achievements.”68 This inversion was a “bid for Persian favor” and “an excuse and justification for the most extravagant undertaking of the Achaemenids, namely the conquest and annexation of Egypt.”69 Even if the complete absence of Aramaic and Persian loan words alone did not make this scenario unlikely, Zlotnick-Sivan relies entirely on Herodotus’ account of Cyrus birth while disallowing a link between Herodotus and the Old Testament.70 There are parallels between Herodotus’ biography of Cyrus and Exodus, but far fewer with any other account of Cyrus’s life.71 Van Seters is more accurate seeing the story of Moses’ birth as “use of the common stock of folklore in circulation in the larger Near Eastern environment.”72 In every 63 Otto Rank, “Homer,” Imago 5 (1917): 133-69; unpublished English translation by Gregory Richter, 1999. 64 Vogels, Moïse, 69. 65 Rank, Myth, 27. 66 Jonathan Cohen, The Origins and Evolution of the Moses Nativity Story, Studies in the History of Religion 58 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 12, 25. But cf. Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 47. 67 Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses,” 191. 68 Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses,” 193, 201-202. 69 Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses,” 203. 70 Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses,” 199. 71 Zlotnick-Sivan, “Moses,” 202. 72 Van Seters, Life, 27; also, more exhaustively, Meik Gerhards, Aussetzungsgeschichte des Mose WMANT 109 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2006), 149-249.

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case where this particular element of that stock was used by a culture, the explanation of Rank is apt. Already as early as Pseudo-Philo and Ezekiel the Tragedian, there was concern about what now would be called ‘oedipal’ elements in the Moses story.73 The traditions about Moses’ family are all quite odd.74 Gilles Dorival has argued that Numbers 26:58-59 even makes Moses the incestuous product of aunt and nephew.75 Modern scholars have regularly pointed out elements just below the surface of the text that are even closer parallels to Rank’s pattern.76 While this Moses could be seen as oedipal killer, he is more clearly “saved savior.”77 If Moses is a Rankean hero, “Moses is the hero of the text and of the ghostwriters and editors who create and keep it.”78 Noth considered Moses’ birth narrative as “one of the latest and most secondary passages of the Mosaic tradition.”79 Gerhards saw Moses’ role as saved savior as reflecting an exilic hope.80 But, “It is significant to note here that the priestly source has no claim on this tradition.”81 Alternatively, when young Moses kills the Egyptian officer, only later to campaign against Pharaoh himself, we see the murder of an overseer by a potential overseer leading to rebellion against the sovereign by a subject people. Similarly, in 1 Kings 12, the rebellion of overseer Jeroboam against the sovereign Solomon is followed by the murder of the potential overseer Adoram by Jeroboam’s subject people of Israel.82 Solomon, like the “Pharaoh who knew not Joseph,” had afflicted the people with forced labor (unlike the benevolent predecessor, either David or Joseph’s Pharaoh).83 Jeroboam, furthermore, had fled to Egypt from Solomon, just as Moses had fled from Egypt.84 Each left their host to return to their people, the embassy of each to the

73 Cole, “Moses,” 371. 74 Schmid, Gestalt, 84. 75 Gilles Dorival, “Moïse, est-il le fruit d’un inceste?” in Interpreting Translation, ed. F. García Martínez and M. Vervenne, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 192 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 97-108, esp. 108. 76 E.g, James Nohrenberg, Like Unto Moses (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 136. 77 Gerhards, Aussetzungsgeschichte, 137, 146-47. 78 Nohrenberg, Like, 54. 79 Noth, History, 162. 80 Gerhards, Aussetzungsgeschichte, 250-56, 263-64. 81 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 48. 82 Nohrenberg, Like, 282-83. 83 Nohrenberg, Like, 283. 84 Nohrenberg, Like, 286.

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king was rejected because both Pharaoh and Rehoboam’s hearts were hardened.85 Scholars have long seen “the Moses tradition was at home primarily in the north.”86 The difficulty attributing the Moses’ birth material to the northern kingdom is the clear presence of late material in these passages. Yet, the early northern kingdom likewise fits Raglan’s prognosis: a society bent on overpowering their immediate (Davidic) past, fulfilling its wish in symbolic fashion in the text. Perhaps a developed legend concerning Moses’ youth was produced in the northern kingdom, to which later contributors to the Pentateuch added, the legend of the oedipal overthrow of a Solomonic Pharaoh by a Jeroboamic Moses. Moses the Paladin Much of Moses’ character does not fit Rank’s pattern: his parents are lowly, he is exposed in order to save him, and adult heroes are excluded by definition from Rank’s theories.87 Rank would say this is because the myth bears too wrenching a truth for its creators and users to confront consciously.88 The cause is more likely a different community of redaction and different implied audience. And here, “where Rank’s scheme ends, Campbell’s begins.”89 Joseph Campbell, a vaguely Jungian folklorist, restricts his hero pattern to the adult life of the hero. Campbell’s young adult hero leaves his homeland trekking towards strange Promised Lands he has never known existed, passing over gigantic rivers or other “threshold guardians,” arriving eventually at a “fateful region of both treasure and danger … [e.g.,] a lofty mountaintop.”90 Here, he meets a female god, the paragon of beauty, whom he marries, and a male tyrannical demon whom he defeats but yet becomes mystically one with.91 Then, although tempted to remain in this liminal territory, the hero goes on to found a new civilization.92 Campbell also 85 Nohrenberg, Like, 288. 86 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 174. Note Judg 18:29-31. 87 Segal, “Indispensability,” 22-23. 88 Segal, “Indispensability,” 23. 89 Segal, Myth, 104. 90 Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Bollingen Series 17 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 58, 31, 77. 91 Campbell, Hero, 101-111, 126. 92 Campbell, Hero, 30.

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illustrated the elements from ethnographic evidence, although he did not apply his full pattern to even one myth.93 There are clearly elements here that have no counterpart in the Moses tales: the goddess and demon and the temptation to remain in the wilderness, although this is perhaps not so pertinent, given Campbell’s failure to find a myth with the entire pattern. Campbell considered Moses a hero of this pattern, highlighting the Exodus, the sea crossing, the mountain of God, and the giving of the Law.94 More can be added to this, especially in the importance of the threshold guardian symbolizing watery chaos.95 There are many allusions in the crossing of the Sea in Exodus 15 to defeat of a primeval chaos-sea.96 After the threshold, the hero is in a time of testing and ordeal, aided by miracles (e.g., Exod. 17).97 Van Seters and others have even argued for an original meaning of the changes to Moses’ face in Exodus 34 as “becoming horned,” like Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied (3.100).98 In any case, the hero is transfigured in the encounter.99 Here, too, he is given the miraculous food of the gods, the bread from heaven.100 After the theophany at the mountain, the hero, like Moses, journeys on to found a society based on the Law that he received from the gods on the mountain.101 Moses does, then, fit much of Campbell’s pattern. He is the intermediary who receives all from God that is intended for the people (e.g., Exod. 19-20; Deut. 1-5).102 He is the archetypal law-interpreter.103 He is a warrior.104 Here,

93 Segal, “Indispensability,” 27. 94 Campbell, Hero, 34. 95 Campbell, Hero, 90. 96 Robert D. Miller II, “Crossing the Sea: A Reconsideration of the Source Criticism of the Exodus,” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtgeschichte 13 (2007): 192 and evidence adduced therein. 97 Campbell, Hero, 97. 98 Van Seters, Life, 357; E.G. Suhr, “The Horned Moses,” Folklore 74 (1963): 387-90. 99 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 138. 100 Campbell, Hero, 176-77. 101 Campbell, Hero, 347. 102 Raik Heckl, Mose Vermächtnis, Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 9 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2004), 363; Martin-Achard, “Moïse,” 17, 27; W. Johnstone, “The Portrayal of Moses as Deuteronomic Archetypal Prophet in Exodus and its Revisal,” in The Elusive Prophet, ed. Johannes C. de Moor (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 163, 167. 103 Udo Rütterswörden, “‘Moses’ Last Day,” in Moses in Biblical and Extrabiblical Traditions, ed. Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter, Beiträge zur Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 372 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007), 54-55, 57. 104 Johnstone, “Portrayal,” 163 n.17.

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too, there are structural reasons for considering these diverse parts of the Moses story to have at one time been consciously arranged together.105 For Campbell, like Rank, the authoring community and the reader are living vicariously an adventure that is mental, a trek to a mystical realm that actually, they believe, pervades the “real” all the time.106 Those writers and readers are not, however, satisfying neurotic urges but expressing what has not had a chance to be realized in reality.107 Moses the hero is “a model for subsequent generations. … what human character might be. The future leaders of Israel could struggle to be a New Moses.”108 Whose Moses is this? The equation of the crossing of the sea with the cosmic chaos sea is found in Isaiah 51:10; Psalms 77:17-21 and 106:9.109 The former two, at least, are exilic texts. At the other chronological end, “the earliest references to Moses as such a leader, including the representation of him as a covenant mediator and intercessor, appear in J.”110 Van Seters, placing the Yahwist after the Deuteronomist,111 sees D’s view of Moses as intercessor (Deut. 9-10) more limited, with Moses only intercessor after the Decalogue.112 If Van Seters’s dating of the Yahwist to the Exile is rejected, however,113 it is “in the book of Deuteronomy and in the Deuteronomistic Historian, the operative image of Moses builds on issues of power and authority. Moses is the lawgiver.”114 In Exodus 32, the Deuteronomic source (D) dialogues with Deuteronomy 9-10, 13 and 18 about Moses the intercessor.115 In Exodus 19-20, D dialogues with Deuteronomy 4-5 about Moses the mediator.116 The Priestly writer is too late: the Priestly writer reduces Moses’ role in these areas, elevating Aaron in Exodus 19:20-25 and the Levites in Exodus 32.117 105 Vogels, Moïse, 186-89. 106 Segal, Myth, 107-108. 107 Segal, “Indispensability,” 27. 108 Coats, Moses Tradition, 100. 109 Miller, “Crossing,” 192. 110 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 139; Van Seters, Life, 286, 313. 111 John Van Seters, Prologue to History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992). 112 Van Seters, Life, 286, 313. 113 For refutation of Van Seters, see Reinhard G. Kratz, Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 248-318; and Richard M. Wright, Linguistic Evidence for the Pre-Exilic Date of the Yahwist Source, Library of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies 419 (London: T&T Clark, 2005). 114 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 197. 115 Johnstone, “Portrayal,” 164, 171. 116 Johnstone, “Portrayal,” 167. 117 Johnstone, “Portrayal,” 170, 172.

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The dating of the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic materials is much debated. There has long been debate between the ‘Göttingen School’s’ adherence to Martin Noth’s original exilic dating and Frank Cross’s seventhcentury dating.118 The most sensible construct sees the seventh century as the starting point for Deuteronomistic literary production, a history only fully conceived in the Exile.119 It is not Josiah’s Judah, but the Exile that must express what it has not the chance to realize in reality. It is exilic Judeans whose monarchy has failed, whose ideal hero cannot be a David but a new Moses. Moses Must Die Major FitzRoy Richard Somerset, fourth Baron Raglan, belongs to the Mythand-Ritual school of folklorists.120 The pattern he outlines for the mythical hero has twenty-two points.121 It covers all of the hero’s life, from birth to death. It therefore overlaps with Rank’s childhood of the hero and Campbell’s early adulthood. Lord Raglan, moreover, placed the greatest emphasis on the later stages of the hero’s life. For both reasons, it is these stages that will be elucidated. The hero has become king. He is actually a divine king, gradually being symbolized in the myth “into a god living on the top of a mountain above the clouds; that is to say, on Sinai.”122 The god with which the hero is merging must be the supreme god.123 But the hero loses favor with the gods and/or his subjects, suddenly and not gradually, and is driven from the 118 Raymond F. Person, Jr., The Deuteronomistic School, Society of Biblical Literature Studies in Biblical Literature 2 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 33; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1973), 285-86; Rainer Albertz, Geschichte und Theologie, Beiträge zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 316 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004), 260-61; Antony F. Campbell and Mark O’Brien, Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 3, 14-17. 119 Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History (London: T & T Clark, 2005), 43, 71; Albertz, Geschichte und Theologie, 270; Rex Mason, Propaganda and Subversion in the Old Testament (London: SPCK, 1997), 67; Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics, 13; Nadav Na’aman, Past That Shapes the Present, Essays and Papers in Jewish Studies Bearing on the Humanities and the Social Sciences 3 (Jerusalem: Orna Hess, 2002), 55, 68. 120 Segal, “Indispensabilty,” 28. 121 Lord Raglan, The Hero (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), 174-75. 122 Lord Raglan, Death and Rebirth (London: Watts & Co., 1945), 82. 123 Lord Raglan, Origins of Religion, Thinker’s Library 32 (London: Watts & Co., 1949), 74.

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community. After this, he meets with a mysterious death, often at the top of a mountain. His children, if any, do not succeed him. His body is not buried, but he has one or more holy tombs.124 Lord Raglan marshaled a number of examples for his hero pattern.125 Yet “none of his examples scores all twenty-two points, and one scores only nine.”126 Anthropological testing of his pattern against hero myths worldwide found mixed results.127 The earliest stages in Raglan’s hero pattern (omitted here) were found in very few cases.128 Outside of the Mediterranean, cases yielded only a 28% correspondence.129 Yet within the Mediterranean basin, there was a 79% correspondence,130 and this would include ancient Israel. Raglan, in fact, unlike Rank and Campbell, admitted that the pattern “though widespread, is by no means universal.”131 Lord Raglan also matched Moses to his pattern.132 Bypassing the early part of his life, Moses falls out of divine favor, disappears mysteriously, dies on a mountaintop, has no burial place but yet a grave tradition, and is not succeeded by his children. There are traces of kingship in the Moses narratives. Moses displays “superhuman generosity and lack of selfimportance.”133 He is “the leader who facilitates the very life of the people” (Num. 27:17).134 There seem to be several traditions of Moses’ death or at least several reasons given for his exclusion from the Promised Land. Moses in Deuteronomy 31 is old and feeble, unable to lead the people (Deut. 31:2; cf. 34:7):135 precisely the point in a human king’s life in which Raglan would have him submit to voluntary execution (see below).136 Perhaps in Moses’ “heavy” hands (Exod. 17:11-12) and tongue (Exod. 4:10) and his constant need of a staff, we see Moses approaching feebleness much earlier.137 124 Raglan, Hero, 175; Lord Raglan, “The Hero of Tradition,” Folklore 45 (1934): 213-17, 228-29. 125 E.g., those covered in Raglan, “Hero,” 212-31. 126 Segal, “Indispensability,” 31. 127 Victor Cook, “Lord Raglan’s Hero,” Florida Anthropologist 18 (1965): 148-50. 128 Cook, “Lord Raglan,” 151. 129 Cook, “Lord Raglan,” 151. 130 Cook, “Lord Raglan,” 148. 131 Lord Raglan, “Psychology and the Divine Kingship,” Folklore 47 (1936): 342. 132 Raglan, “Hero,” 218. 133 Pamela Tamarkin Reis, “Numbers XI,” Vetus Testamentum 55 (2005): 208. 134 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 149. 135 Coats, Moses Tradition, 78; Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 152. 136 Raglan, Death, 79. 137 Marc Shell, “Moses’ Tongue,” Common Knowledge 12 (2006): 156-57. Shell notes also a possible etymology of pesach related to “to hobble” and Tacitus’s claim that the Israelites

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In Numbers 27 and Deuteronomy 32, Moses is denied entry into Canaan because of his sin at Meribah.138 Some scholars believe one cannot identify the specific sin of Moses because of rearguard action by the later redactors.139 Most consider the sin to have been Moses striking the rock at Meribah twice when he had only been told to command the rock. This explanation has been the traditional view.140 Others see the sin in Moses addressing the people in Numbers 20:10b in words Yahweh had never commanded.141 Deuteronomy 1:37 says Yahweh was angry with Moses “because of the people” (also Deut. 3:26; 4:21; Ps 106:32).142 At Moses’ death, he is given the title, “Servant of Yahweh” (Deut. 34:5). In this case, the title bears all of its overtones of unjust rejection and humiliation (Isa. 50:10; 52:13-53:11),143 willingly accepted and vicarious—the “innocent suffering for the sake of the guilty.”144 Moses had taken his people through crises. “Lack of water and lack of food, moreover, are commonplaces in the ‘transformation of the scapegoat.’”145 Some scholars have proposed a scapegoat explanation for “Moses’ sin.”146 Yet since the Hebrew vocabulary for substitution is missing in these passages, and Moses’ suffering is neither voluntary nor innocent (Num. 20:2-13; Deut. 3:23-25; 32:51), a direct connection with Deutero-Isaiah’s ‘servant’ is unlikely.147 It is clear that, “Whatever Moses did, there was a lessening of Yahweh’s authority.”148 Moses has always been “a man who was unafraid to argue with him.”149 Moses is “the one who acts just as God acts for the benefit of his people.”150 “At every stage in the history, Moses acts on behalf of the

were expelled from Egypt for their deformity; Shell, “Moses,” 158-59. 138 Coats, Moses Tradition, 81. 139 Vogels, Moïse, 242. 140 Johnson Teng Kok Lim, The Sin of Moses and the Staff of God, Studia Semitica Neerlandica 35 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1997), 133, 155. 141 Vogels, Moïse, 244. 142 Vogels, Moïse, 278; Johnson Teng Kok Lim, “The Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” Asia Journal of Theology 17 (2003): 252; Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 153. 143 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 184; W. Zimmerli and J. Jeremias, The Servant of God, rev. ed., Studies in Biblical Theology 20 (London: SCM Press, 1965), 32. 144 Zimmerli and Jeremias, Servant of God, 34. 145 Jensen, “Oedipus,” 49. 146 Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 253. 147 Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 254. 148 Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 254. 149 Reis, “Numbers XI,” 213-15. 150 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 139.

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deity.”151 The golden calf is as much Moses’ rival as it is Yahweh’s (Exod. 32:1).152 The words of Moses (Exod. 16:24; Lev. 9:5, 21; Deut. 33:4) are interchangeably the words of God (compare Exod. 35:29; Lev. 8:36; Num. 4:49; 15:23; 27:23).153 Moses is even called ish-elohim, “Man of God,” or even “ManGod” (Deut. 33:1).154 Now, the origin and function of Raglan’s hero myth is ritual.155 The myth corresponds to ritual; it inspires ritual, although it does not quite script the ritual.156 The heart of the myth is losing kingship.157 Raglan believed “that all kings were once put to death at the end of a fixed term,”158 and the myth was intended to spur the king to submit to the ritual.159 In most societies, this became a ritual of periodic simulated death and rebirth that kings and priests underwent.160 This ritual ensured the revival of vegetation.161 But, as mythologist Robert Segal says, “His [Raglan’s] myth and ritual seem incongruously out of sync.”162 The ritual enacts only a small portion of the hero pattern. “The god is the hero as he appears in ritual, and the hero is the god as he appears in myth.”163 It is the hero who dies, not the god, even though the hero is identical to the god. Segal suggests, “in the light of the disparity between the myth and the ritual … one might grant the mythic pattern but deny a connection to ritual.”164 In this case, then, the theorist Raglan will be of little help in explaining the origin and function of the mythic hero pattern, for all his value in 151 Van Seters, Life, 3. 152 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 158. 153 Steven D. Fraade, “Moses and the Commandments,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation, ed. Hindy Najman and Judith H. Newman, Journal of Jewish Studies Supplement 83 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 399-400. 154 Lim, Sin of Moses and the Staff of God, 163; Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 182. The term ish-elohim occurs in Canaanite as insh ilm, where it designates deified deceased kings; Nicolas Wyatt, “Degrees of Divinity,” Ugarit Forshungen 31 (1999), 853-57; “A la Recherce des Rephaïm Perdus,” in Actes du Congrès International Sherbrooke 2005. Le royaume d’Ougarit de la Créte á l’Euphrate (Sherbrooke, Quebec: Éditions GGC, 2007), 76. Immediately prior to Moses’ death, however, he is “the Man Moses” (Deut. 32:1, 23; also Num. 12:3); Von Rad, Moses, 10. 155 Raglan, Hero, 150. 156 Segal, Myth, 89. 157 Segal, “Indispensability,” 30. 158 Raglan, Origins, 71 159 Segal, “Indispensability,” 31. 160 Raglan, Death, 61. 161 Segal, “Indispensability,” 31. 162 Segal, “Indispensability,” 30. 163 Raglan, Hero, 162. 164 Segal, “Indispensability,” 31.

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delineating the boundaries of that pattern in Moses’ case. Instead, the death-of-Moses traditions themselves must be dated. Deuteronomic writings seem to have no explanation for Moses’ death outside the Promised Land (Deut. 1:37; 34:1-12; cf. Num. 20:2-13).165 Deuteronomy 3:23-29 implies debate at the time of the final redaction over whether Moses might have actually entered the Land.166 Hecataeus of Abdera (306-283 BC) claimed he had (Aegyptiaca; quoted also by Strabo, 16.2.35-36). This means that although the grave tradition is, indeed, pre-Deuteronomic, the account of Moses’ death is one of the latest traditions of the Moses story. It is the Priestly Writer who designs this account,167 a final account that fits together coherently and contains the most elements of Raglan’s pattern.168 “The text relies on the priestly account of the event.”169 “This had to do with the post-exilic sensitivity to divine wrath on sin.”170 It also gave historical precedent for the priestly leadership of the Persian period, a leadership based on a sacrificial system and divine justice, rather than leadership and succession.171 The three most central visages of Moses in the Pentateuch are the Rankean saved child who returns to overthrow Pharaoh, the Mosaic hero of a thousand faces who leads into the wilderness to receive the law from God and forge the nation, and the ‘Man of God’ who enigmatically must die outside the land of promise. Each community responsible for Moses narrative re-envisioned the ‘Man Moses’ for their own time. The northern kingdom of Israel favored the Moses who presented an alternative to the Jerusalem monarchy. The exilic Deuteronomists preferred the heroic Moses, the ideal norm that the nation had failed to attain. The post-exilic Priestly writers completed the portrait of the man who died for sin (his own or others) in the time of a sacrificial system based on divine justice and hieratic individuals.

165 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 48, 151; Philippe Guillaume, “Did Moses Die Before Entering Canaan?” Theological Review 24 (2003): 47; Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 260. 166 Guillaume, “Did Moses,” 42-44, 48. 167 Guillaume, “Did Moses,” 48; Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 261. 168 Vogels, Moïse, 243. 169 Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, 149. 170 Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 261. 171 Lim, “Sin of Moses in Deuteronomy,” 262.

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moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 37

Moses in the Prophets and the Writings of the Hebrew Bible Tawny Holm After the Pentateuch, Moses fades as a central character in the Hebrew Bible. Only about 8% of the approximately 770 mentions of Moses in the Hebrew Bible are outside of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, the first book of the Prophets.1 Moses is the essential figure of the Exodus, wilderness, and law-giving narratives of the Pentateuch, and Joshua’s conquest of Canaan is, to some degree, the fulfillment of those narratives. However, since the Exodus, wilderness wanderings, and Law are frequently referenced in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, one wonders why Moses himself almost disappears after the initial books.2 For instance, he is mentioned only five times in the fifteen books of the writing prophets (the Latter Prophets), and not at all in the wisdom literature or festival scrolls in the Writings section of the Bible. He does appear, however, in strategic places in the Former Prophets besides Joshua (16 times); in the Psalms (8 times); in the Persian-era books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles (31 times altogether); and twice in Daniel. Nevertheless, as has been noticed, “these numbers do not suggest a particularly high esteem for Moses: David is mentioned much more frequently.”3 While the slighting of Moses in these texts must mean something, the implications of this disregard are much debated. Why does citing Moses 1 The Hebrew Bible is arranged into three sections: the Pentateuch or Law (Torah); the Prophets (Nevi’im, which includes the historical books or Former Prophets as well as the fifteen books named after prophets, the so-called Latter Prophets); and the Writings (Ketuvim, the miscellaneous books of wisdom, poetry, and some history). There are approximately 650 mentions of Moses in the Torah; 79 in the Prophets (Joshua alone has 58 mentions in the Hebrew text); and 41 in the Writings. All English translations in this essay are those of the author. 2 Note, for instance, Hosea 12:9-10, 13; 13:4; Amos 2:10-11; 3:1-2; Micah 6:3-4; Isaiah 11:16; Jeremiah 2:6-7; Ezekiel 2:5; Haggai 2:5. In these passages, God’s revelation to Israel in Egypt is mentioned, or his bringing them up out of that country. The word tôrah (“law”) is found 36 times in the Psalms, and 44 times in prophetic literature, twenty of which are in the phrase tôrat-Yhwh/ˀElohîm, “the law of Yahweh/God.” 3 H. Cazelles and H.-J. Fabry, “Mōšeh, Moses,” in G. Johannes Botterweck, et al., eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. trans. David E. Green (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), vol. 9, 28-43, esp. 41.

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or his authority seem necessary to some biblical authors in the Prophets and the Writings, but not to others? Are there particular cultural, religious, or other variables at work? To answer these questions and to analyze the ways in which the figure of Moses is used within the Prophets and the Writings, this essay will survey these books divided into four categories of texts: the Deuteronomistic History, the prophetic literature, the Psalter, and the Persian- and Hellenistic-era literature. We must note in advance that, while the Penteuch contains the main narratives that have framed the Moses legend for his interpreters, this does not necessarily mean its materials predate that of the latter two sections of the Hebrew Bible, in spite of the fact that the Pentateuch was placed first, before the Prophets and the Writings. (All three sections of the Hebrew Bible have a complicated history of composition and redaction throughout the first millennium BCE, even if the development of some books can be traced more easily than others.) Indeed, the nineteenthcentury scholar Julius Wellhausen in his Prolegomena to the History of Israel famously claimed that the Prophets came before Moses and the Law in ancient Israel’s religious history.4 Some references to Moses in the Prophets and the Writings are dependent on the Pentateuch while others may not be influenced by it at all—e.g., perhaps Hosea 12:14; Jer. 15:1; and some genealogical notices (Jud. 1:16; 4:11; 18:30; 1 Chron. 23:14–15). Therefore, the effort in the present essay is not to search for alterations in Moses’s image as it developed from an earliest original form found in the Pentateuch, but to look for how Moses was understood and translated for different purposes in different settings outside the Pentateuch, whose main aim was to present Israel’s founding legal texts. Moses in the Deuteronomistic History or Former Prophets The “Deuteronomistic History” (DtrH) is a term that refers to the dominant source in the books of Joshua through 2 Kings (Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings; that is, the Former Prophets), not including Ruth, which in the Hebrew order is placed in the Writings, the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible. The books of DtrH, which together with Deuteronomy had a common redactional process even if their various parts can be dated to 4 Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin: Reimer, 1883; reprint: Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 2-3; trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1885), 2-3.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 39 different times, utilize a similar language and theology to explain the history of ancient Israel from the conquest of Canaan to the fall of Judah to Babylon in 587 BCE, in terms of Israelite faithfulness or unfaithfulness to their God.5 With regard to the Book of Joshua, it reads as an account of the fulfillment of Moses’ admonitions (e.g., 1:1ff.; 4:10ff.; 8:31ff.; 11:15ff.; 14:6, 9; 17:4; 20:2), and Kings is fairly similar in its recollection of Moses as a legal authority (1 Kings 2:3; 8:53, 56; 2 Kings 14:6; 18:6; 21:8; 23:25).6 In the middle books of DtrH—Judges and Samuel—however, Moses plays a very minor role. The voice of DtrH emphasizes the leadership of Moses and its continuance through the prophets that come after him; DtrH even seems to take on Mosaic authority itself as it interprets new leaders within a Mosaic pattern.7 Joshua is the most conspicuous “new Moses” of sorts, in that he is Moses’ immediate successor and certain events in his life mirror those in Moses’ own (see below), but Elijah is interpreted as a Mosaic figure too (e.g., in his encounter with God at Horeb, where he is given divine aid in the wilderness), as is King Josiah of Judah, who finds a book of law in 2 Kings 23:1-3 and institutes various reforms. Furthermore, Moses is also conceived of as a pattern for at least two female leaders in DtrH, the prophetess Huldah and the leader Deborah.8 5 The common theory since Noth that these were written primarily during the Babylonian exile (587-539 BCE), has been modified and or challenged significantly in recent times; see, for instance, Graeme Auld, “The Deuteronomists and the Former Prophets, Or What Makes the Former Prophets Deuteronomistic?” in Linda S. Schearing and Steven L. McKenzie, eds., Those Elusive Deuteronomists: The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 268 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 116-26; Ernest Axel Knauf, “Does ‘Deuteronomistic Historiography’(DH) Exist?” in Albert de Pury et al., eds., Israel Constructs Its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 306 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 388-98; Raymond F. Person, Jr., The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Literature, Studies in Biblical Literature 2 (Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), chs. 1-2. 6 Moshe Greenberg and S. David Sperling, “Moses: Biblical View,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., vol. 14, 523-31, esp. 529. 7 George W. Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 57 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1998), 201-211, esp. 203-205; Robert Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History (New York: Seabury, 1980), 58-65. Note, for instance, that Deuteronomy 18:15 announces that a new prophet with Mosaic authority will appear. 8 See H.G.M. Williamson, “Prophetesses in the Hebrew Bible,” in John Day, ed., Prophecy and the Prophets in Ancient Israel: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar, Library Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies 531 (New York: T&T Clark; 2010), 61-80, esp. 71-74.

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With regard to titles, Moses is called “God’s servant” in 15 Deuteronomistic texts (e.g., Josh. 1:7, 15) and a “man of God” (Josh. 14:6), similarly to prophets elsewhere in the DtrH (Samuel in 1 Sam. 9:6; Elijah, 1 Kings 17:18; Elisha, 2 Kings 4:7, etc.).9 Moses’ power (“his hand”) is referenced often (e.g., Josh. 14:2, 21:8). In the Hebrew text of Joshua, Moses is mentioned up to 58 times. The first verses of the Book of Joshua demonstrate its associations with the Pentateuch and the connected stories of Moses and Joshua: After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, “My servant Moses is dead. Now arise and cross the Jordan, you and all this people to the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. Every place upon which the sole of your foot will tread I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses … No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you ... Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded you ...” (Josh. 1:1-3, 5, 7)

Moses is cited again in 2:7 before Joshua crosses the Jordan River to enter the land of Canaan. The highly ritualized crossing, in which the priests’ entrance into the river with the ark cuts off the flow of the river (it is piled into “a single heap”) so the people can walk across on dry ground, is clearly meant to recall the crossing of the Red Sea under Moses. Other parallels are drawn between Joshua and his predecessor; e.g. 5:13-15, in which Joshua is told by an angel to take off his sandals because the ground on which he is standing is holy. Furthermore, Joshua writes down on stones a copy of the law of Moses (5:32), much as Moses too had written the law on stone tablets, and it is read aloud (5:33, 35). Everything in the Book of Joshua is a precise fulfillment of what Yahweh had commanded through Moses in the Pentateuch. The ḥerem or “sacred ban” requiring the death of all Canaanites is said to be due to Moses, as is the division of the land amongst the tribes and the setting up of refuge cities (e.g., 1:13, 15; 9:24; 13:8, 12, 14, 15, 24, 29, 32; 14:2-3, 5; 18:7; 20:2; 22:2, 4-5, 7, 9). Joshua’s last words to the people in 23:6 include that they should: “do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses,” and he recalls Moses

9 For Moses as the archetypal prophet, see William Johnstone, “The Portrayal of Moses as Deuteronomic Archetypal Prophet in Exodus and Its Revisal,” in Johannes C. de Moor, ed., The Elusive Prophet: The Prophet as a Historical Person, Literary Character and Anonymous Artist, Oudtestamentische studiën 45 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 159-174.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 41 and Aaron (24:5), before he writes a covenant at Shechem, and then sets up a stone as a witness to it. Unlike Joshua, in the Book of Judges there seems to be a greater distance from Moses traditions. Chaotic times are depicted; the Israelites are living in the land of Canaan, led by tribal leaders (judges), but constantly skirmishing with the Canaanites who remain. This is a period in which “each man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6, 21:25), and perhaps this is reason enough for not referencing Moses, the law-giver: the land is lawless.10 Moses is only mentioned four or five times: Judges 1:16, 20; 3:4; 4:11, and probably Judges 18:30. Judges 1:16 and 4:11 refer to the presence of the descendents of the Kenite father-in-law of Moses, Hobab, amongst the Israelites, and their decision to separate and live elsewhere. Only once is an event portrayed as a fulfillment of something Moses said (the giving of Hebron to Caleb in Judges 1:20). Moreover, Judges 3:4 cites Moses as the deliverer of the commandments and says that the nations left in Canaan after the conquest were there to test the Israelites: “to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their ancestors by Moses.” An interesting case concerning Moses’ descendants is in Judges 18:30, where members of Moses’ family line are described as priests for the tribe of Dan at the city of Dan. The Danites steal an ephod, the teraphim, the idol, and a priest from the house of Micah, and they then go to Laish, burn it down, and rebuild it as Dan: “Then the Danites set up the idol for themselves. Jonathan son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the time the land went into captivity.” The text of this verse was corrected by a later insertion of a nun consonant to turn Mšh (Moses) into Mnšh (Manasseh).11 An inserted nun may be unnecessary, since the correct reading “Moses” reflects traditions elsewhere (e.g., 1 Chron. 23:14, in which Moses’ sons or Levites are divided up into three courses for serving in the temple). Another possibility, however, is that the later editor who inserted the nun is trying to spare the name of Moses from being associated with forbidden, non-Yahwistic worship.

10 See David A. Glatt-Gilad, “Revealed and Concealed: The Status of the Law (Book) of Moses within the Deuteronomistic History,” in Mishneh Todah: Studies in Deuteronomy and Its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed. Nili Sacher Fox, et al. (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 185-199. 11 In some Hebrew manuscripts this nun is suspended above the line, but in others it is fully on the line.

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In 1 Samuel, Moses is mentioned twice, and in 1-2 Kings, ten times. One notes that Moses is not recalled in the Samuel accounts of how the United Monarchy began, and in only one passage does the prophet Samuel ask the Israelites to remember the Exodus under Moses (and Aaron), in 1 Sam. 12:6, 8. Moses is not mentioned by the first king, Saul, nor by the great king David until he is near death, although this could be partly due to the nondeuteronomistic source behind the Succession Narrative. In 1 Kings 2:3, David’s charge to his son Solomon before he dies includes keeping God’s “statutes … as it is written in the law of Moses.” Solomon, however, recalls Moses three times in 1 Kings 8 after he has built Yahweh’s temple (8:9) and is giving his last prayer and benediction (8:53, 56). In 2 Kings’ account of the Divided Monarchy, various rulers of the southern kingdom of Judah (but none of the northern kingdom of Israel) are evaluated in terms of how well they keep the “law of Moses.” This selective citation of kings allows DtrH to schematically depict the existence of the “law of Moses” across all the Judahite kings’ reigns down to the rediscovery of a book of law in the days of Josiah.12 For instance, Amaziah of Judah is judged to be a good king, but not as good as David because he allowed worship at the high places to continue. But, it is seen as positive that although Amaziah put to death the murderers of his father Joash, “he did not put to death the children of the murderers; according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses” (2 Kings 14:6; cf. 2 Chron. 25:4; the law referred to is Deut. 24:16). Moses is cited three times in the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4, 6, 12), a good king who removed high places and other forbidden cultic installations and objects. In 18:4, Hezekiah breaks into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because “the people of Israel had made offerings to it; it was called Nehushtan.” The name of Nehushtan reflects the material of the image, neḥošet (“bronze”), but is also a play on the word for serpent, naḥaš. Moreover, the bronze serpent not only recalls the incident of the fiery serpents in the wilderness whose attacks are healed by the construction of the bronze serpent which Moses displays on a pole (Num. 21:9), but the tradition of Moses’ staff that turns into a serpent in the Exodus contests with the Egyptians.13 Both of these items were part of Moses’ healing 12 Glatt-Gilad, “Revealed and Concealed,” 197-199. 13 Coats, “Healing and the Moses Traditions,” in idem, The Moses Tradition, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 161 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 135-150, esp. 139.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 43 repertoire, and so 2 Kings 18 suggests that the Judahites of the Divided Monarchy had perverted that tradition and subverted the bronze serpent into an object of worship. By contrast, Manasseh, the paradigmatically evil king of Judah, reinstalls the old practices and non-Yahwistic cult features that his father Hezekiah had destroyed. In the account of his reign, the narrator recalls the words of Yahweh to David and Solomon, that the people should do “according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them” (21:8). This is perhaps a retrojective correction of the Succession Narrative’s lack of interest in Moses until the end of David’s life (1 Kings 2:3). The last king whose record involves how well he did or did not follow the law of Moses is the reformer Josiah. Because a “book of law” is found in the temple during his reign (probably something close to what we currently know as the Book of Deuteronomy, or at least some part of it), he puts away mediums, wizards, idols, and other abominations, and “before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kings 23:25). Strangely enough, unlike the parallel account of the discovery of the law in Chronicles, there is otherwise no explicit connection of the recovered law to Moses; it is a “book of law” but not the “law of Moses” (cf. 2 Chron. 34:14). In regard to their use of Moses, it is most interesting to compare 1-2 Kings to 1-2 Chronicles, which have their own version of the history of the monarchy that either uses Kings itself as a source or else some of the same sources used by Kings. Most illustrative are the passages in which a mention of Moses is found in one but not the other. According to Philip Davies, Kings and Chronicles differ from each other in their use of Moses in that in the Kings passages, “the laws that matter are those mentioned in Deuteronomy, relating to worship of false gods and Canaanite practices, while in Chronicles the Mosaic law is cultic.”14 A. Graeme Auld finds that Chronicles relates more to the Book of Numbers than to anything else,15 while others propose that many of the cultic laws reflected in Chronicles are to be found nowhere in the Pentateuch at all, and an appeal to the “law of Moses” meant something new in the Persian period (see below). 14 Philip Davies, “Moses in the Book of Kings,” in T. Römer, ed., La construction de la figure de Moïse, Transeuphratène supplément 13 (Paris: Gabalda, 2007), 79-87, esp. 81-82. 15 A. Graeme Auld, Kings Without Privilege: David and Moses in the Story of the Bible’s Kings (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 132.

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tawny holm Moses in the Latter Prophets (the Prophetic Literature)

Moses is mentioned by name five times in the fifteen writing prophets and alluded to at least once, in Hosea 12:14.16 The paucity of citations, however, seems remarkable given the constant references to the Law and the Exodus throughout prophetic writings. As John Van Seters suggests, “The classical prophets of the period of the monarchy do not seem to base their moral or religious authority upon the Moses tradition,”17 or else Moses was a late addition to Israelite traditions about the giving of the law, which seems less likely. In Jeremiah 15:1, a pre-exilic text dating to around 601 BCE, before the Babylonian deportations,18 Moses is viewed as a great mediator along with the prophet Samuel, either of whose presence will not deter Yahweh from his anger: “Then the Lord said to me: Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my heart would not turn toward this people.” Samuel is otherwise not at all mentioned in the prophetic literature, so his inclusion here is significant. An allusion to Moses is made in Hosea 12:14 (English 12:13) where a prophet or prophets are mentioned: “By a prophet the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded.” While the first line certainly indicates Moses, there has been some suggestion that the second line of the bi-cola here refers to another prophet, perhaps Joshua, Samuel, or Elijah.19 Other than this, Hosea is full of allusions to the Exodus (2:17 [English 2:15]; 11:1; 12:10, 14 [English 12:9, 13]; 13:4), and to the wilderness wanderings (1:16 [English 2:14]; 9:10; 13:4), which reflect a time of faithfulness in contrast to Hosea’s own age, somewhere in the mid-eighth century 16 The Latter Prophets extend from the pre-exilic Isaiah to the Persian-era Malachi, although the fifteen books are not in chronological order. The destruction of the Judahite monarchy in 587 BCE by the Babylonians led to the exile of the Jewish people from their land, a situation which only ended in 539 BCE when the Persians defeated the Babylonians and allowed the return to Jerusalem. 17 John Van Seters, “Moses,” in John Barton, ed., The Biblical World (London: Routledge, 2002), vol. 2, 194-207, esp. 203. 18 William L. Holladay dates Jeremiah 14:1-15:9 to early winter 601 or 600 BCE; Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 1-25, ed. Paul D. Hanson (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 427-429. 19 For Samuel and Elijah, see, for instance: Cazelles and Fabry, “Mōšeh, Moses,” 36; Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 24 (New York: Doubleday, 1980), 620-622. Dearman suggests Joshua; J. Andrew Dearman, The Book of Hosea, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010), 314.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 45 BCE. Hosea does not use the Sinai tradition, however, even if he knows about Moses and the Decalogue. Moses is mentioned in two contiguous verses in Isaiah 63, a text of exilic or post-exilic date, in a review of Israelite history that despairs at their defeats. In the past, Yahweh had given the people victory over their enemies, but Israel rebelled, and Yahweh himself fought against them (v. 10). Only then did the people wonder where their God was (vv. 11-12): Then he (Israel) remembered the days of old, the one who drew out his people. Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is the one who put within them his holy spirit, who caused his glorious arm to march at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name?

The Hebrew of the first verse here (Isa. 63:11) makes a pun on Moses’ name (Mošeh), which links the name to the root mšh, “to draw out”: wayyizkor yemê-ˁôlam mošeh ˁammô, “Then he (Israel) remembered the days of old, the one who drew out (mošeh) his people (ˁammô).” Micah 6:4 remembers Moses alongside Aaron and Miriam as co-leaders of the Israelites (“For I brought you up from the land of Egypt … and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam”). As in Numbers 12, the three are not presented in terms of a sibling relationship, leading to the possibility that the three were originally part of separate Exodus traditions. Micah is a younger contemporary of Amos and Hosea, but from the south, from Judah of the late eight century BCE, although the later chapters date to probably the fifth century, reflecting new post-exilic realities. This passage (6:1-8) is a covenant lawsuit; God indicts his people for breach of covenant. However, as elsewhere in the prophets, there is no reference to Moses’ connection to the establishment of that covenant. The Persian-era Malachi is the last book of the Prophets section (in the Christian order this makes it the last book of the entire Old Testament), and it refers to Moses along with Elijah very strategically in its conclusion. Mal. 3:22 (English 4:4) includes this message to Israel: “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.”20 This is followed by the last two 20 Unique to this verse is the command to “remember” (zikrû) the “law of my servant Moses,” that appears nowhere else in the Bible (the usual word is šimrû, “observe” or “keep”). Elie Assis explains this is due to the fact that in Malachi, the people are criticized not for not following the commandments, but for doing them incorrectly—that is, they cheat; Assis, “Moses, Elijah and the Messianic Hope. A New Reading of Malachi 3,22–24,” Zeitschrift

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verses of the book (3:23-24; English 4:5-6), which predict Elijah’s coming before the great and terrible Day of the Lord. The mention of Moses is appropriate to Malachi, since the book concerns commandments and various laws (e.g., sacrifice, tithing, etc.), and the citation of Elijah is an explicit interpretation of Malachi 3:1, where an unnamed messenger of the covenant is said to be on his way, and the “day of his coming” hard to endure. Thus, Malachi’s conclusion asks the reader to remember one prophet of the past and to prepare for the coming of another. The two are compared and contrasted as prophets, especially in that both of them once stood on Mount Horeb, the mountain of God (cf. Deut. 5:2, 29:1; 1 Kings 8:9; 19:8). Furthermore, mentioning Mount Horeb and just these two prophets also connects the Law/Pentateuch with the Prophets. These three verses could have been added not only as a conclusion to Malachi, but as a fitting end to all the twelve minor prophets (the Book of the Twelve), or to the Prophets section in its entirety (Joshua-Kings plus the fifteen writing prophets), or even to the complete first two sections of the Hebrew Bible: the Pentateuch and Prophets. Moses in the Psalms Moses is mentioned eight times in the Psalter in overviews of Israelite history (77:21: 90:1; 99:6: 103:7; 105:26: 106:16, 23, 32), and one psalm (Ps. 90) is even attributed to him as its author. Moreover, the psalms in which Moses is mentioned are almost all in the so-called Book 4, Psalms 90-106. Outside of Book 4, Moses only appears once, in Psalm 77:21, where Moses and Aaron are presented as joint-leaders of Israel (cf. 1 Sam 12:6f.; 1 Kings 8:53; Ps. 103:7): “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”21 Several scholars have in fact considered Book 4 a “Moses book,” since the next Psalm with an attribution is Psalm 101, and there it is to David.22 für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 123 (2011), 207-220, esp. 210. For example, the sacrifices are not the choice animals, and the people do not bring the right-sized tithes. 21 Johannes Schnocks, “Moses im Psalter,” in Moses in Biblical and Extra-biblical Traditions, ed. Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 79-88, esp. 81. 22 For example, Erich Zenger, “The God of Israel’s Reign over the World (Psalms 90-106),” in The God of Israel and the Nations: Studies in Isaiah and the Psalms, ed. Norbert Lohfink and Erich Zenger and trans. Everett R. Kalin (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2000), 161-190, esp. 165. For suggestions on just how Moses came to be considered the author of Psalm 90, see A. Curtis, “Moses in the Psalms, with Special Reference to Psalm 90,” in La construction de la figure de Moïse, ed. T. Römer (Paris: Gabalda, 2007), 89-99.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 47 (In fact, the pre-critical Jewish tradition was that Moses was the author of Pss. 90-100.23) The five-book arrangement of Psalms places Book 4 at a pivotal point in the entire collection; the previous three books (Pss. 1-41, 42-72, 73-89) are concerned with the Davidic monarchy and the apparent failure of the Davidic covenant upon the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 587 BCE.24 Book 4 then transitions to a reminder of the Mosaic covenant predating the Davidic period and emphasizes God’s eternal reign in comparison to that of the earthly David and his successors.25 It thus comprises a response to the pain and loss of the destruction and exile described in the earlier Books 1-3; for instance, Psalm 89 closes with: “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted; how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples … with which they taunted the footsteps of your anointed?” (vv. 49-51).26 The poignant Psalm 90, the hymn attributed to Moses’ authorship that opens Book 4, expresses the timelessness of God and the brevity of human life, while also recalling the Exodus story in vv. 13-17 (cf. Exod. 32:12; Deut. 32:36 and Exod. 34:6-7). It is called a “Prayer of Moses, the man of God” (tepillah le-Mošeh ˀîš ha-ˀelohîm), although Moses is not referred to by name in the rest of the psalm. (The tradition of Moses as a poet is also found twice in the Pentateuch: Exod. 15, the “Song of the Sea,” and Deut. 32-33). Moses is next mentioned in Psalm 99:6, where Moses and Aaron are together said to be “among his (Yahweh’s) priests” (Mošeh we-ˀAharon bekohanaw), and they, in conjunction with Samuel, are portrayed as intercessors with Yahweh, who is a “forgiving” God, but also an “avenger of their (Israel’s) wrongdoings.” (Moses and Samuel are also paired as intercessors in Jer. 15:1.) Mark Leuchter suggests that the we-ˀAharon (“and Aaron”) is a later addition, because this Psalm shows Shilonite origins, that is, a relationship 23 W.G. Baude, The Midrash on Psalms (Midrash Tehillim), Yale Journal of Sociology 13 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), vol. 2, 87. 24 Book 5 is thus Psalms 107-150. It continues the theme of God’s sovereignty but shapes the entire Psalter with an eye toward the post-exilic community. The five-book structure of Psalms was modeled on the arrangement of the Torah in five books. 25 See, for instance, Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter, Society of Biblical Literature Diss. 76 (Chico, Cal.: Scholars, 1985), 215; Lindsay Wilson, “On Psalms 103-106 as a Closure to Book IV of the Psalter,” in The Composition of the Book of Psalms, ed. Erich Zenger, 755-766. 26 This does not necessarily mean an abandonment of David and all messianic hope, however; Lindsay Wilson, “On Psalms 103-106 as a Closure to Book IV of the Psalter,” 765766.

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to the cult at the city of Shiloh.27 The Moses priesthood is a tradition in the cities of Shiloh and Dan, in contrast to the more dominant priesthood of the Aaronid (Zadokite) line in most of the Hebrew Bible. (The Pentateuch demonstrates that there was a rivalry over the priesthood between descendants of Aaron and Moses).28 This psalm was probably placed in the Psalter in the fifth century but has earlier traditions that predate the rise of the Zadokites after the collapse of the Davidic dynasty. Psalms 103, 105, and 106 all name Moses in reviews of Israelite history that recount the exodus and wanderings traditions. Other psalms outside Book 4, such as Psalm 78, reflect these traditions but do not name Moses (e.g., Pss. 135, 136).29 Psalm 103, a psalm of praise, recalls God’s merciful interactions in v. 7: “He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel.” Furthermore, the Psalms separate the Exodus story (Moses) from the ancestor story (Abraham) in every review of history except in Psalm 105.30 Of great interest is the listing of the Exodus plagues in two particular psalms, Psalms 78 and 105. In these two, the number of plagues listed is seven or at most eight, in contrast to the well-known ten plagues against Egypt in the Book of Exodus 7-11. (Note, however, that the number “ten” is not used anywhere in the Exodus plague narratives, and in fact, does not occur anywhere in the Bible as a specific number for the plagues.31) The list of plagues in Exodus includes: water turned to blood; frogs; gnats (or lice, kinnîm); flies (ˁarob); pestilence (deber); boils (šeḥîn—a skin disease); hail; locusts (ˀarbeh); darkness; and the plague against the firstborn. In Exodus, most scholars separate the plague account into an original two or perhaps three sources, the Yahwist (J) or the Yahwist-Elohist (JE), and the Priestly (P); and they often posit that one or more of these had a

27 Mark Leuchter, “The Literary Strata and Narrative Sources of Psalm XCIX,” Vetus Testamentum 55 (2005), 20-38. 28 See Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 195-215; Propp, Exodus 1-18, 284-286. 29 Psalm 78 recalls many traditions associated with Moses, although it does not name him: the Exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the wilderness wanderings, etc. (but not the Law-giving at Sinai). 30 Konrad Schmid, Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible, Siphrut 3 (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 70-73. 31 William H.C. Propp, Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 317. The mention of “ten” as a number for the plagues is not until the book of Jubilees (48:7).

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 49 seven-plague tradition before they were combined and redacted and a final number of ten was achieved. For instance, according to John van Seters and others, it is the J account that is oldest and that contained seven curses against the Egyptians: water turned to blood; frogs; flies; pestilence; hail; locusts; and the killing of the firstborn. These were expanded by the Priestly source, from which came the wonder contest between Moses and Aaron and the Egyptian magicians, as well as three more plagues: gnats (kinnîm), boils, and darkness.32 One might expect then, that Psalms 78 and 105 are just reflecting J’s seven-plague tradition; however, their lists do not coincide with J. Psalm 78 lists the seven plagues of J but in a different order: water turned to blood; flies (ˁarob); frogs; caterpillars-locusts (ḥasîl/ˀarbeh); hail; pestilence; and the death of the firstborn (vv. 44-51). One also notes that in this psalm there are further vivid poetic lines and explanations that are not found in the Exodus story; for instance, before the final plague, God sends a company of ominous messengers (mišlaḥat malˀakê raˁîm; v. 49)—probably a reference to the destroyers of Yahweh as a whole sent out in all the plagues. In contrast to Psalm 78, Psalm 105 contains either seven or eight plagues, depending on how one counts them,33 and it seems to mix the J and P traditions. It mentions Moses and Aaron in 105:26 and then lists the following plagues (vv. 29-36): darkness; water to blood; frogs; flies (ˁarob) and gnats (or lice; kinnîm); hail; locusts (two kinds: ˀarbeh and yeleq); and the killing of the firstborn. It lists flies and gnats as bi-cola in a single verse, and if one takes this to reflect flying insects in general (just as ˀarbeh and yeleq both reflect kinds of locusts), then flies and gnats must not be counted separately. However, since they are separate plagues elsewhere, perhaps they are here as well. The plague traditions in Psalms are probably not independent of Exodus, but just as Exodus itself has composite origins, it might also be the case that, in the words of John Choi, “the psalmic plagues accounts may 32 Van Seters, The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994), 77, 103-112; see also idem, “The Plagues of Egypt: Ancient Tradition or Literary Invention?” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 98 (1986), 31-39. For a different view about P, see, for instance, Propp, Exodus 1-18, 310-317; and on the plagues traditions outside Exodus, see Propp, Exodus 19-40, Anchor Bible 2a (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 797-804. 33 Margulis claims there are two separate plagues; B. Margulis, “The Plagues Tradition in Psalm 105,” Biblica 50 (1969), 491-496. Loewenstamm says the phrase is a bi-cola, and thus there is only one plague. See S. Loewenstamm, “The Number of Plagues in Psalm 105,” Biblica 52 (1971), 34-38.

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reflect independent utilizations of the plagues motif, available not from a single text, but from the cultural repertoire.”34 As a free-standing motif, it was manipulated by all the written accounts, in Exodus as well as the other biblical passages. Finally, Psalm 106, the closing psalm in Book 4 of the Psalter, mentions Moses three times (106:16, 23, 32) in its recounting of the Exodus and wanderings traditions.35 The retelling of the Exodus is here limited to the crossing of the Red Sea, at which the ancestors rebelled, although God saved them in spite of themselves “for his name’s sake” (v. 8). The wanderings traditions are given in greater detail, and an interesting explanation for Moses’ death outside of Canaan is revealed in vv. 32-33: “They angered the Lord at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account; for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with his lips” (waybaṭṭeˀ biśpataw).36 Moses in Persian- and Hellenistic-Era Literature In the writings of the Persian period, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles, Moses is mentioned quite frequently (31 times), while in the Book of Daniel from the Hellenistic period (the last book of the Hebrew Bible to be written), Moses is referred to twice, in chapter 9. In all of these books, it is the “law of Moses” or his foundational role in Israelite religious practices that is cited. The chronology of Ezra-Nehemiah picks up where that of Chronicles leaves off, and both have similar perspectives on Persian-era practices, thus leading some scholars to believe the books were originally a single 34 John H. Choi, Traditions at Odds: The Reception of the Pentateuch in the Biblical and Second Temple Period Literature, Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 518 (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 125, 127. 35 By contrast, Psalm 105’s review of history excludes the crossing of the Red Sea entirely because its emphasis is on Yahweh’s provisioning of the people, while Psalm 106 establishes Israel’s history as connected to its salvation by Yahweh in spite of its guilt; see J. Gärtner, “The Torah in Psalm 106: Interpretations of Jhwh’s Saving Act at the Red Sea,” in Erich Zenger, ed., The Composition of the Book of Psalms, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 238 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 479-488 . 36 The infamous incident referred to here is that recounted in Exodus 17:1-7 and Numbers 20:2-13. In Exodus, Moses does not do anything wrong when he removes water from the rock as commanded, while in Numbers the exact nature of his crime is arguable. Deuteronomy 3:23-28 has Moses himself explaining that God was angry with him for the sake of the people, and thus Moses will not be allowed to cross the Jordan (cf. Num. 20:12). Psalm 78 also mentions the rock-water incident, but positively.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 51 composition.37 Chronicles tells (or re-tells) the history of the monarchy to the Babylonian conquest, but, unlike the parallel history in Samuel-Kings, ends on a promising note with the brief mention of Cyrus the Persian’s edict to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Ezra-Nehemiah begins with that edict and covers the history of the return and rebuilding effort down to the thirty-third year of Artaxerxes the Persian. However, while the sources behind Ezra-Nehemiah are all from the Persian period, many of the sources behind Chronicles are pre-exilic, even if its extensive redactional activity dates to the Persian era.38 In the Persian-era books, Moses “appears exclusively as the author of the Torah/Law and the founder of Israel’s sacred institutions” (e.g., Ezra 3:2; Neh. 1:7ff.; 8:1, 14; 9:14; 10:30; 1 Chron. 6:34; 21:29; 2 Chron. 8:13; 24:6; 35:6, 12).39 For instance, God entrusted the Torah to him (1 Chron. 22:13; Neh. 1:7) or the Torah was given through the “hand of Moses” (2 Chron. 33:8; 34:14; 35:6). He is both a “man of God” (Ezra 3:2; 1 Chron. 23:14; 2 Chron. 30:16) and a “servant of God” (2 Chron. 24:9; Neh. 9:14, etc.). Moreover, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles use the term “law of Moses” more than the rest of the Hebrew Bible (tôrat-Mošeh; e.g., Ezr. 3:2; 7:6; Neh. 8:1), and a certain “book of Moses” is mentioned eight times (sefer-Mošeh; e.g., Ezr. 6:18; Neh. 13:1; 2 Chron. 30:16; and in Neh. 8:1, the “book of the law of Moses”). The term “law” (tôrah) may not be used with the sense of “Pentateuch” in these texts, however.40 Out of the twenty-one times in which Moses is mentioned in 1-2 Chronicles,41 eighteen do not have a counterpart in the parallel history of

37 Chronicles is after Ezra-Nehemiah in the Hebrew order and is the last book in the Hebrew Bible. For an overview of the arguments for or against a single composition comprised of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, see Alexander Rofé, Introduction to the Literature of the Hebrew Bible, Jerusalem Biblical Studies (Jerusalem: Simor, 2009), 90-94. The division of Ezra-Nehemiah into two separate books (Ezra and Nehemiah) only occurred in the Greek manuscripts transmitted by Christians; the division of Chronicles (1 and 2 Chronicles) into two parts is also a later tradition. 38 Person even proposes that the Deuteronomist and the “Chronistic historian” were competing contemporary historiographies in the exilic or post-exilic period; Raymond F. Person, Jr., The Deuteronomic History and the Book of Chronicles: Scribal Works in an Oral World, Society of Biblical Literature: Ancient Israel and Its Literature 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 25. 39 Greenberg and Sperling, “Moses: Biblical View,” 529. 40 Only Neh. 13:1 may do so, because it seems to allude to the Balaam traditions of Num. 22-24. 41 1 Chron. 5:29 (English 6:3); 6:34 (English 6:49); 15:15; 21:29; 22:13 (12); 23:13, 14, 15; 26:24; 2 Chron. 1:3; 5:10; 8:13; 23:18; 24:6, 9; 25:4; 30:16; 33:8; 34:14; 35:6, 12.

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the monarchy in DtrH.42 The Moses pluses in 1 Chronicles are found in the genealogies of chapters 1-9 as well as certain episodes in David’s reign, most particularly in accounts of the recovery of the ark of the covenant from the Philistines, in which it is the Levites who play a central role (15:15), and the location of Moses’ tabernacle at Gibeon (21:29). The Moses pluses in 2 Chronicles occur in the reigns of Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah, as well as in the period of Jehoiada, the priest who deposed the queen Athaliah and installed Joash in her stead (chs. 22-24). Twice Moses is mentioned alongside David as the founder of a tradition (2 Chron. 8:13; 23:16-21). For example, in 2 Chronicles 23:18, Jehoiada assigns care of the temple to the Levites as proscribed by Moses and David, something mentioned nowhere in the DtrH parallel in 2 Kings 11. Moreover, in 2 Chronicles 24:6 and 9, set in the days of Joash, Moses is said to have once levied taxes on the people, and the Levites are asked why they have not continued this practice. (This may be an interpretation of the census tax of Exod. 30:11-16, whose funds go to the tabernacle; cf. Neh. 10:33). Other pluses are found in the account of the discovery in the temple of “the book of the law of the Lord given through Moses” in 2 Chronicles 34:14, and in the subsequent account of the Passover reforms carried out by King Josiah (35:6, 12). By contrast, the parallel story in 2 Kings 22-23 waits until the very end of Josiah’s reign to connect Moses to the recovered book of law (23:25). Furthermore, in Chronicles, the tôrah (“law”) is a term used to give legitimacy to post-exilic religious practices such as the maintenance and organization of the temple, which are omitted in the Pentateuch.43 Moses, 42 The three that do are found in 2 Chronicles 5:10 and 1 Kings 8:9; 2 Chronicles 25:4 and 2 Kings 14:6; and 2 Chronicles 33:8 and 2 Kings 21:8; Ernst Michael Dörrfuss, Mose in den Chronikbüchern: Garant theokratischer Zukunftserwartung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994), 3. Kings too has a few “Moses pluses” which have no counterpart in Chronicles; Auld, Kings Without Privilege, 128-146. 43 For instance, Chronicles lowers the age at which a Levite begins to serve in the temple from thirty to twenty (1 Chron. 23:24-27; contrast this with 1 Chron. 23:3 and Num. 4:23) and requires ten lampstands (2 Chron. 4: 7, 20) amongst the temple furnishings instead of the one six-branched lampstand sufficient for the tabernacle (Exod. 25:32; 37:17-23). Moreover, Chronicles harmonizes the conflicting Passover regulations about the preparation of the Passover animal. In Exodus 12:9, it is to be roasted and not eaten raw or boiled, while in Deuteronomy 16:7, it is to be boiled. 2 Chronicles 35:13 combines the two: “And they boiled the Passover lamb in the fire according to the decision (mišpaṭ)”; mišpaṭ here must mean “according to the interpretive tradition”; William M. Schniedewind, “The Chronicler as Interpreter of Scripture,” in M. Patrick Graham and Steven L. McKenzie, eds., The Chronicler as Author: Studies in Text and Texture, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 263 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1999), 158-180, esp. 175.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 53 Aaron, and David are viewed as authorities guiding the Persian-era realities of the Second Temple, the period of Chronicles’ redaction. In Ezra-Nehemiah, Ezra returns from the exile with the “law of Moses” as if it has been forgotten by the people (Ezr. 7:6; Neh. 8:1).44 As with Chronicles, there are laws that are not found in the Pentateuch as we have it, but they are still attributed to the “law of Moses.”45 Ezra 6:18 claims that a certain list of courses of priests and divisions of Levites were established in accordance with the book of Moses; however, the particular groupings of priests and Levites mentioned in Ezra do not appear outside of Chronicles or Ezra-Nehemiah (and in the Torah, these divisions are ascribed to David; cf. Exod. 29; Lev. 8; Num. 3-4; 8; but also Neh. 12:24). Furthermore, intermarriage with foreigners in Ezra is prohibited. In Ezra 10:3, one of Ezra’s officials, Shecaniah ben Yehiel, exhorts the community to “send out all of the women and anyone born from them,” saying it is in accordance with the Torah. But a general prohibition against intermarriage is nowhere in the Pentateuch nor is there a specific command to expel foreign women and their children as in Ezra 10:3 (cf. Neh. 10:30, where intermarriage is forbidden, but the dissolution of existing intermarriages is not expected). In Nehemiah, one sees extensions of the Torah/Law. Nehemiah speaks of the “law given by Moses the servant of God” (10:29), and the people swear a covenant oath. The commitments in the covenant seem to expand Pentateuchal laws: for instance, rather than keeping the Sabbath by merely prohibiting work, the people vow to not buy any merchandise or grain on the Sabbath (Neh. 10:31); rather than a one-time temple tax (Exod. 30:12-16), there is now to be an annual tax of one third of a shekel (Neh. 10:33-34); and the people are to supply a wood offering for the temple (Neh. 10:34) as well as add fruit tree produce to the offering of first cuttings of grain (Neh. 10:35; cf. Deut. 26:1-11). Finally, on the day the book of Moses is read, “It was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God” (13:1). This final law reflects the Balaam traditions in Numbers 22-24; the reason given is because the Ammonites and Moabites “did not meet the Israelites with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them” (13:2). However, in Nehemiah, once the people hear the law, 44 Ezr. 3:2; 6:18; 7:6; Neh. 1:7-8, 8:1, 14; 9:14; 10:30; 13:1. 45 See Sara Japhet, “Law and ‘The Law’ in Ezra-Nehemiah,” in From the Rivers of Babylon to the Highlands of Judah: Collected Studies on the Restoration Period, ed. Sara Japhet (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 137-151; repr. from Moshe Bar-Asher, ed., Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Panel Sessions, Bible Studies and Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985), 99-116.

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“they separated from Israel all foreigners” (13:3), presumably excluding non-Ammonites and non-Moabites. An important question then is whether or not the use of the term tôrah, “law,” in the Persian-era books refers to some form of the Pentateuch.46 Hindy Najman proposes that “even if the term ‘Torah of Moses’ was often used to refer to this collection, it does not follow that the primary function of the term was to name this collection of writings”; instead, “the primary function of the term was to confer authority.”47 In this way, certain new laws or practices could be attributed a Mosaic origin. It is more likely, however, that the term does refer to a specific corpus of material as authoritative (probably some early form of the Pentateuch), but its particular usage in the late books shows that a tradition of interpretation is beginning, one that presages later halakhic midrash.48 A frequent reference to “as it is written” shows the growing authority of the text but also the developing problem of adapting this to a living community in the Persian era. Chronicles, along with Ezra-Nehemiah, is “textually revising, reinterpreting, and circumventing” the Law.49 We see the harmonization of contradictory teachings, the clarification of incongruities that have arisen in an evolving organization, and the legitimization of new institutions and customs not mentioned in the Pentateuch/Law. By contrast, in the Hellenistic-era Book of Daniel, whose composition is dated to around 164 BCE, the “law of Moses” is used in Daniel 9:11 and 13 to explain the people’s punishment and suffering in both the Babylonian exile and the persecutions of the Syrian-Greek king Antiochus IV in the early 160’s BCE. The setting of the book’s events is the sixth century BCE, wherein Daniel is said to discover the Jeremiah prophecy predicting seventy years of desolation for Jerusalem (see Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10). When the angel Gabriel comes to Daniel to explain the prophecy, he seems to disagree 46 For a brief overview of positions on the use of “law” in Ezra-Nehemiah, see Michael LeFebvre, Collections, Codes, and Torah: The Re-Characterization of Israel’s Law, Library Hebrew Bible /Old Testament Studies 451 (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), esp. 104-105. In LeFebvre’s own perspective, Ezra-Nehemiah does not view the Pentateuch’s laws as prescriptive and binding instructions, but as descriptive ideals, open to new applications; see Collections, Codes, and Torah, 96-145. 47 Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism, Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 111-117, esp. 116. 48 On the history of legal interpretation in ancient Israel, and for Ezra-Nehemiah as the progenitor of midrash, see especially Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985). 49 Schniedewind, “The Chronicler as Interpreter of Scripture,” 172.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 55 with Daniel’s deuteronomistic interpretation that if Israel would only repent, the full period of devastation would be averted (Dan. 9:16-19). Instead, the angel implies that God’s decision to chastise Israel is a fait accompli that is in no way conditional (9:24-27), demonstrating a deterministic theology that befits an apocalyptic book like Daniel with its expectations of an imminent end to all earthly kingdoms.50 Conclusions: Moses’ Portrait in the Non-Pentateuchal Books Outside of the Pentateuch, Moses is most cited in Joshua in a continuance of the Exodus-conquest narrative, in which Joshua’s capture of Canaan and division of the land is a detailed fulfillment of what Moses had commanded. With regard to the rest of the Former Prophets, Moses is referred to infrequently in Judges and in the books of Samuel, but in 1-2 Kings, he appears authoritatively as the giver or author of the law against which certain kings are measured. Moses is again unimportant in the Latter Prophets, in spite of all their allusions and references to the Law or the Exodus. Moses is also non-existent in most of the Writings, with the notable exception of Book 4 of the Psalms, the writings of the Persian period (Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles), and Daniel. Moses is renowned almost solely as the leader of the Exodus in Psalms, and, in Book 4 of the Psalter, reference to Moses’ ancient covenant with God illustrates the eternal reign of Yahweh in contrast to that of failed earthly monarchs. For their part, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles make full use of Moses as author of the “Law,” but what is meant by “Law” is not simply the Pentateuch, although it is based upon it; the “Law” of the Persian period is becoming something new through an evolving tradition of interpretation. Then, in Daniel, the last book of the Bible to be written, the “law of Moses” is, as in the Former Prophets, again cited as the measurement against which the people fall short, but in an apocalyptic twist, the author seems to assert that no amount of repentance could have thwarted predestined punishment. In these books, Moses is portrayed as the singular founder of Israel’s institutions. Perhaps, as David L. Petersen suggests, Moses “is not a paradigmatic prophet, priest or ruler. Rather, he was deemed to be the 50 According to Lorenzo DiTommaso, the rejection of the old Deuteronomistic theology of history in Daniel 9 is “one of the most significant events in the history of ideas of early Judaism and perhaps even beyond.” See Lorenzo DiTommaso, “4QPseudo-Daniela-b (4Q243-4Q244) and the Book of Daniel,” Dead Sea Discoveries 12 (2005), 101-133, esp. 132.

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proverbial ‘cult founder,’ of which there can be only one.”51 Still, the tapestry of the founder’s portrait is woven from a diversity of roles; Moses is the leader of the Exodus (e.g., Is. 63:11), an intercessor between the people and God (Jer. 15:1; Ps. 99:6), the author or giver of the Torah/Law (e.g., 2 Chron. 33:8; 34:14; 35:6), a prophet, and a priest (Ps. 99:6). Moreover, it should be no surpise that such an important figure is also considered one of the great psalmists alongside King David. Furthermore, perhaps there is even some remembrance of Moses as healer in the account of his bronze serpent kept in the temple in 2 Kings 18:4. Many of these roles of Moses are in the Pentateuch as well but now have different emphases. For instance, in the Pentateuch, while Moses clearly institutes cultic practices, Aaron predominates as high priest. In the Prophets and Writings, however, Moses is explicitly named a priest, and he has priestly descendants at Dan and Shiloh (Jud. 18:30; cf. Ps. 99:6). The rivalry between Moses and Aaron still reverberates as well in the separate temple roles of Levites and priests that receive further delineation during the Persian period. Moreover, while Moses is not specifically called a prophet in the Pentateuch (although it is implied in at least Deut. 31:15 and 34:10), in the Prophets and Writings, he is often called a “man of God” (Josh. 14:6, Ps. 106:23, Ezra 3:2, 1 Chron. 23:14, and 2 Chron. 30:16) and “God’s chosen one” (Ps. 106:23), both titles indicating prophetic functions. On the other hand, a role that is in the Pentateuch, but is not found in the Prophets and Writings, is that of magician or wonderworker (cf. Exodus 7-11). Finally, with regard to the role of law-giver, it is given new, extended authority in EzraNehemiah and Chronicles, where the “law of Moses” is the foundation for an emerging oral tradition of interpretation that authorizes behaviors and practices as new situations arose in the Persian period. In comparison to other figures in the Prophets and the Writings, Moses is of less importance than King David (who is mentioned more often), but arguably more important than anyone else. In the Deuteronomistic History, where many Israelite kings are measured against the law of Moses, David the dynastic founder is not nor is Moses given any credit for the establishment of the monarchy. But Moses is an intercessor like Samuel, and his name is often linked with Aaron’s (and once Miriam’s) as leaders 51 David L. Petersen, “The Ambiguous Role of Moses as Prophet,” in Israel’s Prophets and Israel’s Past: Essays on the Relationship of Prophetic Texts and Israelite History in Honor of John H. Hayes, ed. Brad E. Kelle and Megan Bishop Moore, Library Hebrew Bible / Old Testament Studies 446 (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), 311-324, esp. 323.

moses in the prophets and the writings of the hebrew bible 57 of the Exodus (e.g., 1 Sam. 12:6, 8; Mic. 6:4) or with David in the Persian-era books as a founder of religious traditions (2 Chron. 8:13; 23:16-21). Furthermore, in the concluding verses of Malachi, the last book of the Prophets, Moses is connected to the prophet Elijah in a manner that looks both backward to Israel’s past and forward to a future messianic prophet (Mal. 3:22; English 4:4). In the Prophets and the Writings, the figure of Moses emerges as the singular religious founder of the Israelite religion and the icon of its identity. This figure was shaped and tailored to fit various moments in the evolution of the literary, theological, and historiographical traditions that eventually constituted the Hebrew Bible as a book of books. By the time Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles were composed in the Persian period, the legendary law-giver and leader of the Exodus had come to be viewed as the hinge between the law of Israel as a specific phenomenon and the very flux in its exegesis as a historical development.

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Moses: A Central Figure in the New Testament Larry J. Swain Moses is a figure who looms large in the Christian New Testament. Other than Jesus himself and his immediate circle plus Paul, there is probably no other figure that is as significant in early Christian literature as Moses is. This is in stark contrast to the Hebrew Bible. Outside of the Torah, Moses is mentioned in Joshua and Judges as a figure from the past, twice in I Samuel 12, briefly in I Kings 2, 8, 14, 18, 21, and 23, and twice in relation to the account of the finding of the scroll of the law in II Kings 21-23.1 Jeremiah mentions him once. Surprisingly, those are all the references from the literature that could be called pre-exilic, the period before the Babylonian Exile in 586 BCE. With their emphasis on social justice and obedience to the covenant, the rest of the prophets are largely silent on Moses as well: Micah mentions him once, Malachi once, and Isaiah 63 once. If one were not specifically looking for Moses in the Prophets of the Hebrew Bible, one would probably not place him as a major figure in that section of the Scripture. Turning to the Writings, most of which are post-exilic, Moses is mentioned more often. The Chronicler gives his sons and descendants names and ties his hero Ezra to Moses, a scribe skilled in Moses’ law (Ezra 7:1). Post-exilic psalms also mention Moses, chiefly in association with the Torah. Adding it all up, however, it would seem that the impact of the figure of Moses was not great in ancient Israel, and of course the Deuteronomistic History wishes to make that very point: the Babylonian Exile was the result of Moses not having a significant impact in ancient Israel. Certainly the importance of Moses, and the Law, increases in the post-exilic period as Judaism is born and becomes a religion of the book that becomes portable in the form of the Torah. But it is in the texts produced after the fifth century BCE that Moses has increased significance as a figure quite apart from his role as recipient of 1 Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1972), 1-7, 65-71, 136-41, 156-88. See also John Van Seters, The Life of Moses (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1994).

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the Torah from God and as giver of the Torah to the people.2 One key text is Ben Sira, also known to older traditions as Sirach or Ecclesiasticus.3 In this text, Ben Sira portrays Moses as the recipient of the entire Pentateuch, not only those portions where Moses is a character in the story. Not only so, but Moses becomes a glorious saint in Ben Sira’s treatment.4 Likewise the book of Jubilees presents Moses as recipient of a full revelation on Mt. Sinai of the events in Genesis, and the book takes the liberty of reordering and recasting those events to tell a rather new story than the one in Genesis.5 The work that modern scholars call the Assumption of Moses is referred to in Jude 9 and depicts a heavenly battle between Satan and Michael the Archangel over the body of Moses in his secret grave.6 In the crucible of Hellenistic Judaism, that strand of Judaism constantly defining itself against the “old” faith of the Semitic homeland and the Greek world of philosophy and religion, three writers in particular shape the way Moses’ is viewed by subsequent writers. Aristobulus the Historian wrote a treatise on the laws of Moses in Alexandria in Egypt, a work that sadly does not survive.7 There are a few snippets and citations in writers such as Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria. His reading of the Pentateuch, by now called o nomoς, the Law, is largely allegorical. Most importantly, however, Aristobulus champions Jewish tradition over Greek culture: according to him, Moses is the source that Plato and Pythagoras used in 2 Brian Britt, “The Moses Myth, Beyond Biblical History,” Bible and Interpretation (July 2004), http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Britt-Moses_Myth.htm. See also Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter, Moses in Biblical and extra-Biblical Traditions (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 2007). 3 I reference here the Greek version in the Old Greek: Alfred Rahlfs, ed. Septuaginta: id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1971, first edition, 1935). 4 Sirach 24:23 reads: tαῦτα πάντα βίβλος διαθήκης θεοῦ ὑψίστου νόμον ὃν ἐνετείλατο ἡμῖν μωυσῆς κληρονομίαν συναγωγαῖς ιακωβ. The first five verses of chapter 45 are in praise of Moses; I refer here to the first verse: ὡμοίωσεν αὐτὸν δόξῃ aγίων. 5 James C. Vanderkam, The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text (Leuven: S.I. Peeters, 2001). For a translation, see Orval S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,” Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985) 2:35-142. Studies of Jubilees rewritten Torah text include John C. Enders, Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees (Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 1987) and Michael Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2007). See also Vanderkam’s commentary, The Book of Jubilees, Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). 6 Johannes Tromp, The Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary. Studia in Veteris Testamenti pseudepigrapha, vol. 10 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993). 7 Fragments from Jewish Authors: Aristobulus, Vol. III, ed. Carl R. Holladay (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1995).

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developing their philosophies. Moses thus trumps Plato as the source of important philosophical thought, and of course predates Homer, making Hebrew thought the elder and so better than Greek. Following up on this in the war of philosophy in Hellenistic Alexandria, Artapanus wrote a novel, which only survives in fragments, that depicts Moses as founder of philosophy, taking up Aristobolus’ ideas, but adds that Moses taught Orpheus, raised Pharaoh from the dead, and was all but a divine man.8 Likewise Ezekiel the Tragedian, who wrote in Alexandria in the second century BCE, takes many of these ideas and expands on them. His play on the Exodus begins with Moses orating a long soliloquy explaining how the Jews came to Egypt and the oppression they suffered.9 The play goes on to relate the events of the exodus and the wandering in the wilderness. What is astounding, however, is that Ezekiel all but ascribes divinity to Moses, saying that Moses will judge the nations and that he will have knowledge of things past, present, and future, and he will possess other semi-divine attributes. It is Philo of Alexandria who perhaps does the most for the figure of Moses in the early Second Temple period. Philo wrote a large treatise on Moses and the Torah and its interpretation.10 As with Philo’s predecessors, Moses is the fount of philosophy, and it is in the writings of Moses that the final and highest truth of divine things and human affairs is to be found. As lawgiver and recipient of divine revelation, Moses stands as the ultimate gateway between God and humanity, and the Torah is presented as the foundation text of Greek philosophy and culture. Philo’s Moses is a mystic and philosopher uniting all things, whether Jewish or Greek, in his role as revealer of God’s words in the Torah. Turning to Greco-Roman Israel, Moses continues to be a figure of speculation even after ben Sira’s book mentioned above. The most famous writer of this time period is Josephus, whose Moses is a figure central to 8 Carl R. Holladay, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors: Historians, Vol. 1 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983), 199-201. Fragment 3 deals with Moses and makes a number of grandiose claims for Moses. See also Arthur J. Droge, Homer or Moses?: Early Christian Interpretations of the History of Culture, Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 26 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1989), 26-32. 9 Carl R. Holladay, Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors: The Epic Poets Theodotus and Philo and Ezekiel the Tragedian, vol. 2 (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1989). See also Pierlugi Lanfranchi, “Reminiscences of Ezekiel’s Exagoge in Philo’s De Vita Mosis” in Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions, ed. Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 143-150. 10 Philo, Philo, trans. and ed. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, The Loeb Classical Library 289 (London: Heinemann, 1966).

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defining what it means to be Jewish, especially in a Roman world.11 For Josephus, Moses is about nationalism, and the sense of being “chosen” as a people is paramount. Also in Judea is the community of Qumran. Here of course Moses is still the lawgiver and interpreter of divine will.12 What is different, however, is that the teacher of righteousness, the founder of the community, is depicted as the interpreter of Moses. Of course, the Pharisees and Sadducees, from what we can tell in the sources, considered themselves to be in the same role. The problem was that they all had very different interpretations of what Moses meant on several key points. The rabbis have already begun to be active by the time Jesus and his followers are preaching and teaching the new covenant.13 At least the later rabbis, who pen the Mishnah, gathering together earlier oral and written traditions, will trace the path of descent from Moses to Joshua to the Judges to the Prophets to Ezra and the Men of the Great Assembly to themselves. They sit in Moses’ seat, perhaps even the same seat that Ezekiel the Tragedian gave him. As will be seen below, much of the problem and debate will revolve around who is really the true heir of Moses, though the book of Hebrews has a rather unique answer to that question. A related question is what the revelation to Moses means in the Greco-Roman world for the Jewish people. New Testament writers will answer that as well. The foregoing survey is brief, but it is meant to illustrate that Moses as a figure, and with him the Torah, becomes increasingly important in the Second Temple Period and thereafter. From hardly a blip on the radar in texts whose origins lie in the pre-exilic period, to being semi-divine and the source of truth in the time of Jesus, Moses’ significance was on the rise. The role of Moses in the New Testament cannot really be overestimated and volumes might be written on each text or author and the sources of his inspiration with regard to Moses and how the lawgiver is depicted in the text. Yet an overview article can sketch out the major paths to follow and suggest some bibliography that might prove to be of assistance. 11 Flavius Josephus, Josephus 1. The Life. Against Apion, trans. and ed. and Henry St. J. Thackeray, The Loeb Classical Library 186 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966). 12 Heinz-Joseph Fabry, “Mose, der “Gesalbte JWHs”: Messianische Aspekte der MoseInterpretation in Qumran,” in Graupner, op. cit., 129-142. 13 Lawrence H. Schiffman, Understanding Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Jersey City, N.J.: Ktav Publishing House, 2003). One need look no further than the opening tractate of Aboth which traces the descent of the oral torah through the ages from Moses’ revelation on Sinai through history down to the rabbis themselves. See also Richard Lee Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity (New York: Routledge, 1999).

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Although discerning the exact chronology of the composition of the New Testament writings is fraught with difficulty, it is possible to proceed with an analysis in approximately chronologically order. The overview will begin with Paul, then move to the synoptic gospels, and conclude with John. From the gospels, this overview will turn to the epistle to the Hebrews and Jude. Moses in the Writings of Paul It is difficult when discussing Moses in Paul to separate completely the figure of Moses from the Law. Overall, Paul refers to Moses as the mediator of the Law and very little else besides that.14 Moses is in fact only mentioned nine times by Paul. The issue of Paul’s understanding of the Law is a difficult one and has been often discussed.15 This overview assumes that Moses should be separated and can be separated from Paul’s view of the Law. In part, this stems from a developing view of the Torah quite apart from Paul that does, to some degree, separate Torah and Moses. In the early Second Temple Period, there were texts that begin to indicate that Torah is a heavenly, even a divine, entity. One such set of texts is the Enoch literature in which Enoch is given visions of heaven. While on one such heavenly journey, he encounters the Torah and speaks with it as a being in and of itself.16 Similarly, in the previously mentioned Philo’s works, the divine 14 Morna D. Hooker, “Paul and Covenantal Nomism,” in Paul and Paulinism: Essays in Honor of C. K. Barrett, ed. M.D. Hooker and S.G. Wilson (London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1982), 56 remarks on this difficulty saying that while Paul cites Scripture and the authors of Scriptural texts often, he rarely specifies Moses. He notes that this is surprising. 15 The literature is too great to mention more than a few items. In addition to the essay in the previous note, a recent summary of discussion is in Preston Sprinkle, Law and Life: The Interpretation of Leviticus 18:5 in Early Judaism and in Paul (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). A fairly recent conference proceeding on the issue was published by the DurhamTübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism. See James D.G. Dunn, Paul and the Mosaic Law (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001). See also Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987); Veronica Koperski, What Are They Saying About Paul and the Law? (New York: Paulist Press, 2001); Heikki Räisänen, Paul and the Law, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 29 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1987); E.P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); P.J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles, Compendia rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, v. 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990). 16 See the very brief discussion in Alan J. Hauser and Duane Frederick Watson, A History of Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2003).

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Logos is the operative principle in heaven that animates and authorizes the Torah. At the same time, Wisdom as an independent figure, such as she appears in texts like Proverbs 8, is conflated with Torah and Logos to form a large image of a heavenly Torah. All of this to say that outside of maybe Ezekiel the Tragedian, there is reason to see the Torah, the Law, as a heavenly figure separate from Moses: the former a divine figure in the sense of a kind of hypostatic union with God and the latter a divine messenger, prophet par excellence, and ultimate servant of God. With this as background then, there may be justification for separating the Law from Moses in Paul’s authentic letters. This becomes particularly true in one of the earlier references to Moses in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. In II Corinthians 3:5-18, the apostle develops an allegorical interpretation of events in Moses’ life that engages in a typical Pauline comparison/contrast.17 Especially on questions of the Christian’s relationship to the Law, Paul will say, to paraphrase, “The Law is good, but Christ is better.” In this passage, Paul contrasts the giving of the Law, a glorious moment, with the giving of the Spirit, which is even more glorious. Paul invokes Moses’ face shining with God’s glory so that he had to cover it in order to speak to the elders of Israel.18 He then contrasts that with the Christians who have no veil, but he both allegorizes and reinterprets the veil. That is, the veil is yet seen as literal in the sense that Moses covered his face, and he seems to mean literally that the veil covers the hearts of the Jews (v. 14), but Christ has lifted that veil for the believers. This passage is an interesting one. The giving of the Law is glorious, and Moses, the lawgiver shines with God’s glory, though he had to cover his face. So Moses is presented in a positive light as giver of the Law. But it is just not as positive as the new revelation and the new covenant in Christ. This distinction lies at the heart of the New Testament depiction of Moses as will be seen in what follows. Did Paul invent such an idea and pass it on to the other New Testament writers? Although this is an intriguing possibility, Paul may not have done 17 Paul develops his argument in verses 3-11, and turns specifically to Moses in verse 12: εχοντες ουν τοιαυτην ελπιδα πολλη παρρησια χρωμεθα, 13. και ου καθαπερ μωυσης ετιθει καλυμμα επι το προσωπον αυτου προς το μη ατενισαι τους υιους ισραηλ εις το τελος του καταργουμενου 14. αλλα επωρωθη τα νοηματα αυτων αχρι γαρ της σημερον ημερας το αυτο καλυμμα επι τη αναγνωσει της παλαιας διαθηκης μενει μη ανακαλυπτομενον οτι εν χριστω καταργειται 15 αλλ εως σημερον ηνικα αν αναγινωσκηται μωυσης καλυμμα επι την καρδιαν αυτων κειται 16 ηνικα δε εαν επιστρεψη προς κυριον περιαιρειται το καλυμμα. 18 See Exodus 34:29-35. Verse 29 in the Hebrew text reads: ‫ּוׁשנֵ י‬ ְ ‫וַ יְ ִהי ְּב ֶר ֶדת מ ֶֹׁשה ֵמ ַהר ִסינַ י‬ ‫ן־ה ָהר‬ ָ ‫ּביַ ד־מ ֶֹׁשה ְּב ִר ְדֹּתו ִמ‬/‫י‬ ְ ‫לחֹת ָה ֵע ֻדת ָק ַרן ֹעור ָּפנָ יו ְּב ַד ְּבֹרו ִאֹּתו׃ ּומ ֶֹׁשה לֹא־יָ ַדע ִּכ‬. ֻ

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so. Already the nascent rabbinic movement and Qumran were holding up an “oral torah” as a set of interpretations of the Torah that were equal to, and in practice greater than, the Mosaic revelation.19 Certainly these communities placed themselves in a tradition in which they were the inheritors of Mosaic authority and revelation, but nonetheless their interpretations of what it meant not to work on the Sabbath, for example, were what governed adherents’ lives, not the Mosaic revelation itself. While some Christian groups would respond similarly, Paul’s answer is not a contrast in the sense of opposites, but rather a “yes, and there is more.” The attitude seems to be that Moses is good, and Moses foretold the advent of Christ and the life of the Spirit. Rather than being in the tradition of Moses, Paul’s response is to say that the Christian movement is where Moses wished he could be.20 There is, however, a slight problem with the interpretation of Moses thus offered. Earlier in his first letter to the Corinthians Paul uses the phrase. “καὶ πάντες εἰς τὸν Μωϋσῆν ἐβαπτίσαντο ἐν τῇ νεφέλῃ καὶ ἐν τῇ θαλάσσα” (transliterated as “... kai pantes eis ton Mwushn ebaptisqhsav en th nefelh kai en th qalassh” and translated into English as “and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”). He is referring to events in the Exodus account as being a form of baptism. It is difficult to imagine this phrase as being substantially different than Romans 6:3, for example, and other passages in early Christian usage that speak of being baptized into Christ. Particularly in Romans 6, baptism into Christ is depicted as being participatory, a way of participating in Christ’s death, so that those who have been baptized participate and take fully on the post-resurrection life of Christ. Given this, what might baptism into Moses mean, and does it militate against the reading of II Corinthians 3 (given above) concerning the veil? While there has been quite a bit of ink spilled over this question, it is not very difficult to imagine what Paul has in mind.21 In spite of the unique 19 I have already mentioned the Avoth tractate as one example of this process. For an introduction to this process of oral Torah, see Jacob Neusner, The Oral Torah: The Sacred Books of Judaism: An Introduction (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986). 20 For a different view, in fact an opposing view, see Josef M. Kastner, Moses im Neuen Testament (ThD. Diss., Ludwig-Maximillians Univ.: Munich, 1967), 182. 21 See, for example, James D.G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2006), 448, and Alan F. Johnson, 1 Corinthians, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series 7 (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 156. For a view that reads “baptized into Moses” as not baptism at all, see Herman N. Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1997), 405.

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status of Christ in Pauline thought, he is the mediator of a new covenant, the new covenant superseding the old. The old covenant was also mediated by a special figure, a figure just not as special as Christ. Thus being baptized into Moses is participatory: obedience to the revelations of the Old Covenant should get Israel as far as Moses, able to see God’s back side and considered holy and chosen rather than recalcitrant and exiled. There is, thus, every reason to consider that for Paul, Moses is a figure that Israel mystically participates in just as the whole of humanity participates in Adam’s sin and the Christian participates in Christ. Moses is therefore the ultimate definition of Israel, and Israel participates in Moses’ trials, in his revelation, in his obedience to God, and in his role as a mediator of a revelation that points to Christ himself and the new covenant. This participation in Moses is seen throughout the chapter as Paul contrasts what Israel shared (spiritual food in v. 3, spiritual drink from the rock which was Christ in v. 4, the sacrifices of the altar, and in v. 18 when contrasted with vv. 16-17, the one cup of Christ and the one bread, the Eucharist). Israel is united in spirit by all these things, which they have in the shadow of a veil that the Christian has in full. Moses remains a mediator of a covenant that is from God, but that covenant is only a veiled semblance of the covenant of Christ: just as Christ’s covenant is mystically participatory, so is Moses’ covenant. There are a few other references to Moses in Paul’s letters. They are invocations of Moses’ authority and exemplum; they serve only to illustrate the authority of Moses in that regard, but little else about how Paul viewed him. Romans 9:15; 10:5, 19, and I Corinthians 9:9 all simply refer to Moses as an author of “Scripture” (e.g., “Moses writes,” or “God said to Moses,” and so on). II Timothy 3:8 refers to an event recorded in the Torah as an example of Paul’s point. Lastly, Romans 5:14 uses Moses as a “time marker” in the sense that it is from Adam (i.e., the time of Adam) to Moses (i.e., the time of Moses or the giving of the Torah at Sinai) that death reigned. While the subject of death is enlarged upon, the subject of Moses is not. For the most part, one hears far more about Moses in the four gospels than in most of the rest of the New Testament. But it is dangerous to take the gospels as a set, even if narrowed to just the Synoptic Gospels. Each gospel uses Moses in some way to further its own unique theological statement about who Jesus is. Nevertheless, this essay will focus on Matthew, the Synoptic Gospel that makes use of Moses the most fully, and John.

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Moses in Matthew’s Gospel Matthew’s gospel contains all the references in Mark, and so accepts and retains that message, but does so in a new and unique fashion, and a much deeper one in some senses. Like Mark, Matthew relates the tale of the crossing on water that cannot help but evoke Mosaic imagery (Matthew 14:22-33). In contrast to Mark, however, Matthew has much more about Moses, both implicitly and explicitly, than the second gospel. Matthew begins with such imagery almost immediately. After the genealogy that opens the gospel, the evangelist relates the tale of Joseph, who has just discovered he is engaged to a pregnant woman, and he is not the father of the unborn baby. He receives a visitation in a dream wherein an angel tells him to marry Mary and accept the child, conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph is further promised that the child will be a deliverer, a deliverer from sin. In fulfillment of prophecy, Joseph does so. This is worth comparing with a tradition associated with the birth of Moses in this time period. According to Josephus, who explains the birth of Moses to his Greco-Roman audience in the Antiquities of the Jews, Moses’ father Amram becomes troubled over his wife’s pregnancy. He receives a message from God in a dream that tells him not to be concerned, and this child will be great and be a deliverer. Amram is at peace and is obedient to God. The parallels in these birth stories are apparent.22 The very next episode in Matthew moves the narrative to Herod’s court. Every reader of the gospel in the early days knew that Herod was not a Jew, but an Idumean, a descendant of the Hebrew Bible’s Edomites, the children of Esau. He thus fulfills the role of the foreign king holding sway over Israel. Magi from the East have come to find where Jesus was born, and they have followed a star that has portended his birth. Herod then must discover from the priests and scribes the details of the prophecy, send the Magi on their way, and await their return to give him more information. There are many things in this section of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth to consider. While it is widely recognized that the presence of the Magi says something about the Gentiles in Matthew’s gospel as well as fulfills prophecies regarding the Davidic messiah, there is also a Mosaic 22 Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, ed. H. St. J. Thackeray, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 489-90. The sections detailed here are Bk II.9.2-7. For an interesting treatment of Moses in Josephus, see Masateru Hayashi, Moses in the “Jewish Antiquities”: Josephus’ Political Philosophy (Doctoral Thesis, Hebrew Union College, 1992).

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element that is too often overlooked. First, the birth of Moses is foretold according to Josephus and other sources by wise men connected with Pharaoh’s court. Further, Balaam, a non-Israelite prophet in the Hebrew text, is hired in the book of Numbers by one of the Israelites’ enemies to curse them. Instead, Balaam blesses Moses and the children of Israel and prophesies about the greatness of this people and foretells the future Messiah. Balaam in the Septuagint at Numbers 22:7 is said to be “from the east” just as the Magi in Matthew’s gospel. In addition, Jewish tradition at the time of Christ considered Balaam to be a magus (Philo, Moses 1.276, Sipre Deut. 34:10) and a counselor of Pharaoh. In Matthew’s gospel then, we have magi like Balaam who foretold the coming of the Messiah at the time of Moses. Moreover, another connection in this regard is that the evil king in Numbers attempts to use a prophet for his own ends against God’s chosen. This is precisely the situation the author presents in the gospel: the evil king, in this case Herod, attempts to use the magi for his own ends against God’s chosen. It would seem then that Matthew presents the magi at least in part as Balaam’s successors, and just as Balaam unwittingly foretold the Messiah’s coming, so too do these Gentile magi make known the Messiah’s birth. The connection to Moses is indirect, but no one thinking of Balaam and his place in the story would miss the connection to Moses implicit in the text. Thus, an evil king Herod consulting eastern magi like Balaam about a figure sent by God would remind readers of traditions about Moses where an evil king opposes him by consulting eastern magi. Further in this episode, Herod, like Pharaoh in Josephus’ telling of the Mosaic story, learns of the birth of the one who will save Israel from his court counselors, in Herod’s case the chief priests and scribes who cite prophecy. Like Pharaoh, Herod reacts by ordering all the children two years old and under to be killed. Again, the details of the story of Christ follow a Mosaic pattern. Both Moses and Jesus are delivered as babies by miraculous intervention. Matthew continues modeling the story on Mosaic parallels throughout the second chapter of his gospel. Moses is in danger of losing his life, not as a young child but as an adult, when Pharaoh is said to want to kill him. Jesus likewise is in danger of his life because Herod wishes to kill him. Both leave their homelands in order to be safe. Moreover, both return to their homeland when those who sought to kill them are dead, and both do so because of a divine message. In Moses’ case, it was God himself who instructs Moses to return to Egypt; in Matthew’s account of Jesus, an angel

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appears to Joseph in a dream commanding him to return to Israel. The wording of the two passages, however, is almost identical (Exodus 4:19 LXX and Matthew 2:19-20). In fact, by modeling his quotation on Exodus, Matthew has even made an error in grammar, not adjusting the plural of the Exodus text referring back to Pharaoh and his armies to the singular because Matthew is referring explicitly to Herod. This fatigue on the part of the evangelist leaves little doubt that he is deliberately constructing his tale at this juncture on Mosaic models. In response to God’s command, Exodus 4:20 tells us that Moses took his wife and his sons and returned to Egypt. In Matthew, Joseph takes his son and the boy’s mother and returns to Israel. This parallel is not as exact in terminology as the command to return, but nonetheless is close enough to suggest an influence of the Mosaic text on the Matthean tale. Before leaving the infancy narrative in Matthew, there is one further theme that begins here that is carried throughout the gospel and has Mosaic overtones. For Matthew, a central issue is that Jesus is the king of Israel. The Davidic associations, the appellation “son of David,” and other markers make this quite clear. In the second chapter there is very obviously a contrast being made between Herod, known to the first century readers of the gospel as having been set in place by the Romans and so not Israel’s king, and Jesus, who fulfills the prophecy from Micah concerning Bethlehem and the coming of Israel’s new king from the city of David. Thus the issue of kingship is very important in the early part of the second chapter of Matthew. The theme is not merely a Davidic one; it is also a Mosaic theme. In the haggadic traditions that develop around Moses in the Second Temple period, Moses is a king of Israel at the time of the Exodus.23 The image is simply drawn from the Torah where Moses is the leader of Israel, leads them in battle, appoints leaders for the people, judges legal cases, and of course issues the Law. All these activities are the within the sphere of kings rather than prophets, and so Moses is often depicted in this period as a king as well. The contrast that Matthew is drawing between Herod and Jesus in this chapter then rests on the explicit references to David, but also the explicit references to the Mosaic tradition already described: the 23 W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 1, International Critical Commentary Series (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Limited, 1988), 193. The authors point to several sources in rabbinic literature. Most important is Philo in his Moses I.334.

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appearance of the Magi, the appearance of the star which points to the “star” prophecy of Balaam in Numbers, and of course the following exile and return of Jesus just like Moses. Thus, the depiction of Jesus’ kingship rests on David and Moses.24 The typology continues in the next chapters. Just as there is a gap between the end of the second chapter in Exodus and Moses’ call at the Burning Bush in the third chapter, so too there is a gap in Jesus’ life in Matthew. As when Moses returns to his homeland and then leads Israel in the Exodus out into the wilderness and to the mountain where the Torah is given, so too Matthew tells the life of Jesus from just that same template. Jesus returns to his homeland and leads believers through baptism like the Red Sea experience and then out into the wilderness and finally to the mountain of covenant, the place where he preaches the Sermon on the Mount. While many of the details are very different, the overall structure of chapters 3 and 4 in Matthew follows Moses and the events of Exodus. This brings us to the Sermon on the Mount. Mountains are powerful symbols in the Bible; much that is important occurs on mountains.25 In the biblical account of Moses, there are three key mountaintop experiences. The first is Moses’ call at the burning bush. The second is the arrival at Mount Sinai, the giving of the Torah, and the covenant God makes with Israel. The third as recorded in the Bible occurs in the book of Deuteronomy where Moses stands at the foot of Mount Nebo and summarizes the Torah and the events of Israel’s history to that moment addressing the Israelites. That book ends with Moses ascending the mountain and presumably dying, though there is a certain lack of clarity in the biblical text that left open the door to a great deal of exploration of just what happened to Moses.26

24 Davies and Allison conclude their discussion of the Infancy Narrative in Matthew by observing: “The haggadic legends surrounding the birth and early life of Moses have determined the content of Matthew’s infancy material.” 25 Davies and Allison, for example, discuss this briefly and point to primary literature (422-23). A brief overview of mountains in the “holy history” of Israel reveals that theophany occurs there more than anywhere else. Important mountains include Horeb, Sinai, Nebo, Zion, and Carmel. Some of these recur often as sites of theophanic experience. It should be remembered that for cultures in the Middle East, mountains were often believed to be where the gods lived, such as Mt. Olympus for the Greeks, and mountaintops were therefore closer to the gods and so appropriate places to have such divine experiences. Matthew apparently has such an idea in mind. 26 Such speculation is reflected in the work titled The Assumption of Moses and is also reflected in the epistle of Jude 9.

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Likewise in Matthew’s gospel there are three mountain experiences, though they do not precisely line up with the Torah. The first is at the Sermon on the Mount (to which we will return shortly), the second at the mountain of transfiguration, and the last is the mountain from which Jesus gives his final words to the disciples in Matthew 28. The incidence of three mountains at which key events occur is an interesting point in common for Jesus and Moses and may serve to underscore the connections between them. Matthew records Jesus going up the mountain in Matthew 5:1, using the same Greek words that describe Moses ascending the mountain in Exodus 19.27 Jesus sits, as Moses is said to sit on the mountain in Deuteronomy 9:9 as Moses is looking back on that experience.28 Jesus then begins teaching just as Moses taught the children of Israel. The image is not simply one of using Sinai as its essential template, but rather both a Sinaitic and a “Nebonic” image conflated to form a picture of Jesus. That is, Sinai is the mount of revelation and the giving of the covenant. Nebo is the place where Moses, according to Deuteronomy, finished his words and left the world. The image of Jesus here in Matthew 5 seems to want to bring those two mountain events in the Torah into focus here. That is, Jesus is not the recipient of revelation as Moses was, but is the giver of revelation as Moses was after he came down from the mountain and again in the book of Deuteronomy. Further, if the typology that has been worked out in the first few chapters of Matthew is based on Jesus as the New Moses, then Jesus begins his ministry of teaching where Moses ended his, on the mountain with the people listening to him. If so, it means that not only the Sermon on the Mount which follows but the rest of the gospel is about how the New Moses interacts with the people and institutes a new covenant.

27 In the Septuagint, ἀναβαίνώ (anabainw) followed by εἰς τὸ ὄρος (eis to oros) occurs twenty-four times; eighteen of those references are in the Torah and refer explicitly to Moses, particularly at Exodus 19:3 at the beginning of Moses’ reception of the Sinai revelation. 28 This depends on the Hebrew text which uses the verb ָ‫בׁשי‬ ַ (wa’eseb), the first definition of which is “sit” and subsequent definitions give “remain, dwell.” The latter is the choice of the Septuagint for this verse using καταγίνομαί (kataginomai), “to dwell,” to translate the Hebrew. Davies and Allison follow a procedure fraught with some peril in citing rabbinic literature showing that many rabbis, including first-century ones, considered the meaning to be “sit” (424). Because the rabbinic material is so late, it is difficult to apply it as background for Matthew’s use here. Nonetheless, considering that Matthew is familiar with the Hebrew text and with proto-rabbinic interpretation, the later rabbinic tradition leaves open this possibility; in my view, it is a very likely possibility.

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The first five chapters in particular seem to be typological application of the life of Moses and the events of the Exodus to Jesus. 29 Deuteronomy 18:15 records Moses as saying that God would raise up for Israel a prophet like himself, and Jesus seems to be fulfilling that role in Matthew’s gospel. An interesting puzzle in this regard is the genealogy that opens this gospel. In verse 1:1, Moses is not mentioned. The remainder of the list of Jesus’ ancestors proceeds through Israel’s history and the Hebrew Bible mentioning high points at Abraham, David, and the Babylonian Exile. But there is nothing mentioned there regarding the Exodus, though verse 4 does include two names that are mentioned in Exodus and Numbers: Aminadab and Nashon. It is interesting to observe the lack of emphasis on Moses and the Exodus when so much of the following chapters is built upon a mimesis of Exodus and Moses. That is perhaps the answer. While Matthew composes his gospel and certainly does have something to say about Jesus in relationship to Abraham and David, the key would appear to be that just as one must look beyond the surface of Jesus to see him, so one must look beyond the surface of the text to see Jesus, the New Moses. In addition, it is well known that Matthew is very concerned to present Jesus as the true occupant of Moses’ seat. Without belaboring the point, there are several instances in which Jesus is challenged in the gospels by the teachers of the Torah. In historical context, these are most likely nothing more than proto-rabbis in the Pharisaic tradition examining one whom they recognize as being very close to their own positions. Jesus is famously close to what later rabbinic writings record Hillel saying in some cases, or in other cases, very close to the position of the opposing school in Pharisaism, Shammai. In one instance at least, the debate might even be about a position held by the Dead Sea community. In the context of Matthew, however, these debates take on a new meaning. Throughout the gospel, there is a building tension between Jesus and the various religious leaders of the day, not only the Pharisees. For Jesus’ ministry, this begins in chapter 9, but occurs in chapters 12 (three occasions), 15, 16, 19, and 22. In the second to last discourse made by Jesus in chapter 23, the text begins by saying that the Pharisees and scribes sit in Moses’ seat, and so the disciples are to do what the Pharisees say, but they are not to do as the Pharisees do. It is this verse that has given rise to the modern English use of the word “Pharisee” as a synonym for hypocrite. 29 Davies and Allison suggest that Matthew 1-5 is a largely a Mosaic typology. See 424 and the literature cited there.

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There follows a long discourse criticizing various Pharisaic positions and practices. It is an odd moment in the gospel. On the one hand, Matthew has consistently portrayed Jesus as the New Moses in the gospel. This is furthered by the references above wherein Matthew’s Jesus debates points of the Torah and Torah interpretation with the Pharisees and wins every time, silencing them to the point that in chapter 22, the Pharisees decide that they will do away with Jesus. Then Matthew has Jesus acknowledge that the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, the inheritors of Moses’ authority and power. On the face of it, this rather argues against Matthew’s presentation of Jesus. It would seem this is the case were it not for the way in which the phrase is worded. The text uses the aorist active form of the verb: the Pharisees sat in the seat of Moses. The authority on this view is not given to them or inherited, but taken. This has caused some translations to render the phrase, “The scribes and Pharisees sat themselves....” Since the verb, however, is not in the Greek middle nor is a reflexive pronoun present, this interpretation may be going too far. What is clear, though, is that Matthew is setting up a comparison-contrast between Jesus and those who sit in Moses’ seat. This is important when this section in chapter 23 is compared to sections of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. A comparison finds similarity in theme, vocabulary, and structure. In chapter 23, the Pharisees sat in Moses’ seat. In chapter 5, Jesus sat on the mountainside, taking the pose and position of Moses at the delivering of the Torah. In both, non-Christian Jewish behavior is contrasted with Jewish Christian behavior. The phrases are constructed in such a way that negative descriptions are followed by positive injunctions (“they do this, which is wrong; you do that, which is right”). It is clear that the synagogue is in view, and the behavior of both communities as communities rather than the behavior of individuals is at issue (6:2, 5 and 23:2-3). Typical of Matthew, the sections are constructed triadically: three issues in chapter 6, prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, are paralleled by three issues in chapter 23: 2-3, 5, 7-10 that Pharisees do and the followers of Jesus are called not to do. These issues in both sections come down to public piety for the praise of humanity and that motivation’s essential hypocrisy. To make the point stronger, the phrase (6:1, 23:5) occurs in both sections. The imagery here is one of greater contrast than a comparison between scribes and Pharisees and the Christians of Matthew’s community. The essential question is one of authority. The Pharisees, as those who sit in

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Moses’ seat, are the recognized authorities and have passed on the tradition of Moses. That part of their behavior is praised, and Jesus’ teaching regarding establishing the Torah (5:17) reflects the same idea for Jesus. What disqualifies the Pharisees is their hypocrisy. Because of their desire for human approbation, they do not practice what they preach (remembering that what they preach is the Torah of Moses). In Matthew’s Christology, Jesus becomes the inheritor of Moses’ authority. The injunctions of what the Christian community should do are in part meant to be seen as fulfilling Moses’ injunctions in the Torah. Further, Jesus is not simply the inheritor of Moses’ authority, but is the New Moses. His teaching builds upon the Mosaic foundation. Such a view is confirmed in the last four verses of the gospel. Matthew 28:16-20 very obviously draws on traditions about Moses’ own death and ascension. Moses is said both in the Bible and in other traditions to ascend a mountain, speak to Joshua his successor, enjoining on him to go forth and observe all the commandments of the Torah and promises to Joshua God’s abiding presence. He then disappears from view, and later traditions report that Moses was taken up to heaven, explaining the absence of his body. In the same way, Jesus meets his disciples on a mountain, enjoins on them to keep his Torah, promises his abiding presence as the divine, and then disappears from view. The parallels are apparent and meant to be there. For Matthew, the key to the gospel is that Jesus was and remains the New Moses that only the faithful remnant of the Christian church receive and whose Torah, which includes the Torah of Moses, the Matthean community alone preserves and observes. Moses in John’s Gospel Moses is not mentioned in the three letters ascribed to the apostle John. The lawgiver does, however, receive several mentions in the gospel. For the most part, the references are to the Law rather than to Moses himself, and so the Fourth Gospel is another instance where the two are so conflated that it is difficult to separate them. Nonetheless, it will be useful to review these appearances in the gospel and the uses John makes of Moses in his view of Jesus. Briefly, there are four categories into which these references may be divided: Moses and the Jews against Jesus and the Church, Moses as witness to Jesus and condemner of the Jews, Jesus supersedes Moses, and Mosaic Christology in John.

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The evangelist sets up a dichotomy in the first chapter between Jesus and Moses, a dichotomy that separates them throughout the gospel, and separates their followers. John 1:17 reads: ὅτι ὁ νόμος διὰ Μωϋσέως ἐδόθη, ἡ χάρις καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐγένετο (transliterated as oti o nomos dia Mwusews Edoqh h xaris kai h alhqeia dia Ihsou Xristou egeneto; and translated into English as “Because the Torah was given through Moses, (but) grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”). The contrast set up here appears to be very similar to that in the Pauline view discussed above: Moses was good and the Law God-given, but Jesus is better. For John, the contrast is much greater. Moses is associated specifically with the Law and stands as the authority and author of that tradition in contrast to Jesus the Anointed who is the authority and author of the contents of the gospel, a work that supersedes the Law. Interestingly, both Moses and Jesus are introduced by name for the first time in this gospel in this verse. The Jewish reader of the fourth gospel could not miss the subtle rhetoric implicit in the verse. The first 16 verses of chapter 1 have described who the Logos was, and that this Logos has become flesh, witnessed by John the Baptist. Verse 16, building on John’s testimony in verse 15, confesses that all have received grace from the Logos made flesh, verse 17 contrasts the Law through Moses but grace and truth through Jesus, and then verse 18 concludes the Prologue by claiming that it is this Jesus as only-begotten Son who has seen God and makes God known. The Jewish reader would of course be thinking of Moses on Mount Sinai who sees God’s back side and receives the Law, his face shining brightly as he descends the mountain to make known the Torah of YHWH. John in a few words contrasts this image of Moses with his image of Jesus as Logos and only-begotten son who alone has seen God, not merely God’s back side, and Jesus alone reveals Him. It is as if to say: Moses and the resultant Law are good as far as they go, but Jesus is so much better. Further connections on this score are the apparent links between verse 14 recalling the wilderness experience and the phrase in verse 17 “grace and truth” that points to Exodus 34:6 and its description of YHWH’s covenant character.30 Moses delivers Torah; Jesus Christ reveals God in a more direct and fuller way.

30 Exodus 34:6 in the Septuagint reads: καὶ παρῆλθεν κύριος πρὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκάλεσεν κύριος ὁ θεὸς οἰκτίρμων καὶ ἐλεήμων μακρόθυμος καὶ πολυέλεος καὶ ἀληθινὸς. (“And the Lord passed before his face and proclaimed, ‘The Lord God, compassionate and graceful, patient and full of compassion and true …’”).

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Throughout the fourth gospel, the “Jews” are famously depicted as Jesus’ enemies and opponents. The debates here are often over the Law. However, unlike Matthew’s gospel where Jesus’ opponents come to test him, the debate in John is much deeper and more rancorous. For the anti-Jesus side, it culminates in chapter 9:28-29 with the statement that “we are disciples of Moses” while they revile the man born blind, accusing him of being Jesus’ disciple. It is this that lies at the heart of the divisions in the gospel. Those who are against Jesus consistently take refuge in the Law and their traditions and reject Jesus. John 7 reveals the controversy that Jesus fomented, and in the narrative of the fourth gospel, it is more often Jesus himself who creates the controversy rather than the Jewish leaders of the day. A great deal of this debate is about the person of Jesus, whether he is good or evil, and from God or not and so on. At verse 19, Jesus criticizes the common understanding of Mosaic Law on circumcision and applies it to himself. The ensuing discussion in Jerusalem revolves around studying the Law and what it means and how it pertains to Jesus, the Christ and the Prophet. One of the keys to the Johannine narrative is the role of witness. The prologue speaks of John the Baptist as witness to the Logos, i.e. Jesus. This is followed by a fuller story of just how John the Baptist bears witness to Jesus. There is another witness, however. That witness is Moses himself. This is explicitly stated by Jesus in chapter 5 of the gospel. This section is a long speech by Jesus in response to his detractors. At verse 30, he begins to talk about the theme of witness and that he does not bear witness to himself. Jesus explicitly mentions the testimony of John the Baptist. But the focus of what he wants them to hear is that it is not merely John who witnesses to him and his mission, but rather God the Father himself. This latter argument is built by referring to the Scriptures. Jesus claims that if the Scriptures lived in his hearers, then they would know who he was and that what he was doing was from God. Jesus concludes his argument by stating that it would not be he who would accuse his hearers before God because of their rejection of him. Rather, it would be Moses who accuses them, the one whose authority they claim and whom they claim as “father.” The basis for this claim is that Jesus says that Moses spoke concerning Jesus and bore witness to him. Further, since they reject Jesus, they therefore also reject Moses (5:45-47). This then ties into the third theme in the gospel involving Moses: that Jesus supersedes Mosaic tradition. This rests on an already familiar image. In chapter 1, the evangelist introduces the reader to the Prophet like Moses

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(1:45). This figure lies behind the image of Jesus examined above in the gospel of Matthew. John, the other Jewish gospel, also uses the image in building his image of the Logos-become-flesh. Interestingly though, John typically places this identification of Jesus as the Prophet Moses spoke of on the lips of others, not Jesus. A possible exception to that rule is the passage above in chapter 5 where may be Jesus referring to the Deuteronomy passage as a place where Moses speaks of him. Otherwise, however, the identification is made by those who hear Jesus. Thus Phillip tells Nathaniel in chapter 1. In chapter 6, after Jesus performs a miracle, the people who see it remark that Jesus is the Prophet (6:14). Chapter 7 brings another debate between Jesus and the crowd; some are convinced by his words and recognize in Jesus the promised Prophet like Moses (7:40). As in Matthew, the role of the Prophet is not merely to stand in Moses’ shadow, but to take Moses’ place. John 6 is pivotal in this regard. The chapter begins with John’s version of the miracle of loaves and fish and follows with Jesus walking on the water. Once across the lake, Jesus addresses the crowds following him and makes the point that wonders cannot be performed without God’s direct involvement. The comparison is then made that Moses did not give manna in the wilderness, but it is God the Father who gives true bread. When the crowd asks for the true bread that gives life and is from heaven, Jesus replies with the famous, “ Ἐγώ εἰμι” (ego eimi), “I am …” (6:35). The passage is very interesting. Like Moses, Jesus is addressing Israelites in the wilderness and feeds them. Moses fed them with manna, called in the Torah “bread from heaven” (Exod. 16:4ff), and Jesus here feeds them with bread and fish. The later discussion about the “bread from heaven” takes up this imagery, but here it is not simply Jesus standing in the stead of Moses as the earlier image in the chapter. Here Jesus himself is the manna, the miraculous food of heaven that brings life, so already one step up on Moses. Furthermore, it is not Moses who gave the manna, but God Himself, just as God himself now gives Jesus, the “bread of life.” Thus, the contrast between Moses who declared God’s will in the Torah and the actual, living bread of life that God gave makes Jesus the greater miracle and supersedes Moses’ role in the Exodus and Johannine narratives. This carefully constructed image of Moses in comparison and contrast to Jesus has to do with John’s Christology. In John, the subject of who Christ is and why that is important is the key to the gospel and a complex subject worth considerable attention. If we focus simply on the Mosaic imagery, however, it may be possible to say a few specific things. As noted already,

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Moses stands as the founder of the Jews and their traditions while the Jewish leaders who oppose Jesus see themselves as Moses’ disciples. Jesus, on the other hand, says that Moses spoke of him, and were they truly Moses’ disciples, they would recognize and receive him, the Prophet like Moses. Furthermore, Jesus is not simply that Prophet; he is the instrument extraordinaire of God’s activity in human history. He, unlike Moses, is not simply distributing or proclaiming the life-giving manna miraculously given by God in the wilderness where Moses declares to the people God’s intention. Jesus is that life giving bread. Or, to give another example, where Moses parted the Red Sea, Jesus walks on the sea and orders the winds and the waves. That is, Jesus stands in the Mosaic tradition and supersedes it. This by itself is not enough, however. The famous “logos” of the first chapter plays little explicit role in the rest of the gospel. The debates concerning just what the “logos” is abound. In my own view, there is not a single antecedent, but many compounded together. In some Greco-Roman philosophy, there is the “logos” as Reason; in the Hebrew Bible, picked up by Philo and others, there is the divine Wisdom that stands next to God at the creation of the world (Prov. 8). In the Targumim, it is God’s memra, the spoken word that creates the world, suggesting that perhaps the “logos” is meant to be “God’s utterance.” Further, in the books of Enoch, the Torah is also a heavenly figure, a Platonic Torah-ideal that exists before God independently of the physical version given to Moses on earth. If John has this in mind, then “logos” would be the incarnation of the Torah, related to the living word of God at creation. As such, Jesus is more than Moses because of who Jesus is in terms of Christology, an understanding of Jesus that is far beyond the Prophet like Moses. Moses in Hebrews The author of Hebrews constructs a very careful and detailed argument regarding the person of Christ. Highly influenced by Platonism, the epistle writer views heaven as the realm of Ideals, in this case, God, heaven, and so on, and this earth as but a shadow. This Platonic structure is carried throughout the letter and is the eventual justification for Jesus’ high priesthood.31 31 See J. H Buntness, “Plato, Philo, and the Author of Hebrew,” Lutheran Quarterly 10 (1958) 54-64, and also R. Williamson, “Platonism and Hebrew,” Scottish Journal of Theology 16 (1963) 415-24. It should be noted that this does not mean that the author of the epistle is

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The letter opens by establishing that Jesus is greater than the angels. Jesus is not the only such figure in Greco-Roman Judaism who is greater than the angels. Moses, too, is in that position, at least in some slightly later materials such as the Targumim. One can only think that such ideas as expressed in rabbinic writings and in Hebrews are not necessarily interdependent texts, but equally dependent on a set of ideas current in the late Second Temple period. At chapter 3, the author turns to the question of Moses’ relationship with Jesus as heavenly figures in the ideal, heavenly realm. In that realm there is a “house,” a structure that symbolically is the people of God. There are two figures of importance for this people: Moses and Jesus. In a meditation on Numbers 12:7, the letter-writer speaks of Moses’ role: Moses is faithful; Moses is head of the house as a servant. Jesus, too, is faithful, but faithful as a Son. The relationship is thus a very simple one, set up using a familiar Hebrew Bible verse, combined with common imagery of the people of God as a structure and taking imagery based on everyday life and from Plato. The author masterfully combines these elements to say that in the heavenly realm, the ideal realm, Jesus is the Son of the builder, and as faithful Son, takes precedence over the able, faithful, and important head servant. Once this is established, the author will turn to the priesthood, which surprisingly rests on a different argument. But this simple yet effective argument makes the rest possible. Conclusions Moses is mentioned some seventy-nine times in the New Testament, more than any other Hebrew Bible character and more than almost anyone in the New Testament save for Jesus, God, and Paul. This easily demonstrates the importance of Moses for the early Christians, who spent a great deal of time articulating what Jesus’ relationship to Moses and the Mosaic Law was. But the statistics alone do not illustrate Moses’ importance. While this essay has been but an overview, the imagery discussed illustrates very clearly that even in places where he is not explicitly mentioned, Moses nonetheless looms in the background. In fact, he is the backdrop against which to see Jesus and the Incarnation. a Platonist so much as he is obviously influenced by Platonic thought as mediated through Hellenistic Judaism such as Philo’s.

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In spite of what we know of the early debates between Christians and Jews as the separation of church and synagogue was under way, Moses is presented favorably in every New Testament text. At the same time, Moses is no Jesus. What distinguishes Christians and Jews is especially how one addresses that relationship between Moses and Jesus. For the New Testament, while the strategies differ somewhat, the early Christians conclude that Moses is in some way subservient to Jesus, because Jesus is the Prophet Moses foretold and the Son of God. Thus, all early Christians concluded that Jesus superseded Moses.

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Moses and the Church Fathers Christopher A. Hall 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. It may be for this very reason that the daily life of those sublime individuals is recorded in detail, that by imitating those earlier examples of right action those who follow them may conduct their lives to the good … Let us put forth Moses as our example … (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses)1

The church fathers—early Christian writers, pastors, and bishops living between roughly 100-700 CE—admired Moses deeply. For many church fathers, Moses symbolized what a faith-filled human being looked like in attitude and action. Moses humbly received God’s call and courageously persisted in faith across the years, despite the mysteries of God’s providence that unfolded in his life and the life of the nation he led, Israel: “he who struggles with God.” For the fathers, Moses illustrated the hardships and hopes of the pilgrim believer in God, journeying through the wilderness toward home with a troublesome, often faithless pilgrim people. The life and teachings of Moses provided significant biblical, theological, and spiritual fodder for patristic reflection. The figure of Moses and the world he represented also posed a number of questions and problems to ancient Christian interpreters. The task facing the fathers as they pondered the life of Moses was a difficult one. On the one hand, if they were to affirm the Old Testament (which the vast majority read in Greek translation) as authoritative for the life of the church—a disputed point in early Christian history—the fathers had to acknowledge and applaud Moses and the people he led as specifically chosen by God to accomplish many of God’s purposes in history. Simultaneously, though, in light of the fathers’ belief that Christ was the promised 1 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, translation, introduction and notes by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everitt Ferguson, preface by John Meyendorff (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), prologue 13, prologue 15, 32-33.

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Messiah and the fulfillment of the Old Testament narrative, they were compelled to argue that the story of Israel was the first act in a two-part play. Moses was indeed a man chosen by God for a special, unique task—to lead Israel to the land promised to Abraham and to provide the nation with the Law to govern and bless their relationship with God. Yet Moses’ person and work were still the first chapter in a much broader and deeper narrative, the story of God’s redeeming act in Jesus Christ to save the entire world. For the fathers, then, Moses’ life—and the specific words used to describe that life in the Scripture given to Israel—pointed in surprising detail to the entrance of the eternal Word into human history. In a manner of speaking, from the fathers’ perspective, Moses and the events of his life were the first word about the eternal Word, type to antitype, prologue to the main act. The fathers linked these two narratives—that of the old covenant, introduced and symbolized by key figures such as Abraham and Moses, and that of the new covenant in Christ—by making the apostolic tradition their hermeneutical lodestar. They viewed apostles such as Paul and Peter as uniquely authoritative interpreters Christ had personally chosen to explain the meaning of his ministry, death, resurrection and ascension. Here—in the apostolic tradition gradually canonized in the New Testament documents—was the starting point for the exegetical labors of the fathers and their attempts to fully comprehend the meaning of Moses. But the challenge facing the church fathers as they looked at Moses was more than simply exegetical. Groups such as the Marcionites, Gnostics, and Manichees—all claiming to be Christian and contemporary to the church fathers—looked askance at Moses and the biblical narrative concerning Israel. All three groups expressed grave reservations concerning the validity and value of the Old Testament narrative and the God it portrayed. Marcion, writing in the second century CE, contended that the God of the Old Testament was a different deity from the God revealed in Jesus Christ. The God of the Hebrews, in Marcion’s opinion, was a petty, meanspirited, unpredictable, graceless, wrath-filled deity. For Marcion and others like him, the Old Testament story was not preamble or prologue to the new covenant. It was a narrative gone mad, a gross misinterpretation of history and divinity, discontinuous with the redemptive story of Jesus of Nazareth. Other Christians such as the fathers strongly disagreed. The task the fathers faced, then, was making sense of the Old Testament narrative and its key figures. Moses stood at the top of the list. Not only so, but Moses, the nation of Israel, and Jesus were inseparable. Moses was a Jew; Jesus was a Jew; the earliest Christian community was almost entirely

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Jewish. How was this Jewish-Christian heritage to be understood and explained as the church became increasingly Gentile? Jaroslav Pelikan speaks of a “doctrine of correction and fulfillment” in the early church’s attitude toward Moses and the “old” covenant.2 Pelikan notes that the figure of Moses and the questions he raised for the fathers are inseparable from the question of the old covenant itself. The task facing the early church was to reconcile the validity of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and other old covenant prophets with the grace of God shown to all human beings in Jesus Christ. Hence, Pelikan observes, “a genre of Christian literature” develops, “devoted to a comparison of Christianity with Judaism.” “Virtually every Christian writer of the first five centuries either composed a treatise in opposition to Judaism or made this issue a dominant theme in a treatise devoted to some other subject.”3 Pelikan lists the following issues as focal points for understanding the response of early Christian leaders to the biblical narrative of Moses and the nation of Israel: 1. The continuing validity of the Mosaic Law in light of the new covenant established by Christ. 2. The relationship between the new Israel (cf. Gal. 6:16) established in Christ and the Israel led by Moses. 3. The Gentile ethnicity of the church fathers themselves: “… [as] far as we know, none of the church fathers was a Jew.”4 Non-Jewish Christian pastors, bishops, and theologians were now the guardians and interpreters of the Jewish Scriptures. Pelikan comments that “the transition represented by this contrast had the most far-reaching of consequences for the entire development of Christian doctrine.”5 4. The pattern that emerges from the church fathers’ analysis of Moses and the old covenant is that of admiration—continuation—critique—and replacement. For example, Pelikan directs our attention to Irenaeus, who called the church at Jerusalem “the church from which every church took its start, the capital city of the citizens of the new covenant” (my emphasis).6 Irenaeus lavishes praise on the church at Jerusalem—and the Jewish history and theology on which it was founded—and proceeds 2 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 15. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 12. 5 Ibid. 6 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3.12.5; quoted in Pelikan, op. cit., 13.

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christopher a. hall to utilize this history and theology for his Christian interpretation of Moses, Israel, and world history. 5. Justin’s dialogue with the Jew Trypho—roughly contemporaneous with the life and time of Irenaeus—acknowledges that even after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, some believers at Jerusalem known as “Nazarenes,” wished “to observe the ordinances which were given by Moses … yet chose to live with the Christians and the faithful.”7 The extent to which Christians might believe and live like Jews remained a disputed issue within the Christian community for years.

Indeed, debate and occasional conflict between Hellenistic Jews and Hellenistic Christian Jews “over the question of the continuity of Christianity with Judaism” marked the early church’s history.8 As time passed, more and more non-Jewish conversions occurred, with fewer and fewer Jewish conversions. In this transition period from a largely Jewish church to a predominantly Gentile one, the church fathers’ exegesis strove to explain the continuity and discontinuity between Moses and Christ and the purposes of God accomplished through them both; if the church was to grant legitimacy to the Old Testament narrative and God, the resolution of God’s purposes old and new was unavoidable. Marcion’s dismissal of the Hebrew Scriptures is a prime example of an abortive attempt at this resolution, one that cast aside the old covenant and deity completely. Other early Christian documents, such as the Epistle of Barnabas, claimed “that the original tablets of the covenant of the law were shattered at Sinai and that Israel never had an authentic covenant with God.”9 Yet this early Christian letter consistently blames Israel rather than Moses for the Jews failure to respond in faith to Christ. “He has indeed given it [the covenant], but they were not worthy to receive it because of their sins.”10 Though the letter does not fault Moses for Israel’s lack of faith, it unapologetically proclaims the vast superiority of Christ and Christ’s new people, the people of the inheritance. Moses received the Law as a “servant,” “but the Lord himself gave it to us, that we might become the people of inheritance by suffering for us …”11 Jews could enter into this new inheritance, but only through faith in Christ, something the epistle insists Moses himself 7 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 47.2; quoted in Pelikan, op. cit., 13. 8 Pelikan, op. cit., 13. 9 The Epistle to Barnabas 14:3-4; quoted in Pelikan, op. cit., 14. 10 Ibid., 14.1; I am using the translation found in The Apostolic Fathers, Second Edition, translated by J.B. Lightfoot and J.R. Harmer, edited and revised by Michael W. Holmes (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1989), 180-181. 11 Ibid., 14.4; Holmes translation, 180-181.

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realized. “And Moses understood and hurled the two tablets from his hands, and their covenant was broken in pieces, in order that the covenant of the beloved Jesus might be sealed in our heart, in hope inspired by faith in him.”12 Other patristic themes concerning Moses illustrate a central question facing the fathers: how could the church both praise and criticize Moses? The fathers recognized that Moses must be praised because of the close connections between the old covenant and the new, between the actions of Moses and the actions of Christ. Yet, because the fathers also believed Christ to be vastly superior to Moses, they took pains to demonstrate Christ’s pre-eminence over Moses and other key Old Testament figures. The fathers’ understanding of Moses is inseparable from the numerous issues that surround him. When they think of Moses, the particulars of his life are surely in mind, yet the fathers must also make sense of the Law, the nation of Israel, and the need to relate God’s previous actions under the old covenant to what has come in the new. The task facing the church fathers, then, is challenging and complex: they must effectively weave the story of Moses and the story of Christ together while also responding to the polemic offered by exegetes such as Marcion, who claimed that the proper Christian response to the Old Testament was to eliminate it entirely. It was clear to the fathers that they couldn’t simply set the old covenant history aside as a bad mistake, as though it were a colossal misreading of God’s intentions and actions in history. Jesus’ own teaching concerning Moses and Israel forced the church fathers to make sense of the Old Testament and its leading characters, as Jesus himself reinforced the Old Testament’s authority by constantly quoting from Old Testament texts. In the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, Jesus spoke of himself as fulfilling the Law, not annihilating it (Matt. 5:17). In Jesus’ transfiguration before Peter, James, and John, Moses and Elijah appeared with him; all three discussed the “exodus” Jesus was soon to make at Jerusalem (Luke 9:30). Christ died with the words of Psalm 22 on his tongue. The Messiah, the anointed one of God, was clearly a Jewish Messiah. Yet the composition of the church was increasingly Gentile. The church fathers’ task as they pondered the figure of Moses was that of transposition and adaptation. They had to faithfully and wisely transpose and adapt the story of Moses to the story of Christ. In order to do so, the fathers needed to understand two stories well: the story of Moses and his 12 Ibid., 4.8; Holmes translation, 165-166.

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leadership of Israel from slavery in Egypt to the land promised to Abraham, and the broader story of salvation centered in Jesus Christ as the anointed one of Israel. The fathers’ understanding of the Scripture’s overarching narrative of salvation can be understood as a symphonic approach. They were convinced that the music contained in the first movement—themes involving Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Hannah, David, Solomon, and so on—was also filled with precursors of the themes and rhythms heard in the second movement of the new covenant centered in Christ; both movements combined to form a symphony the fathers believed was composed by the Holy Spirit. Key themes from the first movement—in this case the life of Moses—were transposed or changed into a new key in the second movement of the symphony. The fathers argued that texts or themes in the Old Testament rippled through Jesus’ teaching and actions. In the writings of the apostles, God’s great redemptive act in Christ functioned as the key hermeneutical lens for making sense of the Old Testament. In a word, Moses leads to Jesus, and Jesus in turn sheds greater light on the meaning of Moses. The fathers’ interpretive adeptness and creativity are illustrated in their approach to The Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:5 reads: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Dale Allison, author of a major commentary on the gospel of Matthew, notes that “No commentary known to me—and this includes my own—refers to Moses in connection with Matt. 5:5.” And yet, Allison observes, Chrysostom, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Eusebius link Moses to Jesus’ teaching. Theodoret cites Numbers 12:3, a text referring to Moses as “very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth.” Eusebius comments that, “whereas Jesus promised the meek inheritance of the earth, Moses promised Israel inheritance of the land.” Allison comments: Perhaps we should follow the interpretive lead of Theodoret and Eusebius and see Matt. 5:5 against the Moses traditions. Moses was, in meekness, the exemplar. He promised the Israelites inheritance of the land. And he himself did not enter the land. From this last fact, sufficiently unexpected to have engendered much rabbinic reflection, one might extract that the third beatitude pledges something Moses never gained. On such an interpretation, the members of the new covenant would be more blessed than the chief figure of the old: if, in the past, the meek one did not enter the land, now, that the kingdom of God has come, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” One

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thinks of Matt. 11:11: the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than all of those who came before.13

Allison attributes the church fathers’ exegetical agility and imagination to extremely developed memorization and listening skills. “[The church fathers] were, in so many ways, closer to the first century Christians than we are—for they, unlike most of us, lived and moved and had their being in the Scriptures.” Allison continues: They still read aloud. They still had a small literary canon. They still had, because of their educational methods, magnificent memorization skills. And they still heard Scripture chanted. They were accordingly attuned to hear things we no longer hear, things which we can only see after picking up concordances or doing word searches on our computers. I have come to believe that if we find in Matthew or another NT book an allusion to the OT that the Fathers did not find, the burden is on us; and if they detected an allusion which we—here I am thinking of modern commentaries—have not detected, investigation is in order.14

Allison’s analysis highlights a key patristic hermeneutical principle. In Christ, the promises made to Moses and the nation of Israel are both fulfilled and expanded. Unknown, humble followers of Christ possess a greater reward and inheritance than the great Moses received as he led the nation of Israel because one much greater than Moses has appeared and introduced a much greater kingdom, a kingdom that includes and encompasses both Jews and Gentiles as its members. On the one hand, then, the church fathers esteem Moses. Their esteem, though, is tempered by shortcomings in Moses’ own life and by the dynamic now presently at work in history in Christ. The fathers write openly, for instance, of Moses’ failure to enter the land promised to him, both because of his own disobedience and the continued rebellion of Israel in the wilderness. Even after Moses’ “countless toils,” Chrysostom observes, “and sufferings, and constant labor for forty years, he was prohibited from setting foot on that land, concerning which there had been so many declarations and promises.” God could not ignore the disobedience of Moses. If God turned a blind eye to Moses’ waywardness, Israel itself would be 13 I have drawn the Allison material from my book on patristic biblical interpretation. Cf. Christopher A. Hall, Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 38-40. 14 All Allison quotations come from an unpublished lecture by Dale C. Allison, Jr., delivered at the Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College, for the first annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism, September 28, 1991.

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encouraged to believe disobedience is of little account in the eyes of God.15 Augustine, in his reply to the Manichaean teacher Faustus, emphasizes a number of more positive themes in Moses’ life. Faustus had little use for Moses and the Old Testament, and in his writings had attempted to eviscerate the Old Testament story by focusing on the moral shortcomings of key Israelite leaders, Moses among them. Augustine responds by accentuating the faithfulness of Moses to God’s call, the goodness of the Law, and the promises in the Law that pointed to Christ as the coming savior of Israel and all humanity. Augustine describes Moses as “… so faithful a servant of God in all his house; the minister of the holy, just, and good law … the minister also of the symbols which, though not conferring salvation, promised the Savior.”16 Moses was humble, obediently accepting the ministry given to him by God. He was a vigilant ruler of the people, at times reproving, but always loving “with fervor,” bearing with Israel “in patience.”17 Augustine stresses to Faustus that Moses’ faithfulness and vigilance were apparent in his willingness to intercede continually for a sinful, rebellious people. Moses was a great intercessor for Israel and a mediator between Israel and God, the type of the great intercessor and mediator to come. Moses’ greatness and goodness were seen in his willingness to stand “for his subjects before God to receive his counsel, and to appease his wrath.”18 Faustus had focused his attacks on key actions of Moses and posed difficult and troubling questions designed to undercut the possibility that Moses—and the Old Testament narrative applauding his life—could validly represent God. Hadn’t Moses murdered an Egyptian? Why would Moses and the God Moses worshiped allow the Israelites to plunder the Egyptians as Pharaoh released them from their bondage (cf. Exod. 12:3336)? Augustine answers by referring to the zeal that characterized the life of the apostle Paul, who possessed a “fierce energy” and occasionally “unwise zeal,” characteristics that Augustine also perceived in Moses. Augustine doesn’t so much defend the actions of Moses as excuse them on the basis of character flaws that often mark religious zeal. Augustine 15 Chrysostom, The Gospel of St. Matthew, Nordisk Forening for Pedagogisk Forskning, First Series, Vol. 10 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), Homily V, para. 8, 34. 16 Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Nordisk Forening for Pedagogisk Forskning, First Series, Volume 4 (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), Book 22.69, 298. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid.

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admitted that love for God could occasionally fuel an ill-advised and severe religious zeal that engendered ethically questionable actions. Still, Moses’ character demonstrated many admirable qualities that Christians could emulate: Christians should “love and admire, and to the best of our power imitate [Moses],” while acknowledging they would come “far short of his merits.”19 An earlier example of Mosaic apologetic is found in Origen’s response to Celsus, a Gentile critic of Christianity who drew on Jewish sources in his anti-Christian polemic. Celsus had apparently consulted a Jewish acquaintance and employed some of his Jewish responses to bolster Celsus’ own arguments against the veracity of Christian claims concerning Christ. For instance, a common Jewish argument against Christ was that his miracles were performed by sorcery. Yet, Origen responded, might not this very accusation be used against Moses himself? Moses had also worked great signs and miracles that both the Jewish and Christian communities believed came from the hand of God. Origen affirmed with the Jews that God had been at work in Moses, yet his point was this: if Moses established the nation of Israel and the Law through miraculous signs, could not the same principle be applied to Jesus’ “greater undertaking … a constitution in conformity with the Gospel”?20 Jesus’ miracles were not those of a sorcerer; they demonstrated “greater grandeur and divinity” than those of Moses because they had a greater purpose. Origen goes so far as to contend that “all the arguments” used against Jesus can “be urged as ground of accusation against Moses.”21 Such should be the case, Origen insists, because God acted in and through both Jesus and Moses to accomplish his purposes. The operative patristic hermeneutical principle here is lesser to greater, type to antitype. Jesus stands in continuity with God’s actions in Moses, but as a much greater person with a much greater work. For in what way, Origen asks, was Jesus not “greater than the prophets, men who proclaimed Christ to be the Savior of the human race?”22 The same lesser to greater motif occurs in the writings of Chrysostom. Chrysostom acknowledges the miracles God worked through Moses, but 19 Ibid., Book 22.69, 298-299. 20 Origen, Against Celsus, Ante Nicene Fathers 4, Book 2, chap. 52, 452. 21 Ibid., chap. 53, 452. 22 Ibid., chap. 52, 452.

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stresses the superiority of Christ’s works. “For because Moses had once done some such thing [the parting of the Red Sea when he touched the water with his rod], in this regard Jesus signifies his own superiority; the one works miracles as a slave, the other as Lord. Thus, Jesus put forth no rod, as Moses did, neither did he stretch forth his hands to heaven, nor did Jesus need any prayer, but, as was fit for a master commanding his handmaid, or a creator his creature, so did he quiet and curb the sea by word and command only; and all the surge was immediately at an end and not one trace of the disturbance remained … And for this most of all did the multitudes marvel at him; who would not have marveled, had he done it in the same manner as Moses.”23 Ancient Christian writers continually emphasize the importance of Moses and Moses’ actions and teachings as types or prefigurations of Christ and Christ’s kingdom. Tertullian, for instance, ponders the significance of Moses’ strange posture as the Israelites battle against Amalek. The author of Exodus writes: “So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered … As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other— so that his hands remained steady till sunset” (Exod. 17:10-12). Tertullian is struck by the strangeness of Moses’ posture, which according to the patristic christological principle, must illustrate a greater truth from the life of Christ. Here the fathers’ Mosaic typological principle is clearly operative. Tertullian reminds his reader that the Lord Jesus “was one day to fight against the devil.” Thus, Moses, a great forerunner of Christ, foretold through his posture against the Amalekites “the very Cross through which Jesus was to win the victory.”24 Tertullian perceives typological significance in the bronze serpent (Num. 21:4-9) and the veil covering Moses’ face as he descended from Mt. Sinai (Exod. 34:29-35). He observes that Jesus and Paul had previously commented on the connections between these two events and God’s actions in Christ. For instance, in John 3:14-15, Jesus comments that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that 23 Chrysostom, Homily 28 on Matthew, NFPF First Series, Vol. 10, 28.1, 190-191. I have smoothed the Nordisk Forening for Pedagogisk Forskning (NFPF) translation. 24 Tertullian, Against Marcion, Ante Nicene Fathers 3 (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), Book 3, chap. 18, 337.

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everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (NIV). Following Jesus’ lead, Tertullian develops the christological/soteriological resonances in Numbers 21. He takes it as a given—in what will become a patristic commonplace—that Moses intended “to show the power of our Lord’s Cross, whereby that old devil was vanquished.” Hence, the Cross of Christ is powerfully efficacious for those “bitten by spiritual serpents.”25 Cyprian, like Tertullian a native of North Africa, notices the same symbolism as Tertullian in Moses’ posture during the battle against the Amalekites; he calls Moses’ posture a “sign and sacrament” and connects it to broader issues of spiritual conflict related to Christ’s work. Moses’ “perseverance and persistence” overcome Amalek, “the type of the devil.”26 Moses “raised up his open hands in the sign and sacrament of the Cross and could not conquer his adversary except when he steadfastly persevered in the sign with hands continually lifted up.”27 Paul, Tertullian comments, emphasized the connection between the veiling of Moses, the veiling of the Israelites’ heart against the christological truth contained in the Old Testament Scriptures, and the unveiling that occurs in Christians’ hearts as they turn to Christ through the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:7-18). Again, this lesser to greater typological motif provides early Christian writers such as Tertullian with the exegetical and theological explanation for why—to his own day in the third century CE—the Jewish people still largely rejected Christ, a conundrum early Christian leaders had to explain. A significant aspect of Tertullian’s response to this unexpected rejection of Jesus by Israel’s leaders is to contend that the Jews never understood the importance of Moses within the larger theological and spiritual arc of God’s purposes for Israel: “ … even now Moses is not seen by them in heart …”28 The veil that covered Israel’s face “still covers the heart of the nation.”29 In addition, Moses’ veil symbolizes for Tertullian “the superiority of the glory of the New Testament … permanent” in its glory when compared to that of the Old: “… this fact gives support to my belief which exalts the Gospel above the law.”30 More positively, when Tertullian’s Jewish contemporaries believe in Christ, their new faith enables them to “understand how Moses 25 Tertullian, Against Marcion, op. cit., Book 3, chap. 18, 337. 26 Cyprian, Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus, Ante Nicene Fathers 5, Treatise 11, Section 8, 501. 27 Ibid., 501. 28 Ibid., Book 5, chap. 11, 453. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid.

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spoke of Christ.” Indeed, “…the whole Mosaic system was a figure of Christ.”31 Modern Orthodox theologians, immersed in the perspective of the church fathers, like the fathers perceive the same tonal resonances in Paul’s teaching concerning the veil of Moses and the removal of the veil in Christ. Patrick Henry Reardon, an Orthodox priest, speaks of “the final grace of prayer” as the gift of gazing “upon the face of God. On the mountain, Moses asked to see the face of God (cf. Ex. 33:17-23), but it was more than a thousand years later when, on yet another mountain, his petition was finally granted (cf. Matt. 17:3). For our Lord Jesus is the face of God, ‘the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person’ (Heb. 1:3). To seek the face of God, then, it is imperative to seek it where it is definitively and forever revealed.”32 This is a thought that will be explored, as we shall see, by Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. Early Christian catechetical texts reflect the early church’s conviction that various figures in the Old Testament narrative point to Christ’s work; again, Moses is seen as illustrating key Christian principles. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his lectures on the Christian sacraments to people soon to be baptized, warns his catechumens that they can expect to encounter spiritual conflict. He draws his students’ attention to Peter’s warning in his first letter: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings” (1 Peter 5:8-9). Cyril then points to Moses’ experience—and that of Israel itself—as reflecting the dynamics of the spiritual warfare Peter is addressing. Cyril comments on Pharaoh, Moses, the Passover, the pursuit of Israel to the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea’s waters, seeing in each person or event a prefiguration of key events and themes in Christ’s life. He then exhorts his audience to “turn from the figure to the reality” and draws a number of typological parallels in which the antitype fulfills and exceeds the type:33 Moses “was sent from God to Egypt.” Christ “was sent by His Father into the world.” Moses led “an oppressed 31 Ibid. 32 Patrick Henry Reardon, Christ in the Psalms (Ben Lomond, Calif.: Conciliar Press, 2000), 52. 33 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Lectures on the Christian Sacraments: The Procatechesis and the Five Mystagogical Catecheses, ed. F.L. Cross (Yonkers, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 54.

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people out of Egypt.” Christ “rescues” humanity “engulfed under sins.”34 At the Passover, “the blood of the lamb was the spell against the destroyer.” In Christ, “the blood of the unblemished Lamb of Jesus Christ is made the charm to scare evil spirits.” Pharaoh, “the tyrant,” “pursued” the “ancient people” to the Red Sea. The devil pursued those to be baptized “to the very streams of salvation.” “The tyrant of old was drowned in the sea.” In Christ, the devil “disappears in the saving water.”35 Other aspects of Moses’ life story also attracted patristic interest and comment. The staff or rod of Moses, for instance, often caught the fathers’ attention. The connection between the Old Testament narrative of Moses’ rod and that of the new covenant sometimes concerned the nature of the resurrection of the dead. Some early Christian sects, for example, argued that the future resurrection of believers would be an entirely “spiritual” event, an interpretation strongly opposed by other ancient Christians. Cyril of Jerusalem refers to a group he describes as “senseless Samaritans,” for they “object that it is possible that the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still survive, but their bodies cannot rise.” Cyril rejects the idea of a solely spiritual resurrection by turning his catechumens’ attention to the staff of Moses and its typological meaning: “If of old it was possible for the rod of the just Moses to become a serpent, is it impossible for the bodies of the just to revive and rise again?” Indeed, Cyril considers a physical resurrection of the dead as less surprising than the story of the transformation of Moses’ rod. “The transformation of the rod was above nature: will not the just be restored according to nature?”36 Augustine, in The Trinity, also dwells at some length on the meaning of Moses’ rod, mingling the story of its transformation in the presence of Pharaoh with the story of the bronze serpent in the wilderness (cf. Num. 21:9). The connection between the redemptive meaning of the bronze serpent in the wilderness and the transformed rod of Moses in Egypt is, for Augustine, related to key New Testament themes: 1. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so Christ has been lifted on the Cross for the redemption of human beings. The transformation of Moses’ rod into a serpent in the presence of Pharaoh symbolizes “Christ who became obedient to death on a Cross,” a reference to Phil. 2:8 and Jesus’ teaching in John 3:14. Jesus must be lifted up to redeem, 34 Ibid., 54. 35 Ibid., 54. 36 Ibid.

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christopher a. hall just as Moses had to lift up the bronze serpent if the Israelites were to be delivered from God’s judgment.37 2. The serpent—whether it be the serpent raised in the wilderness or Moses’ rod transformed into a serpent—represents death, the death introduced into human life by the serpent who appeared to Adam and Eve (Gen. 2). “Serpent stands for death (which was caused by the serpent in paradise) in virtue of the figure of speech by which the cause is used to mean the thing caused.” Augustine then interprets Moses’ transformed rod as symbolizing “Christ turned into death, and the serpent turned back again into a rod means Christ transformed in the resurrection—the whole Christ with his body the Church at the end of time.” Augustine creatively—and somewhat quirkily—views the “tail” or end of the serpent as pointing to the end of time, an eschatological connection with Christ’s resurrection.38 3. Augustine finishes his exegesis with a glance at the rods or staffs of the Egyptian sorcerers. These rods, vastly inferior to the rod of Moses, “stand for the dead of this world.” The sorcerers’ rods were devoured by the rod of Moses, indicating to Augustine that death is not necessarily the last word. If this world’s “dead” respond in faith to Christ, they can be devoured by him, assimilated into his body, and receive eternal life.39

This interpretive blending of narratives is a frequent, sometimes fanciful, and often helpful and insightful hermeneutical practice of the fathers, an interpretive method based on the patristic confidence that the entire narrative of Scripture comes from one source—God—and serves one purpose: to recite and explain God’s wondrous acts to save human beings from the ravages of sin. From the church fathers’ perspective, if we have a rod and a serpent in the wilderness, a rod and serpent in Pharaoh’s presence, and Jesus commenting on being “lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness” (John 3:14-15), the meaning of the three narratives is surely related and intertwined. The fathers’ belief that the Old Testament is a Christian book ignites their exegetical imagination. Thus, the Scripture as a whole must be filled with typological and allegorical references to Christ, the church, the pursuit of a virtuous life, and so on. Modern biblical interpreters tend to be more cautious in making these intertextual connections. The church fathers also search the life of Moses for insights concerning the development of virtuous character. They mine the details of Moses’ life for possibilities it offers Christians for deepening their life with Christ. 37 Augustine, The Trinity, introduction, translation, and notes by Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991), 139. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid.

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Origen, writing in the third century CE, and Gregory of Nyssa, writing in the fourth, both employ an allegorical, spiritual reading of Moses’ life experiences with God to stimulate their readers’ imagination and to further their deeper formation into Christ’s image. Origen views the narrative of the drowning of the Hebrew male babies by Pharaoh—a genocide from which Moses is providentially delivered—as a textual opportunity for the moral and spiritual formation of the perceptive and sophisticated reader. “Think … that you are being taught through these stories [to] learn the right order of life, moral teachings, the struggles of faith in virtue.” 40 Origen is clearly pushing his audience to see through the story of Moses to its deeper meaning in Christ, with its corresponding ethical and spiritual implications for life in the Spirit. Understood historically, the account of the drowning of the babies is brutally direct. Pharaoh has instituted a program of genocide and “ethnic cleansing.” He has ordered that all Hebrew male babies be drowned. Moses’ mother has placed him in a basket and entrusted him to God’s providential care. The daughter of Pharaoh himself discovers the baby Moses floating in the basket, rescues him, and raises him in her Egyptian household. Yet in reality, it is Moses’ own mother who nurses him and imparts to him the wisdom of the Hebrews (Exod. 2:1-10). Origen sees the Exodus text as multi-layered. He allegorically interprets the narrative of Moses’ rescue to probe a pressing and continuing the Christian exegetical and theological problem, the relationship between the Law of Israel and God’s new redemptive work in Christ. As he does so, Origen explores the spiritual significance of the text, highlighting the Christian meaning of Pharaoh’s daughter, the water of the Nile, Moses’ mother, and the basket containing Moses. His exegesis can be broken down along the following lines: Pharaoh’s daughter allegorically represents the church gathered from the Gentiles. She has left her father’s house—the pagan house of Pharaoh—to come to the waters of the Nile to bathe, a river that Origen interprets as symbolizing the waters of baptism. At the Nile’s edge, she spots the baby Moses floating in the river in a basket, rescues Moses, and raises him in her own family. Since Pharaoh’s daughter symbolizes the church, it is the church that is rescuing Moses. Moses—symbolizing the Law—is

40 Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, translated by Ronald E. Heine (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), Exodus Homily 2, para. 3, 245.

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rescued by the church as he floats in the water of baptism. Hence, the church rescues the Law rather than discarding it. Origen then returns to the historical narrative, a level of the text he rarely ignores. Yet simultaneously he always expects to discover an allegorical meaning in the text, for Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures. Moses [the Law] is floating in a basket (Exod. 2:3-6). Origen describes the basket in some detail: it is “a kind of covering woven together from twigs or papyrus or even from the bark of trees. The infant [the Law] placed within this basket was seen exposed.” The historical details point to a deeper meaning. “The Law, therefore, was lying helpless enclosed in coverings of this kind, besmeared with pitch and bitumen. It was dirty and enclosed in cheap and offensive meanings of the Jews until the Church should come from the Gentiles and take it up from the muddy and marshy places and appropriate it to itself within courts of wisdom and royal houses [the house of Pharaoh’s daughter].”41 Thus, Origen appropriates Moses for the church, but sadly his language is occasionally harsh, insensitive and inflammatory: “cheap and offensive meanings … muddy and marshy places.” Moses [the Law] is nursed by his real mother [the people of Israel] and grows up under her tutelage (Exod. 2:8-10), represented by the synagogue in Origen’s own day. Finally, Moses must leave his mother and return to Pharaoh’s daughter, whom Origen has already identified as the church. “But when Moses comes to the Church, when he enters the house of the Church, he grows stronger and more robust. For when the veil of the letter is removed ‘perfect and solid food’ is discovered in the text.”42 Finally, Origen poses one last question based on the Exodus 2 narrative: Why is it that Pharaoh’s daughter paid Moses’ mother to nurse and raise him? What is the significance of her salary, so to speak? From Origen’s perspective, the text is actually teaching is that the church (Pharaoh’s daughter) is paying Moses’ mother (the synagogue) for raising him (Moses as the Law). What does the synagogue receive in turn from the church? The “envy” the historical Moses predicted would come upon Israel. “I will provoke you to envy against a non-nation; I will stir you up to anger against a foolish nation” (Deut. 32:21). Israel’s “envy” is focused on the Gentile

41 I am drawing on Origen’s exegesis in his second sermon on Exodus. Cf. Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, translated by Ronald E. Heine, FC 71 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), para. 4, 246-247. 42 Ibid., 247.

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nations’ rejection of idolatry as they enter the church, idolatry Origen also sees in Israel, though he does not identify its specific nature. More positively, Origen’s reading of the rescue of the baby Moses demonstrates clearly the ancient church’s awareness that it could not arbitrarily set these Old Testament stories aside as though they had no relevance for the church’s thought and life. After heated debate, the vast majority of early Christians acknowledged that the old and new covenants were one piece, one story, largely because the Lord of the church, Jesus Christ, treated them as such. The church’s struggle, as demonstrated in Origen’s lively and somewhat quirky exegesis, was how to understand, explain, and live into these connections. In a nutshell, how were the Hebrew Scriptures to be appropriated by the church as Christian Scriptures, read by a largely Gentile audience? Moses, the Law, the prophets, and Israel as a whole could not be ignored or explained away. Rather, the task facing Origen and other Christian exegetes was how and to what degree the climax of the biblical narrative was present—though at times hidden—in its earliest chapters of the Bible. More specifically, if Christ was the culmination of the story, he somehow must be present throughout. Indeed, the church fathers insist, it is Christ—his birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension—who is the interpretive lens through which the Christian exegete must read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. Occasionally Origen ranks Moses behind other Old Testament worthies such as Abraham and Isaac, linking a lower status for Moses to his experiences in Egypt. Abraham and Isaac, unlike Moses, did not have to take off their shoes as they climbed the mountain of God, in their case, Mount Moriah. Not so with Moses. His life in Egypt burdened Moses with chains “of mortality.” Abraham and Isaac, free from this Egyptian influence, are allowed by God to ascend Mount Moriah while wearing their shoes, while Moses must approach the burning bush with caution, removing his shoes in the process. Moses was indeed “great” (cf. Exod. 11:3), but “nevertheless, coming from Egypt” had “fetters of mortality … bound to his feet.”43 Origen’s nimble Mosaic apologetic defends not only Moses, but also the writings that the early church believed Moses had penned. Origen’s response to Marcionite criticisms of the Genesis account of Noah’s ark is a case in point. Apelles, a disciple of Marcion who later formed his own gnostic sect, wished “to show that the writings of Moses contained nothing in themselves of the divine wisdom and nothing of the work of the Holy 43 Ibid., 142.

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Spirit.”44 Appeles’ tactic was to show that narratives such as that of Noah’s ark couldn’t possibly be taken seriously. The ark was simply too small to contain all the animals of the world. At most, Appeles scoffed, the ark could contain “four elephants.” These flaws in the biblical text, a text Appeles believed came from Moses, clearly indicate “that the story is invented; but if it is, it is evident that this Scripture is not from God.”45 And, of course, if this Scripture is not from God, neither is Moses. Origen responds to Appeles’ criticism of the reliability and authority of Moses’ writing by turning to Moses’ Egyptian background for hermeneutical insight. Moses “reckoned the number of cubits in this passage according to the art of geometry in which the Egyptians especially are skillful.” Drawing on the Egyptian use of “the second power,” “spaces of such great length and breadth will be discovered in the measure of this ark that they could truly receive the whole world’s offspring to restore it, and the revived seedbed of all living things. Let these things be said, as much as pertains to the historical account, against those who endeavor to impugn the Scriptures of the Old Testament as containing certain things which are impossible and irrational.”46 For our purposes, the validity of Origen’s Egyptian geometry is a peripheral issue, though his response to Appeles surely indicates Origen’s interest in the history of the biblical narrative itself and the need to defend its plausibility. Origen accepted the historicity of Moses, the appearance of God to Moses at the burning bush, the Exodus account, and so on. Yet he also, like other ancient Christian writers, expected that a deeper, spiritual meaning was present in these texts, a meaning directly related to the coming of Israel’s promised Messiah, for the Bible in its entirety was a Christian book. Occasionally, references to Christ were quite clear. At other times, christological resonances were more muted, hidden beneath the letter of the text and to be discerned by the adept exegete and theologian through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Gregory of Nyssa’s The Life of Moses illustrates this multi-faceted approach to the life of Moses well. Gregory employs the form of a logos or “formal treatise” to address central themes and issues that Christian ascetics, probably monks, would face in their spiritual development, but which he also believed had broader 44 Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, translated by Ronald E. Heine, FC 71 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), Homily 2, para. 2, 76. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 3, 77.

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application to all Christians, lay and ordained.47 Gregory’s treatise is composed of an introduction, a historia, in which Gregory rehearses the history of Moses’ life, a theoria, composed of “the spiritual meaning of the Scriptural narrative,” and a conclusion.48 Gregory acknowledges and affirms the importance of the history contained in the Old Testament texts, but is clearly much more interested in Moses “as a model of the spiritual life,” an approach we have seen was extremely popular with the church fathers.49 Again, Gregory, like Origen, does not discount the importance of the history of Moses’ life in real time and space. This history, though, is not the heart of the matter. More important for Gregory are the spiritual lessons that the texts concerning Moses’ life offer to the Christian, meanings Gregory gleans by employing an allegorical hermeneutic. “The narrative,” as Gregory puts it, “is to be understood according to its real intention … the hidden meaning of the history …”50 As the spiritual or mystical meaning unfolds for the reader, Gregory teaches, the life of Moses becomes a template for the spiritual experience of the Christian, a roadmap for the ascent of the soul in its journey to meeting God in the “cloud” on Mt. Sinai. John Meyendorff explains this dynamic of ascent well: “… God is totally invisible and incomprehensible to the created eye and inaccessible to the created mind. He is, nevertheless, seen and perceived by man, when man, by baptismal and ascetic purification, by efforts and virtues, is enabled to acquire ‘spiritual senses,’ which allow him to perceive, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, the One who is beyond creation.”51 Gregory effectively blends his Greek perspective with the Jewish text, making it accessible to his Greek audience, while never abandoning the text’s Jewish-Christian roots. Gregory, like Origen before him, turns to the Exodus account of Moses’ birth and discovers there significant possibilities for allegorical teaching regarding the development of a life of virtue and prayer, a concern of Gregory’s that is rooted not only in Gregory’s theology, but also in the philosophical air that he and other church fathers had breathed for all of their lives. Philosophy for the fathers was not so much the mastery of a set of ideas as the adoption of a specific manner of living. As Robert Wilken puts it, “Philosophy was not simply a way of thinking about life; it was a way of 47 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, op. cit. 48 Ibid., intro., 3. 49 Ibid., intro., 6. 50 Ibid., II.2; II.5, 55-56. 51 Ibid., preface, xiii.

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instilling attitudes and training people to live in a certain way.”52 It was Origen himself who had taught that “only those who practice a life genuinely befitting reasonable creatures and seek to live virtuously, who seek to know first who they are, and to strive for those things that are truly good and to shun those which are truly evil … are lovers of philosophy.”53 And so Gregory turns to the life of Moses, seeking what both he and his reader can imitate in Moses’ life to further their progress on the path to virtue, and through virtue lay the foundation for prayer itself. The birth narrative of Moses’ life might first appear to be an unlikely place to discover principles for virtuous living; it is Gregory’s allegorical approach to the text that unveils its ethical and spiritual potentials. Prior to Gregory’s time, Origen had preached in his homilies on Numbers that if the human soul “had intercourse with the Word of God,” then “ a truly blessed offspring” would be birthed. “From there will be born a noble lineage, from there will arise chastity; from there will issue justice, patience, gentleness and love and the venerable offspring of all the virtues.”54 Gregory sees Moses’ birth as demonstrating the same dynamic: virtue is birthed as a human being exercises his free will, purposely chooses a life of virtue, and strategically conquers the debilitating effect of the passions. Modern people often connect passion or passions with strong emotions, whether positive or negative. For Gregory’s readers and for Gregory himself, the passions could have a strong emotional element or tone, but just as often referred to “a state of mind or even a habitual action. Anger is usually a passion, but sometimes forgetfulness is called a passion. Gossip and talking too much are also called passions … Depression, the very opposite of a passion as we usually use that term in our modern world, is one of the most painful passions.”55 The passions can be overcome through the exercise of the will, a dynamic Gregory sees operative in the narrative of Moses’ birth. “It is the function of free will both to beget this virtuous male offspring and to nourish it with proper food and to plan ahead to save it unharmed from the water.” The water or “stream” on which the baby Moses floats—protected by a basket—is made “turbulent by the successive waves of passion,” 52 Robert Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 267. 53 Quoted in Wilken, op. cit., 267. 54 Origen, Homilies on Numbers, Ancient Christian Texts, trans. Thomas P. Scheck, ed. Christopher A. Hall (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2009), Homily 20.1, 124. 55 Roberta Bondi, To Love as God Loves (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 57.

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aspects of sinful human character which cripple our ability to respond to the Spirit’s power and guidance.56 Two more examples from Gregory’s Life of Moses will have to suffice. First, Gregory describes the “ark” [basket] that carried the baby Moses as “constructed out of various boards,” each plank an aspect of the “education” Moses received “in the different disciplines,” all nailed together in the ark “which holds what it carries above the waves of life.”57 Second, the spoiling or plundering of the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus—which Gregory considered a historical event—points to a deeper theoria or spiritual lesson for the reader: the validity of certain aspects of pagan education for the Christian disciple. Similarly, Moses’ willingness to marry a foreign wife represents aspects of a Greco-Roman education that “should not be rejected when we propose to give birth to virtue. Indeed, moral and natural philosophy may become at certain times a comrade, friend, and companion of life to the higher way, provided that the offspring of this union introduce nothing of a foreign defilement.”58 Just as the Israelites left Egypt carrying riches the Egyptians had willingly given them, so Christians can more effectively participate “through virtue in the free life” by equipping “themselves with the wealth of pagan learning by which foreigners to the faith beautify themselves.”59 Virtue, as we have briefly seen, in turn deepens prayer, as the believer climbs Mt. Sinai with Moses, with the believer’s vision of God expanding step by step as it gazes upon the infinite beauty and wonder of God. To sum up: the church fathers’ interpretations of the meaning of Moses are grounded on a fundamental thesis: the entire biblical narrative—history, law, prophets, covenants—reaches its divinely appointed climax in Jesus of Nazareth, the anointed one of Israel. Thus, when the fathers look at Moses, they see Christ. And when they look at Christ, Moses is always present within their christological field of vision.

56 Gregory of Nyssa, op. cit., II.6, 56. 57 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, op. cit., II.7, 56. 58 Ibid., II.37, 62-63. 59 Ibid., II.115, 81.

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Moses and the Paschal Liturgy Luciana Cuppo-Csaki This essay studies the presence of Moses in some early Christian texts (roughly from 300 to 600 AD) on the liturgy of Easter. Such texts, representative of various viewpoints on Easter and its celebration, have in common a remarkable awareness of the role of Moses, both as lawgiver concerned with ritual prescriptions for the celebration of Passover (as set forth in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy) and as inspired writer of sacred history (as, for example, the account of creation in Genesis 1). In these early Christian texts, a discussion of Easter without reference to the Jewish tradition—creation of the world, Passover, and observance of the seven days of the azyma or unleavened bread—would have been unthinkable. To the Christians, Easter was, of course, about Christ, but the link with the Jewish Passover was there from the beginning. The fact that the first Christian Easter occurred during the celebration of the Jewish one was never considered a mere coincidence, but the fulfillment of the prophecies of old. The awareness of this early, historical link between the celebration of the Jewish Passover and the death and resurrection of Christ remained constant in the Christian tradition. Moses had been the interpreter of God’s will, and since God is one and the same for Jews and Christians, his commands given through Moses were binding for both Christians and Jews. Moses had written the book of Genesis under divine inspiration, had been the executor of God’s will in the historical Passover from Egypt to freedom, and had formulated the ritual prescriptions for the memorial of that first Passover. The memory of this remained constant in early Christian texts on Easter. In these texts, Moses may be a silent partner, but his presence is unmistakable. Christians had their own disagreements on how and when Easter should be kept. Controversial points were whether Easter should be celebrated cum Iudaeis [with the Jews], where it was not always clear whether “with” meant “at the same time” or “with the same ritual and joining in the cele­ bration,” whether the memorial should focus on the passion or on the resurrection of Christ, on which day Easter should be kept, and which calculations (computus) should lead to it. In all these internal quarrels

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among Christians, Moses remained unruffled, ever present in texts about Easter. Such presence may be paradoxical, because the same writers who saw Moses as God’s unquestioned spokesman could be critical of the Jews who rejected Christ. Yet Moses’ image remained untarnished and his place in the Christian liturgy was secured to our day: in the Roman missal, the reading for Good Friday is taken from the book of Exodus (12:1-11) and three of the four readings for the Easter Vigil (Gen. 1:1-31, Exod. 14:24-31, Deut. 31:22-30) reflect the different roles of Moses as inspired writer of creation, as God’s spokesman in leading the chosen people to freedom, and as lawgiver who prescribed how the memory of that first Passover should be kept. The texts gathered here present the different facets of Moses in theological reflections about Easter. The selections are drawn from different Paschal traditions: the Irish observance, based largely on the writings of Anatolius of Laodicea; the Roman observance attested by a prologue to an Easter calendar in use at Rome; the African observance, attested by a tract originally attached to an Easter calendar and interesting for its theological affinities with the Roman tradition; the Alexandrian observance, representative of the Greek-speaking areas of the Mediterranean, and finally some excerpts from a letter by Columbanus of Bobbio, who (as he pointedly wrote to Pope Gregory I) as a monk had no official capacity whatsoever in the celebration of Easter, but as a Christian demanded both clarification and guidance in such a vital issue. The texts considered range from 270 AD (Anatolius) to 395 AD (Roman prologue) to 437 AD (African computus) to 525/526 (letters of Dionysius Exiguus) to 590-604 (letter of Columbanus to Pope Gregory I and Easter tract in the MS Reg. 2077 of the Vatican Library). Most of these texts are not readily accessible in print, let alone in translation. Anatolius fares best: his De ratione Paschae was published in 2003 in a critical edition by Daniel McCarthy and Aidan Breen.1 For most other texts cited the alternatives are the Patrologia Latina series and the 1880 edition by Bruno Krusch.2 1 Daniel P. McCarthy and Aidan Breen, The Ante-Nicene Christian Pasch: De ratione paschali—The paschal tract of Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003). 2  The series known as Patrologia Latina (henceforth, PL) may be the easiest to find in libraries. It includes 217 volumes of authors from Tertullian to Pope Innocent III), was edited by Jean-Paul Migne and published in Paris in 1844-1855. Bruno Krusch published in 1880 his Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen Chronologie. Der 84jährige Ostercyclus und seine Quellen (Leipzig: Veit & Co., 1880) (henceforth, Krusch 1880). It includes the following texts with introduction and notes: Anatolius of Laodicea, “Der Liber Anatholii de ratione paschali,” 311-27; anonymous author, “Der Computus

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Christian Easter writers showed no great concern over the historical event of the Exodus, what actually happened to the Jewish people in the time of Moses, and how he led them out of Egypt. The interest of the writer was theological (God’s command to Moses), and Easter reckoning (the exact determination of the date of Easter, of paramount concern to modern scholars) was its corollary. If the principle was simple—God had commanded to celebrate Passover on the fourteenth moon in the first month of the year—its practical applications were not, because that first Hebrew month, which was a lunar one, had to be converted to days and solar months of the Greek or Roman calendar, and the calculations were often erroneous.3 These were technical questions, yet they resulted in different dates for the celebration of Easter, and the difference became a theological issue centered on the unity of the Christian church. Other theological issues were involved, and to Christians, these were the primary ones: should Carthaginiensis,” 279-297; anonymous author, “Der Cölner Prolog,” 227-235. Krusch titled the Roman Easter tract “Cölner Prolog” because he found it the codex 83/2 of the Dombibliothek of Cologne (fols. 193v-197). The same piece is extant in the codex Digby 63 of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, fols. 81-87v. The Carthaginian Computus is only extant in the manuscript Lucca, Biblioteca Feliniana 490, fols. 282-286v. The tract, first published by Giandomenico Mansi in 1740, was reprinted in PL 59: 545-560 with the title Libellus de computo paschali. The letters of Dionysius Exiguus on Easter were well known in the Middle Ages, and manuscripts are numerous, but there is no critical edition as yet. They were published in PL 67: 19-28. The anonymous Ratio Paschae of the codex BAV, Vat. lat. 2077 is known to us only from that manuscript, where it can be found on fol. 79. It was edited by Theodor Mommsen and published in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (henceforth, MGH) Auctores Antiquissimi (henceforth, AA), Chronica Minora IX, 740. The standard edition of the letters of Columbanus of Luxeuil and Bobbio is that of G.S.M. Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957) with reprints in 1970 and 1997. For an extensive bibliography of works on Easter, see Immo Warntjes, “The Munich Computus and the 84 (14)-year Easter reckoning,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 107C (2007): 31-85. While focusing on the system of Anatolius, this work presents an updated bibliography on various theories about the celebration of Easter. The National University of Ireland at Galway hosts biannually the International Conference on the Science of Computus. The proceedings are published in the series Studia Traditionis Theologiae, published by Brepols; the editors are Dáibhi Ó Cróinín and Immo Warntjes, and the proceedings are extremely useful for an update on current scholarship on the question of Easter. 3  For a theoretical introduction and a practical demonstration of Easter reckoning, go to www.foundationsirishculture.ie, the site of the Foundations of Irish Culture AD 600-850 at the Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway. The biannual Conferences on the Science of Computus sponsored by the Foundations of Irish Culture Project provide updates and publications on current developments.

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Easter commemorate primarily the Passion or the Resurrection of Christ, should it follow the observance of the Roman church or local traditions, should it be celebrated “with the Jews,” i.e. on the fourteenth of Nisan, or on another day? In all these disputes, the figure of Moses and the weight given to his commands remained untarnished. He was and remained the spokesman of God’s will. Anatolius and the Irish Tradition Anatolius of Laodicea looms large both in the theoretical foundations of Easter observance among the Irish and in the practical applications of these principles to Easter reckoning. He is known to us through a lengthy citation in Eusebius and a Latin translation that includes the passage cited by Eusebius but was nevertheless considered a forgery by several scholars who failed to distinguish between the introduction to the translated text of Anatolius, written by a Latin translator/commentator thought to be Sulpicius Severus, and the original Greek text.4 Since the Paschal theory of Anatolius was held in high esteem in Irish circles, it is not surprising that the extant manuscripts and citations stem largely from environments influenced by Irish culture. The star manuscript now at the Biblioteca Antoniana in Padua originated between Lombardy and Verona, where the influence of Bobbio (an Irish monastic foundation) was strong, and it shows the usual Irish symptoms: Irish abbreviations, Hebrew names, doubling of consonants, shifting between the vowels e and i, red dots used as decoration for initials. Columbanus of Bobbio and Cummian cited Anatolius by name; in addition, segments from his works are found in anonymous Irish works on computus. Thus, the image of Moses found in the text of Anatolius is an open window on the views of pre-Carolingian Irish scholars both in Ireland and on the Continent, an image that may not coincide with that handed down in areas of Roman observance. If Anatolius was highly esteemed in Irish culture, the reason was not only his competence in calculating the date of Easter, but also that he was 4  Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, ed. H.J. Lawlor and Kirsopp Lake, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994) 7.32.13-19. The distinction between the introduction and the original text of Anatolius is clear in the Latin version and even rendered graphically in the MS. Padua, Biblioteca Antoniana I.27, fol. 71v-72, where the introductory paragraph on the initial page is set apart from the text of Anatolius translated from the Greek.

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seen as a link, through the Greek scholars who translated the Hebrew Scriptures, with the world of Hebrew learning and a proper understanding of the Mosaic tradition. The translator/commentator of Anatolius writes his essay under the aegis of maiores nostri, those more ancient and greater than he was, the experts Jerome, Clement, Isidore of Pelusium.5 These scholars were considered equally knowledgeable in Greek and Hebrew books. Though known to the Irish only through the medium of a Latin translation and the writings of Eusebius and Jerome, Anatolius was a link to the world of Alexandrian scholarship that produced the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible. This link was a weighty reason in favor of Anatolius, whose Latin commentator stressed (a bit optimistically) that the ancient experts on Easter, both Greek and Latin, knew the Hebrew works and agreed in their calculations: But our ancient predecessors, most knowledgeable in the books of the Greeks and the Jews (I mean Isidore [of Pelusium], Clement, and Jerome), although positing different beginnings for the months because of different languages, yet concurred, in one and the same precise reckoning of Easter, with day, month, and season in perfect agreement and with the greatest veneration for the resurrection of the Lord. But Origen also, the most learned of all and the sharpest in ordering calculations, so much so that he was called Calcenterus [“capable of digesting bronze”], published a book on Easter, very well written.6

Adherence to Hebrew learning was, then, one of the reasons why Anatolius was considered trustworthy by his commentator/translator. But there is more. The opening lines of Anatolius’ work (“in the first year [of the Easter cycle] is, then, the beginning of the first month”) echo the words of God to Moses and Aaron; indeed, these words (“This month will be for you the beginning of the months; it will be the first among the months of the year” [Exod. 12:2]) are the blueprint for Anatolius’ tract and became the foundation for Easter reckoning based on a cycle of nineteen years. The ensuing astronomical details, which Anatolius explained at great length, all aimed at finding the beginning of that first lunar month, all attempted to abide by that command given by God to Moses and Aaron. Moses is the silent partner in the effort of Anatolius, who enlisted the experience not only of 5  Clement of Alexandria is the author of a lost treatise on Easter. “Jerome” probably refers to De Exodo in vigilia Paschae, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 78 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958), 536-537. “Isidore” is not, as some scholars (Krusch, Studien, 314) assumed, Isidore bishop of Seville, but Isidore of Pelusium (near Alexandria), whose letters deal with the question of Easter. 6  Latin text in Krusch, Studien, 317.

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the Greeks, but also of the Jews, on the specific point that Easter should not be celebrated before the spring equinox, which he considered to be the beginning of year: But we are not the first ones to think so. It is proven that the ancient Jews approved this norm and observed it before the advent of Christ. This is clearly taught by Philo and by Flavius Joseph, but also by Agathobulos and by his pupil Arestobulos of Paneas, both of greater antiquity. Aristobulos was one of the seventy elders who were sent by the priests to the king Ptolemy to translate the books of the Jews to the Greek language and responded to the king’s many questions and inquiries on the Mosaic traditions.7

In the text of Anatolius received by the Irish, the resurrection of Christ was the object of celebration. This was consistent with the Eastern tradition, while the insistence on Easter as memorial of Christ’s passion (Good Friday), where Christ was the new and true lamb being slaughtered, was typical of the African and the Roman church and remarkably absent from Irish texts. Columbanus of Bobbio Columbanus of Bobbio was heir to the Irish tradition. Accordingly, he thought highly of Anatolius and of his Jewish and Greek predecessors. His letter to pope Gregory I, written between 590 and 604 AD, attests to Columbanus’ awe for Jewish antiquities and learning. Although the main reason for celebrating Easter according to Moses’ precepts was God’s command to Moses, the esteem for ancient learning created a favorable environment for the acceptance of the Mosaic tradition. In the letter of Columbanus, the law of Moses (Exod. 12:2) is given great prominence. Interestingly, in this intellectual environment, the principle of not celebrating Easter with the Jews did not seem to be important, much less binding. In fact, Columbanus held a rather radical view on the celebration of Easter with the Jews: according to him, this was a sheer impossibility because since their dispersion, the Jews had neither Temple nor communities, and hence could not celebrate Passover (though it would be interesting to see if the historical situation of the Jews in sixth-century Burgundy justified Columbanus’ skepticism). What mattered was the observance of divine law given through Moses (Exod. 12:2). To Columbanus, and with him to the whole Irish 7

 Latin text in Krusch, Studien, 318.

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tradition, Moses the lawgiver was the interpreter of God’s commands, although the observance of such commands might take a different shape in the Christian tradition. Thus, the seven days of the azyma were binding for Catholics as well as for Jews inasmuch as Easter must not fall on those days; and since God had ordered that the Exodus must not fall before the fourteenth (that is to say, the full) moon of the first month, so Christians must be careful that the celebration of Easter, their exodus, did not occur before that same moon. The pertinent passage reads: Please be advised that Victor [of Aquitaine] was not accepted by the ancient Irish scholars, our teachers, and by the most gifted scientist of computus, but deserves ridicule or forgiveness rather than authority. Therefore I beseech you, send the support of your judgment to me, an outsider rather than an expert, and do not disdain to direct in due time a small token of your forgiveness so as to quell this storm that engulfs us; for I am not satisfied, after reading such great authors, with the single opinion of these bishops who only say, ‘We must not celebrate Easter with the Jews.’ Once upon a time Bishop Victor said such a thing, but no Eastern bishop retained his specious argument while these slumbering groins of Dagon gulp down this bubo of error.  Pray tell, what kind of judgment is this, so frivolous and unconsidered, not supported by any evidence from Holy Scripture, ‘We must not celebrate Easter with the Jews’? How does it pertain to the point? How can one believe that the derelict Jews now celebrate Easter, being out of Jerusalem, without the Temple, figure of the Christ they crucified? Should we perchance believe that the Passover of the fourteenth moon is theirs or should not we rather profess that it belongs to God himself, who instituted the Passover and who alone knows clearly by what mystery the fourteenth moon was chosen for the Exodus? This may perhaps dawn on scholars and on your fellows. Let those who oppose this, though with no authority, put the blame on God because He in His foreknowledge did not make any advance provision against the obduracy of the Jews: in such a way that, had He not wanted that we celebrate Easter at the same time as they do, he would not have prescribed in the Law nine days for the azyma, so that the beginning of our festival would not to overlap with the end of theirs. For, if we are to celebrate Easter on the twenty-first or the twenty-second moon, nine days shall be reckoned from the fourteenth to the twenty-second moon, seven of which were prescribed by God and two added by men. But if men may, of their own volition, add something to God’s command, then I question whether this does not run counter to that precept of Deuteronomy, ‘Behold the word that I speak to you, do not add to, or diminish anything from it’ (Deut. 4:2).8

8  Translated from the critical edition by Theodor Mommsen in MGH Epistolae 3 (Berlin: MGH, 1889), 157-158.

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The codex Lucca, Biblioteca Feliniana 490, written in the late eighth or early ninth century is well known to paleographers because it presents a wide variety of hands and different scripts. While some scholars interpret such variety as evidence that the scriptorium at Lucca was open to various influences, others think that some quires of the codex were written in Rome and eventually bound in the Lucca codex. If this is the case, then the script of the MS Lucca 490 confirms what can be gleaned from the contents of an Easter tract (fols. 282-286v) called by Krusch Computus Carthaginensis. In this tract, originally a set of instructions and a commentary to an Easter calendar, the theory of Easter is similar to that of the Roman Church and remarkably different from that of the Irish tradition inasmuch as it lays stress on the passion of Christ and the allegorical interpretation of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt, interpreting the lamb slaughtered at Passover in Egypt as a foreshadowing of Christ in his passion. The essay can be precisely dated to 455 AD and located in Vandal Africa. There are repeated references to Moses’ commands and many and complex calculations, but no reference is made to Jewish and Greek scholars or to their competence both in calculating the date of Easter and in interpreting Moses’ law. One passage is especially indicative of this African school of thought: Through Moses, then, God prescribed to the whole community of the children of Israel in the new month, which is the beginning of the months in the months of the year, in what garments they should eat the Passover, for the specific purpose of making known his divinity to us who believe in Christ and to show, from the very moment of the first celebration of Passover in Egypt, the violence of those who in the evening—that is to say, in the last times of the world—girt and shod, went out on the first day of the azyma with scourges and swords against the immaculate Lamb of God and perpetrated against Him all that prophets had foretold about Him. Thus we, who do not celebrate the Passover as they did, according to image, but according to truth in memorial of the passion of the Son of God, must seek accurately in the first place, with all the might of our faith, nothing but the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.9

This tract presents a significant variant: the effort to find out exactly the beginning of the first month, in obedience to the law of Moses, is overshadowed by the preoccupation with finding out the exact date of Christ’s passion, since in the eyes of the writer, the Jewish Passover was a 9

 Latin text in Krusch, Studien, 288.

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foreshadowing of that of Christ. This allegorical interpretation of the historical event in which Moses was protagonist found further development in a commentary to the Roman liturgy of Easter, written at the end of the sixth century and only extant in the codex Reg. lat. 2077 of the Vatican Library. The Roman Liturgy of Easter The so-called “Prologue of Cologne” is an introduction to the Easter tables used in the Roman liturgy at least until pope Gregory I. Bruno Krusch, who found this tract in the codex 83/2 of the Dombibliothek of Cologne, named it “Kölner Prolog,” but the essay is a document of the Roman Easter observance in the fourth, fifth and sixth century. It is dated AD 395, and it had appended to it an Easter cycle of eighty-four years that began in AD 382. In this work, Moses is present in an oblique but powerful way. Like his African colleague, the anonymous Roman author maintains that the day of the passion of Christ is fundamental for the celebration of Easter and that all study should aim at that. But he does not limit himself to add up the ages of the biblical characters, as the African computist had done. The source for determining the dates of the biblical fathers is Moses, the divinely inspired writer; therefore, the Roman computist sees Jewish history as sacred history, in an unbroken continuity from Adam to Christ to Christian history, which is a chronicle, not of the triumphs of Roman emperors, but of their persecutions of Christians. From this perspective, Moses is the first inspired writer of sacred history. Therefore the author of the Roman prologue recaps the years of the world from creation to Moses. The novelty of the Roman prologue is that Moses is considered the authority not only on account of his writings on creation and on the Passover observance, but also as the divinely inspired writer of world history, which becomes sacred history, for it is intimately linked with the history of Christ and continues in the life of the Christian church, all the more sacred when it is persecuted in hatred to God. If sacred history is a continuum from creation to the writer’s own day, Easter takes place in the context of the history of mankind. Jewish history, world history, and Easter liturgy are thus entwined, and human history becomes a perpetual passage (Passover) from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom. Human history means going from this world to the Father.

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luciana cuppo-csaki This is the beginning of the Roman prologue: When I was greatly moved in spirit and thoughts came upon my soul to search the years and times of creation, I must needs peruse the years of the patriarchs beginning with the book of Genesis and note the number of years up to the passion of our Lord, which you, my son Vitalis, must always keep faithfully. Let us therefore begin by expounding the beginning of the creation of the world. This world was created by God in the bosom of his immensity. It was perfected in six days, as Moses narrates by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning then, after all things, Adam was created by the hand of God. When he was 230, he begat Seth.10 And when Seth was 205, he begat Enos. When Enos was 190, he begat Cainan. When Cainan was 170, he begat Malaleel. When Malaleel was 165, he begat Jareth. When Jaret was 162, he begat Enoch. When Enoch was 165, he begat Matusalem. When Matusalem was 167, he begat Malec. When Malec was 187, he begat Noah. When Noah was 500 years of age, he begat Sem, Cham, and Jafeth. And when Noah completed the ark, he was 600 years old. From Noah to the deluge, there were 600 years. Thus, from the origin of the world up to the cataclysm at the time of the deluge there are 2,242 years. From Noah, after he came out of the ark, until Abraham, there are 1,133 years. From Abraham to Cathi, son of Levi, who at the age of three entered Egypt with his parents, there are 190 years. And the children of Israel lived in Egypt for 215 years and left Egypt. And Moses, after he left Egypt, lived for forty years and then died. Thus all the years from the origin of the world to Moses add up to 3,823.11

The anonymous author of the Ratio Paschae [“The Reckoning of Easter”], a brief tract from Vivarium preserved in the MS Reg. 2077 of the Vatican Library, fols. 79-81, of the end of the sixth century, knew the Roman prologue and cited from it.12 In the theological introduction customarily found in Easter tracts, the computist not only shared with his African colleague the allegorical interpretation of Passover as foreshadowing of Christ’s passion, but pushed this line of interpretation further, implying that what 10 The numbers of years attributed to the patriarchs do not coincide with the Vulgate version of the Bible that became the standard one in the Roman church. They agree with the figures given in the MS. Digby 63, with the exception of Jaret, who—according to that scribe—was 165 when he begat Enoch. 11 Latin text in Krusch, Studien, 227-228. 12 The citations from the Roman prologue (three in number) were discussed by Krusch in his commentary (Krusch, Studien, 43-47) and reported by Mommsen in his apparatus to the edition of the Ratio paschae in MGH AA Chronica minora IX, 740.

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really mattered was to understand the allegorical meaning of Exodus 12:2 and Genesis 1:11. Only after explaining the hidden significance (significantia) of these texts did he discuss the reckoning of Easter. This is the text that prefaces the calculations of the Easter date: The Lord, who spoke to Moses saying, “This month shall be the beginning, it shall be the first month to you in the months of the year,” when He created the world also indicated openly this beginning to us through the significance of created things, when He said: “Let the earth bring forth grass, nourishment yielding seed according to its kind and the fruit tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, in likeness according to kind, and it was so.” And on the day when the immaculate Lamb Jesus Christ Our Lord was killed, the earth brought forth grass to feed the lambs of Christ for the sustenance of souls who believe in Him: what if not the body of Christ, which the earth carried, which those will eat, who have the innocence of lambs? and tree yielding fruit, which tree is it, if not the Cross of Christ? that bore as its fruit the man whose flesh, dead and buried, resurrected uncorrupted in the same seed or appearance it had before.13

Dionysius Exiguus Dionysius Exiguus (“Dennis the Little”) flourished in Rome in the early sixth century. Enough is known about him that he can be placed in a well-defined cultural context: he was the interpreter of Greek culture and tradition for a Latinate public, in grammar and rhetoric as well as in theology. In the matter of Easter reckoning, he followed the Greek school of Alexandria, the same one in which, as Columbanus reminded pope Gregory, Jewish scholars had translated the Scriptures and explained the Mosaic tradition to Ptolemy. In AD 525 and again in 526, Dionysius addressed two letters to the papal chancery in Rome proposing the adoption of the Alexandrian system of Easter reckoning.14 Pope John I never acted on Dionysius’s proposal—most likely because he was unexpectedly jailed in Ravenna by King Theoderic and died there after a few months—and we know from the letter of Columbanus that some seventy years later, the pope still had not taken a stance on the question of Easter. In AD 562, after the death of Dionysius, Cassiodorus published from his monastery of Vivarium the practical instructions (Argumenta) of Dionysius to find the date of Easter, originally 13 Latin text in MGH AA IX Chronica minora IX, 740. 14 PL 67: 19-28, titled “Dionysii Exigui epistolae duae de ratione Paschae.”

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appended to one of the letters to the papal chancery in 525. They circulated with Book II of the Institutiones of Cassiodorus, and there may have been an edition by Felix of Squillace in connection with his continuation of the Easter cycles of Dionysius (dated 616 AD). But after Cassiodorus’ death in 575 and before the work of Felix, the ideas current at Vivarium were those set down in the codex Reg. 2077, whose author interpreted the writings of Moses as symbolical of the passion of Christ. In advocating the Alexandrian system, Dionysius stressed scientific accuracy and fidelity to the teaching of the Council of Nicaea. He mentioned Moses only very briefly; nevertheless, his letter marked a turning point in the place of Moses in the liturgy because Dionysius pointed out that the authority of Moses had been recognized not only by individual theologians, but by the universal Church, when the bishops gathered at Nicaea for the council in 325 AD had affirmed the validity of the Mosaic tradition. If a church council had decreed that, Dionysius reasoned, Christians everywhere should follow suit because obedience to the decrees of Nicaea was a duty for all Christians. Thus, fidelity to the Mosaic tradition was seen as a commitment by the whole Church, and finding the precise date of the full moon of the first month was a duty first enjoined by God to Moses and then reaffirmed officially by the Church. The pertinent text: We deemed no less important to mark carefully the following point, that there may be no mistake in the definition of the first month—for nearly all errors on the discrepancy of the date of Easter arise from not knowing the beginning of the Easter season. For, when God almighty instituted for the children of Israel the celebration of this most sacred rite when they were being freed from the Egyptian slavery, in the book of Exodus, He said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: “This month shall be to you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year.” And again, in the same book, He said: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, you shall eat the azyma, until evening of the twenty-first of the same month” [Exod. 12:18]. In the book of Deuteronomy the same lawgiver Moses also reminds the people of this precept, saying: “Keep the observance of the month of new crops and of the spring season to celebrate the Pasch to the Lord your God, because in this month the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt at night” [Deut. 16:1]. It was clear by such divine authority that the feast of Easter must be celebrated in the first month, from the fourteenth day at evening to the twenty-first day. But since it is not clearly stated in that book when this month begins and when it ends, the aforesaid 318 bishops [at Nicaea], inquiring with the utmost accuracy in the observance of the ancient custom handed down by the venerable Moses from then on (as reported in the seventh book of the Ecclesiastical History), said that the rising of the moon determines the

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beginning of the first month from the eighth day before the Ides of March [the eighth of March] to the day of the Nones of April [the fifth of April]; and that one should seek most accurately the fourteenth moon from the twelfth day before the calends of April [twenty-first of March] to the fourteenth day before the calends of May [eighteenth of April].15

Unlike the computist of Reg. 2077, for whom it was important to understand the allegorical meaning of the “first month” of Easter, Dionysius Exiguus took Moses’ words quite literally and demanded scientific accuracy in determining the beginning of that first month, which, as he pointed out, is nowhere stated in the Bible. Time has proven him right. His method of calculation, inherited from the school of Alexandria that in turn had inherited it from the Egyptians, is still current today to determine the date of Easter for Catholics and many other Christian churches. And his respect for the words of Moses, that led him to search the meaning of what Moses had said in Exodus 12:2, lived on in the Church in ensuing years. In 1781, the preface by Antonio Martini to the bilingual Latin/Italian edition of the Bible ended with the words of Irenaeus of Lyons: Literae Mosis sunt verba Christi [“the writings of Moses are the words of Christ”].16 And even today three out of four readings for the Easter vigil in Catholic churches are taken from the writings of Moses: Genesis 1:1-31 and 2:1-2, Exodus 14:24-31 and 15:1, Deuteronomy 31:22-30.

15 Latin text in PL 67: 20-21. 16 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 4: 3.

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The Prophecy of Moses in Medieval Jewish Philosophy Howard Kreisel The Middle Ages witnessed the renewal of the philosophic interpretation of Scripture among the Jews, first in the Arabic speaking world and later in Christian lands.1 The biblical figure of Moses in particular raised a myriad of issues with which the medieval Jewish philosophers were forced to confront in the process of developing their thought. Insofar as much of their philosophy was exegetical in character, they were faced with the problem of explaining the verses in the Pentateuch dealing with the life of Moses, and more importantly, the special qualities of his prophecy: “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known in a vision and speak to him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so for he is the trusted one in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, manifestly and not by riddles, and the similitude of God does he behold” (Num. 12:6-8); “There did not arise since in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deut. 34:10). Above all there was a need to clarify the nature of the public revelation to all of Israel at Sinai in which Moses served as God’s intermediary as well as the unique private revelation to Moses at Sinai in which God informs him: “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand upon a rock. And it shall come to pass, while my Glory passes by, and I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with my Hand while I pass by. And I will take away my Hand, and you will see my Back, but my Face shall not be seen” (Exod. 33:21-23). Rabbinic statements regarding Moses’ prophecy in contrast to the prophecy of others also required interpretation, statements such as: “All prophets looked through a non-transparent crystal. Moses our Master looked through a transparent crystal” (B.T. Yebamot 49b). No less noteworthy was the pronouncement that apparently accorded 1 For a survey of this topic see my “Philosophical Interpretations of the Bible,” in Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: From Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century, ed. Steven Nadler and Tamar Rudavsky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 88-120. The most outstanding examples of Jewish philosophical exegesis in Classical Antiquity belong to Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (20 BCE–50 CE). Philo’s exegesis, however, does not appear to have exerted much influence, if any, on subsequent Jewish exegesis in Late Antiquity.

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superiority to one of the gentile prophets over Moses: “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like Moses (Deut. 34:10)—in Israel there has not arisen, but in the nations of the world there has arisen; that prophet was Balaam.”2 The religious-intellectual contexts in which the medieval Jewish philosophers developed their thought brought in its wake a number of additional factors that markedly influenced their treatments of Moses. One is the polemical aspect. The prophecy of Moses is integrally connected with the revelation of the divine law. Insofar as both Christianity and Islam challenged the continued binding nature of the Law of Moses, though not its divine origin, the Jewish thinkers tended to underscore the unique nature of Mosaic prophecy in order to defend the view of the enduring authority of his Law. They were able to draw upon biblical verses and rabbinic statements in support of this view, though some of the statements, such as the one referring to Balaam, posed a challenge in one regard. The other significant pole around which treatments of Mosaic prophecy revolved was the Greek philosophic one. The nature of prophetic revelation, the qualities a person was required to possess in order to attain prophecy, and the purpose of law as perceived by the Arabic philosophers who adopted and developed the Greek philosophic tradition left a strong impression on how Jewish philosophers regarded Moses, the master of the prophets. Perhaps the most important issue confronting the Jewish thinkers was whether one should understand Mosaic prophecy in light of the workings of the natural order as understood by the philosophic tradition, or alternately, as the product of God’s immediate involvement in history that defies any naturalistic interpretation. Moreover, to the degree that Mosaic prophecy was treated as a natural phenomenon, it provided the interpreter with an opportunity to indicate his view regarding the absolute limits of human apprehension.3 Saadia Gaon For the most prominent of the Jewish theologians of the tenth century, Rabbi Saadia Gaon, all prophets are chosen directly by God, who is also the 2 Sifre on Deuteronomy, ed. Louis Finkelstein (Jersey City, N.J.: Ktav Publishing Inc., 1969), 340. 3 Most of my discussion of these issues in the present study is based on my detailed treatment of the topic in Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001).

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immediate author of the messages they receive. Often God sends intermediaries—namely, angels—to deliver His message to the prophets. At times, the prophet beholds the most noble of these intermediaries, the Created Glory. Prophetic visions of God are interpreted by Saadia in his seminal theological treatise, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (written c. 933 CE, Baghdad), as being of the Glory of God, which is composed of the most subtle resplendent matter and assumes any shape God wishes to show the prophet.4 Saadia accepts the philosophic view that God is incorporeal, hence not subject to any sensible perception, a view accepted also by the Moslem theologians from which he drew much of his thought pertaining to the deity. His theory of the Created Glory—which contains a faint echo of the idea of the Logos that serves as an intermediary between God and the world—preserves the notion of God’s incorporeal nature. At the same time, it allows Saadia to interpret the prophetic visions of God in a literal manner, once it is understood that these visions, though seen by the eyes of the prophet, are not of the Godhead.5 The problem of how Moses could see the “back” of an incorporeal God could now be interpreted as referring to his attaining a close up view of the last part of this intermediary, which consists of a weaker form of light than the front part. According to Saadia, seeing the front or the face of the Glory would result in the disintegration of the individual due to its intense luminosity.6 Saadia also maintains that at times Moses is addressed by God without any intermediary whatsoever. God creates sounds in the air, referred to as Created Speech, which are sent directly to Moses’ hearing. This is the meaning of the verse that God knew Moses face to face.7 The empirically verifiable nature of the prophetic experience—that the prophet sees this special entity with his eyes and hears the speech with his ears—provides the prophet with the basis for confidence in the truth of the message he receives. For Saadia, the performance of miracles is the mode by which God verifies all prophetic missions, for the miracles are of such nature that they can only be ascribed to God.8 The establishment of the authority of 4 Saadia Gaon, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. Samuel Rosenblatt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 2.10, 121. For a study of Saadia’s approach to prophecy see Alexander Altmann, “Saadya’s Theory of Revelation: its Origin and Background,” in Saadya Studies, ed. E.I.J. Rosenthal (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1943), 4-25. See also Prophecy, 27-93. 5 Prophecy, 61-62. 6 Book of Beliefs and Opinions 2.12, 129. 7 Ibid., 2.10, 121. 8 Ibid., 3.4, 147. See Prophecy, 42-56.

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Mosaic Law is no exception. Saadia points out the grandeur of Moses’ miracles and their great duration as confirming the truth of his mission.9 Though he regards Moses the greatest of prophets, he is also interested in stressing his human nature, true of all prophets, in order that no one should think that the prophets themselves possess a special ability to perform miracles and the miracles are not the product of the divine will. Yet the continuous validity of the Law is not proven on the basis of the superiority of Moses’ miracles over those of subsequent lawgivers who claim divine revelation. Rather Saadia attempts to show that it can be proven both by reason and on the basis of the text of the Law of Moses itself—after it is authenticated by miracles and whose commands are shown not to be contradicted by reason—that this Law never will be abrogated.10 Thus no subsequent revelation, even if supported by miracles, can invalidate the Law without resulting in a contradiction between our sources of knowledge. In this manner, Saadia attempts to avoid the delicate problem of challenging directly the authenticity of the miracles of the founders of the other religions, which he clearly regards as false because God would not deliberately mislead His creatures by performing such miracles, while at the same time subtly dismissing the truth of their claims regarding the abrogation of the Law of Moses.11 Saadia’s view of prophecy in general and Mosaic prophecy in particular is designed to address a number of theological issues, not least among them being how an incorporeal God can speak to human beings or be seen by them. It is significant, however, that philosophic models for understanding prophecy as a natural phenomenon do not enter into his treatment, and he feels no need to grapple with them. These models were just beginning to be developed in Arabic philosophy and make serious inroads in the thinking of the intellectuals when Saadia composed his treatise.12 Saadia also displays no awareness of the philosophic problems, at least from an 9 Ibid., introduction 6, 28-30. 10 Ibid., 3.7-9, 157-173. 11 See Prophecy, 52-55. 12 Saadia displays awareness of a number of philosophic doctrines in his treatise, including the philosophic view on the nature of dreams as well as the Platonic tripartite division of the soul. It is interesting to note that the first of the Islamic philosophers, Al-Kindi (800870), lived most of his life in Baghdad prior to the period of Saadia, and some of his doctrines may have influenced Saadia’s sources, though it does not appear that Saadia had any direct acquaintance with the writings of this philosopher. The philosopher whose writings were to have the greatest influence on how prophecy was perceived by the intellectual elite in the Islamic world, Al-Farabi, lived in Baghdad in the period Saadia wrote his treatise, but the impact of his teachings were only subsequently felt.

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Aristotelian point of view, involved in ascribing to God an immediate role in choosing each of His messengers in accordance with divine wisdom, sending them on a specific mission and creating the necessary miracles. In the view of the philosophers, such a role entails change and multiplicity in the deity that is impossible. For Saadia, God can act in a very personal manner in history while still devoid of all the categories characterizing corporeal beings, such as time and place.13 The prophecy of Moses is in the final analysis the product of divine will. Judah Halevi The Islamic Aristotelian approach to prophecy, particularly as developed by Al-Farabi, was far more dominant among the Jewish intellectual elite when Judah Halevi completed his magnum opus, The Kuzari, in Spain around 1140, a treatise designed both to defend the validity of Judaism and to explain the significance of its three major components: the Law of Moses, the People of Israel, and the Land of Israel. Halevi notes that prophecy was viewed by the Aristotelian philosophers as conjunction of the human intellect with the Active Intellect, the last of the supernal Intellects divorced of all matter, resulting in an emanation from the Active Intellect to the rational and imaginative faculties of the individual. God was not seen by the philosophers as playing an immediate role in history but was relegated to serving as the First Cause of an eternally unchanging impersonal world order. No particular message was framed on high and directed to a particular individual. Rather, when an individual attained the requisite perfection, he would experience an illumination of the intellect while the imagination would translate this illumination into sights and words. This illumination would enable the individual of perfect intellect, having mastered all of the sciences, to lay down an ideal law. It would also enable the imagination to see speculative truths in the form of images as well as to produce visions anticipating future events.14 If tales of miracles were to be 13 See Book of Beliefs and Opinions 2.9-12, 112-131; Simon Rawidowicz, Studies in Jewish Thought, ed. Nahum Glatzer (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1974), 246-68. 14 Kuzari, trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld (New York: Schocken Books, 1964) 1.1, 37-8. Halevi’s “philosopher” reflects primarily the approach presented by Al-Farabi in some of his earlier writings such as The Political Regime and the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City, though it does not appear that Halevi was directly acquainted with these works. For a discussion of Al-Farabi’s theory of prophecy see Richard Walzer, “Al-Farabi’s Theory of Prophecy and Divination,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957), 142-8; Fazlur Rahman,

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accepted at all and not treated simply as allegories, naturalistic explanations had to be provided for them, such as the prophet himself was able to accomplish them on the basis of a special ability he possessed.15 Halevi was strongly influenced by this philosophic model at the same time that he challenged it in order to leave room for the God of revelation and history.16 While he is willing to concede that normative prophecy may perhaps conform to the model posited by the philosophers, the sights seen by the prophet being the immediate product of their imaginative faculty when under the sway of the intellect,17 the prophecy of Moses and the public revelation at Sinai clearly defy this model. Halevi resorts to Saadia’s view of the Created Speech, to explain this revelation: Fire encircled Mount Sinai and remained there for forty days. The people saw it, and they saw Moses enter it and emerge from it. The people heard the pure speech in the Ten Commandments [...] The multitude did not receive the Ten Commandments from single individuals and not from a prophet, but from God. However, they did not possess Moses’ strength to behold that grand scene. Henceforth, the people believed that Moses was addressed by a speech that originated with God. It was not preceded by any thought or suggestion in Moses’ [mind]. Prophecy is not, as the philosophers think, the conjunction of the soul, whose thoughts are purified, with the Active Intellect, also termed the Holy Spirit and Gabriel, and the apprehension of it. It is possible [according to the philosophers] that at that moment he would imagine in a dream, either while asleep or awake, that a person is speaking to him. He would hear his imaginary speech in his soul, not by way of his ears. He would see him in his imagination, and not by way of his eyes. He would then say that God spoke to him. These notions were negated by the great Gathering [at Sinai]. Accompanying the divine speech was the divine writing. God engraved these Ten Commandments on two tablets of precious stone and gave them to Moses. They saw the divine writing just as they heard the divine speech.18  We do not know how the matter materialized till it became speech that pierced our ears. Nor do we know what God created from nothing or utilized from the existing things. God lacks no power. We say that God created the tablets and engraved upon them writing, just as God created the heavens and the stars by will alone. God desired, and they materialized in accordance Prophecy in Islam (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958), 36f.; Herbert Davidson, “Alfarabi and Avicenna on the Active Intellect,” Viator 3 (1972), 144f. 15 This view of miracles was developed by Avicenna in his Remarks and Admonitions and exerted much influence on Jewish thinkers already in the period of Halevi, such as Abraham Ibn Ezra, though Halevi does not appear to be acquainted with it. 16 For a detailed discussion of Halevi’s approach to prophecy see my Prophecy, 94-147. 17 Kuzari 4.3, 207-8. 18 Ibid., 1.87, 61 [I have slightly emended Hirschfeld’s translation].

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with the measure God desired, the writing of the Ten Commandments being engraved upon them [...] As the water [in the parting of the Sea of Reeds] stood by God’s command and was shaped by God’s desire, so the air that reached the ear of the prophet was shaped with the form of letters conveying matters that God wished for the prophet or multitude to hear.19

In the case of the revelation at Sinai and the prophecy of Moses, Halevi rejects both aspects of the philosophers’ approach to prophecy, the intellectual and the imaginative. He follows Saadia’s lead in positing the notion of the Created Glory in order to explain the revelation to Moses in which he beheld God’s “back” but not His “face.” In short, in reference to Mosaic prophecy, Halevi adopts a supernaturalistic model against the naturalistic approach of the philosophers, for the validity of the Law is here at stake. Moses Maimonides Far closer to the Aristotelian philosophers in outlook was the greatest of the medieval Jewish philosophers, Moses Maimonides (1138-1204). Maimonides’ theory of prophecy, as it finds expression not only in The Guide of the Perplexed—probably the most significant treatise in Jewish philosophy ever written—but also in his legal writings, conforms to their view, prophecy being treated by him as a naturalistic phenomenon, indeed the highest level of perfection the human being is capable of attaining, resulting in conjunction with the Active Intellect and an emanation to the rational and imaginative faculties of the individual. Only a person of perfect intellect and imagination, possessing also the moral virtues, attains prophecy. The sights and sounds recorded by the prophet are produced by his own imagination as a result of the emanation from the Active Intellect.20 Maimonides’ treatment of prophecy in the Guide suggests that even the prophetic mission does not result from God’s immediate command but rather from a feeling of internal compulsion experienced by the prophet in the state of illumination that drives him to utilize the knowledge he has attained in order to lead others. Jeremiah’s vision, in which he attempts to avoid the mission that God has assigned him, should be interpreted as reflecting the internal conflict experienced in his soul while in a state of prophecy. As in the case of Plato’s philosopher in the Allegory of the Cave, 19 Ibid., 1.89, 62-3. 20 For a comprehensive treatment of this topic in the gamut of Maimonides’ writings, see Prophecy, 148-315.

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the perfect individual has seen the world by the light of the sun and would prefer not to return to the darkness of the cave in order that he might try to guide others, but finds himself without any choice in the matter; so is the situation of the public prophets such as Jeremiah.21 While in the biblical stories of the prophets, none are depicted as having first been philosophers who spent years in studying the sciences in order to perfect their intellects in order to enable them to attain prophecy, Maimonides is convinced that this must have been the case because the attainment of prophecy is not possible without this training. The Bible simply did not bother to record this fact just as it does not record most of the background of the prophets. Moses is seen by Maimonides as having attained the highest level of intellectual perfection possible for a human being.22 Maimonides hints that his prophecy too began in a naturalistic manner, the vision of the burning bush being a product of Moses’ imagination.23 Moses’ subsequent prophecy is treated by Maimonides as a sui generis phenomenon that did not involve the imagination at all, but solely the intellect. The revelation of God’s “back” is interpreted allegorically as referring to Moses’ apprehension of the entire order of existence for which God is the First Cause. The “face” of God refers to God’s essence, which is impossible for the human intellect to apprehend.24 It is not clear whether Maimonides treats Moses in this case as attaining in a natural manner a unique perfection, Moses representing the final limit to which the human intellect may aspire, or whether this prophetic experience already falls outside the boundaries of nature and is a supernatural phenomenon, Mosaic prophecy being the exception to the rule rather than the final point in the continuum of human perfection and levels of prophecy. In his Commentary on the Mishnah, Maimonides posits the uniqueness of Moses’ prophecy as an article of faith while underscoring four major differences between his prophecy and that 21 Ibid., pp. 252-3; cf. Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1963), 2:37-38, 374-7. 22 Maimonides’ view of the nature of Mosaic prophecy has been the subject of numerous studies; see, for example, Alvin Reines, “Maimonides’ Concept of Mosaic Prophecy,” Hebrew Union College Annual 40 (1969), 325-62; Alexander Altmann, “Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas: Natural or Divine Prophecy?” Association for Jewish Studies Review 3 (1978), 14-17; Kalman Bland, “Moses and the Law According to Maimonides,” in Mystics, Philosophers and Politicians, ed. Judah Reinharz and Daniel Swetschinski (Durham: Duke University Press, 1982), 49‑66. 23 Guide 3.45, 576. 24 Ibid., 1.37, p. 86; cf. 1.54, 123-5.

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of all others: 1) God spoke to all prophets only by way of an intermediary, but to Moses without an intermediary. 2) All prophets received their prophecy in a dream or in a vision when their senses were dormant. Moses, on the other hand, received the divine speech while fully awake during the day as he stood between the two cherubim of the ark. 3) All prophets experienced great weakness and trepidation when receiving their prophecy. Moses suffered no tremor when the divine speech came to him, “because of the strength of his conjunction with the Intellect.” 4) None of the prophets received their prophecy when they chose, but in accordance with the will of God. Even when they prepared themselves, they did not necessarily prophesy. Moses, whenever he desired, told the people, “Stand and I will hear what God commands you” (Lev. 16:2).25 In his legal code, Mishneh Torah, Maimonides adds a further distinction: You have learnt that all prophets return to their “tents”– that is, corporeal needs—when prophecy departs from them. They are like the rest of the people. Therefore they do not separate from their wives. Moses did not return to his “first tent.” He permanently separated from his wife and from all that is analogous [to her]. His intellect was tied to the Rock of Ages. The splendor never departed from him, and the skin of his face shone. He became sanctified like the angels.26

All the differences between Mosaic and non-Mosaic prophecy revolve around the notion that Mosaic prophecy alone was purely intellectual. Maimonides treats Moses as having succeeded in divorcing his intellect from any tie to matter and attaining the status of a Separate Intellect. At the same time, he can also be interpreted as saying that Moses’ prophecy came directly from God, without the intermediary of the Active Intellect that is referred to as an angel and from whom the other prophets receive the prophetic emanation. Maimonides’ insistence on the uniqueness of Mosaic prophecy as a dogmatic belief clearly is designed to bolster the belief in the divine origin and eternal validity of Mosaic Law, which are also presented by Maimonides as articles of faith.27 There are also passages in his writings in which Maimonides treats Moses as the model of human perfection, rather than the exception to the rule, which all others should try to emulate to the best of their ability. Ethical 25 Mishnah ‘im Perush HaRambam: Seder Neziqin, ed. and Hebrew trans. Joseph Kafih (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1963-1965), 213-14. 26 Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Principles of the Torah 7.6 (translation is my own). 27 Mishnah ‘im Perush HaRambam: Seder Neziqin, 212-14. These comprise the seventh, eighth and ninth articles of faith in Maimonides’ list of thirteen.

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perfection is regarded by Maimonides as a necessary condition for prophecy, for one who is a slave to one’s passions consequently cannot devote oneself entirely to a life of intellect and achieve the requisite level of intellectual perfection. Moses is depicted as possessing exceptional humility in addition to the other moral traits that everyone should attempt to attain.28 Maimonides goes so far as to show how even an occasional lapse in character—whether the experience of anger or sorrow—upsets the temperament that is necessary for prophecy. This is true also in the case of Moses.29 In short, Moses represents the ideal leader who for the most part was able to free himself from all passions and act solely according to the dictates of intellect. Maimonides agrees that at times the ideal leader must pretend to be angry in order to leave a strong impression on his subjects and guide them in the right direction, but the leader should abolish all internal experience of this trait.30 The ultimate human goal for which Moses serves as the paradigm is to live simultaneously on two planes. One should satisfy one’s corporeal needs, interact with others and lead them; at the same time, one should focus one’s intellect on the contemplation of the sublime eternal truths.31 When it comes to the revelation of the Law, however, Maimonides appears to abandon the naturalistic model altogether. The commandments came directly from God to Moses word for word.32 God and not Moses was the immediate author of the Law, Moses serving simply as the intermediary in the handing down of the Law. This Law is treated by Maimonides as the perfect legislation governing the Jews for eternity: there never was or will be another divine legislation.33 As in the case of Halevi, Maimonides treats the voice heard at Sinai as an audible one that verifies the divine origin of the Law in a manner far more compelling than any miracle.34 The text of the Law itself clarifies that it will never undergo any change, as Maimonides attempts to show already in his legal writings.35 Moreover, what is completely perfect cannot undergo revision without becoming less perfect.36 28 Mishneh Torah, Laws of Character Traits 2.3. 29 Eight Chapters, chap. 7; Guide 2.36, 372-3. 30 Guide 1.54, 126; cf. Laws of Character Traits 2.3. 31 Ibid., 3.51., 623-4. For a discussion of this ideal, see my Maimonides’ Political Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 125-158. 32 Mishnah ‘im Perush HaRambam: Seder Neziqin, 214 (eighth article of faith). 33 Ibid., (ninth article of faith); cf. Laws of the Principles of the Torah 9.1; Guide 2.39, 379. 34 Laws of the Principles of the Torah 8.1; cf. Guide 2.33, 363-5. 35 Ibid., 9.1. 36 See Guide 2.39, 380.

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Yet while the origin of the Torah may be a supernatural one in Maimonides’ view, its purpose is a natural one: to lead its adherents to their ultimate human perfection, consisting of attaining the moral and intellectual virtues. The Torah attempts to accomplish this by imposing laws that create a society in which mutual wrongdoing is eliminated, the moral virtues are inculcated and true beliefs are taught in a manner appropriate to each person’s understanding. Even the rituals commanded by the Torah are designed to promote true beliefs and counter false ones, namely the belief in polytheism as supported by idolatrous practices.37 From the appearance of the Guide to the present, there have been two schools of interpretation of this treatise, one treating the text as conveying esoteric views with the other denying the existence of such views.38 The issues of the nature of Mosaic prophecy and the public revelation at Sinai provide a point of contention between these two different exegetical approaches. Does Maimonides have an esoteric understanding of these issues, his approach to Mosaic prophecy conforming to Al-Farabi’s naturalistic model of the ideal prophet-legislator,39 while the voice heard at Sinai was really a natural phenomenon which did not consist of words at all, or does he genuinely hold that Mosaic prophecy and the revelation at Sinai reflect God’s immediate intervention in history? While a straightforward reading of Maimonides clearly supports the latter conclusion, there have been interpreters who have tried to show that Maimonides in a very subtle manner hints to the former one.40 This problem extends also to the issue of miracles in general and Moses’ miracles in particular. Maimonides maintains that just as Moses’ prophecy was greater than that of all others, so were his miracles.41 Is he alluding here to a naturalistic understanding of miracles or simply that God performs the greatest miracles for the prophet upon whom He bestows the highest level of prophecy?

37 Ibid., 3.27, 510-12; 3.32, 524-31. 38 See Aviezer Ravitzky, “The Secrets of the Guide of the Perplexed: Between the Thirteenth and the Twentieth Centuries,” in Studies in Maimonides, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 159-207. 39 See in particular Al-Farabi’s description of the ideal lawgiver in his Political Regime as translated in part by Fauzzi Najjar and appearing in Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, ed. Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 36-7. 40 See in particular the articles by Reines and Bland cited above, n. 21. 41 Guide 2.35, 368.

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Most of Maimonides medieval followers continued to adopt a naturalistic model for understanding prophecy and saw in Moses the individual who attained the highest level of perfection possible. At the same time, they also tended to treat God as the immediate author of the Law. One of the exceptions to this approach is the early fourteenth-century philosopher, Nissim of Marseilles, the author of an exceptional rationalistic commentary on the Pentateuch, Ma‘aseh Nissim.42 Nissim alludes to the view that Moses legislated the Law on the basis of the prophetic illumination he attained: Another citation (Leviticus Rabbah 1:7) commenting on the first verse: And He [God] called to Moses (Lev. 1:1)–It is written above in the section on the Tabernacle: As the Lord commanded Moses. This is analogous to a king who commanded his servant: “Build me a palace.” On each item the servant built, he would write the name of the king—on the walls, pillars, and ceilings. Similarly, when the Lord said to Moses: Build me a tabernacle—on each item that he built he would write: As the Lord had commanded Moses. God said: Moses paid me the highest honor, and here I am inside, and he is on the outside. Call him to enter before Me inside. For this reason it is said: And He called to Moses.43

Nissim goes on to explain: The Sages alluded to a great secret that is related to what we hinted in this chapter—namely, that the command in general was to the intellect of Moses. God communicated the matters in general—namely, all the commands of the Torah—to the rational faculty in order to govern the corporeal part, directing it always to the salutary, and to abolish what is harmful to the body and to the soul. And Moses would write by each detail: As the Lord commanded Moses in order to honor God and to increase the significance of these matters in the eyes of the Israelites in order that they fear God and refrain from sin.44

In short, Moses received an illumination indicating to him the general principles of an ideal legislation while he himself conceived of all the particular laws and credited each to God. The miracles performed by Moses, 42 Ma‘aseh Nissim by R. Nissim of Marseilles [Hebrew], ed. Howard Kreisel (Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 2000). See also my “Some Observations on Ma`aseh Nissim by R. Nissim of Marseilles,” in Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism, ed. Alfred Ivry, Eliot Wolfson, and Alan Arkush (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 201-222. 43 Ibid., 177-8. 44 Ibid., 178.

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in Nissim’s view, resulted from his exceptional knowledge of the workings of the order. Even the voice heard at Sinai is really the voice of Moses as amplified by a natural object found on the mountain.45 It should be stressed that Nissim does not adopt these views to discredit the Torah. Underlying the personal, miracle-working Deity found on the surface of Scripture, and intended for the masses whose obedience depends on this view, is the impersonal God of the world order as seen by the enlightened interpreter of Scripture. That Moses, the perfect human being, wrote the Torah as a result of prophetic illumination, rather than being dictated to him by means of a created voice, makes it no less divine or its commandments any less meaningful or obligatory in his view, for it is the legislation best designed to guide its adherents to human perfection. Levi Gersonides The most important and original of the Provençal Jewish philosophers was Levi ben Gershom or Gersonides. In his philosophic treatise, Wars of the Lord (1317-1329),46 he often adopts a position that is different both from Maimonides and from the Aristotelian philosophers, particularly Averroes, while utilizing their approaches as the starting point for his discussions. Gersonides agrees with Maimonides that Moses attained the highest level of human perfection possible. He also remains close to Maimonides’ approach in excluding the prophecy of Moses from the category of normative prophecy and treating it as a unique phenomenon. The prophecy of Moses is concerned with the road to true felicity in his view, while prophecy in general, which like Maimonides is treated by his as a natural phenomenon, is concerned primarily with divining the future. His disagreement with Maimonides lies in the manner he understands the nature of Mosaic prophecy and of prophecy in general.47 Expanding upon Maimonides approach, Gersonides explains the natural superiority of Moses over the other prophets in terms of his possessing a perfect intellect that was capable of attaining knowledge in a completely 45 Ibid., 333. 46 Translated into English in three volumes by Seymour Feldman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1984, 1987, 1999). 47 For a discussion of Gersonides’ theory of prophecy, see my Prophecy, 316-424. For a comparison between Maimonides’ and Gersonides’ approaches to Mosaic prophecy, see Menachem Kellner, “Maimonides and Gersonides on Mosaic Prophecy,” Speculum 52 (1977), 62-79.

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unambiguous manner. For this reason, he did not receive his prophecy in the form of riddles and parables, which is the product of the activity of the imaginative faculty when the knowledge received by the material intellect from the Active Intellect is indistinct. Moses was also capable of completely isolating his intellect from the other faculties and focusing solely upon the subject of human perfection.48 Only in one passage in his treatise does Gersonides even briefly mention the theoretical content of the revelation attained by Moses at Sinai. In his discussion of divine providence in Book 4, he cites the rabbinic view that the “ways” of God that Moses learnt consist of the explanation for why the righteous suffer and the evil prosper.49 It is not until he subsequently wrote his commentary on Exodus 33 that Gersonides finally addressed directly the issue of the theoretical content of the revelation to Moses at Sinai. Moses attained precise knowledge of the entire order of material existence, but even his knowledge stops short of grasping the Separate Intellects and God, as is true of all other human beings.50 At the same time that he presents the natural dimension of Moses’ prophetic apprehension, Gersonides accepts that there is also a miraculous dimension to Mosaic prophecy. Yet in explaining miracles, Gersonides develops a singular theory that treats them as the product of the impersonal activity of the Active Intellect, as is true of prophecy in general, rather than the personal activity of the Deity.51 As in the case of all emanations from the Active Intellect, the emanation that results in miracles singles out only those prepared to receive it—namely, those reaching the level of perfection that allows them to be its beneficiaries. Thus all miracles occur on behalf of a prophet or sage in Gersonides’ view. The Active Intellect performs the miracle without any knowledge of the recipient. The quality of the miracle, according to Gersonides, is determined by the rank attained by the individual. Moses’ miracles were of the longest duration and of the most general nature. His conjunction with the Active Intellect was permanent and of the highest degree possible for humans.52 In essence, Gersonides posits a dual natural order. There is the natural order that is determined by the Active Intellect in conjunction with the heavenly bodies. The motions of 48 Wars of the Lord 2.6, 8, vol. 2, 56-58, 72. 49 Ibid., 4.6, vol. 2, 184. 50 Commentary on Torah, ed. Jacob Lev Levy (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 19942000), vol. 2, 433-4. 51 See Prophecy, 392-9. 52 Wars of the Lord 6.2.12, vol. 3, 489-97.

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the heavens influence the matter of the sublunar world, resulting in the essence each entity receives from the Active Intellect, the characteristics of the entities, as well as many of the events that befall them. Human beings that reach a certain level of perfection may be said to trigger off another level of activity on the part of the Active Intellect, one in which the negative affects of the planets on them are neutralized. The normal operations of nature may even be temporarily curtailed on their behalf. Thus a prophet, or the sage who reaches a comparable degree of perfection, is necessarily involved in the occurrence of any miracle in Gersonides’ view. Even his view that many miracles occurred in order to strengthen the nation’s faith in God, a view that suggests that these miracles were brought about for the benefit of those who were not perfect, does not contradict this approach. The miracles in fact occur on behalf of the prophet in order to aid him in this task.53 Gersonides essentially sees both aspects of Mosaic prophecy—the naturalistic, though unique, aspect of Mosaic prophecy and the miraculous aspect—as existing on a continuum and tied to the two types of providence he posits. Thus for him the distinction is not between the impersonal workings of the natural order and God’s personal involvement in relation to Mosaic prophecy. Rather, it is between the impersonal workings of the natural order and the impersonal activity of the Active Intellect independent of the natural order (that is, the influence of the movement of the heavenly orbs on the sublunar world). Certainly no instances of prophecy better reflect God’s providential concern for Israel than the two most directly involved in the giving of the Torah: the revelation at Sinai and Mosaic prophecy. In his philosophic treatise, Gersonides does not enter into a discussion regarding the transmission of the Law but leaves this issue to his commentary on the Torah, which he wrote afterwards. His commentary leaves the distinct impression on the reader that God was personally involved in all that concerns the content and the transmission of the Law.54 Gersonides is aware that the uniqueness of Moses’ apprehension does not preclude the possibility of its being duplicated, given the fact that it is treated as a natural attainment. As opposed to Maimonides, he is even prepared to regard the king-messiah as a greater prophet than Moses in certain crucial respects. While he treats the Law as tied to Moses’ perfection in that Moses thought only of general matters 53 Ibid., 6.2.10, vol. 3, 483-4. 54 See in particular Commentary on Torah, vol. 2, 142-4; vol. 5, 24, 35.

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and directives,55 he insists that the Torah itself is a miracle resulting from a special act of divine providence. Hence even if one reaches the level of perfection of Moses, he will not be another lawgiver. God has indicated in the Torah that this is the case.56 The revelation at Sinai too is a miracle resulting from an act of special providence. At Sinai, all of Israel heard a miraculous audible voice.57 Israel thus can believe in the divine origin of the Law of Moses and rest assured that no Divine Law will come in being to modify or replace it. Even the king-messiah will not issue a New Law.58 Gersonides makes no allusion to any esoteric view in the matter of the Law. The Law in all of its details, and the miracles involved in its transmission, are the works of God, though God in his view has no knowledge of historical individuals and operates through impersonal systems of general providence and special providence through the mediation of the Active Intellect. On this point, all the problems associated with Gersonides’ desire to uphold these two pillars of his approach—the literal truth of the accounts detailing God’s special relation to Israel and the impersonal nature of divine activity—are brought to the surface.59 The transmission of the Law and the Revelation at Sinai are not the only examples of miraculous prophecy in Gersonides’ thought, the most striking example being that of Balaam. Given the description of him in the Torah and the statement of the Sages regarding his prophecy,60 it was hard to deny the exceptional stature of this individual. At the same time, he is depicted as an enemy of Israel and even characterized by the Sages as the evil one61—hardly a fitting characteristic for prophecy. Gersonides treats Balaam’s gift as being that of divination rather than prophecy per se. The comparison made by the Sages between Balaam and Moses is treated by Gersonides as hyperbole. He interprets Deuteronomy 34:10 as alluding to the fact that there will be a prophet greater than Moses in respect to the 55 Ibid., vol. 4, 42. 56 Ibid., vol. 5, 27-8 (lesson 8). 57 Ibid., vol. 2,142, 144 (lesson 5); vol. 5, 24, 35. 58 Ibid., vol. 5, 28 (lesson 8). See Menachem Kellner, “Gersonides on Miracles, the Messiah, and Resurrection,” Daat 4 (1980), 13. 59 Gersonides advances his problematic view of individual providence to even greater extremes in his Biblical commentaries in attempting to supply a fairly literal understanding of the biblical narratives of God’s providence for Israel, and to uphold an impersonal deity’s “personal” relation to His “chosen people.” See Robert Eisen, Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). 60 See above, introduction. 61 See, for example, Breshit Rabbah 19:11; Mekhita, Ba-Hodesh, 1.

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other nations and who will perform even greater miracles. This verse does not refer to Balaam but to the future king-messiah.62 Nevertheless, Gersonides is wont to depict some of the most beautiful poetry in the Bible as the work of a diviner, no matter how exceptional he be, particularly since it involves a vision of Israel’s providential future. Whatever type of gift Balaam possessed before he blesses Israel, his blessing could only be regarded as the result of prophecy in Gersonides’ view.63 Yet if Balaam himself was clearly unworthy of this gift, the conclusion follows that it must have been the result of divine providence. In the case of Balaam’s prophecy, God’s providence is described as being activated not by Moses himself but by all of Israel as a collective. Not only individuals reaching a certain level of righteousness become the recipients of special providence, in Gersonides’ view, but nations also can attain the requisite level to merit the circumvention of the evil affects of the planetary influences upon them.64 Hasdai Crescas Rabbi Hasdai Crescas’ philosophic treatise, The Light of the Lord, was written in Spain and completed in 1410. It is a treatise devoted to a systematic presentation of Jewish dogma that contains probably more original and profound purely philosophic insights and arguments than any other Jewish treatise of the Middle Ages. At the same time, it is an Anti-Aristotelian work that not only attacks the foundations of Aristotelian philosophy from a religious standpoint but also from a philosophic one. In his theory of prophecy, Crescas adopts much of Maimonides’ and Gersonides’ approaches.65 He agrees that Moses attained the highest level of perfection any human will ever attain and that there is an integral connection between Moses’ perfection and his prophetic attainment. He accepts the distinctions Maimonides and Gersonides posit between Moses’ prophecy and that of all others. Moses received prophecy solely by means of his intellect without the use of his imagination. He is adamant, however, in maintaining that Moses’ prophecy came directly from God and not through any intermediary such as the Active Intellect. Moses was able to attain the level of 62 Commentary on the Torah, vol. 4, 136; vol. 5, 344-5. 63 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 134. 64 Wars of the Lord 4.6, vol. 2, 200. The notion that prophecy is bestowed upon unworthy individuals out of providence for Israel is presented also in Gersonides’ Commentary on I Samuel 12:6. 65 For Crescas’ approach to prophecy, see Prophecy, 425-85.

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perfection that allowed him to conjoin with the deity.66 Insofar as the quality of the prophet’s miracles is dependent upon the degree of prophecy attained, Moses’ miracles were greater than those of all others in quantity, fame, and duration.67 Unlike Gersonides, Crescas does not view miracles as resulting from the impersonal activity of the Active Intellect. Only a deity who knows individuals as such can perform on his behalf particular miracles.68 In the case of the prophecy of Balaam, Crescas explains the rabbinic statement apparently indicating his superiority over Moses by arguing that the Sages were not dealing with the level of Moses’ perfection but with the miraculous nature of his prophecy as they perceived it. From a naturalistic perspective, Moses was far better prepared to attain the level of prophecy he attained than Balaam was prepared to attain his. Thus the miracle involved in Balaam’s attainment of prophecy may be said to be greater than that involved in Moses’ prophecy, even though Moses achieved a much higher level of prophecy than did Balaam.69 As opposed to Maimonides, Crescas views the revelation at Sinai as one in which all of Israel miraculously attained prophecy.70 Maimonides deals with the revelation at Sinai in the Guide with the objective of showing that this revelation is a sui generis event that should not be equated with the reception of prophecy and hence does not violate the principle that only those worthy of prophecy receive it. All of Israel did not receive prophecy while experiencing this revelation; everyone received only that of which 66 Light of the Lord (Sefer Or Hashem), ed. Shlomo Fischer (Jerusalem: Sifrei Ramot, 1990), 3.6.2, 359-60. 67 Ibid., 2.4.2, 193. 68 For a discussion of this issue, see my “Miracles in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,’ Jewish Quarterly Review 75 (1984), 106-114. 69 Light of the Lord 2.4.3, 199. Crescas does not agree completely with the Sages since he views Moses as being naturally prepared for his prophetic attainment. 70 Much of Crescas’ critique of Maimonides’ view follows that of Nissim Gerondi, Derashot Ha-Ran, ed. Leon A. Feldman (Jerusalem: Machon Shalem, 1973), no. 5, 81-3. Yet Crescas does not go as far as his teacher in this direction. Rabbi Nissim treats Moses’ prophecy too as miraculous—and not only unique. Crescas maintains that Moses achieved a unique level, but he was naturally prepared for it. In this, he was distinct from the rest of Israel for whom the prophecy attained was miraculous. We may summarize that from the standpoint of his attainment, Moses was distinct from all other prophets but shared an essential point of similarity with all of Israel who experienced the Revelation at Sinai— namely, a prophecy whose immediate agent was God. From the standpoint of preparations, on the other hand, Moses was similar to all other prophets, who were naturally prepared for the attainment, and he was distinct from all of Israel who received prophecy as a result of a miracle.

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he was capable of attaining.71 Crescas is prepared to accept that those unprepared at times receive prophecy due to divine providence, though he too sees prophecy as generally being attained only by those with the requisite qualifications. As for the private revelation Moses attained at Sinai that reflects the pinnacle of human knowledge, Crescas interprets it in accordance with his theory of divine attributes: In clarification of this point, we see that the request of the Master of prophets [Moses]—Show me please your glory—is an appropriate one for him to make. The first request—Show me please your ways—was for knowledge of the ways of divine activity and governance, as maintained by the Rabbi, the Guide [Maimonides]. By attaining God’s communication of them [the ways], Moses would find favor in God’s sight. The second request—Show me please your glory—was for knowledge of the essential attributes that are inseparable from God. He likened this apprehension to vision. Sensory vision is confined to the surface of the object of sight, which is inseparable from the object. The essence of a thing, however, is not apprehended by the senses. This is analogous to the case of Moses’ apprehension. Though the apprehension of the [divine] essence is impossible, the apprehension of the essential attributes was possible for him. God’s response to this request was: You cannot see my face. This apprehension was termed “vision of the face,” since the face of a thing is what is seen. Instead, God granted him a “vision of the back.” That is, though Moses could not apprehend these essential attributes completely, he could apprehend them to a certain extent. God likened this [apprehension] to the one Moses requested, namely, as the relation of the “back” to the “face.” According to the opinion of the Rabbi Maiminides, God granted him [knowledge of] what followed from God—that is, all of the existents—as he indicates in [his discussion of] the equivocal nature of the term “back.”72 This [interpretation] entails that God’s statement: You will see my back, is repetitive and superfluous. God already promised to Moses in response to the first request: I will let all my goodness pass before you. This [You will see my back] is the response to the second request [Show me please your face]—that is, he will apprehend a portion of it [the essential attributes], in addition to what he was promised in regard to the first [request].73

For Crescas, as opposed to Maimonides, God possesses essential attributes that are inseparable from God’s unfathomable essence, but in principle they, as opposed to the divine essence, can be known. Yet even Moses was incapable of grasping them completely. Complete knowledge is represented in the Torah by the image of “vision of the divine face.” Moses could know 71 Guide 3.33, 363-5. 72 Ibid. 1.38, 87. 73 Light of the Lord 1.3.3, 108-9 (translation is my own).

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them only in part and attain a “vision of the divine back.” In this manner, Crescas allows human beings some form of positive comprehension, at least potentially, of the ultimate object of knowledge, God. Crescas’ approach to Mosaic prophecy, seeing in it a combination of the natural and the supernatural—that is, Moses attained the highest human perfection, but the prophecy he received came directly from God—characterizes the approach of many of the subsequent leading Jewish philosophers, most notably Joseph Albo and Isaac Abravanel.74 These thinkers too agreed that all of Israel miraculously attained prophecy in hearing the audible voice created by God at Sinai. It is this picture of Mosaic prophecy, and the eternal validity of Mosaic Law, which it supports, that Spinoza set out to undermine completely. Spinoza Spinoza’s view of Mosaic prophecy emerges from his Theological-Political Treatise (1670). As opposed to his Jewish philosophical predecessors discussed in this chapter, Spinoza was not interested in dealing with Moses from a Jewish philosophical perspective but rather from a political-philosophical perspective aimed at a Christian, particularly Dutch, audience. His primary goal in writing the treatise was to promote the ideal of a democratic society in which philosophers are free to philosophize and the government dictates Church policy rather than the other way around. In order to undermine the Church, whose authority is largely based on its interpretation of Scripture, Spinoza attempts to show that the correct interpretation of the Old Testament reveals that it is not at all concerned with philosophical truths that are given by the natural light of reason. The prophets taught morality, not philosophy. The only truly divine law is the knowledge and love of God, and the moral virtues to practice justice and righteousness this love mandates, which is revealed to the human intellect, and not the Law of Moses, which is concerned only with the ordering of the state and its security. While Spinoza reached radically different 74 For Albo’s approach see Prophecy, 486-543. Abravanel’s approach to prophecy is discussed by Seymour Feldman, Philosophy in a Time of Crisis: Don Isaac Abravanel, Defender of the Faith (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 83-99. For an English translation and discussion of Abravanel’s commentary on Maimonides’ discussion of prophecy in the Guide see Alvin Reines, Maimonides and Abrabanel on Prophecy (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hebrew Union College Press, 1970).

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conclusions regarding prophecy in general and Mosaic prophecy in particular than those maintained by the medieval Jewish philosophers, a careful reading of his treatise shows that he borrowed much from the Jewish philosophical tradition in developing his views.75 A literal reading of Scripture, according to Spinoza, shows that God’s revelation to the prophets took the form of words and/or appearances that were imagined. Spinoza agrees with the Maimonidean view that the prophets necessarily possessed a superior imagination but argues at length against the view that they also possessed a superior theoretical intellect, a view that serves as the basis for interpreting their prophetic visions as philosophical allegories. The prophets shared the same false conceptual views as their compatriots, and their visions often embodied these false views.76 While the voice they reported hearing was one they heard in their imagination, only in the case of Moses, Spinoza maintains, was the voice of God heard by him considered to be a real one77—both at Sinai and during the private revelations to Moses in the Sanctuary—a view that is one of the cornerstones of Maimonides’ approach. While this view may well not have been Maimonides’ esoteric one, as we have seen, it certainly was one he thought crucial to inculcate to Jewish society at large in order to safeguard belief in the divine origin of the Torah. Spinoza continues to maintain this view for other reasons—namely, to show Moses’ lack of perfection as well as the error of the Bible in this matter. Spinoza’s deity does not go about creating audible speech to communicate messages. The biblical report of such voices attests to the faulty understanding of the biblical authors of divine activity that Spinoza equates with the order of nature. The conclusion to which one is drawn is that there really is no difference between the prophecy of Moses and that of all others in regard to the

75 For a discussion of Spinoza’s approach to prophecy, see Prophecy, 544-586. Spinoza’s indebtedness to Jewish sources in general and Maimonides in particular in developing his thought has been noted by a number of scholars. See, for example, Seymour Feldman, “Spinoza,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (London: Routledge, 1996), 612-635. See also Shlomo Pines, “Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and the Jewish Philosophical Tradition,” in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1987), 499-521; Warren Z. Harvey, “A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 19 (1981), 151-172. 76 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, trans. Samuel Shirley (Leiden: Brill, 1991), chap. 2, 78-85. 77 Ibid., chap. 1, 61-3.

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involvement of the imagination.78 “Revelation,” for Spinoza, is equivalent to a type of human perception. In the case of Moses and all the biblical prophets, their perception was the product of the imagination, and hence a flawed one, and not the product of a superior intellect teaching in imaginative form conceptual truths. The Maimonidean notion that Moses reached the level of attaining prophecy solely through the mediation of his intellect without any activity of the imagination is rejected and applied to Jesus instead, who is transformed by Spinoza into the philosopher par excellence.79 While his Jewish philosophic predecessors interpreted the revelation of the thirteen divine attributes to Moses at Sinai as attributes of action referring to God’s ordering of the world, and they saw in this revelation the highest level of human intellection, Spinoza adopts a literal reading of the story and views the attributes as emotions. Moses was of the opinion that God actually experienced mercy, graciousness, and the like; hence, God was revealed to him in this manner. Since Moses believed that God dwelt in the heavens and descended from there to communicate with human beings, Moses climbed the mountain to speak with God.80 In this case, too, we see that theoretical speculation was never the province of Mosaic prophecy. By virtue of the “revelation” he attained, what Moses did perceive was how to frame a law that would unite the Israelites to form a commonwealth in a particular territory. Hence the Law he imposed upon the Israelites was valid only as long as they live in their own state. It was not designed to lead its practitioners to perfection and spiritual blessedness; all the rituals and 78 Spinoza’s stress on the imaginative element in Mosaic prophecy was already anticipated by some of the Spanish Jewish philosophers of the fourteenth century; see Dov Schwartz, “Mosaic Prophecy in the Writings of a Fourteenth Century Jewish Neoplatonist Circle,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 2 (1992), 97-110. 79 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chaps. 1, 4, 65, 107-8. The notion of a purely intellectual prophecy that he found by Maimonides and his followers in reference to Moses, and used to bolster the inviolability of the Law revealed to him, Spinoza applies to Jesus, whose teachings are seen as being universal and conveying no laws, only theoretical truths. In short, Spinoza makes Jesus over in Moses’ image as far as the nature of the prophetic experience, though not its content. By ascribing to Jesus and his disciples true knowledge, he also supplies a basis for interpreting the parables in the New Testament as referring to theoretical truths, an approach that he negated in the interpretation of the Old Testament. If Jesus clothed his teachings in parable form, it was in order to address the masses according to their level of understanding. It does not reflect the manner that Jesus himself perceived these matters. 80 Ibid., chap. 2, 81-4.

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beliefs it commands were designed to ensure civil obedience.81 The conclusion that emerges from Spinoza’s presentation is that Mosaic Law as a Law revealed by God is a myth. Mosaic Law is really a human invention, the product of a superior imaginative faculty, which Maimonides had ascribed to all non-prophetic lawgivers.82 In this manner, Spinoza dismisses the notion that the Torah presents any sort of an ideal aside from a purely down-to-earth political ideal. He gives Moses his due by agreeing that in his period, theocracy was the best political model to adopt for purely social reasons. Though the Israelites surrendered their rights to God in the covenant they made with the deity, they also surrendered their right to interpret God’s decrees to Moses alone. Moses in essence served as the sovereign ruler who had the authority to control religion for the purpose of promoting temporal welfare, a lesson that Spinoza sees as possessing continued validity even if the Law of Moses no longer does.83 In the final analysis, every true philosopher in Spinoza’s view knows far more of the “Word of God” than any of the historical prophets, including Moses, and Scripture holds little relevance to modern enlightened individuals. Conclusions The discussions of the prophecy of Moses in the Middle Ages are very much connected to the belief in divine revelation and in the divine authority of the Bible, particularly the Pentateuch. Though the Jewish philosophers were all guided to some degree by rationalistic-naturalistic ideas in interpreting Moses’ prophecy, in at least one case going so far as to present a completely naturalistic understanding of his prophecy, their acceptance of the Bible as divine lies at the foundation of their discussions. For most of them, the divinity of the Law revealed by Moses is anchored in the fact that it in fact is the immediate product of God’s will, completely outside the barriers of the natural workings of the world; for others, its divinity lies in Moses’ unique ability to lay down a perfect legislation as a result of divine illumination. For them, Mosaic Law is no less divine or authoritative as a result.

81 Ibid., chap. 5, 113-15. 82 Guide 2.37, 374. 83 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chap. 19, 282-3.

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It is the belief in Mosaic Law as the product of divine revelation that the medieval Jewish philosophical exegete shared with his prospective audience. His interpretations reflect a type of dialogue between the text he regards as completely true and opinions that he accepts based on his studies and thought. Moreover, the exegete bestows authority upon his own views by ascribing them to a text that both he and his readers regard as possessing absolute authority. Whether all interpretations are to be regarded as true or even legitimate are questions that may be argued publicly, and often were, but no recognized authority existed in Judaism to decide the issue for all the adherents. Multiple and even contradictory interpretations were ultimately regarded as legitimate, though each exegete clearly felt his were the true views. As we have seen throughout this study, by means of his interpretation of the prophecy of Moses, the exegete could convey his views on a range of cardinal issues, whether it were the manner in which God operates in the world or the nature and limits of human perfection. In the case of Spinoza we see a radical change, which in a crucial sense ushers in the modern period. The exegete no longer shares with his audience, in this case a Christian one, the same fundamental assumption—that is, the divinity of Mosaic Law. The text of the Pentateuch and the rest of the Hebrew Bible are interpreted by him in a manner that is designed to undermine their divine authority. Moses is depicted as a gifted and cunning human lawgiver trying to bestow upon his legislation a greater authority than it warrants by ascribing it to God. He is no longer interpreted as a paradigm of virtue and truth. The Pentateuch is no longer interpreted as reflecting the opinions held by the philosopher, who often resorted to allegorical interpretations to show how the text conveys these opinions. Spinoza insists upon a strictly literal reading of the Hebrew biblical text, thus laying the foundation for challenging its views. He appeals to what he regards as the only valid source for truth, the human intellect. The Bible is to be seen as an important historical document, from which many valuable historical insights may be drawn, as Spinoza attempts to do, but nothing more. From Spinoza’s period to our own, the Jewish and Christian worlds have continued to produce many philosophical exegetes committed to the divinity of the biblical text and who write for those sharing the same fundamental belief. Yet others openly treat the text as an exceptional human one playing a decisive role in the history of Western Civilization and write for those sharing this fundamental assumption. Much can be learned from the

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biblical depictions of Moses and his prophecy without one being committed to the view that the text itself is divine and conveys absolute truths. The biblical text nevertheless can remain an invaluable vehicle for the philosopher in conveying one’s own view of the truth and even in forming one’s own view.

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Epic and Romance, Narrative and Exegesis: Moses in the Minor Midrashim Rachel S. Mikva It is not uncommon for a professor of biblical exegesis to encounter students whose knowledge of Moses is shaped more by DreamWorks SKG’s The Prince of Egypt or Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments than actual engagement with the biblical text. As they page through Exodus, they may innocently ask: Where is the chariot race between Moses and his adopted brother? I don’t see anything about Moses’ love affair with Nefretiri?! Although I am aware that these Hollywood creations may occasionally be the catalyst that inspires actual study of the Bible, my appreciation usually mixes with some degree of frustration. It is, perhaps, similar to Abraham ibn Ezra’s feeling when he writes in his long commentary (ad. Exod. 2:22): Don’t believe what is written in The Chronicles of Moses. I will tell you a general principle: One should not rely on any book the prophets did not write, or the sages did not receive via tradition, because there are things within it that contradict correct understanding. So, too, with Sefer Zerubbabel, Eldad haDani, and similar works.

Ibn Ezra dismisses the validity of certain medieval compositions generally categorized today among “minor midrashim;” he correctly implies that many of them depart from classic midrashic norms and stray into other genres. Modern scholars would recognize elements of apocalypse, epic, and romance, among others.1 Without the prophetic stamp of authenticity or the accepted hermeneutics of rabbinic exegesis, the truth claims of these texts were suspect—yet they captured the imagination and shaped people’s understanding of the Bible and the world. In this instance, ibn Ezra maintains that the Ethiopian woman mentioned in Numbers 12:1 is simply a reference to Zipporah. The Chronicles of Moses, which presents an elaborate tale of Moses rising to the throne of 1 Avigdor Shinan, in fact, argues that The Chronicles of Moses is not midrash, but rather similar to the medieval romance genre. “‫[ דברי הימים של משה רבנו‬The Chronicles of Moses our Teacher].” HaSifrut 24 (1977): 100-4.

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Ethiopia, marrying the widow of the former king, and ruling there for forty years, is rejected in its entirety in a comment on Exodus 4:20, where ibn Ezra calls the work ‫הבל‬, vanity. Although our twelfth-century exegete did not like it, The Chronicles of Moses must have been popular enough in his time to warrant his repeated mention and scathing critique. It was also cited by Rashbam and the medieval lexicon Arukh as well as later midrash anthologies.2 Other minor midrashim redacted in the medieval period, such as Midrash vaYosha and Midrash Petirat Moshe,3 offered similarly fanciful renderings of Moses’ life. The fact that there are multiple redactions and numerous extant manuscripts likewise suggests that the traditions they contain circulated widely and were well-known. Recognizing the possibility that these works may have reflected the image of Moses in popular Jewish culture, they deserve attention in a study of the history of reception. It has long been recognized that medieval midrash tended toward narrative expansion; Tanhuma, Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer and many of the minor midrashim, for instance, displayed greater interest in story and character than did texts from the classical rabbinic period.4 Moses’ role as an epic 2 See Yalkut Shimoni, Yalkut Reuveni on the beginning of Exodus, Rabbenu Tam’s introduction to Sefer Josippon, and the Arukh’s lexical entry, “Aharon.” Rashbam (c.1085c.1158) actually claims that the notion of Moses’ time in Ethiopia, including marrying (but never sleeping with) the widow queen, is the peshat of Num. 12:1. In a comment on Moses’ claim to have difficulty with speech, however (Exod. 4:10), he states that “impeded speech” (Exod. 6:12, 30) simply means the prophet was not fluent in Egyptian. Rashbam cautions the reader that the idea of Moses having a speech impediment is not found in the words of the Tannaim and Amoraim, and one should not pay attention to “external” books. (Torat Chayim (Jerusalem: Mosad haRav Kook, 1993) specifically mentions The Chronicles of Moses as an example of the offending “external” material.) Rashbam’s apparent inconsistency may be explained by a desire to present Moses in a purely positive light. 3 Significant variation among recensions requires the designation of a base text. Unless otherwise noted, readings within Midrash vaYosha utilize the fourteenth/fifteenth-century manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France 716, fol. 231v-245r, transcribed in Rachel Mikva, Midrash vaYosha: A Medieval Midrash on the Song at the Sea (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012); the lemma pertinent to this discussion is Exodus 15:2 (pages 86-93). References to The Chronicles of Moses are based on the version printed in Adolph Jellinek, ed. Bet haMidrasch (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1967), 2:1-11; Petirat Moshe references depend on Jellinek 1:117-129. Page numbers indicated in parentheses refer to these editions. 4 See, for instance, Joseph Dan, ‫[ הסיפור העברי בימי הביניים‬The Hebrew Story in the Middle Ages] (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974). In Chapter 15, he identifies three notable differences: 1) the primacy of narrative over didactic and exegetical purposes, 2) integration of apocryphal sources after being lost or marginalized in Jewish literature from the second through the seventh centuries, 3) greater reliance on external sources and influences. Cf. Yitzhak Heinemann, ‫[ דרכי האגדה‬The Ways of Aggadah] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1954); James Kugel, In Potiphar’s House: The Interpretive Life of Biblical Texts (San Francisco: Harper,

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and romantic hero was increasingly emphasized as literary models took shape within the larger cultures of Europe and the Near East, affecting Hebrew literature. To varying degrees, however, each of the texts preserved elements of its exegetical foundations, and the narrative-exegetical synergies are important to understanding their poetics and their place in the Jewish imagination. This nexus made Moses an ideal protagonist. He already figured in numerous midrashic traditions and he was prominent within Christianity and Islam as well as Judaism. As a biblical persona who commanded both religious and political authority, he could reflect medieval literature’s frequent preoccupation with courtly culture and aristocratic figures. He also stood as paladin for the Jewish people who, by the eleventh century, had been without political sovereignty for a millennium. Representation of Moses in these minor midrashim—prototypical Jewish short stories—offered a way to participate in literary developments within popular culture while also utilizing popular culture to sustain the eternal relevance of Scripture. They were uniquely Jewish expressions of the emerging forms. At the same time, it appears that the development of narrative in the medieval period had a profound impact on Jewish biblical exegesis—in ways that shaped ibn Ezra just as surely as they shaped The Chronicles of Moses, Midrash vaYosha, and Petirat Moshe. The first two of these midrashim are believed to have been redacted around the eleventh century, although they rely on numerous traditions from Late Antiquity. Midrash vaYosha is actually an explication of the Song at the Sea (Exod. 15) but contains several passages that treat Moses’ “biography,” including a long first-person narrative of his life before challenging Pharaoh and numerous parallels found in The Chronicles of Moses.5 Petirat Moshe, with its earliest recension possibly in the seventh or eighth century, focuses on the time of Moses’ death. Devorah Schoenfeld deals thoroughly with the theme of mortality and Moses in another chapter of this book; here I address more broadly several of the motifs that advance Moses’ stature as epic hero. 1990); Ofra Meir, ‫[ הספור ה"דרשני" בבראשית רבה‬The Darshanic Story in Genesis Rabbah] (Tel Aviv: HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 1987). 5 The information on Midrash vaYosha was gathered through thorough manuscript and related research for Mikva, Midrash vaYosha: A Medieval Midrash on the Song at the Sea. An English translation of The Chronicles of Moses has been made available by John C. Reeves: http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jcreeves/chronmosesjell.htm. The base text for Petirat Moshe is also available in English in Rella Kushelevsky’s book, Moses and the Angel of Death (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 195-249.

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After a brief introduction to the poetics of exegetical narrative, this chapter discusses particular themes within the texts to illuminate the nexus of story and interpretation and to explore ways in which they weave together exegesis, romance, epic, and theology. It then investigates the processes of textual development that shape such an imaginative portrayal of Moses, taking into consideration factors both within and outside of the Jewish community. The evolving reception of Moses provides clues to larger cultural and exegetical shifts. Recognizing how the three compositions of this study correlate with trends in Jewish narrative exegesis and with the growth of short story forms in the broader culture, a critical question emerges: How do developing conceptions of narrative change the ways in which exegetes perceive the biblical text? The Exegetical Narrative Joshua Levinson offers significant insight into the reading of exegetical narratives from the classical rabbinic period, much of which can be applied to medieval midrash, even though the balance between story and interpretation shifts. Since the narrative “simultaneously represents and interprets its biblical counterpart,” the reader is expected to navigate between the biblical and midrashic stories, recognizing the third story that is narrated between them. It is comprised of questions raised by the biblical text but frequently left unspoken, omitted details and roads not taken. Invoking Mikhail Bakhtin, he defines such reading as dialogical, in which the reader must discern the biblical and the rabbinic voice talking to each other, as it were, within the singular telling of the story. Suspense is created precisely in the ways that the text challenges or develops what the reader knows about the characters and events. As exegesis, it is subservient to the biblical narrative, but as a story in its own right, it creates a narrated world which is different from its biblical shadow. It is obvious that the combination of these two elements creates a certain dissonance. Narrative and exegesis are two very different methods of persuasion, based upon divergent, if not opposing, presuppositions of “author-ity.” It is specifically this tension between sameness and difference, subservience and creativity, which establishes the genre’s identity.6 6 Levinson, “Dialogical Reading in the Rabbinic Exegetical Narrative,” Poetics Today 25:3 (2004): 498. See also his book, ‫ אמנות הסיפור המקראי המורחב‬:‫הסיפור שלא סופר‬ ‫[ במדרשי חז"ל‬The Twice Told Tale: A Poetics of the Exegetical Narrative in Rabbinic Midrash] (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005), 29-101, 192-238.

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The author-ities to which Levinson refers are 1) sacred Scripture as interpreted by accepted hermeneutical rules and received tradition, thus ascribed to a divine source and 2) the rhetorical power of a story to compel the imagination, even though it is composed by a human author. Our minor midrashim indeed draw upon both modes of persuasion. Narrative and Exegesis in the Representation of Moses Moses’ Birth The Chronicles of Moses and Midrash vaYosha each narrate the miraculous nature of Moses’ birth. The former includes a dream that disturbs Pharaoh, in which a single child is set on one side of a scale, balancing the entire population of Egypt on the other. It is interpreted to mean that a child of the Israelites will destroy Egypt, and the prescribed response intersects with the biblical narrative: Pharaoh orders that every newborn Israelite son must be killed.7 In fact, the tale addresses an exegetical crux of sorts: Why did Pharaoh shift from a strategy of oppression by means of harsh labor to one of gradual genocide? The mix of paraphrase and quotation that follows the edict includes an obvious gloss of the unusual term used by the midwives to explain to Pharaoh why they did not abide by his decree (Exod. 1:19): “They (the Israelite women) are vigorous (‫—)חיות הנה‬like wild animals (‫ )חיות‬who do not need midwives.” Then, with different amounts of detail, both texts utilize a rabbinic interpretation that Israelite men separated from their wives, lest parents be required to stand by and witness their infant sons cast into the Nile. Amram and Yochebed are reunited after Miriam announces a prophecy that they will beget a son who will deliver the children of Israel from the hand of Egypt. What is there in the biblical text that prompts, or at least allows, such a reading? The medieval midrashim do not say, but it can be discovered in 7 Jellinek, 2:1. Note: For the most part, only parallels that precede or may be contemporaneous with the selected midrashim are listed in the footnotes. In this instance, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan 1:15 is similar, with a lamb on the scale instead of a child. Josephus presents a comparable theme in Antiquities II:205, based on a prophecy rather than a dream. A bad dream is a familiar evil omen; see Stith Thompson’s Motif Index of Folk Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-books, and Local Legends (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), D1812.5.1.2. See also David Flusser, “Palaea Historica: An Unknown Source of Biblical Legends,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 22 (1971): 48-79.

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earlier rabbinic exegesis. Exodus 15:20 gives Miriam the title “prophetess” without mention of specific communication from God. The Talmud (b.Sotah 12a-13a) notes that she is called there “the sister of Aaron” and so assigns her prophecy to a time before Moses is born, conveying the divine intent that this infant not yet conceived has a critical role to play in the redemption of Israel.8 The talmudic sages also perceived a problem with the biblical text: “A certain man of the house of Levi went and married [literally, “ took”] a Levite woman” (Exod. 2:1) leads directly to the narrative of Moses’ birth even though he had two older siblings. Since no detail was understood to be accidental or insignificant, it was not determined to be a mere matter of biblical style omitting unnecessary details, but rather a reference to the fact that Israelite husbands separated from their wives in the wake of Pharaoh’s murderous decree. It was only when Miriam revealed her prophecy to her father that Amram took his wife again. This tradition highlights the idea that it was miraculous not only that Moses survived, but also that he was born in the first place—that Israelites would continue to have children when threatened with infanticide. The courage or audacity required to procreate under these circumstances is the “figure of silence” that speaks between the lines of the biblical text, hinted at in the Bible only by the juxtaposition of Pharaoh’s decree and the act of conception by these “anonymous” Levites. “The midrash transforms biblical reticence into narrative.”9 In the relevant passages of Midrash vaYosha (ad. Exod. 15:2), the homiletical priority is to emphasize God’s hand in every aspect of the biblical narrative; what the biblical reader may attribute to coincidence, the dialogical reader is forced to recognize as miraculous. Without explicitly asking the questions that give rise to the interpretation, the story actually addresses gaps in the biblical text: – If one sets an infant afloat on the river, it will most likely die by drowning, exposure or animal attack; how does it come to pass that Pharaoh’s daughter happens to be at the river precisely at the right time? God sends a heat wave, so that she comes down to cool off. 8 Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Exodus 2:2 includes the tradition of divorce and remarriage. Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael Vayehi Beshallah 10, y.Sotah 1:9, Midrash on Proverbs 14 and later midrashim make mention of Miriam’s prophecy; some of them also understand the term “stationed herself” (‫ )תתצב‬in Exodus 2:4 to imply Miriam’s experience at that moment involves vision via the Holy Spirit, akin to Amos 9:1. Josephus Antiquities II:210-17 ascribes the vision to Amram. 9 Levinson, “Dialogical Reading,” 508.

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– Why does she adopt Moses, evidently a Hebrew infant? Would not the daughter of Pharaoh fulfill her father’s decree? God grants grace upon Moses in her eyes. – Why would she agree so readily to have the child nursed by a Hebrew woman? Incorporating a common folk motif of the hero as a precociously wise infant, God guides Moses to refuse to suckle from any of the Egyptian women.10

Moses and Pharaoh’s Crown The same texts also relate the episode of Moses as a small child, taking Pharaoh’s crown and placing it on his own head. The Egyptian advisors are appalled, believing that it may be a sign of the one who will wrench the kingdom from Pharaoh’s grasp. One sage, however (Jethro in Midrash va­ Yosha, Gabriel in the guise of an advisor in The Chronicles of Moses, 2:3), suggests that the child did not necessarily know what he was doing. They devise a test, setting before the lad a burning ember and a gold coin or jewel. If he selects the burning ember, it will demonstrate he gravitated to a shiny object with no sense of its value; on the contrary, if he selects the coin/jewel, it will prove his guilt. Moses wants to take the valuable object, but Gabriel directs his hand to the burning ember. He touches it to his lips and becomes “slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exod. 4:10).11 With irony worthy of Greek tragedy, the exegesis imagines that Egyptian sages set in motion the very fate they seek to prevent: the redemption of Israel. Pharaoh decrees that Israelite newborn males must be murdered. One family manages to manipulate events so that their son survives, but only by being raised in the royal palace. In this way, he grows with an inner strength and independence of spirit difficult to nurture as a slave, but likely prerequisite for leadership. Moses’ status eventually enables him to 10 The Chronicles of Moses has the first and last of these traditions. In Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 48, she is leprous when she comes down to bathe in the river and is healed at Moses’ touch—thus inspiring her to rescue him (similarly Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Exodus 2:5). The Talmudic passage, alternatively, establishes the tension by placing the logical argument in the mouths of her attendants: The king’s daughter, of all people, should obey Pharaoh’s decree. In a classic rabbinization of biblical narrative, Tanhuma Shemot 7 specifically indicates that non-Jewish breast milk is permissible, but Moses’ case is different because he speaks directly with God. Qur’an Sura 28 knows the Jewish tradition of Moses refusing to nurse from an Egyptian woman. 11 A reference to Exodus 6:12, 30. The Midrash vaYosha manuscript actually states “of uncircumcised lips.” See also, Josephus’ Antiquities II:233-6, Exod. Rab. 1:26, Sefer haYashar 70. Interestingly, the narrative does not appear in rabbinic midrash of the Tannaitic and Amoraic periods.

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escape Egypt, to a place where he may learn to shepherd and come to hear the divine call to lead Israel out of slavery. Avivah Zornberg offers a splendid exposition of the crown legend, including more of its Oedipal implications: Moses’ “speech-defect” thus can be understood as the “scar” left by a failed infanticidal attack, like Oedipus’s wounded feet. He has survived his “father’s” fatal attack; later he will kill this father at the Red Sea. In the interim, Pharaoh will again seek to kill him, in punishment for killing the Egyptian taskmaster (Exod. 2:15). Two “paternal” attacks on his life provide the filicidal justification for his own ultimate act of “patricide.”12

The additions to the biblical narrative make the story even more compelling. At the same time, the tale must justify itself exegetically, as the way in which Moses’ speech became impeded. The story breaches the canon by inventing this experience in his youth, but only by serving the canon’s vision of Moses’ destiny. Moses Escapes from Pharaoh On occasion, narrative motifs that seem far-fetched actually have direct exegetical grounding. One example is the explication in the midrashim detailing how, after Moses slays the Egyptian, he escapes from Pharaoh. Although the Bible ignores this detail, its treatment in the midrash calls attention to the fact that it could not be a simple thing to do. One version asserts that Moses’ neck turns to marble and even Pharaoh’s singularly sharp sword cannot harm him (Midrash vaYosha, 88-89); the other alludes to this tradition along with several others, including God makes Pharaoh mute or makes his servants deaf so the command to execute cannot be communicated (The Chronicles of Moses, 2:5). Why a sword? The beginning chapters of Exodus do not mention a specific weapon. The Chronicles of Moses explicitly cites its prooftexts: When Moses names his second son (Exod. 18:4), the verse states, “And the other was named Eliezer, meaning, ‘The God of my father was my help, and He delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.’”13 Most readers today hardly notice the detail, but the close reading of the rabbis uses it to inform the 12 Avivah Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 90; she cites Robert Paul, Moses and Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 79. 13 See also Mekhilta Amalek Yitro 3 (HR 192:8ff), Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon b. Yohai 18:2, y.Ber. 13a, Tanhuma Shemot 10 for related traditions.

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interpretation of Moses’ flight from Egypt. The text also associates God’s words at the burning bush with this moment and means of escape (Exod. 4:11): “‘Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” Although it is absurd to suggest that the biblical author actually intends the divine response to Moses at the bush to allude to confounding the Egyptians during his previous escape, there is a compelling narrative logic. God asserts ultimate responsibility for the success of the mission, and calls upon Moses’ past experience to persuade him: I made Pharaoh mute so he could not give the command to kill you; I can make you eloquent in the Egyptian court. Moses’ Return to Egypt Another laconic passage in the biblical text has long bothered exegetes: Exodus 4:24-26. Why does God attempt to kill Moses en route to Egypt when he is going to fulfill the divine charge? Why is circumcision the appropriate response, how does Zipporah know, and how could the great prophet Moses neglect such a central precept? As rendered in Midrash vaYosha, Jethro insists on one stipulation when Moses seeks to marry his daughter Zipporah: half the children will be Jewish, and half of them will be Egyptian. Once their second son is born and Moses faces the reality that he will not be able to circumcise him, he flees with his family toward Egypt. He is attacked en route by Satan in the form of a snake, who swallows him from his head to his midsection, but cannot go further because of the prophylactic power of Moses’ circumcision. Zipporah then saves him by circumcising their son, as related in the biblical text. After arriving in Egypt, they are turned back by Dathan and Abiram, who accuse Moses of coming to kill the Israelites. The Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael serves as witness to an earlier interpretive tradition that Moses agrees to an unseemly compromise in getting approval for the marriage, and it also provides a prooftext. Understanding ‫ ויואל‬as an oath with the root ‫ה‬-‫ל‬-‫( א‬Exod. 2:21),14 it claims that Jethro forces Moses to swear that the eldest child would become an idolator. 14 Horowitz-Rabin critical edition 191:7ff. The Mekhilta compares the appearance of the word here to I Samuel 14:24, where it is generally understood as an oath. Rashi cites a related tradition in which Jethro forces Moses to swear that he will not take his family and leave Midian without his father-in-law’s permission. This fits the context of the verse better, yielding the translation: “And Moses swore to dwell with the man, so he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses” (Exod. 2:21). Cf. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Exodus 4:24, Fragment-Targums (P) Exodus 4:25, Sefer haYashar 79. Ofra Meir discusses midrashic passages in which

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Numerous texts (e.g., Jubilees 48, b.Ned. 32a) identify the attacker as a demon of some sort, not God, and others identify Dathan and Abiram as the two Hebrews who were struggling in Exodus 2:13 (e.g., Targum PseudoJonathan, Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 48, Ex. Rab. 1:29). Each of these interpretations addresses some difficulty in the text. Midrash vaYosha ingeniously adapts these exegeses to resolve a collection of textual problems: 1) Moses does not circumcise one of his sons because of the deal he

is forced to cut with Jethro.

2) Moses is not attacked en route to fulfill God’s mission; rather, it

is a journey undertaken at his own initiative as a desperate response to the untenable agreement. 3) The subsequent problem that is raised—what accounts for his return to Midian—is answered by bringing in the motif of Dathan and Abiram’s opposition. 4) It is not God who attacks him, but Satan in the form of a snake. 5) Zipporah intuits that circumcision will resolve the issue, in part because that is why they flee Midian, and also because the snake cannot swallow Moses’ circumcised member. 6) All of the uncertain pronominal identifications become clarified: it is the second son who is not circumcised, and the blood is cast on Moses’ “leg.” 7) Zipporah’s strange exclamation, “A bridegroom of bloods to me on account of the circumcision” (Exod. 4:26) is contextualized within the expanded narrative. “Bridegroom” is associated with the original condition Jethro makes in allowing Moses and Zipporah to marry. The plural of “blood” and the appearance of plural form for “circumcision” may reflect that it is the second son who is being circumcised. None of this fanciful elaboration can be found in the simple reading of the biblical narrative, yet it is the elegance of a tale that resolves over half a dozen textual problems that persuades.15 Synergetic in its divergent methods of persuasion, this exegetical narrative is a compelling example of the genre as described by Levinson. A technique used to great effect in blending narrative and exegesis within Midrash vaYosha’s representation of Moses is that he relates his a story is used to determine the sense of particular verses; see “The Story as a Hermeneutic Device,” Association for Jewish Studies Review 7 (1982): 231-62. 15 The Chronicles of Moses resolves a much simpler crux: Exodus 4:20 states that Moses took his family back with him to Egypt, but Exodus 18:2-3 has Jethro bringing them to meet the Israelites after the Exodus. The midrash presents Aaron meeting Moses upon his return to Egypt and persuading him that having the family with him presents an unnecessary danger (2:8).

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story in the first-person. It transforms the dramatic arc of the story. Theoretically, the reader of the biblical narrative does not know what is at stake in the survival of this infant set adrift on the waters. By framing Miriam’s careful watch “to see what would happen to her prophecy,” the midrash recognizes in the Hebrew reader someone who knows that it is not merely a question of one infant’s survival, but the redemption of a people. Moses as narrator of the tale, after the Exodus from Egypt and salvation at the sea, further empowers the dialogical reader. Unlike Miriam, the reader knows that the prophecy will be fulfilled. Moses is an embedded interpreter, enabling him explicate the text without interrupting the tale and diminishing its dramatic force. He performs a wide variety of interpretive acts: offering prooftexts, thinking intertextually, distilling the meaning of events, and addressing the cruces found within the biblical narrative. It should come as no surprise that Moses is portrayed as an accomplished exegete; as the archetypal teacher of Torah, it would be the most obvious aspect of rabbinism to ascribe to his character. All the characters in Midrash vaYosha serve this function, however; it is an integral part of the genre, not a particular quality of Moses. Epic and Romance Additional episodes in these minor midrashim do highlight aspects of Moses’ character, portraying an epic or romantic hero far more than a rabbinic sage. In this regard, they reflect the nature of the biblical narrative itself to some extent, while expanding and updating the details in imaginative ways.16 Using K.S. Whetter’s characterization of epic, it becomes evident how both the biblical and medieval material embody many qualities of the genre. He identifies the chief features, including: an elevated style, a narrative of some length on a great and serious subject, marvelous action, involvement of divine being(s) and/or the supernatural, themes of glory and honor, and focus on a hero seen to be the savior of his nation. Medieval romance, a closely related mode, “is best defined by the combination in some form of adventure and love, culminating in an happy ending .... [A]ll of these features are affected to a greater or lesser extent by women.”17 16 See, e.g., Frank Cross Moore, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973). 17 K.S. Whetter, Understanding Genre and Medieval Romance (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, 2008), 50-2.

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It is not uncommon for the epic protagonist’s story to begin before his birth, as does Moses’ in midrash, illuminating the cosmic or national significance of one man’s quest. His rise to power as king of Ethiopia, a major theme developed in The Chronicles of Moses (2:5-7), highlights central characteristics of the epic hero: physical and mental prowess, a gift for leadership, and recognition of the honor due him. After escaping from Egypt, he comes to the camp of Niqanos, the ruler of Cush (Ethiopia), who is locked out of his own capital by the trickery and sorcery of Balaam and his sons. Niqanos and his army have been laying siege for nine years trying to regain entry. Moses enlists and quickly rises to commander of the troops. When the king dies, the soldiers appoint Moses in his stead and give him the widow queen as wife (with whom he does not consort). He instructs the troops to collect storks from the hill country and to train them to hunt like hawks. When these preparations are complete, they march against the city on the side guarded by serpents. As the serpents come into view, the birds are released, and they strike down the serpents, creating safe passage.18 Moses remains king in Cush for forty years, beloved among the people and greatly admired for his wisdom. Eventually, however, the queen points out that he will leave no heir, and the people would be better off with a native ruler who is committed first and foremost to the Ethiopians. They part on good terms, and Moses makes his way to Midian. Later, in another manifestation of his prodigious gifts, Moses is able to tame the lions sent out by Egypt to intercept him upon his return.19 There appears to be little exegetical grounding for these sub-plots, although the foray into Ethiopia may be trying to account for the passage of time. Principally, they seem to be motivated by a desire to present Moses as a military hero, rival to epic champions of the ages. His powers are so great that he can contend even with Sammael/Satan. In Petirat Moshe, the angel is instructed to take Moses’ soul, but our hero recounts his exceptional biography: he was born circumcised, conversed from the day he was born, prophesied at the age of three, performed signs and wonders, brought out sixty myriads from slavery in Egypt, divided the sea into twelve paths so the people could cross, made the waters potable, 18 The motif has roots in Late Antiquity. See Josephus Antiquities 2:238-253 and Artapanus Concerning the Jews, in which Moses wages war against Ethiopia on behalf of the Egyptians. There and in Herodotus The Histories II:75, Pliny Naturalis Historia X:28, the motif of using birds (ibises) to attack snakes is presented as creative military strategy. 19 This motif is in evidence in several prayerbook manuscripts, as expanded Targum or Hebrew midrashic explication (e.g. MS Parma 2736, fol. 82v).

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ascended to heaven, battled angels and giants, spoke with God face to face, received Torah, and taught all the commandments to the children of Israel. Sammael is intimidated by the purity of Moses’ soul, and he flees. When the angel returns to try again, Moses chases him away with the staff of God, articulating the Divine Name, and blinds him with the rays of glory that shine forth from Moses’ face (1:128).20 The honor due such a hero is expressed in the people’s response to his death, in God’s listing of all the ways even the Most High acceded to Moses’ will, and in his ultimate disposition: accompanied in death by God and three angels who mourn the loss of this singular prophet (1:119, 128-9). Elements of medieval romance are also woven into the narrative of Moses’ life, including trials to be overcome in winning the virtuous maiden. As Midrash vaYosha relates the story, Moses asks for Zipporah’s hand, but she warns him that there is this staff—accidentally left in her father’s garden, and now grown into a mighty tree—that swallows up potential suitors for Jethro’s daughters. It is the staff God created in the twilight before the first Sabbath, then entrusting it to Adam. Passed down through the generations, it made its way into the hands of the patriarchs but was looted by Pharaoh when Joseph died, and Jethro stole it from the royal palace. The Explicit Name of the Lord and the acronym of the ten plagues are inscribed upon it. Jethro sends Moses to fetch it and is alarmed when the noble suitor successfully returns with the staff in hand, so he throws Moses into a pit. Zipporah secretly sustains him there for seven years and eventually convinces her father to release this man who has “miraculously” survived in the pit. With delicious irony, it is at this point—after being conned by his daughter—that Jethro finally comes to see the light, siding with Moses as the elect of the Most High.21 The passage offers adventure and love, a happy ending, and a woman as an essential agent for the action—all elements highlighted in Whetter’s description of romance.

20 Tanhuma v’Zot haBerakhah 3 portrays the angel fleeing when Moses pronounces the explicit Name of God. In the Hadith of Abu Huraira, Moses slaps the angel severely and damages his eye (Hammam b. Munabbih 59, isnad 1; Muslim 43:158, isnad 1). 21 The Chronicles of Moses has a slightly more logical sequence. Jethro is alarmed after Moses first appears in Midian and relates the events of his life; the elder man believes Moses to be the prophesied redeemer and decides to imprison him or turn him over to Pharaoh (the text indicates both). After Zipporah sustains him, and he is released, he happens across the staff. Although it does not eat suitors, many great men have tried and failed to release it from the ground. When Moses succeeds, Jethro rewards him with Zipporah as his wife (2:7).

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From Synagogue to Literature How did these texts accumulate such imaginative narratives that ibn Ezra openly disparaged their ilk? How did they come to be embellished by broadly expanded tales flavored with dashes of epic and romance? At least two of the works, Midrash vaYosha and Petirat Moshe, have earlier recensions composed of more straightforward exegesis and fewer fictional liberties. Midrash vaYosha, for instance, offers a much briefer presentation of Moses’ biography, minus Miriam’s prophecy, Jethro’s and Gabriel’s intervention in the test, the suitor-swallowing staff, the marital arrangement with Jethro, Moses’ flight to Egypt, and encounter with Satan. The carefully developed dialogues of the later recension are also absent.22 A thirteenthcentury French prayerbook manuscript contains a very succinct version of Petirat Moshe without Moses’ epic confrontation with heaven.23 In order to understand the catalysts for change, it is necessary to explore clues related to the origins of these midrashim. Although these midrashim appear in multiple recensions with significant variation, the synagogue association suggested by the prayerbook manuscript is not incidental to their development. In fact, these two midrashim appear to be rooted in the synagogue Torah recitation and performative exegesis.24 Midrash vaYosha is linked to the reading of the Song at the Sea on the seventh day of Passover, celebrating the actual day the Israelites walked through the waters finally free of their Egyptian taskmasters, according to the rabbis. Petirat Moshe can be associated with Simhat Torah, reading the end of Deuteronomy where the death of Moses is recorded. A tradition of expanded live synagogue explication in the form of Aramaic Targum and piyyut exists for these festival readings, containing numerous parallels to the midrashim, and early versions of both midrashic texts are found in medieval prayerbook manuscripts from Ashkenaz and Italy.25 22 See, for instance, MS Oxford Bodleian Library Or. 135, fol. 352r-356r. 23 MS New York Jewish Theological Seminary MS 4460, fol. 281r-282v. 24 The holy days most often mentioned in medieval literature as incorporating expanded explication of the Torah readings are the seventh day of Passover and Shavuot; the reading for the latter occasion is the Ten Commandments, and there is indeed a text, Midrash on the Ten Commandments, that shares many of the traits of these minor midrashim. 25 E.g., MSS Cambridge Add. 667.1, Parma Biblioteca Palatina 2736. For further evidence and discussion regarding the synagogue origins of certain midrashim and their relationship to Aramaic Targum, see Mikva, “Midrash in the Synagogue and the Attenuation of Targum,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 18:4 (2011): 319-42.

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Oral interpretation of the holy day Torah readings is described in medieval codes and books of customs as a way to “publicize the miracle.”26 When Aramaic was the lingua franca of the common folk, the Targum served not only to make the text comprehensible, but also to inspire the community. As Aramaic ceased to be useful in this regard, a number of communities supplemented the tradition with Hebrew and/or vernacular. According to Sefer Kolbo 52, a fourteenth-century French book of Jewish customs: In this time, the custom has not budged from its place, but they have added to it, expounding (‫ )הוסיפו עליו לדרוש‬the Ten Commandments in the vernacular. And likewise on the seventh day of Passover, from vaYosha to the end of the song. They relate the wonders that God has done for us and for our ancestors in language that everyone will understand, and they also expound (‫ )דורשין‬what the Holy One, Blessed be He, will do in the future when He takes us out of exile.

If, indeed, these midrashim grow out of synagogue performance, there is already a quasi-popular focus, but they mediate rabbinic tradition to the Jewish public. Framed in a liturgical context of public Torah reading and its explication, they cannot present mere legends and tales. Centuries of rabbinic honing of hermeneutical concepts define the boundaries of exegesis and imagination.27 A careful examination of the thirty-five extant manuscripts and fragments of Midrash vaYosha, however, indicates that the text had no place in synagogue life in the Arabic milieu, due in part to the earlier devolution of Targum that resulted from the rapid rise of Arabic. Interruptions in the Torah reading for explication became suspect. In this environment, only after moving outside the synagogue, did the text acquire vastly more elaborate and fanciful narratives. Every manuscript with the expanded version of these traditions was copied in Spain, the Eastern Mediterranean, or the Near East, until one hundred years after both recensions were available in print (1519).28 These manuscripts manifested the qualities of a literary redaction, with remarkable development of narrative, character, emotion, 26 Note in Mahzor Vitry, a late eleventh-century prayerbook in the French rite, which then goes on to record expansive targumic explication in poetry and prose for the seventh day of Passover, including many parallels with the early recension of Midrash vaYosha. 27 See Judah Goldin, “The Freedom and Restraint of Haggadah,” in Midrash and Literature, ed. Geoffrey Hartman and Sanford Budick (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 57-76. 28 Additional evidence that this recension was redacted in an Arabic milieu includes: the presence of material found only in this version among early fragments of the Cairo

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dialogue, irony, and drama—a revolution of literary aesthetics. In addition, the texts began to stabilize, become more regularly titled, and incorporate some verbatim parallels. Such far-reaching change is indicative of the impact of the rise of the short story in non-Jewish literature on Jewish texts, especially under the aegis of Islam. The influence was not unidirectional or absolute; some of these forms and motifs trace back to Jewish literature in the Second Temple period, even if they were marginalized within rabbinic tradition. In addition, there are numerous parallels within tenth- to twelfth-century qişaş al-anbiya literature, Islamic “Lives of the Prophets”; they present chains of oral tradition (isnad) going back to two Jewish converts to Islam.29 Thus, while the form of Jewish literature may have been influenced by developments in Arabic literature, content moved in the other direction as well. Still, as attested in every period of Jewish history, literary and intellectual developments in the broader society had an impact on biblical exegesis. Here the rise of the short story appears to have stimulated a tremendous flowering of brief narrative midrashim; there are hundreds of them, with multiple extant manuscripts. Even judging by the very different standard genizah, a few minor linguistical changes, and the prevalence of supernatural elements and specific apocalyptic themes common in the Levant. 29 See the ninth- to tenth-century Persian work by al-Tabari, History of al-Tabari: The Children of Israel, trans. William M. Brinner (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991); and the eleventh- to twelfth-century Iraqi compositions by Ahmad al-Thalabi, Lives of the Prophets, trans. William M. Brinner (Leiden: Brill, 2002), and Muhammad al-Kisai, Tales of the Prophets (Qişaş al-anbiya), trans. Wheeler M. Thackston, Jr. (Chicago: KAZI Publications, 1997). The translator of al-Kisai speculates that the material served as a manual for preachers (p. xx). The most remarkable parallels convey how the staff came to be in Moses’ hands. Other motifs found in al-Kisai include: an Egyptian prediction of the birth of an Israelite who will destroy Pharaoh (215); Moses would not suckle (217, also Quran 28:12); story of the gem/ coal test with Gabriel’s intervention (218). It also spins the tale of Pharaoh’s daughter having leprosy which is cured by Moses’ touch (217), as found in Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer. The collection in al-Tabari is similar. Themes found in al-Thalabi include all those of al-Kisai, usually with more similarity to the Israiliyat tradition, as well as the notion that lions were used by the Egyptians to guard the city and to attack people, but they retreated from Moses and Aaron, giving them free access to the gates (302-3). See also Brannon Wheeler’s discussion of the rod motif in al-Zamakhshari (1074-1143) and other Islamic exegetes, in Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002), 59-63. A thirteenth-century Syriac text by Solomon Bishop of Basra, The Book of the Bee (Chapter 30), contains a different chain of transmission, with an angel eventually placing the rod in the Cave of Treasures so Jethro could find it. He tends his flocks with the rod until deciding to give it to Moses. When Moses enters the house to retrieve it, an angel moves it into his hand.

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of literary unity in medieval texts,30 it is not appropriate to say that Midrash vaYosha became a short story per se; it retained its lemmatic structure and midrashic focus. At the same time, it incorporated changing ideas about narrative and literature, thereby transforming the text. Petirat Moshe does not proceed verse by verse through a pericope but it, too, evolved into a literary hybrid of exegesis and short story. Judaization In shaping the literary influences of the age to fit Jewish popular culture, there are a number of ways in which the texts “Judaize” forms and motifs. To the reader of Western literature, Moses’ trial to retrieve the staff may appear to echo King Arthur’s experience with the sword in the stone. The idea that only the chosen one will be able to dislodge the powerful weapon is actually a relatively widespread folk motif. Catalogued among a group of “identity tests,” the Stith Thompson index lists it as “recognized by unique ability to dislodge sword from stone or tree” (H31.1), and it is found not only in Northern European cultures (English, Irish, Icelandic), but also in India. Even though a direct literary connection to the Arthur cycle is unlikely, it is instructive to compare the motifs to see the ways in which medieval midrash presents specifically Jewish perspectives. The item is not enchanted; rather its power is divinely inspired, and it has existed since the dawn of time, carefully passed down to reach its intended owner. The words inscribed on its shaft are not promises of royal dominion, but tokens of God’s power. Using imagery that is more stereotypically Jewish, the sword is replaced by a staff; to accentuate its very different sort of power and to place it more squarely in the realm of Jewish symbolism, it sprouts blossoms (and almonds in some manuscripts, establishing an even clearer link to Aaron’s staff). In Eli Yassif’s discussion of independent folk traditions incorporated in classical rabbinic literature, he points out that the initial act of setting the tale in an exegetical context and linking it to verses is a foundational stage of the Judaizing process.31 By making the Bible its primary intertext and 30 See Tony Davenport, Medieval Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 271. He cites several authors’ terms for medieval models of coherence (counter to Aristotelian models): Torquato Tasso first illuminates the difference with the term “natural multiplicity” in the sixteenth century; C.S. Lewis calls it “polyphonic,” and Eugene Vinaver uses the expression “poetry of interlace.” 31 Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale, trans. Jacqueline Teitelbaum (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 79.

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evoking numerous biblical motifs, the midrashim indicate their specifically Jewish expression of medieval literature. For example, Moses is dressed in multi-colored clothing when first presented to Pharaoh, hearkening back to Joseph’s coat of many colors. Being thrown into a pit similarly echoes the Joseph saga. Trickster subplots (Rebecca-Zipporah) and the seven-year cycles (Jacob for Rachel, Moses for Zipporah)32 utilize wellestablished biblical literary elements. These intertextual allusions—a more subtle, but well-established rabbinic form of exegesis—yield unspoken meanings: the polychromatic cloak belongs to the chosen one; the descent into the pit presages a meteoric rise through God’s providence; even when God’s agents appear powerless, the divine purpose will be achieved; seemingly insurmountable obstacles will be overcome in God’s good time. To paraphrase Elaine Vitz: time is the sequential revelation of God’s plan.33 Petirat Moshe, too, makes frequent use of such linkage to depict Moses’ heroic qualities. In arguing before God that he merits the honor of entering the Land of Israel, Moses draws intertextual associations in response to God’s interrogation. “Are you more righteous than Adam and his generation?” Yes, because Adam and Eve induced human mortality by falling prey to the serpent’s wiles, but Moses used a symbol of the serpent to save the people from death. He is more worthy than Noah because Noah did not plead on behalf of his generation, but Moses repeatedly stood in the breach to invoke divine mercy. He is more worthy than Abraham and Isaac because none of his descendants will rise up against Israel (1:118). Unlike the earlier manifestation of expanded biblical narrative during the Second Temple period, these tales are implicitly rooted in exegesis, maximizing their rhetorical impact. Broad exposure to rabbinic interpretation within the Jewish community by the medieval period made reading the text intrinsically dialogical, even if it lacked many of the explicit exegetical markers.34 It created a dynamic tension between the biblical tale and its midrashic counterpart. Both the power of the story and the authority of biblical interpretation worked to effect the continuing importance of Scripture in the lives of the readers. By re-opening the canon, old meanings became sources for new ones and the past became present. 32 Most copies of Midrash vaYosha state that Moses is imprisoned for seven years, but The Chronicles of Moses usually indicates ten. 33 She is discussing the religious view found in many medieval chronicles in her study of narrative in the Middle Ages: Elaine Vitz, Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology (New York: New York University Press, 1989), 111. 34 For example, ‫ שנאמר‬,‫ככתוב‬.

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Most of the early emulations of the short story form are found within minor midrashim, a fresh and popular genre in the Middle Ages that focused on short biblical excerpts. 35 It is not surprising that Jewish texts did not simply invent original fictional narratives, but rather Judaized the new genre with familiar religious themes and exegetical traditions. It calls to mind C.S. Lewis’ imaginary interview with Chaucer: Why didn’t Chaucer bother to think up his own plots? The reply, indicative of medieval attitudes toward innovation, was, “Surely we are not yet reduced to that.”36 Impact of Narrative on Medieval Jewish Exegesis Despite the general aversion to change, the evolution of literary aesthetics in the medieval period had a pronounced effect on Jewish exegesis, both in its midrashic expression and in the more recent commentary form preferred by ibn Ezra and a number of other Jewish scholars. Developing conceptions about narrative changed how exegetes perceived the biblical text, contributing to a marked shift toward contextual interpretation. Contextual exegesis is vital in the minor midrashim under discussion. Unlike classical rabbinic midrash, which delighted in excising a verse, a word, or even a single letter from its context to distill meaning, these later texts connected verses to their settings, characters to a series of episodes, one biblical narrative to another. Weaving a cloth of diverse elements, they attempted to make sense of atomized rabbinic traditions and a laconic base text. Context in the minor midrashim is not the same as peshat, a plain-sense reading similar to Christian sensus literalis and a defining characteristic of medieval commentary.37 In the attack on Moses en route to Egypt, for 35 It is worth noting the impressive collections of minor midrashim by Jellinek, Werthheimer, and Eisenstein (see bibliography), yet numerous texts remain available only in manuscripts. In addition to the many examples that reflect the short story form, the medieval period also yielded longer narrative midrashim such as Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer, exegetical narrative anthologies such as Midrash Tanhuma and Yalkut Shimoni, as well as midrashcommentary hybrids such as Lekah Tov. 36 C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 211. 37 See Stephen Garfinkel, “Clearing Peshat and Derash,” in Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation, ed. Magne Saebø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2000), 2:129-134, for a clarification of the term: “...Peshat interpretations acknowledge the historical, linguistic, and literary contexts of a phrase, verse, or pericope. Derash, by contrast, seeks acontextual interpretations; it ignores and overrides the constraints of contexts” (p. 131). Robert A. Harris can be consulted for an overview of exegetical developments,

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instance, Midrash vaYosha inserts an untenable deal with Jethro, the appearance of Satan, and an encounter with Dathan and Abiram—none of which can be found in the simple reading of the biblical narrative. Yet, the text builds upon the traditions established via the authority of exegesis, clarifying the sense and enriching the meaning with a cohesive and compelling story that connects all the dots left scattered in the elliptical Exodus passage. Even when the midrash reads directly counter to the plain sense of the Bible, there is contextual grounding for its leap of fancy. One example, mentioned above: when The Chronicles of Moses interprets God’s exhortation at the burning bush (“Who gives man speech? Who makes him dumb or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” [Exod. 4:11]) as a reminder of having made Pharaoh mute and his courtiers deaf, it grows out of questions about Moses’ earlier escape from Egypt. Narrative masterforces are at work in both peshat and expanded exegetical narrative, manifested differently. Changes in the literary aesthetic of the medieval milieu appear to have stimulated both sorts of exegesis. The introduction of grammatical studies and comparative semitics is the most frequently cited factor in the emergence of peshat exegesis, but it does not appear to be a comprehensive explanation.38 Linguistic sensitivity was only one aspect of the radical shift from midrash to commentary as the primary exegetical form, especially as it developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Like the later redactions of our midrashim, medieval peshat commentary generally addressed whole verses or larger contexts in determining the meaning of a passage. They explored principles of causality and character motivation. They frequently chose a single interpretation. These similarities reinforce the possibility that the “rise of narrative” in medieval literature shaped both peshat and expanded exegetical narrative. “Medieval Jewish Biblical Exegesis,” in The History of Biblical Interpretation, Vol. 2, ed. Alan J. Hauser (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009), 141-71. 38 Indeed, scholars examining the rise of peshat exegesis mention increased interest in Scriptural study and rationalism in Islam as well as the impact of of grammatical studies. Karaite exegesis may also have exerted some influence. Those focusing on northern Europe add other factors, e.g., polemical and cooperative responses to Christian biblical interpretation; experience with Talmudic exposition; the twelfth-century Renaissance with its dialectic of faith and rationalism, scriptural authority and interpretation, historical consciousness and curricular expansion. See Eleazar Touitou, ‫הפשטות המתחדשים בכל יום‬ [Exegesis in Perpetual Motion] (Ramat Gan: University of Bar Ilan, 2003), 11-47; Avraham Grossman, “The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in Northern France,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, 2:323-31; Nahum Sarna, “Hebrew and Bible Studies in Medieval Spain,” in The Sephardi Heritage, ed. Richard David Barnett (London: Valentine, Mitchell, 1971), 323-66.

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Abraham ibn Ezra would most likely reject the notion that his commentary has anything in common with The Chronicles of Moses. It may at first seem counterintuitive, that the same catalyst for vast and fanciful expansion of biblical narrative could also shape and intensify the focus on more “straightforward” interpretation. Yet Jewish medieval commentators like Joseph Behor Shor, David Kimhi, and Nahmanides—from Ashkenazi and Sephardi backgrounds—did not focus merely on grammar in their contextual readings. They brought to their interpretation a more nuanced sense of literary technique, character insight, and internal motivation. Changes in literary aesthetics affected the way people read scripture.39 Admittedly, the evidence is circumstantial, and coincidence cannot prove causality. It is worth mentioning, however, two previous scholars who have offered reflections on narrative that strengthen the hypothesis. In Beryl Smalley’s foundational study, The Bible in the Middle Ages, she concludes that the “physics” of narrative, e.g., character motivation and causation, compelled the imagination of Christian exegetes. She describes the shift as a rise in the power of the story to shape interpretation: “The actual narrative of Scripture, the story of the nativity, infancy, ministry and passion is perceived more intensely. The scene itself becomes too absorbing in its human pathos to need the aid of symbol in transmuting it into something different.”40 Smalley attaches this analysis to the advance of nature study. From the time of the Victorines and their interest in the natural beauty of “literal” interpretation in the twelfth century to the thirteenthcentury homilies that applied the biblical text to this-worldly questions, she seems to view the workings of story as one of those natural processes— affirming that developing conceptions of narrative reshape interpretation to become more contextual. An insight by Meir Sternberg also suggests larger ramifications of narrative development within Jewish exegesis. In his literary analysis of the Bible, he states, “narrative master forces also narrativize everything else in the text by assimilating it willy-nilly to their dynamics of life-like development 39 Robert A. Harris suggests somewhat the reverse notion: the way exegetes read the Bible shaped medieval literary consciousness and helped to “define” literature; see “TwelfthCentury Biblical Exegetes and the Invention of Literature,” in The Multiple Meaning of Scripture, ed. Ineke Van’t Spijker (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 311-30. Other scholars are beginning to explore narrative developments and their impact on medieval commentary. See, e.g. Hanna Liss, Creating Worlds: Peshat Exegesis and Narrativity in the Commentaries of Rashbam and His School (Leiden: Brill, 2011). 40 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell and Mott, 1940; repr. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964, repr. 1978), 370-72.

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and/or artful disclosure.”41 Such a principle arguably operates on a macroscopic level as well. The impact of narrative master forces on biblical exegesis as a whole is tremendous. As consciousness of plot, character, drama, dialogue and other aspects of story take hold on the collective imagination, the priority of contextual interpretation should become inevitable. Narrative assimilates questions and interpretations into its own way of relating information. In terms of a narrow focus trained solely on grammar and comparative linguistics, the peshat revolution (in which ibn Ezra’s commentary is frequently considered the pinnacle) was short-lived. As part of a larger contextual approach to biblical interpretation, however, the lens fashioned by medieval Jewish exegesis continues to reveal new understandings of sacred Scripture to this day.42 Conclusions Expanded exegetical narrative appears to be an especially Jewish way of telling a story. The methods of blending narrative and exegesis, so beautifully illustrated in the minor midrashim, became critical tools for keeping Scripture at the center of the popular Jewish imagination. They merged the authority of hermeneutically derived interpretations with the authority of a captivating tale, integrating the interpretations of the past with contemporary possibilities of meaning. Story came to dominate the text in imaginative ways during the medieval period, but it did not abandon the exegetical roots of midrash. At the same time, it is evident that the development of literary aesthetics influenced the way Jewish sages and common folk read scripture. Among the messages that became significant in this period was the transformation of Moses into an epic and romantic hero, providing the preeminent model within Jewish literature. Desire for this sort of protagonist was most likely shaped by similar figures within non-Jewish literature. Like the expansion of narrative itself, it serves as evidence of Jewish participation in the broader literary culture. Actual short story collections also 41 Sternberg, “How Narrativity Makes a Difference,” Narrative 9 (2001): 117. 42 Robert A. Harris and Mordechai Cohen, among others, have helped to illustrate the ongoing development of peshat as it took on broader contextual elements and more expansive elaboration of character, etc.. See, e.g., Harris, “The Literary Hermeneutic of Rabbi Eliezer of Beaugency” (Jewish Theological Seminary diss., 1997), 131-42; Cohen, “The Qimhi Family,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation, 2:396-415.

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emerged, such as Tales of Sendebar, Hibbur Yafeh min haYeshuah (A Delightful Compendium of Consolation), translations of Alf layla walayla (1,001 Nights) and the King Arthur legends. The reception of Moses is unique, however—a quality that may best be viewed by returning to the Hollywood parallels: Jews took pride when Charlton Heston played the strong, heroic figure of Moses; they were eager to hear the sacred story told in such entertaining fashion and happy to present to their community (and to the world) this image of the Jew, so different from Shakespeare’s Shylock or the Pharisees of the New Testament.43 Young Moses in The Prince of Egypt became an exemplar for growing up, leaving behind carefree days of racing his adopted brother through the palace grounds in order to take on a life of deep purpose and tremendous responsibility. The details of the narratives are invented, but the image of Moses is consistent with its biblical prototype: a man who can hear the call of God, muster the courage to challenge Pharaoh, and lead a people to freedom. The ancient hero of the Jews lives again, redrawn to be precisely the man of the hour.

43 Interestingly, The Chronicles of Moses includes a diatribe by Balaam that recounts patriarchal history to warn Pharaoh that the Israelites cannot be trusted; the inclusion of such a monologue suggests some degree of self-consciousness about the positive or negative image of the Jew.

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“The Destiny of All Men”: Rabbinic and Medieval Justifications for the Death of Moses Devorah Schoenfeld The death of Moses, for the Jewish medieval exegete, was a key textual location to struggle with the question of theodicy or of justifying God’s seemingly unjust actions. Moses, as the most perfect human to ever have lived, who “knew God face to face”1 (Deut. 34:10), was, one might think, the human least deserving of death. Nevertheless, he dies by divine command, immediately before the Israelites enter the land of Israel.2 As this chapter will show, Jewish medieval Bible commentaries present two alternative solutions to this problem. One solution, favored by Rashi and his school, presents Moses as in fact a sinner and therefore worthy of death. If Moses sinned, then God did not act unjustly in requiring him to die. The other possibility, favored by Spanish exegetes such as Nahmanides and Abravanel, is that Moses did not deserve to die and that therefore there was some injustice in his death. The exegetes who favor this position, although they do not directly question God’s justice, suggest that the death of Moses is inexplicable or at least not explicable through the traditional concepts of reward and punishment. This chapter will show that these two alternatives in the medieval exegetical literature develop out of tensions that already exist in the biblical text and are highlighted by the midrashic literature. They illustrate both different approaches to the problem of theodicy and different strategies for reading the Bible among medieval Jewish exegetes. Biblical Variations: Numbers and Deuteronomy The Priestly narrative in Numbers 20 and the Deuteronomistic narrative in Deuteronomy 1 and 3 present different approaches to the death of Moses. 1 .‫אשר ידעו יהוה פנים אל פנים‬ 2 In theory, the death of Moses outside the land of Israel presents a double theological problem. In Deuteronomistic theology, being outside the land of Israel is always a punishment. (See, for example, Deut. 4:27-28, Deut. 28:25, and Deut. 29:28.) Further, Moses specifically asks to be allowed to see the land in Deut. 3:25. The permanent exile of Moses from the land is therefore as much of a punishment as his death.

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Numbers 20:13 presents a story in which God tells Moses to speak to the rock, Moses strikes the rock, and God tells Moses that for this sin he will not be able to enter the land. The nature of Moses’ sin is left somewhat ambiguous and, as we will see, the commentators come to differing conclusions about the nature of this sin.3 What is clear, though, is that Moses sinned and that his death outside the Promised Land was a punishment for his sin. This sin is again referred to in Deuteronomy 32:48-52, a Priestly strand added by the Redactor4 to make the Deuteronomistic narrative conform to the Priestly narrative.5 In the early chapters of Deuteronomy, we find a different approach to the death of Moses, however, in which Moses’ sin is not the cause of his death. In Deuteronomy 1:37, 3:26 and 4:21, Moses states that he considers his death to be punishment, not for his own sin, but for the sins of the people, and in particular for the sin of the spies who (in Num. 13-14) gave an evil report of the land.6 In Deuteronomy 3:33-35, Moses pleads with God for mercy and begs to be allowed to enter the land. In Deuteronomy 3:36, God refuses with the words, “It is enough for you. Do not speak with me any more about this matter,”7 and does not give any reason for this refusal. The Bible, then, gives two contrasting explanations of Moses’ death. In one, his death is a punishment for his own sin. In the second, his death is a punishment for someone else’s sin. In the first version, Moses accepts the punishment while in the second, he prays to be spared. In the midrash and in medieval exegesis, we see both narrative traditions taken to their natural conclusions. An earlier midrashic tradition, and the many medieval commentaries that quote it, follows the first approach, in which Moses’ death is a punishment for his sin. A later midrashic tradition develops in even more detail the Deuteronomistic narrative, in which Moses’ death is 3 For a contemporary analysis of possible explanations of Moses’ sin, and an innovative approach to explaining it, see Jacob Milgrom, “Magic, Monotheism and the Sin of Moses,” in The Quest for the Kingdom of God, ed. H.B. Huffmon, F.A. Spina, and A.R.W. Green (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 251-265. 4 The Redactor, or R, compiled the Hebrew Bible into a unified document and added verses to make the various texts conform to each other. 5 Ronald E. Clements, “The Book of Deuteronomy,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 2, ed. L.E. Keck (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 529. 6 Deuteronomy 1:37, “God was also angry with me because of you and said, ‘You, too, will not enter there.’” (.‫ )גם בי התאנף יהוה בגללכם לאמור גם אתה לא תבוא שם‬Deuteronomy 3:26, “God was angry with me for your sake.” (.‫ )ויתעבר בי יהוה למענכם‬Deuteronomy 4:21, “God was angry with me for your words.” (.‫)ויהוה התאנף בי על דבריכם‬ 7 .‫רב לך אל תוסיף דבר אלי עוד בדבר הזה‬

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death 169 not punishment for his own sin and may not be a punishment for a sin at all. It may even not be entirely just. This later midrashic tradition, as we shall see, is not quoted at all by the medieval commentaries, although some medieval commentaries find their own way to question the nature of divine justice in Moses’ death. Rabbinic Alternatives: Early and Late Midrash The midrashic literature on the death of Moses is enormous. As a representative example of the early tradition I have chosen the Sifre, composed in Palestine in the late third century.8 The Sifre is the major early midrashic text on the book of Deuteronomy and is the most commonly quoted rabbinic source in the Jewish medieval exegesis of the death of Moses. Midrash Tanhuma (redacted in Babylon in the first half of the ninth century)9 and Deuteromony Rabbah (composed in Palestine between 450 and 800 CE)10 will represent the later tradition. These two examples show the shift in midrashic exegesis of the death of Moses and fill in the background against which the medieval exegetes developed their commentaries.11 The Sifre does not question God’s justice or represent Moses as doing so. In the Sifre, Moses is unwilling to die and struggles against the Angel of Death, rebuking him and demonstrating his superiority to him (Sifre 305).12 In this version, however, Moses’ struggle is represented as purely human and based on his lack of knowledge. He does not give any reasons why he should not die.13 The Sifre also presents his struggle as against the Angel of Death rather than God. So Moses, according to the Sifre, does not challenge God at all. Even his challenge to the Angel of Death is based on 8 Günter Stemberger and H.L Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1992), 297. 9 Stemberger, Introduction, 332. 10 Stemberger, Introduction, 335. 11 For more examples see Judah Goldin, “The Death of Moses: An Exercise in Midrashic Transposition,” in Love & Death in the Ancient Near East, ed. Robert McClive Good (Guilford, Conn.: Four Quarters Press, 1987), 221-225. 12 Sifre al Devarim, ed. Louis Finkelstein, second publication (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1969), 326-27. For a translation see Reuven Hammer, Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 296-7. 13 This observation is based on Rella Kushelevsky, Moses and the Angel of Death (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 63 and 67. She shows a consistent tension in midrashic portrayals of Moses between his human frailty and his role as speaker for the Divine. In the Sifre, when Moses begs to be allowed to live he speaks from his human side alone, while in Midrash Tanhuma he also speaks as an exalted messenger of God.

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nothing but human fear and frailty. It is also not a correct or justifiable challenge, as in the Sifre, Moses did in fact sin and deserved to die.14 Judah Goldin has shown that already in the Mechilta (redacted in Palestine in the second half of the third century)15 there is a view that Moses never died. He suggests that this is the beginning of midrashic attempts to come to terms with the apparent injustice of Moses’ death.16 These attempts are not fully developed, however, until the later midrashic tradition represented by the Midrash Tanhuma and Deuteronomy Rabbah. The Midrash Tanhuma retells the basic story that appears in the Sifre but subverts its meaning by adding to it Moses’ challenge to God’s justice. Moses tells of his own greatness and describes himself as greater even than the patriarchs, since Jacob, unlike Moses himself, “did not ascend into heaven and his feet did not tread the clouds.”17 God also testifies to the greatness of Moses and explains that the death of Moses is because of the death decreed upon Adam rather than Moses’ own sin. Midrash Tanhuma further has Moses arguing that, even if he has sinned, it is wrong for God to punish him: I am one person while Israel numbers sixty myriads. Many times has this people sinned against you, and I prayed for mercy for them, and consequently you forgave them. How is it possible that for my sake you have protected the sixty myriads, but you will not protect me?18

In the Midrash Tanhuma, then, even Moses’ sin does not adequately explain his death, because even if he had sinned, it would have been only right for God to forgive him. If God watched over the Israelites by forgiving them their sin when Moses prayed on their behalf, it is only right that God watch over Moses the same way. Even if we grant Moses’ sin, the question of theodicy remains. Deuteronomy Rabbah, a late homiletic midrash, follows a similar approach to that of the Midrash Tanhuma. In Deuteronomy Rabbah 11.5, Moses actively resists the Angel of Death and argues that he should not die 14 Sifre, 340; Sifre al Devarim, 389; Hammer, Sifre, 348. 15 Stemberger, Introduction, 279. 16 Goldin, “Death of Moses,” 220. 17 .‫ יעקב לא עלה לרקיע ולא דשו רגליו בערפל‬Tanhuma Va-etchanan 6, Midrash Tanhuma hamefoar (Bene Berak: Or HaHayyim, 1998 or 9), 491, Kushelevsky, Moses, 66. 18 Tanhuma Va-etchanan 6, Midrash Tanhuma hamefoar, 491-2, Kushelevsky, Moses, 67. The Hebrew is as follows: ‫ וביקשתי‬,‫ הרבה פעמים חטאו לפניך‬,‫אני אחד וישראל ששים רבוא‬ ‫ ואלי אין אתה משגיח‬,‫ על ששים רבוא השגחת בשבילי‬,‫ ומחלת להם‬,‫אליהם רחמים‬

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and that he should remain alive in order to praise God.19 In Deuteronomy Rabbah 11.8, which frames the command to die as coming from God directly rather than (as in the Sifre) through an angel, Moses explicitly raises the question of God’s justice.20 Moses says to God, in the words of Deuteronomy Rabbah, “Master of the Universe, after all my labor you say to me, ‘Behold thy days approach?’” (Deut. 31:14).21 God answers that, like all men, Moses too must die, since, as it is written in Ecclesiastes, “This is the destiny of all men” (Eccl. 12:13). In other words, Moses must die even though he does not deserve death because all people must die. Deuteronomy Rabbah continues with Moses’ explicit accusation that, by condemning him to death, he has repaid him with “a bad measure for good measure, a short measure for full measure, a grudging measure for an ample measure”22 and is therefore transgressing Jewish law.23 God answers that he will repay Moses by exalting him in the next world. In homily 11.10, Moses takes the further step of trusting so much in divine justice that he makes light of God’s decree that he should die.24 He reasons that since he has never sinned, God is obligated to answer his prayer. Finally, God swears and binds himself with an oath to kill Moses, and it is only because of this unbreakable oath that Moses has to die. In response, Moses begs and asks to be allowed to live like a beast of the field or like a bird flying in any direction until God at last commands him not to speak.25 This midrash leaves us, finally, with no justification for the divine command. Moses must die because it is God’s will. Moses’ sin is never mentioned, and Deuteronomy Rabbah never questions Moses’ assertion that he never sinned. If God’s

19 Moshe Arieh Mirkin, ed., Midrash Rabbah, vol. 11, (Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1967), 152. J. Rabbinowitz, trans., H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, eds., Midrash Rabbah, vol. 7 (New York: Soncino Press, 1983), 176. 20 Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 154, Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah, 179. 21 .‫ רבונו של עולם אחר כל היגיעה הזו אתה אומר לי הן קרבו ימיך‬Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 154, Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah, 179. 22 .‫ מדה רעה כנגד מדה טובה מדה חסרה נגד מדה שלמה מדה צרה נגד מדה רחבה‬Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 154, Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah, 180. 23 Mishna Sotah 1:7 (further developed in the Babylonian Talmud Sotah 8a) describes this principle of measure for measure as the motivating factor behind the trial by ordeal of the suspected adulteress. In their discussion of the death of Moses, the rabbis thus call God a hypocrite, in that God enforces this principle with the suspected adulteress in order to punish her but not with Moses in order to save him. 24 Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 155, Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah, 181. 25 Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 155, Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah, 181.

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command is just, it is just in a way beyond even Moses’ comprehension and certainly far beyond ours. The change in approaches to the death of Moses from the Sifre to the later midrashim reflects the shift in approaches to theodicy from the early rabbinic period (c. 200-400 CE) through the Babylonian Talmud.26 David Kraemer demonstrates that, in early rabbinic literature (through the redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud in the early fifth century), suffering is consistently a punishment for sin.27 The Babylonian Talmud introduces the possibility that suffering, and particularly death, can be a simple consequence of human existence and not arise from any particular sin.28 One way of introducing this possibility is through challenging questions directed towards God by righteous biblical and rabbinic figures.29 The Babylonian Talmud, as Yaakov Elman shows, is much more willing than the Palestinian Talmud to admit that the righteous suffer unjustly.30 The death of Moses, Elman suggests, is one story that the Babylonian Talmud retells in order to challenge previous conceptions of God’s justice.31 Elman concludes by suggesting that later Jewish exegesis adopted only the earlier approach, in which suffering is caused by sin, and rejected the revised theology of the Babylonian Talmud (and, as we have seen, Deuteronomy Rabbah and the Midrash Tanhuma). The evidence of the medieval interpretations of the death of Moses shows that Elman’s suggestion is partly correct. Although medieval commentaries quote extensively the earlier midrashic traditions from the Sifre about Moses’ guilt, medieval commentators almost never quote the 26 Mirkin, Midrash Rabbah, 157, Rabbinowitz, Midrash Rabbah, 181. 27 The dating of the Babylonian Talmud is subject to debate, but in any case, it represents late rabbinic theology and could not have been redacted prior to the sixth century. Some date parts of it as late as the eleventh century. For a summary of the debates, see Stemberger, Introduction, 211-229. 28 David Kraemer, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 102. 29 For examples of Moses and Job questioning divine justice in the Babylonian Talmud, see Kraemer, Responses, 167-171. 30 Yaakov Elman, “The Suffering of the Righteous in Babylonian and Palestinian Sources,” Jewish Quarterly Review 80 (1990): 315-339. 31 Yaakov Elman, “Righteousness as its Own Reward: An Inquiry Into the Theologies of the Stam,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, vol. 57, (1990-1991): 40-1. Ellman cites the example of Shabbat 55a, in which the Talmud uses the death of Moses as part of a conclusive refutation of the idea that suffering is caused by sin. The Babylonian Talmud re-writes earlier sources to make this refutation seem to come from Tanaitic (first through third century) sources. The Babylonian Talmud also preserves the idea that Moses did in fact sin, in Shabbat 97a and Yoma 86b-87a.

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death 173 traditions from Deuteronomy Rabbah and Midrash Tanhuma in which Moses questions the justice of his own death. This is not because medieval commentators do not use these sources, since medieval commentators will often quote Midrash Tanhuma on other topics. Rashi, for example, quotes the Babylonian Talmud on nearly every page of his commentary and and uses Midrash Tanhuma as a source often in his commentary on Deut­ eronomy,32 but he does not mention the discussion in these sources of the injustice of the death of Moses.33 Most of the commentators covered in this chapter were heavily influenced by Rashi and directly or indirectly refer to the midrashic texts that he quotes. However, although medieval commentators were aware of the later tradition, they almost never quote it.34 Despite this, we can observe in the medieval commentaries a tension between the approach of the Sifre and the approach of Midrash Tanhuma and Deuteronomy Rabbah. While some commentators, such as Rashi, Rashbam, and Behor Shor, state that Moses died for his own sin, others, such as Seforno and Abarvanel, write that Moses did not sin or that his sin is beyond our comprehension. Although not willing to go as far as Deuteronomy Rabbah or Midrash Tanhuma in questioning God’s justice, they are unwilling to state unequivocally that Moses deserved death. Medieval Exegesis The medieval commentaries under consideration in this study are all lineby-line commentaries whose stated aim is to explain the biblical text. Most (although not all) of these commentaries can be found in the Mikraot Gedolot, the compilation of Jewish medieval biblical exegesis arranged around the biblical text popularized by early printers. These kind of commentaries tend to be called, with some anachronism, peshat or ‘literal’ commentators.35 Medieval Jewish exegesis developed in two primary locations: Spain 32 For examples see Rashi on Deuteronomy 9:10 and 9:18. See Shlomo P. Gelberd, Lifsuto shel Rashi: Devarim (Tel Aviv: Re’em, 1990), 90. 33 Rashi does not seem to use Deuteronomy Rabbah as a main source in his commentary on Deuteronomy. 34 One exception is the view of Nahmanides, discussed later. 35 The distinction between the four levels of scripture (peshat/literal, remez/hints, derah/homiletic, and sod/secret) in Jewish exegesis was developed by Spanish mystical exegetes in the mid-thirteenth century and so is not relevant to most commentaries under discussion here (Frank Ephraim Talmage, “Apples of Gold: The Inner Meaning of Sacred Texts in Medieval Judaism,” in Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver: Studies in Medieval Exegesis and Polemic (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1999), 114. As Sarah Kamin

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and Northern France. Spanish exegesis was influenced by Maimonides and Aristotelian philosophy as well as Arabic culture. It also had a strong mystical bent. Nahmanides, as we shall see, was prone to introducing kabbalistic readings as ‘secrets’ or ‘hints,’ and Ibn Ezra also uses hints in his exegesis. The Northern French school was primarily made up of Rashi and his students, who adapted midrashic literature and combined it with a phrase-by-phrase linguistic analysis of Scripture. In their interpretations of the death of Moses, the Northern French school remains closer to the earlier interpretation in the Sifre, which is its most frequently quoted midrashic source on this topic. The Spanish exegetes, however, are willing to consider a broader range of interpretations, and at times come very close to the later midrashic interpretation. Rashi and His School The influential Northern French exegete Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, or Rashi (1040-1106), emphasizes Moses’ sin in both his commentary on Numbers and his commentary on Deuteronomy. In his commentary on Numbers 20:12, he explains Moses’ sin as not sanctifying the Divine Name.36 If Moses had brought forth water from the rock by only speaking to it and not hitting it, the people would have understood that, just as the rock obeys God’s commands, so too should they. Rashi reiterates this in his commentary to Deuteronomy 32:51.37 Although, he explains, Moses had previously doubted God in greater ways (for example, in Num. 11:22), here his very minor transgression was public and therefore had to be punished.38 Although Moses does briefly mention an argument about the justice of Moses’ death, he frames it, following the Sifre, as an argument between God and the (sinful) people, rather than between God and Moses. In his commentary on Deuteronomy 32:48, Rashi follows the Sifre in explaining the people’s argument against the justice of the death of Moses. has shown, even the distinction between peshat and drash as methodologies in scriptural exegesis was foreign to Rashi. For a full discussion of the nuances of the term peshat and its implications, see Sarah Kamin, Rashi: peshuto shel Mikra u-midrasho shel Mikra (Rashi’s exegetical categorization in respect to the distinction between peshat and derash) (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986). 36 Hayim Dov Chavel, Perushe Rashi al haTorah (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kuk, 1982), 466. 37 Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 597. 38 Rashi’s first comment on Numbers 20.12 (Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 466.)

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death 175 In three places it is said, “on that very day.” With regard to Noah it is said, “Noah came on that very day” (Gen. 7:13) ... The people of his generation said, “We swear that if we see him we will not let him enter the ark. Further, we will take hammers and axes and break the ark.” God said, “I will bring him in during the middle of the day and whoever has strength to protest, let him protest.” With regard to Egypt, it is said, “on that very day” (Exod. 12:51), for the Egyptians said, “We swear that we will not let them go forth, and not only that but we will bring swords and weapons and kill them.” God said, “I will bring them out in the middle of the day and whoever has strength to protest, let him protest.” Here also, with the death of Moses, it is said, “on that very day,” for the Israelites said, “We swear that if we see him we will not let him go. This man who brought us out of Egypt and parted the sea for us and brought down manna for us and brought us quail and raised a well for us and gave us the Torah, we will not let him go.” God said, “I will bring him in during the middle of the day.”39

By juxtaposing the people’s objection to the death of Moses with the objections of sinful people to Noah’s ark and to the Exodus, Rashi presents any complaints about the death of Moses as the whinings of a troublesome people. Just as it was right for Noah to go into the ark and be saved, and just as it was right for the Israelites to leave Egypt, so too the death of Moses is justified and proper. The complaints about it come, not from God’s injustice, but from the people’s love of complaining. The people here misunderstand God’s purpose as badly as the wicked generation of the flood and the wicked Egyptians who enslaved the Israelites. Moses himself, who understands, is grateful for his death and does not complain. In his commentary on Numbers 20:26, Rashi describes Moses praying to die with a kiss, just like his brother Aaron,40 and in his commentary on Deuteronomy 39 Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 597. The Hebrew is as follows: ‫בשלושה מקומות נאמר בעצם‬ ‫שהיו בני דורו אומרים בכך‬...)‫ בעצם היום הזה בא נח וגו’ (בראשית ז יג‬:‫ נאמר בנח‬,‫היום הזה‬ ‫ ולא עוד אלא אנו נוטלין כשילין‬,‫וכך אם אנו מרגישין בו אין אנו מניחין אותו ליכנס בתיבה‬ ‫ וכל מי שיש בידו כח למחות‬,‫ אמר הקב"ה הריני מכניסו בחצי היום‬,‫וקרדומות ומבקעין את התיבה‬ ‫ לפי שהיו מצריים אומרים‬,)‫ בעצם היום הזה הוציא ה’ (שמות יב נא‬:‫ במצרים נאמר‬.‫יבוא וימחה‬ ‫ ולא עוד אלא אנו נוטלין סייפות וכלי‬,‫בכך וכך אם אנו מרגישין בהם אין אנו מניחים אותם לצאת‬ .‫ וכל מי שיש בו כח למחות יבאו וימחה‬,‫ אמר הקב"ה הריני מוציאן בחצי היום‬,‫זין והורגין בהם‬ ‫ לפי שהיו ישראל אומרים בכך וכך אם אנו‬,‫ בעצם היום הזה‬:‫אף כאן במתתו של משה נאמר‬ ,‫ והיריד לנו את המן‬,‫ וקרע לנו את הים‬,‫ אדם שהוציאנו ממצרים‬,‫מרגישין בו אין אנו מניחין אותו‬ ‫ אמר הקב"ה‬,‫ אין אנו מניחין אותו‬,‫ ונתן לנו את התורה‬,‫ והעלה לנו את הבאר‬,‫והגיז לנו את השלו‬ ‫’הריני מכניסו בחצי היום וכו‬ 40 Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 467-8. Although, according to Rashi, Moses asks for this death and does not complain about it, still he weeps while writing about it. See Rashi’s commentary on Deuteronomy 34:5 (Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 606, following Sifre, Bave Batra 15, Megilla 30). In Rashi’s commentary on Deuteronomy 3:23 (Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 524, following Sifre 26), Moses prays to be allowed into the land as a matanat hinam, an unearned gift.

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32:50, he recounts Moses’ gratitude at being given such a death.41 In summary, to Rashi, Moses’ death is a just, although strict, punishment for an actual sin. The people might feel otherwise, but they are quite wrong. Rashi’s grandson Rabbi Solomon ben Meir, or Rashbam (1080-1160), responds to Rashi’s comments by eliminating all discussion of tragedy or injustice surrounding Moses’ death and replacing it with clear statements about Moses’ guilt. He does not comment on any of the biblical verses in which Rashi comments on the problem of Moses’ death. In his commentary on Deuteronomy 3:23-28, he does not comment on any of the verses in which Moses prays to God not to die and God rejects his prayer.42 He does, however, comment on Deuteronomy 3:23 and 3:29, before and after this conversation, and, while Rashi connects these verses to Moses’ prayer, Rashbam connects them to military victories and travels in the present day.43 Rashbam thus underemphasizes (to the point of ignoring) Moses’ prayer to God in Deuteronomy 3. Rashbam does not comment on Deutronomy 32: 48 or 50, and in his commentary on the end of Deuteronomy, he makes no mention of Moses’ reluctance to die. As Martin Lockshin shows, Rashbam is here consistent with his usual approach of presenting alternatives to Rashi that are more consistent with what Rashbam understands as the simpler meaning of the biblical verses.44 By not commenting at all on the key verses relating to the problem of Moses’ death, Rashbam may be indicating that he considers the whole problem to be a midrashic invention. In his commentary on Numbers 20:8, Rashbam writes, “God did not command [Moses] to take the staff to hit the rock ... but rather to tell it with words to give water.”45 He goes on to explain that since Moses was very righteous, surely his sin was unintentional. Still, since he struck the rock rather than speaking to it, he sinned against God, and God is strict with the righteous.46 Since that is all the explanation Rashbam gives of Moses’ death, he clearly considers that to be sufficient.

41 Chavel, Perushe Rashi, 597. 42 Torat Hayim Devarim (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kuk, 1993), 32-4. Lockshin, Rashbam’s Commentary, 49-50. 43 Torat Hayim Devarim, 32, 34, Lockshin, Rashbam’s Commentary, 49-50. 44 Lockshin, Rashbam’s Commentary, 49-50. Rashbam states in his comment on Gen. 37:2 (Torat Hayim Bereshit [Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kuk, 1986], 141-2) that his purpose is to add to Rashi’s commentary. 45 Torat Hayim Bamidbar, (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kuk, 1991), 172-4. The Hebrew is as follows: ‫אפס בדבור ידבר אל הסלע לתת מימיו‬...‫לא צוה הקב’’ה לקחת את המטה להכות בו הסלע‬. 46 Torat Hayim Bamidbar (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kuk, 1991), 177.

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death 177 Rabbi Joseph Behor Shor (d. 1140), who was, like Rashbam, a student of Rashi’s who lived in the twelfth century in Northern France,47 also does not quote the midrashic tradition of debates regarding the justice of Moses’ death at all. This is even though, unlike Rashbam, he does use midrash quite extensively elsewhere in his Pentateuch commentary.48 He follows Rashbam in ascribing Moses’ death to his own guilt, but unlike Rashbam, he writes this explicitly in his commentary on Deuteronomy. In his comment on Deuteronomy 32:50, Behor Shor does not state, as Rashi does, that Moses and Aaron had the same good kind of death. Rather, he writes that Moses and Aaron both died for the same sin. In his explanation of the sin in his commentary on Deuteronomy 32:51, Behor Shor writes that their sin was that they did not state explicitly that God was sending water, since by doing so, they would have affirmed God’s power in response to the Israelites’ question, “Will you bring water from this rock?” (Exod. 20:10), which seems to imply that Moses and Aaron (and not God) are responsible for providing them with water. The sin was thus that Moses and Aaron did not properly contradict the people’s implied denigration of God. When Moses complains about his death in Deuteronomy 3:23-4, Behor Shor has God tell Moses that he is simply being greedy. Moses has already seen enough of God’s miracles, and if God lets him into the land, soon he will ask to live to see the Temple.49 Northern French exegetes, then, tend to emphasize Moses’ guilt and do not present Moses’ death as unjust or problematic. They do not quote any of the later rabbinic sources that question divine justice in the death of Moses nor do they raise it as a question on their own. Among Spanish exegetes, we see a different pattern. These exegetes are willing to consider a broader range of interpretations, including those that recognize the theological problem in Moses’ death. Spanish Exegesis The Spanish exegetical tradition developed independently of the Northern French school. The exegete, poet, and philosopher, Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1164), who was one of the founders of the Spanish tradition of Jewish

47 Yehoshafat Nevo, Behor Shor al Ha-Torah (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kuk, 2000), 1. 48 Nevo, Behor Shor, 4-5. 49 Nevo, Behor Shor, 391.

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biblical exegesis,50 rarely cites Rashi’s commentary, and when he does, he often criticizes it as derash or simple repetition of rabbinic homiletics as opposed to his own more literal interpretation.51 In Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Numbers 20:8,52 he lists a wide variety of interpretations of the nature of Moses’ sin and rejects them all. Finally, he interprets Moses’ sin in what he describes as “hints,” which do not make his interpretation completely clear. He writes, “When the part knows the whole, it should cleave to the whole and be renewed in all signs and wonders.”53 One possible explanation of this is that Moses, because of the rebellion of the people, had become detached from God to whom he normally cleaved.54 Moses, he explains, should not have acted until he became one with God again.55 But this is left entirely vague. Whatever Ibn Ezra believes to have been the nature of Moses’ sin, in any case, it is mysterious and can be explained only in hints. To Ibn Ezra, Moses never complained or wept over his death. Moses’ prayer in Deuteronomy 3, according to Ibn Ezra, was a performance for the Israelites and only intended to make the Israelites love the land of Israel so that they would keep the commandments in order not to be exiled from it.56 Further, by consenting willingly to God’s command to die, Moses remained a faithful servant until the last moment of his life.57 Ibn Ezra thus reduces the need to find an explanation for Moses’ death, since no one, neither the people nor Moses himself, objects to it. The Spanish exegete, theologian, and legal scholar Moses ben Nahman, or Nahmanides (1194-1270), agrees with Ibn Ezra that the sin of Moses is not disclosed in the Bible.58 He disagrees with Ibn Ezra’s esoteric explanation 50 Although Ibn Ezra travelled widely in Europe and the Mediterranean, he was born in Spain and lived there until 1140. 51 See, for example, Ibn Ezra on Genesis 32:8. 52 Torat Hayim Bamidbar, 172-5. 53 Torat Hayim Bamidbar, 175. The Hebrew is as follows: ‫דע כי כאשר ידע החלק את הכל‬ ‫ידבק בכל ויחדש בכל אותות ומופתים‬ 54 This interpretation is based on Asher Vizer’s editorial comments in the Torat Hayim edition, Torat Hayim Bamidbar, 175. 55 cf. Ibn Ezra on Numbers 20.12, Torat Hayim Bamidbar, 187. 56 Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 3:4, Torat Hayim Devarim, 33. 57 Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 34:5, Torat Hayim Devarim, 318. 58 He writes that “the sin of Moses and Aaron at the waters of Meribah is not clearly expressed in scripture” (‫)החטא במשה ואהרן אינו מתפרסם בכתוב‬, and after refuting many explanations of it, he describes this sin as “one of the great secrets amongst the mysteries of the Torah” (‫ )הענין סוד גדול מסתרי התורה‬in his commentary on Numbers 20:7 (Torat Hayim Bamidbar, 172-4. Hayim Dov Chavel, Commentary on the Torah [by] Ramban (Nachmanides), vol. 4 [New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1975], 210, 217). See Elliot R. Wolfson, “By Way

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death 179 and advances his own: that by hitting the rock twice instead of once, Moses showed a misunderstanding of the divine nature, which consists of two attributes that are unified.59 Nevertheless, in his commentary on Deuteronomy he writes that Moses was punished not for his own sin, but for the people’s. Moses did not sin in hitting the rock, but the people, rather, misinterpreted his actions and came to sin.60 Nahmanides most clearly shows the tension between regarding divine justice and the death of Moses in his commentary on Deuteronomy. In his commentary on Deuteronomy 3, Nahmanides follows Rashi in explaining Moses’ prayer to be allowed into the land as Moses begging for divine mercy.61 Although he briefly quotes one line of the argument in Midrash Tanhuma, which seems to indicate that Moses believed his death was unjust,62 he is more interested in the Kabbalistic association of the four-letter name of God (YHVH), which Moses uses to pray to God in Deuteronomy 3:24, with the divine attribute of mercy.63 By referencing the later midrashic tradition of Midrash Tanhuma, Nahmanides is the first of the medieval commentators to explicitly recognize the possible injustice in Moses’ death. His comment on the significance of this particular Divine Name raises the possibility that Nahmanides considers even God to be conflicted on the question of whether or not Moses should die. Asher ben Yehiel (1250-1328), known as Rabbenu Asher or the Tur,64 builds on both Northern French and Spanish traditions by quoting the

of Truth: Aspects of Nahmanides’ Kabbalistic Hermeneutic,” Association for Jewish Studies Review, Vol. 14:2 (1989): 103-178, for Nahmanides’ use of esoteric explanations. Wolfson discusses this example on page 148. 59 This explanation is based on Wolfson, “By Way of Truth,” 148. The text is unclear and allows for other possible interpretations, including that Nahmanides does not believe that it is possible to know Moses’ sin at all. 60 Nahmanides on Deuteronomy 1:37, Torat Hayim Devarim, 14, Chavel Commentary, 23. 61 Nahmanides on Deuteronomy 3:23-4, Torat Hayim Devarim, 32, Chavel Commentary, 4 6-7. 62 “Moses said to God: ‘Master of the worlds! If I am asking justly [that You grant my supplication] give it to me, and if I am not asking justly, have mercy on me.’” ‫אמר לו רבון‬ ‫העולמים אי מתבעי לי בדין הב לי ואם לא מתבעי לי בדין רחם עלי‬. Nahmanides on Deuteronomy 3:24, Torat Hayim Devarim, 32, Chavel, Commentary, 47. 63 In this system, God has multiple attributes that can be in conflict or tension with each other and are each signified by a different Divine Name. Nahmanides on Deuteronomy 3:24, Torat Hayim Devarim, 34, Chavel Commentary, 47-8. 64 Asher ben Yehiel is called the Tur after the title of his best-known book, the Arba Turim [Four Columns], a Jewish legal code.

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commentaries of both Nahmanides and Rashi.65 He emphasizes, as does Nahmanides, that the sin keeping Moses out of the land was primarily the sin of the people. If they had not sinned and been punished by wandering in the desert, Moses would have entered the land along with them.66 Similarly, when Moses tells the people that he prayed to God to let him enter the land, Asher ben Yehiel explains that Moses meant the people to understand that it was at least in part because of the people’s sin—and not Moses’ own sin—that Moses’ prayer was denied.67 Asher ben Yehiel presents even Moses’ infirmity as God’s attempt to mitigate Moses’ feeling of the injustice of his death. If Moses had been competent to continue to lead, Asher ben Yehiel explains, he would have resented Joshua taking over leadership from him.68 Similarly, God showed Moses the land before his death to soften the blow because Moses loved his people so much that the thought of them going into a good land was comforting to him.69 The Italian exegete Ovadiah ben Jacob Seforno (1475-1550) similarly explains the death of Moses as punishment for the sins of the people. In his commentary, Moses does argue with God and asks not to die, but not for his own sake. Rather, Moses believed that, if he could bless the people of Israel in the land of Israel, this blessing would have such powerful effects that they would never be exiled. God denied this to Moses to ensure that a future exile would be possible.70 It is thus the rebellious people, and not Moses himself, who are punished by Moses’ death. Isaac ben Judah Abravanel (1437-1508) was among the last of the Spanish-Jewish exegetes and lived through the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. He builds on the Spanish tradition around Moses’ death by developing at length the argument that Moses’ death was really for his benefit. Moses’ death, he argues, was miraculous rather than natural.71 Moses, 65 Asher ben Yehiel was educated in the Northern French tradition but fled to Spain in 1306, which makes him a bridge figure between the French and Spanish exegetical (and legal) traditions. 66 Rabbenu Asher, second comment on Deuteronomy 1:37, Yaacov Kaplan Reintz, Perush ha-Tur al Ha-Torah (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2006), 678. Eliyahu Munk, trans. and ed., Tur on the Torah, vol. 4, (New York: Lambda Publishers, 2005), 1234. 67 Rabbenu Asher on Deuteronomy 3:23, Reintz, Perush ha-Tur, 682, Munk, Tur, 1245. 68 Rabbenu Asher on Deuteronomy 31:1, Reintz, Perush ha-Tur, 790, Munk, Tur, 1415. His source for this comment is the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 13. 69 Rabbenu Asher on Deuteronomy 31:1, Reintz, Perush ha-Tur, 790. Tur, 1415. 70 Seforno on Deuteronomy 3:25-6, Torat Hayim Devarim, 33, Sforno on the Torah, trans. Raphael Pelcovitz (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1997), 846. 71 Abravanel on Deuteronomy 34, Don Isaac Abravanel, Perush Abravanel al ha-Torah, (Jerusalem: Yesod, 2005/6), 344-8.

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death

181

because of his great righteousness, could be completely separated from his body to serve God in heaven. This was particularly appropriate for Moses, who was so close to God and who had been a mediator between human and divine. Moses (unlike, say, Elijah, who ascended bodily into heaven in 2 Kings 2:11) was holy enough to be completely without his body.72 Moses’ death is not, therefore, a punishment for any sin. It is not a punishment at all. Rather, it is a miracle intended to reward him. Abravenel thus completely rejects the idea of Moses’ death as punishment for a sin. In his commentary on Numbers, Abravanel rejects one by one the interpretations of Moses’ sin according to Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Nahmanides, as well as six other interpretations, before finally raising a possibility in the name of “one of the wise people of the generation” that Moses did not in fact sin at all.73 He points out that while some biblical verses say that Moses sinned, others, such as the ones in Deuteronomy 1:37, 3:36, and 4:21, state that he did not. Rather, the punishment and death of Moses was for the sin of his generation and is in the category of undeserved death.74 As support for this, Abravanel quotes a passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 55a: The ministering angels asked God, “Why did you punish the first man with death?” God answered, “I gave him one command, and he was not able to keep it.” They said, “But what about Moses and Aaron, who kept the entire Torah? Why did you decree death for them?” God said, “There is one fate for the righteous and the wicked” (Ecc. 9:2).75

Abravanel thus clearly revives, and considers favorably, the late midrashic tradition of the injustice of the death of Moses. Although he raises this possibility as the last and most convincing option that he considers, though, in the end, he rejects it as inconsistent with the verses in Numbers 20.76 The conclusion that he reaches is that Moses must in fact have sinned, since the Bible says so, but his sin cannot be found in this story. Rather, he was punished for his involvement with the sin of the spies, which led to the entire generation being condemned to die in the desert, just as Aaron 72 Abravanel on Deuteronomy 34, Perush Abravanel, 345-6. 73 ‫ אחד מחכמי הדור‬Abravanel on Numbers 20, Perush Abravanel, 102. 74 Abravanel on Numbers 20, Perush Abravanel, 102. 75 Abravanel on Numbers 20, Perush Abravanel, 102. The Hebrew is as follows: ‫שאלו‬ ‫מלאכי השרת להקב’’ה מפני מה קנסת מיתה אל אדם הראשון אמר הקב’’ה מצוה קלה צויתיו‬ ‫ אמרו אם כן משה ואהרן שקיימו כל התורה למה גזרת עליהם מיתה אמר‬.‫ולא יכול לעמוד עליה‬ ‫להם מקרה אחד לצדיק ולרשע‬ 76 Abravanel on Numbers 20, Perush Abravanel, 102.

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was punished for his (involuntary) involvement in the sin of the golden calf. Although Moses, Abravanel supposes, must have sinned indirectly by setting in motion the events that caused the Israelites to wander in the desert for forty years, still his actions were well-intentioned and can only be termed sinful in an indirect way.77 Although Abravanel is forced by the passage regarding the sin of Moses in Numbers 20 to conclude that Moses did in fact sin, he dramatically shifts the meaning of this sin. First, the sin of Moses had nothing to do with hitting the rock in Numbers 20. Second, it was a sin only in a vague sense, since he committed it “by accident and with good intentions.”78 Third, he might not have been punished for it at all if the Israelites had not complained about it, forcing God’s hand. Abravanel, then, comes very close to the late midrashic approach to the death of Moses. Conclusions In conclusion, these French and Spanish commentaries show contrasting approaches to the death of Moses, drawing on conflicting biblical and midrashic traditions. None of these commentaries, French or Spanish, explicitly adopts the midrashic tradition in which Moses begs God to spare his life and accuses God of injustice. Further, even those who do cite it (Nahmanides and Abravanel) reject its conclusion that Moses’ death was not just. This may be because, as Abravanel makes clear, medieval exegetes are less willing than rabbinic exegetes to simply ignore a biblical statement. Nevertheless, the Spanish exegetes are far more reluctant than the French exegetes to ascribe Moses’ death to his own sin. By interpreting the story of the death of Moses in these contrasting ways, French and Spanish medieval Jewish exegetes preserve rabbinic debates about the suffering of the righteous.79

77 Abravanel on Numbers 20, Perush Abravanel, 103. 78 ‫ בשוגג ובכונה טובה‬Abravanel on Numbers 20, Perush Abravanel, 103. 79 A draft of this paper was presented at the Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages session “Illuminating Moses (A Roundtable)” at the International Medieval Congress in May 2008. I am grateful to all session participants for their feedback, and particularly to Jane Beal for organizing the session and responding to my paper. I would also like to thank Monica Bulger and Jennifer Read for their research and editing assistance. All translations are my own. References to existing translations are provided to assist the reader.

rabbinic and medieval justifications for moses’ death 183 Alphabetical List of Commentators Abravanel—Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, 1437-1508. Behor Shor—Joseph Behor Shor, d. 1140. Ibn Ezra—Abraham Ibn Ezra, 1089-1164. Nahmanides—Moses ben Nahman, 1194-1270. Rashbam—Rabbi Solomon ben Meir, 1080-1160. Rashi—Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, 1040-1106. Seforno—Ovadiah ben Jacob Seforno, 1475-1550. Tur (Rabbenu Asher)—Asher ben Yehiel, 1250-1328.

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Legifer, Dux, Scriptor: Moses in Anglo-Saxon Literature Gernot Wieland In an article published in 1988, I examined the expression “manna mildost” as applied to Moses and Beowulf in Old English poetry as well as to God in Old High German poetry.1 Moses, it seemed, was to be found in very exalted company: a Germanic hero on the one hand and God Himself on the other. I drew several parallels between Beowulf and Moses, with both men as leaders and rescuers, and I pointed out that both of them strongly rely on the help of God. My main objective at the time was to see Beowulf in a typological light, and the identical formula applied to both Moses and Beowulf seemed to allow such a typological reading. Back in 1988, I was not too concerned about the way in which Anglo-Saxons in general interpreted Moses and did not even ask how an exegete such as Bede or a prolific poet such as Aldhelm would have regarded this Old Testament figure. I commented on Mary Richards’ conclusion that “the closing eulogy to Beowulf [is] a statement of his essential Christianity,”2 and since this eulogy contains the formula manna mildost, which is also applied to Moses, I stated that “Moses, though a good man, could at best hope to be a type of Christ rather than a Christian”3 without exploring whether any of the Anglo-Saxons ever explicitly drew the typological parallel between Moses and Christ. To my knowledge, no one in the meantime has explored AngloSaxon attitudes towards Moses.4 This essay intends to do so, and in doing 1 “Manna Mildost: Moses and Beowulf,” Pacific Coast Philology 23 (1988): 86-93. 2 Mary Richards, “A Reexamination of Beowulf, ll. 3180-3182,” English Language Notes 10 (1973): 163-67. 3   “Manna Mildost,” pp. 88-89. 4 One of the latest books examining the Anglo-Saxons’ attitude towards Jews in general is Andrew P. Scheil, The Footsteps of Israel: Understanding Jews in Anglo-Saxon England (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004). Scheil has many references to Moses, but never attempts a synthesis of Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards him. This, of course, is not the aim of his book. I consider it worthwhile nonetheless to examine whether his conclusion of Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards Jews in general also applies to one Jew, namely Moses, specifically. This is what he concludes: “Jews are not simply or unproblematically the despised embodiment of alterity, the great hated ‘enemy within’ of the Christian West; they are also the model, elder people. Honor and hatred, desire and fear, at every step” (333). The essay hopes to show that, as far as Moses is concerned, there is a middle way between

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so attempts to determine whether Anglo-Saxon literature in both its Anglo-Latin and Old English manifestations confirm the heroism Moses seems to possess on account of sharing a poetic formula with both Beowulf and God. In order to outline the Anglo-Saxons’ view of Moses, we must first take into account the New Testament’s attitude toward Moses, since the New Testament would pave the way for either acceptance or rejection of this Old Testament figure. A priori, it would seem, Moses is a highly acceptable figure. According to the concordance, he is mentioned by name more frequently in the New Testament than any other patriarch. His name appears eighty times; Abraham, the next closest patriarch is mentioned seventy-two times, Elijah thirty times, Jacob twenty-six times, Isaac twenty times, and Noah eight times.5 Numbers, of course, do not mean everything, but Moses’ preeminence in the New Testament is also clearly demonstrated by the “transfiguration” scene in Matthew 17, in which Moses and Elijah are speaking to the transfigured Jesus. And if Moses has to share the spotlight at this point with Elijah, he does not have to do so in John 5:46, where Jesus says about him: “Si enim crederetis Moysi, crederetis forsitan et mihi: de me enim ille scripsit.” (“For if you had believed Moses, you therefore would have believed in me: for he wrote about me.”) There can be no doubt that this patriarch caught the imagination of the evangelists and of the writers of the epistles. To what extent, however, did the Anglo-Saxons share the New Testament’s acceptance of Moses? To find the answer, I shall look at both the Latin and Old English literature produced by the Anglo-Saxons. Literature is here broadly defined and includes all forms of writing such as exegesis, hagiography, historiography, and letters, regardless of whether these texts are written in poetry or in prose. Space considerations prevent an examination of every single mention of Moses in Anglo-Saxon literature, but I hope that the texts I do examine provide a representative sample of AngloSaxon attitudes towards Moses. I shall begin with the best-known trio of Anglo-Latin writing, namely Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin, briefly examine references to Moses in the Old English poetic corpus, and end with the Old English Exodus. “honor and hatred” and “desire and fear”: this middle way seems to consist of a reluctance to speak about Moses, of limited acceptance, and of ambivalence. 5 See Novae Concordantiae Bibliorum Sacrorum iuxta Vulgatam Versionem Critice Editam, ed. Bonifatius Fischer, 4 volumes (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1977).

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The longest sustained account of Moses appears among Alcuin’s carmina, specifically the poem entitled “In sacrum bibliorum codicem,” in which Alcuin enumerates all the biblical books from Genesis to Revelation. The Pentateuch, said to be written by Moses, takes up lines 35 to 92, i.e. approximately one quarter of the 204 line poem. I reproduce the entire passage here despite its length since it provides a first indication of the Anglo-Saxons’ attitude towards Moses: 35 Legifer ille pius quicquid iam scripserat olim, De mundi ac rerum principio siquidem: Qualiter omnipotens naturas conderet omnes, Ingenio quantum scire licet hominis. Hic etiam legitur hominis factura creati, 40 Qualiter aut fugerit exul ob ore sacro; Impius aut frater sceleratam sanguine dextram Fraterno implere cur pietatis inops. Post etiam retinet numeros et nomina patrum, Saeclorum per quos ordo cucurrit ovans. 45 Inde Noe, requies mundi, iam nascitur almus, Tempore sub cuius iam cataclismus erat, Dum natat arca dei pelago, spes altera mundi, Totius et secli prole repleta simul. Extruit inmensam damnanda superbia turrem, 50 Pro qua dividitur consona vox hominum. Tum pater Abraam caeli bene doctus in astris, Cui promissus erat filius ipse dei. Exilia hinc Isaac, Iacob quoque longa leguntur, Perque pares bis sex gentis origo sacrae. 55 Venditur hinc fratrum scelere et puer inclytus atro Ioseph in Aegyptum, patre dolente pio: Qui regni est subito factus de carcere rector, Et cum prolem patrem duxit in arva Gesen. Continet haec Genesis pariter liber omnia primus, 60 Usque fuit Ioseph mortis amara dies. Post cuius mortem Pharao rex impius alter Inposuit famulis vincula dura dei. Post Exodus habet praeclari tempora Moysis, Qui mandante deo dux fuit in populo, 65 Fortiter educens Aegypti ex6 gente maligna Perque decim plagas agmina sancta dei. Egit iter populus siccis super aequora plantis Cantantes domino carmina laetitiae. Hinc data lex fuerat Synai de vertice celso 6 Duemmler’s edition reads “et”; “ex” seems a preferable reading.

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gernot wieland 70 In tabulis sancto scripta dei digito, Quam turbis retulit descendens vertice montis Cornuta7 facie legifer ipse pius: Longa quidem populum vix per deserta vagantem Condere praecipiens atria sancta deo, 75 Cum mensis, vasis, tabulis simul atque lucernis, Sanctaque sanctorum, quo fuit arca dei; Inde sacerdotum describit in ordine cultus, Ac levitarum tertius ipse liber, Tempora sanctorum currentia festa dierum 80 Et vestes Aaron progeniemque sacram. Scribitur in quarto numerorum misticus ordo, Per tribus et turmas summa dei populo. Mistica sed Balaam senioris verba prophetae, Vera cadens quinam plurima praececinit. 85 Quattuor hinc decies per vasta silentia mundi, Erravit sitiens plebs malefida deo. Dux renovat legem dictis mordacibus almam, Dumque diem mortis sensit adesse sibi. Hoc tenet egregio quintus sermone libellus, 90 In mentem revocans dona dei populo. Per deserta negans dominum perit inproba turba, Ac mandante deo legifer almus obit.8 35 40 45 50

(That pious lawgiver long ago wrote about the beginning of the world and all things: how the Almighty established all principles, as far as man’s intellect can grasp them. Here also one can read about the fashioning of created man, and how he fled, made an exile by divine command; and how the faithless brother devoid of any pity stained his criminal hand with fraternal blood. After that, he recounts the number and names of the patriarchs, through whose generations the happy world progressed. Later, kind Noah, the “repose of the world,” is born, during whose life the Flood occurred, and the ark of God—that second hope of mankind – filled with the few humans left in this world, floated on the waters. Contemptible pride built an immense tower, and for this the human language, hitherto one, became confounded.

7 On “cornuta,” see Ruth Mellinkoff, The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought (Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), esp. the chapter “Commentary of the Theologians,” pp. 76-93. In keeping with Mellinkoff’s finding that the horns were metaphorical, I translate “radiant” instead of “horned.” 8 “Alcuini (Albini) Carmina,” Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini 1, ed. Ernestus Duemmler (Berlin: Wiedmann, 1881; rprt. 1964), 288-90.

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Then [came] father Abraham, an expert in the heavenly stars, to whom the Son of God Himself was promised. The long exiles of Isaac and of Jacob follow, whence sprang the twelve tribes of the holy people. Through a foul crime of his brothers the famous boy Joseph is sold into Egypt, and his pious father is left to grieve. Leaving the prison behind, Joseph was made ruler of the realm and brought his father and his brothers to the land of Goshen. The first book, Genesis, contains all this including the bitter day of Joseph’s death. After his death another Pharaoh, a godless king, placed hard chains on the servants of God. Exodus tells of the times of famous Moses, who at God’s command became leader of his people, and bravely led the holy troops of God from the evil people of Egypt, striking them with ten plagues. On dry feet the people crossed the sea, singing songs of joy to the Lord. The Law was given to them from the peak of Sinai, written onto tablets by the holy finger of God, and the pious lawgiver with radiant face brought it to the crowds upon his descent from the mountain. He instructed the people struggling through the vast desert to build a holy hall for the Lord, with tables, vessels, boards, and lanterns, a holy of holies, which contained the ark of the Lord. The third book, that of the Levites, describes the order of priestly worship, the steady progress of the holy feast days, the vestments of Aaron and his consecrated sons. In the fourth book is described the mystical order of numbers, the number of all God’s people arranged by tribes and by troops. The mystical words of the older prophet Balaam, foretold many true things, even though he fell. For forty years the thirsty people, distrustful of God, wandered through the vast silence of the desert. With bitter comments, the ruler renews the salvific Law when he feels his death day approach. The fifth book contains this in exquisite speech, recalling God’s gift to the people. The faithless crowd that denies the Lord dies in the desert, and at the command of God, the pious lawgiver passes away.)

The passage opens with a descriptive epithet of Moses, namely legifer— literally “the bearer of the law,” which refers to Moses’ receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai. The very first line dealing with

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him leaves no doubt that Moses is also an author (“quicquid ... scripserat”), and Alcuin enumerates the titles of the books of the Pentateuch, either explicitly9 or through an indication of the content.10 One further epithet identifies Moses as a dux (lines 64 and 87), and the account ends as it began by referring to Moses as a legifer (lines 72 and 92). Of Moses’ deeds, Alcuin emphasizes the ten plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the receiving of the commandments, and rather generally the forty years spent in the desert without the details of water from the rock or of the manna from heaven. Although Alcuin mentions Moses’ activity as an author, he does so factually and without elaboration. As a matter of fact, considering that Moses is the author of all five books, Alcuin actually downplays Moses’ role in the creation of the Pentateuch. In line 39, he shifts from the active to a passive verb and omits the author; in line 59, he speaks of the contents of Genesis, but not of the author responsible for these contents; in lines 77-78, he has the book Leviticus and not Moses describe the “sacerdotum ... cultus;” and in line 81, Alcuin returns to the passive scribitur rather than to an active “Moses scribit.” In part, this can be explained by Alcuin’s desire for variation. Something else, however, must also play a role. Although Moses is the author of the Pentateuch, and although he is the protagonist in at least one of these books, his name appears only once in these almost 60 lines, namely at line 63. Alcuin does add the adjective praeclarus, but this draws attention to, rather than diverts attention from, the fact that he is reluctant to use Moses’ name. Though this reluctance is not immediately interpretable, it nonetheless amounts to a marginalization of Moses: he is displaced as author of the very books he wrote. For Alcuin, the essence of Moses seems to be captured not in his writing activity but in the two concepts dux and legifer, and he seems to link them explicitly in two lines that echo each other: line 64 “Qui mandante deo dux fuit in populo” and line 92 “Ac mandante deo legifer almus obit.” What can the terms dux and legifer tell us about Alcuin’s attitude towards Moses? The term dux as applied to Moses is reinforced in line 65 with the tautological expression “dux ... fortiter educens ... agmina sancta dei.” Dux therefore defines itself in relation to the group being led, and while Moses remains a dux through to line 87, the terms for the people he leads shift 9 Genesis is mentioned in line 59, Exodus in line 63, “levitarum ... liber” = Leviticus in line 78, and Numbers in line 81. 10 The content of Deuteronomy is briefly outlined in lines 87-90.

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from “agmina sancta dei” (line 66) to “populus ... cantantes domino carmina laetitiae” (lines 67-68) to “populum ... vagantem” (line 73) to to “plebs malefida deo” (line 86) to “popul[us]” (line 90) and finally to “negans dominum ... inproba turba” (line 91). Moses, in other words, is a leader whose people degenerate from “the holy troops of God” to “a faithless crowd denying the Lord.” In turn, this means that Moses gradually loses control over the very people he is supposed to lead, and it seems that God recalls him just at the moment when the crowd becomes too unruly. Alcuin seems to make this connection in the last two lines (lines 91-92) of his account of Moses: Per deserta negans dominum perit inproba turba Ac mandante deo legifer almus obit. (The faithless crowd, which denied the Lord, dies in the desert, and at the command of God the pious lawgiver passes away.)

Does God cause Moses’ death because he [= Moses] was unable to prevent the inproba turba from denying the Lord? Alcuin does not say so, but the juxtaposition of the faithless crowd denying the Lord and God commanding that Moses die strongly suggests that the one happens because of the other. The four lines immediately preceding the statement of Moses’ death (lines 87-90) reinforce this image of Moses as a leader who has lost control: Dux renovat legem dictis mordacibus almam Dumque diem mortis sensit adesse sibi. Hoc tenet egregio quintus sermone libellus, In mentem revocans dona dei populo. (With bitter comments the ruler renews the salvific law when he feels his death day approach. The fifth book contains this in exquisite speech, recalling God’s gifts to the people.)

Alcuin conveys a sense of desperation in Moses who feels his death approach and who still sees his people not grasping the basic elements of God’s law. Unable to control his exasperation, it is no wonder that he lashes out with “dictis mordacibus.” Moses, in other words, is shown as ultimately unsuccessful as a dux, and it is Joshua who is portrayed as “turbas ... inducens patriam”11 in contrast to Moses who has to remain content with being no more than a “dux ... educens.” 11 Note that the Israelites are still a turba as in line 91, but no longer an inproba turba.

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The term dux may provide another reason for the Anglo-Saxons’ reluctance to accept Moses completely. For the Anglo-Saxons dux does not just mean “leader,” but is also a title of the nobility, equivalent to a duke or, militarily speaking, a general. Both of these, however, are subject to a rex, and hence the term dux, by denoting a person subordinate to a rex, demotes the bearer of that title. This, I freely admit, is partly speculation since Alcuin does not explicitly oppose the dux Moses to the reges Saul, David, or Solomon, but he does draw our attention to the fact that Christ came from the “regali stemmate”—“the royal pedigree” of David,12 whereas he does not make any such connection between the “ducal” Moses and Christ. In this connection, it may be worth looking at the fact that in the Peterborough Chronicle Hengest and Horsa arrived in Britain as heretogan, subservient to king Vortigern, but once Vortigern was killed, Hengest and Æsc “succeeded to the kingdom,” and once Hengest dies, Æsc “was king thirty-four years.”13 The inference that a heretoga = dux is less powerful, and hence less appealing than a rex, may therefore be allowed. The term legifer is less problematic, and literally refers to Moses as “the carrier of the law,” since he carried the tablets from the top of Mt. Sinai. What is interesting, however, is that Alcuin uses this term long before he gives the proper name of Moses. The clear implication is that Alcuin expects his readers, both on the Continent and in England, to know who this legifer is, which in turn means that “Moses” and the “Law” are so intricately linked that legifer becomes an epithet applicable only to Moses and almost interchangeable with his name. We shall return to this connection between Moses and the Law later on. To what extent can Alcuin’s poem be considered to reflect Anglo-Saxon sensitivities? In all likelihood, Alcuin wrote the poem when he was already 12 “In sacrum bibliorum codicem,” line 115. 13 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, volume 7: MS. E, ed. Susan Irvine (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004), 16 (entry for 449): “Heora heretogan wæron twegen gebroðra Hengest 7 Horsa.” In 455, Vortigern is killed and “æfter þonn feng to rice Hengest 7 Æsc” (16). While there is no clear indication here that either Hengest or Æsc was considered king, there can be no doubt in the entry of 488: “Her Æsc feng to rice 7 wæs .xxxiiii. wintra cining.” If “feng to rice” implies being a king, as the entry of 488 suggests, then the Anglo-Saxons turned one of the heretogan into a king within six years of their setting foot on British soil. Even if we take 488 as the date at which the heretoga explicitly became a king, the transformation is still quick and suggests an Anglo-Saxon desire to leave the subordinate title behind and to adopt that of a sovereign. It may be instructive to note that in The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. A. Campbell (London: Nelson, 1962), Hengest and Horsa are first referred to as duces (9), and once Hengest has defeated Vortigern in the battle in which Horsa dies (455), he “cepit regnum,” which suggests that he became rex in that year.

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abbot of Tours and fulfilling Charlemagne’s desire for a unified and correct text of the Bible. Nonetheless, since Alcuin received his education in Anglo-Saxon England, since he primarily provides a synopsis of the biblical texts, and since the Anglo-Saxons can be expected to have been familiar with the basic story line of the Old Testament, the sentiments expressed by Alcuin can for the most part be assumed to echo those of the AngloSaxons. Under the influence of his continental colleagues, he may have placed a slightly different emphasis on particular events of Moses’ life, and we therefore need to look at other works by Anglo-Saxons to determine just how Anglo-Saxon Alcuin’s poem is. Aldhelm, the Anglo-Saxon from Southern England, who wrote both a prose and verse version of the De virginitate, who wrote the Carmina Ecclesiastica, a Carmen rhythmicum, the Riddles and the surrounding treatise on metrics, as well several letters,14 is the next author to be examined. Aldhelm is known for his verbosity, and it is therefore surprising that the index to Ehwald’s edition of the Aldhelmi Opera15 lists “Moyses” but one single time, namely for line 17 of Aldhelm’s metrical Preface to his Riddles: Nam mihi versificum poterit Deus addere carmen Inspirans stolidae pia gratis munera menti; Tangit si mentem, mox laudem corda rependunt. Metrica nam Moysen declarant carmina vatem Iamdudum cecinisse prisci vexilla tropei Late per populos illustria, qua nitidus Sol Lustrat ab oceani iam tollens gurgite cephal Et psalmista canens metrorum cantica voce Natum divino promit generamine numen In caelis prius exortum, quam Lucifer orbi Splendida formatis fudisset lumina saeclis .... Incipiam potiora ...16 (For God shall be able to augment the poetic undertaking for me, freely breathing His holy gifts into my obtuse mind: if He should touch my mind, my heart shall at once requite [the gift] with praise. For biblical verses make it clear that the prophet Moses long ago had chanted the glorious praises 14 On Aldhelm’s works, see Aldhelmi Opera, MGH Auctores Antiquissimi 15, ed. Rudolf Ehwald (Berlin: Weidmann, 1919; reprt. 1961). For an English translation of all of Aldhelm’s prose works, see Aldhelm: The Prose Works, trans. Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1979) and for an English translation of all of Aldhelm’s poetic works, see Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, trans. Michael Lapidge and James Rosier (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985). 15 Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 551. 16 “De Metris et Enigmatibus ac Pedum Regulis,” Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 98.

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gernot wieland of an ancient victory far and wide among peoples everywhere, where the bright sun, on raising its head from the ocean’s flood, shines forth. And the Psalmist, singing aloud the verses of his songs, announced a Child born through divine procreation, which had risen in the skies before the Morning Star had poured its radiant light on the world when the ages were newly formed. ... I shall begin to sing of even mightier themes.)17

According to Aldhelm, poetic inspiration comes from God who had given both Moses and David the power to craft songs. It is not entirely clear whether the comparative form in potiora means that Aldhelm will “sing of even mightier themes” than Moses and David or whether, having finished the Riddles, he will take up “mightier themes.”18 What is clear, however, is that Aldhelm seeks the same divine inspiration that both Moses and David had experienced when they composed their songs. With the lines immediately following these Aldhelm refers to one of the miracles performed by Moses: Siccis nam laticum duxisti cautibus amnes Olim, cum cuneus transgresso marmore rubro Desertum penetrat.19 (For You [God] once led the streams of water from dry rocks, when the throng [of Israelites], having crossed the Red Sea, entered the desert.)20

Although it is God who is addressed here, it is apparent to everyone who knows the Bible that it was Moses who struck the rock and who, through the power of God, brought forth water. The lines do not seem intended to diminish Moses, but rather to create a parallel between Moses and Aldhelm as both needing divine inspiration for their poetic works. Even though in passing Aldhelm mentions the crossing of the Red Sea and the water flowing from the rock, he does not elaborate on these miracles, but sees in Moses a fellow poet who, like Aldhelm himself, requires divine inspiration. In contrast to Alcuin, Aldhelm concentrates on Moses the poet and writer rather than on Moses the leader and lawgiver.

17 Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, 70-71. 18 In Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, Lapidge and Rosier mention that “[a]s Aldhelm tells us (with characteristic modesty!) in the metrical prologue to his collection, his theme will be even mightier than those of Moses and David” (63). While this clearly is a possible interpretation, one cannot rule out that with “incipiam potiora” Aldhelm was actually referring to future poetry he would be writing, which would be “mightier” than the Riddles. 19 “De Metris,” Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 98. 20 Aldhelm: The Poetic Works, 71.

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Even though this is the only time that Aldhelm directly mentions Moses’ name, he does refer to him on other occasions. In the introductory section to the prose De virginitate, he has this to say: … nunc antiquarum arcana legum ab illo mirabiliter digesta, qui bis quinis Memphitica regna saevissimis plagarum afflictionibus crudeliter percussisse et rubicundi tumentes oceani gurgites ac reciproca spumantis pelaga flustra sacrosancti tactu viminis ex colubro nuper transfigurati in simulacro maceriae altrinsecus sequestrasse et post caeleste colloquium cornutis vultibus incredulum fugasse vulgus describitur.21 (… now scrutinizing with careful application the hidden mysteries of the ancient laws miraculously drawn up by the man [i.e. Moses] who is said to have cruelly smitten the Memphitic realms [i.e. Egypt] with ten most savage afflictions of plagues, and to have separated on different sides, into the likeness of a wall, the swelling waters of the Red Sea and the surge of its foaming waves, receding at the touch of the sacred rod once transformed from a serpent, and, after divine confabulation, to have put to flight the incredulous people with his horned face.)22

This one subordinate phrase encompasses a large portion of Exodus, from Exodus 7:8 (the rod converted into a serpent) to Exodus 7:14–12:30 (the ten plagues) to 14:21-31 (the crossing of the Red Sea) to 20:1-17 (the Ten Commandments) to Exodus 34: 29-35 (Moses’ horns). There can be no doubt that Aldhelm was thoroughly familiar with Exodus, and hence with Moses. In this particular passage, Aldhelm wishes to stress that the nuns of Barking have studied the Ten Commandments. The fact that Moses delivered them is incidental, and Moses’ deeds are mentioned at great length only to allow identification of the unnamed person through his actions. It is not entirely clear why he chose the above listed sections from Exodus. The Ten Commandments are balanced by the ten plagues; the crossing of the Red Sea has always been considered a reference to baptism, but Moses’ horns23 21 “De virginitate,” Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 232. 22   Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 62. 23 On Moses’ “horns,” see Mellinkoff, The Horned Moses. Mellinkoff does not mention Aldhelm in her book. She does, however, cite Gildas and asks: “Does this early sixth-century allusion to horned Moses reveal an early and continuous tradition for him in England? Can one tie this in with his later appearance in art in eleventh-century England?” (82). Since both Aldhelm and Alcuin mention the horned Moses, there clearly seems to be continuity at least from the sixth to the early ninth century (Alcuin died in 804). According to Mellinkoff, the horns distinguish Moses as “glorificat[us]” (77), but since his glory can also be seen in e.g., his successfully leading the Israelites out of Egypt, in his receiving the Law from God Himself, in striking water from the rock, and obtaining manna for the starving Israelites, his horns merely constitute a symbol of the glory that he has achieved through his actions. They do not seem to be a particularly important characteristic of Moses, though

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and the conversion of the staff into a serpent24 hardly seem to be the most important characteristics of Moses. Whatever the reason for his choice, in this passage, Aldhelm clearly confers a place of prominence to Moses, even though he partly undercuts it by leaving Moses’ name unmentioned. Aldhelm refers to Moses once more when he relates the story of Hilarion who stopped a towering wave of the sea so that “ut murus glacialis ante eum steterit”25 (“it stood like a wall of ice before him.”)26 He compares Hilarion to the “legislatorem”—“the lawgiver”—who, in Exodus 14:22, made the waves of the Red Sea stand “quasi murus a dextra eorum et laeva.”27 Considering the length of Aldhelm’s work, three brief references to Moses, and only one by name, do not seem much. Aldhelm refers more often to Daniel,28 David,29 and even to Virgil.30 Since Aldhelm touches on various aspects of Moses (lawgiver, the person parting the Red Sea, writer, initiator of the plague, water from rock), we can draw no particular conclusion about why this Old Testament figure who is so frequently mentioned in the New Testament appears so rarely in Aldhelm’s works. We can, however, draw the conclusion that Aldhelm is reluctant to speak about the patriarch. We can also draw the conclusion that both Alcuin and Aldhelm agree on the importance of Moses’ activity as legifer and legislator. Aldhelm neglects the dux aspect of Moses, which was clearly important for Alcuin, and Alcuin pays relatively little attention to Moses’ activity as an author, which seems to carry some importance for Aldhelm. Both Aldhelm and Alcuin, however, share a reluctance to mention Moses by name identifying him they clearly gained iconographic importance. It might be interesting to note in this context that the In Pentateuchum Commentarii, PL 91, col. 332, mentions that Moses’ face “glorificata videtur,” but keeps the reference to Moses’ horns tucked away in an allegorical interpretation: “Sermo quippe legis habet scientiae gloriam, sed secretum non habet, et cornua duorum testamentorum, quibus contra falsitatis dogmata incedit armatus.” 24 The episode in which Moses turns his staff into a serpent is described in Exodus 7:9-12. Though the staff is important in that it reappears in the parting of the Red Sea and striking water from the rock, the scene in which the staff is turned into a serpent, while demonstrating Moses’ magical powers, nonetheless is relatively unimportant in comparison to his other achievements. 25      “De virginitate,” Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 267. 26 Aldhelm: The Prose Works, 89. 27 The “De virginitate” contains one more reference to the crossing of the Red Sea in Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 241, but here without any mention of Moses. 28 He mentions Daniel four times by name. See “Index Nominum Propriorum,” in Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 549. 29 He mentions David by name four times. See “Index Nominum Propriorum,” Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 549. 30 He refers to Virgil forty-eight times, and one additional time as Maro. See “Index Nominum Propriorum,” Aldhelmi Opera, MGH AA 15, 554 and 551.

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either through descriptive epithets (dux and legifer in Alcuin) or through a description of his deeds (Aldhelm). Perhaps the answer for their reticence about Moses can be found in the works of Bede. Bede, after all, wrote exegesis of the Old Testament, and therefore could not remain silent about Moses. I shall most closely examine Bede’s In Genesim, his De Tabernaculo et Vasis eius ac Vestibus Sacerdotum, and his Historia Ecclesiastica.31 The Praefatio to In Genesim provides us with a first hint that Bede will not speak at length about Moses: while the previous exegetes of Genesis are mentioned by name—Basilius of Caesarea, Eustathius, Ambrose, and Augustine—Moses, the author of Genesis, is passed over in silence.32 Bede is, of course, aware, that Moses has written Genesis, but he acknowledges this fact as late as line 137 of his actual commentary and almost as an afterthought. Before line 137 Bede lets the scriptura divina speak for itself,33 uses a passive,34 and chooses third person verbs without clear subject.35 When Bede finally mentions the patriarch’s name, he does so in a critical way: Nam et ideo Moyses tam breuiter superioris mundi fecit mentionem, quia de mundo hoc in quo homo factus est, ad instructionem generis humani sermonem facere instituerat, sufficere credens, si omnem creaturae spiritalis et inuisibilis statum atque ornatum uno caeli nomine, quod in principium factum dixit, conprehenderet; corporalem uero, uisibilem et corruptibilem creaturam latius ex ordine describeret, id est tacitis eis quae altiora quaesitu et fortiora scrutati sunt hominum.36 (Moses mentioned the spiritual world so briefly because he intended to speak about this world, in which man was made, for the instruction of humanity; he believed it would suffice if he referred to the entire glorious state of the spiritual and invisible creation with the one noun ‘heaven,’ of which he had said that it was created in the beginning, and if he described the corporeal, visible and corruptible creation at length, passing over in silence

31 For editions of these works, see Libri Quatuor in Principium Genesis usque ad Nativitatem Isaac et Eiectionem Ismahelis Adnotationum, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 118A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1967), Bedae Venerabilis De Tabernaculo et Vasis eius ac Vestibus Sacerdotum, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 119A, ed. D. Hurst (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). 32 In Genesim, CCSL 118A, p. 1. 33 E.g. in In Genesim, CCSL 118A, p. 3, line 2, and p. 5, line 85. 34 E.g. in In Genesim, CCSL 118A, p. 4, line 33: dicitur; p. 5, line 91: memoratur. 35 E.g. in In Genesim, CCSL 118A, p. 4, line 36: intulit; ibid., line 36 uoluit; ibid., line 41: declarat; p. 5, line 86: significat; ibid., line 87: insinuat. 36      In Genesim, CCSL 118A, p. 7.

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gernot wieland that part of creation which has been recognized as higher and more powerful by the careful scrutiny of men.)37

Moses, in Bede’s opinion, fell short. Bede leaves no doubt that when Moses “believed it would suffice ... if he described the corporeal, visible and corruptible creation at length,” he was wrong. A partial instruction is incomplete, especially one that omits the “higher and more powerful” part of creation. St. Basil, Bede informs us, does include this “superior and invisible creation,” and St. Basil’s achievement is Moses’ failure. Bede several times in his In Genesim plays on this theme that whereas Moses provided useful information, the information itself was either incomplete or otherwise lacking. In discussing the verse Et dixit Deus, Fiat lux, et facta est lux, Bede points out the co-presence of the Son in this act of creation. The Mosaic diction is criticized in the following way: Quod autem dixisse Deus, siue ut lux fieret siue ut alia quaeque, perhibetur, non nostro more per sonum uocis corporeum fecisse credendus est, sed altius intellegendum dixisse Deum ut fieret creatura, quia per uerbum suum omnia, id est per unigenitum filium, fecit. De quo manifestius euangelista Iohannes, In principio, inquit, erat uerbum, et uerbum erat apud Deum ... Omnia per ipsum facta sunt.38 (It is mentioned that God said either “let there be light” or anything else; we must not believe that he created in our way through the bodily sound of the voice, but we must understand this passage in a deeper sense, namely when God said “let there be a creature,” he created everything through his word, that is, through his only begotten Son. The evangelist John speaks more clearly about this when he says: “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God ... Through it everything was created.”)

Moses fails to make the co-presence of the Son explicit, and so a later writer, here John, has to point it out. The failure of Moses is indicated in the negative (“non nostro more ... credendus est”), in the two comparatives altius and manifestius, and in the juxtaposition of Moses’ incomplete rendering of the creative act with John’s fuller account. Bede’s In Genesim contains more such oppositions, all of which combine to provide an image of Moses as a flawed writer. Bede himself shows that there is no necessity to point out Moses’ shortcoming. In other places, he speaks about the diuina scriptura narrating an event or he takes refuge in the passive. He could easily have written his entire exegesis of In Genesim in this manner without occasionally introducing 37      Translations of this and the following quotations from Bede are mine. 38      In Genesim, CCSL 118A, 8.

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Moses as the author of the text since Moses is not a character that appears in Genesis. Bede could have ignored Moses rather than point out his insufficiency. In this insufficiency, however, we can see part of the reason for Alcuin’s and Aldhelm’s reluctance to speak about Moses: Moses is flawed, incomplete, and lacks full understanding. What about Bede’s exegesis, though, of books which Moses wrote and in which he is the major character? How does Bede deal with him there? In the De Tabernaculo, Bede seems to give Moses a full and positive interpretation. Near the beginning of the tract, he mentions that “ipsi Moysi concessum est ... quia locutus sit cum Deo facie ad faciem sicut loqui solet homo cum amico suo”39 (“it was given to Moses that he spoke with God ‘face to face, as a man speaks to his friend’”). He expounds on the fact that whereas the Jewish people stayed behind, Moses was allowed to ascend Mt. Sinai and was considered worthy to penetrate the celestial secrets.40 Bede also creates a parallel between Moses and the apostles when he says that no one, neither Moses, nor the apostles, nor any of the learned can teach the people any precepts exept for those that God taught them.41 Certain passages in the opening lines of De Tabernaculo seem to present a Moses free of the shortcomings we encounter in In Genesim; through his teaching mandate, and through the fact that he spoke to God “face to face,” Moses becomes a figura of the apostles. This positive presentation, however, is undercut. Moses and the apostles, as we have seen, do have something in common, but Bede cannot resist the temptation to show that the apostles are better: Moses, he claims, ascended Mt. Sinai all by himself in order to indicate that the Law was given only to the people of Israel; the apostles, on the other hand, were all on the mountain with Jesus, and even the crowds listened to what was being said. This, in Bede’s opinion, is a token that the Law was there for only a single nation whereas the doctrine of the Gospel was for the benefit of all the nations of the world.42 At another point in the exegesis, Bede mentions that Moses stayed on Mt. Sinai for forty days and nights. This number, Bede 39 De Tabernaculo, CCSL 119A, 8-9. 40 In Tabernaculo, CCSL 119A, 9: “Caligo nameque illa obscuritas est archanorum caelestium terrenis quidem cordibus inaccessibilis sed Moysi et ceteris mundo corde beatis diuine reserante gratia penetrabilis.” 41 In Tabernaculo, CCSL 119A, 6: “Non ergo Moyses non apostoli non quilibet doctorum alia debet populum Dei docere praecepta quam quae ipse dominus docuit.” 42 De Tabernaculo, CCSL 119A, 6: “Verum quia scriptura legis uni tunc populo Israhel committenda gratia autem euangelii ad omnes per orbem nationes apostolis praedicantibus erat peruentura recte ad discendam accipiendamque legem solus Moyses ascendit in

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explains, is there to indicate that the decalogue of the Law can be fulfilled only by those who are supported by the grace of the Gospel truth which was written in the four (Gospel) books.43 Taken to its logical conclusion, this means that Moses, even though he was speaking face to face with God, was unable to fulfil the very Law that God had given him because he was not supported by the four books of the Gospel. Further on in De Tabernaculo, Bede presents an evolutionary theory of knowledge of God: things that were not revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were revealed to Moses; David, however, by meditating day and night on God’s word had a deeper understanding than Moses; the apostles, in turn, possessed a more thorough knowledge of God than did either Abraham, Moses or David.44 Moses, in other words, cannot be blamed for his ignorance, because not everything had been revealed to him, and yet he cannot be fully trusted either because of his lack of knowledge. And therein, I believe, lies the major reason for the Anglo-Saxons’ reluctance to speak of Moses: even though as author of the first five books, as lawgiver, and as leader of the people, he clearly is the most important figure of the Old Testament, nonetheless, because he is an Old Testament figure, his knowledge is only partially useful to Christians and needs the complement of the New Testament and of the exegetes. Let me just add here that whereas Bede pays close attention to Moses on the first ten pages of the De Tabernaculo, and interprets him in the ways I have outlined, Bede lets Moses fade into the background in the remaining 120 pages. The text of Exodus keeps Moses clearly visible because God speaks to him directly throughout.45 Bede’s exegesis, however, concentrates on the message and for the most part ignores the addressee. The fact that all these requests by God are addressed to Moses, and that it is Moses montem, doctrinam uero euangelii apostoli simul omnes in monte cum domino positi auscultantibus etiam turbis audierunt.” 43 De Tabernaculo, CCSL 119A, 10: “Fuit autem cum domino Moyses quadraginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus ut hoc numero temporis disceret quod illi solummodo decalogum legis quem cum suo populo acceperat possent implere quos euangelicae gratia ueritatis quae quattuor libris erat describenda iuuaret, quater enim deni quadraginta faciunt.” 44 De Tabernaculo, CCSL 119A, 19: “Multiplicata est ergo ex tempore scientia diuinae cognitionis cum hoc de se ipso dominus Moysi quod patriarchis non indicauerat ostendit. Dauid qui in lege domini meditabatur die ac nocte uideamus an se ipsi qui legem scripsit Moysi aliquid amplius de domino intellexisse senserit ... Item apostolos maiora prophetis nosse declarat dominus.” 45 See the second-person verbs throughout chapters 25 to 30 of Exodus: e.g. deaurabis and facies (Exod. 25:11); pones (Exod. 25:12), facies, pones and iunges (Exod. 28:22-24), facies (Exod. 30:1).

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who has to act on them, is passed over in silence. In comparison to Exodus, then, in Bede’s exegesis, Moses’ role is greatly diminished even in a book that Moses wrote and in which he is a major character. Bede, too, seems to share Alcuin’s and Aldhelm’s reluctance to speak about the patriarch. The last of Bede’s works here examined for traces of Moses is the Historia Ecclesiastica. Nicholas Howe has argued that Bede “interpret[ed] the great event of the Anglo-Saxon pagan history [that is, the migration from the continent to England] in the terms of Christian historiography,” and specifically by drawing on the Old Testament.46 This, one might assume, could open the way to either specifically or implicitly mentioning Moses as the person who led the Israelites out of Egypt, comparable, in a way, to Hengest and Horsa who led the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes out of northwestern Germany. Of course, no such parallel occurs. While a vague Old Testament tone hovers over Bede’s migration narrative, Moses never makes an appearance. As a matter of fact, Moses is almost completely excised from the Historia Ecclesiastica. Bede names him briefly in the catalogue of his works,47 but this is the only time in which Bede himself uses Moses’ name.48 The only other time Moses is mentioned is in an adjectival rather than a substantival form. Reporting about the synod of Whitby, Bede has Wilfrid respond to Colman with the following words: ‘Absit’ inquit ‘ut Iohannem stultitiae reprehendamus, cum scita legis Mosaicae iuxta litteram seruaret, iudaizante adhuc in multis ecclesia, nec subito ualentibus apostolis omnem legis obseruantiam ... abdicare.’ (‘Far be it from me to charge John with foolishness: he literally observed the decrees of the Mosaic law when the Church was still Jewish in many respects, at a time when the apostles were unable to bring to a sudden end the entire observance of that law.’)49

Here, I think, we can confirm the impression gained from Bede’s exegesis of De Tabernaculo about why the Anglo-Saxons were reluctant to embrace 46      Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1989), 70. 47 Ecclesiastical History, 568: “Item capitula lectionum in Pentateucum Mosi.” 48 Moses’ name appears twice more in the Ecclesiastical History, both on 534, namely in the letter of abbot Ceolfrith to Nechtan, King of the Picts. Since in these two instances Bede quotes someone else’s writing, I do not use them as evidence for Bede’s attitude towards Moses. It is true that even in Wilfrid’s response to Colman, which is discussed below, Bede quotes Wilfrid, but since Bede reports on a speech given by Wilfrid and does not quote an existing written text, we may suspect that much of Wilfrid’s argument is actually Bede’s, or is at least presented in Bede’s rather than in Wilfrid’s words. 49 See Ecclesiastical History, 300–01 for the Latin and the translation into English.

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Moses. Too many negatives are connected with Moses in this sentence. John observed the decrees of the Mosaic law “iuxta litteram,” and not, it is understood, “iuxta spiritum.” The church was “adhuc” Jewish, and as subsequent history had shown, it needed to free itself from its Jewish roots. The apostles were “nec subito ualent[e]s ... omnem legis obseruantiam ... abdicare,” though this was clearly the long-term goal. The fact that even the apostles had difficulties in bringing about the change suggests that Bede saw an annoying stubbornness and tenacity in the Mosaic law, which, though ordained by God, nonetheless had to be supplanted by the New Law. And here, I believe, lies the crux of why the Anglo-Saxons are so reluctant to embrace Moses: as legifer he is completely associated with the Law, and since with the arrival of Christ this Law was outdated, Moses, too, is seen as someone who must be left behind. He, of course, shares this fate with all other Old Testament figures, but whereas an Adam or an Isaac is interpreted as a figura for Christ, and hence is typologically redeemed, Moses, as the embodiment of the Law, never is. Is this reluctance to speak about Moses shared by Old English texts as well or do we see in the Anglo-Latin tradition a more orthodox attitude which the writers of Old English poetry and prose could ignore or change? A priori, it would seem that the Old English writers cared more about Moses than their Anglo-Latin counterparts. The Concordance50 shows that Moses’ name appears twenty-nine times in Old English poetry, and in texts as different as Andreas (1), Elene (4), metrical Psalms (7), Exodus (9), Daniel (1), Seasons for Fasting (4), Metrical Charms (1), Descent to Hell (1), and Instructions for Christians (1). Moreover, the text that has the bulk of references to Moses, namely Exodus, clearly has Moses as one of its main characters, and since, as has been pointed out in the past, the Old English Exodus treats the Old Testament text rather freely, we may find a vernacular tradition of Moses here that differs from the Latin tradition. Before we turn to Exodus, though, we shall briefly examine some of the images conveyed of Moses in the other Old English poetic texts. I shall omit the metrical Psalms51 since they are a translation of the Bible and hence transmit no more than the biblical image of Moses, and I shall omit the 50 A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, ed. J.B. Bessinger (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978). 51 “The Metrical Psalms of the Paris Psalter,” The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 5, ed. G.P. Krapp (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 3-150. Moses’ name appears in Psalms 76:17, 98:6, 102:7, 104:22, 105:14, 105:19, and 105:25.

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shorter poems. Andreas has one reference to Moses, namely in line 1513, where Andrew addresses the stone pillar from which the flood will issue that kills the Mermedonians. Andrew states that stone is more precious than gold since God Himself had written the law, which he afterwards gave to Moses, on stone.52 Though clearly an imaginative reference, it nonetheless does not add anything to the image of Moses: he is the legifer, strongly associated with the Law of the Old Testament. Nor do the four references in Elene add much to the image we have already gained.53 Two of the instances in which Moses is mentioned concentrate on Moses’ role as legifer: line 283 speaks about “Moyses æ,” and line 366 refers to God’s instruction of Moses on Mount Sinai. The other two refer to Moses as a prophet (line 337) who foretells the coming of Christ and to Moses as the person who found Joseph’s bones (line 785) which, according to Exodus 13:19, he took with him when the Israelites left Egypt. These references, including the last one, are not surprising in a story about a confrontation between Christians and Jews: the most learned among the Jews would be those who study “Moses’ Law,” and it was those that Elene wished to see. Elene’s reference to Moses’ prophecy serves to increase the tension between Jews and Christians since both would interpret this prophecy differently. And finally, it is not surprising that the wisest of the Jews would know how Moses found Joseph’s bones even though this story is not in the Old Testament. We get a glimpse here of more stories about Moses, but not of a greater acceptance. In Elene, Moses remains associated with the Law, with Judaism, and with a lack of understanding of Christianity. The most extended treatment of Moses appears in the Old English Exodus,54 and if the Anglo-Saxons in their vernacular literature departed from the pattern which Anglo-Latin literature seems to exhibit, then it would appear to be in this poem. The poem begins with Moses and devotes the first 32 lines to him. Since they so strongly concentrate on Moses, I shall quote them in full: Hwæt, we feor ond neah gefrigen habbað ofer middangeard Moyses domas wræclico wordriht, wera cneorissum -in uprodor eadigra gehwam æfter bealusiðe bote lifes, 52 “Andreas,” The Vercelli Book, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 2, ed. G.P. Krapp (New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 3-51. 53 “Elene,” The Vercelli Book, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 2, pp. 66-102. 54 Exodus, ed. Peter J. Lucas (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1977; revised edn. 1994).

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gernot wieland lifigendra gehwam langsumne ræd -hæleðum secgan. Gehyre se ðe wille! þone on westenne werode Drihten soðfæst Cyning, mid His sylfes miht gewyrðode, ond him wundra fela ece Alwalda in æht forgeaf. He wæs leof Gode, leoda aldor, horsc ond hreðergleaw, herges wisa, freom folctoga. Faraones cyn Godes andsacan, gyrdwite band, þær him gesealde sigora Waldend modgum magoræswum his maga feorh, onwist eðles Abrahames sunum. Heah wæs þæt handlean ond him hold Frea, gesealde wæpna geweald wið wraðra gryre; ofercom mid þy campe cneomaga fela, feonda folcriht. ða wæs forma sið þæt hine weroda God wordum nægde: þær He him gesægde soðwundra fela, hu þas woruld worhte witig Drihten, eorðan ymbhwyrft ond uprodor, gesette sigerice, ond His sylfes naman, ðone yldo bearn ær ne cuðon, frod fædera cyn, þeah hie fela wiston. Hæfde He þa geswiðed soðum cræftum ond gewurðodne werodes aldor, Faraones feond, on forðwegas.55 (Listen, far and wide over this earth we have heard how Moses’ laws, the extraordinary commandments were told to generations of men and to warriors— for each of the blessed in Heaven a reward of eternal life after their troublesome journey, and for each of the living time-tested counsel.— Listen, everyone who wishes to hear! The Lord of hosts, the truthful King honoured him in the desert with His own might, and He, the eternal Almighty gave into his possession a great number of wondrous powers. He, the commander of people, was dear to God, prudent and wise, a captain of the army, a valiant leader. With his rod, he inflicted punishment on the kin of Pharaoh, that enemy of God, when the Lord of victories gave his kinsmen’s lives

55 Exodus, 75-78.

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into the hands of the courageous leader and a homeland to live in to the sons of Abraham. That reward was great, and the Lord was gracious unto him, granted him might in battle to defeat the ferocious foe; in war, he overcame many enemies and changed their laws. Then, for the first time, God addressed him with words, told him many true and wondrous things, how the wise God had created the world, the orb of the earth and heaven above, established His victorious kingdom and His own name, which the children of men, the wise forefathers had not known before even though they had learned much. There, on the paths of exile, He strengthened and honoured the leader of the people, the enemy of Pharaoh with the power of truth.)56

The very first word of Exodus, “hwaet,” and the phrase “gefrigen habbað” indicate the poem’s close connection to the Old English epic, and suggests that an epic hero will be introduced and praised. This hero seems to be Moses, who is praised here in the most positive terms. His laws are guides for the living and ensure eternal reward for the blessed; God Himself honoured him and gave into his possession “wundra fela;” he is a “leoda aldor,” a “herges wisa,” a “freom folctoga,” a “modig magoræswa,” a “werodes aldor,” and he is “Faraones feond.” He possesses “wæpna gewald,” and God speaks to him and tells him about the creation of the world, which, according to tradition, Moses then wrote down. Pared down to its essentials, the passage tells us that Moses is a lawgiver (legifer), a leader (dux—of people and of the people’s army57), and a writer (scriptor). Despite its rhetorical flourish and its masterful use of the Anglo-Saxon poetic technique of repetition with variation, it presents the same concepts as Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin.58 Like Bede’s exegesis, the opening lines of Exodus show the special 56 Translation mine. 57 Compare to my comments on 5 above on the implications of the words dux and heretoga, which is echoed here in folctoga. 58 In his article, “Aldhelm as Old English Poet: Exodus, Asser, and the Dicta Ælfredi,” Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe and Andy Orchard, vol. 1 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), Paul G. Remley suggests that “it is possible that Aldhelm himself should be identified as the Exodus-poet” (94). He does add that it “is also possible that Exodus is the work of a poet (or poets) who drew on lost Old English verse by Aldhelm.” To this I would add a third possibility, namely that the Exodus-poet knew Aldhelm’s Latin works and that the similarities between Aldhelm’s Latin works and Exodus, which Remley rightly notices, result from the Exodus-poet’s familiarity with Aldhelm’s works and not from Aldhelm being the author of Exodus. Since Aldhelm concentrates on Moses’ role as scriptor, while the

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relationship that existed between Moses and God, since God “gewyrðode” and “geswiðed[e]” Moses, and “gesealde” or “forgeaf” him “wundra fela,” “maga feorh,” a “heah ... handlean,” and “wæpna geweald.” This special relationship to God exalts Moses, but also diminishes his stature as the potential hero of the poem. Few people could claim that God had directly honoured and strengthened them, and in this, Moses is exalted. At the same time, his stature as hero is diminished because of his dependence on God. God is the cyning (line 9) who, like a feudal lord, invests Moses as his retainer. The power, the control, the victories rest with God, not with Moses. God grants Moses participation in them, but they do not become his: they remain a handlean, which can be a “reward,” but in the context seems to be more a “loan” or, to use a German word, a “Lehen,” to be returned to the king whenever he demands. Moses’ dependence on God and his distance from real power is most clearly shown later in the poem when “soð Metod/ þurh Moyses hand mod gerymde” (line 479b-80), where God acts and Moses is his instrument. For the monastic audience, for which the poem was in all likelihood written, Moses’ role as retainer of God may have been an ideal to which they aspired and may have enhanced rather than diminished Moses’ heroic stature. Modern critics, however, have struggled to find the hero of the poem. Lucas, for instance, one of the latest editors of the poem, muses about Moses in the following terms: There is little individual characterization in Exodus. In so far as the poem has a human hero, it must be Moses, but most of what we know about him is contained in lines 13-14, that he was freom folctoga, horsc ond hreðergleaw. Moses is very much God’s agent (and mouthpiece) on earth. Even though the path through the Red Sea is created þurh Moyses hand (480), we are reminded that really it was God who struck mid halige hand (495-6). For the true ‘hero’ of the poem is God.59

There is, however, no unanimity on this view. Irving contended that “The true heroic protagonist of the poem is not in fact Moses, but a collective hero: the children of Israel,”60 and Walzer takes this idea a bit further when he says: “Exodus ... is the story of a people, hence not a story simply but a history. Though Moses plays a critical role in that history ..., the people are Exodus-poet concentrates on his role as military leader, the evidence would seem to point away from Aldhelm as the author of the Exodus. 59 Exodus, 63. 60 Edward Irving, “Exodus Retraced,” Old English Studies in Honor of John C. Pope, ed. Robert B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 217-18.

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central.”61 Howe agrees when he adds that the “Exodus poet creates this sense of the communal by relying heavily on the word folc.”62 I quote these passages at length to indicate the uncertainty of critics: is God the hero, or Moses, or the people of Israel? Each of these suggestions can be defended, and because of Moses’ close association with God, one can even make the argument that Moses is the hero because he acts in accordance with God’s will, and God therefore lets His power flow through him. Regardless of what interpretation we accept, one thing is clear: the poem does not adhere to the conventional definition of “hero” as we encounter it in the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid, the Nibelungenlied, or in Beowulf. As a result, Moses is displaced and never takes the centre stage that the introductory lines seem to prepare for him. He is the retainer who receives his armour from his Lord at the beginning of the poem, but at the crucial moments in the action, this retainer does not fight for or with his Lord, but the Lord fights for His retainer. In her article “The Old Testament Christ and the Old English Exodus,” Ruth Ames suggests that the “God” who is mentioned in the Exodus is in fact the “Son” and not the “Father,” and she suggests “that the poem was conceived not as an allegory but as a history of the Israelites from a Christological point of view that was itself not primarily allegorical. In that view, Abraham and Moses appeared not as types but as heroes, as personal friends and followers of Christ, the Second Person having himself been the deliverer of the Israelites.”63 It is not immediately clear to me why Moses would be more a hero if associated with Christ than with the Father, but I think the last phrase of her statement undermines her contention: if “the Second Person ... himself [was] the deliverer of the Israelites,” then what was Moses? The answer seems to be that he is a loyal follower, he is a respectable retainer, and he is an obedient servant. As far as the poem is concerned, so are all the Israelites, and Moses does not really distinguish himself from them. We would expect the hero of the poem to be less of a loyal follower, a respectable retainer, and an obedient servant, and more a fearless leader, a figure of authority, and a source of power. Since the latter qualities firmly rest with God (whether the Father or the Son is immaterial), Moses at best can bathe in the heroism reflected 61 Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 12. 62 Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, 76. 63 Ruth M. Ames, “The Old Testament Christ and the Old English Exodus,” Studies in Medieval Culture 10, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt and Thomas H. Seiler (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Western Michigan University Medieval Institute, 1977), 33.

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from God and at worst stand idly by while the true hero of the poem defeats the Egyptians and saves the Israelites. Clearly, the issue concerning Moses’ heroism in the Old English Exodus is a contentious one with the critics having Christ, God the Father, Moses, and the Israelites jostle for the position of “hero.” It is contentious, I would suggest, because expectations set up by the praise of Moses at the beginning of the poem are thwarted by the rest of the poem where Moses’ cyning assumes the leadership that seemed to belong to Moses. This is, of course, in accord with the Christian view that all power rests with God, and that any power in human hands “has been granted from above,” but it also seems to echo Bede’s suggestions that Moses by himself is somehow flawed and incomplete, and that he needs the complement of the New Testament. It would seem, then, that even though the Old English Exodus in many ways is a rather original poem which deals very imaginatively with the crossing of the Red Sea and the conflict with the Egyptians, when it comes to the treatment of Moses, it only half-heartedly presents him as a hero and in doing so echoes the sentiments of Aldhelm, Bede, and Alcuin who recognize Moses’ importance, but either undercut it or seem reluctant to acknowledge it. Even though this survey is not exhaustive, the samples I have chosen seem to be representative of the Anglo-Saxon attitude towards Moses, an attitude that is characterized by ambivalence. He is not ignored, but he is mentioned less frequently by Anglo-Latin writers than one could expect from the large number of references to him in the New Testament. In texts such as Old Testament exegesis, where discussion of him cannot be avoided, he is either relegated to the sidelines or undercut by being juxtaposed to New Testament figures who know more than he does. Even in a vernacular text such as Exodus, Moses’ heroism is at best ambivalent, at worst non-existent. In a very general way, the interpretation of Moses suggests that the Anglo-Saxons in their Latin and vernacular texts did not share the Irish predilection for an “emphasis … on the unity of the two Laws,” but preferred “the subordination of the Old to the New.”64 And, to become much more specific, the heroism I took granted for Moses in my 1988 article rests on a somewhat wobbly foundation: though the formula “manna mildost” places him in the company of God and Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxons never did seem to make the typological connection I posited between 64 See Michael Herren and Shirley Ann Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2002), 266.

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Moses and God. In all the texts I examined, Moses is so strongly associated with the Old Testament Law, and hence is so strongly identified as Jewish, that—despite the respect that is shown to him—he is not allowed entry into the New Testament through the doorway of typology just as he was not allowed entry into the Promised Land.

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The Biblical-Moral Moses: Type or Stereotype? Deborah L. Goodwin This chapter argues that Moses enjoyed the esteem of medieval Christian commentators in proportion to their estimation of the Torah’s role in God’s plan for human salvation. It considers early Christian views of Moses and the law, surveys a range of medieval opinion as it developed from the ninth to twelfth centuries, and concludes with an analysis of Peter Comestor’s portrayal of Moses in his Historia Scholastica.1 Partly because of the ambivalent reception of Moses in the Christian exegetical tradition, I will focus on a particularly vexed question about Moses’ own fate: why was he excluded from the Promised Land? Both rabbinical and Christian explanations for this question focus on the episode described in Numbers 20, in which Moses strikes a rock to provide water for the thirsty Israelites and is rebuked by God. This episode actually appears in two forms in the Torah, once in Exodus 17 and again in Numbers 20.2 These narratives, particularly the second, tragic account, provided a backdrop for the development of widely different evaluations of Moses by Christian exegetes. Was he a worthy forerunner of Christ or was he the symbol of a law stereotyped as dead and useless?3 Furthermore, did Christian exegetes believe that Moses’ 1 For an overview of the work’s long and complex textual history, see the Introduction to the recent critical edition Petri Comestoris Scolastica Historia: Liber Genesis, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 191 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005) by Agneta Sylwan. She has identified more than 800 manuscripts dating from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries (“Introduction,” xxxi). The PL reprints the 1699 Madrid edition. The Historia Scolastica was dedicated to William, Archbishop of Sens, who held that post from 1169 to 1176; Comestor was named as the compiler of a universal history by chronicler Robert of Auxerre in 1173. Thus the work made its first appearance sometime between 1169-1173. See Saralyn R. Daly, “Peter Comestor: Master of Histories,” Speculum 32 (1957): 67. 2 Modern biblical scholarship generally assumes that Numbers 20 is a “Priestly” retelling of the Exodus story, although the biblical narrative depicts the two incidents as widely separated in time. See, for instance, the discussion by Conrad E. L’Heureux, in “Numbers,” New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. R.E. Brown, J.A. Fitzmyer, and R.E. Murphy (Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 87. 3 For the stereotypical view, Isidore of Seville is representative: “The thirty-third stage of the journey is in the desert of Sin, that is Kadesh. But Kadesh is interpreted by antiphrasis as sacred, just as a grove [lucus] designates a place with minimal light, or war [bellum], which nevertheless may be horrible. Here Miriam dies, and she is buried. The dead prophecy is seen in Miriam; the end set to the Law and to the priesthood of the Jews in Moses

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significance resided chiefly in his personal characteristics and experiences (e.g., his intimacy with God) or in his role as the leader of Israel? The identification of Moses as a type of Christ originated in the New Testament itself. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is depicted as the new Moses, whose teaching fulfills and extends but does not supersede that of the Torah (Matt. 5: 17-20). But equally or even more compelling for later Christian exegetes was the Letter to the Hebrews’ depiction of Moses as subordinate in time and efficacy to Christ: “Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself … Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant ... Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house as a son ...” (Heb. 3:3-6). The unequal comparison between the role of Moses and Christ is also emphasized in the Gospel of John: “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). In a passage that directly evokes Moses’ striking the rock, Paul compares Christ not to Moses, but to the rock itself: “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10: 1-5). As Hendrik Stander has documented, Paul’s invocation of the events recounted in Numbers 20 provided a rich source for figurative interpretations by later Christian exegetes.4 The many elements of the story—Moses himself, the rock, the rod with which he struck it, the water that flowed, the Israelite people themselves—all invited explication and interpretation. and Aaron because they are neither adequate to cross into the Promised Land nor to lead the believing people from the solitudes of this world; [no one is] except Jesus alone, the Savior and true Son of God.” (Tricesima tertia mansio est in deserto Sin. Haec est Cades. Cades autem sancta interpretatur per antiphrasin, sicut lucus, cum minime luceat, vel bellum, quod tamen sit horridum. In hac mansione moritur Maria, et sepelitur. Videtur in Maria prophetia mortua, in Moyse, et Aaron legi, et sacerdotio Judaeorum finis impositus: quod nec ipsi ad terram repromissionis transcendere valeant, nec credentem populum de solitudinibus hujus mundi educere, nisi solus Jesus, id est, Salvator verus Dei Filius.) “In Numeros,” Ch. 33, Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum seu Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum (PL 83: 353C). 4 Hendrik F. Stander, “The Patristic Exegesis of Moses Striking the Rock (Exod. 17. 1-7 & Num. 20.1-13),” Coptic Church Review 12 (1991): 67-77. Since in 1 Cor. 10:5 and v. 9, Paul refers to later punishments described in Numbers 21, I am inclined to think that the Numbers 20 account is more central to his analogy than Exodus 17.

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As vital as the motifs of the Exodus were to Christian conceptions of God’s liberating power, the association of Moses with the “spiritual rock” that was Christ was not untroubled. The conflict arises in part because of the different outcomes of the two narratives. In Exodus 17:1-7, Moses acts at God’s instruction to supply water to the Israelites by striking the rock at Horeb, and he and the Lord unite against the rebellious people depicted as challenging Moses’ authority and testing God’s power.5 But in the doublet to this story, Numbers 20:1-13, which purportedly occurs after Miriam’s death in the wilderness of Zin, the conclusion is tragically altered. Again the people complain about the lack of water and quarrel with Aaron and Moses. The brothers appeal to the Lord in the Tent of Meeting, and Moses is told, “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Thus you shall bring water out of the rock for them …” (Num. 20:8). Standing before the rock, Moses challenges the people, saying “Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” Moses struck the rock twice with his staff, water poured out, and the Israelites were satisfied. But the Lord was not, saying to Aaron and Moses, “‘Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them’” (Num. 20:12). As in Exodus 17, the narrator names this spring “Meribah,” derived from the Hebrew root meaning “to quarrel.” Since this passage may account for why Moses was prevented from leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, dying within view of it after forty years’ wandering, its cryptic description of Moses’ and Aaron’s sin was carefully scrutinized in rabbinical literature.6 Midrash Rabbah on Numbers offers several explanations for the nature of the sin and its harsh consequences: Moses lost patience with the Israelites after forty years of their contrary behavior and, goaded by their jeers, struck the rock out of temper; related to this, his (unspecified) loss of faith had taken place before the whole people, and God had to punish him publicly for a public offense. Alternatively, this episode explains Moses’ failure to enter the Promised Land in such a way as to set him apart from the rebellious generation 5 Their unity is reinforced in the subsequent episode: when Moses holds up “the staff of God” during the Israelites’ battle with Amalekites, Israel prevails. Whenever he lowers the staff, the tide of battle turns against Israel (Exod. 17:8-14). 6 See the essay by Devorah Schoenfeld, elsewhere in this volume, for an extensive discussion of rabbinic and medieval Jewish interpretations of Moses’ death. She relates the centrality of the episode to the rabbis’ discussions of theodicy.

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condemned by God (i.e., making clear that he was not guilty of their crimes).7 Finally, Moses was said to have died in the wilderness in order to give hope to the rebellious generation that they will have a share in the messianic era.8 The rabbis of the medieval period also struggled to make sense of Moses’ sin and to account for his exclusion from the Promised Land, particularly since the episode poses significant questions about the nature of God’s justice.9 What precisely did Moses do wrong? Why was Aaron implicated in his guilt? And did the punishment—exclusion from the Promised Land—justly fit the crime? One Jewish commentator took a markedly different approach to Moses’ death in the wilderness and skirted a number of these difficulties. In his Jewish Antiquities, Josephus (c. 37- c. 100 CE) omits all mention of the second episode at the waters of Meribah. Indeed, in his account of Moses’ life, Josephus fails to mention any of the biblical events that might prove unflattering or scandalous, while he includes material absent from the biblical narrative to build up an account of Moses’ outstanding generalship, his physical beauty, his wisdom, his prudence, and his death—a scene that conclusively demonstrates Moses’ superiority to Hellenistic models of Great Men.10 Some of Josephus’s emendations and elisions find their way into the work of Christian commentators, especially Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica in the twelfth century.11 7 This interpretation is echoed in Midrash on Deuteronomy, 2:6, “So Moses said before God: ‘Let my actual sin be written down for future generations that Israel may not say, “Moses falsified something in the Torah,” or, “he spoke something which he had not been commanded,” and they shall know that it was merely because of the water [that I was punished],’” J. Rabinowitz, trans., Deuteronomy, vol. 7 of Midrash Rabbah, ed. H. Freedman and M. Simon (London: Soncino, 1961), 34-35. 8 Midrash on Numbers 19:9-13, Judah J. Slotki, trans., Numbers vol. II, vol. 6 of Midrash Rabbah, ed. H. Freedman and M. Simon (London: Soncino, 1961), 758-762. 9 The commentary on Numbers by Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (Nachmanides, 1194-c. 1270) recounts and evaluates competing analyses offered by Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes (or Rashi, d. c. 1105), Abraham ibn Ezra (d. 1167), and Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides, 1138-1204) before arguing for the position of Rabbeinu Chananel (d. 1057), that Moses’ sin consisted in his asking “Shall we bring forth water?” when he should have credited the Almighty as the actor in this deed. See Charles B. Chavel, trans. and ed., Ramban: Commentary on Torah (New York: Shilo, 1975), vol. 4, 215-219. 10 Josephus’s “biography” of Moses occupies Books II-IV of Jewish Antiquities, trans. and ed. H. Thackeray, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). See the valuable series of essays by Louis H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Portrait of Moses,” in The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., 82, no. 3 (1992), 285-328; 83, no. 1 (1992), 7-50, and 83, no. 3 (1993), 301-330. 11 Peter Comestor’s reliance on Josephus has been widely remarked; see most recently Maria C. Sherwood-Smith, Studies in the Reception of the Historia Scholastica of Peter

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Moses in Early Christian Exegesis The heart-wrenching disappointment over Moses’ exclusion from the land (made poignantly clear in Midrash Rabbah on Deuteronomy, where Moses is depicted as pleading with God to reverse the divine decree)12 was variously interpreted by early Christian exegetes. Moses constituted a polysemous symbol: as an individual, he could be abstracted from his surroundings and held up as a model for Christian life and virtues. On the other hand, he could be assimilated closely to his circumstances, and made to embody pejorative associations promulgated by Christians about the ancient Israelites and the Sinai Covenant. Christian exegesis could interpret either the person or the historical role of Moses figuratively. In some cases, Christian commentators took both approaches. Moses is esteemed as the lawgiver who foreshadowed the giver of the New Law, the author of the Torah which reveals Christ both in events (res gestae) and allegories (figurae), as first among the prophets, a paragon of wisdom and instructor of the pagan philosophers, as an example of perfect obedience and humility, and at once a leader to be emulated in the active life and a model for contemplatives.13 Still, despite all these outstanding characteristics, Moses falls short of perfection. Representative of the Latin tradition, and foundational for medieval exegetes, are the views of Augustine (354-430). Augustine interprets Moses’ failure to reach the Promised Land as a metaphorical and historical demonstration of the insufficiency of the Old Law. In his survey of Israelite history in Book 16 of City of God, Augustine writes: …and so the first promise to Abraham began to be fulfilled at this time, as far as it concerned one people, the Hebrew nation, and the land of Canaan, but not yet as it referred to all nations and to the whole world. This was to be fulfilled by the coming of Christ in the flesh, and not by keeping the Old Law, but by the faith of the Gospel. This was symbolized in the fact that the Comestor, Medium Aevum Monograph Series, new ser. 20 (Oxford: Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature, 2000), 4; Louis H. Feldman, “The Jewish Sources of Peter Comestor’s Commentary on Genesis in his Historia Scholastica,” in Begegnung zwischen Christentum und Judentum in Antike und Mittelalter, ed. D. Koch and H. Lichtenberger (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1993), 98-101. See also David Luscombe’s essay, “Peter Comestor,” in The Bible in the Medieval World: Studies in Memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. Katharine Walsh and Diana Wood (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 109-129. 12 Midrash on Deuteronomy 2:7-9, J. Rabinowitz, trans., Deuteronomy, vol. 7 of Midrash Rabbah, ed. H. Freedman and M. Simon (London: Soncino, 1961), 35-38. 13 “Moses,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters, 10 vols. (Stuttgart: Metzler, [1977]-1999), vol. 6, cols 860-862.

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Augustine’s hermeneutic of biblical history stated that some actions described in the Bible were complete in themselves as history, while others were completed in a literal sense in the Old Testament narrative, but fulfilled spiritually in Christ. Moses’ exclusion from the Promised Land is a prime example of an event concluded within the scope of Israelite history and meaningful on its own terms, but whose fullest significance—and true closure—is realized only when the event analyzed in relation to Christ.15 The “slippage” or lack of equivalency between a biblical type and its antitype is almost palpable in this account of the contrast between the mediator of the Old Law and that of the New. The Christian use of the type-antitype heuristic to assign meaning to events and people of the Hebrew Bible necessarily involved a displacement of their value and significance. They are rendered incommensurable through what Frances Young has described as Christian typology’s processes for contrasting the “recapitulating and reversing” actions of Christ with their insubstantial prefigurations in the Old Testament.16 In other contexts, Augustine considered the utility of Moses as a model for Christian life. In a sermon delivered between 396-400, Augustine expounded Paul’s retelling of the smitten rock incident in 1 Corinthians 10. Augustine struggled to maintain the distinction between the Old Testament type and its Christian antitype, blurred by Paul’s apparent equation of the food and water provided to the Israelites with the spiritual food and water offered in Christ: “all [our ancestors] ate the same spiritual food, and 14 “…ut inciperet interim reddi Abrahae prima promissio de gente una, id est Hebraea, et terra Chanaan; nondum de omnibus gentibus et toto orbe terrarum: quod Christi adventus in carne, et non veteris Legis observationes, sed Evangelii fides fuerat impletura. Cujus rei praefiguratio facta est, quod non Moyses, qui legem populo acceperat in monte Sina, sed Jesus, cui etiam nomen Deo praecipiente mutatum fuerat ut Jesus vocaretur, populum in terram promissionis induxit.” De civitate dei 16.43 (PL 41: 522); English translation by Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin, 1984), 709. 15 See the discussion in City of God, Book 17, and the analysis of Augustine’s theology of history in Deborah L. Goodwin, Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew: Herbert of Bosham’s Christian Hebraism (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 85-87. 16 Frances Young, “Typology,” in Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder, ed. St. E. Porter, P. Joyce and D.E. Orton (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 29-48. See also Annette E. Krueger and Gabriele Runge, “Lifting the Veil: Two Typological Diagrams in the Hortus Deliciarum,” Journal of the Wartburg and Courtauld Institutes, 60 (1997): 1-22.

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all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10: 4). Augustine voices an imaginary Christian’s perplexed reaction to Paul’s text: “‘That manna then was the same thing as I now receive? So nothing new has come now, if it was already there before.’”17 In response to his imaginary interlocutor Augustine asserts that only a few of “our fathers” understood spiritually the nature of God’s gifts: “…[some] had a better taste of Christ in their hearts than of the manna in their mouths…. First and foremost among them was Moses himself…” But those who ate and drank only to satisfy their animal appetites were the ancestors of the “godless” and “unbelieving” Jews, condemned by Jesus in the Gospel of John.18 Having distinguished spiritual from carnal consumption, Augustine considers the scandal of God’s apparent rejection of Moses. Given his preeminence as a servant of God, why did Moses doubt God’s capacity to bring water from a stone in Numbers 20? And why, having doubted, was Moses not forgiven—after “all his labor and all his anxieties” and after his frequent intercessions for the sinful Israelites?19 In reply to these rhetorical questions, Augustine argues that God did not reject Moses absolutely, since the Lord continued to entrust him with the job of instructing the Israelites in the Law. Furthermore, Moses was told to name Joshua as his successor, “so that the people of God would enter the Promised Land not under Moses but under Jesus, that is to say, not under law but under grace. But just as that man wasn’t the true Jesus, but a model one, so too that Promised Land wasn’t the real one, but a model one…. [E]ternal realities were being promised and foretold under temporal, time-bound models and symbols.”20 Augustine notes that while some Israelites might have experienced the passage through the Red Sea and the gifts of manna and water spiritually, in themselves these events had no salvific effect: “The passing through the 17 Despite this evident reference to the Eucharist, most of Augustine’s focus is on baptism: the water that flows from the rock struck by Moses is the “water of salvation.” Later commentators will compare the flowing water to that which flowed from Jesus’ side when he was pierced on the Cross and will extend this analogy, involving Christ’s body, to link the Exodus/Numbers accounts to the Eucharist. 18 Sermon 352, Latin text at PL 39: 1550-1556; trans. Edmund Hill, Sermons, Part III, vol. 10 in The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City, 1995), 139-140. Augustine quotes John 6:49 and 8:44. 19 Sermon 352, 141. 20 Sermon 352, 141-2. The Latin text reads, “Sicut autem Jesus ille non verus, sed figuratus; ita etiam terra promissionis illa non vera, sed figurata. Illa enim populo primo temporalis fuit: nobis quae promissa est, aeterna erit. Sed figuris temporalibus promittebantur et praenuntiabantur aeterna.” PL 39: 1554.

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sea is baptism. But because baptism, that is to say the water of salvation, has no power to save unless it has been consecrated by the name of Christ, who shed his blood for us, the [baptismal] water is signed with his Cross.”21 Augustine concludes by comparing the patriarch’s doubt (exhibited when he struck the stone) with that of Peter and the disciples, scandalized by Jesus’ death on the Cross.22 In this homiletic approach to the story, Moses models the role of a Christian struggling to accept the scandal of the Cross; Augustine addresses the human limitations and struggles that his listeners might share with Moses and Peter. Moses in Medieval Christian Commentaries Later Christian commentators evolved less generous assessments of Moses and the providential nature of events in Israelite history. The typological significance of Moses was construed quite differently by two influential exegetes, Hrabanus Maurus (d. 856) and Rupert of Deutz (d. c. 1030). They traded heavily on carnal-spiritual, law-faith distinctions derived from Paul’s letters, and the Pauline periodization of history elaborated by Augustine—the eras reckoned as before law, under the law, and under grace.23 In the work of successive generations of medieval exegetes, esteem for Moses recedes along with esteem for the Torah’s place in God’s plan for humanity. Hrabanus’ commentary on Numbers 20 immediately stakes out a stereotypically supersessionist position, arguing that Miriam’s death in the desert at Kadesh represented the death of prophecy, while the subsequent passing of Aaron and then Moses signified the deaths of the Israelite priesthood and law, respectively. Only Jesus, the Savior and Son of God, could lead the people out of the desert of this world into the land of promise.24 Like Augustine, he identifies Moses’ striking of the rock as a sign of his 21 Sermon 352, 139. 22 “Moses doubted when the word came into contact with the stone; the disciples doubted when they saw the Lord crucified …What Moses figuratively stood for was fulfilled” (impleta est figura Moysi; PL 39:1554). Sermon 352, 142. 23 M.D. Chenu, “Theology and the New Awareness of History,” Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, trans. Jerome Taylor and Lester K. Little (Toronto: Medieval Academy Reprints for Teaching, 1997), 148; see the valuable discussion in Paula Fredriksen’s “Allegory and Reading God’s Book: Paul and Augustine on the Destiny of Israel” in Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period, ed. Jon Whitman (Leiden: Brill 2000), 125-149. 24 Hrabanus probably adopted the formulation by Isidore of Seville, noted earlier.

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doubt: God had told the patriarch simply to command the rock to give forth water but Moses did not trust this would happen. Hrabanus argues that Moses corresponds typologically to the whole of the Jewish people under the law. Moses struck the rock because he doubted the power of God; the people who remained under the law of Moses failed to trust in God’s power and nailed Christ to the Cross as a result. For those who believe, the water that flows from Christ’s side gives life, while the water that flowed from the rock satisfied merely carnal thirst.25 Hrabanus echoes Augustine’s notion that Moses was prevented from leading the people into Canaan so that Joshua might do it instead: neither the personifications of the priesthood (Aaron) nor the Law (Moses) but only Joshua, the type of Jesus Christ who leads by grace through faith, could lead the people into the eternal Promised Land. Hrabanus concludes that the death of Moses signifies the death of the Law in its literal sense, and the end of the sacrifices, those mere shadows of future actions, because “Christ is the end of the law unto the justification of all who believe” (Rom 10:4). Stretching the logic of Romans 5-7 to suit his case, Hrabanus argues that after the giving of the Law, sin entered human existence and brought death in its train. Since Moses died after God accused him of failing to sanctify the Lord before the Israelites, this demonstrates that Moses shares the sin of “the Synagogue” that had resisted Christ.26 Rupert of Deutz also employs synecdoche to interpret Numbers 20.27 While Hrabanus had Moses stand in for the whole Jewish people, Rupert argues that the disbelieving Moses and Aaron are figures for the Pharisees and scribes who condemned their fellow Israelites for thirsting after the teachings of Jesus and who claimed the people were accursed for their failure to understand the Torah (cf. John 7:49). Like Hrabanus, Rupert associates the rock’s outpouring of water with the liquid from Jesus’ side. The latter effusion is the grace of the Holy Spirit, which now enables the Scriptures to be read and understood, whereas before neither the life-giving spirit nor the saving water flowed from the “killing letter.” Thus the biblical 25 Christian exegetes often compared the water flowing from the rock to the water flowing from Jesus’s side when it was pierced by the soldier in the Passion account in John 19: 34; see Stander, “Patristic Exegesis,” 72; Hrabanus Maurus, Ennarrationum in Librum Numerorum, PL 108: 710A-712A. 26 Hrabanus, PL108: 777A-780B. 27 Note, however, that in his commentary on Joshua, Rupert lists seven periochis (“summaries”) in the Pentateuch that Christ’s Passion recapitulates; the sixth is Moses striking the rock to provide water for the thirsty people. Rupert of Deutz, De Sancta Trinitate et operibus ejus, PL 167:1000C.

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narrative calls the spring at Kadesh the “waters of contradiction,” since both Jews and heretics are “contradicted” by the living water that flows from Christ’s side.28 The Old Law and the first lawgiver stand equally condemned in Rupert’s figurative interpretation, as they did for Hrabanus. Many of the figurative associations discussed by Hrabanus Maurus were incorporated into the Glossa Ordinaria on Exodus and Numbers, and they became part of the standard Christian lexicon of verbal and pictorial images of Moses and the smitten rock. Similarly, Rupert of Deutz was a widely read, widely excerpted exegete whose commentaries reinforced the prevailing Christian notions of the inutility of the Mosaic Law (especially its caeremonalia, or ritual dictates). But as various scholars have noted, the twelfth century saw a rise in Christian interest in the meaning and purpose of the Law of Moses.29 The increased interest in the Torah coincided with the increased contact between twelfth-century Jews and Christians in Northern Europe, particularly those in France. While the question of “mutual conditioning” remains open, it is clear that in this period, both Christians and Jews became more interested than formerly in studying the narrative of biblical history and in explicating the “literal sense” of Scripture.30 On the Christian side, this effort is largely associated with the Parisian congregation of Augustinian canons regular at the Abbey of Saint Victor and those students of the sacra pagina who came under their

28 Rupert of Deutz, De Sancta Trinitate, PL 167: 886B. 29 Marie-Dominique Chenu regarded this development with dismay; see “L’Ancien Testament dans la théologie médiévale,” La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris: Vrin, 1957), 210-220; English trans. “The Old Testament in Twelfth-Century Theology,” in Nature, Man and Society, ed. and trans. Taylor and Little, 146-161. For contrasting assessments see Beryl Smalley, “William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law,” St. Thomas Aquinas 1274-1974 Commemorative Studies, ed. Armand Maurer (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1974), Volume 2: 11-71 and John Van Engen’s “Ralph of Flaix: The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Christian Community” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. J. Van Engen and Michael A. Signer (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 2001), 234-54. 30 Both Michael A. Signer and Avraham Grossman note the debate among Jewish scholars over the question of Christian influence, and the effect of Christian polemic, on Jewish exegesis on the period. Both concur with scholars such as Sarah Kamin, Frank Talmage, and Eleazar Touitou who have argued for a measure of influence, if not direct contact, between the two groups in Northern France. See Signer, “Peshat, Sensus Litteralis, and Sequential Narrative,” in Frank Talmage Memorial Volume I, ed. Barry Walfish (Haifa: University of Haifa Press, 1993), 203-207 and Grossman’s analysis of the rise of literal exegesis among the Jewish scholars of Northern France: “The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in Northern France,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1, pt. 2, ed. Magne Saebø (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2000), 321-325.

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influence.31 According to Beryl Smalley, the approach to biblical exegesis practiced by Hugh (d. 1142) and Andrew of Saint Victor (d. 1175) extended into the next generation of Parisian scholars to include figures associated with the so-called “biblical-moral school”: Peter Comestor (d. 1179[?]), Peter the Chanter (d. 1197), and Stephen Langton (d. 1228). 32 Loosely connected by methods and concerns, these exegetes sought to establish an accurate text of the Scriptures, to clarify questions on the Hebrew Bible by consulting the Hebrew text and/or Jewish contemporaries, to provide textual and pedagogical tools for the study of the biblical narrative in its historical context, and, especially in the case of Peter the Chanter and Stephen Langton, to preach on contemporary issues while explicating the biblical text.33 The Hermeneutics of Sacred History: Peter Comestor and Moses Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica, an attempt to lay the historical foundations for the study of Scripture, has been linked to the exegetical goals of Hugh and Andrew of Saint Victor. Hugh of Saint Victor’s emphasis on the close study of Scripture’s textual elements—the letter, the sense, the sententia34—derived from his emphasis on the study of biblical history as a source of spiritual truth.35 The Bible’s unfolding of events recounts the 31 Beryl Smalley’s The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964, repr. 1978) paved the way for major developments in research on this subject. See especially the critical editions of the works of Andrew of Saint Victor in vol. 53 of the Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis (CCCM) edited by Michael A. Signer, Frans van Liere, and Mark Zier; see also Rainer Berndt’s monograph André de SaintVictor (+1175): Exégète et Théologien, Bibliotheca Victorina II (Paris: Brepols, 1991). 32 Smalley, Study, 196-7. 33 John Baldwin’s magisterial study illuminates the breadth of the “biblical-moral” school’s social concerns: Masters, Princes, and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970). 34 Hugh defines sententia in his Didascalicon as the “deeper understanding, which can be found only through interpretation and commentary,” (“sententia est profundior intelligentia, quae nisi expositione vel interpretatione non invenitur”). Critical text: Hugonis de Sancto Victore Didascalicon De Studio Legendi: A Critical Text, ed. C.H. Buttimer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin 10 (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1939). English translation: The “Didascalicon” of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. with intro. and notes by Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). Cited hereafter as Didasc., followed by book and chapter, followed by Buttimer and page; Taylor and page. Didasc. 3.8, Buttimer, 58; Taylor, 92. 35 Grover A. Zinn, Jr. credits Hugh with “a new perspective in medieval hermeneutics, for Hugh proposed that the historical exegesis of scripture begins by reading the biblical narrative with an intention to understand the text as history, as the account of an ordered series of events.” “Historia fundamentum est: the role of history in the contemplative life

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divine work devoted to the restoration of fallen humanity. In the prologue to his On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (De sacramentis christianae fidei), Hugh asserts that historical study enables the scholar to achieve the necessary “knowledge of things,” which can then be correctly correlated to “mystical acts done or to be done.” Determining the aptest meaning of the biblical res gestae requires the exegete to interpret correctly not only the literal sense, but also the biblical idiom in which, uniquely, things or events signify other, higher-order things.36 Beryl Smalley articulated the connection between the goals of the Victorine school and Comestor’s work in The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages: The Histories, it has been pointed out, were really fulfilling the programme of the Didascalicon. Here Hugh of St. Victor had taught that theology must begin with a thorough grounding in biblical history. Peter was providing just such a groundwork. He had written a textbook for the students and an invaluable work of reference for their teachers.37

But Comestor’s achievement was not merely, as Smalley subsequently points out, the production of a textbook to fulfill the Victorines’ educational objectives. In addition, she contends, the “biblical-moral” exegetes followed the Victorine example of making a close study of a text’s literal meaning in its historical context in order to provide a basis for spiritual or moral interpretation.38 While Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica has often been seen as merely a tool to give the student an overview of biblical history,39 it also offers a specific orientation to that history, grounded in its according to Hugh of St. Victor,” in Contemporary Reflections on the Medieval Christian Tradition: Essays in Honor of Ray C. Perry, ed. George H. Shriver (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1974), 139. 36 The De sacramentis christianae fidei appears in PL 176. See the English translation by Roy J. Deferrari, Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1951). “Unde apparet quantum divina Scriptura caeteris omnibus scripturis non solum in materia sua, sed etiam in modo tractandi, subtilitate et profunditate praecellat; cum in caeteris quidem scripturis solae voces significare inveniantur; in hac autem non solum voces, sed etiam res significativae sint. Sicut igitur in eo sensu qui inter voces et res versatur necessaria est cognitio vocum, sic in illo qui inter res et facta vel facienda mystica constat, necessaria est cognitio rerum.” Prologue to De sacramentis christianae fidei, PL 176: 185A-B. 37 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964, repr. 1978), 179. 38 Smalley, Study, 196-200. 39 Most previous studies give little attention to Comestor’s exegetical techniques or hermeneutical principles, the exception being Sandra Rae Karp, “Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica: A Study in the Development of Literal Scriptural Exegesis,” diss. Tulane University, 1978. Others, including Smalley, simply describe the Historia Scholastica as a

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spiritual meaning—Hugh’s “definite principle, which is supported by firm faith.”40 Comestor demonstrates that events unfold in biblical time purposively, with the work of restoration evident throughout. More than a convenient biblical abridgement and textbook for budding exegetes, his historical narrative integrates the teaching of doctrine with chronology. It is a skillfully constructed exegetical and theological text in its own right, as an examination of Peter Comestor’s assessment of Moses’ “sin” in Numbers 20 demonstrates. 41 As noted earlier, Comestor’s portrait of Moses in the Historia Scholastica is indebted to Josephus’s account in the Jewish Antiquities. It borrows several of the non-biblical additions from the Josephan biography, including accounts of Moses’ childhood in Pharoah’s household, predictions by Egyptian soothsayers that Moses will bring the downfall of Egypt, and an account of Moses waging war for Pharoah against the Ethiopians and acquiring an Ethiopian wife. Unlike Josephus, however, Peter Comestor includes episodes from Exodus that show Moses in a more ambiguous light. Contrary to Josephus’ account of Moses’ unrivalled gifts of person, Comestor affirms that Moses was an unready speaker. He includes Moses’ murder of the Egyptian in Exodus 3 and his subsequent flight into Midian, omitted by Josephus. Still, echoes of Josephus’s encomium persist throughout Comestor’s account of Moses, vir bellicosus et peritissimus.42 Nowhere is Comestor’s positive regard more evident than in his retelling of Numbers 20. It is worth comparing his version of the critical moment when Moses struck the rock with that of the Vulgate.

“business-like textbook” (Smalley, 200) and “convenient aid to study,” (Luscombe, “Peter Comestor,” 112). Louis H. Feldman suggests that Comestor’s “chief interest [is] in the events of biblical history rather than in their significance” (“Jewish Sources,” 101). 40 In his Didascalicon, Hugh cautions, “For in such a great sea of books and in the manifold intricacies of opinions which often confound the mind of the student both by their number and their obscurity, the man who does not know briefly in advance, in every category so to say, some definite principle which is supported by firm faith and to which all may be referred, will scarcely be able to conclude any single thing.” Didasc. 6.4, Buttimer, 120; Taylor, 141-2. Emphasis added. 41 For discussions of Peter Comestor’s theological program, see Mark Clark, “Peter Comestor and Peter Lombard: Brothers in Deed,” Traditio 60 (2005): 85-142 and my essay, ““And Rebekah Loved Jacob,” But Why? Responses from Two Twelfth-Century Exegetes,” in Transforming Relations Essays on Jews and Christians throughout History in Honor of Michael A. Signer, ed. Franklin Harkins, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 179-204. 42 “a warlike man of extraordinary skill,” PL 198:1144C.

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The Vulgate’s version: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink.” Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as he had commanded him, and having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: “Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous: Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?” And when Moses had lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank, and the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: “Because you have not believed me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land, which I will give them.” This is the Water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and he was sanctified in them. 43

Comestor’s version: Quibus Dominus ait: Tolle virgam, et congrega populum ad petram, et percussa dabit vobis aquam. Utrum virga quae fronduerat, an alia usus est Moyses, hic est dubium. Et tamen quia in Numeris legitur, virga, quae erat in conspectu Domini, videtur fuisse virga, quae erat in arca. Et congregata multitudine ante petram, dixit Moyses: Audite rebelles et increduli, nunquid de petra hac poterimus aquam vobis ejicere? Hic autem cum in aliis egissent Moyses, et Aaron fiducialiter, turbati populo murmurante, diffidenter egerunt: quod Domino manifestante, cognitum est. Non enim ex opere eorum aliquo, vel verbo hoc perpendi potuisset, nisi forte quia Moyses quasi dubitans dixit: Nunquid poterimus, etc. Quia inde sensus affirmationis poterat elici, quasi poterimus, vel negationis, quasi non poterimus. Cum ergo percusisset prius virga silicem, quia desperaverat, non manaverunt aquae. Secundo vero ictu egressae sunt ita largissimae, ut biberet populus et jumenta. Et dixit Dominus Moysi et Aaron: Quia non credidistis mihi, non introducetis populos hos in terram eorum. Haec est aqua contradictionis, quia etiam electi desperaverunt de promissis, et potentia Dei, quasi contradicentes promittenti.44 (The Lord said to them: “Take the rod, and assemble the people together at the rock, and strike [it]. It will give you water.” It is uncertain whether Moses took the rod that had burst into leaf or used another one. Nevertheless because we read in Numbers [17: 9], “the rod which before the Lord,” it would seem to be the rod that was in the ark. And having gathered the multitude together before the rock, Moses said, “Listen, you rebels and unbelieving ones, will we be able to bring forth water from this rock for you?” Although Moses had led on other occasions, and Aaron confidently along with him, here, troubled by the grumbling of the people, they led diffidently, which is known since God has disclosed it. For it was not from any action 43 Douai-Rheims translation. 44 PL 198: 1233B-1233D.

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of theirs, nor could this expression have been considered carefully, unless by chance because Moses was doubting when he said, “Will we be able …?”. Either an affirmative meaning could be elicited from that—“we will be able”—or a negative meaning: “we will not be able.” Therefore, when he had struck the rock the first time with the rod, the waters did not flow because he had despaired. But at the second blow they flowed copiously, so that the people and beasts could drink. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “because you did not believe me, you will not bring these people into their land. This the water of contradiction” because even the elect despaired of the promises and power of God, as if contradicting what was foretold.)

The general consensus among Christian exegetes was that Moses’ sin consisted in his striking the rock, rather than speaking to it, as God had commanded in Numbers 20:8. Presumably exasperated by the people’s importunate demands, he struck it not once but twice—a sign of ill-temper as well as a lapse of faith. Comestor gives an entirely different version of the event: “Take the rod, and assemble the people together at the rock, and strike [it]. It will give you water.” His paraphrase depicts God commanding Moses to use the rod to strike the rock. In Comestor’s account, Moses did not disobey God and his sin—if such it be—lies elsewhere. According to Peter, Moses and Aaron faltered in their confidence because of the people’s murmuring, in contrast to other occasions when they had acted with assurance. Moses’ doubt is not expressed in his striking of the rock per se, but possibly in his asking the people “Nunquid poterimus…?” This is another significant departure from the Vulgate text, which reads “num … poterimus?” Some Christian exegetes took the Vulgate’s version of his question—“Listen, you rebels and unbelievers, don’t you think we are able?”—as evidence of Moses losing his temper.45 But Comestor substitutes, and interprets, “nunquid” as an indication that Moses looked to the people for assurance and found it not. He suggest that perhaps Moses was doubting when he said “Do you think we will be able …?” since the interrogative particle can be interpreted affirmatively or negatively. Having received no support from the people, he struck the rock once in despair. The water did not flow. His second blow caused the water to flow freely.

45 See, for example, Rupert of Deutz’s comparison of Moses and Aaron to the angry scribes and Pharisees in his De Sancta Trinitate, commentary on Numbers, Book 2, chap. 7 (PL 167:885D-886D).

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How can Peter Comestor’s significant alterations to the biblical account of Moses’ sin be explained? Several lines of inquiry are possible. The changes might be explicable in terms of Comestor’s overall project of simplifying the biblical narrative. Alternatively, the sources he consulted, Christian or Jewish, might have influenced his choice of phrasing and narrative elements. Finally, if Comestor pursued a theological agenda in the shaping of the Historia, then the alterations should cohere with it; we must ask, then, do the changes have a theological import? If so, is Peter Comestor concerned with the typological significance of Moses the man or with the historical significance of the mediator of the Old Law? Is his estimation of Moses linked to his view of the Sinai Covenant? The rest of this chapter will consider these possibilities in turn. Reducing to order the “exceedingly brief, scattered, and unclear”46 accounts of biblical history that his readers had encountered elsewhere, Comestor exercises considerable editorial control over the biblical narratives he treats in the Historia Scholastica. In the chapters devoted to the Pentateuch, he avoids redundancy in the narrative (not repeating the Deca­ logue in his summary of Deuteronomy, for example). He rationalizes the organization of ritual prescriptions, and he categorizes the nature and number of the sacrifices discussed in Leviticus.47 His version of Numbers 20 might be a simplifying, rationalizing synthesis of Exodus 17, in which God commands Moses to strike the rock, with the later account. But in fact Comestor treats that earlier instance separately, in its narrative sequence within Exodus, and points ahead to the events in Numbers: “And Moses ‘called the name of that place Temptation’ because ‘they tempted the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’ The others later were the waters of contradiction.”48 Turning to his sources, Comestor’s emulation of Josephus may have led him to preserve as positive a portrait of Moses as possible. His version of 46 Peter discusses the goals and purposes of his work in the dedicatory letter addressed to William of Sens, prepended to most manuscripts, and printed in the PL edition of the Historia Scholastica (PL 198:1053) and the recent critical edition by Agneta Sylwan, Petri Comestoris Scolastica Historia: Liber Genesis, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medieualis 191 (Turnhout: Brepols 2005), 3. 47 Borrowed, apparently, from Hugh of Saint Victor’s Adnotationes Elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon (PL 175: 74D-75D); the same taxonomy appears in Andrew of Saint Victor’s discussion of Leviticus; see his Expositionem super Heptateuchem, ed. C. Lohr and R. Berndt in Andreae Sancto Victore Opera, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medieualis 53.1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), 158-160. 48 PL 198:1161B.

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the events at the “waters of contradiction” supports what modern biblical scholarship would term a Deuteronomistic interpretation of Moses’ failure to enter the Promised Land. Since the author of the Deuteronomistic strand of the Torah stressed the need for the whole people’s fidelity to the Law, by his reckoning Moses was punished for the sins of the people and not for any fault of his own.49 Similarly, Comestor’s account shifts the blame to the people for the murmuring and caviling that put Moses off his stroke, as it were. Given his thorough-going reliance on Josephus, he might have been influenced by that account of the lawgiver’s patience, nobility and magnanimity to exonerate Moses. Comestor’s synopsis of the Pentateuch also relied heavily on Victorine sources, both Hugh’s Adnotationes and Andrew’s later Expositionem on the pentateuchal books. Hugh’s brief comments do not address the problem of Moses’ sin. While I have not yet located a source for Comestor’s rephrasing (“strike [it]. It will give you water;” et percussa dabit vobis aquam), Andrew of Saint Victor’s commentary on the Heptateuch provides a close verbal parallel for Peter’s exegesis of the episode. Commenting on Numbers 20:24, in which God repeats to Moses the reason why Aaron will not enter the land, “because [Aaron] was incredulous to my words,” Andrew writes: “When in relation to the Lord’s other commandments they had acted confidently, disturbed by the murmur of the people Aaron as much as Moses acted doubtfully in bringing forth water from the stone. The punishment to them for this sin was not to enter into the Promised Land.”50 The exclusion of Aaron presented additional difficulties to rabbinical commentators on Numbers: while Moses might be faulted for a show of anger, impatience, or even disobedience, Aaron seems guilty only by association—for being in the vicinity when the rock was struck.51 The rabbis struggled to explain God’s seemingly unfair decree against Aaron, but no 49 “Even with me the Lord was angry on your account, saying ‘You also shall not enter there’” (Deut. 1:31). For an examination of the Old Testament texts dealing with Moses’ exclusion from the Promised Land, see Thomas W. Mann, “Theological Reflections on the Denial of Moses,” Journal of Biblical Literature 98 (1979): 481-494. 50 “Tam Moyses quam Aaron, murmure populi turbati, cum in ceteris mandatis Domini fiducialiter egissent in producenda aqua de petra, dubitanter egerunt. Cuius peccati poena fuit illis, non intrare in terram promissionis.” Andreas de Sancto Victore, “In Numeros,” Expositionem super Heptateuchem, eds. Charles Lohr and Rainer Berndt, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medieualis 53:1 (Turnholt: Brepols, 1986), 189. 51 For a discussion of this and related issues with reference to a range of medieval Jewish commentators, see M. Margaliot, “The Transgression of Moses and Aaron: Num. 20:1-13,” The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser., 74 (1983), 196-228.

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Jewish source for Andrew’s statement has been identified yet.52 Rabbi Samuel ben Meir’s commentary on Numbers, however, might underlie both Andrew and Peter’s emphasis on Moses’ doubt as the source of his sin. One of Rashi’s grandsons, a noted exponent of peshat (“plain meaning”) exegesis, Rashbam (d. c. 1160) was a near-contemporary of Comestor and a fellow Champenois. His commentary on Numbers 20 includes two interpretations of Moses’ sin. The first argues that God commanded Moses to take Aaron’s staff from the Tent of Meeting in order to rebuke the people for their rebelliousness. This was the same staff that, having flowered in Numbers 17, confirmed Aaron’s priestly preeminence in the aftermath of the rebellion of Korah and his sons (Num. 16). Rashbam insists that Moses was only meant to display the staff, silently chiding the people, and then speak to the rock. But he lost his temper, asking, “Shall we get water out of this rock?,” before striking it twice in “anger and rage.” After water poured forth, Rashbam represents Moses as asking again, “Did you think we would get water out of this rock for you?,” apparently to stress Moses’ frustration.53 The second interpretation offered in Rashbam’s commentary explains his question as Peter Comestor does, as an indication of Moses’ doubt. In this account, Moses strikes the rock in the mistaken belief that God intended him to use a staff just as he had in Exodus 17. This misunderstanding counts as a sin, however, because God holds righteous people to a higher standard of behavior and judgment. Martin Lockshin, translator and editor of the modern edition of Rashbam’s Torah commentary, argues 52 The critical edition by Lohr and Berndt does not contain citations to rabbinical literature. In subsequent studies, Rainer Berndt has discussed the Jewish sources for both Andrew’s Heptateuch commentary and Peter Comestor’s reliance thereon, but the parallel between their discussion of Numbers 20 has not been noted nor a Jewish (or Christian) source been suggested. See “Les interprétations juives dans le Commentaire de l’Heptateuque d’André de Saint-Victor,” Recherches Augustiniennes 24 (1989): 199-240, and “Pierre le Mangeur et André de S. Victor: Contribution a l’étude de leurs sources,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 61 (1994): 88-114. There is a verbal parallel with a passage from the commentary on Numbers attributed to Isidore of Seville, but the exegetical conclusions reached by Isidore were radically different: “In hac mansione propter aquas contradictionis Moyses offendit Deum, et prohibetur transire Jordanem. Turbatur enim murmure populi, dubitanter petram virga percussit, quasi illud Deus non posset facere ut aqua de petra flueret, quod ante jam fecerat. Quid ergo hic fides Moysi insinuat, quod ad aquam de petra ejiciendam titubaverit? Hanc prophetiam recte intelligamus fuisse de Christo.” “In Numeros,” Ch. 33, Mysticorum Expositiones Sacramentorum seu Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum, PL 83: 353C. See also the essay in this volume by Devorah Schoenfeld; she discusses interpretations by Rashi and Bechor Shor some of whose elements resemble Andrew’s rationale. 53 Martin I. Lockshin, ed., Rashbam’s Commentary on Leviticus and Numbers (Providence, R.I.: Brown Judaic Studies, 2001), 250-2.

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that the second interpretation is not consistent with Rashbam’s views and is an interpolation into the authentic commentary. He acknowledges that this alternative view was in circulation amongst other Jewish exegetes contemporary with Rabbi Samuel, however.54 Thus, Peter Comestor might have adopted elements of this rationale from Jewish interlocutors. Rainer Berndt has noted that Peter often claims to report a Jewish interpretation (“Hebraei dicunt”) for which no parallel statement is found in Andrew, and for which no Jewish source has been found.55 Comestor may have had direct access to Jewish materials or interlocutors not used by Andrew, signaling a level of independence and initiative in seeking out those sources. Finally, the theological appraisal of Moses in late antique and medieval Christian exegesis was both positive and negative: he was a model individual and/or a representative of ancient Israel sub lege.56 If indeed Moses’ fortunes rise and fall with Christian views of the efficacy and value of the “old” Law, does the evidence from Comestor support this thesis? Sacraments and the Law, Old and New The preeminently positive view of the Law in all its forms, moral, judicial, and ceremonial, was that of Hugh of Saint Victor. In his De sacramentis, Hugh lays out his vision of God’s redemptive work in human history. The divine work is two-fold: creation and restoration. Following the fall of humans from God’s presence in Genesis 3, the Lord has worked without ceasing to effect the graced transformation of human nature. Although this activity reached its definitive historical moment in the Incarnation, Hugh insists that at no point has human nature been without divine help. In the three ages of history—before the Law (or the period of natural law), under 54 Lockshin, 249. 55 Berndt’s survey of Peter Comestor’s sources includes Josephus, Jerome, Augustine, Pseudo-Jerome, Rashi, Rashbam, Hugh and Andrew of Saint Victor, and the Glossa Ordinaria. See “Pierre le Mangeur et André de S. Victor: Contribution à l’étude de leurs sources,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 61 (1994): 88-114. 56 “Under the Law”: this association was powerful enough, and occasionally positive enough, to yield pictorial depictions of Christ and Moses, and their respective laws, paired in wall paintings, stained glass windows, and manuscript illuminations. Ruth Mellinkoff’s monograph remains foundational: The Horned Moses in Medieval Thought and Art (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1970); see the discussions and more recent bibliography in Archer St. Clair, “A New Moses: Typological Iconography in the MoutierGrandval Bible Illustrations of Exodus,” Gesta 26 (1987): 19-28 and Annette E. Krueger and Gabriele Runge, “Lifting the Veil: Two Typological Diagrams in the Hortus Deliciarum,” Journal of the Wartburg and Courtauld Institutes 60 (1997): 1-22.

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the Law (the written Law, or Torah) and under grace (after the Incarnation)—God has provided means of “healing” and grace to the faithful proper to their time and circumstances. In her study of Hugh’s theology in relation to Judaism, Rebecca Moore cites Damien van den Eynde’s claim that Hugh “opposes Augustine and the majority of twelfth-century theologians on the efficacy of sacraments before the Incarnation.”57 The written Law and the ritual actions prescribed in the Torah were meant to unite the people of God and to instruct them how properly to love God and their neighbor. So long as faith worked itself out in love (and obedience was not motivated by fear), that faith was authentic and salvific. The sacraments of the written Law, Hugh wrote, provided remedies for human sinfulness, training in obedience, and fostered piety (I.12.24);58 the written Law provided thus more remedies, for more people, than had the preceding natural law (I.12.4). In God’s unfolding, restorative work, “…these sacraments, when their time was completed, ceased and others succeeded in their place to produce the same health” (I.8.12). Hugh asserts that through the ages, humans have responded to God’s offer of “health,” making for a “unity of the people of God” across nominally religious lines. The interior response of faithful people once marked by an exterior sign (circumcision) has been succeeded by baptism: “a mark of oneness was placed outside the substance of the flesh, because they were made one by spirit and by faith who were not so in the flesh” (12.12.1). Moore notes that Hugh approaches the issue of salvation with a degree of epistemic humility.59 While the reception of the sacraments may now be necessary for salvation, this necessity (as humans experience it) does not compel or limit God’s saving will: “For by that spirit with which he teaches man without word, He can also justify without sacraments if he wills, since the virtue of God is not subject to elements from necessity…” (I.9.5). The impact of Hugh of Saint Victor’s sacramental theology on Peter Comestor’s views of the Old Testament caeremonalia is difficult to gauge. Comestor wrote his own treatise on the sacraments in which Hugh is directly quoted only once, according to its modern editor, Raymond 57 Rebecca Moore, Jews and Christians in the Life and Thought of Hugh of St. Victor, University of South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, 138 (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1998), 122. 58 De sacramentis christianae fidei, PL 176. Book, chapter and section citations are to the English translation by Roy J. Deferrari, Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1951). 59 Moore, 120-123.

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Martin.60 By contrast, Martin argued for its “very strict dependence” on Peter Lombard’s treatment of the subject in his Sententiae.61 The correspondences between Comestor’s work and that of his likely teacher, the older Peter, are readily evident when the two are compared.62 But, as Martin observed, Comestor is more than an abridger of Lombard’s lengthier treatise. He introduces issues untouched by Lombard, uses different source materials, and decides in favor of positions surveyed but not adopted by Lombard.63 Both Comestor and Lombard adopt a more stringent view of the efficacy of the sacraments than had Hugh. Hugh had argued that sacraments of the “Old Law,” such as circumcision, were truly means of grace.64 Furthermore, Hugh asserted that while circumcision was a means of grace for the descendants of Abraham, the Gentiles who predated Christ were not left without a source of redemption. The “just” who were uncircumcised were saved by “faith operating through love” (1.12.2, 188). Peter Lombard shared Hugh’s position that before Christ, circumcision served the same function as baptism: it removed the guilt of original sin.65 It was not a sacrament, however, because it conveyed no additional grace or increase in virtue. The works of the Law, even if done in “faith and charity,” could not justify sinners,66 and the uncircumcised had no remedy. 60 Sententiae de sacramentis, ed. R.M. Martin, in Maitre Simon et son groupe: De sacramentis, ed. Heinrich Weisweiler, Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense Études et Documents 17 (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense bureaux, 1937). There are, however, many correspondences among the works of Hugh, Comestor and Peter Lombard on general themes, such as the use and purposes of sacraments in general, and the relationship between “words” and “things” as properties of sacraments. 61 Martin, “Introduction,” Sententiae de sacramentis, xxiii-xxv. Whether the Sententiae is an authentic work by Comestor has been debated. David Luscombe recapitulates the debate and agrees with Martin’s judgment that the work is Peter’s; “Peter Comestor,”117-8. Luscombe also describes Comestor as “a supporter of the [scholarly] traditions established by both Peter Lombard in the school of Notre Dame and the Victorines,” 112. 62 In addition to Luscombe’s essay, see Ignatius Brady, “Peter Manducator and the Oral Teachings of Peter Lombard,” Antonianum 41 (1966): 454-90 and Mark J. Clark, “Peter Comestor and Peter Lombard: Brothers in Deed,” Traditio 60 (2005), 85-142. 63 Martin describes it is a “mixed” abridgement; although it relies heavily on Lombard, it advances the author’s own interpretations. “Introduction,” xxv. 64 Not, however, on their own merits, but because they made efficacious through anticipating, as signs, New Testament sacraments (De sacramentis, I.2.5). Hugh’s flexible view of sacraments is undergirded by his contention that the grace bestowed on humans by Jesus Christ’s suffering and death was a transhistorical phenomenon—present even in the ages before the Incarnation. Thus the Old Testament sacraments were infused by grace and were not merely signs of future sanctification (I.2.2). 65 Smalley reports this view as widespread in the twelfth century; “William of Auvergne.” 21. 66 Sententiarum Quatuor Libri: Liber Quartus Sententiarum, “De Doctrina Signorum,” distinctio I, c. iv, ed. Patres Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quarrachi: Ad Claras Aquas, 1889).

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The sacrifices and ceremonies of the Old Testament, given only as signs, were imposed as burdens on the Israelites, and could neither justify nor sanctify their recipients. Comestor shared aspects of his teacher’s narrower view of sacramental efficacy, although he did not reiterate Lombard’s insistence that Old Testament observances were imposed only to punish or constrain. Lombard develops this latter idea at some length, but Comestor does not refer to it at all. If Hugh’s views on the efficacy of the sacraments were distinctive among twelfth-century theologians, his positive assessment of the “old” Law was not. A number of studies of twelfth-century views on the relationship between the old and new Laws indicate that theologians recognized the dangers of claiming that the new covenant cancelled the old: how could the precepts, dispensed by God and enjoined upon the Israelites as the condition of their election, be meaningless or void? What would this say about God? Practical questions also ensued: which of the laws commanded in the Old Testament should Christians observe, if the giver of the New Law said that he came not to abolish but to fulfill it (Matt. 5-7)?67 Beryl Smalley noted that before the twelfth century, the prevailing approach to the Jewish legalia was to “pick holes” in the literal meaning of Old Testament precepts. For apologetic purposes, Christian exegetes had followed the example of Origen and treated what they regarded as the absurdities of the ritual practices as a license for pursuing spiritual or figurative interpretations. In a series of articles on this topic, Smalley documented the twelfthcentury interest in the precepts of the Law in its historical context.68 More systematic efforts were made to sort out the aspects of Law that remained applicable to Christian life, separating the ceremonial and judicial regulations proper to Israel’s own history from its universal moral obligations (embodied chiefly in the Decalogue). Smalley demonstrates that the literal-historical approach to the legalia was preferred by the “masters of the sacred page” such as Comestor, but it found favor in other circles as well.69 Christian reassessment of the status of the Torah has been attributed to various impulses: to the Gregorian Reform and its zeal for “best practices,” 67 A recent study of this issue is Sean Eisen Murphy’s “The Letter of the Law: Abelard, Moses, and the Problem with Being a Eunuch,” Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004): 161–185. 68 Smalley, “An Early Twelfth-Century Commentator on Leviticus,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 36 (1969), 89-90. 69 Smalley, “William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law,” 15.

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modeled on the great leaders of the Old Testament; 70 to the growing awareness of contemporary Judaism, and a need to reconcile the Law with practices appropriate to Christian piety.71 For example, twelfth-century Cistercian exegete William of Saint Thierry’s discussion of the Law evinces a degree of epistemic humility reminiscent of Hugh’s approach to the sacraments. In a study of William’s commentary on Romans, Thomas Renna notes that William elided some of the sharper divisions among the ages articulated by other exegetes: “…[William] changes the meaning of Augustine’s theology of history by interpreting ‘law’ in the wider sense of natural as well as written (Mosaic) Law. The Jews (or at least some of them) of the Old Law were sub gratia, although they were not aware of it.”72 Renna points out that for William (as for Hugh), God’s grace initiates and sustains all human action and is not compelled by any necessity: “Grace is freely given, irrespective of merit. God dispensed grace to the Jews just as he did to the Gentiles.”73 Grace enabled Jews to uphold the Torah, just as it enables Christians to keep the New Law. Thus, Renna notes, “[a] reason for William’s reluctance to rejoice in the Jews’ rejection of Christ is that such a view risked too much self-praise for not imitating the Jews of old. He feared that by putting too much emphasis on the difference between Jew and Gentile he would tempt his monastic readers with self-complacency.”74 William shares Hugh’s perspective that God has never withheld the means of grace from faithful humans. People who live sub gratia, in whatever age, are distinguished by their love for God and neighbor rather than by timorous obedience to divine commands. Like Hugh, William appears to think that some humans were enabled by grace to transcend the letter of the Law in love. One such certainly was Moses: William extols his magnanimity and compassion toward his sinning compatriots, as well as his example for a life of sanctity, in which the highest contemplation results unites inner goodness with outward charity.75 70 Chenu, “L’Ancien Testament dans la théologie médiévale,” La théologie au douzième siècle (Paris: Vrin, 1957), 210-220; trans. Taylor and Little, “The Old Testament in TwelfthCentury Theology,” Nature, Man and Society, 146-161. 71 See also Smalley’s “Ralph of Flaix on Leviticus,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale 35 (1968): 35-82 and John Van Engen’s “Ralph of Flaix: The Book of Leviticus Interpreted as Christian Community” in Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. John Van Engen and Michael A. Signer (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 2001), 234-54. 72 Thomas Renna, “The Jewish Law according to William of Saint Thierry,” Studia Monastica 31 (1989): 55. 73 Renna, “Jewish Law,” 58. 74 Renna, “Jewish Law,” 58-9. 75 In an exposition on the Song of Songs, PL 180:513D, 519C-D.

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deborah l. goodwin Conclusions: Peter Comestor’s Views of Moses and the Torah

The Historia Scholastica thus took shape in a milieu in which significant thinkers, whether monastic, scholastic, or canons regular, were reassessing the historical function of the Torah. While weighing this issue, Comestor employed both the Victorine narrative, historical approach to theology as well as the dialectical and speculative method advanced by Peter Lombard.76 His work on the sacraments suggests less than full agreement with Lombard’s stringent view of the legalia as punishment, perhaps an effect of studying the Law in its historical context. The Historia Scholastica indicates that Peter’s view of the Law can be linked to contemporary reflections on the topic, and it coheres with his favorable portrait of Moses. The Historia’s sections devoted to Leviticus do not suggest that Comestor found its sacrifices or precepts ludicrous. He does not deride the Law as burdensome, as had Lombard. As noted above, he enumerates and briefly but clearly distinguishes the varieties of sacrifices, providing the reader with a handy organizational tool. Also, logically grouping like things together, Peter includes the sacrifice of the red heifer from Numbers 19 in his discussion of other purification rites in Leviticus. Regarding that ritual (in which a heifer is killed and burnt, and its ashes mixed with water to purify those who come into contact with dead bodies), he notes that it is “difficult to discover the reason” why a process meant to purify should have rendered the priest himself unclean.77 He neither supplies a figurative interpretation for this puzzle nor dismisses the ritual’s literal meaning as absurd.78 His ordered, systematic presentation makes it likely the reader will retain key information about the place and purpose of the legalia in the history of God’s provisions for Israel. Perhaps as an additional aide-mémoire, he draws analogies with contemporary Christian practices where possible.79 Another indication of Comestor’s generally positive assessment of the Old Law, and Moses its mediator, is found in his preface to Deuteronomy. 76 Phillipp W. Rosemann’s comparison, made in Peter Lombard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 28-30. 77 PL 198:1211A. Smalley notes that William of Auvergne (d. 1249) also raised this question, as had Maimonides. “William of Auvergne,” 20. 78 Before summarizing the Holiness Code (Lev. 17-26), Peter states that while the Lord handed down a multitude of precepts to the sons of Israel, he has only touched on briefly those that are is necessary to understanding the holy Scriptures. PL 198: 1212A. 79 For example, he compares the high priest’s actions to purify the sanctuary with blood on the Day of Atonement prescibed in Leviticus 16 with the rituals of church dedication; PL 198: 1210B-1211A.

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He dismisses as erroneous those people who misinterpret the meaning of the book’s name, secunda lex. It is not, as he says some claim, a second law given by Moses, somehow opposed to that given by God and discussed in the earlier books. He asserts that the Pentateuch is a single law; anything in Deuteronomy that appears to contradict earlier traditions or prophecies does so only at the surface of words (superficies verborum), not in the deeper meaning of the text. He applauds the repetition and recapitulation of the earlier material, since Moses intended thereby that the Israelites should remember and reaffirm their covenantal commitments.80 Peter Comestor’s portrait of Moses, as a leader and mediator of God’s covenant with ancient Israel, is vigorous and sympathetic. His use of Jewish sources, whether works by Josephus or medieval commentators, sustains a narrative of Moses’ unstinting faithfulness. In Peter’s hands, Moses’ actions and the purposefulness of the Torah’s mandates retain their historical integrity. Perhaps in conversation with a Jewish contemporary, Peter became persuaded that Moses’ death outside the borders of the Promised Land was not a scandal—or at least not a sin attached to Moses alone. Perhaps, influenced by Josephus, Peter saw Moses as a heroic figure and sought to preserve his status as a worthy forerunner of the new lawgiver. His impulse to explain the denial of Moses within the context of the people’s wandering in Sinai probably derived from the theology of history propounded by Hugh of Saint Victor. The dignity of Moses and the dignity of the Law could be appreciated on their own terms and in their own time as aspects of God’s unfolding work of redemption. Comestor’s Historia Scholastica bestowed the type, not a stereotype, to future audiences.

80 In keeping with his desire to reduce the narrative to simplicity, Peter notes that unlike Moses, he will not recapitulate previously-discussed material but will confine himself to reconciling apparent contradictions and commenting on whatever has been added in this book. PL 198:1249B.

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moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 237

Primus doctor Iudaeorum: Moses as Theological Master in the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas Franklin T. Harkins In the spring of 1256, having recently been licensed to teach at the University of Paris as a master in theology, Thomas Aquinas delivered his inaugural lecture or principium as part of the installation ceremonies of a new doctor.1 Allegorizing the words of Psalm 103:13, “Watering the mountains from your higher places, the earth will be filled from the fruit of your work,” Thomas here explains that the minds of learned teachers are watered from the heights of divine wisdom. Subsequently, through the ministry of the human teacher, the light of divine wisdom runs down to the minds of learners.2 Near the end of his principium, the newly minted master makes clear that whereas God communicates wisdom by His own power, the human teacher does so only as a minister.3 In a second complementary lecture or resumptio, Thomas commends sacred Scripture for, among other things, its usefulness in leading the student to life.4 The first way Scripture fulfills this purpose is through the commandments of the Old Testament Law. Because “it was not suitable” (non erat idoneus) that the ancient Israelites should receive the Law immediately from God, Aquinas maintains, Moses served as mediator. The giving of the Law, then, constituted a twofold process: first it was conveyed from the Lord to Moses, then from Moses to the people.5 1 See Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1: The Person and His Work, rev. ed., trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 50-53; and James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Work (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1974), 96-110. 2 Rigans montes de superioribus suis, Prooemium: “Similiter, de supernis divinae sapientiae rigantur mentes doctorum, qui per montes significantur, quorum ministerio lumen divinae sapientiae usque ad mentes audientium derivatur” (S. Thomae Aquinatis Opuscula Theologica Volumen I. De re dogmatica et morali, ed. Raymund A. Verardo [Taurini and Rome: Marietti, 1954], 441 [cited hereafter as: Opus. Theol. I.441). 3 Rigans montes de superioribus suis IV: “Deus propria virtute sapientiam communicat. … Sed doctores sapientiam non communicant nisi per ministerium” (Opus. Theol. I.443). 4 Hic est liber mandatorum Dei (Opus. Theol. I.435-36). On this lecture as a resumptio, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino, 103-104. 5 Hic est liber mandatorum Dei (Opus. Theol. I.437).

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These initial reflections of Thomas as a newly incepted theological master are noteworthy not only for what they reveal about his understanding of the teaching office, but also for what they presage concerning the role of Moses in the thought and work of the great Dominican theologian. In spite of the fact that lecturing on Scripture was the principal duty of the thirteenth-century professor of theology—as his official title, magister in sacra pagina, suggests—Thomas Aquinas never produced a commentary on the Pentateuch.6 Nevertheless, Moses stands as a seminal figure in his systematic works, appearing over 250 times in the Summa theologiae alone. The present chapter aims at an analysis of the figure and work of Moses in Thomas Aquinas’ masterpiece of mature theology.7 I will argue that in the Summa theologiae Thomas portrays Moses as a great theological master who, having obtained a certain excellence in the knowledge of God, wisely teaches the ancient Israelites various (Christian) doctrines. More specifically, Aquinas presents Moses as primus doctor Iudaeorum, the first teacher of the Jews, who accommodates his knowledge concerning the Triune God, creation, and Christ to his disciples’ ability to understand. This portrait of Moses roughly corresponds to Thomas’ own self-understanding and purpose in the Summa, namely, as a “teacher of Catholic truth” (catholicae veritatis doctor) who seeks “to convey the things that belong to the Christian religion in a way suitable for the instruction of beginners.”8 As we will see, however, there are important differences between Moses and Thomas as practitioners of sacred doctrine, with regard to both their acquisition of the truths necessary for salvation and the authority with which they hand on these saving mysteries. Indeed, it is precisely Moses’ distinctive status as scriptural author that enables Thomas as scholastic 6 For an overview of his exegetical writings and method, see Thomas Prügl, “Thomas Aquinas as Interpreter of Scripture,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik van Niewenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 386-415. See also Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to his Biblical Commentaries, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum (London: T&T Clark, 2005). 7 On the significance and influence of the Summa theologiae, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino, 222. For an overview of Thomas’ mature work of theology, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, Aquinas’ Summa: Background, Structure, & Reception, trans. Benedict M. Guevin (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005). 8 Summa theologiae I, prologus; my translation taken from S. Thomae Aquinatis Summa Theologiae, 3 vols., ed. P. Caramello (Taurini and Rome: Marietti, 1952 and 1956), vol. 1, 1. All subsequent references to the Latin will be to the Marietti edition. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Summa theologiae will be my own. For a complete English translation see St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, 5 vols., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1948; repr. Notre Dame: Christian Classics, 1981).

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 239 theologian to use “the first teacher of the Jews” as a source and model for his own theological and didactic work in the Summa. “Simply the Greatest of All”: Moses’ Excellence in the Knowledge of God As his inaugural lectures and his own career conspicuously attest, Thomas Aquinas believed that a human being really could teach others in divine things that surpass reason, albeit secondarily and instrumentally vis-à-vis God as teacher. As part of his treatment at the end of the Prima pars of how humans can move or change other things, for example, Thomas maintains that one person can teach another exteriorly, whereas the principal cause of knowledge is the interior light of the intellect.9 In his earlier commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Aquinas similarly explains that learning—like visual apprehension—requires both the presentation of the object to be apprehended and the provision of light in which it is apprehended. Whereas only God (and angels, though extrinsically) can provide the illumination whereby an intelligible thing is understood, human teachers can present their students with the object itself. Thus, humans teach by presenting intelligible objects in one of two fundamental ways: namely, either by setting before their students something that is intelligible to any person once it has been proposed for consideration or by leading students from something already known to the thing that is neither known nor immediately knowable. 10 I will return to a consideration of how precisely the teacher leads the pupil from the known to the unknown, according to Thomas. As intimated here in the Scriptum, however, the heart of Aquinas’ view of teaching is the notion that the teacher knows a thing unknown to his students and presents it to his students as an object to be apprehended. Thomas makes this explicit in his discussion of gratuitous grace (gratia gratis data) in the Summa when he maintains that the first necessity for 9 Summa theologiae I.117.1c and ad 1. 10 Scriptum II.9.1.2 ad 4; S. Thomae Aquinatis Scriptum super Libros Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi, vol. 2, ed. R.P. Mandonnet (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1929), 231-32. For fuller treatments of Thomas’ understanding of teaching, see Vivian Boland, “Truth, Knowledge and Communication: Thomas Aquinas on the Mystery of Teaching,” Studies in Christian Ethics 19 (2006): 287-304; Patrick Quinn, “Aquinas’ Views on Teaching,” New Blackfriars 81 (2001): 108-20; and Michael Sherwin, “Christ the Teacher in St. Thomas’ Commentary on the Gospel of John,” in Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology, ed. Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 173-93.

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the teacher of divine truth is that he possesses “the fullness of knowledge of divine things” (plenitudinem cognitionis divinorum) out of which he is able to instruct others.11 The teacher also must be able to confirm or prove what he knows before presenting it fittingly to his hearers (possit convenienter auditoribus proferre).12 The ability to possess the knowledge of divine things and convey them appropriately is, according to Aquinas, a grace that God freely bestows on some humans so that they can lead others to God.13 It is certainly significant for the Summa’s portrayal of Moses that these brief reflections on the teacher appear in the context of gratuitous grace near the end of the Prima secundae (which concerns the movement to God by human acts generally) in the middle of Thomas’ treatment of grace as an extrinsic principle of human action. According to Aquinas, gratuitous grace is so called precisely because it is a divine gift given beyond natural ability and personal merit.14 As we will see, in anticipation of his roles as scriptural author and prophet, Moses’ knowledge of God comes by gratuitous grace. It is revealed to him. Contrastingly, the acquisition of divine knowledge by means of the study of authoritative texts (viz., Scripture and the church fathers)—that is, by natural ability and merit—is precisely what defines the theologian qua theologian, according to Thomas.15 This represents the first significant distinction, then, between Thomas’ Moses and Thomas himself as teachers of sacred doctrine. In light of his basic understanding of the teaching office, Thomas’ first task in portraying Moses as an effective master of sacred doctrine seems to be to demonstrate that the leader of the ancient Israelites possessed, by virtue of gratuitous grace, a full understanding of the divine. As early as q. 12 of the Prima pars, Thomas notes that Moses “obtained a certain excellence” (excellentiam quandam obtinuit) in the knowledge of God on account of grace.16 He further defines the nature of this “excellence” in the subsequent question, observing that Moses was the human being to whom God first revealed His most proper name, Who Is (Exod. 3:13-14).17 11 Summa theologiae I-II.111.4c. 12 Summa theologiae I-II.111.4c. 13 Summa theologiae I-II.111.4c. 14 Summa theologiae I-II.111.1c: “Huiusmodi autem donum vocatur gratia gratis data, quia supra facultatem naturae, et supra meritum personae.” 15 See Summa theologiae I.1.6 ad 3, where Thomas explains that the wisdom associated with the science of sacred doctrine is attained through study, even though its principles are obtained by revelation. 16 Summa theologiae I.12.13 obj 1. 17 Summa theologiae I.13.11 sc.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 241 Furthermore, a number of times throughout the Summa and in widely divergent contexts, Thomas grapples with the reality that Moses had a very special knowledge of God by virtue of the fact that God spoke to him face to face (Exod. 33:11; Num. 12:8; Deut. 34:10). In treating prophecy as a gratuitous grace pertaining to certain humans near the end of the Secunda secundae, Aquinas maintains that Moses was—among prophets—“simply the greatest of all.”18 Moses surpassed all other prophets in four fundamental ways: (1) in intellectual vision or knowledge, as “he saw the very essence of God” (vidit ipsam Dei essentiam), (2) in imaginary vision, as God spoke to him face to face (Exod. 33:11) while he was awake, (3) in injunction or declaration, because he set forth a New Law on God’s behalf to a whole people (whereas other prophets merely sought to induce the people to return to the observance of the Law of Moses), and (4) in his performance of confirming miracles, which “he worked for an entire nation of unfaithful people” (fecit toti uni populo infidelium).19 In reply to the objection that David was a more excellent prophet than Moses, Thomas admits that the prophecy of the great king approached the vision of Moses but concludes that the original Israelite leader had a more excellent knowledge of the Godhead.20 In his consideration of the Old Law in the Prima secundae, by contrast, Thomas is considerably less certain about Moses’ immediate vision of the divine essence. Indeed, replying to the objection that Moses received the Old Law immediately when God spoke to him face to face, Aquinas draws on Augustine’s interpretation of Exodus 33:12-23 (which passage has Moses asking God to see His glory and God replying that no human can see His face and live) to explicitly deny that Moses saw the very essence of God.21 Thomas goes on to explain that when Scripture affirms that God spoke to 18 Summa theologiae II-II.174.4c: “Respondeo dicendum quod, licet quantum ad aliquid aliquis alius Prophetarum fuerit maior Moyse, simpliciter tamen Moyses fuit omnibus maior.” 19 Summa theologiae II-II.174.4c. It should be remembered—and is significant for Thomas’ presentation of Moses as theological master who accommodates his learning to the Jewish ability to comprehend—that the word infideli, as it was used by medieval Christian writers, denoted principally people not focusing on unseen spiritual realities rather than “unbelievers” in the modern sense. See John Van Engen, “Faith as a Concept of Order in Medieval Christendom,” in Belief in History: Innovative Approaches to European and American Religion, ed. Thomas Kselman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 19-67, esp. 21-22. 20 Summa theologiae II-II.174.4 ad 1: “Visio tamen Moysi fuit excellentior quantum ad cognitionem divinitatis.” 21 Summa theologiae I-II.98.3 ad 2: “Non ergo videbat ipsam Dei essentiam.”

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Moses face to face (Exod. 33:11), it relates the opinion of the people who imagined that their leader was speaking to God face to face when actually God appeared and spoke to him through an angel and a cloud. This mediated encounter constituted “a certain notable and intimate viewing, but lower than a vision of the divine essence.”22 How might we account for the radical divergence of these positions on the nature of Moses’ vision or knowledge of God? Perhaps more importantly, are Thomas’ views reconcilable and, if so, how? The dissimilar conclusions Thomas draws are attributable to his differing emphases and approaches in distinct parts of the Summa.23 In Ia IIae q. 98, Aquinas aims to underscore the initiative of God as lawgiver and the mediated nature of the Old Law, presumably in comparison to the New. Because IIa IIae q. 174 emphasizes God’s gratuitous grace given to Moses for the sake of others, however, here the Israelite leader sees the divine essence. In both questions, nevertheless, Thomas seeks to safeguard and highlight the primacy of God’s action in Moses’ vision of the divine. Indeed, in yet a third question in another part of the Summa, Aquinas’ emphasis on the graceful initiative of God provides the nexus between these seemingly irreconcilable conclusions. In Ia q. 12 a. 11, Thomas asks whether anyone in this life can see the essence of God. Over against the objection that Moses seems to have seen the divine essence (according to Num. 12:8, he spoke to God face to face and plainly), Thomas emphatically denies that a human in this life—given his or her natural sensory ways of knowing—is able to see God’s essence.24 And yet, God is able miraculously to raise the minds of some humans beyond the use of the senses to the supernatural vision of His very essence, as He has done in the case of Moses, “the teacher of the Jews” (magister Iudaeorum) and Paul, “the teacher of the Gentiles” (magister Gentium).25 22 Summa theologiae I-II.98.3 ad 2: “Vel per visionem faciei intelligitur quaedam eminens contemplatio et familiaris, infra essentiae divinae visionem.” 23 It is significant that, in spite of Aquinas’ own aim to provide beginning students with an introduction to the whole of theology, the parts of the Summa circulated in manuscripts and were used pedagogically in the Middle Ages as independent units. See Leonard E. Boyle, The Setting of the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982), esp. 23-30. 24 Summa theologiae I.12.11c: “Respondeo dicendum quod ab homine puro Deus videri per essentiam non potest, nisi ab hac vita mortali separetur.” 25 Summa theologiae I.12.11 ad 2. See also Thomas’ opening lecture on Chapter 3 of Hebrews, where the scriptural author (whom Thomas takes to be St. Paul, of course) discusses Moses’ faithfulness to God and compares it to the faithfulness of Christ. Here Thomas notes that St. Paul’s affirmation of Moses’ faithfulness in Hebrews 3:2 “is based on what is said in Numbers 12:7, where the Lord revealed His excellence to Moses” (S. Thomae

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 243 In his treatment of the gratuitous grace of rapture in the Secunda secundae, Thomas further observes that God’s miraculous elevation of Moses and Paul to the vision of divine essence was altogether appropriate in light of their respective roles as primus doctor Iudaeorum and primus doctor Gentium.26 According to Thomas, Moses obtained a certain excellence in the knowledge of God by means of a divine miracle, which elevated him above his nature to see the very essence of God. He was granted this special revelation of the divine on account of his divinely appointed office as “the first teacher of the Jews,” which, as we will see, he chiefly carries out as an author of sacred Scripture. Furthermore, God revealed the divine truths that are necessary for salvation—i.e., the content of sacred doctrine—to Moses in such a way that he, as a human scriptural author, could not be mistaken.27 As a teacher of sacred doctrine, then, Moses’ authority is proper (i.e., intrinsic to saving truth) and certain because he shares in the very authority of God, who is the principal author of Scripture.28 Thomas clearly distinguishes the authority of scriptural authors from that of the doctors or fathers of the church, which is also proper to sacred doctrine but merely probable.29 Patristic authority is probable rather than certain primarily because the fathers’ knowledge of sacred doctrine was humanly acquired rather than divinely given. That is, early Christian thinkers like Augustine and Jerome learned and taught divine truths by studying and commenting on the words of Moses and other human authors of Scripture. Their views have been tested and approved by the church, but they are not infallible. Although Thomas includes neither those ancient theologians not officially recognized as doctores nor subsequent theologians Aquinatis Super Epistolas S. Pauli Lectura, 2 vols., ed. P. Raphael Cai (Taurini and Rome: Marietti, 1953), vol. 2, 372 sect. 159 (hereafter Marietti, 2:372.159). Thomas’ exegesis here not only emphasizes God’s initiative in revealing Himself to Moses, but also links Moses’ particular faithfulness as a divine servant to the direct, face-to-face way in which God chose to make Himself known to the Israelite leader (Num. 12:6-8). Nevertheless, the faithfulness of Christ exceeded that of Moses by virtue of the fact that Christ was the very Son, rather than merely the servant, of God. 26 Summa theologiae II-II.175.3 ad 1: “Tertio, ut contempletur eam in sua essentia. Et talis fuit raptus Pauli: et etiam Moysi. Et satis congruenter: nam sicut Moses fuit primus Doctor Iudaeorum, ita Paulus fuit primus Doctor Gentium.” 27 Summa theologiae I.1.9 ad 2. 28 Summa theologiae I.1.8 ad 2. 29 Summa theologiae I.1.8 ad 2. For a full explication of Thomas’ “hierarchy of authorities,” see Joseph P. Wawrykow, The Westminster Handbook to Thomas Aquinas (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 13-16, on which the following discussion relies.

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like himself among the authorities used in sacred doctrine, they may be incorporated into his scheme as also probable—though perhaps less probable than the fathers. Far from having divine truths miraculously and infallibly revealed to them, scholastic theologians like Aquinas acquired them by diligently applying their minds to scriptural revelation. Thus, Thomas’ relationship to saving theological truths was fundamentally different from that of Moses, on whose certain authority he relied to fulfill his own vocation as “master of the sacred page.” Having received such a profound, fail-safe knowledge of God and the things of God directly from God himself, Moses was prepared to present these divine truths to his students in accordance with their capacity to understand. Let us turn, then, to a consideration of Moses as adroit theological master in the Summa theologiae. The “Fitting” Presentation of Intelligible Objects The reader of the Summa first meets Moses as a masterful teacher of the doctrine of the Triune God. One of the primary ways that Thomas, throughout his great systematic work, presents Moses as an effective theological pedagogue is in his capacity as author of the Torah. This is illustrated well in Aquinas’ portrait of Moses as a teacher of the Trinity in q. 32 a. 1 of the Prima pars. Here Thomas inquires “whether the Trinity of divine persons can be known by natural reason.” He answers by explaining that humans are able by natural reason to know those things that pertain to the unity of God’s essence, but not those pertaining to the distinction of persons. Humankind’s natural capacity to apprehend the oneness of God is a consequence of reason’s ability to know, by working from visible effects back to the invisible cause, that God is creator.30 By virtue of the fact that God’s creative power is common to the whole Trinity, it pertains to the unity of the divine essence rather than the distinction of persons.31 The divine threeness (i.e., the Trinity), by contrast, can only be known by revelation and apprehended by faith. As such, Christians should not attempt to prove the Trinity “except by authorities and to those who accept the authorities.”32 30 Cf. Summa theologiae I.12.12c. 31 Summa theologiae I.32.1c. 32 Summa theologiae I.32.1c: “Quae igitur fidei sunt, non sunt tentanda probare nisi per auctoritates, his qui auctoritates suscipiunt.” Cf. ST I.1.8c, ad 1, ad 2.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 245 As Thomas intimates here, Moses is preeminent among the authorities through whom God revealed His threeness.33 In the opening chapter of Genesis, according to Aquinas’ reading, Moses clearly taught the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as distinct divine persons. After he had written, “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth” (v.1), Thomas explains, Moses added, “God said, Let there be light” (v.3) in order to reveal the divine Word. Afterward, Moses wrote, “God saw the light, that it was good” (v.4) to make clear His approval of the divine love (i.e., the procession of love that is the Holy Spirit).34 Thomas underscores the significance of Moses as teacher of the doctrine of the Triune God when he explains that “the knowledge of the divine persons was necessary for us for two reasons,” namely, so that we would “think rightly” about the creation of things, and—more importantly—about the salvation of humankind.35 That God created all things by His Word and out of love excludes the error of those who claim that God created by some necessity. Similarly, Moses’ instruction concerning the divine persons enabled his learners to understand that salvation would be accomplished by the incarnate Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit.36 It is noteworthy that Thomas’ explanation of the twofold necessity of knowledge of the Trinity here in Ia q.32 a.1 ad 3 provides the palette for the portrait of Moses as teacher that he paints throughout the remainder of the Summa. Indeed, in the Dominican master’s view, Moses’ role as teacher of the doctrine of the Trinity necessarily flows out into and comes to fruition in his teaching concerning creation, on the one hand, and Christ as the means of salvation, on the other. Before turning to a consideration of Moses as teacher of creation and of Christ, respectively, let us observe that Thomas’ resolution of the question “whether the Trinity of divine persons can be known by natural reason” recalls the first article of the opening question of the Prima pars, which concerns the necessity of sacred doctrine. Thomas here maintains that because humans are ordained toward God as an end that exceeds the grasp of reason, and because humans must know this divine end toward which they are to direct their lives, it was necessary for human salvation that certain supernatural truths—viz., 33 Summa theologiae I.32.1 ad 3. 34 Summa theologiae I.32.1 ad 3. 35 Summa theologiae I.32.1 ad 3: “Dicendum quod cognitio divinarum Personarum fuit necessaria nobis dupliciter. Uno modo, ad recte sentiendum de creatione rerum … Alio modo, et principalius, ad recte sentiendum de salute generis humani.” 36 Summa theologiae I.32.1 ad 3. On I.32.1 as pivotal to Aquinas’ doctrine of creation, see David B. Burrell, “Creation in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Super Evangelium S. Joannis Lectura,” in Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas, 115-26.

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the articles of faith (e.g., Trinity, incarnation)—be divinely revealed. Furthermore, it was necessary that the truths about God at which human reason could arrive—viz., the preambles of faith (e.g., God’s existence and oneness)—also be revealed in order that all people might understand them more quickly and more perfectly.37 Viewed in this light, Moses, as human author of the Torah and teacher of Trinity, creation, and Christ, occupies a central position not only in the comprehensive theological enterprise of Thomas Aquinas, but also in the divinely ordained plan of exitus-reditus that the Summa aims to elucidate.38 Let us now turn to a consideration of Moses as an effective teacher of the exitus of creatures from God. Like his presentation of Moses as an instructor concerning the Triune God, Thomas’ portrait of the Israelite leader as a master of the doctrine of creation is firmly rooted in the latter’s role as author of the Torah. This is so because, whereas human reason can naturally know that God is the principal cause of all things, divine creation in time is, according to Thomas, an article of faith.39 That the world had a beginning is, like the Trinity, neither accessible to nor demonstrable by human reason. Therefore, in writing, “In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (Gen. 1:1), Moses revealed both that the world began and that God is the efficient cause of its beginning.40 Moving from a consideration of the production of creatures in Ia q.46 to the distinction among creatures in q. 47, Thomas continues to use Moses’ words in Genesis 1 as his primary auctoritas.41 Aquinas answers the question “whether the multitude and distinction of things is from God” affirmatively, maintaining that the divine wisdom in particular is their cause. Moses clearly taught that things are made distinct by the word or wisdom of God when he wrote, “God said, Let there be light … And He divided the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:3-4).42 Thomas explains that Moses here 37 Summa theologiae I.1.1c. On the two kinds of revealed truth, see also Summa contra Gentiles (herafter ScG) I.3.2; I.4.1-7; and I.5.1-6. 38 It is noteworthy that Thomas’ presentation of Moses as teacher of the Triune God, of creation, and of Christ figuratively through the giving of the Old Law corresponds generally to the scholastic’s own ordering and treatment of theological topics in the Prima pars, Prima secundae, and Tertia pars. On exitus-reditus as the organizing principle of the Summa, see M.-D. Chenu, Introduction à l’étude de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Montreal: Institut d’études médiévales, 1950), 266-76; and Wawrykow, Westminster Handbook, 53-54. 39 Summa theologiae I.46.2c. 40 Summa theologiae I.46.2 sc. 41 Summa theologiae I.47.1 sc. 42 Summa theologiae I.47.1c. On the identification of the Word or Wisdom of God with the light of Genesis 1, see I.32.1 ad 3 and our brief discussion of it above.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 247 explicitly determined that the distinction and multitude of things originate in the purpose of God, who willed that His goodness be communicated to and displayed through them.43 In his careful and nuanced teaching, according to Aquinas, Moses not only affirmed the truth concerning the etiology of creaturely distinction but also anticipated and excluded the erroneous thinking of such philosophers as Democritus, Anaxagoras, and Avicenna.44 It is noteworthy that here Thomas presents Moses as a wise man (sapiens) par excellence—that is, as one who fulfills the twofold office of: (1) meditating on the truth concerning God as first principle and conveying it to others, and (2) attacking opposing falsehoods.45 Aquinas similarly portrays Moses, in his composition of the opening chapter of Genesis, as a wise purveyor of divine truth and enemy of error concerning God’s immediate production of corporeal creatures.46 Throughout his consideration of the procession of spiritual and corporeal creatures from God, Thomas offers Moses as an erudite pedagogue who skillfully accommodates his teaching to his less learned audience. A prominent example occurs in the opening article of q. 61, which inquires whether the angels have a cause of their existence. The first objection avers, based on the absence of angels in the creation account of Genesis 1, that God did not create these spiritual beings.47 In reply, Thomas cites Augustine’s view that Moses did not omit angels from his narrative but rather designated these incorporeal creatures by the names of corporeal things such as “heavens” and “light.” Aquinas proceeds to explain that Moses either passed over the angels altogether or designated them corporeally because he was addressing “an ignorant people” (rudis populus) incapable of comprehending an incorporeal nature.48 He taught in this way out of a concern, according to Thomas, not to provide the Jews with an occasion for idolatry, “toward which they were inclined and from which Moses especially was aiming to recall them.”49 In Thomas’ reading, scriptural passages such as Deuteronomy 4:19—“And when you look up to the heavens and see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, do not be led astray and bow 43 Summa theologiae I.47.1c. 44 Summa theologiae I.47.1c. 45 Summa contra Gentiles I.1.3-4. 46 Summa theologiae I.65.3c and I.65.4c. 47 Summa theologiae I.61.1 obj 1. 48 Summa theologiae I.61.1 ad 1. 49 Summa theologiae I.61.1 ad 1: “[E]t si eis fuisset expressum aliquas res esse super omnem naturam corpoream, fuisset eis occasio idololatriae, ad quam proni erant, et a qua Moyses eos praecipue revocare intendebat.”

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down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples everywhere under heaven”—attest not only to the ancient Israelite tendency toward idolatry, but also to Moses’ particular pedagogical concern to preserve his pupils from this grave danger.50 In presenting Moses as a deft teacher of creation, Thomas provides several other significant examples of Moses’ accommodation to his less capable Jewish discipuli. The first of these occurs in Thomas’ consideration of whether formlessness of matter temporally preceded its formation (q. 66 a. 1). The first objection notes that Genesis 1:2, “The earth was formless and void,” seems to suggest that formlessness did precede in time the formation of matter.51 Following Augustine, Thomas replies that in Genesis 1:2, Moses used the words “earth” and “water” (words normally used to denote formed matter) to signify prime or unformed matter. “For Moses was not able to represent prime matter to an ignorant people except under the likeness of things well-known to them.”52 In this affirmation, Aquinas explicitly presents Moses as a master who effectively teaches his pupils according to the first of the pedagogical methods set forth in the opening article of Ia q. 117, namely, by leading them from things known by way of similitudes to knowledge of the unknown.53 Thomas’ consideration of whether the firmament divides waters from waters (q. 68 a. 3) provides another example of how Moses accommodates his teaching—indeed, his very language—to his particular audience. In the previous article, while inquiring whether there are waters above the firmament, Aquinas answers affirmatively based on the authority of Genesis 1:7.54 He asserts, however, that different thinkers define the exact nature of these waters differently based on divergent views of the firmament itself (whether, e.g., it is understood as the starry heaven or the part of the air wherein clouds form).55 When he comes to a. 3, then, Thomas seems concerned to explain why Moses wrote that God made a firmament in the midst of the waters rather than in the air (Gen. 1:6).56 In the corpus, Aquinas writes: 50 See Summa theologiae I.67.4c, which suggests the influence of Chrysostom on Thomas’ thought on this point. 51 Summa theologiae I.66.1 obj 1. 52 Summa theologiae I.66.1 ad 1: “Non enim poterat Moyses rudi populo primam materiam exprimere, nisi sub similitudine rerum eis notarum.” 53 Summa theologiae I.117.1c. 54 Summa theologiae I.68.2 sc. 55 Summa theologiae I.68.2c. 56 Summa theologiae I.68.3 sc.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 249 But it must be considered that Moses was speaking to an ignorant people and, stooping to their intellectual weakness, he proposed to them only those things that are conspicuously clear to sense. For all people, no matter how ignorant, can apprehend by sense that earth and water are corporeal. That air is a body, however, is not perceived by all …. And, therefore, Moses makes express mention of water and earth but not air so as not to propose to ignorant people something unknown. In order, however, to express the truth to the capable, he provides a place for air to be understood by signifying it as contiguous with the water when he writes that Darkness was upon the face of the deep [Gen. 1:2].57

Here Moses teaches the intellectually infirm Jews very differently from the competent, whom Thomas leaves unidentified. Once again, we might understand Thomas’ description of Moses’ pedagogical approach in terms of the master of Ia q. 117 a. 1 who aims to lead his learners from things known to knowledge of the unknown by proposing sensible examples. Interestingly, however, in q. 68 a. 3, Moses seems content simply to propose in Genesis 1:6 the sensible reality of water, apparently unconcerned to lead his Jewish students beyond this to a deeper understanding of the firmament as airy. While his pedagogical approach may betray his belief that the Jews are altogether incompetent to learn unseen realities, the more probable explanation—particularly in light of the previous article (q. 68 a. 2)— is that, in Moses’ view, there simply is no single definitive teaching on the nature of the firmament at which all must arrive and to which all must adhere. And, to come full circle, there is no single view for Thomas precisely because Moses, the human instrument of divine revelation in Genesis 1, teaches differently to students with differing capacities for learning. Thomas provides a third example of Moses teaching the Jews in an appropriately accommodating way in q. 70 a. 1, which inquires whether the lights ought to have been created on the fourth day. The third objection observes that the lights ought to have been produced on the second day by virtue of the fact that the firmament, in which God set them (Gen. 1:17), 57 Summa theologiae I.68.3c: “Sed considerandum est quod Moyses rudi populo loquebatur, quorum imbecillitati condescendens, illa solum eis proposuit, quae manifeste sensui apparent. Omnes autem, quantumcumque rudes, terram et aquam esse corpora sensu deprehendunt. Aer autem non percipitur ab omnibus esse corpus …. Et ideo Moyses de aqua et terra mentionem facit expressam: aerem autem non expresse nominat, ne rudibus quoddam ignotum proponeret. Ut tamen capacibus veritatem exprimeret, dat locum intelligendi aerem, significans ipsum quasi aquae annexum, cum dicit quod tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi.” Cf. ad 3, where Thomas cites the invisibility of air as the reason Moses explicitly mentioned only water.

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was created on day two.58 Thomas replies to the objection by invoking Aristotle who affirms that although the stars are fixed in the spheres and move as the spheres move, human sense perceives the movement of the stars in particular and not that of the spheres more generally.59 Thus, Thomas concludes, in teaching that the stars were produced and placed in the firmament on the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-19), “Moses, stooping to an ignorant people, was observing what is apparent to the senses.”60 Article two of q. 70 similarly asks whether the cause of the creation of the lights is “fittingly described” (utrum convenienter … describatur) in Scripture. Again the question concerns whether Moses, in penning Genesis 1:14-15, taught the doctrine of creation reasonably or well given his particular audience. Earlier in his consideration of creation (q. 65 a. 2), Thomas explains that a corporeal creature can be said to have been made for four reasons, namely, for the sake of its proper act, for other creatures, for the whole universe, and for the glory of God. In elucidating the second of these reasons, Aquinas notes that those creatures that are less noble (creaturae ignobiliores) than humans exist for the sake of humans.61 This provides important groundwork on which Thomas builds in q. 70 a. 2, where he affirms that Moses mentioned only that cause according to which the lights were created for the utility of humankind “in order to recall the people from idolatry.”62 Moses points out three ways, Aquinas explains, in which the lights are useful for humans. First, in writing, “Let them shine in the firmament and illuminate the earth” (Gen. 1:15), Moses teaches that the lights enable humans to see objects and, as such, direct them in their work. Secondly, Moses shows that the lights determine the changes of time— which prevent weariness, preserve health, and enable humans to find adequate food—when he writes, “Let them be for seasons and days and years” (Gen. 1:14). Finally, in affirming, “Let them be for signs” (Gen. 1:14), Moses makes clear that the lights indicate favorable times for business or labor inasmuch as they signify either clear or inclement weather.63 In sum, Thomas aims to show that Moses described the cause of the creation of 58 Summa theologiae I.70.1 obj 3. 59 Summa theologiae I.70.1 ad 3. 60 Summa theologiae I.70.1 ad 3: “Moyses autem, rudi populo condescendens, secutus est quae sensibiliter apparent.” 61 Summa theologiae I.65.2c. 62 Summa theologiae I.70.2c: “Sed Moyses, ut populum ab idololatria revocaret, illam solam causam tetigit, secundum quod sunt facta ad utilitatem hominum.” 63 Summa theologiae I.70.2c.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 251 the lights very “fittingly,” indeed, given his idolatry-prone pupils. By emphasizing the second reason of their creation—namely, for the sake of other creatures—Moses sought definitively to characterize the luminaries as corporeal creatures inferior to the humans whom they were produced to serve. Thomas’ view of the anthropocentricity of creation and of Moses’ primary pedagogical purpose—namely, leading his students away from idolatry and toward the worship of the one true God—dovetail nicely in the Dominican’s presentation of Moses as an effective teacher of the doctrine of Christ, to which we now turn. The Summa’s portrait of Moses as “the first teacher of the Jews” undergoes a significant shift as Thomas moves from a consideration of God and the exitus of creatures from God in the Prima pars to the reditus to God by human acts and by Christ in the Secunda pars and the Tertia pars, respectively. Specifically, in the second and third parts of his great theological work, and particularly in the Prima secundae, Thomas presents Moses as a wise teacher of the doctrine of Christ. As we will see, the Treatise on the Old Law (Ia IIae qq. 98-105) provides a particularly apt canvas on which Thomas paints Moses as a lawgiver who variously teaches Christ by way of prefiguration. Thomas begins his consideration of the Old Law by establishing that it was, in fact, good, though imperfectly so. In describing it as imperfectly good, Aquinas understands the Old Law as in accordance with reason yet unable to confer the grace necessary to bring humans to the end for which the divine law was ordained, namely, everlasting beatitude.64 This grace would have to await the advent of Christ. Quoting John. 1:17, Thomas notes that whereas Moses gave the Law, grace and truth came through Christ.65 From the outset of the Treatise on the Old Law, then, Thomas makes two points that will be crucial both for his subsequent treatment of the Law and for his depiction of Moses as a teacher of Christ, namely: (1) that 64 Summa theologiae I-II.98.1c. On the Old Law in Thomas, see Stephen J. Casselli, “The Threefold Division of the Law in the Thought of Aquinas,” Westminster Theological Journal 61 (1999): 175-207; Pamela M. Hall, “The Old Law and the New Law (Ia IIae, qq. 98-108),” in The Ethics of Aquinas, ed. Stephen J. Pope (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 194-206; and Beryl Smalley, “William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law,” in Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1274-1974: Commemorative Studies (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), 11-71. In discussing the ways in which Thomas’ treatment of the Old Law reflects the various considerations and debates of his Christian predecessors, Smalley highlights the acquired or learned character of the scholastic theologian’s work, which, as noted above, serves to distinguish Thomas’ relationship to sacred doctrine from that of Moses. 65 Summa theologiae I-II.98.1c.

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Moses is the human giver of the Law, and (2) that Moses’ work as lawgiver is imperfect relative to the work of Christ, toward which it points.66 Having established Moses as giver of the good Law, Thomas asks in a. 2 of q. 98 whether the Old Law was from God. That “the Old Law was given by the good God, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” is evidenced, for Aquinas, by the fact that it ordained humans to Christ in two ways (homines ordinabat ad Christum dupliciter), namely: (1) by bearing witness to or prophesying the savior, and (2) by drawing them away from idolatry and disposing them to the worship of one God, from whom salvation would come through Christ.67 The first objection maintains that the Old Law cannot have been from God by virtue of the fact that the works of God are perfect, yet—as demonstrated in a. 1 of q. 98—the Law is clearly imperfect.68 In reply, Thomas explains that whereas the precepts of the Old Law are not perfect simply or absolutely (simpliciter), they are perfect relative to the time and the condition of that people to whom they were given (secundum temporis conditionem). Invoking Galatians 3:24, “The Law was our pedagogue in Christ,” Aquinas provides the analogy of a boy and the precepts given to him. Neither the child nor the instruction he receives are perfect absolutely, but both are perfect according to time and developmental stage.69 Here in a. 2, then, Thomas presents Moses as the human mediator of a divine law that is perfect relative to the childlike intellectual and spiritual aptitude of its Jewish learners. Furthermore, the Old Law’s relative perfection is presumably (at least in part) a function of Moses’ pedagogical prowess, i.e., his aptitude in accommodating the divine wisdom he has received to his less learned listeners. The relative perfection of the Old Law also depends on whether it was “fittingly” (convenienter) given at the time of Moses, which question Thomas takes up in a. 6 of q. 98. The first objection argues that it was not fitting that Moses gave the Law: The Old Law ordered (disponebat) humans toward the salvation that was to come through Christ, but humans needed a remedy for sin immediately after the first sin. Thus, the Old Law was simply given too late.70 The principal authority that Thomas uses to resolve this 66 Cf. Summa theologiae I-II.98.2 ad 2. On the relationship between the Old Law and Christ in the thought of Aquinas, see Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 15-79. 67 Summa theologiae I-II.98.2c. 68 Summa theologiae I-II.98.2 obj 1. 69 Summa theologiae I-II.98.2 ad 1. 70 Summa theologiae I-II.98.6 obj 1.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 253 question is Galatians 3:18: “The Law was established on account of transgression until the seed to whom He [i.e., God] had made the promise should come, having been ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.”71 This final phrase is the important one for Thomas. Drawing on the Glossa ordinaria, he explains that “ordained” (ordinata) means “given in an orderly way” (ordinabiliter data).72 Thomas concludes his explanation of why it was “most fitting” (convenientissime) that the Old Law was given at the time of Moses by maintaining that this help was bestowed on humans in an “orderly manner” (ordine)—i.e., temporally between the natural law and grace—so that they might be led from imperfection to perfection.73 Though neither stated explicitly nor developed here in q. 98 a. 6, Moses’ role as mediator of divine teaching is implied in Thomas’ use of Galatians 3:19. In his Lectures on Galatians, however, Aquinas reads the Apostle’s words “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator” as referring to Moses and Aaron as ministers of God’s Law.74 The Dominican exegete understands Moses in particular as the representative of the divine mediator, i.e., the one who made Christ known (significatus est) in and through the giving of the Law.75 Moses is presented, then, as the human mediator who, in giving the Law at a fitting time and in an ordered way, ordained humankind to the human and divine mediator, Jesus Christ, who would bring grace and salvation. Thus, Moses is the wise teacher who orders all things well. It is noteworthy that Thomas, in his lecture on Galatians 3:19, points out that Moses gave the Law “in the power of Christ” (in potestate Christi).76 This affirmation serves to confirm Moses as a theological master as described by Aquinas in his principium. It is God alone who communicates wisdom by His own power, whereas the human teacher does so only as a minister of the divine power.77 Thomas further develops this fundamental distinction between God as principal teacher and Moses as pedagogical minister in his treatment of the moral precepts of the Old Law in Ia IIae q. 100. In a. 3 (which asks whether all the moral precepts of the Law are reducible to the Decalogue). Thomas draws a crucial distinction between the Ten Commandments and 71 My translation of the Vulgate text given in Summa theologiae I-II.98.6 sc. 72 Summa theologiae I-II.98.6 sc. 73 Summa theologiae I-II.98.6c. 74 Lectio VII in Cap. III. Marietti, 1:603.167. 75 Lectio VII in Cap. III. Marietti, 1:603.168. 76 Lectio VII in Cap. III. Marietti, 1:603.168. 77 Rigans montes de superioribus suis IV (Opus. Theol. I.443).

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other precepts of the Law: namely, whereas God himself gave the precepts of the Decalogue, he proposed the other precepts to the people through Moses.78 Why God taught some precepts immediately and others through human mediation is a function of the threefold classification of moral precepts that Aquinas elucidates in a. 11. The first class consists of those “most certain” (certissima) precepts of which every person is naturally aware and, as such, do not require promulgation (e.g., love of God and neighbor). The second class includes the more defined (magis determinata) precepts of the Decalogue. Even the unlearned can easily understand these, but they are nevertheless set forth for the few who would otherwise stray from the virtuous path. In the third class are those precepts whose reason is not apparent to everyone, but rather only to the wise. These are the moral precepts that were added to the Decalogue and given through the ministry of Moses.79 It is through the diligent investigation of the wise that these precepts are shown to accord with reason, and through their teaching that God gives them to the people.80 Here in q. 100 of the Prima secundae, then, Thomas portrays Moses as the wise master who teaches his less learned pupils in both of the ways described in q. 117 a. 1 of the Prima pars. First, in adding less universal precepts to the more universal ones of the Decalogue and in proposing sensible examples, Moses provides aids or tools (auxilia vel instrumenta) for the acquisition of knowledge.81 Secondly, in offering these less axiomatic precepts, Moses illustrates for his Jewish students how conclusions are to be drawn from principles.82 I must also note, if only in passing, that Thomas’ threefold classification of moral precepts in Ia IIae q. 100 a. 11 can be easily mapped onto his understanding in Ia q.117 a.1 of the acquisition of knowledge by means of both an interior and exterior principle. In his treatment of the ceremonial law (Ia IIae qq. 101-103), Thomas depicts Moses as a teacher of Christ by way of prefiguration. In a. 2 of q. 101, Aquinas asks whether the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law are figurative. According to the first objection, it seems “unfitting” (inconvenienter) 78 Summa theologiae I-II.100.3c. 79 Summa theologiae I-II.100.11c. 80 Summa theologiae I-II.100.3c: “… et iterum illa quae per diligentem inquisitionem sapientum inveniuntur rationi convenire, haec enim proveniunt a Deo ad populum mediante disciplina sapientum.” 81 Summa theologiae I.117.1c. Thomas provides some of Moses’ supplementary precepts and examples in I-II.100.11c. 82 Summa theologiae I.117.1c. Cf. I-II.100.3c.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 255 that Moses would have delivered the ceremonial precepts as figures of other things without further explanation. After all, as Augustine indicates in De doctrina Christina, it pertains to the office of teacher to express oneself in an easily understandable way.83 Thomas responds that the precepts governing the external worship of the Old Law needed to be figurative by virtue of the fact that Christ, who is the way leading to the beatific vision of divine truth, had not yet appeared to the Jewish people. The ceremonial precepts, then, foreshadowed the advent and salvific work of Christ.84 In replying to the first objection, Aquinas concludes that Moses “more effectively” (utilius) taught the divine mysteries to an ignorant people (rudi populo) “under the veil of certain figures” (sub quodam figurarum velamine).85 By teaching Christ figuratively, Moses fulfilled the teaching office for his Jewish pupils, whose nescience prevented them from comprehending divine truths explicitly. He also aligned his teaching ministry with the way in which God, the principal teacher, reveals things to humans, namely, according to their capacity to comprehend.86 Thomas illustrates the fittingness of Moses’ method of teaching the ceremonial precepts as prefiguring Christ in Ia IIae q. 102, which concerns the causes of these precepts. In a. 5, for example, Aquinas concludes that all the sacraments of the Old Law had “fitting” (conveniens) causes, both literal, insofar as they were ordained to the worship of God at that time, and figurative, insofar as they were ordained to prefigure Christ.87 The reply to the fifth objection elucidates the twofold fittingness of Moses’ instruction concerning the expiatory ritual of the heifer in Numbers 19:1-10. On the fitting literal cause, Thomas writes: For it is commanded there by the Lord [through Moses] that they take a red cow, in memory of the sin that they had committed in worshipping the calf …. And in solemn execration of the sin of idolatry, it was sacrificed outside the camp …. Furthermore, even the very sprinkling of blood pertained to the execration of idolatry, in which the blood of the sacrifice was not poured out but rather brought together, and around it people ate in honor of idols. It was consumed, moreover, by fire, either because God appeared to Moses in a fire, and the Law was given from a fire, or because through 83 Summa theologiae I-II.101.2 obj 1: “Pertinet enim ad officium cuiuslibet doctoris ut sic pronunciet ut de facili intelligi possit.” 84 Summa theologiae I-II.101.2c. 85 Summa theologiae I-II.101.2 ad 1. 86 Summa theologiae I-II.101.2 ad 1: “… divina non sunt revelanda hominibus nisi secundum eorum capacitatem.” 87 Summa theologiae I-II.102.5c.

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This description fills out Thomas’ portrait of Moses as a teacher whose pedagogy aims at drawing his Jewish students away from idolatry and toward the worship of the one true God.89 Whereas the literal causes seem to correspond to the first part of this dual movement, the figurative causes relate to the second by virtue of their Christological significations. Thomas explains the figurative reasons for Moses’ implementation of the heifer ritual thusly: that the cow was female signified the human weakness of Christ, that it was red designated his passion, and that the heifer was without blemish and had never been yoked signified Christ’s innocence.90 Aquinas goes on to note the figurative cause or significance of nearly every aspect of Moses’ teaching concerning this sacrament. Similarly, in the preceding article of q. 102, Thomas establishes the “figurative reason” (figuralis ratio) for Moses’ institution of the temporal festivals that the Jewish people were to observe.91 The continual sacrifice of the lamb at Passover foreshadowed the perpetuity of Christ, the Lamb of God. The Sabbath prefigured the spiritual rest “given to us” (nobis data) by Christ. The New Moon signified the enlightenment of the early church by Christ’s preaching and miracles. Pentecost adumbrated the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, and Trumpets the apostolic preaching. The cleansing of Christians from their sins was presaged by the feast of Atonement, and their earthly pilgrimage—on which they travel by making progress in the virtues—was prefigured by Tabernacles. Finally, the feast of Harvest portended the gathering of the faithful in the kingdom of heaven.92 By virtue of the fact that the Old Law was instituted to prefigure the mystery of Christ (ad figurandum mysterium Christi), Thomas can conclude that there is “sufficient reason” (sufficiens ratio) for Moses’ manner of teaching regarding divine worship.93 The use of such ‘fittingness’ language and argumentation throughout the treatise on the Old Law plays a central role in Thomas’ presentation of Moses as a wise teacher of the doctrine of Christ. Indeed, Thomas uses 88 Summa theologiae I-II.102.5 ad 5. 89 Cf. Summa theologiae I-II.98.2c. 90 Summa theologiae I-II.102.5 ad 5. 91 Summa theologiae I-II.102.4 ad 10. 92 Summa theologiae I-II.102.4 ad 10. 93 See corpus of Summa theologiae I-II.102.4, which asks “utrum assignari possit sufficiens ratio caeremoniarum quae ad sacra pertinent.”

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 257 arguments for ‘fittingness’ throughout the Summa to make clear the coherence, wisdom, and beauty of the particular ways that God has acted throughout history.94 As the foregoing analysis demonstrates, Aquinas variously invokes ‘fittingness’ in qq. 98-102 of the Prima secundae to highlight the pivotal ministerial role that Moses, as “the first teacher of the Jews,” plays in the divine logic of the revelation of the Old Law. Through figurative instruction, in particular, Moses most appropriately foreshadowed the mysteries of Christ, which constitute the end of the Law. Finally, I should note that the use of ‘fittingness’ arguments in this portrayal of Moses recalls and reinforces Thomas’ basic understanding of teaching as originating in God’s wisdom and mediated by human masters. By means of ‘fittingness’ arguments, Thomas continues to develop his portrait of Moses as an apt teacher of the person and work of Christ in the Tertia pars. That Aquinas is principally concerned to show the coherence and wisdom of the particular salvific plan that God established and accomplished is made manifest in the opening article of the Tertia pars, which treats the “fittingness of the incarnation” (De convenientia incarnationis). After explaining why it was “fitting” (conveniens) that God became incarnate in q. 1 a. 1, Thomas inquires in a. 2 whether the incarnation of the divine Word was “necessary” (necessarium) for the restoration of humankind. Here he explains that something is said to be “necessary” for a certain end in two ways. First, a thing is absolutely necessary when the end is unable to be achieved without it, as food is necessary for the preservation of human life. Secondly, a thing is necessary relatively when it enables the end to be achieved “better and more fittingly” (melius et convenientius), as a horse is necessary for a journey. With God’s absolute power and freedom of will in view, Thomas concludes that the incarnation was necessary for human salvation only in the second sense. 95 Aquinas similarly begins his consideration of the Incarnate Word’s departure from the world (IIIa qq. 46-52) by asking whether it was “necessary” (necessarium) for Christ to suffer for the deliverance of the human race.96 Explicitly invoking Aristotle’s teaching that “necessary” can have multiple meanings, Thomas here draws the basic distinction between internal or natural necessity and external necessity. External necessity can be further 94 On the notion of ‘fittingness’ in Thomas, see Wawrykow, Westminster Handbook, 57-60; and Paul Gondreau, “The Humanity of Christ, the Incarnate Word,” in Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 252-76, esp. 258-59. 95 Summa theologiae III.1.2c. 96 Summa theologiae III.46.1.

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divided into the “necessity of constraint” (necessitatem coactionis)—as, for example, when someone cannot escape on account of the strength of the one detaining him—and the “necessity of an end presupposed” (necessarium ex suppositione finis). If an end (rather than a cause) is the external reality inducing necessity, then a thing is necessary when it either cannot be at all or “cannot be fittingly” (non potest esse convenienter) unless this end be presupposed.97 These two categories correspond to the absolute and relative necessity, respectively, of q. 1 a. 2, where the end presupposed was human salvation. The passion of Christ was in no way a necessity of constraint, according to Thomas, either on God’s part or on the part of Christ. It was necessary, however, based on a threefold presupposed end. First, Christ had to suffer given the end of human salvation. Secondly, the passion was necessary in light of the end of his own glorious exaltation. Thirdly, and most importantly for our purposes, Christ’s suffering was necessary on account of God’s eternal determination (definitio), which was “foretold in Scripture and prefigured in the observances of the Old Testament.”98 The resurrected Christ referenced this presupposed end of eternal predetermination, according to Thomas, when he affirmed, “It was necessary that everything written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44).99 Here Thomas presents Moses, by virtue of his dual role as lawgiver and author of the Pentateuch, as a teacher of Christ’s salvific suffering. It is particularly by way of a temporally appropriate prefigurative pedagogy, Aquinas intimates, that Moses instructs on this indispensable theological point. Furthermore, in teaching the passion of Christ in this way, Moses again acts as a human minister of God’s own self-revelation. Indeed, Thomas argues that it was “necessary” or “fitting” that Christ should suffer for the salvation of the human race based on the presupposed end of divine decree, which Moses made clear through his verbal and written tutelage. Moses taught Christ’s passion not only with words, whether orally or in writing, however. He also prefigured the Cross by means of various symbolic actions, as Thomas explains in a. 4 of q. 46. Here Aquinas provides seven reasons why it was “most fitting” (convenientissimum) that Christ 97 Summa theologiae III.46.1c. 98 Summa theologiae III.46.1c: “Tertio, ex parte Dei, cuius definitio est circa passionem Christi praenuntiatam in Scripturis et praefiguratam in observantia veteris Testamenti.” Cf. III.62.6 ad 2, where Thomas affirms that the rite of the Old Law was “wholly ordained to the foreshadowing of Christ’s passion” (totus ordinabatur ad figurandum passionem Christi). 99 Summa theologiae III.46.1c.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 259 should suffer on a cross. The seventh and final reason is that death on a cross “corresponds to many figures” (plurimis figuris respondet) in the Old Testament.100 Significantly, nearly all of the figures of the life-giving wood of the Cross that Thomas sets forth here are taken from the life and work of Moses. For example, with a wooden rod, the Israelite leader divided the sea and saved God’s people from slavery in Egypt (Exod. 14:16, 22ff.). Moses also dipped his staff into the water, changing it from bitter to sweet (Exod. 15:25). He provided water to refresh the people by striking his staff on a “spiritual rock” (Exod. 17:5-6). Furthermore, Israel defeated Amalek only because Moses kept his arms outstretched with rod in hand (Exod. 17:9-13). Finally, the Law of God was entrusted to the Ark of the Covenant, which was made of wood (Exod. 25:10, 16). Thomas concludes the corpus by intimating that through these symbolic actions, Moses aimed at gradually leading his Jewish learners to the wood of the Cross.101 He taught the Cross of Christ prefiguratively in these very corporeal, sensibly perceptible ways presumably because his unlearned and unfaithful disciples would have been utterly unable to comprehend strictly verbal and literal instruction concerning this ultimately unfathomable mystery of faith. Thus, Moses taught this most fitting truth most fittingly. Conclusions From his inception at Paris in the Spring of 1256 until he stopped writing in Naples on 6 December 1273, Thomas Aquinas was—above all else— a teacher of sacred doctrine, a master of theology.102 On 8 September 1265, not quite a decade into his teaching career, Thomas was charged by his Dominican provincial chapter at Anagni “for the remission of his sins” with establishing and directing a studium at Rome for the education of select friars.103 Having served the previous four years as conventual lector at Orvieto where he was responsible for the pastoral formation of the fratres communes, Aquinas had by this time become quite well aware of the 100 Summa theologiae III.46.4c. 101 Summa theologiae III.46.4c: “ut his omnibus ad lignum crucis, quasi per quosdam gradus, veniatur”. 102 Josef Pieper, Guide to Thomas Aquinas, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), 89-102. 103 Boyle, The Setting of the Summa theologiae, 8-15; Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas 1, 142-59; and M. Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study …”: Dominican Education before 1350 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998), 278-306.

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deficiencies then characterizing Dominican education, particularly its narrow emphasis on applied and moral theology.104 As head of his own studium at Santa Sabina in Rome, Master Thomas took terrific advantage of the opportunity to devise a new, more comprehensive theological curriculum for his young Dominican students by beginning to compose—and presumably teach—the Summa theologiae.105 In constructing broader scaffolding for the traditional practical Dominican education, Thomas sought to introduce his young confreres to sacred doctrine, the science of theology, as the Summa’s prologue makes clear. Here Thomas maintains that previous works of theology have hindered novices on account of their multiplication of useless questions, articles, and arguments, their frequent repetition, and their failure to convey necessary truths secundum ordinem disciplinae—that is, according to the order of teaching and learning or according to the order of the science.106 As it developed as a science in the twelfth and thirteenth century, the order of theology or sacred doctrine was determined by the order of salvation history as recounted in scriptural revelation. Indeed, according to M.-D. Chenu, “La formation des sommes, au XIIIe siècle, illustre à point ce grand problème, de transformer une histoire sainte en une science organisée.”107 If Thomas’ Summa illustrates this major problem, it also served to solve it by systematically presenting the entire body of truths necessary for salvation in an order roughly determined by Scripture, the sacred writings in and through which these truths have been divinely revealed. Thomas’ first and most important task as theologian, then, was to read scriptural texts.108 He not only expounded them in his daily university lectures, but he used them as certain and proper authorities in systematically propounding sacred doctrine in his Summa. Furthermore, in 104 Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study…”, 184-203; Boyle, The Setting of the Summa theologiae, 1-8; and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas 1, 117-20. 105 Boyle, The Setting of the Summa theologiae. 106 Summa theologiae I, prol. Although the Latin word disciplina means “discipline” or “science” and is most often rendered as such in English translations of the prologue, that Thomas here contrasts the order disciplinae with the order of reading or exposition and the order of questions or disputation suggests his intention to (also) convey the primary meaning of the word, viz., teaching and learning. Furthermore, this rendering aligns with and highlights the ultimate pedagogical purpose of a medieval summa (see the discussion of the genre in Chenu, Introduction à l’étude, 255-58). 107 Chenu, Introduction à l’étude, 258-265, here 258. “The formation of summae in the thirteenth century nicely illustrates this major problem of transforming a sacred history into an organized science.” 108 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas 1, 54-59.

moses as theological master in the summa theologiae 261 presenting divine truths according the mode of going out from and returning to God (exitus et reditus), Thomas reproduced in a simplified form the overarching biblical narrative of creation and redemption. In so doing, he used the scriptural order of salvation history to guide his own order of teaching. Viewed in this light, from the perspective of the putative purpose of the Summa theologiae, the central role of Moses in Aquinas’ great work appears significantly less surprising than it otherwise might. In reflecting on the nature of God, creation, and the person and salvific work of Christ, and in setting forth these theological themes “in a way suitable for the instruction of beginners,” Thomas was instructed well by Moses, “the first teacher of the Jews,” from whom he drew considerable inspiration. Indeed, it is more than coincidental that the three significant sections of the Summa that most directly represent elaborations of Scripture are the treatise on creation (Ia qq. 65-74), the treatise on the Old Law (Ia IIae qq. 98-105), and the treatise on the life of Christ (IIIa 27-59).109 I have sought to show that in the Summa theologiae Thomas understands Moses as a great theological master who, having been elevated to a supernatural knowledge of God, fittingly taught the ancient Israelites the doctrines of Trinity, creation, and Christ. More precisely, in his dual role as author of the Pentateuch and giver of the Law, Moses presented divine truths in ways that were appropriate to his less learned students. In so doing, he served as an effective minister of God’s self-revelation for human salvation. And as a scholastic theologian whose principal task was to reflect on the truths of sacred doctrine as revealed in authoritative scriptural texts and set them forth in an orderly way, Thomas Aquinas sought to teach his beginners according to the wise and fitting example of primus doctor Iudaeorum.

109 Chenu, Introduction à l’étude, 221-23.

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“Like a Duck from a Falcon”: Moses in Middle English Biblical Literature, the Mystery Cycles, and Piers Plowman B Gail Ivy Berlin Was the Bible available to laymen in English between the time when Ælfric set forth his Old English paraphrase in the tenth century and the late fourteenth century, when the Wycliffite translations were produced? If one were looking for literal, accurate, and complete prose translations, then Bibles were in short supply. As David Lawton points out, complete Bibles were “mostly stored in churches as treasures.”1 But biblical materials—summaries, retellings, and elaborations, in verse and prose—were indeed plentiful. A broad and varied literature of the Bible flourished in Middle English. Within this corpus, the literature touching upon Moses is substantial. Moses appears in didactic, allegorical, and exegetical works as well as in universal histories, biblical paraphrases, treatises and poems on the Ten Commandments, scattered references in secular poetry, and the work of mystics.2 But he also appears as a fairly substantial character or presence in the four major mystery play cycles (York, Towneley, Chester, and N-town) and in William Langland’s Piers Plowman.3 This essay will attempt to give a sense of what an audience during the Middle English period, roughly from 1250 to 1500, is likely to have known about Moses in general, and it will then turn to examine the more complex and conflicted understanding of Moses that arises within the play cycles and in Piers Plowman. Within these works, Moses is a figure split in two. As the first bringer of God’s law, he is deeply honored. But as purveyor of Mosaic law, associated in the medieval Christian literary imagination primarily with stoning and 1 David Lawton, “Englishing the Bible” in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 455. 2 For an excellent overview of biblical literature in Middle English, see James H. Morey, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). 3 Moses also appears as an allegorical character (a horned vicar) in Lydgate’s translation of Guillaume de Guileville’s Pilgrimage of the Life of Man. Limitations of space prevent addressing that work here.

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ritual sacrifice, he becomes problematic, a disturbing figure who must be at once embraced and bracketed.4 This paper will examine how this splitting or compartmentalization of Moses was handled. I will first present a sampling of Middle English biblical works where the split is not so obvious before going on to consider Moses’ role in mystery play cycles and Piers Plowman. I will argue that in both the plays and in Piers Plowman, works that make use of common cultural building blocks, Moses is by turns valorized, denigrated, and (in some cases) Christianized as authors work to wedge him into the Christian scheme of salvation. Before examining the literature, however, it is necessary to set forth briefly Moses’ status as a figure marking transitions in what were known as the Ages of the World. Dividing history into segments, the Ages of the World were variously drawn in the Middle Ages, but in many of them Moses appears as a pivotal or transitional figure. Ranulf Higden’s universal history, the Polychronicon (translated into Middle English by John Trevisa, 1387) sets forth six possible schemes. In one of these, he divides time into five ‘manners of living’: Natural Law, Idolatry, Written Law, Christians under Christ, and Saracens under Mohammad. During the third age of Moses and the Written Law, “circumsisioun and lawe departed þe children of Israel from laweles and mysbileued men” (“circumcision and the law separated the children of Israel from lawless and unbelieving men”) while grace and the sacraments characterized the fourth age of Christ.5 V. A. Kolve points out several traditional schemas: the Two Sacred Histories (Old and New Testament), the Two Times (Justice and Mercy), the Three Laws (Natural Law, Written Law, and the Law of Charity), where Moses is associated with the Old Testament, strict justice, and the Written Law.6 A three-part schema is likewise found in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In this letter, Paul explains that before the Law of Moses, sin was in the world. Death therefore held sway from Adam until Moses. But, in the period from Moses to Christ, “Law entered in that sin might abound. And where sin abounded, grace did 4 Christian discomfort with Mosaic Law and Jews continuing to follow it is a standard feature of Jewish/ Christian debate throughout the Middle Ages. See Gilbert Dahan, The Christian Polemic Against the Jews in the Middle Ages, trans. Jody Gladding (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998). 5 Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon (London: Longman Green, Longman, Roberts and Green, 1865 and 1869), 1:1.4. Numbers refer to volume, book, and chapter in the translation of John Trevisa. All translations into Modern English are mine unless otherwise indicated. 6 V.A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1966), 120.

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more abound.”7 In this scheme, Moses presides over an era of sin defined against a deficient law, deficient because not yet fulfilled by Christ. The thirteenth century Golden Legend, translated into Middle English as the Gilte Legend (1438) and printed by Caxton (1483), similarly notes deficiencies in the period heralded by Moses in its four-part division of the ages: “the time of deviation or turning from the right way, the time of renewal or of being called back, the time of reconciliation, and the time of pilgrimage.”8 The time of deviation extended from Adam to Moses. The time of renewal, when mankind embraced the religion of the prophets, began with Moses and ended with the birth of Christ. The reconciliation is the era of Christ, and pilgrimage represents present life on earth. During the time of renewal—the time of Moses’ Law—man was “only instructed, not freed from sin nor helped by any grace to do good.”9 Despite the positive sound of the “time of renewal,” it was, finally, simply a time before Christ when people—Moses and the prophets included—were “slaves of the devil, shackled with sinful habits.”10 Moses, then, is the chief figure representing an age that rises above lawlessness and idolatry but that remains mired in sin—more sinful than ever since it does have law as a measuring stick. The good that Moses brings tends to be symbolized by the Ten Commandments, sinfulness by Mosaic Law generally. Moses in Middle English Literature The substantial literature dealing with Moses in Middle English, excluding the plays and Piers Plowman, may, for convenience, be broken into three streams: works dealing with his life, his laws, and his figurative value. In terms of genre, his life is reflected in universal histories and Biblical paraphrases; his laws, primarily the Ten Commandments, in poetry, tracts, and spiritual guidebooks. His value as a figure or type permeates literature and art and will be examined here both through passing references in literature 7 Romans 5:20. All quotations from the Bible will be taken from the Douay-Rheims version. 8 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, vol. 1, prologue, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), 3. 9 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, vol. 1, section 1, “The Advent of the Lord,” 5. 10 Ibid. This notion of the enslavement of the prophets comes across most clearly in the twelfth century Anglo-Norman play, Le Jeu d’Adam, where each prophet gives a speech recognizing Christ’s divinity before being chained by the devil and dragged off to hell. See The Service for Representing Adam (Ordo Repraesentationis Adæ) in David Bevington, Medieval Drama (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), headnote to lines 745 ff..

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and through the fifteenth century compendium, Mirour of Mans Saluacioun. The Life of Moses Verse and prose retellings of the Bible were readily available throughout the Middle English period, the earliest being Genesis and Exodus (circa 1250), a verse paraphrase of Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica. Most of these texts do not aim to translate the Bible as a whole, but tend to focus in on select events, with varying degrees of comprehensiveness. However, most do not merely retell the Bible; they also fill in gaps. The youth of Moses was of great interest to medieval audiences, and much apocryphal material was therefore spliced in. These tales indicate early signs of Moses’ dedication to God and the Jewish people and his opposition to idolotry. Both Genesis and Exodus and Ranulf Higden’s universal history, the Polychronicon, along with the translations of John Trevisa and of an anonymous English author, contain accounts of the infant Moses’ refusal to be suckled by Egyptian breasts. Trevisa’s account follows:11 Þis childe Moyses hatede alle þe wommen brestes of þe Egipcians, and wolde souke no woman breste of þe Egipcians, but he was sliliche i-brou3t to his owne moder, and sche fed hym.12 (Also, this child, Moses, hated all the Egyptian women’s breasts and would suck no Egyptian woman’s breast, but would be brought to his own mother, and she fed him.)

These same texts also speak of the great beauty of the child Moses, a sign of God’s favor. People admired him as he traveled with his adoptive mother, Pharaoh’s daughter, traditionally called “Teremuth,” although not named in the Bible. And whan he was þre 3ere olde, God Almy3ty made hym so fayre of schap and of stature, þat whanne they were i-bore by stretes al þat were aboute lefte [of] hire work and occupaciouns for to loke and byholde on þat childe, were þey neuere so sterne ne so angry.13 (And when he was three years of age, God Almighty made him so fair of shape and stature that when they were carried out about the streets, all those who were about left their work and occupations to look upon and behold that child, were they never so stern or angry.) 11 The account derives from the Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 1:21). 12 Higden, Polychronicon, 2:2.13. 13 Higden, Polychronicon 2:2.13.

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Perhaps the most popular episode is that of Moses and Pharaoh’s crown. Young Moses, offended by an image of a god displayed upon Pharaoh’s crown, pulled it from his head and smashed the idol.14 Part of this tale’s popularity no doubt derived from the fact that it could serve as a type of the infant Jesus entering Egypt. In popular lore, all the idols of Egypt were said to fall upon his entrance.15 In some accounts, such as that in the Polychronicon, the parallel between the infant Moses and the infant Jesus is drawn even more specifically. Just as Herod feared the coming of Jesus, of which he was foretold by astrologers, so did Pharaoh fear the birth of Moses, which his priest foretold, as in the episode in the Polychronicon.16 After Moses threw down the crown, treading on it “spitousliche” (spitefully) with his feet, one of Pharaoh’s priests, perceiving a threat to Egypt, cried out, “This is the child that our god commanded us to slay!” Moses is saved from this threat by the test of burning coals, another popular motif. Pharaoh’s counselors determine to test the child to see whether the deed was done intentionally or out of childishness. Glowing embers are brought to young Moses. If he is willing to put them into his mouth, he will be deemed innocent of ill intent, being too young to discriminate. And he does indeed place the hot coals in his mouth, by God’s will, an act that saves his life and explains why, later, Moses describes himself as a poor speaker.17 By emphasizing Moses’ beauty, his rejection of Egyptian wet nurses, his early contempt for idols, and God’s interest in protecting him from the Egyptian priest’s threat, medieval authors have constructed a legendary youth for Moses akin to that of the childhood of saints who are frequently distinguished by pious behaviors, signs, and miracles.18 14 The episode of Pharaoh’s crown may be found in Genesis and Exodus, the Old Testament History, The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase, and the Polychronicon. For complete bibliographic references, see James H. Morey, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000). 15 The tale is recorded in the Mirour of Mans Saluacioune, chapter 11, where it is linked figuratively with Moses breaking the image on Pharaoh’s crown. 16 Polychronicon 2:2.13. The tale of Moses and the Pharaoh’s crown derives from the Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 1:31). For an English translation, see Rabbi Michael L. Munk, The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet, 2nd ed., (New York: Mesorah Publications, 2003), 184-85. In this version, an angel pushes Moses’ hand toward the coals. The priest who warns against Moses is identified as Balaam, whose story is well known from Numbers 22 to 25 and retold in the Chester Cycle, Play 5. 17 The test by hot coals is included in Genesis and Exodus, the Middle English Metrical Paraphrase, the Polychronicon, and the Mirrour of Man’s Salvation. 18 Apocryphal tales of Moses’s later life occur as well, including his construction of rings of remembering and forgetting, a ruse to escape his Ethiopian wife, Tharbis; the appearance of an angel with a sword who blocks his return to Egypt with an uncircumcised son; and

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A glimpse of a more fully realized Moses occurs in Cursor Mundi. A verse retelling of both the Old and New Testaments, Cursor Mundi contains a hefty section on Moses that runs for about 1,430 lines in the Southern version (lines 5493-6922).19 The narration proceeds in a fairly straightforward manner. It does not include the folkloric tales of Moses’ youth but does provide a lively diatribe that Moses himself delivers upon discovering the Israelites with the golden calf. Within the biblical account, Moses’ shock upon seeing the golden calf is expressed by hurling down the stone tablets and grinding the golden calf to a powder which the Israelites must drink.20 Moses is active, but not especially verbal. At no point does he express his rage directly to the Israelites; however, the Moses in Cursor Mundi makes up for this deficit, in lines appropriate for a dramatic reading: Moyses þenne called hem togider Lordyngis he seide I am comen hider Aboute 3oure eronde haue I bene Why fle 3e fro me þus bidene Comeþ a3eyn wiþouten doute Haue 3e þese dayes alle fasted oute þat I 3ou bad ar I went Haue 3e holde my commaundement Who haþ made þis calf byfore Hit shal heraftir 3ow rewe ful sore Who made þis calf I most him ken Who helde þe fast among þese men Who haþ holden my comaundement And who not siþen I went Who for3at me & who nou3t And who þis gold togider brou3t … All are 3e trewe by 3oure sawes Is noon of 3ow þis calf knawes 3e saye þat 3e made hit nou3t Ne neuer coom hit in 3oure þou3t21 (Moses then called them together. “Lords,” he said, “I am come hither. On your behalf, I have been on an errand. Why do you flee from me thus all together? Come back without fear. Have you fasted completely all these the wide-spread tale of the three rods of Moses. See Morey’s Guide, which details contents of all works. On the origins of some of these tales in early medieval Jewish midrashim, see Rachel Mikva’s chapter in this book. 19 Quotations from Cursor Mundi will be taken from Sarah M. Horrall, ed., The Southern Version of Cursor Mundi, vol. 1 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1978). 20 Exodus 32:15-35. 21 Cursor Mundi, Vol.1: lines 6553-6574; 6599-6602.

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days, as I bade you before I went? Have you kept my commandments? Who has made this calf here before us? From here on out, you’ll regret it sorely. Who made this calf? I must know who! Who’s kept the fast among the men? Who’s kept my commandments and who has not since I went? Who forgot me, and who not? And who brought this gold together? You’re all loyal, according to your words. Not one of you knows about a calf! You say that you made it not, nor did it come into your thought.”)

In this series of petulant questions, a furious Moses—one no longer affected by a speech impediment—attempts to determine what has happened in his absence. He peppers the Israelites with a series of questions beginning with “who” and even echoes back the Israelites’ words to them: “So, nobody here knows anything about a golden calf!” (l. 6600). In Cursor Mundi, we are given the relatively unusual treat of hearing Moses’ voice at length. The Laws of Moses As the “Kynges hieway of heuene” (the King of Heaven’s highway),22 the Ten Commandments are included frequently in works of all sorts, from biblical retellings to mystery plays, to verse and prose texts intended for memorizing, preaching, and catechizing. Brief texts, such as “Decem Precepta” in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 43, were most probably intended for memorization providing, one precept per line.23 I include the poem here as a typical example: Ne haue þou no god botin on, Idel oth ne suere þou non, Halidai þane scalt tou iemen, Fadir & moder þu salt quemen, Ne reue þou no man his lif, Ne haue þou bot tin owene wif, Be neiþir þef ne þefis fere, Ne fals witnesse þat tu ne bere, þi neiebores housis ierne þou nout,

22 The phrase is taken from the Book to a Mother (Book I), a late-fourteenth century work in which a priest exhorts his mother and other laymen to righteousness. See Adrian James McCarthy, ed., Book to a Mother (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1981), 3, line 15. 23 Carleton Brown, ed., English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century (1932; repr., Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962). Brown prints three poems of this sort (numbers 23 and 70 A and B), and lists in the notes four other manuscript versions that follow the pattern of number 23 with three more following the pattern of number 70.

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gail ivy berlin Ne wif ne maidin ne his aut.24 (Have thou no God but one. Swear thou no idle oaths. Thou shalt heed the holy day. Father and mother shall you please. Rob no man of his life. Have thou only your own wife. Be neither a thief nor a thief’s companion. Do not bear false witness. Do not desire your neighbor’s house, nor wife, nor maidservant, nor anything of his.)

Solid as a milking stool, this little poem is built to serve. More graceful and original is the lament, “All Ten Commandments I Have Broken,” whose author reviews the precepts by mourning his inability to keep them.25 No two Middle English versions of the Ten Commandments are exactly alike. Nor can the same commandments be expected in every case. For example, as Carleton Brown points out, “The Ten Commandments” poem in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 323 lacks the commandment against stealing (181).26 The Ten Commandments reported in Genesis and Exodus include the non-canonical precept, “Help eth nedful, ðat he ne be dead” (“Help the needy so they may not die”) as the sixth commandment, an admonition that sums up the Seven Works of Corporal Mercy.27 The Middle English Prose Translation of Roger D’Argenteuil’s Bible contains a seventh commandment against usury and simony.28 A commandment against backbiting (“bakbyte”) appears in a poem on the commandments in Bodleian Library, MS Douce 302.29 “Kepe well Christes Comaundement,” a popular poem appearing in the Vernon and Lambeth manuscripts, among others, has thirteen stanzas, one each for an introduction and conclusion, and eleven others for treating one commandment per stanza. The additional commandment is to love friend and foe.30 At times, the difficulty in 24 Brown, XIIIth Century, poem 70 A. 25 Carleton Brown, ed., Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, 2nd ed., revised by G.V. Smithers. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), poem 138. 26 Carleton Brown, ed., Religious Lyrics of the XIII Century (1939; repr., Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1962), poem 23. 27 Olof Arngart, ed., The Middle English Genesis and Exodus: Re-Edited from MS.C.C.C.C. 444 with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary, Lund Studies in English, 36 (Lund: C.W. K Gleerup, 1968), line 3507. 28 See chap. 7, line 35 in Phyllis Moe, ed., The Middle English Prose Translation of Roger D’Argenteuil’s Bible, ed. from Cleveland Public Library MS W q 091.92—C468 (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1977), 48. 29 Richard Leighton Greene, ed., The Early English Carols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), poem 324. 30 Frederick J. Furnivall, ed., Hymns to the Virgin and Christ: The Parliament of Devils and Other Religious Poems, Chiefly from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth MS. No. 853. EETS 24 (London: Trübner & Co, 1867). In Furnivall’s collection of religious poetry, both the Vernon and the Lambeth versions of “Kepe well Christes Comaundement” are printed.

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counting arises from the fact that many poems substitute the words of Jesus in answering the question posed by the Pharisees in the Temple, “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” (Matt. 22:36). He replies, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”31 These two lines, often used as summaries of the two tablets of the Law, sometimes replace the first two commandments as in the poem “Kepe well Christes Comaundement” (“Keep Well Christ’s Commandments”), where the first commandment asks us to have one God, to love him, and to “serue him boþe with mayn and miht” (“serve him with both main and might”) while the second commandment asks us to “let þi nei3hebor, frend and fo,/ Riht frely of þi frendschupe fele” (“let thy neighbor, friend, and foe feel of thy friendship most generously”).32 Christ’s two great commandments also become headings for the two tablets of the Law. From these lines arises the common medieval practice —dating back as far as St. Augustine—of grouping the commandments into chunks of three and seven, the first three being dedicated to loving God and the next seven being dedicated to loving thy neighbor.33 The Lay Folks’ Catechism states this division directly: “þe thre þat arn furst. we owe to oure god./ and þe seuen oþer aftyrward we owe to oure euyn cristyne” (“The first three we owe to our God, and the other seven following we owe to our fellow Christians”).34 Because the Ten Commandments were recognized as a pathway to heaven, and since failure to follow them involved the pains of hell, they are Carleton Brown’s Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century notes four additional manuscripts containing the poem (page 278, note to poem 102). 31 Matt. 22:37 and 39. The response of Jesus derives in turn from Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18. 32 Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, poem 102, lines 9-10 and 17-18. 33 See Saint Augustine, Sermon 9, section 7 in Essential Sermons, ed John E. Rotelle, trans. Bruce Harbet (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 1999): “God gave his servant Moses two tablets on the mountain, and on these two stone tablets were inscribed the Ten Commandments of the law—the harp of ten strings—three referring to God on one tablet and seven referring to our neighbor on the other tablet,” 32. 34 Thomas Frederick Simmons and Henry Edward Nolloth, eds., Lay Folk’s Catechism, “The Ten Commandments,” version L, lines 487-8 (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1901). This grouping of three and seven commandments may be found in diverse texts, such as John Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests “Hec sunt .x. precepta dei” (lines 961-1014); John Wyclif’s treatise, “Þe Ten Comaundementis,” (in Select English Works of John Wyclif, vol 3, pages 82-86); Richard Rolle’s “A Notabill Tretys off the Ten Comandementys,” (Treatise 7, lines 7-31 on page 10 and lines 1-20 on page 11); and in poetry of the Ten Commandments, such as “Decem Precepta,” in Trinity MS 43, cited above.

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often grouped with other schematic guides to salvation. A fourteenth century painting on the church wall at Trotton, in West Sussex, serves as a good example of such traditional groupings. The west wall of this church shows a large image of a handsome, bearded Moses holding the two tablets of the Law.35 Above him is a fairly small image of Christ in judgment, seated on a rainbow. Oddly, He is hardly bigger than one of the two tablets of the Law that Moses holds. On Christ’s left, an angel welcomes a soul into heaven, while on His right another ushers a soul into hell. Immediately to Moses’ left, below the blessed soul, is an image of a robed man, whom art historian Anne Marshall identifies as “‘Mercy’ or the embodiment of ‘Good Deeds,’” surrounded by roundels containing the Seven Works of Mercy. Around the figure of Mercy were three sets of banners indicting the Three Theological Virtues: two by the head, of which one, reading ‘spes’ (hope) is still clear; two by the figure’s shoulders, reading ‘caritas’ (love); and two rubbed out sections by the skirt, near the knees, that probably would have borne the inscription of ‘fides’(faith). To Moses’ right (and below the damned soul) is a naked or scantily clad male figure from whose body spring images of the Seven Deadly Sins, each standing in the open and toothy mouth of a dragon.36 This association of the Ten Commandments with Doomsday, the Seven Works of Mercy, and the Seven Deadly Sins and other didactic groupings derives from the Fourth Lateran Council’s requirement to teach the fundamentals of Christian faith to the laity. It is described in the Lay Folk’s Catechism, which lists the “six things” about which one must be educated: In the fourteen poyntes that falles to the trouthe, In the ten comandemente3 that god has given us, 35 Moses in this image is not horned. Instead, two rays break the dark nimbus around his head, perhaps indicating that the painter was familiar with Jerome’s error in translating the Hebrew word ‘qaran’ as ‘horned’ rather than ‘shining’ or ‘rayed.’ Concerning Jerome’s mistranslation, see David C. Fowler, The Bible in Early English Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), 29-30. A good discussion also appears in Sarah M. Horrall, Cursor Mundi, vol. 1 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1978), 398, note to lines 6653-6. The image is available at the web site http://www.paintedchurch.org, maintained by art historian Anne Marshall. It is most easily found by referencing ‘Spes’/Hope. See http://www. paintedchurch.org/trottwks.htm. A good image of the full western wall of the church may be found at http://www.medievalaccommodation.com/medieval-britain/South%20East/ Trotton%20Church.htm. Photograph copyright: Becky Adorjan, 1999-2008. 36 See http://www.paintedchurch.org/trottds.htm for the image of the Seven Deadly Sins. Accessed March 3, 2009. The figures are difficult to decipher, and Marshall points out the three clearest of the seven: gluttony drinking from a flask, avarice with a round-topped chest, and wrath endangering his own head with some kind of weapon.

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In the seuen Sacrement3 that er in hali kirke, In seuen dedis of merci until oure euen-cristen; In the seuen virtues that ilk man sal use, And in the seuen deadly sinnes that man sal refuse.37 (In the fourteen points concerning the truth, in the Ten Commandments that God has given us, in the seven sacraments that are in Holy Church, in the seven deeds of mercy unto our fellow Christians, in the seven virtues that each man shall practice, and in the seven deadly sins that each man shall refuse.)

The chief aim of all these schemas is safeguarding the soul, and they are pervasive within the literature. For example, the concluding lines of the poem, “The Ten Commandments” in Trinity College, Cambridge, MS 323, assures us that those who fail to learn the ten precepts can expect to go “in-to helle depe” (“into deep hell”) while those who do keep them will arise “in-to heuene brit” (“into heaven bright”).38 Bodleian MA Douce 302 presents, in a row, poems about the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Acts of Mercy, all three by fifteenth century author John Audelay.39 Wyclif, in discussing the third commandment on hallowing the holy day, suggests that men use the time to study virtues, the Ten Commandments, and the Seven Works of Mercy.40 The Book of Vices and Virtues juxtaposes, with barely a word of transition, the Ten Commandments, the Twelve Articles of Faith and the Seven Deadly Sins.41 In all of these guides, the Ten Commandments were taken as central, a path to salvation that brought to mind the terrors of Judgment Day. The fact that God spoke the Ten Commandments to Moses gives him a certain stature in texts conveying biblical narrative. But in the didactic texts that I have examined, Moses is rarely mentioned in connection with the 37 The Lay Folks’ Catechism, or the English and Latin Versions of Archbishop Thoresby’s Instruction for the People: Together with a Wycliffite Adaptation of the Same, and the Corresponding Canons of the Council of Lambeth, ed. Thomas Frederick Simmons and Henry Edward Nolloth, Early English Text Society, Old Series 118, (London: EETS, 1901), 20, lines 53-58. This quotation is from the manuscript designated “T” by the editors (and cited below as such in note 152). 38 Brown, English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century, poem 23. 39 Greene, The Early English Carols, poems 324, 325, 326, from Bodleian Library MS. Douce 302, folios 27v and 28r. 40 John Wyclif, “Þe Ten Comaundementis,” in Select English Works of John Wyclif, Edited from Original Manuscripts, ed. Thomas Arnold, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1869-1871), 86. 41 W. Nelson Francis, ed., The Book of Vices and Virtues: A Fourteenth Century English Translation of the Somme le Roi of Lorens D’Orléans, Edited from the Three Extant Manuscripts, EETS o.s. 217 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942).

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Ten Commandments. The poetry on the precepts attributes the commandments to God or Christ. Neither The Lay Folks’ Catechism nor Myrc’s Instructions to Parish Priests mentions Moses within their discussions of the precepts. The Golden Legend notes that the Decalogue is acclaimed by the Four Evangelists.42 The treatises on the Ten Commandments of Richard Rolle and of John Wyclif likewise pass over Moses in silence. Moses’ role as the transmitter of God’s word, then, is apparently not of crucial importance to those trying to memorize, catechize, or adhere to God’s message. Indeed, mentioning Moses may have introduced problems, as will be clearer below.43 Moses’ Figurative Value Moses was a highly magnetic figure, easily attracting symbolic significance: any event occurring in Exodus, anything he did, or anything he carried could take on a figurative or symbolic value. John V. Fleming points out that Rabanus Marus found all of the sacraments prefigured in Exodus.44 The burning bush was widely taken as a figure of descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Virgin Mary, as in Chaucer’s ABC, where the letter “M” stands for Moses:45 Moises, that saugh the bush with flawmes rede Brenning, of which ther never a stikke brende, Was signe of thin unwemmed maidenhead. Thou art the bush on which ther gan descende The Holi Gost, the which that Moyses wende

42 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, vol. 1, section 37, “The Purification of the Virgin,” 144. 43 Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are likewise of little interest to most Middle English authors. One notable exception is the author/compiler of Cursor Mundi who took the trouble to versify Mosaic laws other than the Ten Commandments. The author lingers over some of the laws in Exodus (Exod. 21 ff) for close to two-hundred lines (ll. 6665-6862). After a sort of minstrel’s call to attention, “Listneþ now a litil þrawe/ For I wol telle of moyses lawe (un-numbered lines before l. 6667), the narrator informs us that although it is a lot of work to tell all of the ‘domes,’ “summe are gode to here” (l. 6670). Genesis and Exodus contains a brief allusion to laws in Leviticus (ll. 3629-3638). For a listing of texts including discussion of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, see Morey, 384-5. 44 John V. Fleming, “Chaucer and Erasmus on the Pilgrimage” in The Popular Literature of Medieval England, ed. Thomas J. Heffernan (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), 162. 45 This same figure appears in the prologue to Chaucer’s “Prioress’s Tale”: O mooder Mayde! o mayde Mooder free!/ O bussh unbrent, brennynge in Moyses sighte” (lines 467-8). See The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 209.

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Had ben a-fyr; and this was in figure.46 (Moses, who saw the bush with red flames burning, of which there never a twig burnt, was a sign of thy unblemished maidenhead. You are the bush upon which there descended the Holy Ghost, which Moses thought had been afire, and this was in figure.)

Moses’ shoes, which God asks him to remove as he stands before the burning bush, become a popular image in art and a sign of Moses’ obedience and humility. In Ancrene Wisse (The Anchoress’s Guide), anchoresses are told that just as the hand of Moses became leprous when he took it out of his bosom, so did good deeds become worthless if not concealed.47 The three rods of Moses, three trees of cypress, cedar, and palm (according to Cursor Mundi) that appeared while he sought water in the wilderness, betokened the Trinity.48 These three trees together eventually became the wood of the Cross, according to legend.49 The Mirour of Mans Saluacioune (Mirror of Man’s Salvation) contains a compendium of common figurative associations.50 The release of the Israelites from Egypt foreshadowed Christ’s Harrowing of Hell. The Red Sea drowning Pharaoh and the Egyptians prefigured the damned swallowed by hell. Moses’ receipt of the Ten Commandments foretold the Pentecost, since both involved visitations of the Holy Spirit. And God’s provision of manna in the desert is akin to Christ’s displaying the bread of the Eucharist during the Last Supper, since both display God’s great love for human kind.51 Knowledge of Moses—as life narrative, as law, and as figure—would have been readily available in the Middle English period, even before the advent of the Wycliffite Bible. But the creative poetry of the mystery plays and of Piers Plowman make clearest the conflicted attitudes towards this figure. Moses is revered to the extent that he is perceived primarily as 46 These are lines 90-94 of “An ABC” in The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry Benson, 637-41. 47 Anne Savage and Nicholas Watson, trans., Ancrene Wisse in Anchoritic Spirituality, Part III, Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwa, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1991) 103. 48 Horrall, ed. Cursor Mundi, ll. 6319-6342. 49 See Cursor Mundi, 362, note to lines 1237 ff. and p. 396, note to lines l. 6301ff. 50 Avril Henry, ed., The Mirour of Mans Saluacioun: A Middle English Translation of Speculum Humanae Salvationis: A Critical Edition of the Fifteenth-Century Manuscript Illustrated from Der Spiegel der Menschen Behältnis, Speyer: Drach, c. 1475 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987). 51 The Mirour of Mans Saluacioun, ed. Avril Henry. See chapters 41, 31, 34, and 16, respectively.

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chosen by God to receive the Decalogue, thus dividing Hebrews from heathens. But when perceived as locked within the age of the written law and split off from the age of grace, he is necessarily distrusted. Both the mystery play cycles—because of their treatment of Moses at different points in salvation history—and Piers Plowman—because of its ability to consider law in relation to the soul’s journey of salvation—are well suited to revealing the conflicting attitudes towards Moses. Moses in the Mystery Plays Mystery plays (‘mysterium’), that is, guild productions of play cycles concerning Old and New Testament events pertinent to salvation history, were popular in England throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.52 Moses is a staple character within the mystery plays. He leads the Israelites out of Egypt in York 11 (Exodus) and the similar Towneley 8 (Pharaoh). As a teacher of the Ten Commandments, he is found in Chester 5 (Moses and the Law/Balaak and Balaam) and N-Town 6 (Moses). He has a substantial role in the Townely Play of the Prophets, where he is given a single speech of ninety lines, and a token role in the Harrowing of Hell (York 37 and Towneley 27), where he utters only twelve lines total. The Ten Commandments are recited in six plays, the two mentioned above (Chester 5 and N-town 6), three plays of Christ with the Doctors (York 20, Towneley 18, and Chester 11), and Towneley’s Play of the Prophets (Towneley 7). Mosaic Law, represented primarily by acts requiring ritual sacrifice or acts requiring stoning to death, is discussed in plays treating The Purification of Mary (York 41, Towneley 17, Chester 11, and N-town 19) and The Woman Taken in Adultery (York 24, Chester 12, and N-town 24). The mystery plays demonstrate a shifting array of attitudes toward Moses. Generally arranged chronologically, the plays advance from episodes in the Old Testament to topics drawn from the New. In essence, as will be shown, all plays dealing with Moses deal with the Law. A different Moses is revealed depending on whether one is thinking of the Moses of Exodus and the Ten Commandments or of Mosaic Law. Mosaic Law is gently queried in Chester 5, reframed in the various plays concerning Christ and the 52 Scholars currently draw a distinction between genuine guild cycles, such as York and Chester, the N-town plays, which have no guild affiliations, and the Towneley manuscript, which appears to be a later compilation. I will, nonetheless, use the traditional term “cycle” for convenience.

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Doctors, and finally reviled in plays of the Woman Taken in Adultery. The Towneley cycle goes so far as to christianize Moses. Since these various attitudes towards Moses are in great part traditional, I will examine them by ranging freely among play cycles, without trying to develop a sense of how an audience’s understanding of Moses might have been built up throughout any particular set of plays. Valorizing Moses While both the York Exodus and the Towneley Pharaoh enjoy the pyrotechnics of the plagues and the spectacle of the closing of the Red Sea over the heads of Pharoah and his men, a substantial issue in both is in fact law, pitting Pharaoh’s ability to protect heathen law against Moses’ ability to protect the faith of the children of Israel. It has long been recognized that the York Exodus and Towneley Pharoah are quite similar, with the Towneley play being “a corrupted and edited version of the York.”53 The changes made by the Towneley author, however, reveal a strong interest in both Moses and the Law. For this reason, I will base my discussion on the Towneley Pharaoh. The play begins with Pharaoh demanding of his officers that his word be taken as law:54 All Egypt is myne awne, To leede aftyr my law; I wold my myght were knowne And honoryd, as hyt awe. Full low he shall be thrawne That harkyns not my sawe, Hanged hy and drawne; Therfor no boste ye blaw.55 (All Egypt is my own to lead according to my law. I wish my might were known and honored as it aught to be. Whoever fails to harken to my words will be thrown very low, hanged high, and drawn. Therefore make ye no boast.)

The honoring of his sayings and his laws is Pharaoh’s opening concern, a concern evident throughout the play as well. When the scene shifts to 53 George England and Alfred W. Pollard, eds. The Towneley Plays, xvii, Early English Text Society, Early Series 71 (1897; repr., London: Oxford University Press 1925). 54 All quotations from the Towneley Plays will be taken from Martin Stevens and A.C. Cawley, eds., The Towneley Plays, 2 vols., Early English Text Society, s.s.13, 14 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Numbers refer to play and line. 55 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.9-16.

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Moses’ encounter with the burning bush, God announces that he intends to preserve Israel and promises them safety “as long as thay my lawes wyll ken” (“as long as they will know my laws”).56 A grateful Moses expresses his thanks by praying for the gift of God’s lore: “A, Lord of luf! leyn me thy lare, / that I may truly talys tell” (“Ah, Lord of love, teach me thy lore, so that I may tell tales truly”).57 Later, when Moses approaches Pharaoh, carrying God’s demand to allow the children of Israel to worship Him as they had formerly done and threatening His vengeance if they were not released, Pharaoh perceives this threat as being aimed primarily against his law. He shouts at Moses, “Fy on the, lad! out of my land!/ Wenys thou thus to loyse oure lay? (“Fy on you, lad! Out of my land! Do you think thus to destroy our law?”).58 Just before being overwhelmed by the sea, Pharaoh utters words of encouragement to his men that indicate his determined devotion to idolatry: “Heyf vp youre hertys vnto Mahowne!/ He will be nere vs in oure nede” (“Lift up your hearts unto Mahomet! He will be near us in our need”).59 Pharaoh thus becomes a play not simply about God’s power, as revealed by signs and plagues, but about God’s law. Our valuation of Moses is meant to be inverse to the contempt shown to him by King Pharaoh, who swears by the devil, invokes Mahowne, and showers Moses with a string of insults, calling him “fature” (deceiver), “warlow” (wizard) “lurdan” (worthless lout), and “fals loselle” (false rascal). The Israelites, on their part, identify Moses as ‘Master Moyses, dere!’ (dear Master Moses).60 And, in this play, we side naturally with the Israelites. Problematizing Moses: Recognizing Limits of the Written Law Chester 5, Moses and the Law/Balaak and Balaam is concerned with law as well, focusing specifically on the Ten Commandments.61 The Chester Moses is of particular interest, since it both praises and problematizes Moses and 56 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.175. 57 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.193-4. 58 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.229-30. The threat posed by the Israelites need not have been identified as a threat to Egyptian law. In Book 2, chap. 2 of the Polychronicon, for example, Pharaoh identifies the threat posed by the Israelites as their intelligence, their skill in labor, their wealth, and the beauty of their children (315, 317.) 59 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.412-13. 60 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.225, 231, 238, 241, and 201, respectively. 61 The N-town Moses likewise deals with the giving of the Ten Commandments.

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the Ten Commandments. The play opens with Deus (God) reciting the precepts for Moses. Moses pledges obedience to the Lord and then turns to the people, shows them the tablets of the Law, and announces, “Nowe knowne yee what ys sinne” (“Now you know what sin is”).62 Doctor, a character who serves to explicate the action of the play, points out that “this commandement/was the firste lawe that ever God sent” (“This commandment was the first law that God ever sent”).63 He observes as well that before Moses, “men honored mawmentrye” (“men honored idols”).64 Receiving the Law, defining sin, and separating men from idolatry are the three chief honors that fall to Moses. The remainder of the play, however, reveals Moses in a murkier light. Oddly, it focuses on Moses’ second receipt of the Law. Moses is instructed to carve the tablets of the Law anew. (The actor is directed to mime doing so.) Then, speaking to the people of Israel, he provides a peculiar summary of the laws, albeit one derived directly from the Bible (Exod. 34: 21-22 and Exod. 35:4-6). He tells the Israelites that they are to observe the Sabbath; that they are to offer first fruits or die; and that offering fine cloths of purple will save them from woe.65 Why choose these lines for emphasis? The Doctor has promised that only the “moste fruitefull” (most fruitful) episodes of the story will be played. In what way is this episode fruitful? I suspect that the value of these lines derives from their contrast with Christ’s summary of the law: the great commandments in Matthew 22:36-40, mentioned above: love God and love your neighbor. Moses’ summary or expansion of the Ten Commandments in Chester 5 lacks the double punch of coherence and moral rigor found in Christ’s formulation. The disparity between these two summaries of the Law cannot but tip the scales away from a thorough appreciation of Moses. The choice of focusing on these lines in the Chester Moses may be an attempt to underscore the limits of the Old Law. The ending of this play, following a section recounting the popular tale of Balaak and Balaam (Exod. 22:2 to 24:25), returns to the question of law, and may entail a further examination of the limits of law before the era of grace. Having begun with the Israelites receiving the Law, the play ends 62 R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, eds., The Chester Mystery Cycle, 2 vols., Early English Text Society, s.s. 3 and 9 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974 and 1986), Play 5.36. All quotations from the Chester Cycle will come from this edition. Numbers refer to play and lines. 63 Lumiansky and Mills, Chester 5.41-2. 64 Lumiansky and Mills, Chester 5.54. 65 Lumiansky and Mills, Chester 5.94. The lineation of the play leaves unclear whether one will die for not observing the Sabbath or for not offering first fruits.

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with the Israelites breaking it, as they succumb to the temptation of the Midianite women. Balaam, reluctant prophet of God and enemy of Israel, suggests to Balaak, King of the Moabites, that they set up a trap for the Israelites, to reduce their numbers. He plans to summon Midianite women who will seduce the Israelites into worshiping false gods. In this way, the children of Israel will bring down the Lord’s displeasure upon themselves, having broken his Law. From this point on, the action is summarized by the Doctor, and once again the summary of events from the Vulgate is handled in such a way as to problematize the Written Law. In the play, the doctor explains that the Israelites eagerly pursued the Midianite women, setting God’s law at naught. Demanding vengeance, God commands Moses to hang the offenders for their sins. Moses, however, demures: With that Moyses was sore greved, and generally hee them repryved. Therefore they would him have mischived, but God did him defend.66 (With that, Moses was sorely troubled, and generally he reprieved them. Therefore, they wished to harm him, but God defended him.)

In these lines, not only does Moses “generally” reprieve the sinners, but God defends him for doing so, even though he has directly disobeyed His command to punish the worshipers of idols. R. M. Lumianski and David Mills find this passage problematic. They note that according to Josephus, Moses did call an assembly together, but named no names. Moses’ position at this assembly was complicated by the fact that his own wife was from Midian. No action, therefore, was taken. Lumianisky and Mills conclude that the account given in Chester “does not give a clear impression of events.”67 But is the account confused or are we viewing a New Testament moment of mercy in an Old Testament play? In fact, the Chester author may have been working to distance Moses from the account given in the Vulgate. In the Vulgate, Moses, responding to God’s command, orders the judges of Israel to “let every man kill his neighbours, that have been initiated to Beelphegor [Baal],” words that form a shocking contrast to Matthew 22:39, “Love they neighbor as theyself.” The author of Chester 5 does not share these words from the Vulgate with the audience. Instead, he creates a Moses disinclined to harm those who have 66 Luminasky and Mills, Chester 5.420-3. 67 Lumianksy and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle, vol. 2, 74.

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done wrong, one who does not kill his neighbors, and whom God is willing to protect from the Israelites who would harm him for his disobedience. The righteous Phineas, the Doctor continues, carries out God’s demand for vengeance, leading his men in a slaughter of twenty-four thousand.68 The playwright observes that God was well pleased with Phineas. As evidence of God’s pleasure, he quotes a section from Psalms 105: 30-31 in Latin, words that the audience was apparently intended to hear, whether or not they understood them: “Stetit Phinees, et placavit, et cessavit quassatio, et reputatum est ei ad justitiam in generatione sua” (“Phineas stood firm and appeased God, and the affliction ceased, and his reputation was for justice in his generation”). In this way, the play makes clear the harshness of justice without mercy while allowing Moses himself to resist the merciless act of vengeance. The harshness of Mosaic Law, as distinct from the Ten Commandments, was often indicated by associating the Old Law with stoning.69 This attitude is apparent in the Presbyter’s Prologue to York 41, The Purification of Mary.70 A Jewish priest at the Temple in Jerusalem begins the play by stressing the importance of learning and adhering to the Ten Commandments. The priest also specifies the penalty befalling those not maintaining the Law. God requires us To stone all theme that kepis it nott Vtterly to death, both lesse and moore. There shulde no marcy for them be sought, Therefore kepe well Goddes commandement, And leyd your lyf after his lawes, Or ells surely ye mon be shent

68 Lumiansky and Mills, Chester 5 l. 430. The Vulgate leaves unclear whether Phineas killed 24,000 or whether this number was slain by a plague sent by God. It narrates his killing of only two people, an Israelite, Zambri, together with Cozbi, a Midianite woman. 69 St. Augustine, in discussing the stoning of St. Stephen, states, “They [the Jews] received the law on stone, and they throw stones.” from Sermon 49.10 in Augustine, Essential Sermons, ed. Daniel Doyle, O.S.A., trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2007), 62. Twelfth century theologian Gilbert de la Porrée debated with Jews in the following terms: “What law is better and more preferable to follow? The one which is without mercy, which orders a man who gathers wood on the Sabbath to be stoned, or the one which is merciful, which pardons not only seven times, but seventy times (Matt. 22) and says, Go, henceforth sin no more (John 2)?” (quoted in Dahan, 24). 70 All quotations from the York Plays will be taken from Lucy Toulmin Smith, ed., York Plays: The Plays Performed by Crafts or Mysteries of York, on the Day of Corpus Christi in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries, Now First Printed from the Unique Manuscript in the Library of the Lord Ashburnham (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963). Numbers refer to play and line.

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gail ivy berlin Bothe lesse and moore, ylkone on rawes. This is his wyll after Moyses lawe.71 (to stone utterly to death all those, who keep not the law, both lesser and greater. No mercy should be sought for them; therefore, keep well God’s commandments and lead your life according to His laws, or else you must surely be destroyed, both lesser and greater, each one in rows. This is His will, according to Moses’ law.)

Stoning here becomes shorthand for a law that is stoney, good for identifying sin and allotting penalties, but lacking mercy. Moses’ name, within this context, becomes a byword for stoniness. Reframing the Law While the plays dealing with Exodus and the Ten Commandments focus on establishing the Written Law that marks off the Israelites from heathens, the plays concerning Christ and the Doctors (York 20, Towneley 18, Chester 11 and N-town 21) mark the shift from Written Law to charity.72 Each of the major play cycles contains a version of this play. York 20 and Towneley 18 are again very closely related, and Chester 11, too, appears to be derived from York. The N-town version, certainly the liveliest of these plays, lacks any reference to Moses or Mosaic Law and will not, therefore, be considered here.73 Rosemary Woolf queries why the “dull and infelicitous” York version should have had such influence, while the “distinctive” N-town does not.74 The reason may be precisely that the York version preserves a clearer statement of the reframing of the written Law in terms of charity both by showing the jostling between the two and by enacting Matthew 22:35-40, the moment when the Ten Commandments are reinterpreted in light of the New Law. Just as Exodus shows a shift from the age of Idolatry to Written Law, so does Christ and the Doctors demonstrate the move from the age of Written Law to Grace. Like Pharaoh in Exodus, the Doctors of the Temple fear the crumbling of their law and authority. The first doctor wonders if anyone “might allegge agaynste oure lawe” (“might bring allegations against our 71 Smith, York 41.18-25. 72 The Coventry Weaver’s Pageant contains a doctor’s play as well. 73 For a discussion of the N-town play, see Rosemary Woolf, The English Mystery Plays (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972), 214-16. Rather than focusing on the Ten Commandments, Christ in the N-town version delivers a lecture on the Trinity. 74 Woolf, 212, 214.

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law”) and suggests that they redress any challenge.75 Just as Pharaoh fails to acknowledge the signs of God’s power, revealed by Moses, the doctors of Mosaic Law fail to recognize the presence of the Messiah in the boy Jesus. The irony is heightened in Towneley 8, where the doctors have just been discussing prophecies of Christ’s advent before twelve-year-old Jesus arrives on the scene. In both the Exodus and the plays of Christ and the Doctors, the authorities, exasperated by the threat to their laws and power, attempt to chase out those who threaten their law’s stablility. Pharaoh’s words to the disruptive Moses, “Fy on the, lad! out of my land!/ wenys thou thus to loyse oure lay?” (“Fy on you, lad! Out of my land! Do you expect thus to destroy our law?”) are akin to the First Doctor’s response to Jesus’ cheerful greeting: “Sone, hense away! I wolde þu went” (“Son, I wish you would go away from here!”).76 At the close of the York play, too, the Third Doctor exclaims: 3a! late hym wende fourth on his wayes; For and he dwelle, withouten drede, The pepull schall full sone hym prayse Wele more þan vs for all oure dede.77 (Ya! Let him go forth on his way, for if he remains, without doubt, the people will very soon praise him much more than us, despite all our deeds.)

The doctor is anxious to drive away the youngster so audacious as to trespass on their turf by interpreting Moses’ Law. And he has good reason to worry, since Jesus represents a fundamentally different way of knowing the Kingdom of Heaven. Even before the New Law is revealed, a contrast is set up between knowledge laboriously excavated from books and knowledge acquired directly from Holy Ghost. The Doctors of the Temple are associated with books of Moses’ Law. In York 20, the masters lay forth their books to examine them while in Towneley 18, Jesus notes that the doctors sit in a line with their books spread out before them.78 In both plays, the doctors invite Jesus to approach them if he wishes to learn about Moses’ Law. Jesus declines, however, saying that he has no reason to learn from them, since he already knows their words and deeds, perhaps a reference to Matthew 23:3 and following, where Jesus emphasizes the gap between the doctors’ words and 75 Smith, York 20.56. 76 See Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.229-30 and Smith, York 20.75. 77 Smith, York 20.197-200. 78 See Smith, York 20.67 and Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 18.117-8.

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deeds. Furthermore, Jesus makes clear that his way of understanding is qualitatively different from theirs.79 The holy gost has on me light, And has anointed me as a leche, And geven me pleyne poure and might The kyngdom of heuene for to preche.80 (The Holy Ghost has alighted upon me and has anointed me as a doctor and given me pure power and might to preach the kingdom of heaven.)

This is an eerie and pregnant speech, coming from the lips of a twelve-yearold boy. Unlettered, Jesus relies on no book, but derives his power to heal and preach from the Holy Spirit.81 To medieval audiences, familiar with the common trope of Christ as book, it would be clear that Christ has no need of book learning. Although the various versions of Christ and the Doctors come short of viewing Christ himself as a book, this metaphor may underlie this section of the play. As David Lawton observes, “For most medieval Christians, as for Jerome, the Bible is a part of a text, Christ.”82 The late fourteenth century priest who wrote the Book to a Mother for his own mother and other laymen states that he has chosen “þe moste nedful, most spedful, and most medful” book: þis book is Crist … [whose conversation is] þe beste remedie and þe beste rule” for overcoming sin (the most useful, helpful, and rewarding book: This book is Christ … [whose conversation is] the best remedy and the best rule).83 As in the passage from Christ and the Doctors above, Christ is teacher and healer. (He will shortly prove to be ruler as well.) Unlike the doctors who struggle to interpret their books of Moses’ Law, Christ is the book and the law. The key moment of the play—a moment of transforming the Old Law into the New—comes not in Jesus’ recitation of the Ten Commandments, as Woolf and Kolve have suggested, but in His reframing the Decalogue in terms of charity, thus inaugurating the time of grace.84 The action in the plays is a mixture of Matthew 22:36-40 and Luke 25-28. The question, 79 This stanza appears in Chester as well as Stevens and Cawley and Smith. 80 Smith, York 20.101-4. 81 Smith, York 20.194 indicates that Jesus does not yet know how to read. 82 Lawton, “Englishing the Bible,” 482. 83 Adrian James McCarthy, ed. Book to a Mother, Section 4 (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 1981), 31, lines 3-10. Concerning the metaphor of Christ as book, see McCarthy, xxxviii-xlii. 84 See Woolf, English Mystery Plays, 213 and Kolve, Corpus Christi, 78.

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“Which is the greatest of the commandments in Moses’ Law?” derives from Matthew and is asked in all three plays. But in Matthew, Jesus is queried, while in Luke, Jesus turns the question back to his interlocutors. After the question is posed, action and dialogue follow Luke. Jesus asks the doctors to answer the question so that He can see how well they interpret (“howe right þat 3e can rede”).85 The First Doctor explains: I rede þis is þe firste bidding Þat Moyses taught vs here vntill, To honnoure god ouere all thing, With all thy witte and all þi will; And all thyn harte in hym schall hyng, Erlye and late both lowed and still.86 (I read that this is the first commandment that Moses taught us here: to honor God over all things and with all your intelligence and all your will and all your heart shall hang within Him, early and late, for both loud and quiet folk.)

To this, Jesus responds, “3e nedis non other bokes to bring” (You need bring no other books).87 Jesus then adds the “second” commandment: “Youre neghbours shall 3e loue/ Als youre selffe” (You shall love your neighbors as your self).88 Having summed the Decalogue in terms of charity, Jesus next uses his commandments to subsume all of Mosaic Law. (Most accounts include the prophets as well, following Matthew 22:40.) This comaunded Moyses to all men, In his x comaundementis clere, In þer ij biddings, schall we kene, Hyngis all þe lawe þat we shall lere.89 (This Moses commanded to all men in his ten clear commandments: upon these two biddings, as we know, hangs all the law that we must learn.)

In effect, Jesus christianizes the Decalogue and displaces the Old Law with these words.90 Finally, the boy Jesus recites the “rest” of the Ten Commandments, having been invited by the Doctors to do so. Why include the recitation of 85 Smith, York 20.144. 86 Smith, York 20.145-150. 87 Smith, York 20.151. 88 Smith, York 20.155-6. 89 Smith, York 20.157-160. 90 Concerning the Christianization of the Decalogue, see A.C. Cawley, “Middle English Metrical Versions of the Decalogue,” Leeds Studies in English, New Series 8 (1975), 133.

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the Ten Commandments here? Its recitation is not a part of Matthew or Luke, and as Woolf points out, “In the Middle Ages, it cannot have been a feat for a twelve-year-old boy to be able to rehearse such a standard piece of Christian teaching.”91 Woolf attributes including the recital of the Ten Commandments to a preference for didacticism. Kolve explains that Jesus recites the Ten Commandments “in order that we should see behind him the figure of Moses reciting that same Decalogue,” taking Moses and Christ as type and antitype of givers of the Law.92 But while a child reciting the Ten Commandments would have been unexceptional at the time, Christ Himself reciting His own commandments would have been noteworthy. God is, of course, the source of the Decalogue, but to the extent that Christ and God are co-eternal, Christ writes with Him. Christ, then, knew the commandments, having in effect co-authored them, prior to Moses. The popular poem, “Kepe Well Cristes Comaundement,” views both God and Christ as sources of the Decalogue when it asks every man to love and learn the Law of God and, in the repeated refrain, to keep well Christ’s commandments, without making a distinction in authorship. Likewise, Wyclif’s treatise, Þe Ten Comaundementis (The Ten Commandments), urges men to “holde þe comaundementis of God” (“keep the commandments of God”) in order to be saved, adding, “And Crist seide, 3if þou wolt come to blisse, kep myn comaundementis” (“And Christ said, If you wish to come to bliss, keep My commandments”).93 St.Augustine also assumes that both God and Christ together inspire Moses to teach the Ten Commandments: “He [Christ] after all and the Father are one and through Moses, he instills the truth into people when he says, Hear Israel, the commandments of life—God is one.”94 Within the play itself, Jesus’ authorship may be hinted at when he utters the cryptic statement, “I wote als wele as yhe/ Howe þat youre lawes wer wrought” (“I know as well as you how your laws were created’).95 As the child Jesus recites the Ten Commandments for the Doctors in the Temple, he recites his own precepts, in effect re-inscribing them, incorporating them into lex Christi, and distancing them from Moses. 91 Woolf, English Mystery Plays, 213. 92 Kolve, Corpus Christi, 78. 93 Wyclif, Þe Ten Comaundementis, vol. 3:82. Wyclif also attributes the eighth commandment against bearing false witness against one’s neighbors directly to Christ (vol. 3:89): “Crist forbediþ alle men to speke fals witness a3ens here nei3ebors.” 94 Sermon 215 in Augustine: Essential Sermons. These words are in fact a part of the summary of the first table of the law, as recorded in Mark 12:29-30. The command as given by Moses appears in Deuteronomy 6:4. 95 Smith, York 20. 93-4.

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Defaming the Law While the plays of Christ and the Doctors reframe Mosaic Law in terms of charity, the play of The Woman Taken in Adultery undermines it, turning the name of Moses into a byword for harsh justice. This play appears as the first part of York 24, the second part of Chester 12, and N-town 24. It is missing from Towneley. Neither the York nor the Chester versions are well developed, and the York manuscript is defective, lacking one leaf in the midst of the story. N-town, however, presents an elaborate and vivid account. Following the account in John 8:1-11, the play pits Old Testament justice against New Testament mercy. Jesus’ opening speech in five stanzas strenuously underscores the need for mercy, crescendoing to a stanza that uses the word “mercy” or “mercyable” seven times within eight lines:96 Eche man to othyr be mercyable, And mercy he shal have at nede. What man of mercy is not tretable When he askyth mercy, he shal not spede. Mercy to graunt I com, indede. Whoso aske mercy, he shal have grace. Lett no man dowte for his mysdede, But evyr askke mercy whyl he hath space.97 (Let each man be merciful to others, and mercy he shall have at need. Whoever is not merciful, when he asks for mercy, he shall not succeeed. I come to grant mercy, indeed. Whoever asks for mercy shall have grace. Let no man fear for his misdeeds, but ever ask for mercy while he has the time.)

The scene then shifts to a Jewish scribe lamenting Jesus’ power to break (“breke”) their law: “Alas, alas! Oure law is lorn!/ … All oure lawys he doth defame!” (“Alas, alas! Our law is lost … He defames all our laws!”)98 For fear that all in the land will follow Jesus’ teachings, Scribe and Pharisee search for a way “his lore to spille” (“to destroy his teachings”).99 The situation for Mosaic Law is worse now than it had been in the play of Christ and the Doctors. At that time, the doctors, recognizing the threat that Jesus’ novel understanding of the Jewish law posed, simply asked Him 96 Douglas Sugano, ed. The N-Town Plays, Teaching the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007). All quotations from the N-Town Plays will be taken from this edition. 97 Sugano, N-Town 24.33-40 (my emphases). 98 Ibid., N-Town 24.41, 47. 99 Ibid., N-Town 24. 62.

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to conceal their conversation.100 Now that Jesus has grown up and is preaching, Jewish and Christian law are directly at odds. When another Jew, Accuser, comes to report an act of adultery in progress, all determine to capture the woman and bring her before Jesus. They construct a trap: If he calls down punishment upon her, he will be breaking his own law of mercy, but if he fails to invoke punishment, he will be breaking Moses’ Law, an infringement great enough “to have him killed and placed in his grave” (“hym for to kylle and putt in grave”).101 Moses’ Law, as invoked by Scribe and Pharisee, deals strictly with stoning, and as these men speak about the prospect of killing the woman taken in adultery, their diction escalates. Speaking at first of killing every adulterer “with stonys” (with stones) as Moses bids in their law, they next threaten the captured adulteress “with grett stonys” (with big stones) as Moses requires.102 Scribe waxes eloquent as he explains to Jesus how Moses’ law obliges Him to proceed in judging the adulteress: In Moyses lawe, right thus we fynde That such fals lovers shul be slayn! Streyte to a stake we shul hem bynde And with grett stonys brest out ther brayn!103 (In Moses’ law, this is exactly what we find—that such false lovers must be slain! We will bind them immediately to a stake, and with great stones break open their brains!)

When Jesus is silent, Scribe tries one more time to learn his verdict. “Shal she be stonyd? … /Or in what rewle shal sche be brought?” (“Shall she be stoned, … or under what rule shall she be brought?”)104 She shall, of course, be brought under Christ’s new rule of mercy. Within The Woman Taken in Adultery, Moses’ name is associated exclusively with the penalty of stoning to death. There is no question now of respecting this Law, for, reduced in this way to one defining concept, it is ugly in letter and spirit. Its practitioners are murderous in their intent, anxious to do away with Jesus, whom they perceive as a threat to their Law, and delighted to kill an adulterous woman to accomplish this end. They are extraordinarily coarse in their diction, cursing the woman in language 100 Ibid., N-Town 24.277-8. 101 Ibid., N-Town 24.104 . 102 Ibid., N-Town 24 lines 106-8 and 183-4, respectively. 103 Ibid., N-Town 24.201-4. 104 Ibid., N-Town 24.227-8.

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that Woolf has termed “antiphonal abusiveness.”105 While in Christ and the Doctors Moses remains a revered figure whose Law is a vehicle for honoring God, in The Woman Taken in Adultery, Moses sinks in esteem, his law offering only stringent justice where Christ’s offers abundant mercy. Christianizing Moses The redactor of the Towneley manuscript seems to have a particular interest in Moses.106 In several instances, this redactor has added to the base text of the York plays a few but telling details concerning Moses, details not found in the other plays and that tend to give the prophet a Christian cast.107 In the Towneley play of Christ and the Doctors, for example, the tenth commandment against coveting thy neighbor’s goods ends with the advice, “And Crysten fayth trow stedfastly” (“And believe the Christian faith steadfastly”).108 For Pharaoh (Play 8), the Towneley redactor creates an extended ending, one not appearing in the York Exodus, in which the coming of Christ is recognized and the Trinity named. This last addition is significant since, in the beginning of Exodus, Moses does not know the name of God and asks the Lord what he should say to Pharaoh on this score. Not knowing the name of God may have been viewed as a serious offence, as it is in at least one account, the retelling of Exodus in the play Origo Mundi within The Ancient Cornish Drama. Here Moses is excluded from entering the Promised Land precisely because he had not known God’s name.109 The Towneley redactor allows Moses to make up for this deficit by naming God properly at the play’s end. Indeed, all three persons of the Trinity are named or alluded to in the concluding prayers of Primum Puer (First Boy, an Israelite) and Moses. The Israelite praises the “Lord on hyght” 105 Woolf, English Mystery Plays, 225. 106 Stevens and Cawley find it likely that the Townely redactor worked with a guild copy of the York plays, making revisions as he found fit. They cite a study by Marie C. Lyle indicating that of thirty-two plays, only nine have no parallel phrasing from the York cycle. See Stevens and Cawley, vol 1: xxviii. 107 Both Towneley 25 and York 37, The Harrowing of Hell, provide a role for Moses among those who recognize the approaching light of Christ. In both plays, Moses is given a speech of twelve lines, briefly recounting the Transfiguration. Moses is not included the Harrowing plays of Chester and N-town. 108 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 18.180. 109 Edwin Norris, ed. and trans., The Ancient Cornish Drama, Origo Mundi, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1859), lines 1867-72. The biblical reason for denying Moses entrance to the Promised Land, given in Numbers 20: 12-13, is that Moses and Aaron did not give proper credit to God for obtaining water from a rock in Meribah.

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(“Lord on high”) for drowning Pharaoh and concludes, “Louyd be that Lord Emanuell!” (“Beloved be that Lord, Emmanuel”), thus echoing the words of Isaiah 7:14, traditionally understood to prophesy Christ’s birth, since “Emmanuel” means “God with us.”110 Moses himself alludes to the Holy Ghost and names the Trinity in the concluding speech of the play: Heuen, thou attend, I say, in syght, And erth, my wordys—here what I tell. As rayn or dew on erth doys lyght, And waters herbys and trees full well, Gyf louyng to Goddys magesté. Hys dedys ar done, hys ways ar trew, Honowred be he in Trynyté.111 (Heaven, attend, I say, in sight, and Earth, my words—hear what I say. Just as rain or dew alights on earth and waters herbs and trees very well, give love to God’s majesty. His deeds are done, his ways are true. Honored be He in Trinity.)

The concluding lines of the play derive from the Song of Moses (Deut. 32:14), as James W. Earl points out.112 Uttered shortly before Moses’ death, it is “universally read as a prophecy of the age of Christ.”113 Specifically, the passage, with its images of earth and dew, prefigures the descent of the Holy Ghost and alludes to the Annunciation. Indeed, the reference made here to rain or dew invokes another common typological reference: Isaac’s praying for the dew of heaven.114 York 12, The Annunciation, contains Isaac’s prayer: Lord, late þou doune at thy liking þe dewe to fall fro heuen so ferre, For than the erthe sall sprede and sprynge A seede þat vs sall saue.115 (Lord, let down at Thy liking the dew to fall from heaven so fair, for then the earth shall spread and spring a seed that shall save us.)

The character, Prologue, provides an interpretation for Isaac’s prayer in which dew corresponds to “þe gode halygaste” (the good Holy ghost) while 110 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.418 and 421. 111 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 8.422-28. 112 James W. Earl, “The Shape of Old Testament History in the Towneley Plays,” Studies in Philology 69 (1972): 445. 113 James W. Earl, “Old Testament History,” 447. 114 Genesis 27:28. 115 Smith, York 12.42-44.

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the earth is like the chaste maiden, Mary.116 Having named or alluded to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Moses concludes by naming the Trinity in a line not derived from the Canticum Moysi. The allusions to God, the Son (Emmanuel), the Holy Ghost, and the Trinity evoke Moses’ role as prophet looking forward to the advent of Christ. Finally, Moses appears in The Play of the Prophets, Towneley 7. He apparently enters carrying the tablets of the Law, for he at one point mentions that God wrote the commandments “in thyse same tables” (“in these very tablets”).117 This Moses, however, is fully christianized, appearing as grim prophet chastising recalcitrant Jews for their failure to accept Jesus. As Stevens and Cawley note, this role is traditional, deriving from the lectio read at Mass on Christmas Day, which in turn derives from the Pseudo Augustinian sermon, Contra Judaeos, Paganos, et Arianos (Against the Jews, Pagans, and Arians).118 This sermon seeks to counter Jewish disbelief in Christ (and bolster Christian faith) by calling for Old Testament prophets to bear witness to Christ’s divinity. Speaking to the Jews, the sermon states:119 Ye transgressors of the Law, give heed to your own Law! Ye seek testimony concerning Christ; in your Law it is written that the testimony of two men is true; let there come forth then from your Law, not merely two, but many witnesses of Christ, and let these confound them that be hearers of the Law but not doers thereof.120

The sermon itself calls upon thirteen witnesses, with Moses appearing as the fourth in line, after Israel, Jeremiah, and Daniel. In Towneley 7, however, Moses is given pride of place, opening the procession. His first words are spoken in Latin quoted from this sermon: 116 Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 12.49-52. Dew as a figure for the Holy Ghost and the annunciation is also found in The Mirror of Mans Salvacion, within the tale of Gideon’s fleece (chap. 7, pp. 68-9). There is no similar passage in the Towneley Annunciation. 117 Ibid., Towneley 7, ll. 42. 118 See Stevens and Cawley, headnote to Towneley 7, vol. 2, p. 459-60. The Sermon Against the Jews is also the basis for the Ordo Prophetarum, a play in Latin verse initially believed by scholars to have been the seed that gave rise to the Old Testament plays in the mystery cycles, although this idea no longer holds sway. The twelfth-century, Anglo-Norman play, Le Jeu D’Adam, (also known as the Ordo Repraesentationis Adae) likewise contains a Prophet Play of this sort. 119 Pseudo-Augustine. A Translation of Chapters XI-XVI of the Pseudo-Augustinian Sermon Against the Jews, Pagans, and Arians, Concerning the Creed: Also of the Ordo Prophetarum of St. Martial of Limoges, trans. Edward Noble Stone (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1928). All translations will be taken from this edition. 120 Pseudo-Augustine, Sermon Against the Jews, 200.

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gail ivy berlin Prophetam excitabit deus de fratribus vestris; Omnis anima que non audierit prophetam illum Exterminabitur de populo suo; Nemo propheta sine honore nisis in patria sua. 121 (God will raise up a prophet from your brethren; every soul that will not hear this prophet will be driven out from your people. No prophet is without honor, except in his own homeland.)

In fact, within the Sermon Against Jews, Pagans and Arians, the Latin lines cited above are Moses’ entire speech. The author of Towneley 7 expands this passage into thirty lines of Middle English. Although seemingly addressed to Jews, the audience intended is Christian, and the lines contain the promise of a savior for Jews who follow Christ and threats of expulsion for Jews who do not. Both promise and threat will be elaborated as Moses proceeds in Middle English, calling out specifically to the Jews and demanding their attention: All ye folk of Israell, Herkyn to me! I will you tell Tythyngys farly goode.122 (All you folk of Israel, listen to me! I will tell you tidings wondrously good.)

In choosing a beginning that sounds like a minstrel’s call to attention, with a promise of good tidings, the author tones down the more inflammatory rhetoric of the sermon: “You, I say, do I challenge, O Jews, who even unto this present day deny the Son of God.”123 Still, after delivering the good news that a prophet will arise from among their kin, Moses’ tone grows sterner. He advises (“I rede”) the Jews not to withdraw from this prophet, for those who fail to heed His sayings will be outlawed (“from his folkys be putt”). Moses next warns (“I warne”) the Jews that the prophet will come sweetly to reveal many miracles. This can only be a “warning” if one is certain in advance that the prophet will be rejected. He also warns (“I warne”) the Jews that the prophet will save “all that will in trowth ren” (“all who will run after truth”).124 Jews refusing to believe in Christ, of 121 Opening un-numbered lines to Towneley 7. The translation that follows is my own. Note that the name “Moyses” is written beside the Latin, in the margin, indicating that the lines were most likely meant to be read aloud. The initial three lines derive from Deuteronomy 18: 15, 19 and Acts 7:37. The concluding line is found in Matthew 13:57 and Mark 6:4. 122 Smith, York 7.1-3. 123 Pseudo-Augustine XI, trans. Stone, 200. 124 See Stevens and Cawley, Towneley 7.14, 18, 19, 26, and 25. Devout folk are depicted as running after truth in Piers Plowman as well.

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course, do not run after truth and will not be saved, the text implies. Finally, returning to the initial theme, Moses states that the prophet will be named Christ and predicts that men all over will know and worship him, “bot in his awne countré” (“except in his own homeland”).125 Moses, looking into the future, sees both the savior and the continuing refusal of the Jews to accept him. Moses ends with a recitation of the Ten Commandments, reminding all that those who obey them will be called to heaven while those who do not can expect the pains of hell.126 The sermon upon which the Play of the Prophets is based, Contra Judaeos, Paganos, et Arianos, is intensely anti-Jewish. As Maureen Boulton notes, it provides an array of “major figures of Jewish history [who] turn against the Jews, who thus lose both their history and their Scriptures.”127 In Towneley 7, as well, Moses turns on the Jews.128 While the rhetoric in Towneley 7 is not as harsh as its source, it covers the same ground in a leisurely and insistent fashion. In brief, the Moses of Towneley 7 is christianized. He is constructed as an anti-Jewish Christian preacher whose purpose is to proselytize, or at least chastise, Jews, a move that makes him usable once more to those desiring a clear separation between Christians and Jews. Moses and Piers Plowman Piers Plowman, William Langland’s complex, fourteenth-century allegorical dream vision, begins by honoring the Moses of the Ten Commandments, moves on to challenging the sufficiency of the Decalogue for salvation, and ends by demonstrating its limits—very much like the mystery plays. Both works view Moses differently at different stages. The plays, framed in terms 125 Ibid., Towneley 7.30. 126 Cawley has pointed out that the version of the Decalogue that Moses recites here is based on the Deuteronomy, while Jesus in Christ and the Doctors recites the version appearing in Matthew—apparently a deliberate christianization. See A.C. Cawley, “Middle English Metrical Versions of the Decalogue with Reference to the English Copus Christi Cycles,” 129-45. 127 Maureen Boulton, “Anti-Jewish Attitudes in Anglo-Norman Religious Texts: Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries” in Christian Attitutes Towards the Jews in the Middle Ages, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York: Routledge, 2007), 154. 128 Within Piers Plowman, Abraham/Faith takes on this function of the prophet who excoriates Jews, in this case, for tricking the blind Longinus into wounding Christ’s side. See William Langland, Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C and Z Versions, 2 vols., ed. A.V.C. Schmidt (London: Longman, 1995), Passus 18, lines 92 ff. All quotations from Piers Plowman will be taken from the B-text. Numbers refer to passus and lines.

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of salvation history, contrast a venerable Decalogue with stony and antiquated Mosaic Law. Piers Plowman, framed in term of passus (steps or stages of spiritual growth), first presents the Decalogue as a direct path to heaven but ends by presenting it as food for the spiritually stunted—giving us a portrait of Moses as a well-intentioned but boastful bumbler who nonetheless has a place under grace. Passus V to VII of the Visio (Vision), the first section of Piers Plowman, deals with the question of salvation in terms of traditional schematic guides and is, in fact, organized very much as is the western wall of Trotton Church, read from left to right (Seven Deadly Sins, Ten Commandments, Seven Works of Corporal Mercy) and bottom to top (Ten Commandments and Doomsday). Passus V begins with an elaborate confession of the Seven Deadly Sins, a preliminary before the pilgrimage to seek St. Truth can begin. The Ten Commandments themselves become part of the path that must be taken, described as a geographical allegory. Pilgrims must pass through Meekness to Conscience, so that Christ may know: That ye louen Oure Lord God leuest of alle þinges, And þanne youre ne3ebores next in none wise apeire Oþerwise þan þow woldest h[ij] wrou3te to þiselue.129 (That you love our Lord God dearest of all things, and next that you in no way harm your neighbors.)

These tablet summaries become, in this case, the first two command­ments, and all ten do appear, so long as one counts the farmhouse named “Coueite-no3t-mennes-catel-ne-hire-wyues-ne-noon-of-hire-seruaunt3þat-noyen-hem-my3te” (“Covet-not-men’s-belongings-nor-their-wivesnor-any-of-their-servants-nor-anything-that-might-harm-them”) as an admonition against adultery as well as against coveting thy neighbor’s goods.130 Once at Truth’s mansion, the pilgrims will meet seven sisters—the Seven Contrary Virtues meant to counter the temptations posed by the Seven Deadly Sins. Unlike the wall at Trotton Church, the Seven Virtues appear instead of the Seven Works of Mercy, although Piers Plowman himself, in Passus VI, does mention clothing the naked and feeding the hungry as appropriate work for women and men, respectively. Still the point is the same:

129 Langland, Piers Plowman, V.563-4. 130 Ibid., Piers Plowman, V.573-4.

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one chooses sins or virtues. This symbolic landscape explains, quite simply, which actions are welcome, which not. The path described so far is not as simple as it appears, for the pilgrims at the very start of Passus VI declare that the path to Truth is a “wikkede wey” (“wickedly difficult path”) for anyone without a guide.131 Confusion arises almost immediately, when Truth sends Piers a pardon, promising heaven to all who live up to their particular responsibilities—kings to defend the church, bishops to teach the Ten Commandments, and laborers to “lyuen in loue and in lawe” (“live in love and in law”).132 The pardon when opened, however, confronts the crowd with two lines from the Athanasian Creed, which a priest interprets: “Peter!” quod þe preest þoo, “I kan no pardon fynde But ‘Do wel and haue wel, and God shal haue þi soule,’ And ‘Do yuel and haue yuel, and hope þow noon ooþer That after þi deeþ day þe deuel shal haue þi soule!’”133 (VII.111-114) (“Peter!” said the priest then, “I can find no pardon here, but only ‘Do well and have well, and God shall have your soul’ and ‘Do ill and have ill, and hope for none other than that after your death the devil shall have your soul!’”)

The pardon turns out to be no more than a reminder that our actions are judged on Doomsday. In terms of the diagrammatic paintings at Trotton, we have now moved upward, from this world to the next and from the Ten Commandments to the Last Judgment, where angels, flanking Christ, direct souls either to heaven or hell. Toward the end of the Visio, the dreamer, Will, awakes and sums what he has learned from his dream. As in many traditional works, the dreamer links the Ten Commandments to Doomsday as he warns the rich not to believe that entrance to heaven can be bought with indulgences: Forþi I rede yow renkes þat riche ben on þis erþe: Vpon trust of youre tresor triennals to haue, Be ye neuer þe bolder to breke þe ten hestes … At þe dredful dome, whan ded shulle rise And comen alle bifore Crist acountes to yelde— How þow laddest þi lif here and hise lawes keptest, And how þow didest day by day þe doom wole reherce.134 131 Ibid., Piers Plowman, VI.1. 132 Ibid., Piers Plowman, VII.62. 133 Ibid., Piers Plowman, VII.111-114. 134 Ibid., Piers Plowman, VII.182-4, 188-91.

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gail ivy berlin (Therefore I advise you men who are rich in this world: be never the bolder to break the Ten Commandments, trusting on your wealth to have masses for the dead recited for yourselves … Upon the dreadful Judgment Day, when the dead will arise and all come before Christ to give their accounts—how you led your life here and kept his laws and what you did day by day the Judgment will rehearse.)

Following the Ten Commandments is a requirement for the soul’s health and doing well (Dowel) is the surer way to heaven than paying for masses. Still, even knowing all this, the dreamer is “only instructed, not freed from sin or helped by grace to do good,” as the Golden Legend puts it.135 Further instruction on doing well and on moving from Law to charity will form the core of the Vita, the second section of the poem. One strand of this instruction will focus on a proper understanding of how Moses and Mosaic Law relate to Christ’s law and charity. Having been taught the path of the Ten Commandments, Will now goes forth to discover the nature of Do Well, Do Better, and Do Best. His first encounter is with Intelligence, who provides several definitions of these states, including one dealing with the Law: Dowel, my frend, is to doon as lawe techeþ. To loue þi frend and þi foo—leue me, þat is Dobet; To 3yuen and to yemen boþe yonge and olde, To helen and to helpen, is Dobest of alle.136 (Do Well, my friend, is to do as the law teaches. To love your friend and foe—believe me, that is Do Better. To provide and care for both young and old, to heal and to help is Do Best of all.)

Do Well, in this definition, represents obeying the Ten Commandments while Do Better—loving friend and foe—represents the shift to the New Law of loving not only thy neighbor, but thy enemy as well, a much harder task. In putting forth this version of the second tablet summary, Langland draws upon the Sermon on the Mount rather than on Christ’s encounter with the Doctors.137 Active love is demanded by Do Best. This early formulation of what it means to do well, better, and best, cast in terms of the Law, remains a sturdy guidepost throughout and becomes the basis for understanding the shift from Old to New Law in Passus XVII, a key passage within the text. But as definitions are piled on, passus by passus, Will’s confusion 135 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, vol. 1, section 1, “The Advent of the Lord,” 5. 136 Ibid., Piers Plowman, IX.200-3. 137 See Matthew 5:44 and Matthew 22:39, respectively.

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intensifies. Information that Will, the dreamer, pieces together about the Ten Commandments is partial and contradictory at best. When the pagan Emperor Trajan arrives upon the scene, he casts doubt on the Decalogue’s value as a means to salvation. Known for his kind deeds to widows, he was released from hell through the prayers of Pope Gregory, according to the Golden Legend, a text that Langland himself cites. Trajan is someone who, although pagan, has done good works in the world, and his salvation, he claims, was due to “þe sooþnesse þat he [Gregory] sei3 in my werkes” (“the truth that he [Gregory] saw in my deeds”).138 The narrator identifies “leel loue and lyuyng in truþe” (“loyal love and living in truth”) as saving Trajan from Hell.139 Love—not baptism, learning, or law—has saved him. The narrator rushes to inform us that Moses’ Law, without love, is “not worth a bean”: God wrou3te it and wroot it wiþ his on fynger, And took it Moises vpon þe mount, alle men to lere. “Lawe wiþouten loue,” quod Troianus, “ley þer a bene!”140 (God wrought it and wrote it with his finger and took it to Moses upon the mount, to teach to all men. “Law without love,” said Trajan, “is not worth a bean!”)

Having earned salvation without the benefit of Mosaic Law, Trajan views love, not Law alone, as essential to salvation. But if love is sufficient, why are the laws necessary? A little later, however, during a discussion of priests’ obligation to proselytize, Will learns that the Ten Commandments are the true and perfect law of the Jews. 141 And Iewes lyuen in lele lawe—Our Lord wroot it hymselue In stoon, for it stedefast was, and stonde sholde euere— Dilige Deum et proximum, is parfit Iewen lawe— And took it Moyses to teche men, til Messie coome; And on þat lawe þei leue and leten it þe beste.142 (And Jews live in loyal law—Our Lord wrote it himself upon stone, for it was steadfast and should last forever—Love God and your neighbors is the perfect Jewish law—and took it to Moses to teach to men until the Messiah comes. And they believe that Law and consider it the best.) 138 Langland, Piers Plowman XI.147. 139 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XI.161. 140 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XI.168-70. 141 Conscience will later explain to Will that during the lifetime of Christ, the “lawe lakkede þo; for men louede no3t hir enemys” (XIX.112). 142 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XV.581-5.

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If Jewish Law is God-given, perfect, and enduring, why is the Law of Christ needed? Understanding the relationship of Jewish to Christian Law becomes one of the tangles that the Dreamer must tease out, particularly since he will not be able to understand charity until he does. Indeed, the reader must work on this problem, as well, since Langland’s use of Christ’s two great commandments as Jewish Law is unusual, leaving one to wonder how Christ’s Law will now be defined. The issue of how the Old Law relates to the New is tackled directly in Passus XVII by demonstrating the various ways that the Dreamer, Abraham, and Moses all misunderstand the interconnections between law and charity. After Will encounters Abraham, or Faith, who seeks a knight he has once met (Christ), bearing the coat of arms of the Trinity, he meets Moses, or Hope, who rushes upon the scene seeking the same knight whom he, too, once met. “I am Spes, a spie,” quod he, “and spire after a knyghte That took me a maundement vpon þe mount of Synay To rule alle reames þerwiþ—I bere þe writ here.”143 (“I am Hope, a spy,” he said, “and seek after a knight who gave me a commandment upon Mount Sinai with which to rule all realms. I bear the text here.”)

Why should Moses be identified with Spes (Hope), and in what sense is he a spy?144 In Numbers, Moses had sent spies into the Promised Land to see what it was like, even though he would never come to enter it himself. Now, as Hope, he “haþ aspied þe lawe” (he has “aspied”/seen the Law).145 He looks forward to the New Law, even though another would have to fulfill it. In fact, he seeks the authorizing seal of the “cros and Cristendom, and Crist þeron to honge” (Cross and Christendom and Christ hung thereupon) to affix to his “patente,” a letter open to all to read.146 This patent, written on rock, reads, “Dilige Deum et proximum tuum” (“Love God and your neighbors”)—an image blending the stone tablets of the original Decalogue with the table summary from Matthew 22:39—the New Law of char143 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII .1-3. 144 Langland blends the New Testament theological virtue, Hope, with the Old Testament prophet, Moses, and throughout this passage the actions of this character are sometimes more appropriate to Hope, sometimes to Moses. I will tend to refer to the character as Moses. 145 Langland, Piers Plowman, XVII.33. 146 Ibid., XVII.6.

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ity, but previously defined in Piers Plowman as perfect Jewish Law.147 Scholars have tended to regard this image as representing the New Law, but it is a mixture of both—perhaps to remind us of Moses’ role as farseeing prophet, perhaps to indicate that what Langland has to say about the Decalogue will apply to both the Old and the New Law. The commandments are glossed “gloriously” in gold: “In hijs duobus pendet tota lex et prophetia” (“From these two [commandments] depend the whole of the law and the prophets”).148 These are, of course, words that Christ speaks to the Doctors in the Temple reshaping and submerging the Old Law.149 But although Moses carries this summary of the Law and the prophets, already framed according to charity, he does not seem to understand them. He announces, proudly: And whoso wercheþ after þis writ, I wol vndertaken, Shal neuere deuel hym dere, ne deeþ in soule greue. For þou3 I seye it myself, I haue saued with þis charme Of men and of women many score þousandes.150 (And whoever works according to this writ, I undertake, will never be harmed by the devil nor will death grieve his soul. For, though I say it myself, I have saved thousands of scores of men and women with this charm.)

This passage reveals several glitches in Moses’ thinking. First of all, viewing the Ten Commandments as a protective charm shows great naiveté, reducing the Decalogue to the level of forbidden magic. In fact, the Lay Folk’s Catechism, in discussing the first commandment against worshipping false gods, provides this gloss: And in this commandement is forboden us Alkyns mysbileues, and al mawmetries, Al fals enchaunmentez and al sorceries, All fals charmes, and all witchecraftes.151 (And in this commandment all kinds of misbeliefs and idolatries and false enchantments and all sorceries and all false charms and all witchcrafts are forbidden us.)

147 Ibid., XVII.12. 148 Ibid., XVII.14. As mentioned above, Christ’s great commandments are defined as perfect Jewish law in XV.583. 149 Matthew 22:40. 150 Langland, Piers Plowman, XVII.16-19. 151 Primum Mandatum T.175-8 (my emphasis).

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To the extent that the Ten Commandments are viewed as simply words on a page, the recitation of which is believed to lead to salvation, they are nothing more than a charm. And simply following the Ten Commandments will not in fact save the soul from the devil. Abraham’s experience has already shown this in Passus XVI. Will had observed prophets and patriarchs being held in Abrahams’s bosom and enquired about them. Abraham explained that the devil had claimed them all, himself included, and that none could deliver them from the devil’s power, except Christ himself.152 Yet now in Passus XVII Abraham readily agrees with Moses (“he seiþ sooþ” [He says the truth]) and claims that the throng in his lap “leeued on þat charme” (believed in that charm).153 Both Old Testament figures show their limitations and confusion. Will is no less confused. He cannot decide whether it would be better to believe in Abraham (Faith) or Moses (Hope). Abraham has taught him about the Trinity and its ability to save. He finds this teaching hard, but that of Moses harder: What neded it þanne a newe lawe to brynge, Siþ þe firste suffiseþ to sauacion and to blisse? And now comeþ Spes and spekeþ, þat haþ aspied þe lawe, And telleþ no3t of þe Trinite þat took hym hise lettres— To bileeue and louye in o Lord almighty, And siþþen ri3t as myself so louye alle peple… . It is ful hard for any man on Abraham bileue, And wel awey worse 3it for to loue a sherewe.154 (Why was it necessary to bring a New Law, since the first was sufficient for salvation and bliss? And now Hope comes and speaks, who has seen the Law, and tells not of the Trinity, who brought him his letters—to believe in and love one lord almighty, and afterwards to love all people just as myself … It is very hard for any man to believe in Abraham, and yet much harder to love a shrew.)

Will’s speech is filled with questions, complaints, and a strong sense of resistance. Why is a New Law needed if the Old Law sufficed for salvation? If the Trinity gave the Law to Moses, why does he speak of only one God? It is hard to believe Abraham’s account of three persons in a single God, 152 Langland, Piers Plowman XVI. 260-9. In the Anglo-Norman Jeu d’Adam or Ordo Repraesentationis Adae, Old Testament prophets are claimed by the devil and led in chains to Hell after each finishes his speech. For a modern English translation of the play, see The Service for Representing Adam in David Bevington, Medieval Drama, headnote to lines 745 ff. 153 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII.20, 21. 154 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII.31-6; 42-3.

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but much harder to love a shrew. If those are the choices, believing in Abraham’s “þre louely persones” (three lovely persons) is easier, and Will attempts to chase Moses away.155 “Go þi gate,” quod I to Spes; “so me God helpe, Tho þat lernen þi lawe wol litel while vsen it!”156 (“Go your way,” I said to Hope, “So help me God, those who learn your law will abide by it only a little while.)

Hope’s law of charity perturbs and frustrates the dreamer. Just as Pharaoh tried to drive off Moses, disturber of his idolatrous law, and as the Jews in the Temple tried to drive off Jesus, disturber of the Old Law, now Will tries to drive off Hope, disturber of spiritual lassitude. The true test of the uselessness of law without love comes when Moses/ Hope and Abraham/Faith encounter a wounded man, naked and helpless, whom they find exactly where the Good Samaritan rides up to them upon a mule. When Faith sees the body, he flies aside, keeping a margin of “nine lands’s length” between them. Then Moses arrives: Hope cam hippynge after, þat hadde so ybosted How he wiþ Moyses maundement hadde many men yholpe; Ac when he hadde sighte of þat segge, aside he gan hym drawe Dredfully, bi þis day, as doke dooþ fram þe faucon!157 (Hope came hopping after, who had so boasted how he with Moses’ commandments had helped many men. But when he had a sight of that man, he drew himself aside, in great dread, by this day!—as a duck does from the falcon.)

The story here is modeled on the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. At this point, the allegory thickens, and we are told both that the Law—even the New Law, if understood as only words on a page, like a charm—cannot help without an active outpouring of love. Likewise, the theological virtues of Faith and Hope cannot function without Charity. Moses, as Hope, hops along like a child and cannot live up to his boast of having saved so many with the Decalogue since he flees when confronted with one (spiritually) wounded man. He darts aside in utter panic, “as a duck does from a falcon.”158 The Decalogue instructs, but 155 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII, 44. 156 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII.46-7. 157 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII.60-63. 158 Running is a common expression of zeal in Middle English literature. Compare the images of running in Book of Vices and Virtues: Þe hare renneþ, and þe greyhound renneþ:

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it cannot heal the soul. Only the Good Samaritan, who is allegorically both Christ and Charity, is capable of the compassion necessary for attending to the wounded man. He removes him to an inn in the grange of lex Christi (the Law of Christ). When Will, puzzled by the rapid exits of Faith and Hope, begs the Samaritan to elucidate the situation, the Samaritan asks Will to excuse them both, explaining that no medicine on earth could cure the wounded man, except the blood and body of Christ. The Samaritan is about to ride off to defeat death, and once that has happened, that is, once the crucifixion of Christ has been accomplished, Faith will become a forester who will walk the woods of the world to show people Christ’s path to Jerusalem. While Faith shows the way to those well enough to travel, Hope will care for the sick, those as yet unable to follow Christ’s teaching: And Hope þe hostilers man shal be, þer [anhelyng þe man lith], And alle þat feble and feynte be, þat Feiþ may no3t teche, Hope shal lede hem forþ with loue as his letter telleþ, And hostele hem and heele þoru3 Holy Cirche bileue.159 (And Hope shall be the hostler’s man, there where the man lies healing, and all who are feeble and faint, whom Faith cannot teach, Hope shall lead forth with love, as his letter teaches, and maintain them and heal them through Holy Church’s belief.)

Within the realm of Christ’s Law, Hope (or Moses) will tend the feeble and faint with love, as his “letter,” that is, Christ’s summary of the Decalogue, requires. He will teach these beginners the beliefs of Holy Church, perhaps through the schematic guides with which Piers Plowman commenced. The Samaritan also informs Will that he must adhere both to Abraham’s faith in the Trinity and to Hope’s command to love: “I hote þat þow louye/ Thyn euenecristene euermoore eueneforþ with þiselue” (“I command that you love your fellow Christian evermore, just as yourself”).160 After the passion of Christ, then, the roles of Abraham/Faith and Moses/ Hope are redefined. Whereas Abraham had been a herald of the Christian faith, having had an early glimpse of the Trinity, as Faith he will come to be a guide for those seeking Christ’s path. Moses, the bringer of God’s law to the Jews, will now serve Holy Church, teaching those who—like the þat oon for drede, þat oþer for gret desyr. Þat on fleeþ; þat oþer chaseþ. Þe holy men renneþ as greyhounds, for þei haue euere here ei3en to heuen.” See Francis, Book of Vices and Virtues, page 74 lines 1-5. 159 Langland, Piers Plowman, XVII.116-9. 160 Ibid., Piers Plowman, XVII.134-5.

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Jews—do not yet have faith. The Decalogue cannot save in and of itself, however, for, while it points towards compassion it does not necessarily engender this quality. By using the Parable of the Good Samaritan as a way of demonstrating the deficiencies of law without love, Langland is in effect raising the bar, demanding compassionate action as a part of striving toward doing better and best. In this, his goals are akin to those of St. Augustine, who discusses three stages of spiritual development in his Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love. This work situates hope in the “third state of humanity,” the first two being ignorance and knowledge of sin through Law: But if God turns again, so that we can believe that he helps us to obey his commandments, and a person begins to be led by the Spirit of God (Rom 8:14), he begins to desire against the flesh with the stronger love of charity, so that … the struggle continues of man against himself … This is the third state of humanity, a good that is hoped for, and if a person perseveres religiously in this, peace awaits him at the end.161

In order to do good, one must hope for the ability to struggle against oneself, with the help of God’s grace. Good deeds, Ben Smith tells us “nourish[ed] the virtue of hope.”162 Charlotte Cluttergood’s study of hope and good works in Piers Plowman finds that “leaute,” a word she deems strongly associated with hope, indicates “the disposition to do good.”163 But in what way can one who flees from a stricken man, like a duck from a falcon, be said to have a disposition to do good or to represent hope? Perhaps such a man is labeled Hope because, having accomplished so very little in the way of charity, he has so much more to hope for, following the logic of Romans 5:20: “Now the Law entered in that sin might abound. And where sin abounded, grace did more abound.” In Piers Plowman, as in the Towneley plays, Moses must finally be given a role under grace, since the Decalogue cannot be dispensed with. As Moses exclaims in Chester 5, “Now you know what sin is!” But recognizing sin does not lead naturally to either recognizing or striving toward charity. The play cycles mark this disjuncture through the account of the Woman Taken in Adultery, contrasting the stoniness of the Old Law with the mercifulness of the New. Piers Plowman marks the disjuncture instead with the Parable 161 Augustine, Enchiridion, 31, 118. 162 Ben H. Smith, Traditional Imagery of Charity in Piers Plowman, Studies in English Literature, vol. 21 (The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1966), 82-3. 163 Charlotte Clutterbuck, “Hope and Good Works: Leaute in the C-Text of Piers Plowman,” Review of English Studies 28 (1977): 138.

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of the Good Samaritan, demonstrating the inability of the Law to save, or even help, in the absence of Christ’s sacrifice and love. In sum, Moses is viewed differently before and after Christ’s advent, whether in the didactic literature, the plays, or Piers Plowman. Before Christ, Moses the Israelite can be appreciated for his firm resistance to idolatry, his reverence before the burning bush, his leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, and his receipt of the Law at Mt. Sinai. After Christ, however, Moses becomes the purveyor of a law still serving living and disbelieving Jews. To maintain Moses as an honored and valued figure, he must be reshaped by Christian fiction to serve Christian doctrinal purposes, as in the figures of Moses the Prophet in Towneley or Moses/Hope in Piers Plowman-B. Moses could neither be wholly assimilated nor wholly rejected. In negotiating this difficulty, Middle English literature constructs a compartmentalized Moses, parts of whom can be fore-grounded, suppressed, revised, or re-imagined, as needed.

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Moses and Christian Contemplative Devotion Jane Beal Between late-antiquity and the Renaissance, Moses provided a model of contemplative devotion for medieval and early modern Christians. The practice of lectio divina encouraged contemplatives to meditate on the life of Moses as related in the Bible and to interpret elements of his life both allegorically and typologically as established in exegetical tradition. Within their normative and ecstatic experiences of prayer, contemplatives saw Moses as an example of how to draw near to God through the stages of purgation, illumination, and unification with the divine, the final stage of which they understood through the metaphor of spiritual marriage. Moses’ experiences of the burning bush (Exodus 3), the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 4-18), and the reception of the Law in a cloud on Sinai (Exodus 19, 20 and 24), among others, all helped contemplative Christians to gain a deeper understanding of their own visionary, prayerful, and ecstatic spiritual experiences. Christian Contemplation: Lectio divina, Contemplative Prayer, and Spiritual Marriage In order to understand the various interpretations of Moses within the tradition of Christian contemplation in the Middle Ages, it is important to begin with an exploration of lectio divina, the practice of contemplative prayer, and an understanding of the ecstatic union many medieval Christian contemplatives sought to experience with Christ, a union which they considered to be spiritual marriage. The practice of lectio divina was encouraged by the early Church Fathers: Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Gregory as well as Origen and Cassian. “Divine reading” was actually a series of practices that could include beginning in silence, reading aloud, meditating, praying, contemplating, and eventually applying the truths of Scripture. Such intensive reading helped train contemplative Christians to read Scripture for its multiple meanings.

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The three, sometimes four, recognized levels of scriptural interpretation compelled the devout to pursue contemplative reading that could foster deeper understanding of biblical passages. The four levels are aptly summed up in a Latin phrase: litera gesta docet; allegoria quod credas; moralis quid agas; quo tendas anagogia (“the literal (sense) teaches deeds; the allegorical what you should believe; the moral what you should do; the anagogical where you should go”). To derive the meaning from these senses required time and thought, which the founders of the monastic orders, particularly Saint Benedict, fully recognized. To accommodate lectio divina, Benedict’s Rule permitted two hours of private Scripture readings to monks, but three during the season of Lent; St. Caesarius of Arles likewise permitted two hours of private readings to nuns in his Rule.1 By the twelfth century, the stages of lectio divina were codified in a letter to a fellow monk by Guigo II, a Carthusian monk, and the letter circulated as a treatise known in Latin as the Scala Paradiso or the Scala Claustralium.2 Guigo advised that the lectio divina include reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. His letter begins in this fashion: When I was at hard at work one day, thinking on the spiritual work needful for God’s servants, four such spiritual works came to my mind, these being: reading, meditation, prayer, contemplation. This is the ladder for those in cloisters, and for others in the world who are God’s Lovers, by means of which they can climb from earth to heaven. It is a marvelously tall ladder, but with just four rungs, the one end standing on the ground, the other thrilling into the clouds and showing the climber heavenly secrets. This is the ladder Jacob saw, in Genesis, that stood on the earth and reached into heaven …  Understand now what the four staves of this ladder are, each in turn. Reading, Lesson, is busily looking on Holy Scripture with all one’s will and wit. Meditation is being studious in searching with the mind to know what was before concealed through desiring proper skill. Prayer is a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid what is evil. Contemplation is the lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness and savour. Reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation feels …

1 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1964, repr. 1978), 29. 2 It was later translated into Middle English under the title Ladder of Foure Ronges. For an edition, see the one included in Barry Windeatt, English Mystics of the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 248-52; see also Guigo II the Carthusian, “Ladder of Monks” and “Twelve Meditations,” trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, Cistercian Studies Series 48 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1979).

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 Reading puts as it were whole food into your mouth; meditation chews it and breaks it down; prayer finds its savor; contemplation is the sweetness that so delights and strengthens.3

For Guigo, then, as well as other Christian contemplatives in monastic environments, the practice of lectio divina connected his earthly experience with heavenly realities, as Jacob’s dream of the ladder did for him at Bethel (Genesis 28). The stages of lectio were active, entailing commitments to seek, find, ask, and feel, and they were metaphorically akin to eating because they provided food for the soul.4 The contemplative work of lectio divina could be practiced on any part of Scripture, including Exodus, which contained stories from the life of Moses, and quite frequently, the Psalms, which contain references to the life of Moses and a prayer attributed to him, “the man of God”: Psalm 90.5 Most interestingly, some passages from Exodus and the Psalms provided to the Christian contemplative reader not only fodder for meditation but also for imitation. In the Middle Ages, Moses himself served as a model for contemplative devotion, devotion manifested in the related practices of lectio divina and prayer. The accounts of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3) and Moses and the reception of the Law (Exodus 19, 20 and 24) specifically show Moses in relationship to God—seeking, finding, asking, and feeling—and experiencing an intimacy with God that those in the contemplative life would desire to imitate. Ruminating on Scripture, eating its truth and becoming stronger thereby, provided a context for contemplative prayer.6 The beginning of the lectio involved reading, followed by meditation—the engagement of the 3 This translation is by Julia Bolton-Holloway. See “The Ladder of Four Rungs: Guigo II on Contemplation” (http://www.umilta.net/ladder.html—accessed 22 June 2012). 4 See Michael Casey, Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina (Liguori, Mich.: Liguori/Triumph Publications, 1996) and chapters 3-6 in Guglielmo Cavallo and Robert Chartier, eds., A History of Reading in the West (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 1999). 5 See The Place of the Psalms in the Intellectual Culture of the Middle Ages, ed. Nancy van Deusen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999). 6 For discussion of the related practices of monastic reading and prayer, see Paul Griffiths, Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, trans. Catharine Misrahi (New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), and Paul Saenger, “Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script and Society,” Viator 13 (1982): 367-414. See also Joseph Dyer, “The Psalms in Monastic Prayer,” in The Place of the Psalms, ed. Nancy van Deusen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 59-89.

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mind in rumination and imaginative placement of the self at, for example, the side of the manger where the baby Jesus lay or the foot of the Cross where he was crucified7—and oral prayer while contemplating drew the prayerful Christian into quieter, closer relationship to Christ. In the emotional union it facilitated, contemplation might not require any thought at all.8 Indeed, contemplative prayer focused on the centering experience of being in the presence of God and being united with him. The closer the union became, the more like a spiritual marriage it was. The tradition of imagining spiritual marriage in the Middle Ages has its roots in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.9 It was further developed within the early church, particularly by the example of Augustine and the theory of sexual hierarchy articulated by Jerome in Against Jovinian, which emphasized the chaste ideal in a sexually immoral world; it was also emphasized in medieval virgin martyr legends.10 Allegorical commentaries on the Song of Songs, beginning with Origen in the second century, infused Christian contemplation with a sensual and passionate language for imagining the soul’s union with the divine.11 By the 7 The late-medieval mystic Birgitta of Sweden in her Revelations wrote of being meditatively present at the birth of Jesus; fourteenth-century anchoritess Julian of Norwich in her Revelation of Love recalled vivid meditations of Christ’s Passion during an illness she experienced in her thirty-third year. 8 Teresa of Avila in the Sixth Mansion, chapter 7 of her Interior Castle, cautions that such contemplative ecstasy cannot be sustained continually; she asserts that her sisters must never think they can grow spiritually beyond the need to meditate on the passion of Christ. 9 For direct Old Testament references to God as Bridegroom and Israel as Bride, see, for example, Isaiah 54 and 62, Ezekiel 16, and Hosea 1-3. For New Testament references to Christ as the Bridegroom, see how Jesus is depicted as referring to himself as such in a related incident in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew 9:15, Mark 2:19, Luke 5:34), the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins (Matthew 25), John the Baptist’s recognition of Jesus as the bridegroom (John 3:27-30), the apostle Paul’s allegorical meditation on marriage, especially as it is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:21-32), and Revelation 21. 10 In the tenth century, Hrotsvita of Gandersheim would write a number of plays celebrating the same plot: virgins resist attacks on their purity by vile men and are, miraculously, preserved in both life and chastity with the consequence that the men are frequently converted to Christianity (though often only after first being made to look ridiculous). As Karen A. Winstead has shown in her anthology, Chaste Passions: Medieval English Virgin Martyr Legends (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), the stories of virgin martyrs had wide currency in England between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, with such saints as St. Lucy, St. Cecilia, St. Margaret, St. Agnes, and St. Katherine being just a few of those that were well-known. 11 See E. Ann Matter, The Voice of my Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992) and Ann Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).

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twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux could celebrate the spiritual marriage of the soul to Christ extravagantly in his sermons on the Song of Songs without objection from his monastic audience to any conflict between the literal and spiritual sense of his text. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his second sermon on the Song of Solomon, provides an allegorical exegesis of the kiss mentioned in the first verse of that great epithalamion that shows a clear set of connections, a continuum of relation, between lectio divina, contemplative prayer, and spiritual marriage: All the prophets are empty to me. But he, he of whom they speak, let him speak to me. Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth … His living and effective word is a kiss; not a meeting of lips which can sometimes be deceptive about the state of the heart, but a full infusion of joys, a revelation of secrets, a wonderful and inseparable mingling of the light from above in the mind on which it is shed, which, when it is joined with God, is one spirit with him … O happy kiss, and wonder of amazing self-humbling which is not a mere meeting of lips, but the union of God with man!12

In these words, Bernard reveals his own extensive practice of lectio divina, his own meditation on Scripture, and through his allegorical exegesis of the Song of Songs, shows how it led to an understanding of intimate, contemplative prayer—in which he could hear the voice of God—and the “kiss” experienced in this state that leads to the union of God with man. Similarly to Bernard of Clairvaux, many medieval Christian women left written records that show that their own contemplative prayer life led, in a striking number of cases, to distinctive visions of their souls being married to Christ. Contemplative women who recorded their experiences of spiritual marriage include Angela of Foligno, Catherine of Siena, Birgitta of Sweden, Margery Kempe, and Teresa of Avila, among others. While their spiritual visions met with a mixed reception by their contemporaries, rarely were they dismissed as heretical or unorthodox by the Church because of a clear tradition establishing precedent for their visions in Scripture and church exegetical tradition.

12 Bernard of Clairvaux, Selected Works, trans. and forward by G.R. Evans, introduction by Jean LeClercq, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 216-17.

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jane beal Late-Antiquity: Origen, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Egeria

Origen (185-254 AD) refers to Moses quite frequently in his writings.13 Generally, Origen associates Moses with the Law, but he also frequently expands Moses’ significance by interpreting him allegorically. These allegorical interpretations make Moses correspond to a variety of meanings relevant to Christian contemplative devotion. Origen does have a literal, historical understanding of Moses, but this understanding, too, is made to aid Christian contemplation. In his treatise On Prayer, for example, Origen pays some attention to the prayers of Moses in Exodus, including prayers Moses prayed for Pharaoh at intervals as successive plagues descended on Egypt (Exod. 8:8).14 By identifying Moses as a man of prayer, Origen presents Moses as a model for prayerful, contemplative Christians. In his Commentary on the Song of Songs, Origen expands the exemplary role of Moses for Christian contemplatives through an allegorical interpretation of the escape from Egypt: Then they sang, saying, “We will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously” (Exod. 15:1). Now I think that no one can attain that perfect and mystical song and that perfection of the bride who is found in this book of Scripture unless he first walks on dry ground in the midst of the sea, the waters being a wall to him on the right hand and on the left, and thus escape from the hands of the Egyptians so as to see them dead upon the seashore unless, seeing the strong hand of the Lord, which he brought against the Egyptians, he believes in the Lord and his servant Moses. And by Moses I mean the Law and the Gospels and all the divine Scriptures; for then he will deservedly sing and say, “We will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously” (Exod. 15:1). But the person will sing the song we are talking about now when he has first been delivered from bondage to the Egyptians.15 13 In chapter 4 of this volume, Christopher Hall discusses Origen’s typological views of Moses in relation to other Church Fathers. The focus of my discussion here is on those ideas expressed by Origen about Moses that pertain directly to contemplative Christian devotion later in the Middle Ages. It is worth noting that, due to the controversies surrounding Origen’s life and works (including his self-castration), some of his contributions to theology were viewed with skepticism by later Christians. For discussion of this cautious attitude in one fourteenth-century translator’s history of the world, see Jane Beal, John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon (Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 57-59. 14 Origen, Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Works, trans. Rowan A. Greer, preface by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 87-88. For a good introduction to editions of Origen’s primary works, with links to those works in English, Greek and Latin online, see John Uebersax, “The Works of Origen,” (http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/origen2.htm—accessed 26 December 2012). 15 Origen, Selected Works, 237.

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In this passage, the Christian soul seeking union with God—like the bride in the Song of Solomon seeking union with her beloved—is compared to Moses and the people of Israel escaping from Egypt and experiencing the miracle of walking through the Red Sea on dry land. In this context, Moses stands not only for the Law, but also for the gospels and all the divine Scriptures. This is radical and much more comprehensive than many Christian allegorical interpretations of Moses, which primarily link him to the Law: Origen also sees Moses as a figure of the gospel, the good news of redemption through Christ Jesus, and as a representative of the whole Bible. In this passage, Origen specifically points out that the person, the Christian contemplative soul, who has been delivered from bondage (the bondage of sin) will be able to sing “the perfect and mystical song” and reach “that perfection of the bride” described in the Song of Songs. Origen here uses Moses as an example, and as it were, a kind of bridge between the contemplative Christian reader and the perfection of the bride. Before the perfection, however, is the ascent, and the first part of the ascent necessitates the purgation of the soul. Again using Moses as an example, Origen meditates on this in his homily On Numbers. He compares the Exodus from Egypt to the ascent of the soul: “The ascent from Egypt to the Promised Land is something by which, as I have said, we are taught in mysterious descriptions the ascent of the soul to heaven and the mystery of the resurrection from the dead.”16 Given this, the contemplative Christian might expect that since Moses led the Israelites up from Egypt, then the contemplative Christian ought to follow Moses up in the same way. However, Origen is quick to clarify that the contemplative soul ought to follow the pillar of fire and of cloud: “The ascent does have for its stages names fitted to mysteries; and it has as its guide not Moses—for he did not know where to go himself—but the pillar of fire and of cloud, that is, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit.”17 In this way, the contemplative Christian reader sees that Moses sets an example to follow in that he followed Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Origen goes on to explain the necessity for purgation of vices from the soul by allegorically interpreting the hand of Moses and the hand of Aaron. Moses stands for knowledge of the law; Aaron, for skill in making sacrifices and immolation to God. It is, therefore, necessary for us when we have come forth from Egypt to have not only the knowledge of the law and of faith, 16 Origen, Selected Works, 252. 17 Origen, Selected Works, 252.

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jane beal but also the fruits of works well pleasing to God. For the hand of Moses and Aaron is mentioned so that you may understand “hand” to mean works. If when I leave Egypt and turn to God, I cast away pride, I have sacrificed a bull to God by the hand of Aaron. If I have destroyed wantonness and lust, I believe I have killed a goat for the Lord by the hand of Aaron. If I have conquered desire, a calf; if folly, I will seem to have sacrificed a sheep. In this way, when the vices of the soul are purged, the hand of Aaron works in us. And the hand of Moses is with us when we are enlightened by the Law to understand these very things.18

In this passage, Origen indicates that the hand of Moses and Aaron means works, and works purge the soul of vices. The hand of Moses also stands for enlightenment through the Law. Thus purgation leads naturally to illumination.19 The progress from purgation to illumination, exemplified for Origen in the person of Moses, can also be seen in a brief but prominent passage from the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (late fifth to early sixth century). Little is known about the author of the Mystical Theology, a contemplative Christian writer who was once thought to be Dionysius the Areopagite, an Athenian convert to Christianity referred to by Paul in Acts 17:34.20 Yet his writings demonstrate that in his time, Christian contemplatives continued to follow the interpretive possibilities concerning Moses laid down by Origen, possibilities Pseudo-Dionysius specifically linked not only to the contemplative soul’s journey toward perfection through purgation, illumination, and unification, but also to the via negativa. In the first chapter of Mystical Theology, Pseudo-Dionysius notes: For not without reason is the blessed Moses bidden first to undergo purification himself and then to separate himself from those who have not undergone purification, and after all the purification, hears many trumpets and sees many lights flash forth with pure and diverse-streaming rays, and then

18 Origen, Selected Works, 254. 19 Elsewhere in this same homily on Numbers, Origen directly refers to the way the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush (Origen, Selected Works, p. 261), but he does not comment upon this moment of illumination there. In his work, “On First Principles,” he argues by way of alluding to 2 Cor. 3:15-16 that “the splendor of the coming of Christ, by illuminating the Law of Moses with the radiance of truth, removed the veil which had been placed over the letter and laid open for all who believe in Him the good things that were hidden …” (Origin, Selected Works, p. 176, italics mine). 20 As scholars since the Renaissance have noted, Pseudo-Dionysius’ allusions to certain other writings, such as those by Origen and the Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus, necessarily place him in the late 5th to early 6th centuries.

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stands separate from the multitudes and with the chosen priests, presses forward to the topmost pinnacle of the Divine Ascent.21

This passage clearly alludes to the events of Exodus 19, which records how the Lord descended on Mount Sinai and Moses went up to meet him to receive the Ten Commandments. It also seems to allude to Origen’s homily On Numbers and its detailed meditation on the stages of ascent to God. But this sentence on Moses’ purification before his ascent is merely a preface to Pseudo-Dionysius’ main concern, which is to suggest that Moses is a model for the mystic—the contemplative Christian soul—who by entering into the cloud or the darkness of unknowing, which is metaphorically enwrapping God, and thus walking the way of the via negativa—can by first knowing nothing come eventually to know God. Pseudo-Dionysius continues: Nevertheless he meets not with God Himself, yet he beholds—not Him indeed (for He is invisible)—but the place wherein He dwells. And this I take to signify that the divinest and the highest of the things perceived by the eyes of the body or the mind are but the symbolic language of things subordinate to Him who Himself transcendeth them all. Through these things His incomprehensible presence is shown walking upon those heights of His holy places which are perceived by the mind; and then It breaks forth, even from the things that are beheld and from those that behold them, and plunges the true initiate unto the Darkness of Unknowing wherein he renounces all the apprehensions of his understanding and is enwrapped in that which is wholly intangible and invisible, belonging wholly to Him that is beyond all things and to none else (whether himself or another), and being through the passive stillness of all his reasoning powers united by his highest faculty to Him that is wholly Unknowable, of whom thus by a rejection of all knowledge he possesses a knowledge that exceeds his understanding.22

Thus, in poetic language, Pseudo-Dionysius sets forth the possibility of mystical awareness or understanding of God primarily by means of the via negativa.23 21 Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Mystical Theology, ed. Clarence Edwin Rolt (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920), 139. This edition is also available as a PDF from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library; see http://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/ dionysius. For an edition of the Greek text of Mystical Theology, see Corpus Dionysiacum II, ed. G. Heil and A.M. Ritter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991). 22 Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, Mystical Theology, 139-140. 23 As Garth Kemerling has observed, Pseudo-Dionysius differentiated between two different approaches to understanding God: the via positiva and the via negativa. Kemerling writes, “The via positiva is the method of reasoning analogically from the perceived nature

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In a sense, the via negativa is a journey that the contemplative Christian takes inwardly, in the imagined structures of the psyche known as the heart, mind or soul, to reach or be reached by God. Yet contemplative Christians might also make outward journeys, familiarly known in the Middle Ages as pilgrimages, to draw closer to God. As Egeria shows, Moses could be a significant part of contemplative Christian devotion demonstrated on pilgrimage. Just as he could be perceived as a model mystic, demonstrating how to enter the cloud of unknowing on the via negativa, he could be similarly perceived as a model pilgrim demonstrating how to escape the house of bondage in Egypt, traverse the desert, and make one’s way to a clear view of the Promised Land. The purpose of pilgrimage, at least in part, is to visit holy places. Christian religious and lay people in the medieval past perceived certain places to be holy, particularly in the Holy Land, because they believed God had made those places holy by manifesting his presence there (theophanies), by intervening in human circumstances there, and by meeting with special holy ones, his saints, there. When Christians went on pilgrimage, they might go for three general reasons: to worship God and venerate the holy site; to ask for supernatural aid, especially for healing, at the site where it had previously been granted; or to fulfill some religious obligation, such as a vow or a penitential debt.24 When medieval Christian pilgrims visited the Holy Land, they often retraced the paths taken by Moses and the children of Israel when they left Egypt. The practice of pilgrimage in the Holy Land particularly encouraged Christians to remember and re-live Moses’ intimate experiences with God beginning as early as late-antiquity.

of existing objects through successive layers of causal emanations until we arrive at some conception of the divine essence from which all flows. The via negativa, on the other hand, denies the literal truth of any comparison between natural things and God and relies instead upon mystical consciousness as the only possible source of genuine knowledge. Thus, in good Neoplatonic fashion, God’s unity and goodness are contrasted with the degenerate plurality and evil of the created order.” See Garth Kemerling, “Medieval Philosophy,” The Philosophy Pages (http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/3b.htm—accessed 26 December 2012). For further discussion, see Raoul Mortley and D.W. Dockrill, eds., The Via Negativa: Papers on the History and Significance of Negative Theology (Auckland: Prudentia, 1981). 24 See “Pilgrimage,” Medieval Catholic Encyclopedia Online (http://www.catholic.org/ encyclopedia/view.php?id=9360—accessed 22 June 2012). See also Maribel Dietz, Wandering Monks, Virgins and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterrean World, A.D. 300-800 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005); Diana Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, A.D. 700-1500 (New York: Palgrave, 2002); and Brett Edward Whalen, Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages: A Reader (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).

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The Itinerarium of Egeria provides a record of one woman’s pilgrim­age and of the particular importance of the life of Moses to her journey.25 Written about the fifth century, referenced by Peter the Deacon in the twelfth century, and rediscovered in 1884, Egeria’s Itinerarium gives an account of the liturgy practiced in Jerusalem and of her four journeys in the Holy Land.26 On the first journey, Egeria sets out to walk in the footsteps of Moses, relating in the opening chapters how she visited the holy places where Moses had met with God. Egeria’s pilgrimage route takes her to Mount Sinai, which she calls “God’s holy mountain,” and to the valley beside it. As she traverses this geography, she recollects how Moses received the Law, the children of Israel made the Golden Calf, and God spoke to Moses out of a burning bush.27 Egeria’s recollections clearly demonstrate the connection, firm in her mind, between the holy sites she is seeing and “holy Moses,” in whose footsteps she is walking. She particularly recalls the difficulty of the ascent: … we began to climb the mountains one by one. These mountains are climbed with great difficulty, since you do not ascend them slowly by a spiral route, in a snail-path as we say, but you ascend straight up like a wall, and you have to come down each of these mountains, until you get to the very foot of the central mountain, which is Sinai. By the will of Christ our God, and helped by the prayers of the holy men who were accompanying me, and with a great deal of difficulty (because I had to climb up on foot, since it is not possible to get up by saddle), I made the climb. But the labour itself was not felt (and the labour was not felt because I saw the desire which I had being fulfilled by the will of God), and so at the fourth hour we arrived at the summit of the mountain of God, holy Sinai, where the law was given, that is, at the place where the Glory of the Lord came down on a day when the mountain smoked.28

This description suggests that Egeria identifies bodily with the difficulty of Moses’ climb up Mount Sinai and that, in remembering the theophany of 25 The new standard edition in English is John Wilkinson, ed., Egeria’s Travels (Wiltshire: Aris and Phillips, 1999); McClure’s 1970 English translation is also available in print and online at “The Pilgrimage of Etheria” (http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria. htm—accessed 22 June 2012). For a Latin edition, see Itineraria et Alia Geographica, eds. A. Franceschini and R. Weber, CCL 175 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1965.) 26 Egeria, “Itinerarium,” in Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology, ed. and trans. I.M. Plant (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 189-90. I use Plant’s English translation of Egeria because its place in Plant’s anthology emphasizes Egeria’s important contribution to women’s writing in the late antique world of the West. 27 Egeria, trans. Plant, 191. 28 Egeria, trans. Plant, 191.

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Exodus 19, she, in a sense, re-lives the experience Moses had there. Egeria confirms memory by having the “appropriate passage from the book of Moses”29 read wherever she and her retinue stop to ponder and pray on their route. Egeria identifies with Moses not only on Mount Sinai but also at the burning bush. As part of her pilgrimage, Egeria physically visits the site monks and priests of her day identified as the place where God appeared to Moses in a burning bush that did not burn up, and she spiritually revisits this same site in memory many times throughout her Itinerarium. She writes: The bush is still alive today and produces shoots. And so we came down from the mountain of God and arrived at the bush at about the tenth hour. This is the bush, as I said before, from which the Lord spoke in the fire to Moses. The bush is in a place where there are many monastic cells and a church at the head of the valley. In front of the church there is a very pleasing garden with good water in abundance; in this garden is the bush itself. A place next to this is pointed out, where holy Moses stood when God said to him: “Untie the strap of your shoe,” and so on. And when we arrived at this place, it was about the tenth hour, and since it was already evening, we were not able to offer sacrifice there. But we said prayers in the church and in the garden by the bush. Also, the appropriate passage from the book of Moses was read, as is our custom.30

Egeria here reveals the habits of her pilgrimage: to stop at a holy site, to offer sacrifice, to pray, and to read from the book of Moses, presumably here Exodus 3, which contains the account of the burning bush. Elsewhere, Egeria notes that she and those with her would also sing from the Psalms. When Egeria refers to the words of God, “Untie the strap of your shoe,” she does not give the passage in full here (though she does in the next chapter), but instead invites her readers (with a simple “and so on”) to remember the remainder of what God said: “For the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exod. 3:5). Egeria’s recollections thus extend their influence to embrace her intended audience, women whom she calls “Your Charity” and “reverend sisters” throughout her Itinerarium. Thus the interplay of remembering and reliving the intimate experiences that Moses had with God emerges as consistently important not only in Egeria’s practice of contemplative devotion on her pilgrimage, but also for the women who read her Itinerarium, women who might later go on their own pilgrimage to the Holy Land—as 29 Egeria, trans. Plant, 191. 30 Egeria, trans. Plant, 193.

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a surprising number of women did in the later Middle Ages, including, notably, Birgitta of Sweden and Margery Kempe.31 High Middle Ages: Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure Similarly to Egeria, Bernard of Clairvaux, a twelfth-century Cistercian monk, wrote for other Christian contemplatives in the religious life, especially his monastic brothers. His Sermons on the Song of Songs reveal his own deep commitment to loving and being loved by God. In the sermons, Bernard traces the contemplative journey that begins with humility and continues through steps of purgation, illumination, and unification with the divine. Multiple times, he refers positively to Moses, who appears as an exemplar of humility, an empathetic father and mother, the Bride and the Bridegroom—Christ himself—and as a model for Bernard in his own role as abbot of Clairvaux. In his first two references to Moses, however, Bernard’s perception of Moses does not seem altogether positive: the song of Moses from Exodus is not as great as Solomon song; his difficulty in speaking makes Bernard want to bypass not only Moses, but all of the prophets, so that he can directly experience Christ.32 In his first sermon, Bernard is at pains to point out that Moses, like Deborah and David, sang a song, but it was not called “The Song of Songs.”33 In so saying, Bernard is emphasizing the foremost place of the Song of Songs in Scripture. In his next reference to Moses, in his second sermon, he interprets the slowness of Moses’ speech in the context of other prophets’ speaking difficulties—Isaiah’s impure lips (Is. 6:5) and Jeremiah’s not knowing how to speak because he is a child (Jer. 1:6)—and concludes:

31 For a useful discussion of the pilgrimages of Bridget of Sweden and Margery Kempe, see Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace, eds., Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 32 This is an idea that will recur in the Imitatio Christi and apparently influence latemedieval English contemplative Christians, who make very little reference to Moses at all. 33 Bernard of Clairvaux, Life and Works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux: Cantica Canticorum: Eighty-Six Sermons on the Song of Solomon, vol. 4, trans. and ed. Samuel J. Eales, Catholic Standard Library (London: John Hodges, 1896), 10. For a Latin edition of Bernard’s sermons, see Sancti Bernardi opera omnia, ed. Jean LeClercq, C.H. Talbot, and H.M. Rochais, 8 vols. (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957-80).

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jane beal … all the prophets are speechless. Let Him of whom they bear witness, let Him speak Himself to me. Let Him speak to me no longer in them or by their means, for their words are as a darkening cloud in the air of heaven, but let Him whose presence is full of grace, whose teaching shall become in me a fountain of water springing up into eternal life (John 4:14), let Him come to me with the touch of His Lips.34

Bernard wants to bypass the Hebrew prophets to experience direct revelation from God. His reference to the “darkening cloud” of prophetic words may even be a comment rejecting the via negativa in favor of a positive, perceptible, ecstatic experience of the kiss of Christ which he has discussed earlier in his meditation on the first verse of the Song: Osculetur me osculo oris sui (“let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”).35 Yet in his twelfth sermon, on the perfume of piety, Bernard presents Moses very positively as the foremost exemplar of humility. What shall I say of Moses? With what rich perfume had he too filled his heart! That rebellious house, in the midst of which he was for a time occupied, was never able, with all its murmurs, or its angry passions, to make him lose that unction of spirit with which he had once been imbued or to hinder his retaining his gentleness of temper among their constant strifes and daily quarrels. Well deserved, therefore, was the witness, which the Holy Spirit bore to him, that he was the meekest of all men who were upon the face of the earth (Num. 12:3, Vulg.) … It is written, He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before Him in the gap, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them (Ps. 106:23). And lastly, he said: Forgive, if Thou wilt, their sin: but if not, blot me out of the book, which Thou hast written (Exod. 32:32). A man truly filled with the unction of mercy!36

In this passage, Bernard recognizes Moses an exemplar of the virtues of meekness, humility, and mercy. Moses’ willingness to “stand in the gap” as a mediator will prompt Bernard in a later sermon to compare Moses directly to Christ. Meanwhile, Moses’ self-sacrificial willingness to give up eternal life if God will not forgive the children of Israel inspires Bernard to see Moses as an ideal parent. Specifically, Bernard develops an 34 Bernard, Life and Works, 13. 35 As Wimsatt remarks, “In his doctrine and in his life, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (10901153) firmly joined the active to the contemplative life; the affirmative way to mystical union to which his theory and practice point thereby contrasts with the via negativa of medieval contemplatives who followed pseudo-Dionysius” (p. 77). See James I. Wimsatt, “St. Bernard, the Canticle of Canticles, and Mystical Poetry,” in An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe: Fourteen Original Essays, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (New York: State University of New York Press, 1984), 77-96. 36 Bernard, Life and Works, 61-62.

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extra-biblical, metaphorical picture of Moses not only as an empathetic father, but also as a profoundly compassionate mother. He [Moses] obviously speaks with the feeling of a father, whom no happiness can delight apart from his children. It is as if a rich man should say to some poor woman who is a mother, “Enter, and dine with me, but leave without the infant you carry in your arms, for fear that it should cry, and be a trouble to us.” What would that mother answer, do you suppose? Would she not rather choose to remain without food than to dine with the rich man alone, after having abandoned her dear pledge of affection? So also Moses did not choose to be admitted alone, even into the joy of his Lord, while his people remained without; for although they were restless and ungrateful, he retained for them the affection, as he held the place, of a mother.37

The intensity and immensity of love Moses has for the children of Israel make him willing to suffer for them, and like a loving mother, unwilling to be separated from them. In Sermon 30, Bernard actually contrasts Moses with the Bride when the Bride represents the whole Christian church. But in Sermon 32, when the bride represents the individual soul—the holy soul—Moses’ soul is presented as Christ’s Bride. For in this sermon, Bernard argues that Christ communicates himself to the holy soul as the Bridegroom and to the weak, imperfect soul as the Physician. Moses is presented an exemplar, along with Philip, of a holy soul: “Thus God speaks to Moses face to face, and it is his eminent reward to behold the Lord openly, not by types and figures, whilst to other Prophets He is said to make Himself known only in vision and to speak to them in a dream (Num. 12:6-8).”38 So Moses is represented as a holy soul and the Bride.39 In Sermon 39, Bernard next presents Moses as taking on the Christ-like role of the Bridegroom: 37 Bernard, Life and Works, 62. 38 Bernard, Life and Works, 213. 39 Another comparison between Moses and the Bride occurs in Sermon 45: “And as Moses once spake unto the Lord, as a friend to his friend (Exod. 33:11), and the Lord replied to him, so there is now established between the Word of God and the devout soul a relation and communications as close and familiar as that between two neighbours. Nor is that strange; for their love having but one source, it is reciprocal, and their affection mutually manifested. Therefore, words sweeter than honey are exchanged between them, and they exchange looks full of all sweetness, in token of the sacred love which unites them. Then He calls her His beloved one, pronounces repeatedly that she is fair, and receives from her in return similar tokens of affection. Nor is that a superfluous repetition, which is the confirmation of His love, and which perhaps also has some mystery indicated by it” (p. 276). A similar reference is made in the same sermon (p. 279).

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jane beal The Bride is called by the Bridegroom his Love. For she was beloved by Him, even before she was set free; He would not have set free one whom He did not love. But as for her, she was drawn to love Him, because of the priceless blessing of freedom, which He had conferred upon her. Hear, in fact, the confession which she herself makes: We love Him, because He first loved us (1 John v.19). Now recall to your minds the history of Moses and the Midianite (Ethiopissa) woman, and you will see that in it is prefigured the mystical union of the Word with the soul of a sinner; and distinguish, if you can, what it is, in the consideration of that most sweet of all mysteries, which gives you most heartfelt consolation and pleasure.40

Despite all this, Moses is not quite Christ himself: “But Moses was not able to change the skin of his Midianite wife while Christ is able to change the complexion of the soul which He loves and saves. For He goes on to say: Thy cheeks are beautiful as the turtle dove’s (Sg. 1: 9-10, Douay).”41 Yet in another instance, Sermon 46, Bernard reverses the comparison, calling Christ “the true Moses,”42 so the connection between the two remains typologically powerful and effective for Bernard’s purposes. In Sermon 42, on two types of humility, one born of truth and the other warmed by charity, Moses becomes a model for Bernard himself, who writes that he, Bernard, “sits in the seat of Moses,” and thus becomes a kind of spiritual inheritor of the authority of Moses as he is expositing the Songs of Songs to his Cisterician brethren. Though it be to my great confusion, though it be even to my extreme danger, yet I do, in fact, sit in the seat of Moses, though I am far from claiming that my life is such as his or the grace committed to me equal to that he enjoyed. But what then? Is not respect to be shown to that seat of authority because it is filled by an unworthy occupant?43

Bernard will compare himself to Moses again in Sermon 76, this time focusing even more directly on the meekness of Moses as a virtue Bernard himself wishes to possess in himself and urge development of in his brothers.44

40 Bernard, Life and Works, 251. 41 Bernard, Life and Works, 251-52. 42 Bernard, Life and Works, 336. 43 Bernard, Life and Works, 260. 44 Bernard compares himself to Moses a second time in Sermon 76: “For if, to give an instance, I, who appear to bear the charge of pastor among you, should set before you the meekness of Moses, the patience of Job, the mercy of Samuel, the holiness of David, and other similar examples of various virtues, and be myself impatient and severe, unmerciful, and in no way holy, my discourse would, I fear, be void of all force and unction, nor would you care to listen to it.” Thus Moses qua exemplar of humility or meekness appears here

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In Sermon 48, Bernard returns to the metaphor of the “darkening cloud” that he began with, only this time comparing Moses to a “beneficent cloud”: And do not suppose that I do injustice to Moses (who must himself be regarded as a beneficent cloud) when I say that not every shower that fell from him can be called good; for, otherwise, I should contradict Him who says: I gave them also (that is, to the Jews) statutes that were not good, and judgments (and doubtless this refers to those given by Moses) whereby they should not live (Ezek. 20:25). Such was, for example, that literal observance of the Sabbath which, though the word signifies rest, did not bring them rest; the rigid system of offering sacrifices, the prohibition to eat the flesh of swine, and of other animals, which were similarly pronounced unclean by Moses; all these were showers, so to speak, falling from the same cloud, but I would not that they should fall upon any field or garden of mine. They were doubtless good in their time; but that time having passed, I do not hold them to be good now. For every shower, however soft, or however gently it falls, is injurious if it be unseasonable.45

In this passage, Bernard subscribes to the idea of successive covenants and revelations, the later of which (grace through Christ), in his view, supersedes the former (the Law of Moses). His metaphor is intriguing. Whereas in the earlier sermon, Moses together with other prophets was a “darkening” cloud, here Moses alone is imagined as a “beneficent” cloud—one whose showers, nevertheless, can damage the gardens or fields that receive them if they fall upon them out of season. In Sermon 64, Bernard makes an explicit typological reference comparing Christ and Moses, but one building on the supercessionist concept previously expressed in Sermon 48. In Sermon 64, Christ is not another Moses, but one greater than Moses: … but Thou (Christ), what art Thou, to be the devoted and eager spouse of this Ethiopian woman? (Num. 12:1) Not another Moses, assuredly, but a greater than Moses. For Thou art He who is fairer than the children of men (Ps. 45:2). But in saying this I have said too little: Thou art the brightness of the Eternal Life, the Splendour and express Image of the Person of God (Heb. 1:3), and finally, Thou art above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.46

For Bernard, Christ is spiritually the “devoted and eager spouse” of the soul, the soul that is imagined metaphorically as Moses’ Midianite wife Zipporah, that needs his salvation, redemption, purification, illumination, and alongside other Old Testament figures representing virtues (e.g., “the patience of Job”) which Bernard wishes to have himself and see develop in his brothers. 45 Bernard, Life and Works, 351. 46 Bernard, Life and Works, 287-88.

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divine marriage, but literally and historically, of course, Moses and Jesus are not the same man. Bernard acknowledges the typological connection so frequently made in Christian exegesis in the first sentence—he has done so before when calling Jesus “the true Moses”—but in the subsequent sentences in this passage, when speaking of Jesus as God, “God blessed forever,” he makes very clear that Moses was not God. For Bernard, only Jesus can be identified as the “express Image of the Person of God.” Yet in bringing his comparisons of Moses up to the very threshold of Christ’s own divinity, by comparing him to both the Bride and the Bridegroom, and by setting forth Moses as a model for the humility that both he and his Cisterican brothers ought to imitate, Bernard makes clear that his view of Moses is very high in the hierarchy of holiness indeed.47 Bernard’s references to Moses in his Sermons on the Song of Songs form a masterful synthesis of exegetical understandings of Moses, including ones that apparently contradict (as in the passage considered just above) but which he makes to harmonize even as he deploys them for different purposes. Bernard’s extraordinary admiration of Moses influenced not only the Cistercian monks for whom he wrote, but many others outside of Clairvaux, not the least of whom was the German Benedictine nun, abbess, contemplative, visionary, and polymath, Hildegard of Bingen. In 1146, Hildegard of Bingen wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux after she received what she believed were instructions from God to commit her visions, which she had experienced from the age of five, to paper. The Cistercian abbot wrote back to the then Benedictine abbess and did not attempt to dissuade her from her intention, recognizing that if God had commanded her to write, he should not contradict the God’s word to her.48 In her 47 It should perhaps come as no surprise that Dante, whom Bernard profoundly influenced (as evidenced, in part, by the fact that Bernard appears as one of Dante the pilgrim’s guides in the Paradiso), should picture Adam and Moses seated on one side of Mary in the innermost circle of the celestial rose of heaven—the Empyrean—while picturing Peter and John seated on the other side of her. Dante calls Moses the “guide” of a stubborn people who lived on manna (Paradiso XXXII.130-32); considering the role of guides in Dante’s own spiritual journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, this is a significant honorific. It’s worth remembering, too, that for Bernard, Moses had the profound compassion of a mother for her young infant for the people of Israel; for Dante, Moses was close to Mary, the mother of God, and so, close to God himself. This connection between Moses and Mary can also be seen in the works of Birgitta of Sweden, who will be considered below. 48 For discussion, see Anne King-Lenzmeier, Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2001), 28. King-Lenzmeier regards Bernard of Clairvaux’s influence on Hildegard as so significant that she calls him her “spiritual mentor” (p. 23).

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Scivias (“Know the Way”), Hildegard committed a vast array of visions to a highly-structured book, and in the process, referred to Moses about a dozen times. For Hildegard, Moses stood for the law, for people who have suffered, and in her vision of a building symbolizing the history of salvation, paired with Abraham, for the north corner. But perhaps more importantly, Hildegard relied on certain key words of Moses written in Scripture to help explain her visions. In Book I, her fifth vision, Hildegard saw the image of a woman who had no eyes but who held within her body Abraham, Moses, and the prophets. This is a vision of Synagogue, personified, whom Hildegard recognizes as the mother of the Incarnation of the Son of God. And in her heart stands Abraham, for he was the beginning of circumcision in the synagogue, and in her breast Moses, for he brought the divine Law into human hearts, and in her womb the rest of the prophets; that is, they stand in that tradition that was given them by God as observers of the divine precepts, each displaying his symbols and admiring the beauty of the Church, for they displayed the miracles of their prophecies by marvelous symbols and with great wonder waited for the noble beauty of the new Bride.49

For Hildegard, the new Bride that Synagogue admires so much is the Church. It is striking that Synagogue can admire the new Bride without her eyes (or with her eyes closed). What may be even more striking is the image of Synagogue with her eyes closed that is preserved in manuscripts, especially when we remember that Hildegard supervised the making of the illustrations for her Scivias, for Moses is prominently placed beneath her chin with his tablets of the law, wearing a triangular hat and looking out with open eyes: it is as if the he is the one looking at the new Bride from his place between the breasts of Synagogue. Synagogue has nourished him, and he and the Law are her children, for “she foresaw in the shadows the secrets of God, but did not fully reveal them.”50 The interplay of words and illumination in the manuscripts suggests, especially here in the fifth vision, that the law with which Moses is so inextricably linked foreshadows and finds its fulfillment in the Bridegroom and the Bride: Christ and the Church.

49 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, ed. and trans. Mother Columbia Hart and Jane Bishop, introduced by Barbara Newman, with a preface by Caroline Walker Bynum, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), 135. Cf. 191. For a Latin edition of Hildegard’s works, see Liber divinorum operum, ed. Albert Derolez and Peter Dronke, CCCM 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996). 50 Hildegard, Scivias, 133.

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This is a traditional typological connection, which Hildegard embraces, in part, from her knowledge of patristic exegesis. But she has a more personal, idiosyncratic interpretation of Moses as well which appears in Book III, her fourth vision of the Pillar of the Word of God. Hence Pharoah, which is to say the vices of the Devil, amid the clamor of grief and misery calls Moses, which means those people whom God constrains by the keenest spiritual or physical sorrows, and Aaron, that is those people whom he compels by lighter adversities and calls out of the night of evil deeds, and the vices say from amidst the oppression of human pleasure, “Arise from your carnal habits, and go forth from the ancient dwelling place you had with us; separate yourselves from the common people whom we possess and who worship us. Separate yourselves from the secular affairs to which we gladly cling, you who were terrified by us when you were our prisoners, and take the children of God with you, who see and acknowledge him … In the newness of mind you now seek, assume the gentleness of the sheep, which prevents you from acting with us because you choose the sorrows of following the Lamb.51

In the Middle Ages, it was not unusual to imagine Pharaoh as a figure of vice or multiple vices, and normally, he would be contrasted with a Moses who stood as a figure of virtue (especially humility) or multiple virtues.52 But here, Hildegard imagines Moses as representative of people “whom God constrains by the keenest spiritual or physical sorrows.” Moses thus becomes a figure of human suffering. This is the suffering specific to Christians, the sheep who follow the Lamb of God, Jesus. Thus Moses can stand not only for what was often characterized as the Old Law, but for followers of what was often understood as the new covenant—with no apparent contradiction. Furthermore, in Hildegard’s vision, the Exodus from Egypt is allegorically interpreted as a separation from vice, carnality, and even common (or lay) people. Thus the Exodus becomes a type for conversion to the contemplative, monastic life and Moses himself a model for the contemplative Christian in yet another regard. In Book III, her series of visions of the building that symbolizes the history of salvation, Moses’ symbolic power and his association with the Law is reinforced. Hildegard sees Noah as the east corner of the building53 and Abraham and Moses together as forming the north corner. Each of these 51 Hildegard, Scivias, 366. 52 For interesting examples from the Middle English literature of the fourteenth century, see Gail Ivy Berlin’s discussion in chapter 12 of this book. 53 Hildegard, Scivias, 332.

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three represents one of the covenants of God with his people: the covenant that God established with Noah after the flood and sealed with his promise never to destroy the earth again with water, symbolizing this promise with the rainbow in the sky; the covenant of circumcision that God established with Abraham; and the covenant of the Law that God established with Moses. But you see that the stone part goes from the north corner around the west and south corners and ends in the east corner. This means that the righteous works of humans, with which God fortified them, came from the north corner, which is to say, from the circumcision of Abraham and the Law of Moses and the justice they inspired in people. They continued to the west corner, where open justice arose in the Incarnation of the Son of God, went on from there to the south corner, where through baptism and other just works of the new-chosen Bride of the Son of God are ardent deeds were enkindled to restore Adam to salvation, and at last returned to the east corner, and restored to the Supreme Father.54

The west corner represents the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus, which is correctly understood as “justice” by Hildegard, according to medieval Catholic exegetical tradition, for the Crucifixion satisfied the wrath of God for sin. In addition, Hildegard saw wisdom in the words of Moses preserved in Scripture that helped her to interpret her own visions. Her use of the name and words of Moses (alongside David and other prophets) appears to have a rhetorical function intended for her readers as well. Hildegard associates her visions with the authority of Moses just as she has developed it in her Scivias: by presenting Moses as a figure representing the Law, suffering people (especially those in the contemplative life), and the north corner of the building of salvation. She is placing herself in the inspired, prophetic tradition of Moses in a way that would tend to persuade her medieval readers of the authenticity, authority, and divinely inspired nature of her visions. 54 Hildegard, Scivias, 333. Cf. p. 331. Hildegard compares Moses not only to the north corner of a building but also to a flexible elbow joint: “When Adam, by God’s just judgment, was cast out of the flowering land, justice first began to move in Noah, like the joint of the shoulder. Then it broadened into more definite manifestations in Abraham and Moses, like the more flexible elbow joint. And finally it came to perfection in the Son of God, through Whom all the signs and marvels of the Old Law are publicly fulfilled, and through Whom all the virtues, which will adorn the heavenly Jerusalem and her children, are declared in the regeneration of the Spirit and water, as the hand with its fingers accomplishes and puts the final touches on its work” (p. 489-90).

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In Book I, her fourth vision of the soul and the body, she has a meditation in which she compares different types of semen to different types of cheese and these different types of cheese to the different kinds of people in the world. Thick semen, or strong cheese, produces energetic people, and the Devil finds no place in them while thin semen, or weak cheese, produces weak and foolish people not actively seeking God. In defense of this understanding, Hildegard quotes “the words of Moses” from Deuteronomy 32:39, actually a verse in which God is speaking: “I will kill, and I will make live; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none who can deliver out of my hand.” Hildegard then writes an interpretation of this verse, in the voice of God speaking to her: “I Who Am, having neither beginning nor end, slay in their deeds wicked people who, steeped in vices by the Devils filth, are deceived by the diabolic pits into sowing unhappy births … but I, Who Am thrown down by no darkness, also cause these people to live wonderfully elsewhere.”55 In this passage, Hildegard demonstrates her extraordinary view of God’s providence and sovereignty. It is worth noting that what are called the “words of Moses” in the subtitle of this section of her book were actually originally the words of God, which only increases their authoritative power in the rhetorical structure of Hildegard’s recorded vision. Hildegard quotes “the words of Moses” in five other places in her Scivias. In Book II, her fourth vision of confirmation, she has a section asserting that the church, fortified by the Holy Spirit, can never fall into error. She quotes Exodus 33:22-23, in which God is speaking to Moses and telling him he will place him in the cleft of the rock until he passes by so that Moses shall see his back. Again, these are God’s words as well as Moses’ words, so their authority is doubled for Hildegard’s intended audience. Again, Hildegard records the interpretation in God’s voice speaking to her: I will be glorified, and I will place you inside the pierced rock. How? I will place you in the hardness of the Law, appointing you to be over it as master of the old times, which will be pierced by my Son, when I send him into the world at the right time and He expounds it farther than you have in his mystical words … He will open the Law’s commands that are now closed until he returns to me.56

In so recording, Hildegard gives a typological reading of the rock in which Moses was placed, associating it with the hardness of the Law and once 55 Hildegard, Scivias, 118-119. 56 Hildegard, Scivias, 191.

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again anticipating the coming of Christ as the fulfillment of the Law. Rhetorically, this appears within the logic of Hildegard’s worldview to support her previous claim that the Church will never fall into error. Thus Hildegard progresses throughout her book. In Book II, her fifth vision of the three orders in the church, she asserts that those who maliciously turn others from following God commit sacrilege. In support of this, she quotes Moses: “Anything that is devoted to the Lord, whether it be man, or beast, or field, shall not be sold, neither may be redeemed” (Lev. 27:28). In Book II, her sixth vision of Christ’s sacrifice in the church, she seeks to explain why bread is offered in the sacrament of the altar. She quotes Moses, “Remember this day in which you came forth out of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; with a strong hand has the Lord brought you forth out of this place, so that you eat no leavened bread” (Exod. 13:3). Again, the words of Moses are also the words of God, and again, Hildegard interprets them typologically in relation to Christ: You who wish to be imitators of my Son, turn your eyes from death to life and keep in mind the salvation of that day which is my Son, Who trampled death and gave life, so that you went forth from the wretched exile of perdition; you threw off the thick darkness of infidelity and tore yourselves away from the house of the Devil, to whom Adam’s transgression had given you. Turn your eyes from earthly to heavenly actions … Now you may receive this sweet and pure bread, which is His body, consecrated on the altar by divine invocation, without any bitterness but with sincere affection, and thus escape from humanity’s inner hunger and attain to the banquet of eternal beatitude.57

In this passage, Hildegard essentially explains why “leavened” or ordinary bread must be consecrated and then equates consecrated bread with the sacrament of the Eucharist that satisfies “humanity’s inner hunger.” In another place in her sixth vision, Hildegard records God speaking to her about his desire for men to keep themselves clean from impurity while awake as well as while asleep, for “if the semen of a man who sleeps in dreams is stirred up unawares, I do not want him to approach the sacramental office of my altar.”58 In support of this, Hildegard quotes Moses: “If any man among you is defiled in a dream by night, he should go forth out of the camp and not return until he washes himself with water in the evening, and then he shall return into the camp after sunset” (Deut. 13:1011). For Hildegard, it appears that Moses is especially relevant to issues of 57 Hildegard, Scivias, 254-55. 58 Hildegard, Scivias, 280.

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cleanness and uncleanness, both physically and spiritually, for she previously discussed semen (or seed) in the context of her fourth vision of the soul and the body. In Book III, her eleventh vision of the last days and the fall of the Antichrist, Hildegard meditates on the power of the Antichrist and the miracles he will seem to do. But God explains to Hildegard how false these will be for “mortal eyes cannot see Me, but I show my miracles in the shadows to those I choose.”59 In support of this, Hildegard quotes Moses: “for no one shall see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). This verse is then further explained: This is to say that no one who is mortal shall fix his mortal gaze on the glory of My Divinity … as a gnat cannot live if he plunges into a flame, so a mortal could not remain alive if he were to see the glory of My Divinity. And so I show myself to mortals in obscurity as long as they are weighed down by their mortality: like a painter showing people invisible things by the images in his painting. But, O human, if you love me, I embrace you, and I will warm you with the fire of the Holy Spirit. For when you contemplate me with a good intention and know me by your faith, I will be with you.60

In this passage, Hildegard’s intensely imagistic, metaphorical mind is urgently aware and perceptive. If a human being tries to look on God in his glory, he is like a gnat burned up in a flame; God himself is like a painter who reveals invisible things through his images. Hildegard herself, who saw herself as being made in the image of God, clearly relates to this idea as a contemplative visionary who saw images, recorded them in words, and paired them with illuminations and explanations to help make them even clearer for her readers—and in so doing, used the authority of the words of both God and Moses to convey the spiritual significance of her visions to her audience. Like Hildegard, the Minister General of the Franciscan Order Bonaventure (1221-1274 AD) wrote about Moses with an eye both to his allegorical significance and his authority. He did so in three of his most significant contemplative works: The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, and the Life of St. Francis. For Bonaventure, Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai was a metaphor for the soul’s journey into God while Moses himself was the type fulfilled in both Christ and St. Francis. In The Soul’s Journey, Bonaventure pairs Moses’ calling by God into the cloud on Mount Sinai in Exodus with Christ’s Transfiguration in Matthew’s gospel, then treats both allegorically 59 Hildegard, Scivias, 503. 60 Hildegard, Scivias, 503.

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in order to understand those six aspects of the soul that help the soul to ascend through mystical contemplation to union with Christ. After six days, the Lord called Moses from the midst of the cloud (Exod. 24:16), and after six days, as is said in Matthew, Christ led his disciples up a mountain and was transfigured before them (Matt. 17:1-2). Just as there are six stages in the ascent into God, there are six stages in the powers of the soul, through which we ascend from the lowest to the highest, from the exterior to the interior, from the temporal to the eternal. These are the senses, imagination, reason, understanding, intelligence, and the summit of the mind or the spark of conscience. We have these stages implanted in us by nature, deformed by sin and reformed by grace. They must be cleansed by justice, exercised by knowledge, and perfected by wisdom.61

Like Pseudo-Dionysius, with whom Bonaventure was familiar, Moses’ experience with God in the cloud on the top of Mount Sinai is a significant model moment for the Christian contemplative. By pairing this moment with Christ’s Transfiguration, and the at-first innocuous appearing phrase “after six days,” Bonaventure is able to spell out those qualities of the soul that aid the soul on its contemplative journey: the senses, imagination, reason, understanding, intelligence, and the summit of the mind or the spark of conscience. These qualities help the soul through the stages of purgation, illumination, and perfection, which Bonaventure discusses later in the same book, again linking the journey to Moses. For Bonaventure, it is the Law of Moses that purifies. By Scripture we are taught that we should be purged, illumined, and perfected according to the threefold law handed down in it: the law of nature, of Scripture and of grace, or rather, according to its three principal parts: the law of Moses which purifies, prophetic revelation which illumines, and the gospel teaching which perfects, or especially, according to his threefold spiritual meaning: the tropological, which purifies one for an upright life, the allegorical which illumines one for clarity of understanding, and the anagogical, which perfects through spiritual ecstasies and sweet perceptions of wisdom.62

61 Bonaventure, The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of St. Francis, ed. and trans. Ewert Cousins, with a preface by Ignatius Brady, O.F.M., Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 62. For a Latin edition of Bonaventure’s works, see Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae opera omnia (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882-1902.) 62 Bonaventure, Soul’s Journey, 91.

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Interestingly, Bonaventure connects the Law of Moses to the law of nature on the one hand and to the topological or moral sense of Scripture on the other.63 In The Tree of Life, Bonaventure makes two references to Moses, the first a simple mention of the Transfiguration of Jesus and Moses presence there, and the second yet another reference to Christ as a “true Moses.” This is actually given in the form of quotation from Pseudo-Anselm: “At the command of the God of heaven, he (Christ) has been led forth from the prison of death and the underworld. And shorn of the fleece of mortality, he exchanged the clothing of flesh for the glory of immortality. Like a true Moses drawn out of the waters of mortality, he undermined the power of Pharoah.”64 In both instances, Bonaventure is primarily interested in the traditional typological connection between Moses and Jesus. In his Life of St. Francis, Bonaventure develops a new and unique typological connection for Moses, seeing Moses as the type and St. Francis himself as the fulfillment of it. Given the connection Bonaventure sees between Moses and Jesus in his other works, particularly at the moment of the Transfiguration, the connection he establishes between Moses and St. Francis is another way of reinforcing his emphasis on the Christ-like life of the saint whose biography he is writing. In the course of relating the vita of St. Francis, Bonaventure tells the story of Francis climbing a mountain with a man coming along behind him who is very thirsty and implores him for help. So Francis, “God’s servant,” jumps off his donkey, kneels to the ground, and prays until he knows to tell the man that he can hurry to a rock and find running water which Christ has drawn out of it for him to drink. Bonaventure then remarks: How Christ multiplied food at sea to the merits of his poor man will be noted below. Here let it suffice to mention that with only a small amount of food, which he had been given as alms, he saved the sailors from the danger of starvation and death for a number of days. From this one could clearly see that just as the servant of the Almighty God was like Moses in drawing water from the rock, so he was like Elisha in the multiplication of provisions. Therefore, let all distrust be far from Christ’s poor. For if Francis’s poverty was so abundantly sufficient that it supplied by miraculous power the needs of those who came to his aid, providing food, drink, and housing when money, skill, and natural means were lacking, how much more will 63 Bonaventure mentions Moses two other times in this book, once in connection to a discussion of the Divine Name (p. 95) and finally in reference to God’s promise to Moses when he said, “I will show you all good” (Exod. 33:19) (p. 101). 64 Bonaventure, Tree of Life, 161.

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it merit those things that are given to all in the usual plan of divine providence. If a dry rock gave drink abundantly to a poor man who was thirsty at the word of another poor man, nothing at all refuses its service to those who have left all for the Maker of all.65

So, in this passage, Bonaventure suggests that if Christ helped Moses to draw water from the rock in the wilderness and then helped St. Francis to do the same, they are both holy men of God who provide models for others to have faith in God when they are poor or lacking what they need because God will always provide faithfully for his servants. Late Middle Ages: Birgitta of Sweden, Meister Eckhart, and the Cloud of Unknowing The complexity of the high medieval, literal, and spiritual interpretations of Moses by Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, and even Bonaventure are not only matched, but exceeded by those of the fourteenth-century visionary Birgitta of Sweden (1303-73 AD). She was a noble laywoman who later joined the third order of Saint Francis and has since been recognized as a patron saint of Europe. For Birgitta, like the contemplatives who came before her, Moses is the receiver and giver of the Law,66 the author of the first five books of the Bible,67 a significant figure in salvation history and the division of the ages of the world,68 a model of meekness and an exemplar of patience,69 an ideal priest,70 and a type of Christ.71 She sees literal significance in the transformation of Moses’ staff into a serpent (just as the staff became a serpent at God’s command, so too is the Eucharist transformed into the body of Christ at the words, “Hoc est corpus meum”),72 65 Bonaventure, Life of St. Francis, 248-49. 66 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 132, 143, 220; Vol. II, 139; Vol. III, 178, 219 and elsewhere. The Latin text is available online at Birgitta, Revelaciones, ed. Julia Bolton Holloway (http:// www.umilta.net/bk1.html—accessed 18 January 2013). 67 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, trans. Dennis Searby and ed. Bridget Morris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 116. 68 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. III, trans. Dennis Searby and ed. Bridget Morris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 125. 69 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. II, trans. Dennis Searby and ed. Bridget Morris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 145. 70 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. III, 114. 71 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 137: “I am Moses, figuratively speaking. My divine nature speaks to my human one just as it did to Moses … ” 72 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. II, 118.

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as well as complex Christological symbolism,73 and allegorical meaning in the vestments Moses instructed priests to wear (they represent the beauty of the soul).74 But beyond this inheritance of literal, allegorical, and typological Mosaic significance, Birgitta’s Marian devotion prompts her to see a special relationship between Mary and Moses. Furthermore, when she hears God speaking to her, he often retells her stories from the life of Moses and identifies himself by the deeds he did through Moses. In one of the many visions in which Jesus speaks to Birgitta, whom he calls his Bride, Birgitta hears Jesus making a powerful connection between the burning bush in which God appeared to Moses and the body of his mother, the Virgin Mary: … a sign was also given to Moses as a symbol prefiguring my future body. What did the burning bush that was not consumed symbolize if not the Virgin who conceived of the Holy Spirit and gave birth without corruption? From this bush I came forth, assuming a human nature from the virginal body of Mary.75

In this passage, the Marian/Mosaic typological connection is between Christ’s conception and Moses’ calling to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and go down to Egypt to help deliver the Israelites from slavery.76 Key objects associated with Moses—his staff, the manna, and the tablets of the Law—also become associated with Mary when Jesus is speaking to Mary, conversations which Birgitta hears in her visions: The Son answered: “Blessed are you, for you are both Virgin and Mother! You are the ark of the Old Law in which there were these three things: the staff, the manna, and the tablets … This staff is a symbol of me who lay in 73 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 147-148. 74 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. II, 109: “Why did I reveal such magnificence in material vestments to Moses? It was, of course, in order to use them to teach and symbolize the magnificence and beauty of the soul. As the vestments of the priests were seven the number, so too the soul that approaches the body of God should have seven virtues without which there is no salvation. The first vestment of the soul, then, is contrition and confession. These cover the head. The second is desire for God and desire for chastity. The third is work in honor of God as well as patience in adversity. The fourth is caring neither for human praise nor reproach but for the honor of God alone. The fifth is abstinence of the flesh along with true humility. The sixth is consideration of the favors of God as well as fear of his judgments. The seventh is love of God above all things and perseverance in good undertakings.” 75 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 199. 76 This typological connection is widely celebrated in fourteenth-century literature, appearing in the poetry of Chaucer and elsewhere. For discussion, see Gail Ivy Berlin’s analysis in chapter 12 of this book.

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your belly and assumed human nature from you … In the ark of Moses, second, lay the manna. So, too, in you, my Mother and Virgin, lay the bread of angels and of holy souls and of the righteous here on earth, whom nothing pleases but my sweetness, for whom all the world is dead, who, if it were my will, would gladly go without physical nourishment. In the ark, thirdly, were the tablets of the Law. So, too, in you lay the Lord of all laws. Therefore may you be blessed above all creatures in heaven and on earth!”77

Birgitta appears to be fascinated with the idea of Mary as “ark” whose body holds within it the Lord of all law, who is therefore like the tablets of the Law, but also like the staff that was transformed, and like the manna—traditionally the antitype of the Eucharist—that feeds the angels, holy souls, and all the righteous on earth.78 Just as contemplatives before Birgitta were careful to recognize that Christ was not only a true Moses, but a greater Moses, so too Birgitta, with her Marian devotion, is careful to recognize that Mary is greater than Moses. She perceives this through a vision of Jesus speaking to his mother and saying: You, my beloved Mother, you are that valley by virtue of the great humility you had in comparison with others. It surpassed the five mountains. The first mountain was Moses by virtue of his power. For he held power over my people through the Law, as though it were held tight in his fist. But you held the Lord of all law in your womb and, therefore, you are higher than that mountain.79

Although Scripture calls Moses the most humble man on the face of the earth, Birgitta suggests through her recording of these words from her vision that Mary was the most humble woman on the face of the earth. In typically paradoxical contemplative fashion, she reveals Mary’s “lowness” (humility) by speaking of her “highness” (the greatness of her humility). In another vision that Birgitta had in Italy in the 1350s, Birgitta listens to Mary herself speak. The words of Mary that she records create a direct parallel between the Egyptian princess who drew Moses from the water and Mary herself, who calls herself “a king’s daughter from the family of David.” Remember what is written about Moses: the king’s daughter found him on the water and loved him as her own son. It is also written in the Scholastic 77 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 147-48. 78 For the miracle of the feeding of the Israelites with manna, see Exodus 16. For manna as the food of angels, see Psalm 78:25. 79 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 143.

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One of the striking points about this vision is Birgitta’s direct reference to a written source, the Historia scholastica of Peter Comestor, which contains an apocryphal story about Moses and birds that ate poisonous snakes.81 Birgitta’s visionary experience connects this story to Mary typologically. While one might expect the Exodus story to be more relevant to the typological connection between Mary and Pharaoh’s daughter, in fact, the theme of this story about Moses and the “theme” or message of the vision are related: just as Moses conquered his land as a good soldier, so too will this boy conquer for the kingdom of heaven. Birgitta has further visions in which Mary speaks to her about Moses. In Book VI, chapter 62 of her Revelations, Mary is describing her bodily assumption into heaven to Birgitta. As part of this revelation, Mary mentions the ages of the world, with Moses as the key figure between the origin of the world and the incarnation of Christ.82 In another vision, Mary is explaining to Birgitta that an archbishop—who once said that if he became pope, he would grant priests permission to contract carnal marriages—was a friend of God, but he did not correctly understand the will of heaven. Mary then explains that she gave birth to Jesus as a virgin and so chastity is the highest standard expected of priests living under the covenant of Christ’s grace rather than carnal marriage, which priests were allowed under the Law of Moses.83 In both cases, Mary speaks of Moses with admiration, but as one who foreshadows the coming of Christ and the new covenant.

80 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. II, 105. 81 For discussion of this story, see Deborah Goodwin’s remarks in chapter 10 of this book. 82 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. III, 125. 83 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. III, 219.

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The same idea is taken up in another of Birgitta’s visions. Here, as elsewhere,84 God, speaking to Birgitta, identifies himself by the deeds he did through Moses. I am the God who was once called the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. I am the God who gave the Law to Moses. This law was like clothing. As a pregnant mother prepares her infant’s clothing, so to God prepared the Law, which was just the clothing and shadowing sign of things to come. I invested and wrapped myself in the clothing of the Law. As a boy grows up, his old clothes could be exchanged for new ones. Likewise, when the clothing of the Old Law was ready to be put aside, I put on the new clothing, that is the New Law, and gave it to everyone who wanted to have me in my clothing.85

Thus Birgitta sees not only a special relationship between Moses and Mary, but an identity-defining one between Moses and God. Her Revelations aim to help her audience know God, if not through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then through the Law of Moses that presaged the New Law of Christ. Like Birgitta, Meister Eckhart (c. 1260—c. 1327) devoted himself to a one of the preaching orders—in his case, the Dominicans—and he was committed to Christian contemplative devotion. As a Christian Neoplatonist, he was influenced by one of the foremost intellectuals of his order, Thomas Aquinas, in his personal assurance that reason and revelation could be reconciled: truth could be discovered by both, and truth discovered by one should reinforce the other. He claimed: “Therefore, Moses, Christ, and the Philosopher teach the same thing, differing only in the way they teach, namely as worthy of belief, as probable or likely, and as truth.”86 Equating the truth value of Moses, Christ, and Aristotle is quite bold for a Christian contemplative, but Meister Eckhart saw Moses as a powerful model for the contemplative who wishes to know what is true—to ascend above the constantly changing world to the realm of truth. In one of his commentaries, after noting that Moses’ name means “drawn from the water,” Meister 84 See, for example, Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 95 and Vol., I, 120: “ I am he who made the promise of an internal inheritance to Abraham and lead my people out of Egypt through Moses.” 85 Birgitta, Revelations, Vol. I, 132. 86 From Parisian Questions and Prologues, cited in Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense, trans. and introduction by Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, preface by Huston Smith, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 27. For a complete edition of Eckhart’s German and Latin works, see Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, 11 vols. (Stuttgart and Berlin: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1936).

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Eckhart adds that the name “signifies someone who is above everything that is mutable. The person who wishes to see God’s face ought to be like this.”87 Like contemplatives before him, he sees Moses as a model of humility, the essential kind that permits the ascent of the contemplative into God.88 He sees Moses not only as an exemplar of humility but as a model contemplative,89 pastor,90 and writer, who, especially when expounded in light of the insights of Moses Maimonides and the New Testament, illuminates precepts essential to the reasoning Christian contemplative.91 For contemplatives, humility is always the first rung on the ladder that leads to higher stages of purgation, illumination, and unification with God, and since Moses was, according to Numbers 12:3, the humblest man on the face of the earth, he is typically a model of humility for the Christian contemplative. In his comments on Exodus 24:12 (“And he said to Moses … ‘Come up to me on the mountain, and be there’”), Eckhart emphasizes the relationship between humility and ascent: Note that he says, “Come up.” There are two points here. First, no one ascends who is not below, that is, humble according to the text, “He who ascended is the one who first descended” (Eph. 4:9-10), and, “Descend, because I must stay in your house,” (Luke 19:5). Augustine in Book 9 of the Confessions says, “O how exalted you are, Lord, and yet you dwell in the hearts of the humble.” Second, he says, “Ascend” because God is on high … In the third place, he says, “Ascend,” so that he may give us greater and sweeter and diviner gifts more copiously and more purely. It is impossible for us to receive these below while we are fixed and bound by what is inferior.92

For Eckhart, the connection between humility and ascent is especially true for the contemplative suffering tribulation. Thus Eckhart explains the connection in his meditation on Moses’ experience in the cloud on Mount Sinai. In his Latin commentary on the Gospel of John, Eckhart notes a connection between John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness” and Moses, saying, “I have commented on this in expounding the verse, ‘Moses went 87 Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, ed. Bernard McGinn with Frank Tobin and Elvira Borgstadt, preface by Kenneth Northcott, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 128. 88 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 123. 89 Meister Eckhart: Essential Sermons, 149 and Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 117. 90 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 43. 91 In this latter regard, he uses the words of Moses much as Hildegard of Bingen does in her Scivias; he uses them to reinforce the authority of his own interpretations. 92 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 123-24.

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into the dark cloud where God was.’”93 A glance at his commentary on Exodus 20:21 shows that Eckhart did indeed meditate substantially on Moses’ experience in the dark cloud. Literally, Eckhart recognizes that the cloud of darkness covered the mountain, but allegorically, for Eckhart, the darkness represented tribulation, in which man is compelled to ask God for his help. He connects this to Psalm 90:15, “I am with him in tribulation,” and Bernard Clairvaux’s prayer, “O Lord, if you are with us, grant that I may always have tribulations so that I may always merit to have you with me.” Eckhart notes that some people go to God when he gives them honors and prosperity, but “the perfect always go to the God who calls them no matter where he calls, whether to prosperity or adversity.”94 Thus Moses is a model for the perfect, that is, those who choose to follow God in poverty, chastity, and obedience. Eckhart goes on to say that the darkness can also be understood as the “immensity and surpassing excellence of the divine light, according to the text in 1 Timothy 6: ‘He dwells in light inaccessible.’”95 Relying on the interpretations of other commentators, such as Moises Maimonides, he concludes, “The meaning is then ‘Moses went into the darkness wherein God was,’ that is, into the surpassing light that beats down and darkens our intellect. We see the same thing when our eyes are beaten down and darkened by the rays from the sun’s disk.”96 He supports this conclusion with a quotation from Dionysius’ Mystical Theology, showing the influence of that contemplative’s thinking on his own when interpreting Moses’ experience in the cloud. For Meister Eckhart, a Dominican in an order that emphasized evangelical preaching, Moses was also a model pastor. In his commentary on Exodus 3:1 (“Moses fed the sheep”), Meister Eckhart explains Moses’ valuable role as an exemplar of a model pastor: First note that a prelate or pastor ought to feed the sheep, and not the sheep the pastor … Second, note that the pastor ought to feed the sheep, that is, in the first place to be intent on the good and the profit of the sheep and not his own advantage or honor—namely, to be a benefactor and not a master. Augustine says in the Investigations with Orosius, “He who desires to be a master and not a benefactor should know that he is no bishop.” … 93 Meister Eckhart: Essential Sermons, 149. 94 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 117. 95 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 117. 96 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 117-118.

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jane beal And 2 Corinthians 12: “I will most gladly spend and be spent myself for your souls” … and Bernard in the third book of On Consideration says: “… You are lying if you intend to be in charge of benefactors rather than to be a benefactor. Only a small and mean spirit seeks its own gain rather than the advantage of its subjects.”97

According to Eckhart, then, Moses was an ideal shepherd who sought to benefit his sheep and not himself. Thus not only is he a model contemplative, but a model pastor. In addition to his profound admiration for Moses as a humble man and a true shepherd, Meister Eckhart clearly values Moses as a writer, for he comments extensively on the writings of Moses, whom he acknowledges in many places as the writer of the first five books of the Bible. Meister Eckhart’s frequent and consistent reliance on the biblical exegesis of Moses Maimonides of the Torah / Pentateuch suggests Meister Eckhart’s commitment to relying on Jewish biblical exegesis alongside that of Christian authorities. While he does not expound in specifically worded claims, as Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux do, on the ways in which Moses serves as a model for his own life, it seems that, especially in his role as a writer, Moses did act as an example for Meister Eckhart, an example which he followed through the mediation of Moses Maimonides.98 Like Meister Eckhart, the Cloud author was influenced by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite and the theology of the via negativa. He wrote his major work, the Cloud of Unknowing, in Middle English in fourteenth-century England. In it, readers can find references to Moses, which makes it stand out from every other contemplative English treatise written in this period. It is striking that the Cloud author makes reference to Moses by name because virtually no other late medieval English Christian contemplative does: not Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, or even Margery Kempe, who made a journey to Jerusalem and the Holy Land and still does not say anything about Moses (unlike her precursor of some centuries before, Egeria). Why did these English contemplatives fall silent, in striking contrast to their European contemplative counterparts, when it came to Moses? For it is clear that they were reading, or hearing read aloud, the writings of European contemplatives.99 97 Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 43. 98 On the influence of Maimonides on Meister Eckhart, see Peter Hiedrich and Hermann Michael Niemann, Im Gespräch mit Meister Eckhart und Maimonides, Rostocker theologische Studien, Vol. 22 (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2010). 99 Margery Kempe, for example, heard Birgitta of Sweden’s Revelations read aloud to her.

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It seems a combination of factors may have been at work. First, there was a particular desire in contemplatives generally, and apparently English contemplatives in particular, to have an unmediated experience of God and intimate relationship with Christ. In the Latin Imitatio Christi, which was translated into Middle English and circulated in the late medieval period,100 we find this desire put into words in Book III, chapter 2, in a prayer (or, perhaps, protest): “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” “I am Thy servant. Give me understanding that I may know Thine ordinances … Incline my heart to Thine ordinances … Let Thy speech distil as the dew.” The children of Israel once said to Moses: “Speak thou to us and we will hear thee: let not the Lord speak to us, lest we die.” Not so, Lord, not so do I pray. Rather with Samuel the prophet I entreat humbly and earnestly: “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” Do not let Moses or any of the prophets speak to me; but You speak, O Lord God, Who inspired and enlightened all the prophets; for You alone, without them, can instruct me perfectly, whereas they, without You, can do nothing. They, indeed, utter fine words, but they cannot impart the spirit. They do indeed speak beautifully, but if You remain silent, they cannot inflame the heart.  They deliver the message; You lay bare the sense. They place before us mysteries, but You unlock their meaning. They proclaim commandments; You help us to keep them. They point out the way; You give strength for the journey. They work only outwardly; You instruct and enlighten our hearts. They water on the outside; You give the increase. They cry out words; You give understanding to the hearer. Let not Moses speak to me, therefore, but You, the Lord my God, everlasting truth, speak lest I die and prove barren if I am merely given outward advice and am not inflamed within; lest the word heard and not kept, known and not loved, believed and not obeyed, rise up in judgment against me. Speak, therefore, Lord, for Your servant listens.101

This language is somewhat reminiscent of Bernard of Clairvaux, who similarly prayed that God would speak directly to him without the mediation of the prophets. Yet unlike Bernard, who goes on in his Sermons on the Song of Songs to write extensively about the exemplarity of Moses, the author of the Imitatio mentions Moses’ name nowhere else in his writing, neither before nor after this prayer. It seems the author (and later Middle English 100 For an excellent edition of the Middle English translation, see The Imitation of Christ: The First English Translation of the ‘Imitatio Christi,’ ed. B.J.H. Biggs, Early English Text Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 101 See Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/ imitation/imb3c01-10.html—accessed 8 January 2013). Compare to the original Middle English in The Imitation of Christ, ed. Biggs, 65-66.

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translator) may have been putting into words what other English contemplatives also believed: namely, that it was better to experience God as directly as possible without any other mediator than Christ. This may be the first reason why we find so little mention of Moses in English mystical writings. A second reason relates to the issue of censorship in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in England. As Nicholas Watson has pointed out, the Wycliffites and Lollards had catalyzed the preaching of English sermons, quintessentially pre-Reformation ideas and activities among orthodox English Catholics—and ecclesiastical censorship of ownership of English Bibles.102 In response to this ecclesiastical legislation, many writers in English self-censored their own writing. Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, two Christian contemplative Englishwomen, for example, rarely if ever directly quoted Scripture in the spiritual autobiographies they dictated to their confessors. This was not because they did not know Scripture by heart; they heard it all the time when it was a read aloud to them. But they were writing in English, and to quote Scripture in English was to create the very English translations to which the ecclesiastical power players in this period were so objecting.103 Consequently, a great deal of biblical material was excluded from English contemplative writing before it was ever put in, including, apparently, references to Moses. A third reason may have been the absence of the Jews from England. The expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 meant that Christians in England, unlike Christians in Europe, did not know any Jewish people personally. If they did, they most likely did not know it, for any Jews remaining after the expulsion would have kept their faith hidden for the most part out of fear of persecution or deportation.104 The opportunity for a manuscript of Jewish biblical exegesis to circulate among English contemplatives, as happened for Meister Eckhart in his encounter with Maimonides, was consequently less likely. Thus, the importance of Moses to contemporary European Jews had little or no impact on the thinking of English 102 See Nicholas Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409,” Speculum 70 (1995): 822-64. 103 For discussion of this, see Jane Beal, “Julian of Norwich” and “Margery Kempe,” British Writers’ Supplement 12, ed. Jay Parini (Charles Scribner’s Sons, An Imprint of the Gale Group, 2006), 149-66 and 167-83 respectively. 104 For thorough discussion, see Patricia Skinner, ed., The Jews in Medieval England: Historical, Literary and Archealogical Perspectives (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003). The Jews entered England in 1066, were expelled in 1290, and were finally readmitted in 1656.

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contemplative Christians—except in the case of the Cloud author. Perhaps, given his English context, it is not surprising that the Cloud author’s view of Moses is somewhat negative. He consistently sees him as inferior, both in comparison to his own brother, the priest, Aaron, and even to the workman who crafted the ark of the covenant, Beseleel. In the Cloud of Unknowing, the author suggests that the grace of contemplation is prefigured by the ark of the covenant “for just as in the ark all the jewels and relics of the Temple were contained, in the same way in this little love, when it is offered, are contained all the virtues of a man’s soul, which is the spiritual temple of God.”105 Concerning Moses, he writes: Before Moses could come to see this ark, and to know how it had to be made, he climbed up to the top of the mountain and dwelt there and worked in a cloud for six days with hard and long labor, until the seventh day, when our Lord would deign to show him the way in which the ark should be made. Through the long labor of Moses, and the delay in the revelation to him, we are to understand those who cannot come to the perfection of this spiritual exercise unless long labor precedes it, and even then only very seldom, and when God will deign to show it. Though Moses could only come to see it very seldom, Aaron, because of his office, had it in his power to see in the temple within the veil, as often as it pleased him to enter. By Aaron’s power, we are to understand all those of whom I spoke above, those who by their spiritual skill and the help of grace can make the perfection of this exercise their own as often as it pleases them.106

In this passage, the Cloud author does not foreground Moses as an example of the ideal contemplative, but rather as a kind of second-rate mystic who must work hard and only achieves any grace of contemplation because God permits it—occasionally. Moses’ brother Aaron, on the other hand, represents those with spiritual skill who can perfect the exercise of entering the cloud of unknowing whenever they wish. The Cloud author continues his consideration of Moses in another passage wherein he again finds him lacking, this time in comparison to Beseleel. … we make progress by grace alone, and then we are like Moses who, for all the hard cost of the mountain climb, could only come to it seldom, and 105 The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. James Walsh, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 258. For an edition of the original Middle English, see The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. Patrick J. Gallacher (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997). This edition is also available online at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/ cloud.htm. 106 The Cloud of Unknowing, 258.

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jane beal that sight was only through the revelation of our Lord, when it pleased him to show it, and not as a reward which Moses deserved. Sometimes we make progress in this grace by our own spiritual skill, supported by grace; and then we are like Beseleel, who could not see the ark before he had fashioned it with his own skill, helped by the pattern, which was revealed to Moses on the mountain. And sometimes we make progress in this grace by other men’s teaching, and we are like Aaron who had it in his keeping, and could regularly see and touch the ark whatever he liked, after Beseleel had fashioned and made it ready for him. So, my spiritual friend, though I am a wretch, unworthy to teach any creature, in this exercise I hold the office of Beseleel …107

In these words, it becomes apparent that the Cloud author, unlike Christian contemplatives before him, does not see Moses as deserving, and unlike, for example, Bernard of Clairvaux, he does not take Moses as a model for his own spiritual life. He compares himself instead to Beseleel; Beseleel is an exemplar to him. The Cloud author’s understanding of Moses departs from that of one of his primary influences, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, from whom he takes the mystical metaphor of his title. For Dionysius, Moses’ ascent into the cloud on the mountain to meet with God in darkness was a model moment representative of the contemplative’s journey into God. That the Cloud author is so far from accepting this or the general importance of Moses suggests that contemporary circumstances in England may have influenced him more than the interpretive tradition of Christian contemplative devotion. The Early Renaissance: Biblia pauperum In marked contrast to the Cloud author, the Biblia pauperum or “Bibles of the Poor” produced a kind of synthesis of medieval typological understandings of Moses so appreciated in the tradition of Christian contemplative devotion.108 A large number of Christian contemplatives in the early Renaissance, both lay and monastic, read it. Therefore, it is worth considering in depth for it gives clues about how many people across Europe would have thought about Moses in this period. 107 The Cloud of Unknowing, 261. 108 I refer to Biblia pauperum in the plural here and elsewhere because the title refers not to a single book, but to a genre of books in a variety of manuscripts and early printed editions.

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A blockbook version of the Biblia pauperum was produced in the Netherlands about 1460. As Avril Henry has established, the incunabulum was probably intended for use in private devotion not by the poor, who could not afford such a book, but by the those who gave up whatever wealth they had to share everything in common, the “poor in spirit”: contemplative women and men, especially those in monastic life (but also laypeople).109 The very structure of the book invites the one viewing its images and reading its Latin texts to remember biblical stories from the Old and New Testament and associate them with one another in order to gain deeper spiritual understanding. Each page consists of a triptych of three images, a central one representing an episode from the life of Christ and the two images on either side representing an episode from the Old Testament that typologically foreshadows the central image from Christ’s life. Latin biblical quotations are interwoven with the images. The structure is architectural and thus mnemonic—that is to say, the structure lends itself to the process of remembering even as it provokes memory. As Mary Carruthers and Jan Ziolkowski remark in The Medieval Craft of Memory: “… the primary goals in preparing material for memory are flexibility, security, and ease of recombining matters into new patterns and forms. Basic to these aims are the paired tasks of division and composition.”110 Thus the architectural structure of each page of the Biblia pauperum, with its divisions, invites recomposition in the mind of the reader-viewer even when the book is not being viewed or read. This process is not simply intellectual, but emotional. As Carruthers and Ziolkowski further remark: As understood by early scholastic philosophers, Aristotle taught also that every memory is composed of two aspects: a “likeness” or “image,” which is visual in nature (simulacrum), and an emotional resonance or coloring (intentio), which serves to “hook” a particular memory into one (or perhaps more) of a person’s existing networks of experience. Memory works by association. Its connections are thus individual and memory and particular, not universal—though they can of course be learned. The logic of memory is essentially arbitrary, in the Latin sense—dependent on one’s experiences

109 Avril Henry, ed., Biblia pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition (Cambridge: Scolar Press, 1987), 4. 110 Mary Carruthers and Jan M. Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval Craft of Memory: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 4.

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jane beal (including everything one has learned), desires, and above all, will: recollection, like all creative thinking, is thus largely driven by will and desire.111

The Biblia pauperum functions on this Aristotelian model, making memory work by association, evoking emotional responses, integrating itself in the contemplative’s prior learning, and appealing to the spiritual hunger and desire that motivates the will to remember. There are, significantly, forty triptych pages in the Biblia pauperum altogether, suggesting it might have been an especially appropriate book for Lenten contemplation. Eight of the forty pages in the Biblia pauperum connect an event from the life of Moses to an event from the New Testament. The Biblia pauperum both represents and fosters late medieval Christian typological reading practices, connecting the life of Moses and his experiences with God to the life of Jesus, Jezus’ mother Mary, John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene, and the work of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. While all eight of the pages with Mosaic and Christological imagery are elucidated by biblical quotations or brief explanations in the typological mode, three pages contain commentary that explicitly asserts that Moses or objects associated with him prefigured Christ: “Mary Magdalene Repents Before Jesus,” “Christ is Crucified,” and “The Soldier Pierces the Side of Christ.”112 On the thirteenth page of the Biblia pauperum, when Mary Magdalene is depicted as repenting before Jesus, Moses is shown standing before Aaron his brother and Miriam, his sister who had been cursed with leprosy by God for despising Moses’ Midianite (sic non-Israelite) wife, Zipporah. The commentary in the top right corner explains: We read in the Book of Numbers, chapter 12, that Miriam, sister of Moses and Aaron, became leprous because of her sins, and was cleansed of her uncleanness by Moses. Moses is a type of Christ who cleansed Mary Magdalene of all the impurity of her sins as Christ says in Luke, “Your sins are forgiven, et cetera.”113

This commentary clearly encourages the contemplative Christian reading it to see Moses as prefiguring Christ in his role as mediator between God and humanity, particularly in Moses’ ability—an ability strengthened by 111 Carruthers and Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval Craft of Memory, 8 (italics original to the authors). 112 These titles are from Albert C. Labriola and John W. Smeltz, eds., The Bible of the Poor: Biblia pauperum: A Facsimile and Edition of the British Library Blockbook C.9 d.2. (Pittsburgh: Dusquesne University Press, 1990). 113 Labriola and Smeltz, trans., The Bible of the Poor, 111 (emphasis added).

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intimate relationship—to ask God to forgive and to heal a woman, his sister, Miriam. This commentary also invites the reader to do some memory work, completing the words of Jesus to the woman caught in adultery found in the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel: nec ego te condemnabo; vade et amplius iam noli peccare (“neither will I condemn you; go and do not sin anymore”) (John 8:11). On the twenty-fifth page of the Biblia pauperum, when Christ is depicted as crucified on the Cross, Moses is shown standing before the bronze serpent God instructed him to make so that the Israelites, who were being bitten by snakes and dying because of their rebellion against God, might look on it and be healed. The commentary explains: We read in the Book of Numbers, chapter 21, that when the Lord wanted to save the people from the serpents which had bitten them, He commanded Moses to make a brazen serpent and suspend it on a staff so whoever looked upon it should be saved from the serpents. The serpent that was suspended and beheld by the people prefigures Christ on the Cross whom all the faithful should behold to be free from the serpent, the devil.114

In this instance, rather than Moses himself prefiguring Christ, an object associated with Moses and his intervention on behalf of the children of Israel—the bronze serpent—prefigures Christ. This typological connection was first established in John 3:14-15, wherein Jesus says: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, thus must be the Son of Man lifted up in order that all who believe in him may not perish but may have life eternal.” On the twenty-sixth page of the Biblia pauperum, when the soldier pierces the side of Christ with his spear, Moses is shown striking the rock in the desert so that water flows out of it. We read in Exodus, chapter 17, that Moses led the people through the desert. Because of the lack of water, Moses with a rod held in his hand struck a rock and a most abundant supply of water gushed forth as if from an inexhaustible source. The rock or stone prefigures Christ who poured forth for us from His side healing waters, namely the sacraments, when He permitted His side to be pierced by the soldier’s lance.115

Again, the object associated with Moses, here the rock, prefigures Christ. Typological interpretation is also given to the waters that flow from the rock. The waters bring healing; they represent the sacraments of the 114 Labriola and Smeltz, trans., The Bible of the Poor, 124 (emphasis added). 115 Labriola and Smeltz, trans., The Bible of the Poor, 125 (emphasis added).

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Church. Thus Moses, in all three of these cases, prefigures Christ in his role as mediator between God and humanity, particularly in his intimacy with God, which permits him to ask and extend God’s forgiveness and healing to those who need it. Counter-Reformation Spain: Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross Not far from the Netherlands where the blockbook Biblia pauperum was produced, in counter-reformation Spain, Teresa of Avila (1515-82 AD) lived as a contemplative nun in the order of Discalced Carmelites, of which she was, together with John of the Cross, a co-founder. She wrote, among other works, her spiritual treatise on prayer: El Castillo Interior (or, in English, The Interior Castle).116 A masterpiece in the tradition of Christian mysticism, the book imagines the soul as a round crystal castle in which there are many mansions (or rooms),117 and the contemplative person who journeys deeper into each one draws closer to God in a seven-step process that includes vocal prayer, mental prayer, affective prayer, acquired recollection, infused contemplation, the prayer of quiet, the prayer of union, spiritual betrothal, and spiritual marriage.118 In Teresa’s fourth of eleven chapters on the Sixth Mansion, which focuses on suffering and spiritual betrothal, she uses Moses as a key example in her discussion of the revelation of mysteries in the state of rapture or ecstasy in prayer: I do not know if I am right in what I am saying, for although I have heard of the incident, I’m not sure if I remember it correctly. Moses, again, could not describe all that he saw in the bush, but only as much as God willed him to; yet, if God had not revealed secret things to his soul in such a way as to make him sure of their truth, so that he should know and believe Him to be God, he would not have taken upon himself so many and such arduous labors. Amid the thorns of that bush, he must have learned marvelous things, for it was these things that gave him courage to do what he did for 116 Teresa of Avila’s other works include her Vida (before 1657), El Camino de Perfección (before 1567), Meditations on the Song of Songs (1567), Relaciones, Conceptos del Amor, Exclamationes, Las Cartas (1671) and her poems, published posthumously, Todas las poesías (1841). 117 The title contains an allusion to the words of Jesus from John 14:2: “In my father’s house, there are many mansions: if it were not so, I would not have told you.” 118 For a succinct summary of each of these stages, see Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R, “Introduction,” in Interior Castle: The Text with a Spiritual Commentary, ed. and trans. Dennis J. Billy, Classics with Commentary (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2007), 13-16. For a Spanish edition of El Castillo Interior, see Las Moradas o El Castillo Interior, ed. Alberto Campos (Madrid: Edimat Libros, 2007).

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the people of Israel. Therefore, sisters, we must not seek out reasons for understanding the hidden things of God; rather, believing as we do, in his great power, we must clearly realize that it is impossible for worms like ourselves, with our limited powers, to understand his greatness. Let us give him hearty praise for being pleased to allow us to understand some part of it.119

In this brief passage, Moses’ experience of theophany at the burning bush (Exodus 3) acts as a precedent, a parallel, and a metaphor for contemplative visionary experience, which, according to Teresa, could involve seeing images and understanding a great deal more than simply what was seen and then, when returning to a normative state, forgetting certain details even while the overall import remained deep in the soul. Interestingly, Teresa admits at the beginning of the passage that her recollection of Moses’ experience of the burning brush might not be remembered correctly in all of its details. Yet this does not prevent her from drawing conclusions from what she does remember and understand: namely that, like Moses, she and her sisters should not seek out the reasons for the hidden things of God, because they cannot possibly understand his greatness, but they can be grateful for the revelation that helps them to understand in part. This humility is basic to medieval and Renaissance contemplative life (the first rung on the ladder) while Teresa’s use of Moses draws on earlier spiritual writings in the contemplative tradition. Like Teresa, who influenced him, St. John of the Cross (1542-91 AD) speaks of Moses in connection to the seventh step of mystical contemplation in his work, The Dark Night of the Soul. But whereas Teresa mentions Moses only once in The Interior Castle, John mentions him more than forty-five times in three works, The Dark Night of the Soul, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and Spiritual Canticle. For John, Moses is an example to the humble soul, and Moses’ life imparts practical wisdom as well as allegorical insight to those willing to learn from it. Furthermore, one of the most allegorically rich moments in Moses’ life, from John’s perspective, is the moment recorded in Exodus 33 in which he is hidden in the rock and God passes by in order to show him his glory. John consistently interprets the rock as Christ and Moses as a type of the soul, the soul that is the Bride of Christ. John returns to meditate on this moment from Exodus 33 multiple times in his mystical works for he is fascinated with the inability of Moses to see God, and likewise the soul’s inability to see God, which is 119 Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, trans. Dennis J. Billy, C.Ss.R, p. 191-92.

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nevertheless paired with an intense desire to be able to see him —to see his face and experience his glory. For John, like other contemplatives, Moses is a model of humility. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, John writes that Moses found comfort in knowing he would have counsel from his brother Aaron (Exod. 4:14-15): … for this is a characteristic of the humble soul, which dares not converse alone with God, neither can it be completely satisfied without human counsel and guidance. And that this should be given to it is the will of God, for He draws near to those who come together to converse of truth, in order to expound and confirm it in them, upon a foundation of natural reason, even as He said that He would do when Moses and Aaron should come together—namely, that He would be in the mouth of the one and in the mouth of the other. Wherefore He said likewise in the Gospel that Ubi fuerint duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo, ibi sum ego in medio eorum. That is: Where two or three have come together, in order to consider that which is for the greater honour and glory of My name, there am I in the midst of them. That is to say, I will make clear and confirm in their hearts the truths of God.120

As this passage suggests, humility is demonstrated, in part, by seeking the advice of other wise people. By pairing the example of Moses and Aaron with a precept of Christ from the Gospel, John demonstrates from both the Old Testament and the New that the truths of God shall be confirmed in people’s hearts. It is interesting that John emphasizes this counsel-seeking aspect of humility because elsewhere in his writings, he demonstrates an interest in the practical wisdom that his readers can derive from the life of Moses. He notices, for example, the relationship between Moses and Jethro, his fatherin-law, who advised him to appoint judges. John notes that it is important to use reason, which is not contrary to faith, to discern what is needful.121 In another place in The Ascent of Mount Carmel, John again writes about Moses and how he had been ordered by God to appoint judges who would not take bribes.122 Again, this is practical wisdom. In his Spiritual Canticle, John observes that God communicated to Moses that he had “seen the 120 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1994), 210. PDF. See http://www. ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/ascent.pdf. For an original print edition, see The Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (Westminster, Md.: 1949). For Spanish editions of this and other works by John of the Cross, see Obras completas: Subida del Monte Carmelo, Noche oscura, Cántico espiritual, Llama de amor viva, ed. Gabriel de la Mora (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1989). 121 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 211. 122 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 290.

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affliction” of his people in Egypt, yet he adds that God had always seen it and planned to succor it in his own time.123 This is a practical insight into the nature of God worth sharing with his readers. In addition to practical wisdom, John’s mystical writings demonstrate a wide range of allegorical insights into events and objects from the life of Moses. When Moses stands before the burning bush and takes off his shoes, his shoes represent taking off the pleasures and desires of this life—the purgation the contemplative must experience to make progress toward God.124 The rod of Moses, by which he did wonders in the land of Egypt, stands typologically for Christ’s Cross.125 The ability of the magicians to imitate what Moses did is compared to the devil’s ability to conjure false visions in the minds of contemplative Christians.126 Before Moses climbed up Mount Sinai, he instructed the Israelites not to pasture their beasts on the mountainside; John compares the beasts to the appetites of the sinful nature that must be laid aside in order to commune with God.127 The dark cloud into which Moses finally entered to meet with God Mount Sinai signifies “the obscurity of faith wherein the divinity is concealed,”128 and by a twist of allegorical reasoning (which can be seen in Meister Eckhart’s meditation on looking directly into the sun), the darkness is in fact the divine light. Moses’ inability to speak of what he experienced of God on Sinai is compared to the contemplative’s inability to put his experiences of mystical encounter with God in prayer into words.129 In addition, John meditates at some length on Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 32:15 on “the growing fat of the soul.” For John, the “growing fat” represents evil, going backward, and a blunting of the mind: a tendency to rejoice in things and therefore become blind to God.130 123 St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, ed. Harry Plantinga, trans. by David Lewis with introduction by Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1995), 31. PDF. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/canticle.pdf. For an original print edition containing another translation of the Spiritual Canticle, see The Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (Westminster, Md.: 1949). 124 St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 3rd ed., trans. and ed., E. Allison Peers (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1994), 49. PDF. See http://www. ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/dark_night.pdf. For an original print edition, see The Complete Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (Westminster, Md.: 1949). 125 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 85. 126 St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 129. 127 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 84. 128 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 146. 129 St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, 109. 130 St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 289.

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All of these allegorical insights add rhetorical strength to John’s meditations, arguments and imagery at different points in his writings, but there is an allegorical interpretation of Exodus 33, which describes how Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock when God passed by, to which John returns over and over again.131 For John, as for many contemplatives who came before him, the rock represents Christ and Moses stands for the contemplative soul, the bride of Christ. In his Spiritual Canticle, John writes: Thus God said to Moses, when he asked to see His glory, “Man shall not see me and live.” God, however, said that He would show him all that could be revealed in this life, and so he set Moses, “in a hole of the rock,” which is Christ, where he might see his “back parts”; that is, he made him understand the mysteries of the Sacred Humanity. The soul longs to enter an earnest into these caverns of Christ, then it might be absorbed, transformed, and inebriated in the love and knowledge of his mysteries, hiding itself in the bosom of the Beloved. It is into these caverns that He invites the bride, in the Canticle, to enter, saying: “Arise, My love, My beautiful one, and come; my dove in the cleft of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall.” These clefts of the rock are the caverns of which we are here speaking, and to which the bride refers, saying: “And there we shall enter in.”132

In this passage, John is noticing the tension between Moses’ desire to see God’s face and the impossibility of such an experience. Yet by reading Exodus 33 both literally, as a historical event that took place in the life of Moses, and allegorically, seeing Christ as the rock and Moses as the beloved soul, John expands his own and his readers’ understanding to take in the fullness of the potential significance of this moment not only in Exodus, but also in the Song of Songs. Just as Moses was the beloved bride of Christ, so is John, and so can his readers be also. Conclusions A retrospective view of the role of Moses in Christian contemplative devotion reveals many worthwhile things that can add to our understanding of the reception of Moses over time. In antiquity, Origen laid the groundwork for medieval interpretation of Moses as a key figure in Christian contemplative life in his Commentary on the Song of Songs and Homilies on Exodus and Numbers. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, in his work Mystical Theology, provided evidence that allegorical interpretations of Moses’ ascent 131 The Ascent of Mount Carmel, 217-18, 272 and Spiritual Canticle, 24, 58, 99, 172. 132 St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, 172.

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of Mount Sinai became a metaphor for stages of contemplation that led to intimacy with God. Egeria, in her Itinerarium of the fifth century, shows how the practice of lectio divina could be incorporated into pilgrimage and how the life of Moses particularly shaped her own expressions of devotion in the Holy Land. In the high Middle Ages, Bernard of Clairvaux in France, Hildegard of Bingen in Germany, and Bonventure in Italy each drew from the life of Moses in their spiritual treatises on different aspects of the contemplative life. In his sermons on the Song of Songs, although he alternates between positive and negative views of Moses, the Cisterician reformer Bernard of Clairvaux sees Moses as an incredibly powerful, influential figure: an exemplar of humility, a compassionate father and mother, the Bride and the Bridegroom—a type of Christ —and a model for his own life and role as abbot of Clairvaux. In her Scivias, which concerned her visionary experiences, the Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen presents Moses as one who stood for the Law, for people who have suffered, and in her vision of a building symbolizing the history of salvation, together with Abraham, for the north corner. But perhaps more importantly, Hildegard refers repeatedly to key words of Moses from Scripture to help explain obscure points in her visions, thus borrowing his authority to reinforce the divine inspiration of her contemplative experiences. The Minister General of the Franciscan Order, Bonventure, wrote about Moses in three contemplative works, The Mind’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, and the Life of St. Francis. For Bonaventura, Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai was a metaphor for the soul’s journey into God while Moses himself was the type fulfilled in both Christ and St. Francis. In the late Middle Ages, Moses exerted considerable influence on Birgitta of Sweden as can be seen in her Revelations; Birgitta’s typological meditations not only on Moses and Jesus, but Moses and Mary are particularly gendered. Moses appears meaningfully in the works of the Dominican Meister Eckhart of Germany who shows the influence, not surprisingly, of Thomas Aquinas. By contrast with contemplative writings from the continent, the name of Moses is curiously absent from the writings of most English contemplatives, including Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, yet he does make significant appearances in one particular contemplative work from medieval England: The Cloud of Unknowing. In the Renaissance, the advent of print allowed the transformation of manuscripts of the Biblia pauperum, so-called “Bibles of the Poor,” to early

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printed blockbook versions. These complex picture books were not in fact affordable to poor people; instead, they were intended for the “poor in spirit,” contemplative Christians who had taken vows of poverty and lived in monastic community (although these incunabula might also circulate amongst the devout laity). Several of these books, produced in the Netherlands in about 1460 and circulated widely in Europe and England, represent events from the life of Moses as typological precursors to key events from the life of Christ. Careful consideration shows that the blockbook Biblia pauperum visually represent a kind of harvest of medieval typological theology from the contemplative tradition of meditation on the relationship between Moses and Jesus. In counter-Reformation Spain, Discalced Carmelite founders Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross both wrote about Moses, Teresa in her Interior Castle and John in his Dark Night of the Soul, Ascent of Mount Carmel and Spiritual Canticle. In these spiritual treatises on prayer and union with God, Moses is used as an exemplum of that stage of the soul’s ascent in which the soul is spiritually betrothed to God. John is especially willing to see the soul of Moses as a type for any holy soul who becomes the Bride of Christ. For all the striking and unusual uses of Moses in the tradition of medieval Christian contemplative devotion, there are some common threads. He is consistently considered a foremost model of humility, the first rung on the ladder of contemplation, but he is also frequently imagined as a holy soul who has been purged, illuminated, and unified with the Divine— at the topmost rung of the ladder, as it were—and is therefore frequently deemed worthy of imitation. Moses’ mystical encounters with God at the burning bush, during the Exodus from Egypt, and on Mount Sinai made him an exemplar for those who wished to be the Bride of Christ not only corporately, as part of the Church, but individually as Christian contemplatives who met Christ in the Scriptures they read, the prayers they prayed, and the ecstatic visions they beheld as they journeyed into God.

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“Types and Shadows”: Uses of Moses in the Renaissance Brett Foster Late in the English Renaissance, and arguably at its height, John Milton begins Paradise Lost by appealing to the “Heav’nly Muse” as he prepares to scale his own poetic heights (1.6).1 He invokes divine “aid to my advent’rous Song, / That with no middle flight intends to soar / Above th’ Aonian Mount, while it pursues / Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme” (1.13-16). Milton announces, by ironically placed litotes (“no middle flight”), his intention to aspire to something far beyond his classical epic precedents, figured here by the Muse-inhabited location of Helicon, “th’ Aonian Mount.” Thus Milton’s initial invocation of the heavenly muse soon stands in superior relationship to this following, more traditional metonymy regarding the classical muses.2 Similarly, the classical mountain of inspiration associated with the muses becomes overshadowed, at the very moment it appears, by its preceding divine parallel: Milton has followed his opening imperative of “Sing Heav’nly Muse” with a descriptive clause— that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos: […] (1.6-10)

“That Shepherd” is, of course, Moses. What does Milton emphasize about him? First, the inclusion of both Oreb and Sinai call to mind Moses’ theophany of the burning bush and his later descent, from the presence of God Himself, with the Ten Commandments in hand. The specification of “secret top” indicates Moses’ role as an exceptional agent in the divine story; he was singled out for inspiration in dramatic ways, and in an exalted, rarified location (Exod. 19). Moses, Milton continues, “In the beginning” taught the 1 John Milton, Paradise Lost, in Complete Poems and Major Prose, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1957), 211. 2 Critics continue to debate whether Milton first invokes here the second person of the Trinity, Christ as divine Logos, or rather the third person, the Holy Spirit, addressed later in the poem as “Urania” (7.1). The latter option, at least, seems more clearly the case by line 17—“And chiefly Thou O Spirit,” ….

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Israelites how the world emerged from chaos. Line placement and syntactic underscoring serve to emphasize that quoted phrase, which echoes the Bible’s opening creation narrative and acknowledges Moses as the traditional author of Genesis. Overall, Moses’ presence here successfully defines the heavenly muse, over against the classical muses forthcoming, as an inspirer of godly visionaries—whether it be an insinuated Milton or more obviously Moses, the great Old-Testament patriarch and prophet, the deliverer of his people and conveyor of their law. Thus Milton’s epic persona establishes a parallel between himself and Moses, and applies to the present poetic project the agency, fortitude, and divine approval involved in the narrative of Moses’ memorable life and leadership. In doing so, the poet is appropriating him and his story, and standing in self-defining relationship to them, in a way utterly consistent with Moses’ subsequent reception throughout the centuries. This chapter will explore the diverse and often conflicting uses of Moses in the Renaissance, when seismic developments such as humanism, nationalism, and religious reformations invited various reconceptualizations of the Old-Testament figure, whether devotional, ideological, or otherwise. This survey will primarily focus on a range of English texts, but will also feature a brief excursus among Italian references and select landmarks of Renaissance Rome, where Moses was reconceived as a typus papae.3 For the Renaissance papacy to conceive of Moses in this way, certain aspects of his character and narrative had to be emphasized, or reoriented, while others required active avoidance. This necessarily shrewd handling is inherent to the nature of the reception of Moses. This chapter’s coverage is hardly exhaustive, then, but the pairing of English and Roman uses will reveal confessional differences in how Moses was viewed overall and suggest which details of his rich story were most salient in each cultural context. That said, extreme differences of appropriation occur within each culture as well, and, as will become clear in this survey, especially in the postReformation atmosphere of Renaissance England. Milton, Marlowe, and the Baines Note Compare, for example, Milton’s more privileged, exalted invocation of Moses above with the most notorious comments about the patriarch in the 3 Charles L. Stinger, Rome in the Renaissance (1985; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 201-21.

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entire English language—those found in the Baines Note, whose outrageous statements attributed to Christopher Marlowe circulated shortly before the playwright-poet’s mysterious death. “He affirmeth,” reads the second item, “that Moyses was but a Jugler & that one Heriots being Sir W. Raleighs man Can do more then he.”4 This comment declares Moses to have been nothing more than a charlatan (“jugler”), a con-man. It bluntly deflates a longstanding association of Moses with magic, explained largely by the miracles he and Aaron performed, such as turning his staff into a serpent or the ten plagues of Egypt generally (Exod. 5-12), and by the divine wisdom or secret knowledge attributed to him.5 Thus the first martyr Stephen speaks of Moses’ wonders and signs (Acts 7:36) while the Roman satirist Juvenal, for instance, derisively mentions Moses’ “mystic scroll” [arcano … volumine].6 The Pentateuch offers praise by figuring him as a candle that gives light to many other sparks of wisdom (Num. 11:25), and the Acts of the Apostles presents Moses as learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians, mighty in word and action (7:22). Renaissance thinkers such as Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno, ambitious in their intellectual synthesizing, interpreted Moses as a pivotal figure, a carrier of hermetic learning who connected Hebrew and Egyptian intellectual traditions.7 Humanists in general, 4 Richard Baines, “A note Containing the opinion of on Christopher Marley Concerning his damnable [opini] Judgment of Religion, and scorn of Gods word” [sic], reprinted in Marlowe: The Critical Heritage 1588-1896, ed. Millar MacLure (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 36-38. 5 Peter Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” in Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. Peter Schäfer and Hans G. Kippenberg (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 19-43. Most relevantly, Schäfer defends Moses’ and Aaron’s acts and performances as magical, and not miraculous, in contrast to the magicians and magical acts they contest: “Hence, it is not a question of (biblical) religion versus (Egyptian) magic, but of (biblical) magic versus (Egyptian) magic. That the biblical magic is incorporated into the religious system of the Bible does not say that it is not magic” (27-33, quotation at 29). 6 Juvenal, “Satire 14,” in Juvenal and Persius, ed and trans. Susanna Morton Braund, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 466-67. It is unclear if Juvenal means that Moses’ book contains secret knowledge or simply that the book was not intended for non-Jews. Here Juvenal attacks Moses for teaching the Jews “not to show the way to anyone except a fellow worshipper and if asked, to take only the circumcised to the fountain.” 7 For a general introduction, see Eugenio Garin’s chapter on “The Philosopher and the Magus” in Renaissance Characters, ed. Eugenio Garin, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 123-53, esp. 136-40; Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); and Thomas M. Greene, “Magic and Counter-Magic in Comus,” Poetry, Signs, and Magic (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005), 189-205, for a brief overview of the relationship in early-modern thought of Moses with the prisca theologia, the Orphic Hymns, and Neoplatonism generally

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likewise seeking to reconcile their Christian and pagan educations, found in Moses a model—a servant of the God of Israel who was nevertheless trained in worldly disciplines. To take just one of numerous examples, consider Sir John Harington’s defense of poetry as a Christian pursuit, “in respect of the high end of all, which is the health of our souls.”8 Many disparage poetry as “vain and superfluous,” Harington explains, but the weakness of men’s wits and the high mysteries of Scripture necessitate our study of other authors. Only then, “after we have gathered more strength,” are we ready for more profound studies (264). Poetry and philosophy become fitting subjects in this preparatory context, and the relationship of disciplines has precedence: So we read how that great Moses, whose learning and sanctity is so renowned over all nations, was first instructed in the learning of the Egyptians before he came to that high contemplation of God, and familiarity (as I may so term it) with God (264).

Milton naturally valued this attribute of Moses tremendously, and in Paradise Lost he plainly seeks to imitate Moses as a godly figure of the vir eruditus, whose learning is composed of both sacred and pagan traditions.9 The Baines Note inverts this virtue as well in a second entry: “That it was an easy matter for Moyses being brought up in all the artes of the Egiptians to abuse the Jewes being a rude & grosse people” (37). This attitude resembles that of the Italian hermeticist Bruno, who felt that the rise of Hebrew religion compromised Moses’ allegiance to Egyptian natural religion, with its broader, more immanent concept of deity.10 In the Baines Note, (esp. 189-90). For a broader, more sustained treatment, see Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). 8 John Harington, A Brief Apology of Poetry (1591), in Sidney’s ‘The Defence of Poesy’ and Selected Renaissance Literary Criticism, ed. Gavin Alexander (London: Penguin, 2004), 260-73, quotation at 263. 9 Synchronistic and literalist thinking about the Hebraic and pagan traditions can be striking, as when George Sandys, referring to Ficino, conjectures that Moses mentioned the scorching of the earth caused by the fall of the mythological Phaeton, or when Augustine argues that Atlas, the brother of Prometheus, lived about the time of Moses’ birth, and was an ancestor of Hermes Trismegistus. These passages are from, respectively, Ovid’s ‘Metamorphosis’ Englished, Mythologized, and Represented in Figures (1632), and The City of God, and both are quoted in John Mulryan, “Through a Glass Darkly”: Milton’s Reinvention of the Mythological Tradition (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1996), 43, 59. 10 For further explanation, see Arthur D. Imerti’s introduction to his translation and edition of Bruno’s The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), 42-43. Freud more radically posited in Moses and Monotheism (1939) that Moses was in fact Egyptian, better to fulfill the archteypes of princely origin and the threatening of the father. For a similar attention to Moses and monotheism, but with a far

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Moses’ training in Egyptian wisdom (“artes”) is conceded, but is placed in a framework of malice: Moses was well equipped to manipulate the Jews and “keep men in awe,” which the Baines Note elsewhere claims is the original purpose of religion. Taken rhetorically, Baines’ report of Marlowe’s attack on Moses arguably confirms an opposite appraisal generally. Baines wishes these words to be considered sacrilegious and scandalous, and for them to be so, normatively Moses must enjoy a high, venerated reputation as a wise man of God. Other statements in the Baines Note confirm this pattern of incendiary, offensive statements.11 Of course such appropriations occurred long before Marlowe’s or Milton’s own early-modern era; furthermore, dismissals and deflations of Moses, such as those in the Baines Note, were already a part of a centuries-old tradition as well.12 Inevitably these renderings of Moses, both positive and negative still, have assumed new resonances in modern contexts, such as their presence in African-American antebellum narratives.13 Moses’ reception, particularly in English or Italian Renaissance contexts, was most profoundly shaped by frequent New-Testament applications.14 more admiring regard for “the singularity, the brain-hammering strangeness, of the monotheistic idea” as a “new mapping of the world,” see George Steiner, In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes Toward the Redefinition of Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 36-37. 11 For example, Baines claims that Marlowe said, “That Christ was a bastard and his mother dishonest,” “That St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned always in his bosome, that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma,” and “That all they that love not Tobaccco & Boies were fooles” (36-37). In this context, clearly Baines attack is not literally on Moses, but rather on Marlowe. 12 Roman writers such as Quintilian, Tacitus, and Juvenal were especially critical, seeing in the life and influence of Moses the cause for the Jews’ rigidity, separatism, and strange religious practices. See John G. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism (Nashville, Tenn.: Abdingdon Press, 1972), 80-87. On Origen’s rival Celsus, who was an early accuser of Moses as a trickster and imposter, see Gager, 92-101, and Carlo Ginzburg, Wooden Eyes: Nine Reflections on Distance, trans. Martin Ryle and Kate Soper (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 42-43. 13 For more modern appropriations, see Brian Britt, Rewriting Moses: The Narrative Eclipse of the Text (London: T&T Clark, 2004), esp. 7-11; Melanie J. Wright, Moses in America: The Cultural Uses of Biblical Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Barbara Johnson, “Moses and Interntextuality: Sigmund Freud, Zora Neale Hurston, and the Bible,” in Poetics of the Americas: Race, Founding, and Textuality, ed. Bainard Cowan and Jefferson Humphries (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 15-29. Hurston’s Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939) is the best-known recasting of Moses in the context of AfricanAmerican literature. 14 Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter, eds., Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007); Ronald Hendel, “The Exodus in Biblical Memory,” Journal of Biblical Literature 120 (2001), 601-22.

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Jesus in the gospels variously evokes Moses in explicating or critiquing the Old-Testament covenant, as well as in announcing the coming of the kingdom of God.15 He engages his predecessor differently in the different gospels. The Matthean Jesus resolves complexities of Mosaic Law (Matt. 22:24-28) by introducing the greater reality of the resurrection.16 Luke’s version of this exchange specifically includes Jesus’ citation of Moses’ words as he encountered the burning bush; Jesus here becomes exegete, interpreting those words in support of the everlasting life he is advocating. More boldly, the Johannine Jesus compares Moses’ raising of the bronze serpent (Num. 21:7-9) with the necessary lifting up of the son of man (3:1415). Like Moses’ act, which preserved the Israelites from other lethal serpents, the Son of Man’s being lifted will prevent men from perishing— eternally, in this case. (Traditionally this rising is interpreted as Christ’s crucifixion, with the implication of the atoning work done there.) Jesus’ claim that the Father gives true bread from heaven (John 6:29-35), bread superior to the manna that fed the Israelites, is a similar example of the gospels’ transumption of incidents from Moses’ narrative. At times Jesus qualifies the Mosaic Law by emphasizing its pragmatic rather than inviolate nature, as when he explains that Moses made prescriptions for divorce because of the Israelites’ hardness of heart (Mark 10:3-4). And of course Moses is present at the Transfiguration, in fellowship with Christ as a prophet of Israel, but also confirming Jesus’ unique divinity as God the Son (Matt. 17, Mark 9, Luke 9). Other New Testament writers (Paul most crucially) developed this parallel and introduced further reinterpretations of Moses and his legacy, as we shall see. One example argues that Moses himself foresaw such appropriations or at least prophesied one in particular: “For Moses sayd unto the fathers: A prophet shall youre lorde god rayse up unto you, won of youre brethren, lyke unto me[.]”17 Here, The Acts of the Apostles clearly places Moses’ words in the context of the testament of Christ, not only regarding his incarnation, but also his eschatological return at “the tyme that all thynges be restored agayne” (3:21). 15 See Matthew 8:4, 19:7-8, 22:24-32, 23:2, Mark 1:44, 7:10, 10:3-4, 12:19-27, Luke 5:14, 16:29-31, 20:28-38, 24:27, 24:44, John 3:14-15, 5:45-46, 6:32, 7:19-23 8:5, 9:28-29. 16 For the Gospel of Matthew’s connections between Moses and Jesus, see Dale Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1993). 17 The passage is from Acts of the Apostles 3:22, and includes a quotation from Deuteronomy 18:15. The version above is William Tyndale’s 1526 Worms translation. The New Testament, ed. W.R. Cooper (London: British Library, 2000), 254.

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The Jesus of Luke’s gospel corroborates this outlook in claiming that all things must be fulfilled in the Law of Moses, and in the prophets and Psalms, “which were written of me” (24:44). In the gospel of John, Jesus makes a similar claim in blunter terms: “For had ye beleved Moses, ye wolde have beleved me: For he wrote of me” (John 5:46). John early in his gospel presents a landscape ripe for the receiving of Jesus as a prophesied fulfillment: “Philip founde Nathanael, and sayde unto hym: We have founde hym off whom Moses wrote in the lawe, and the prophetes” (1:45, Tyndale’s version). Paul in his travels would find a similar landscape, and he would thus imitate Jesus’ and the apostles’ strategy of justification based on the Torah (Acts 26:22, 28:23). These references are not value-neutral of course, and have been diversely treated as revelations of a new reality, an emphatically respectful treatment of the Hebrew Scriptures, a sublime literary rewriting, or a disturbing record of anti-Semitic hostility. Analyzing John’s account of Jesus’ claim, “Before Abraham was, I am” (8:57-58), Harold Bloom describes the textual moment as the “acutest manifestation of John’s palpable ambivalence toward Moses” and John as a “dangerous enemy of the Hebrew Bible” engaging in “revisionary warfare against Moses[.]”18 Conversely, David Lyle Jeffrey argues that the gospels’ narration of the use of the Hebrew Scriptures by Jesus, at least, is “emphatically conservative”—he points to Jesus’ words that not one letter or stroke of the Law shall pass away (Matthew 5:17-20).19 The point I wish to make by introducing such strong critical opposition is this: receptions of Moses through the ages have often been contrary, with diverse emphases and circumstances, but even when single appropriations are considered, most profoundly those found in the New Testament, the context surrounding the borrowing, especially in terms of authorial motivation and ideological consequence, will invariably be judged very differently by different readers and critics. This, then, becomes an outer layer of hermeneutical complexity around Moses himself, who is 18 Harold Bloom, “Before Moses Was, I Am,” in The Bible: Modern Critical Views, ed. Harold Bloom (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1987), 291-304, quotations at 291, 295, and 299. “As I read John’s trope, it asserts not only the priority of Jesus over Abraham (and so necessarily over Moses), but also the priority, authority, and originality of John over Moses, or as we would say, of John as writer over the Yahwist as writer” (296). In contrast to Bloom’s view of John’s gospel as “pragmatically murderous as an anti-Jewish text” (304), see Daniel Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,” Harvard Theological Review 93.4 (2001): 243-84. 19 David Lyle Jeffrey, People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 44-45, and ch. 2 generally.

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already a highly complex figure as we encounter him in the Pentateuch. Moses has been a “man for all seasons and every age,” declares his most recent popular biographer, but as such he is rarely treated fully, or with consistency.20 Sometimes he is portrayed as “unfailingly good and meek, dignified and devout,” but elsewhere the Bible reveals him to be “arrogant, bloodthirsty, and cruel” (Kirsch 2, 5). These tensions of characterization and appropriation are at no time more apparent than during the Renaissance. And it is this tension that made available to Renaissance artists, scholars, popes, and reformers so many allusive possibilities. Returning to the opening of Paradise Lost, it is equally important to recognize that Moses not only helps to define Milton’s heavenly muse, who divinely favors the Christian poet, but also the poet himself. Milton had many reasons to find in the figure of Moses a fruitful visionary model, one properly present at the commencement of what would be England’s great Christian epic. Moses’ own literary reputation is arguably the primary reason he did so in his poem’s invocation. Milton’s scriptural subject transforms the opening Mosaic allusion into a trope for poetic ambition and the striving for something (literary canonicity?) akin to the scriptural authority associated with Moses.21 For Renaissance scholars and believers alike, the first five books of the Pentateuch were prominently associated with Moses, identified as author in various editions of the Bible.22 For example, “THE FIRST BOKE OF Moses, called Genesis,” declares the 1560 edition of the Geneva Bible, and the following “Argument” corroborates this claim: “MOSES in effect declareth the things, which are here chiefly to be considered[.]”23 Of course numerous commentaries on Old-Testament works agreed with this identification and titular emphasis, such as Henry Ainsworth’s Annotations upon the 5 Bookes of Moses, the Booke of 20 Jonathan Kirsch, Moses: A Life (New York: Ballantine, 1998), 4. 21 James Holly Hanford, “That Shepherd, Who First Taught the Chosen Seed,” University of Toronto Quarterly 8 (1939): 403-19, argues for a far greater self-identification on Milton’s part as Moses’ successor and a sense of influence approaching the level of Platonic possession. Quoted in Paradise Lost, ed. Alastair Fowler, in The Poems of John Milton, ed. John Carey and Alastair Fowler (London: Longmans, 1968), 460 n. See also Jason P. Rosenblatt, “The Mosaic Voice in Paradise Lost,” Milton Studies 7 (1975): 207-31. 22 William Tyndale’s incomplete Old Testament, for example, was first published in octavo and by separate book in the Pentateuch. The 1611 edition of The Authorized Version likewise has “The First Book of Moses, Called Genesis,” et al. The Bible: King James Version with The Apocrypha, ed. David Norton (2005; repr. London: Penguin, 2006), 3, 67, 123, 163, 221. 23 The Geneva Bible: A facsimile of the 1560 edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), air.

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the Psalmes, and the Song of Songs … (1627).24 Moreover, widespread attention to the two traditional “songs of Moses” (Exod. 15:1-18 and Deut. 32:1-43) further strengthened his identity as a divinely gifted poet and holy hymnmaker, two roles of great interest to Milton.25 Preachers drew from Moses’ songs devotional lessons or applications for current political crises, sometimes with apocalyptic overtones.26 Treating it as a mystical praise song, Richard Rolle translated the Exodus passage in the fourteenth century, and Milton’s Renaissance predecessors viewed Moses as a poetic paragon generally. Philip Sidney included “Moses and Deborah in their Hymns” among the “chief” ancient poets who “did imitate the unconceivable excellencies of God,” while John Donne would later combine Sidney the author with his biblical subject by calling Philip and his sister Mary as “this Moses and this Miriam” in a poem praising the Sidney Psalter.27 Both Moses’ songs were frequently rendered “in meeter,” included as hymns within psalm collections and set to music by the likes of Orlando Gibbons and Henry Lawes.28 24 Henry Ainsworth, Annotations upon the 5 Bookes of Moses, the Booke of Psalmes, and the Song of Songs … (London: John Bellamie, 1627). Arthur Jackson, A Help for the Understanding of the Holy Scripture. Intended chiefly for the assistance and information of those that use constantly every day to reade some part of the Bible, and would gladly always understand what they reade if they had some man to help them. The first part (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1643), B1r, features “Annotations on the first book of Moses called Genesis.” 25 The title “The Song of Moses” is most commonly attributed today to the passage in Deuteronomy 32, which precedes another poetic passage known as “The Blessings of Moses” (Deut. 33:1-29). The New Testament gives the Exodus and Deuteronomy songs eschatological import: Revelation 15:2-4 features a celebration where the triumphant elect sing the song of Moses. 26 See, for example, the following sermons: Richard Stock, The doctrine and use of repentance: necessarie to be practised and used of all who looke to sing the song of Moses, and the song of the lambe beyond the glassie sea. Rev.15.23 … (London: Edmund Weaver and William Welby, 1608), and Stephen Marshall, The song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lambe: opened in a sermon preached to the Honorable House of Commons, at their late solemne day of thanksgiving, June 15. 1643. for the discovery of a dangerous, desperate, and bloudy designe, tending to the utter subversion of the Parliament, and of the famous city of London (London: Samuel Man and Samuel Gellibrand, 1643). 27 Philip Sidney, A Defence of Poetry, ed. J.A. Van Dorsten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 25, and John Donne, “Upon the translation of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sidney, and the Countess of Pembroke his sister,” The Complete English Poems, ed. A.J. Smith (1971; repr. London: Penguin, 1996), 333. For a curiously argued comparison between Moses and the mistress addressed in Donne’s “Elegy 19,” see Raymond-J. Frontain, “Moses, Dante, and the Visio Dei of Donne’s ‘Going to Bed,’” American Notes & Queries 6.1 (1993): 13-17 (especially 14). 28 See The CL. Psalmes of Dauid in prose and meeter: with their whole vsuall tunes, newly corrected and amended. Hereunto is added the whole church discipline, with many godly prayers, and an exact kalendar for xxv. yeeres: and also the Song of Moses in meeter, never before this time in print (Edinburgh: Andro Hart, 1615), and R.K., The canticles or song of

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Finally, Moses also enjoyed the reputation as a sanctioned author, or at least God’s privileged scribe, in the specific case of the Ten Commandments.29 Moses’ reputation as a fellow writer and poet is only the first reason that Milton introduces him so prominently and so immediately in Paradise Lost. The first comment upon “That Shepherd,” that he “first taught the chosen Seed,” makes him a figure of education, teaching a divinely chosen people of divine matters. This action reverberates with the poet-speaker’s subsequent imploring of the muse to “Instruct me” (1.19), as well as the later scene of instruction vis-à-vis the audience, which announces the poet’s ultimate goal: “That to the highth of this great Argument / I may assert Eternal Providence, / And justify the ways of God to men” (1.24-26). Moses provided documents essential for salvation history—namely, the narrative of creation and covenant, and the tables of the law—but Milton prepares to offer instead a document less interested in description and legislation than in justification: he follows Moses’ instrumental role in salvation history by seeking to explain and defend that history. Milton’s poem, then, will justify God’s ways to “men,” and this word, rounding out this opening passage, restates in the plural mankind’s collective fall and ruin caused by “Man’s First Disobedience” of the poem’s first line. Phrases such as “all our woe” and “till one greater Man / Restore us” serve as plural antecedents to that ending word, “men,” and create a contrast with the singular (in both senses) saving work of Jesus the Christ, that “one greater Man” (1.4).30 Just so, the poet himself contrasts with the “men” who are his audience, for he too is a standout figure, uniquely enlightened and raised and supported (as Moses before him) by the heavenly muse. The greatest accomplishment of this opening passage, in terms of poetic ethos, is to make a space for individuals who by divinity or divine assistance confront and counteract disobedience, death, woe, and loss: this exclusive group includes “one Solomon, reduced into a decasyllable together with the song of Moses in meeter (London: n. p., 1662). 29 For example, see John E. Booty’s focus on the Prayer Book Catechism, whose concentration on the Apostles’ Creed, Ten Commandments, and Lord’s Prayer reflected a shared valuing of “true doctrine, a moral code, and the model prayer” (12). Booty, by way of Richard Hooker, emphasizes the agreed-upon authorship of these authoritative texts. The Godly Kingdom of Tudor England: Great Books of the English Reformation, ed. John E. Booty (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1981). 30 Milton’s emphasis obviously refers to preceding epics’ focus on epic heroes—most famously Homer’s ανδρα and Virgil’s “virumque”—but the “Man” here is most informed by the theological identification of Christ as the new man or second Adam. See, for example, Romans 5:19.

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greater Man,” “That Shepherd,” “Thou O Spirit,” “th’upright heart and pure” (in a more general mode of moral exemplarity), and, most importantly, “I”/“me”—the poet or poem’s speaker-persona. Milton also co-opts Moses as a pioneering figure. This passage repeatedly praises unprecedented actions, each of which opposes the harm of the “First Disobedience” of the first line: supremely, Christ restores and regains; Moses “first taught” the Israelites about the “Beginning”; the Spirit “from the first / Wast present” … “brooding on the vast Abyss” (1.19-21);31 and rather audaciously, the poet presents himself in the midst of such action, for he seeks aid for his “advent’rous Song” … “while it pursues / Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme” (1.13, 15-16).32 The invocation proper to the heavenly muse involves further Mosaic identifications. The speaker’s turn from “Oreb, or of Sinai” to “Sion hill” and “Siloa’s Brook” (1.10-11) looks ahead to the ceremonial era and the era of grace associated with Mount Zion and Calvary, respectively. A common Moses/Jesus typological understanding informs this geographical shift, and chiastically puts Moses in relationship with the “one great Man” mentioned previously.33 This Moses/Jesus typology aligns itself with the relationship proclaimed by the Jesus of the gospels, treated above, and as will become clear, Milton moreover has in mind other New-Testament discourses’ pairing of Moses and Jesus as figures to reflect the Law’s relationship with, or fulfillment by, the salvific work of Christ. A few lines later Milton draws out this contrast between legalistic externals and the internal transformation of the faithful when the poet-speaker says of the Spirit that it “dost prefer / Before all Temples th’ upright heart and pure” (1.17-18). If the prior introduction of Moses characterizes him by the theophany of the burning bush and his mediation with God atop Sinai 31 Milton’s use of “Abyss,” the Greek word used in the Septuagint to render “the deep” of Genesis 1:2, effectively associates the Spirit with the biblical account of creation, as happens to Moses just beforehand via the “In the beginning” phrase. For a contemporary work that concentrates on this particular aspect of Moses the author, see George Walker, The History of Creation, as it is written by Moses… (London: John Bartlet, 1641). 32 This emphasis on first things continues in the opening lines of the next section: “Say first, for Heav’n hides nothing from thy view / Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause / Mov’d our Grant Parents in that happy State …” (1.27-29). Alastair Fowler notes this frequent repetition of “first” in these opening lines, and likewise emphasizes Moses’ importance as the “first … Jewish writer,” and Genesis as the “principal source” of the mythos of Paradise Lost. The Poems of John Milton, 460 n. 33 For a similar pairing, see Vavasor Powell, Christ and Moses excellency, or Sion and Sinai’s glory: being a triplex treatise, distinguishing and explaining the two covenants or the gospel and the law… (London: Hannah Allen, 1650).

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on behalf of the Israelites, then in the present passage he may be present implicitly as the receiver of plans for and the builder of the tabernacle (Exod. 25-31, 35-40). Milton devotes (as we shall see) several descriptive lines to Moses and the tabernacle near the end of Paradise Lost, in the vision of salvation history granted to Adam (12.244-60). In both opening and closing passages, the tabernacle, like Moses himself, symbolizes the old dispensation, which becomes most meaningful when set beside the proclamation of the new—as in Christ’s own self-identification as the Temple. It would be significant for Milton and his epic aims that the spoils of Egypt were intended as furnishings for the tabernacle (Deut. 36:2-7). Those pagan elements are made subservient to the sacred construction, as with the signs of pagan invocation earlier and as with this Christian epic as a whole. Just so, here Milton introduces the tabernacle, along with the implication of the Solomonic temple it prefigures, but immediately situates it as the inferior item in a different pairing. Milton’s “Temples”/“th’upright heart” antithesis, with its external-to-internal dynamic, suggests the Pauline new man, renewed by faith. Even as Milton benefits from and supersedes the classical tradition he incorporates, he also does so with Moses and his legacy. The “Temples”/“heart” pairing is poetically interesting because it need not be interpreted as solely antithetical, although the Moses-Jesus, OT-NT typology promoted throughout the epic encourages this opposition. Moses’ repute as a godly man argues for his association with the “th’upright heart” as well. Of course his presentation of the Ten Commandments (twice) marks Moses as God’s favored moral communicator. Josephus’ and Philo’s epideictic treatment of him as an Hellenistically ideal lawgiver, and possibly a semi-divine one, countered pagan criticisms and helped to establish Moses’ high reputation during antiquity.34 He is called the meekest of men in the Pentateuch’s biographical narrative (Num. 12:3), and commentators such as Gregory the Great and Ambrose stressed this gentler aspect of his character. Gregory of Nyssa’s Vita Mosis was the most influential patristic reaction to Moses, and its spiritualized portrait of an ascetic contemplative lay behind late English Renaissance treatments by Lancelot Andrewes and Richard Baxter. Gregory sought mystical “inner” meanings in Moses’ actions; for example, his ascent up Sinai signifies the believer’s journey of faith toward God, and the command to wash clothes 34 Gager, 15-24. For dueling pagan assessments of Moses as either wise or deficient lawgiver, see chap. 1 and 2.

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before the climb signifies “the outward respectability of life,” so that the “visible respectability might correspond to the inward condition of the soul.”35 From Moses’ birth onward, Gregory urges readers to identify with him and his trials: the baby Moses’ abandonment among the rushes confirms our experience of the “restless and heaving motion of life” (56-57). With more vocational specificity, Gregory argues that monastic retreat is modeled on Moses’ refuge in Midian or in his visits to Sinai, where he “entered the inner sanctuary of the divine mystical doctrine” (34, 43). Conversely, the ample narrative episodes surrounding Moses, many of which are far from retiring, also fit Gregory’s designs insofar as they supported in their constant shifts of scene and fortune the author’s idea of eternal progress.36 English divines, far from monastic in outlook, could still value these retreats or God’s providential timing in orchestrating them. Even Moses’ slaying of an Egyptian becomes an “extraordinary calling from God,” according to one commentator, since “he knew that things were not yet in a readinesse for the publicke deliverence of the people[.]”37 Milton of course valorizes this spirit of withdrawal in Paradise Regained, and Moses further represents an “upright” model for this poet in his initial reluctance at his divine commission. In this respect, Moses’ stammer or slowness of speech reflects the anxieties of limitation weighed in the scales of accomplishment, which Milton dramatizes in his sonnet on his blindness. Yet Moses succeeded so wildly that tradition held him to be the inventor of writing, eventually passed down to the Phoenicians and the Greeks. Milton, too, was determined to succeed. It is the determination, that determined sense of self, that fuels both the reticence and anxiety, as well as the ambition. Finally, there can be heard a wish for Mosaic imitation in the speaker of Paradise Lost’s final appeals to the heavenly muse. Spiritually internalizing Moses’ Sinai ascent, the poet-persona asks, “what is low raise and support,” so that he might ascend to the “highth of this great Argument”—that is, accomplish the poem itself (1.23-24). Unlike Gregory of Nyssa, Milton’s desired ascent is poetic rather than monastic, but like his patristic 35 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 92-93. For context, see Joseph T. Lienhard, “The Christian Reception of the Pentateuch: Patristic Commentaries on the Book of Moses,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 10, no. 3 (2002): 373-88. 36 John Meyendorff, “Introduction” to Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, 12-13. 37 Jackson, A Help for the Understanding of the Holy Scripture, 18v.

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predecessor, he understands that his achievement will be possible only with the kind of Spirit-imparted virtue and contemplation that Gregory long ago advocated. The appeal just beforehand—“What in me is dark / Illumine” (22-23) strikes even more at the heart of Mosaic iconography, whether in New-Testament or later Renaissance uses. We have here an allusive example of what English rhetoricians called the “preposterous,” for Milton in this wish for illumination first invokes Moses’ descent from Sinai, only after which his persona entreats the muse to “raise and support” him, in mimicry of Moses’ climb. Admittedly light-dark contrasts signal in the most general way revelation, spiritual gifts, divine knowledge, or moral clarity. Milton himself uses light imagery to describe the elect’s heavenly ascent in “At a Solemn Music”: “till God ere long / To His celestial consort us unite, / To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light” (26-28). Moses’ specific case nevertheless lingers here near the concluding lines of the opening. So when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, the two Tables of the Testimonie were in Moses hand, as he descended from the mount: (now Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone bright, after that God had talked with him) [.] And Aaron and all the children of Israel loked upon Moses, and beholde, the skin of his face shone bright, and they were afraide to come nere him. (Exod. 34:29-30, 1560 Geneva version).

His is the grand example of the godly man made luminous by his deployment of heavenly writing. Paradise Lost opens, then, with a series of connotatively complex and incident-rich uses of Moses, and as Milton is about to begin his epic narrative in earnest, he fittingly concludes his opening with that reference (itself veiled) to Moses’ illuminated face, which shortly he conceals: “So Moses made an end of communing with them, and had put a covering upon his face … And the children of Israel sawe the face of Moses, how the skin of Moses face shone bright: therefore Moses put the covering upon his face, until he went to speake with God” (Exod. 34:33, 35). One of the more celebrated moments in Moses’ life, his illumination and veiling served as a typological touchstone for St. Paul’s integration of the Hebrew Scriptures with Christ’s new dispensation, and it was a key passage for exegesis in countless Reformation discourses.

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Pauline Appropriation of Moses and Reformation Commentaries The typological connection between Moses’ incident in Exodus and Paul’s own writings are made patent in the Geneva Bible, for instance, since marginal notes accompany Moses’ illuminated skin (2 Cor. 3:7) and his concealing his face (2 Cor. 3:13), pointing readers to clarifying, or fulfilling, New Testament passages. In the Pentateuch context, Moses’ veil is sometimes figured as the covering and curtain in the tabernacle or the cherubic wings over the ark’s mercy-seat, all setting apart the divine presence (Exod. 36:35). Paul radically refigures Moses’ veil from his Christological perspective. To begin with those verses cited marginally in the Geneva Bible, Paul contrasts the Mosaic “tables of stone” with the “fleshlie tables of the heart”; in this way he moves from the Old Law delivered from Sinai to the internalized, Spirit-given faith of Christian believers (2 Cor. 3:3, Geneva version) or, as he also articulates it, from the letter that kills to the life-giving spirit. In the next verse cited marginally, Paul associates the glory of the shining of Moses’ face, which the Israelites feared, with the “ministration of death” (3:7)—that is, the Old Law under which believers are inescapably condemned. Moreover, Paul argues that both God’s old and new dispensations were glorious, but he also stresses that the Israelites could neither encounter the old dispensation directly nor comprehend it clearly. Paul’s next contrast introduces Moses’ veil to comment upon both proclamation and prose style. Hope allows him to use “boldenes of speache,” he says. (The Authorized Version’s “plainness of speech” is apropos here, with respect to Paul’s figurative use of the veil.) And we are not as Moses, which put a vaile upon his face, that the children of Israel shulde not looke unto the end of that which shulde be abolished. Therefore their mindes are hardened: for until this day remaineth the same covering untaken away in the reading of the Olde testament, which vaile in Christ is put away. (2 Cor. 3:13-14)

The Geneva Bible’s 1560 annotation dilates upon this contrast: “Moses shewed the Law as it was covered with shadowes, so that the Jewes eyes were not lightened but blinded, and so culde not come to Christ who was the end thereof …” The veil remains in place, then, for those who underread, so to speak—who, in remaining focused on law, are unaware of its fulfillment, or in the stronger language of the passage, abolition, in Christ. Relatedly, for those who do not believe, the veil remains “layed over their

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hearts” (3:15). Conversion takes away the veil, and Paul significantly ends this section of his epistle by envisioning how “we all beholde … the glorie of the Lord with open face” (3:18).38 His intricate figure transforms his readers into the Israelites, who can freely perceive divine glory in Moses’ illuminated face, and into Moses himself, “with open face” now—no longer in need of veiling and able to avoid the ensuing mystification that Paul implies. This contrast, anchored in the figure of Moses, is discernable elsewhere in the Greek Scriptures. First, Acts of the Apostles portrays Paul as proclaiming and defending it, and he is accused of encouraging the Jews to forsake Moses (13:39, 21:21). In Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, he refers to Moses’ story when condemning present resisters to the gospel message: “Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth” (3:8, Authorized Version). The law is connected with sin and death (Rom. 8:2) or framed as a curse in the epistle to the Galatians, whose compositional context involves a controversy about circumcision (e.g., 3:10-13). In Romans 10, Paul infers from Moses’ farewell address, in which he speaks of the “word” that is near (Deut. 30:12-14), a statement about Jesus, “that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (10:8). And of course the sonship of Christ and his superiority over Moses are major themes in the letter to the Hebrews. Christ is preferred above Moses inasmuch as he who builds a house deserves more honor than the house itself (3:3), and soon the tabernacle is framed merely as an “example and shadow of heavenly things,” that is, the new covenant announced by Christ. The most extended comparison occurs in Hebrews 12, where the divine presence at Sinai, whose voice terrified the Israelites, is set beside a vision of the “city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” and of “spirits of just men made perfect” (12:18-29). Finally, the gospel of John bluntly establishes the law-grace contrast before beginning in earnest the narrative of Jesus’ life: “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (1:17). Typological prolepsis, then, occurs throughout the New Testament, reorienting Old-Testament material into the mold or seal that informs Christ’s impression upon the world.39 38 For visual representations of the veiled Moses, where it figures, among other things, the contemplative life or political effeminacy, see Britt, chap. 4. Britt’s first example, 91-92, is the Carolingian Vivian Bible, which pairs an image of Moses with his veil just lifted by the four personified evangelists and an image of the opening of the book (Rev. 5:6). 39 For a useful study of typology generally, see Jean Daniélou, From Shadow to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, trans. W. Hibberd (Westminster, Md.: Newman, 1961).

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The Pentateuch, of course, variously contributes to or resists these readings. Moses’ command to the Israelites to place the book of the Law in the ark “that it may be there for a witness against thee” (Deut. 31:26) is easily appropriable by Paul’s consideration of the Law in Romans 8, but on the other hand, New Testament writers had to actively downplay the sense of revelation and empowerment that also surrounds the bestowing of the law (Deut. 29:29). Likewise, Moses himself sometimes sounds like a mediating, scapegoat figure (“The LORD was angry with me for your sakes”—Deut. 1:37, 3:26, 4:21) that complicates a too easy contrast between Moses and Jesus. Herbert Marks argues that St. Paul, unlike the gospel authors, shows most concern for the circumstances of the interpreter, leading to a more aggressive attitude toward Scripture and a willingness to set traditions at odds.40 An “active depreciation of Moses” results: his antitype becomes Paul himself, reducing the old covenant whose antitype is the gospel (31618). For support, Marks points to the 2 Corinthians 3 passage treated above, in which Paul refigures Moses’ illuminated and veiled face. Paul adds a sense of fading splendor (“which glory was to be one away” in the Authorized Version) that is not found in his source (Exod. 34:29-35), and he undermines traditional views—that Moses assumes the veil because his illuminated glory is too awesome for the Israelites to experience directly, and that Moses’ face shone as brightly until he died.41 According to Marks, “what Paul has done is underhanded indeed.”42 Once again, we see that later interpretations and applications of Moses are far from value-neutral; the old-new covenant contrasts set up in the New Testament look very different, depending on one’s confessional or disciplinary allegiances. This New Testament reassessment of Moses, in any case, was of central theological importance during the Renaissance, and it invited interpretation 40 Herbert Marks, “Pauline Topology and Revisionary Criticism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 52.1 (1984): 71-92, repr. in Bloom, ed., The Bible, 305-21. See especially 313-15. Both Marks and Bloom argue that Paul actively identifies with Moses, in 2 Corinthians 3:7 and Romans 9:3 respectively (Bloom, ed., The Bible, 299, 313). 41 Ibid., 317. Bloom as well finds Paul’s handling Exodus 34 to be a “weird exegesis,” saying beforehand that there are “so many contests with Moses throughout the New Testament” that he cannot adequately compare them all (298). 42 Ibid., 318. Earlier, Marks emphasizes Paul’s radical revaluation in passages such as Romans 5:14 and 1 Corinthians 10:1-11, where he makes the Hebrew Scriptures “warnings” (Greek “tupos,” related to “typology”) for present believers. “The Israelites … are important only insofar as readers of scripture are capable of seeing in their predicament a prefiguration of their own situation[.]” Paul’s treatment also involves a radical revaluation of himself as author and reader: “He suggests … that the biblical events were recorded in written form for the specific purpose of eliciting the interpretation he gives them” (310-11).

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from a broad range of reformers. Consistent with his strong emphasis on the Pauline new man, Luther viewed Moses as a figure of the Law and, in and of himself, of spiritual bondage and death. In a March 1533 letter, he grouped Moses with “the pope and the whole world” in differentiating belief in Christ from assailing conscience, and elsewhere, he envisions the Devil citing Moses and the Ten Commandments in opposition to Christ’s righteousness.43 He makes clear this now familiar contrast in his commentary on Galatians, where he exhorts readers to bring their consciences “from the law to grace, from active and working righteousness to the passive and received righteousness, and, to conclude, from Moses to Christ.”44 Commenting on Galatians 2:19—“For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God” (AV)—Luther claims that Paul here “calleth grace itself the law, giving a new name to the effect and working of grace, in contempt of the law of Moses and the false apostles …” (116). The reformer imagines Paul as divinely moved, as if by the indignation of the Spirit itself, and indeed, this outright renaming of grace itself as “law” represents, at the denotative level, a fundamental overturning of the legacy of Moses, whose pairing with the “false apostles” leaves no doubt as to Luther’s judgment. Another sustained interaction with Moses appears in his “Preface to Romans,” which also displays a debt to 2 Corinthians 3: Those people who fail to understand the law aright are blind; in their presumptuous way, they think they can fulfill it with works. They are unaware how much the law demands; in particular, a heart that is free and eager and joyful. Hence they do not read Moses aright; the veil still covers and conceals his face. (31)

To fail to comprehend the Pauline conception of faith is to see God’s glory only faintly—it is behind the Mosaic veil and hindered by overemphasis on works. Furthermore, Luther argues that Abraham was originally justified by faith, but circumcision and the Mosaic law compromised that covenant: “the law issues in wrath rather than in grace, for no one fulfils it willingly and with joy” (28). He introduces the same point in his infamous preface to James, in which he rejects the epistle for interpreting Moses’ words in Genesis 15 as a justification of Abraham by works instead of faith (35). Luther’s Table Talk features his most memorable characterization of Moses, 43 Quoted in Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, 1982, trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (New York: Image, 1992), 129, 184. 44 Martin Luther, “A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians,” in Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Anchor, 1962), 99-165 (quotation at 107). Luther employs a similar antithesis later in the commentary, 145.

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in a passage where he defines a greater awareness of transgression as a spiritual use of the law: so that God might suppress and smother human pride, he has appointed and ordained a particular Hercules with a club, powerfully to lay hold on such beasts … that is, he gave the law upon the hill of Sinai, with such fearful thundering and lightning, that all people thereat were amazed and affrighted.45

The Law does not make visible grace and mercy, but rather weakness, sin, wrath, judgment, death, and there is something mischievously fitting in the framing of Moses as Hercules with a club, a pagan intimidator and bludgeoner, even as the Law is prior to the new dispensation and therefore brutalizes and kills spiritually. Repeatedly Luther warns listeners not to undermine grace, as early Judaizing Christians did, but always to “take good heed that we make not a Moses out of Christ, nor out of Christ a Moses, as has often been done.”46 Two of Luther’s equally famous contemporaries were generally more positive in their handling of Moses. Erasmus in On Contempt of the World points out that Moses was given special revelations—such as the burning bush or the commandments—not in cities amid the Egyptians or Israelites, but on mountains when in solitude.47 In this outlook, Erasmus stands firmly in the tradition of the contemplative, ascetic ideal found in Gregory of Nyssa’s Vita. Moses was also a ready example when Erasmus dissuaded readers from lengthy, ostentatious prayers in the Enchiridion Militis Christiani. Silent prayers must be sufficient, Erasmus reasons (68), since God asks Moses, “Why are you crying unto me?” before Moses even opens his mouth (Exod. 16:14). Luther’s fellow reformer Calvin also defends Moses, for example, in the Institutes’ early treatment of the antiquity and veracity of the Scriptures (1.8). The Greeks produced fables, and belated ones at that, whereas Moses preceded them and “only sets forth that doctrine concerning the eternal God which the Israelites had received by tradition from their fathers, by 45 Martin Luther, Table Talk, trans. William Hazlitt (London: Fount, 1995), 145-46. For repeatedly negative treatments of Moses, see various passages in the “Of the Law and the Gospel” section, 144-57. Luther uses this Hercules figure as well in his Galatians commentary. Selections from His Writings, 140. 46 Ibid., 155-56. This Christ-Moses contrast also occurs in Luther’s “Preface to the New Testament,” Selections from his Writings, 17, where he warns against making the gospel into a “book of law or doctrine.” 47 Erasmus, Lugduni Batavorum (Leiden, 1703), 5.1239-62, quoted in Roland H. Bainton, Erasmus of Christendom (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969), 14-15.

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whom it had been transmitted, as it were, from hand to hand, during a long series of ages.”48 On a more literary-critical note, Calvin judges Moses’ song (Deut. 32) to be “a bright mirror in which God is manifestly seen” (79) and conversely praised his use of popular language as a chronicler. The many miracles associated with Moses collectively confirmed that he was an “undoubted prophet,” and in terms of character, his overlooking of his sons for the high priest’s office revealed his virtue (77). (Calvin doubtless wishes to contrast Moses’ judicious rule with certain nepotistic Renaissance popes.) The reformer also rejects charges of magic against Moses (78), emphasizing his order for the stoning of those who consulted with soothsayers and magicians (Lev. 30.6). Magic, superstition, and idolatry were common topics for condemnation in Reformation anti-papal discourses, although Moses himself often appears as an oppositional figure—against Pharaoh’s magicians or the Israelites’ penchant for spiritually blind “papist” behaviors, as with the golden calf. In fact, this was a preexisting tension, even in pre-Reformation contexts. In the mystery plays, for example, Moses’ supernatural feats and his staff or “wand” are prominent in Pharaoh, and Keith Thomas speaks to the popularity of “Mosaical rods” and other divining instruments among would-be early-modern magicians.49 On the other hand, Moses’ association with the Ten Commandments ensured his reputation as a severe leader demanding godliness. In “The Procession of the Prophets,” Moses’ first long speech includes a recitation of the commandments, the first of which identifies Moses as an enemy of idolatry: “Make no God of stick nor stone, / And trust in none but God alone, / That made both night and day” (138). Even Moses’ death could be interpreted for the reforming good, a kind of providential, preemptive iconoclasm: one English divine speaks of his burial as “Christ’s abolishing of the ceremoniall law” given by Moses.50 God 48 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, 2 vols. in 1 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989), 1.76. In this context, Calvin cites Eusebius and Josephus on behalf of Moses’ precedence. For Plato’s wisdom supposedly deriving from his encounter with Moses’ writings in Egypt, and the legend of Moses being the teacher of Orpheus, see Gager, 63-69, 76-79. 49 The Wakefield Mystery Plays, ed. Martial Rose (1961; repr. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969), 125-37; Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribners, 1971), 235-36, 271. 50 Jackson, Oo6v. He also provides a typological citation, Colossians 2:14—“he hath blotted out the handwriting of ordinances.” For a similar treatment, see a sermon by Samuel Jacombe, Moses his death: opened and applied … (London: A. Byfield, 1657).

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prevented “superstitious honour” toward Moses’ body or sepulcher by conveying away his body. In doing so, he confutes the devil’s wish to make known the burial site, “that it might have been an occasion of idolatry[.]” The threat of reestablishing the Law is memorably figured as the “raking up of Moses dead body, which the Lord would not have to be taken up again” (Oo6v). These treatments of Moses’ body as possibly a stumbling block refer to varying degrees to Jude 9, where the archangel Michael disputes with the devil over Moses’ corpse. The Baines Note associates Moses with superstition in a less usual, typically subversive way. One of its statements claims that Moses made the Jews wander in the wilderness for forty years “to thintent [sic] that those who were privy to most of his subtilties might perish and so an everlasting superstition Remain in the hartes of the people” (37). This inversion notwithstanding, Protestant texts generally treated Moses as an ally in the fight against religious vices and blindness all too easily ascribed to the Israelites. William Tyndale was a key interpreter of Moses during the early English Renaissance and Reformation. He closely followed Luther and Calvin in his defense of Moses vis-à-vis questions of superstition and idolatry. Overall, he comments upon attributes of Moses in various compositional contexts, including New Testament exegete, polemicist, and translator of the Pentateuch, work he pursued after leaving England in 1524. His “Five Books of Moses” appeared in 1530. In the prologue to his rendering of Exodus, Tyndale praises Moses as an “ensample unto all and to all that are in authorite,” though by this focus on good governance he means to “make not Moses a figure of Christ,” as he claims John Fisher, the Catholic bishop of Rochester, has done.51 His distinction echoes Luther’s words above, and shortly Tyndale echoes Calvin as well in his emphasis on Moses’ miracles and his lethal proscriptions against witches, sorcerers, and necromancers (162-63). Moreover, Tyndale repeatedly presents the commandments and tabernacle in ways that make an iconoclast of Moses: “hewed stone” is prohibited in the building of the altar (Exod. 20:25) “for fear of images: to flee the hethen idolatry utterly” (163). As for the tabernacle, it provided a place to sacrifice openly, so that it would be seen that all things were done according to God’s word, and the tabernacle’s “costlinesse” and manner of the ceremonies were meant “to occupye their mindes that they shuld have no lust to folow the hethen” (164-65). 51 William Tyndale, William Tyndale’s Five Books of Moses Called the Pentateuch, ed. F.F. Bruce (Fontwell, Sussex: Centaur Press, 1967), 162.

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Tyndale also follows Luther closely in his Pauline emphasis on old versus new dispensations. The Israelites were led “in the shadowes of Moses and night of the old testament, untyll the light of christ and daye of the new testament were come,” he explains in the same prologue, “[a]s chidern are ledde in the phantasies of youth, untyll the discretion of mans age become uppon them” (164-65). Elsewhere Tyndale extends this dark-light motif and applies it to his illuminating work of translating the Scriptures into English: the gospel’s enemies agree “that ye shall not have the texte therof in the mother tonge, and to kepe the world styll in darkenesse … For as longe as they maye kepe that doune, they will so darken the ryght way with the miste of their sophistry … ”52 Similarly, in the Israelites’ case, the Law by itself was insufficient to brighten the shadows and darkness of only partial comprehension, without faith. Moses, then, gave the Israelites the Law, but they had no power to follow it since it was not written on their hearts, he says, paraphrasing Paul. In this sense, the Christian benefits from the law initially by its power to reveal sin (Rom. 7:7). We cannot feel its miserable and wretched effects on us, Tyndale writes in A Pathway to the Holy Scripture, until “Moses come and wake us and publish the law,” which brings us to self-knowledge.53 Those unfeeling ones believe themselves justified by their outward deeds, but believe wrongly. “They set a vail on Moses’ face and see not how the law requireth love from the bottom of the heart, and that love only is the fulfilling of the law” (35). Here Tyndale treats the familiar Pauline image as a trope for arrogance, a mistaken confidence in the self that only partially comprehends the demands of the law. Properly viewed, the law also fuels a liberated Christian action. “The sprete also maketh the law a lyvely thing in the herte, so that a man bringeth forth good workes of his awne acord without compulsion of the lawe” (Exodus prologue, 166-67), Tyndale writes in his characteristically robust prose. Like Calvin, Tyndale in places reserves special praise for Moses: “For there is not a perfecter lyffe in this world both to the honoure of god and profytte of his neygboure,” he declares in the Exodus prologue, and in the prologue to Leviticus he ventures to imagine Moses as privy to salvation history, if not privileged enough to enter the Promised Land itself: “ … I am fully persuaded and can not but beleve that God shewed Moses the secrettes of Christ and the verey maner of his death before hande” (162, 52 William Tyndale, “W. T. To the Reader,” in William Tyndale’s … Pentateuch, 3. 53 William Tyndale, A Pathway to the Holy Scripture, in Selected Writings, ed. David Daniell (New York: Routledge, 2003), 32-48 (34 and 40 cited).

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290). Moreover, subsequent prophets served to confirm Moses’ prophecies and doctrine, which in turn spurred these prophets to search further into Christ’s secrets (290-91). He also singles out Deuteronomy as the most excellent of Moses’ writings, and a “very pure gospel … a preachinge of fayth and love” (518). For all this praise, however, there is no mistaking Tyndale’s view, shared with Luther, of Moses’ limitations—his incomplete revelation and, in a certain typological respect, his paradoxical belatedness as sacred author. “The newe testament was ever, even from the beginning of the world” (168), Tyndale says simply.54 His Moses, though, is never the target of the vitriol found in Luther’s treatments. One explanation for this greater sympathy may be a very real identification that Tyndale may have felt with Moses as author, religious leader, and enemy of the ungodly. Each of these engagements is noticeable in his best-known work, The Obedience of a Christian Man. In a famous statement on early-modern biblical translation, he argues that Moses and the prophets all wrote in the mother tongue, and he claims an inherent affinity between Moses’ Hebrew language and his own English. “The manner of speaking is both one,” and invites word-for-word translation, whereas for Hebrew to Latin “thou must seek a compass”—a clear criticism of Jerome’s Vulgate translation prized by the Catholic Church.55 Tyndale also sees in Moses a figure who values obedience, one who charged the Israelites not to rail against or speak evil of their rulers (37). He likewise interprets the breaking of the tablets, making of Moses’ symbolic shattering of the Law a denunciation against those worshipping the golden calf. They “in no wise receive the law in their hearts, but rise against princes and rulers” (42). As author of this work, Tyndale was trying to present himself, and the English reform movement, in a similar way to Henry VIII—as an enemy, as Moses was, of innovation and rebellion. In The Obedience and elsewhere, Tyndale is repeatedly sensitive to the typological or allegorical malleability at the center of Moses’ reception. “Understand therefore that one thing in the scripture representeth divers things,” he writes (69), a comment that should give pause to those who emphasize Tyndale’s anti-scholastic privileging of literal-level biblical interpretation. Moses is equated with Christ, but also with God’s word, 54 Dahlia M. Karpman, “William Tyndale’s Response to the Hebraic Tradition,” Studies in the Renaissance 14 (1967): 110-30. See especially 126-28 for discussion of Tyndale’s typological habits of thought. 55 William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man, ed. David Daniell (London: Penguin, 2000), 15, 19.

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insofar as “Moses put in Aaron’s mouth what he should say[.]” Here Tyndale attempts to circumscribe priestly and papal authority, as derived from Aaron. If Aaron does figure the pope, Tyndale asks, then why is he not content with Christ’s doctrine, as Aaron was with Moses’ (69-70)? Sometimes Tyndale is even happy to allow the pope’s identification with Aaron, if the passage highlights negative pontifical activity. Thus Moses’ imparting of priestly interdicts to the Levites (“Cursed be he” etc.) in Deuteronomy 27 draws Tyndale’s marginal remark: “Here of take the popes an occasion to curse .iiii tymes in the yere” (William Tyndale’s … Pentateuch, 605). Of course contrasting the pope with the godly mission of Moses and Aaron is the more dominant typological construction for Tyndale. For example, in Exodus where Moses speaks to the Israelites as commanded, Tyndale’s annotation declares, “The Pope speaketh that whiche he is not commaunded” (269). The most obvious contrast figuratively identifies the pope with Pharaoh, paralleling Moses the liberator with Tyndale and his fellow reformers. In this case, Egypt and the Promised Land become biblical locations or destinations visible again in the European theater of religious conflict. Like Moses with respect to Israelites, Tyndale and his allies believed themselves to be freeing Catholic Europe from theological error and scriptural ignorance, and likewise with respect to Pharaoh, they were suffering persecution at the hands of wicked powers (church and governmental authorities, in Tyndale’s case). “What holp it Pharaoh to drown the men children?,” Tyndale asks in The Obedience. “So little, I fear not, shall it help the pope and his bishops to burn our men children which manfully confess that Jesus is the Lord” (5). Here Tyndale employs the cruelty of Pharaoh to indict past persecutions of the Lollards and even his own troubles surrounding his translation of Scripture. One measure of the importance to Tyndale of the Israelites’ enslavement and liberation appears near the outset of his rendering of Moses’ story. In Exodus 1:13—“And the Egiptians helde the children of Israel in bondage without mercie, and made their lyves bitter unto them with cruell laboure” (172)—he amplifies the Hebrew’s denotative meaning of “made to work” and “backbreaking toil” with the more theologically and allegorically loaded language of “in bondage” and “without mercie.”56 This language soon appeared in the Book of Common Prayer. When asked to speak further on the Ten Commandments, 56 Karpman, 114. Compare Tyndale’s verse with the Authorized Version: “And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour.”

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catechumens declared, “The same which God spake in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, saying I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”57 Thus every English believer would give her or his own voice to the Israelites’ flight from Egypt in the context of the confirmation service. Unsurprisingly, this typological identification became a widespread trope for writers at all stages of the English Reformation. The title page of George Joye’s translation of Jeremiah announces that the song of Moses is added “to magnifye our Lorde for the fall of our Pharao the Bisshop of Rome,” and Joye’s own identification, “some tyme felowe of Peter College in Camebridge,” slyly suggests him as the apostle’s truer heir, rather than that usurping bishop.58 John Foxe finds the association handy when emphasizing the cruelties of the Turks against five hundred Dutchmen, captured at the siege of Buda in 1542. The soldiers, Foxe reports, were “disfigured & mangled” and “had all their privy members cut of from their bodies.”59 This Christian suffering at the heathens’ hands compels Foxe to make the obvious parallel: In much like sort did cruell Pharao exercise hys tyranny against the people of God in Egipt: who to destroy the generation of them, caused all the male children to be drowned in the river. Whereby it is the more to be hoped, that seing the tyranny of this Turkish Pharao is come to such an extremitie, the merciful goodnesse of God will the more shortly send some Moses or other unto us for our speedy deliverance.

Later, John Milton uses the same figural denunciation against a more immediate, royal adversary in Eikonoklastes. Replying to the martyrological Eikon Basilike shortly after Charles I’s execution, Milton argues that the king accused those who “began to call for Reformation” of being factious, “as Pharaoh accus’d of Idleness the Israelites that sought leave to goe and sacrifice to God[.]”60 This application of Pharaoh to the Stuart king would feel 57 “Confirmation, Wherein Is Contained a Catechism for Children,” The Book of Common Prayer, 1559, ed. John E. Booty (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005), 282-89 (quotation at 284-85). 58 George Joye, Jeremy the Prophete translated into Englishe (n. p., 1534), Air. For further, more developed examples, see Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Lyric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 129-31. 59 John Foxe, Acts and Monuments […] (1583 edition), [online]. (hrOnline, Sheffield). . Accessed: 7 September 2009. 60 Eikonoklastes, ed. William Haller, in The Works of John Milton, general ed. Frank Allen Patterson, vol. 5 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), 61-309 (quotation at 280).

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more tenuous at the time of publication, in 1649, since Milton was writing on behalf of the newly empowered Council of State. Yet, viewing the trope differently, the identification is apt in Pharaoh’s narrative exemplarity as a cruel leader, or at least one politically hard of heart, who has now been providentially vanquished. A more complicated implication is found in The Returne of the renowned Cavaliero Pasquill of England, one of the anti-Martinist pamphlets emerging from the Martin-Marprelate controversy in the late 1580s. More precisely, its position as a defensive, status-quo text leads to a more elaborate, “post-Pharaoh” parallel. God delivered the Israelites from Egypt “by the hand of Moses,” but they soon encountered Jebusites and other enemies preventing their entrance to the Promised Land.61 Just so, says Pasquill to his fellow talking statue Marforius, “since God led his Church in this land out of the bondage of Rome, by the conduct of her excellent Majestie, there never yet wanted Papist, Atheist, Brownist, Barowist, Martinist, Anabaptist, nor Familie of Love to bid them battaile, that their course to Gods Kingdome might be stopt” (94). In other words, the course of true faith never did run smooth, and here the author, on behalf of the Church of England’s authorities, tries to isolate their legitimacy from the many obstacles and protests against them and their national church. There is an implied connection between the pope and Pharaoh (“out of the bondage of Rome”), but the parallel mainly focuses on the godless opposition that emerges after liberation—after the Israelites escape Egypt or the English shake off the Roman church’s yoke—even in or at the edge of a native “Promised Land.” The author goes on to point out that these struggles, in both cases, are caused by godly people’s “infirmities” and not any invincibility on the part of the adversary. The most prominent grammatical parallel (“by the hand of,” “by the conduct of”) is reserved for Moses and Queen Elizabeth, the present-day godly leader who will not be defeated by Catholic bondage or Martinist or Puritan vitriol. The parallel recalls the “murmuring” that Moses faced from the Israelites during the forty years’ wandering. This application cannot avoid a central tension in terms of traditional Moses-Pharaoh significations and the position of power reflected in the pamphlet’s compositional circumstances: Pasquill’s author may figure England as a tiny, godly nation having recently escaped the 61 The Returne of the renowned Cavaliero Pasquill of England …, in The Works of Thomas Nashe, vol. 1, ed. Ronald B. McKerrow, rev. ed., ed. F.P. Wilson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), 69-103 (quotation at 94). The attribution to Nashe is now considered dubious.

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Continental powers of a Pharaoh-pope, but he is in fact writing from a Pharaoh-like position of authority; in representing and defending the Church of England, he speaks for the institutional enforcer, rather than the besieged godly minority threatened by governmental bondage (Martinist puritans, in this case, though several are enumerated in the above passage). Shaping proactively the contemporary parallels with the Exodus story, Pasquill’s author presents the Church of England as God’s chosen people freed from one Continental oppressor but still blocked by factions within from its destiny—and not, in any case, a new Pharaoh in wielding power against anti-government religious purists who arguably share a greater resemblance with the Israelites. Moses in Renaissance English Culture Political, cultural, and literary uses of Moses throughout the century continued to demonstrate this refracted approach, with individual examples not only figuring Moses either positively or negatively, but also foregrounding one of the characterizing attributes discussed above. Sometimes other factors such as generic tradition affected representation, as in medieval and Renaissance dramatic treatments. Moses as a character enjoyed a long stage tradition, included as he was in the early Ordo prophetarum, which marked a transition from prose sermonizing to poetic drama.62 Murray Roston summarizes the dual outcomes of the medieval dramatic approach to Moses: as an Old Testament figure, he was suspect to Christian writers of mystery plays and their audiences, but in being no saint figure, Moses and other prophets could be rendered in more human, dramatically realistic ways (29-30). If they were not Christ-like themselves, they did possess the function of announcing the mystery plays’ upcoming Christian typologies. To return to the Wakefield plays, for example, the Moses who concludes Pharaoh asks that God be given praise—“Honoured be he in trinity, / To him be honour and virtue” (137). This celebration of the Trinitarian godhead makes for a theologically cognizant Moses indeed. Similarly, Moses begins the following play by demanding the attention of his audience, “ye folk of Israel,” for he will tell them “Tidings wondrous good” (The Proces62 Murray Roston, Biblical Drama in England From the Middle Ages to the Present (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), 34-35. E.K. Chambers, English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1945), 24, discusses a lost Moses play, and the character’s inclusion in the Chester cycle.

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sion of the Prophets, 138). This last phrase calls to mind the evangelion—the good news or “glad tidings” in Tyndale’s phrasing—and thus typologically converts Moses into a John the Baptist figure. He serves as a dramatic harbinger not only of the covenant at Sinai, which the character next summarizes, but ultimately of Christ’s new covenant. It has been argued that Protestant identification with Old Testament characters ushered more sympathetic portrayals in Reformation drama, but this claim is mitigated by the most prominent of these plays featuring Moses or an allegorical version of him, John Bale’s A Comedy Concerynge Thre Laws.63 The fuller title identifies those laws as “of Nature, Moses, and Christ, Corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharysees and Papystes”: Deus Pater expatiates in the first act, and the second, third, and fourth acts contain successive attacks on these three laws, after which Deus Pater reenters (as Vindicta Dei) to take credit for the “ten terryble ponnyshmentes” in Egypt (1793), rout Infidelitas, and restore the damaged laws.64 A product of the morality-play tradition, Bale’s play for its lengthy theological explications draws upon Bede, the Speculum Sacerdotale, and most of all, William Tyndale, the latter not only in the temporal conceptualization of the laws, but also in the phrases, imagery, and stage properties associated with them.65 For example, Deus Pater symbolizes each by the heart, tables (“tabulas”), and New Testament respectively, early in the play (112, 122, 134). “Poised” is not a word usually applied to Bale as writer or promoter of reformed ideology, but his representation of “Moseh Lex” is surprisingly dynamic. The character’s opening self-identification—“I am a lawe of rygour and of hardnes” (791)—is hardly inviting, and it echoes clearly those treatments by Luther and Tyndale: I strayghtly commaunde, and if it be not done, I thretten, I curse, and slee in my anger sone. 63 Britt, 107-8. In this respect, Bale is at best an exception to the Reformation reinterpreter that Britt posits, compared with the “ambivalent or negative” portraits of Moses in medieval drama that he identifies previously (21). 64 John Bale, A Comedy Concernynge Thre Lawes of Nature, Moses, and Christ, Corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharysees and Papystes, in The Complete Plays of John Bale, ed. Peter Happé, vol. 2 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1986) 65-124 (quotations at 66 and 114). Bale’s play was first printed in 1548, but he likely began it in the 1530s and completed it by 1538. 65 On these influences, see Peter Happé, John Bale (New York: Twayne, 1996), 71, 74-75, 81-86. Of special structural interest is Happé’s connection between Bale’s laws of Moses and Christ with Tyndale’s exposition on the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew. Those chapters, Tyndale claims, restores the Law of Moses corrupted by the scribes and Pharisees, whereas Tyndale’s own exposition restores Christ’s law corrupted by the papists (86).

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To God I require a perfyght obedience, Condempnynge all soch as do it not in effect. … To hym am I death whan hys lyfe is infect. (792-95, 797)

These expressions of threats, curses, and anger assume a greater force later, when the Law of Christ is despoiled onstage, a clear reference to the recent sufferings of Protestant clerics (Happé, 77). Thomas More had satirically inverted this emphasis a few decades earlier when, in Utopia, Raphael Hythloday recalls his objections to a past interlocutor who boasted of England’s swift execution of thieves. Stolen goods should not be punished by death, he argues, and points out that Christian Europe’s “newe law of clemencie” is more severe than the Mosaic Law, under which thieves are merely fined.66 In a similarly positive light, Bale’s Mosaic Law also judges Infidelitas accurately, calling him a fool (901), and his single, scripturally related property of the tables contrasts with the contemporary trinkets and trumpery, which Bale calls for as adornments for his vice figures.67 And, although Mosaic Law cannot withstand the accosting of Ambition and Covetousness, so that his character soon reappears lame and blind (1252), Bale at the play’s conclusion does not leave the character debased, as we might expect in the spirit of the curse of the law in Galatians 3:10. Moses’ tables “shalt evermore contynue,” Deus Pater promises in the last act (1895), and reacting to Deus Pater’s triumph, the three laws sing “In exitu de Aegypto” (1914). Mosaic Law is charged to “prosecute with love” and he soon sounds like an upright iconoclast and stern law enforcer (1941, 1972-78). Critically, though, he will now “shew what is synne and to seke the remedye” 1975), spoken with both Lex Christi and Fides Christiana reassuringly onstage with him. Bale’s surprising sympathy toward Moses also surfaces in another play about God’s promises to man as recorded in the Old Law. There Moses Sanctus is addressed as “frynde Moses” by Pater Coelestis, who announces an added covenant toward Israel because of Moses’ “true zele that thu to my people hast” (511, 521).68 66 Thomas More, Utopia, trans. Ralphe Robynson, 1551, in Three Renaissance Classics, ed. Burton A. Milligan (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953), 103-239 (130). 67 Kurt Tetzeli von Rosador, “The Sacralizing Sign: Religion and Magic in Bale, Greene, and Early Shakespeare,” The Yearbook of English Studies 23 (1993): 30-45. Rosador emphasizes this contrast between the “Ragges” of the vices and the “stony tables of Moses or a book: the word made visible as scripture” (35). 68 John Bale, A Tragedye or Enterlude Manyfestyng the Chefe Promyses of God unto Man by All Ages in the Olde Lawe, from the Fall of Adam to the Incarnacyon of the Lorde Jesus Christ, in Happé, ed., 1-34 (quotations at 19). For the Old-Testament figurae on which these two plays rely, see Leslie P. Fairfield, John Bale: Mythmaker for the English Reformation (West

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If Bale’s treatment of Moses and his Law is thus balanced, then unsurprisingly writers such as Edmund Spenser and George Herbert produce imaginative representations of Moses and his topoi, even in brief treatments where their main focus is elsewhere. Such “miniaturist” treatments occur, for example, when poetic context requires a Pauline expression of the darkened law or a heroic Old Testament figure, in either case (and in Spenser’s case, at the same time) making of Moses a convenient exemplar. In “The Sacrifice,” George Herbert’s Christ persona describes the soldiers’ abuse of him in typological terms: “My face they cover, though it be divine. / As Moses face was vailed, so is mine, / Lest on their double-dark souls either shine: / Was ever grief like mine?” (137-40).69 Here the soldiers’ faces, and hearts, are the truly veiled ones, darkened as they are by both the Israelites’ ignorance under the Old Law and the present evil of their actions. In turn, Christ experiences a double veiling too, literally blindfolded by the soldiers but also, as God incarnate, already “veiled” in flesh (Heb. 10:20). Elsewhere Herbert performs a curious rewriting of the Moses-Pharaoh antithesis treated above. “The Church Militant,” in narrating church history and how “Religion, like a pilgrime, westward bent” (29), soon arrives at the desert fathers’ residence in Egypt, where the past “Wonders of anger,” or Moses’ and Aaron’s miracles directed at the Egyptians, are replaced by love (37-38). Herbert next sets specific wonders of anger, the ten plagues, beside the Ten Commandments, before introducing the hermit Marcarius and St. Anthony. Enacting a symbolic reversal of spiritual geography, or more simply put, “changing th’ historie,” their Christian presence “Made Pharaoh Moses” (42), that is, metonymically, transformed Egypt into a true home for God’s people, specifically the Christian descendents of the Old Testament Israelites. Now that the church has moved to the west, “Goshen was in darknesse, Egypt full of lights, / Nilus for monsters brought forth Israelites” (43-44). Similarly, in the first book of The Faerie Queene, Spenser reinforces the importance of Red Crosse Knight’s mountaintop vision at the House of

Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1976), 24-25. Fairfield also situates the three-law structure of Bale’s play within Reformation historians’ greater “problem of periodization” (59)— for example, another popular tripartite conceptualization of historical eras involved the Old-Testament era, the time of Christ, and the following era of the holy church (marked by, to use one example, the Passover, the Last Supper, and the Eucharist). 69 George Herbert, The English Poems of George Herbert, ed. Helen Wilcox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 100.

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Holiness by ushering cultural and historical syncretism into the service of poetic amplification: That done, he leads him to the highest Mount; Such one, as that same mighty man of God, That blood-red billowes like a walled front On either side disparted with his rod, Till that his army dry-foot through them yod, Dwelt forty daies upon; where writt in stone With bloody letters by the hand of God, The bitter doome of death and baleful mone He did receive, whiles flashing fire about him shone. (1.10.53)70

Despite this mere, single-stanza description, Spenser’s sheer lyrical force effectively valorizes Moses, “the mighty man of God” who stands in contrast to Red Crosse’s being addressed as “thou man of earth” (with an etymological pun on the knight’s identification with St. George) in the previous stanza (1.10.52.2). This mount is “highest” because of its eschatological significance, since Spenser most has in mind among biblical equivalents the mountain where St. John is shown the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:10). This mountain is initially associated with Sinai (“Such one, as”), but the second half of the stanza effectively creates a different kind of doomsday, one in opposition to Revelation’s heavenly vision. The mountain that Moses “Dwelt forty daies upon” is primarily characterized by the commandments received there and the Law that condemns: “The bitter doome of death and balefull mone / He did receive” (53.6-9). The “bloody letters” on the stone tablets (53.6-9) signify a covenant whose rigors require sacrifice (Exod. 24:8). That said, the stanza also presents Moses in dramatically active terms, from the lengthy appositive that celebrates his parting of the Red Sea (3-5) to the concluding image of his receiving the Law “while flashing fire about him shone” (9), a detail from Deuteronomy 4:11 that heightens Moses’ courage during this divine encounter. We might also see Spenser’s version of a heroic Moses as over and against a verse in the epistle to the Hebrews featuring a different emphasis—“And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake” (12:21). Finally, the following stanza extends these mountain-top parallels, introducing the Mount of Olives and 70 Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A.C. Hamilton, Hiroshi Yamashita, and Toshiyuki Suzuki (Harlow: Longman, 2001), 133. Although these sorts of allegorical and typological passages are common in Spenser, they are noticeably absent in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Grace R.W. Hall, “The Enigmatical ‘Third’ in Shakespeare’s The Tempest,” Selections from the Proceedings of the Northeast Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature 2 (1990): 48-51, however, does suggest Moses as a model for Prospero.

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the classical site of the Muses, Parnassus, “that pleasant Mount” (1.10.54.6). Taken together, these three mountains—Parnassus, Sinai, and Olivet—represent Bale’s three historical ages delineated above, namely, the periods of nature, law, and grace. Viewed slightly differently, the classical-biblical antithesis and the pairing of Sinai with Olivet suggest the typological and culturally comparative approaches seen in Paradise Lost (treated at the outset and to be revisited shortly). Spenser’s Mosaic stanza, despite maintaining the Pauline dichotomy between the condemning Law and the New Testament dispensation of grace, does present in its lyrical energia a heroic version of Moses, an idealizing treatment that has numerous parallels throughout the period. Francis Drake became easily identified as a Mosaic hero. He was an explorer who led English ships into Promised Lands, endeavors that required great trust in God.71 Tessa Watt has argued that an “iconography for iconophobes” caused Old Testament figures to appear increasingly in heroic lights on broadsides and frontispieces; they were seen as a safer sort of exemplary character compared with Gospel figures or saints, who risked generating “cults of devotion.”72 Moses proved to be a vital figure in representing families as well as monarchies: In the painting Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: An Allegory of the Dinteville Family, Jean de Dinteville, familiar to many English Renaissance students as one of the two figures in Holbein’s The Ambassadors, here appears as a golden-faced new Moses while his brother stands in for Aaron.73 The importing of the Israelite brothers’ confrontation with Pharaoh lends to this family portrait a defiant, independent attitude. We have seen above this image of Moses-as-advocate-or-liberator applied to Elizabeth I, and her father elicited the association as well. Catherine Parr, the king’s sixth wife, addresses him as “our Moyses” in The Lamentacion of a Sinner, when praising Henry for the break with the oppressive, Egypt-like papacy, and the Italianate nobleman Henry Parker employs the same allusion.74 71 The Trumpet O[f] Fame (1595) (London: William Barley, 1595), cited in Louis B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Eizabethan England (1935; repr. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958), 518-19. 72 Tessa Watts, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 160-61. Moses and Aaron frequently appeared on church walls and altarpieces, shown flanking the Tables of the Law, with print equivalents in engravings and frontispieces (such as that of the 1611 Authorized Version) (161, 246-48, 253). 73 Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “The Dinteville Family and the Allegory of Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 34 (1999): 73-79. 74 Both examples are quoted in John N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature and Art in an Age of Religious Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 75, 80-81,

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Images such as Moses and the Brazen Serpent assumed a greater Protestant valence when they appeared at the Henrician court, on, for example, a cover for an en vogue woman’s girdle book.75 Reformed contexts such as these facilitated more publicly broadcast royal associations with Moses, as with the frontispieces of the earliest English Bibles authorized during Henry VIII’s reign. The title page of the Coverdale Bible (1535) features the king at the bottom of a lineage of Old Testament rulers—David with his lyre to the immediate left of Henry, Esdras above him, above which is Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. In that dramatic woodcut panel, the lightning and trumpets erupting from the clouds and Moses’ own courageous, engaged posture bring to mind the intense poetic rendering by Spenser above (King, 54-56, 60-61). Mosaic connections appear more subtly in the Great Bible (1539), whose title woodcut presents Henry at the top, dispensing the Bibles to his minister and archbishop, Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer. John King helpfully points out that one banderole contains Henry’s command, in Moses’ words, to Cromwell—“judge righteously” and “heare the small aswel as the great”—yet it must also be added that iconographically the Great Bible’s image of the King holding in both his hands the English Scriptures, identified as “Verbum Dei,” resembles nothing so much as Moses’ descending from Sinai with the two tablets in hand (King, 70-74). (Arguably the king’s reoriented position at the very top of this frontispiece further encourages this visual overlay.) Finally, with the rhetorical amplification typical of him, Milton in Areopagitica introduces Moses as a triumphal figure for a more complete English Reformation: Let us therefore be more considerat builders, more wise in spirituall architecture, when great reformation is expected. For now the time seems come, wherein Moses the great Prophet may sit in heav’n rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious wish of his fulfill’d, when not only our sev’nty Elders, but all the Lords people are become Prophets.76 251-52. Parker’s praise appears in The Exposition and declaration of the Psalme, Deus ultionum Dominus (1539), and his frequent comparisons of his king with another Old-Testament figure, David, calls to mind the illustrations of Henry VIII as David in his manuscript psalter. See King, 77-78, and, for a more recent color reproduction, Susan Doran, ed., Henry VIII: Man and Monarch (London: British Library, 2009), 198-99. 75 Ibid., 83-85, and see as well 236-38, where King finds a similar allusion in the jeweled serpent embroidered on Elizabeth I’s left sleeve in the Rainbow Portrait. 76 Milton, Areopagitica, ed. William Haller, in The Works of John Milton, vol. 4 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), 293-354 (quotation at 342-43). See also Achsah Guibbory, “England, Israel, and the Jews in Milton’s Prose, 1649-1660,” in Milton and the Jews, ed. Douglas A. Brooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 13-34.

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Milton’s prophetic imagination brings an embodied Moses to seventeenthcentury England, where his assembly of Israelites is expanded throughout the citizenry, and where the obedience of his spiritual descendents leaves the Old-Testament ancestor well pleased, much like God the Father is pleased after Christ’s baptism in the Jordan. We have already seen Mosaic uses for Henry VIII’s reign and Elizabeth’s church, and Elizabeth herself enjoyed comparisons with Moses as well. The poet and royal liaison Fulke Greville praised his queen’s prompt dispersal of possible affronts, “without a prompting of Councellors,” by saying “that she would still reserve Moses place entire to her selfe amongst all the distributions of Jethro,” whereas conversely her successor James I held up Moses’ taking advice from his father-in-law as a model of royal discretion and delegation: “Therefore by his advice, Judges were deputed for easier questions, and the greater and more profound were left to Moses.”77 All kings, and especially Christian kings, have since ruled “according to this establishment” (205). In the seventeenth century Cromwell’s “heroick transactions” were praised and “drawn in lively parallels” to Moses, and Milton’s sonnet “Our Chief of Men” does the same.78 In turn, supporters of the Restoration hailed Charles II as an exiled English Moses, and other works emphasized the crown’s newly reestablished sovereignty.79 Moses and Aaron were commonly paired in books that explored the different jurisdictions of magistracy and ministry or civil and ecclesiastical rites. Moses’ ubiquitous appeal to diverse rulers drew on diverse virtues. The preacher Arthur Jackson credited Moses’ Egyptian learning for making him “every way the fitter for government” (18r), and 77 Fulke Greville, The Life of the Renowned Philip Sidney, ed. Warren W. Wooden (Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1984), 202; James I, “A Speech in the StarreChamber, The XX. Of June. Anno 1616,” in Political Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 205. In his better-known work Basilicon Doron, James cites Moses in claiming that kings sit on God’s throne, and should be guided by justice that is “blinde and friendlesse” (24). The “Moses and Jethro” topos was a popular one during the early seventeenth century; books composed upon this scene included John Reading, Moses and Jethro, or The Good Magistrate (London: Robert Allott, 1626), and Thomas Sutton, Jethroes counsel to Moses, or A direction for magistrates (London: William Jones, 1631). For context, see Paul D.L. Avis, “Moses the Magistrate: a Study in the Rise of Protestant Legalism,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26, no. 2 (1975): 149-72. 78 H. D., Historie & policie re-viewd: in the heroick transactions of His Most Serene Highnesse, Oliver, late lord protector, from his cradle, to his tomb … (London: Nathaniel Brook, 1659); John Copleston, Moses next to God, and Aaron next to Moses subordinate and subservient … (London: Richard Thrale, 1661). 79 James Ramsey, Moses returned from Midian; or Gods kindnesse to a banished King; His office and His subjects duty …. (Edinburgh, 1660).

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what ruler would not be keen to adopt for himself Moses’ privileged role as friend of God (Exod. 33:11)? Moses’ military victories made him useful as a martial model, and an active, persevering young Moses was the subject of Saint-Amant’s mid-seventeenth-century epic poem Moyse sauvé.80 Ultimately James Nohrnberg may be closer to understanding Moses’ peculiar appeal in his effort to apprehend a Mosaic paradox—the Exodus story suggests an expression of “distress and contingency,” yet the covenant for which Moses is famous represents through narrative patterns “its own renewability,” symbolized by a public reading of the Deuteronomic text every seven years in Jerusalem at the Feast of Booths (Deut. 31:10-11).81 In a time as politically turbulent and oppositional as the seventeenth century, Nohrnberg’s dual-minded sense of the power of Moses and his narrative sets forth in the right direction, at least, of a sufficient explanation. The transitional quality of later Renaissance treatments of Moses also stands out, and during this time, engagements could inhabit vastly different intellectual poles. John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress looks back to Renaissance and Reformation allegory—that is, the treatments of Spenser, Tyndale, and ultimately Paul in Romans—in his Mosaic figure who represents the pummeling Law, whereas the radical note of higher criticism is already sounding in Hobbes’ Leviathan: he argues that one should not presume from the Pentateuch’s traditional title of the “five Books of Moses” that Moses is the author because “the subject is marked, as often as the writer.”82 Moreover, he finds the narrative of Moses’ death damning, for “it were a strange interpretation, to say Moses spake of his own sepulcher … that it was not found to that day” (261). Similarly, advancements in the natural sciences put pressure upon Genesis’ accounts of Creation.83 Thomas Browne in Religio Medici memorably wrestles with whether to 80 William Calin, A Muse for Heroes: Nine Centuries or the Epic in France (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), 215-37. 81 James Nohrnberg, Like Unto Moses: The Constituting of an Interruption (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 68, 274. 82 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 261-62, and Joshua Mitchell, “Luther and Hobbes on the Question: Who Was Moses, Who Was Christ?” The Journal of Politics 53, no. 3 (1991): 676-700. 83 This pressure became far more acute in the following century. For example, one Grand Tourist remarks that the learned Italian scholar Giuseppe Recupero had counted lava layers to determine that Mt. Etna was at least fourteen-thousand years old. The traveler says of the scholar that “in writing the history of the mountain … Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him … really he has not the conscience to make his mountain so young, as that prophet makes the world.” Quoted in Edward Chaney, The Evolution of the Grand Tour: Anglo-Italian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 32-33.

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believe or not to believe in Moses’ miracles, and increasingly, references to Moses could seem overly familiar or frivolous.84 Yet to end on these skeptical or comical examples belies the richness of Moses’ functional use in different eras. “So Moses finished the work,” says the Pentateuch about the tabernacle (Exod. 40:33), but in one important way, Moses’ work on behalf of writers and rulers is never finished. In Acts of the Apostles, his name signifies a cultural authority that the apostles seem to threaten but also to evoke (Acts 6:11, 14, 7 [Stephen tells Moses’ story before the council], 13:39, 15:1, 21, 21:21, 26:22, 28:23).85 Cultural recognitions and applications remain just as potent today.86 This survey would be incomplete without inter-confessional examples, and an acknowledgment, at the very least, that those appeals to Old Testament heroism frequently personified in Moses were as available and applied in English Catholic writing. William Allen, for example, Counter-Reformation cardinal and founder of the seminary movement on the Continent, is called “Noster hic Moyses” in the “Diarium Primum” of the college community of Catholic exiles in Douay, and later a memorial describes him as “Defuncto autem Moise nostro, Cardinale … Alano.”87 One 84 Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, in The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Norman Endicott (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1967), 1-89 (especially 14-16, 23, 27, 37, 57). For an example of the latter trend, consider the physician Samuel Pye’s 1765 dialogue between Moses and Lord Bolingbroke, cited in Frederick M. Keener, English Dialogues of the Dead: A Critical History, An Anthology, A Check List (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), 106-7. 85 John Lierman, New Testament Moses: Christian Perceptions of Moses and Israel in the Setting of Jewish Religion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004). 86 Recently the New York Times writer Maureen Dowd began a column, “Our president came down from the mountaintop”—it sounds like praise, but was in fact criticism of a perceived aloofness and inaction during a terrorist scare on an airline. (See Maureen Dowd, “Captain Obvious Learns The Limits of Cool,” The New York Times 9 Jan. 2010. [Accessed: 10 January 2010] ). And in an example that resonates with prior uses of Moses by the Renaissance papacy, Benedict XVI spoke against “ideological manipulation of religion” during a visit to Jordan in summer 2009; he also held a photo-op atop Mt. Nebo, from where Moses glimpsed the Promised Land, and buoyed by that parallel, Benedict praised “the inseparable bond between the church and the Jewish people.” (See Rachel Donadio, “In Jordan, Pope Deplores ‘Ideological Manipulation,’” The New York Times 10 May 2009, A12.) These uses were never more complex or contrary than in the Renaissance, and Nohrnberg’s dual explanation for the power of Moses’ story finds its most natural imaginative parallel in vexed, historically, textually, and circumstantially sensitive applications such as the image of “Moses’ seat”—made ironic by the Pharisees’ occupation of it in the words of Jesus (Matt. 23:3), and then doubled in irony when Milton praises it, in the words of Satan, in Paradise Regained (4.219). 87 The First and Second Diaries of the English College, Douay, ed. Thomas Francis Knox (London: David Nutt, 1878), xxi n. 2 and app. 379. For context on the Catholic seminary

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specific detail of Moses’ life must have reverberated with religious exiles of whatever confessional sort: his defense of a fellow Israelite by killing an Egyptian, after which he was forced to become an exile in Midian, effectively sacrificing his career and prosperous life among the powerful in Egypt (Exod. 2:11-21). Of course there was a ready model for this application of Moses’ circumstances in the Epistle to the Hebrews: By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible (Heb. 11:2427, AV).

This fate became more or less a wheel of fortune for generations of English exiles, for Protestants under Henry VIII and Mary I or Catholics under Edward VI and Elizabeth I. Unsurprisingly, then, confessional opponents could treat these very same verses but apply them to current events and specific spiritual struggles in different ways.88 Milton summons Moses’ denial when mocking his prelatal opponents in An Apology for Smectymnuus. “Ah, Confuter of thy selfe,” he writes, pointing out that previously offered examples of Solomon and Moses actually indict his opponents’ cause. “Moses had an eye to the reward,” he continues, restating their claim. “To what reward, thou man that look’st with Balaam’s eyes, to what reward had the faith of Moses an eye to? He that had forsaken all the greatnesse of Egypt, and chose a troublesome journey in his old age through the Wildernesse, and yet arriv’d not as his journies end.”89 movement, see Christopher Highley, Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 23-53. 88 For example, the reprinting of the earlier writer John Hayward’s The sanctuarie of a troubled soule (London: Jeane Bell, 1650) during the Protectorate would have given the biblical verses an inadvertent relevance for any recusant audience. Conversely, this particular assumption of Moses’ story was employed in Protestant works to praise conversions that required worldly sacrifice—as in Newes from Italy of a Second Moses … Containing the story of his admirable conversion from popery, and his forsaking a rich Marquessdome for the Gospels sake (London: Richard Moore, 1608), translated by William Crashaw—or to urge the political virtue of passivity upon opponents of the crown or church, as in Jeremiah Burroughs’s numerous works throughout the 1640s that focused on “Moses his self-deniall,” works treating Hebrews 11:24, 11:25-26, and Numbers 14:24. 89 An Apology against a Pamphlet call’d A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions of the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus, ed. Harry Morgan Ayres, in The Works of John Milton, vol. 3, pt. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), 281-366 (quotation at 363). For a memorable meditation on Moses’ princely status among the Egyptians and the consequent

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Similarly, Moses’ frequent confessions of doubt, frustration, and inadequacy would have been easily relatable to anyone bereft of their past lives and facing various trials of persecution or alienation abroad. Moses in Renaissance Rome A shift now from this English survey to a selective excursus among Italian treatments of Moses, and particularly those found in Renaissance Rome, will broaden this developing appreciation of the manifold figures and uses of Moses during the early-modern period. We have already encountered briefly the synthesizing emphases of Moses in Italian Renaissance thinkers such as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. In the late fifteenth century, Ficino’s uses of Moses were tantamount to a pretense of “sacralizing neoplatonist forms of thought and expession,” in Anthony Levi’s words, and were part of a greater project of reconciling an inconsistent group of prophetic and oracular sources, including Orpheus, Hermes Trismegistus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Zoroaster.90 Ficino also privileged Moses’ secret God-given knowledge, a characteristic that Pico repeatedly treats in his commentary on Genesis, Heptaplus (1489). There Pico is often defensive on Moses’ behalf, arguing that the prophet’s knowledge was far beyond what was merely written down. Therefore the “ordinary and crude” writing in the Pentateuch wrongly leads to views of Moses as an “unpolished popularizer.”91 Moses had to address the Israelites with the “rough bark” of words despite the “depth” of his divine learning; nevertheless, his book, if any, is “marked with the seven seals and full of all wisdom and mysteries” and is the “exact image of the world” (70, 79, 81). In his more famous work, Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), Pico had similarly praised Moses as “scarcely inferior to the fountain fullness of holy and inexpressible intelligence, whence the angels are drunken on their own nectar” (12). Again, writing is differentiated from greater knowledge. courage in his denial, see Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, trans. Marion Wiesel (New York: Random House, 1976), 185-87: “An abyss separated him from the world of suffering” (185). 90 Anthony Levi, Renaissance and Reformation: The Intellectual Genesis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 125-26. 91 Pico della Mirandola, Heptaplus, trans. Douglas Carmichael, in On the Dignity of Man (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), 68-69. For context, see Levi, 117, 128-30. Elsewhere in Pico’s commentary, he equates the different parts of Moses’ tabernacle with the natural, celestial, and supercelestial worlds (76).

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Moses was commanded to “publish the law,” but on Sinai, he also received a “more secret and true interpretation of the law,” which Pico identifies with Cabala and varieties of numerological mysticism.92 Most saliently, the hortatory tenor of Pico’s oration leads him to frame Moses as a pioneering leader, one advising, arousing, and urging us “to make ready our way through philosophy to future celestial glory” (13). This function for Moses became increasingly common in Italian Renaissance discourses, though what exactly Moses could lead us through and toward was a matter of great debate. Machiavelli, writing a few decades later and from a very different Italy politically, likewise treats Moses as an inspiring, galvanizing figure. Yet his version of Moses is meant to model and stimulate patriotism, sovereignty, and above all, practical governance rather than philosophy or celestial knowledge. Early in The Prince, Machiavelli lists Moses among “those who have become rulers through their own ability and not through luck or favour,” and although he says he will not discuss Moses because he was “merely an executor of what had been ordained by God,” he does indeed discuss him, here and elsewhere.93 The very favor that made Moses worthy to speak with God should make him admired, Machiavelli explains. He attempts to put a good face, or a face of opportunity, on current Italian servitude, whether the peninsula’s to current foreign powers, or more delicately, Florence’s to the Medici. It was necessary, he writes, for Israel to be oppressed by the Egyptians because it made them more disposed to follow Moses (20), and just so with Italy at present. He also emphasizes how “all armed prophets succeed,” and thus contrasts Moses and other “innovators” with Florence’s recently deposed unarmed prophet, Savonarola (21). Machiavelli, then, sets up his argument to prepare for a Moses-like liberator for Italy, and later he appeals directly for a similarly “far seeing and able man” and “new ruler” to arise—there has never been a more appropriate 92 Ibid., On the Dignity of Man, trans. Paul J.W. Miller, 29-31. This focus, with a similar emphasis on Moses’ importance, was shared in seventeenth-century England by the Cambridge Platonists. See, for example, Henry More, Conjectura cabbalistica, or, A conjectural essay of interpreting the minde of Moses, according to a threefold cabbala … (London: J. Flesher, 1653). 93 Machiavelli, The Prince, ed. Quentin Skinner and Russell Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 20. John H. Geerken, “Machiavelli’s Moses and Renaissance Politics,” Journal of the History of Ideas 60, no. 4 (1999): 579-95, argues that Machiavelli found in Moses, who loved patria over his own soul and whose leadership dramatized the “primacy of national survival,” a “good recruit for the cause of national liberation” (582). See also Steven Marx, “Moses and Machiavellism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65, no. 3 (1997): 551-71.

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time, he says (87). He emphasizes the timing by metaphorically invoking details from the Exodus story—parting sea, pillar of cloud, manna, and water from the rock (88-89). John H. Geerken argues that for Machiavelli, Moses “sacralized violence at Sinai,” which gave the Italian author support for his own strong views on virtù and terribilità required for this new ruler’s success (583, 589-93). Geerken also emphasizes how Machiavelli’s uses of Moses change from The Prince to the more Republican-oriented Discorsi, where the prophet becomes less of an agent for “robust and heroic political action,” as in the former text, and simply an “executioner” (579, 595). Even in individual books, Machiavelli’s Moses is a “man of many parts” (Geerkin, 594)—the view is repeatedly confirmed in this survey—but overall his Moses is certainly more pragmatic, fierce, and populist than that of earlier generations of Florentine thinkers.94 Machiavelli likely would have smirked at a counter-invocation of Moses just the year before in Rome, during a critical moment for the High Renaissance papacy. Egidio da Viterbo gave the opening address on May 3, 1512, for the Fifth Lateran Council, the last of its sort before the seismic events of the European Reformation. This address set the tone for papal reform from within. A scholar and general of the Augustinian order, Egidio also acknowledged the awkward timing of the council, following Julius II’s humiliating defeat by the French at the Battle of Ravenna. Egidio laments weakened morals and decline in austere living, which he connects with Constantine’s “splendor and embellishment” long ago, and he praises the prompting of the Holy Spirit in convening a “holy Council.”95 There is something admirable, if a little surreal, in Egidio’s boldness in framing these lapses as a systemic problem, for he does so from the heart of the High Renaissance, with the Medici Pope Leo X soon to assume the papal chair. He later incorporates into his address the disappointing military setback, which becomes a providential sign to encourage reform. They should no longer rely on “arms alien to the Church,” but return to “our own arms,” 94 Alison Brown, “Savonarola, Machiavelli and Moses: A Changing Model,” The Medici in Florence: The Exercise and Language of Power (Florence: Olschki, 1992), 263-79, argues that both Savonarola and Machiavelli contributed to a new sense of Moses as an autocratic populist, an assessment that looked ahead to Hobbes’ treatment. This aspect is echoed in modern emphases on Moses’ populism as well, such as in Kirsch, 1-4, and Bloom, ed., The Bible, 10 (“J’s Sinai theophany marks the moment of the blessing’s transition from the elite to the entire Israelite host”). 95 For Egidio da Viterbo’s address see John C. Olin, ed., The Catholic Reformation: Savonarola to Ignatius Loyola (New York: Fordham University Press, 1992), 44-53 (quotations at 45, 49).

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which with Pauline citation he identifies as “piety, devotion, honesty, prayers, offerings, the shield of faith, and the arms of light” (50). His provides the analogy of “the war which Moses waged against king Amalec” (Exod. 17)—appeals to the continuity of holiness, “the Church of Moses and of Christ” (51). This vision of piety overcoming might hardly persuaded Machiavelli, but it would remain a key element in the papacy’s ideological development through the century. Earlier in his address, Egidio also boldly admonishes Julius II, that he not forget the importance of a council’s authority, particularly when some “have dared to esteem lightly the pope alone, defenseless by himself” (48). The address’s rhetoric intensifies as he turns to the council itself, which he variously identifies as a “rejection of errors,” an object of fear to the wicked and a hope to the good, and a force for revival, in which a “covenant with God is again made” (49). Moses then appears in Egidio’s list of biblical precedents: “Here, although the hearts of men have turned to stone, as it were, struck by the rod of Moses, they pour forth streams of water.” Moses’ drawing of water from the rock becomes a central image (Exod. 17, Num. 20), arguably even a foundational metaphor for the Renaissance papacy and its holy city, as we shall see. Most characteristic here is the use of this and various other biblical examples of covenant or faithfulness or victory to valorize a contemporary papal ideal, in this case the authoritative church council. This transhistorical, sanctifying, legitimating syncretism in Renaissance Rome could be safely called a habit of thought among papal leaders, thinkers, writers, and visual artists during this period.96 Renaissance Rome is arguably the most Mosaic of all cities, and the peculiar intensity of papal identification with Moses provides a final interconfessional example to complement the predominantly Protestant orientation of the above survey of English historical and literary uses of Moses. Most evident was the visual presence of Moses in the city. Although the Renaissance saw various new achievements in painting and sculpture, 96 For a helpful introduction to this notion, see Charles L. Stinger, “The Campidoglio as the Locus of Renovatio Imperii in Renaissance Rome,” in Art and Politics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Rome, ed. Charles M. Rosenberg (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), 135-56. Especially relevant for the above discussion is Stinger’s treatment of Egidio’s regarding the Vatican as “the pivot of the entire cosmos” and fulfillment of biblical prefigurations (139). Geerken, 586-88, likewise emphasizes the “familiar topoi” of Moses and other biblical examples—he was “a part of the fabric of general understanding that bordered on the obvious,” “part of the mind-set, a polyvalent—and one is tempted to say omnipresent—cultural icon.” To support his claim, he points to many renderings of Moses, by a long list of illustrious painters, in numerous Renaissance commissions.

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it should first be said that associations of Moses for devotional or political purposes were hardly novel, whether textually or visually. For example, Eusebius compared Constantine to Moses in his Vita of the Christian emperor, even as John Foxe in his first preface to Acts and Monuments hopefully compared himself to Eusebius and his new Protestant queen, Elizabeth I, to Constantine.97 And not only emperors, but also persons as different as St. Francis and Michelangelo were called a second Moses.98 Visually, the catacombs at San Sebastiano feature images of Moses, and the fifth-century mosaics in the nave of Santa Maria Maggiore feature Moses and other Old Testament figures, all meant as ante-types for Christ.99 However, Renaissance treatments were far more numerous and programmatic, reflecting a Roman court increasingly self-conscious of papal ideology and sensitive to attack.100 Some of the many examples worthy of note include the bay dedicated to events in Moses’ life in Raphael’s Logge frescoes or the presence of Moses bearing the commandments in enduring Transfigurations, such as Raphael’s in the Pinacoteca or Sebastiano del Piombo’s fresco in San Pietro in Montorio.101 Sometimes Moses is allusively present, as in Giulio Romano’s The Battle of the Milvian Bridge in the Sala di Constantino. As mentioned above, Eusebius identified Constantine with Moses, and in Romano’s work the drowning of his foe Maxentius’ cavalry beneath the bridge powerfully evokes Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea (Hersey, 167-69). One of the grandest projects of this sort occupied the walls of the Sistine Chapel, and was carried out by a host of late-fifteenth-century artists 97 Sabrina Inowlocki, “Eusebius’ appropriation of Moses in an Apologetic Context,” in Moses in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Traditions, ed. Graupner and Wolter, 241-55. For Foxe’s comparisons in his 1563 preface, see Acts and Monuments […] (1563 edition), [online]. (hrOnline, Sheffield). . [Accessed: 12.23.2009] 98 Frederick Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1969), 373, and Robert J. Clements, Michelangelo’s Theory of Art (New York: Gramercy, 1961), quoted in Geerken, 587. 99 Desmond O’Grady, Rome Reshaped: Jubilees 1300-2000 (New York: Continuum, 1999), 26, and Paul Hetherington, Medieval Rome: A Portrait of the City and its Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press 1994), 86-87. O’Grady also refers to medieval pilgrims’ guidebooks claiming “Moses’ tablets” were to be found in the city (86). 100 Frederick McGinness, “The Rhetoric of Praise and the New Rome of the CounterReformation,” in Rome in the Renaissance: The City and the Myth, ed. P.A. Ramsey (Binghamton, N.Y.: MRTS, 1982), 355-70 (especially 356-57). 101 For Raphael, see George L. Hersey, High Renaissance Art in St. Peter’s and the Vatican (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 124-27, 225-48. For Piombo, see Loren Partridge, The Renaissance in Rome 1400-1600 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1996), 132-33.

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including Botticelli, Perugino, and Pinturicchio. As one looks toward the altar, the left wall features scenes from Moses’ life, which resonate typologically with gospel events on the opposite wall. For example, the fresco Circumcision of Moses’ Sons faces The Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist, while Botticelli’s Rebellion of Korah looks across to that most important of papal statements, The Gift of the Keys, in which Christ invests Peter, and the Roman church, with his authority.102 Small details serve to reinforce these cross-wall connections: Roman arches in the Rebellion of Korah provide visual continuity with the opposite fresco’s Roman-era setting and the city at large, and there is something quite pointed about the very pairing of the authorizing of one figure (St. Peter) with a prior authoritative figure (Moses) confronting rebellion, including mob threat.103 George L. Hersey points out that the chapel had been dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, but that program (including an Assumption altar fresco by Perugino replaced by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment) gave way to one emphasizing the “founder of the Hebrew oak/ark, Moses” (179-80). Michelangelo’s famous Sistine contributions, with their focus on both Creation and Judgment, do encompass all of salvation history, but Hersey reminds us of Moses’ association as the author of Genesis, whose scenes are found in the ceiling frescoes. Incidents from Moses’ life are featured as well—including the pendentive Worship of the Brazen Serpent. Moreover, the Last Judgment’s cross, “the final form of the Mosaic oak, is carried upward by angels,” and the shape of the altar wall itself suggests the tablets of the Law (182). As Charles Stinger argues, “The prominence accorded Moses in the Sistine Chapel wall frescoes is, significantly, without precedent in the church decoration of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.”104 For all of their visual power, it is important to remember that these images and their careful positioning reflected an ongoing intellectual development of papal identity and power. Humanists at the papal court, according to Stinger, “found in Hebraic antiquity, particularly in the religious career of Moses, prefigurements of the priestly, legislative, and governing roles of 102 Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome, 205-210, for an extended treatment or reading of these frescoes, as well as Hersey, 177-82. Hersey also emphasizes the typological aspect to the very proportions of the chapel, which were meant to approximate the Solomonic temple. For typology generally, see 42-43, 180-82. 103 Carol Lewine, The Sistine Chapel Walls and the Roman Liturgy (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 79-80, quoted in Britt, 105-6. See also L.D. Ettlinger, The Sistine Chapel Before Michelangelo: Religious Imagery and Papal Primacy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). 104 Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 209.

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the Roman pontiffs,” and Moses could function equally well as a typus Christi or typus papae.105 Moses and uses of his life were in the air, then: the rebellious opponent Korah became a convenient symbol to denigrate conciliarists or anyone threatening papal authority, as seen in Eugenius IV’s bull Moyses vir Dei; Philo’s allegorizing De vita Moysis circulated at the Roman court in the 1480s, inviting new attention to details such as the candelabrum represented on the Arch of Titus; Aaron and Moses were both prominent in Julius II’s Festa di Agone pageant in 1513; Moses’ tabernacle soon provided the “divine prototype” for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s; and Etienne DuPérac produced an ornate manuscript featuring putti holding symbols of Rome with Moses and the pope on each side.106 This theme of tranlatio Templi exemplifies a general reimagining of biblical lands and landmarks as somehow merged, even mystically, with Roman geography. Renaissance and Counter-Reformation preachers frequently amplified these connections to support papal responsibility and authority. The pope, argued Paulus DeFrancis in a sermon published in 1606, sat “sustaining the enormous weight of the City of Jerusalem … versed in the highest place”— in this way the pope’s teaching and ministry “far outstrip that of Moses.”107 The extent and diversity of these adaptations should cause reassessment of the general emphasis on Caesaro-papism during the High Renaissance: Stinger has shown how Julius II was as keen to appropriate biblical figures as he was his namesake Julius Caesar, and a recent study argues persuasively that the Caesarean connection occurred much earlier, specifically in Pius II’s Commentaries.108 Two final examples from Renaissance Rome have been reserved till now because, in their different ways, they illustrate best the power of Moses’ 105 Ibid., 203, 209. 106 Margaret M. McGowan, The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 170, for the last example; otherwise, see Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome, 205, 212-16, 224-26. 107 From two sermons quoted in Frederick McGinness, Right Thinking and Sacred Oratory in Counter-Reformation Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 142-43, who adds, “Under papal leadership, the militant Church merges mystically with the Heavenly Jerusalem.” For an “increasingly powerful mystical streak” involving Moses much earlier, in Julian Rome, see Ingrid D. Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns In Sixteenth-Century Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 215. 108 Emily O’Brien, “Arms and Letters: Julius Caesar, the Commentaries of Pope Pius II, and the Politicization of Papal Imagery,” Renaissance Quarterly 62 (2009): 1057-97. Many of the parallels that O’Brien recognizes between Pius II and Caesar—embattled by civil strife and accusations, self-defensive, reluctant warrior, liberator, combination of martial, intellectual, and authorial gifts, use of the third-person point of view, et al.—are in fact attributes that other popes conveniently found in Moses.

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inspiration during this time and his inventive applicability in this particular city. They involve, respectively, genius and geography. The first is Michelangelo’s great Moses statue in San Pietro in Vincoli. It was carved as a part of a massive, many-years project that the artist’s early biographer Ascanio Condivi called “the tragedy of the tomb”—Julius’ II monument whose designs underwent multiple changes, proving highly frustrating to Michelangelo.109 Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists describes the marble figure as “five armslengths high” (about twice human size) and unrivaled in beauty.110 He mentions the artistry in the “most serious expression” of the face, the tablets he holds, his beard “delicately carved, downy, and soft,” and the exquisite handling of the folds in his garment and the muscles still glimpsed beneath (434). He fails to comment upon, likely because it seemed unexceptional, the most noticeable part of the statue today—the short horns above Moses’ brow. Horns were a common iconographical feature for Moses throughout the Middle Ages and emerged from a Vulgate mistranslation of Exodus 34:30— “And Aaron, and all the Israelites, saw Moses, and, look, the skin of his face glowed, and they were afraid to come near him.”111 In the Vulgate, the verb “qaran” (meaning ‘glowed’) was understood as “qeren” (‘sprouted horns’), and rendered as “cornutaesset.” Vasari next takes flight rhetorically to extend his praise—he allusively says onlookers almost wish to have a veil covering the statue’s face, so “splendid and radiant” does it appear, and avers that Moses is indeed the friend of God, since God wished to restore and prepare Moses’ body for the Resurrection through the great sculptor’s hands. Finally, he describes how Rome’s Jewish community visited the 109 Ascanio Condivi, “The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti,” trans. George Bull, in Life, Letters, and Poetry, ed. George Bull (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1-74 (quotation at 52). The statue was meant to accompany others of St. Paul, Leah, and Rachel, on the corners of one side of the tomb; only a single façade was completed. Condivi describes’ Michelangelo’s Moses as “sitting there in the attitude of a wise and thoughtful man … appearing tired and full of cares … A marvelous work, full of art” (53). See also Peter Armour, “Michelangelo’s Moses: A Text in Stone,” Italian Studies 48 (1993): 18-43. 110 Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, trans. Julia Conway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 434. For an extended treatment of the Moses and the various projects for Julius II’s tomb, see Hersey, 253-67, who also connects the family symbol of the oak with Moses as the “man of oak,” under which he placed the tablets (260). 111 I rely here on the translation and explanation from The First Five Books of Moses, trans. Robert Alter (New York: Norton, 2004), 506. For the ubiquity of horns on Moses, see Ruth Mellinkoff, The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 1997), 4-5, E.G. Suhr, “The Horned Moses,” Folklore 74 (1963): 387-93; and Kirsch, 5-6. Giordano Bruno imagines Moses as “venerable, with a great pair of horns that branched out from his forehead” (245).

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statue in crowds “like flocks of starlings” every Saturday.112 The figure of Moses, then, could be an object of shared regard with respect to the often uneasy relationship between Rome’s Christians and Jews. Furthermore, Moses’ role as liberator endowed the location of Michelangelo’s statue with typological syncretism: San Pietro in Vincoli was Julius II’s titular church, but it is so called because it houses the chains by which Herod imprisoned St. Peter. A medieval guidebook calls for a solemn mass annually, “and as Saint Peter was freed by the angel, so may the Roman people depart with blessing, freed from their sins.”113 The second and last example depends on a connection between Moses and Paul rather than Peter. In 1 Corinthians, Paul evokes the Exodus story when reminding his audience how “all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;” (10:1-2, AV). These fathers all ate spiritual meat and drink: “for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” (v. 4). Again we see Paul developing Christological realities from Moses’ actions—in this case, his drawing water from the rock at Massah (Exod. 17), a scene that typologically prefigures the piercing of Christ’s side, as well as baptismal waters generally. Therefore a Renaissance pope, by imitating this episode, could again present himself as a typus Christi. Moreover, the many fountains in Rome made this association geologically realizable, and no one realized this possibility more spectacularly than Sixtus V.114 To provide necessary water to the expanding, renovated 112 Ibid., 434-35. The reaction of Roman Jews to these various appropriations of Moses by the Renaissance church is a fascinating subject that deserves further research elsewhere. It is safe to say that the papacy’s high esteem for Moses did not extend to the inhabitants of Rome’s Jewish ghetto. For example, the Elizabethan traveler Anthony Munday during his visit to Rome in 1579 describes a violent race, which was held from 1466 to 1668, down the Corso to the Capitol where Jews were forced to run naked while being chased with goads by men on horseback. Afterward, Roman boys would pelt them with oranges. The English Roman Life, ed. Philip J. Ayres (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 96-97. For Jewish life in Renaissance Rome generally, see Kenneth Stow, Theater of Acculturation: The Roman Ghetto in the Sixteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), and Jewish Life in Early Modern Rome: Challenge, Conversion, and Private Life (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 113 The Marvels of Rome: Mirabilia Urbis Romae, ed. and trans. Francis Morgan Nichols, 2d ed. (New York: Italica, 1986), 27-28. If the presence of the Moses statue nicely established a typology of spiritual liberation, in other cases the tension between Old and New Testament leaders could lead to a name change for the sake of proper allegiance. For example, Petrus Alfonsi was born as Moses in eleventh-century Spain, but he took the name by which he is now known in 1106 upon his conversion. Petrus Alfonsi, Dialogue Against the Jews, trans. Irven Resnick (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 2006), 146. 114 For Rome’s geology and its fountains as a humanist project, see Grant Heiken, Renato Funiciello, and Donatella De Rita, The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal

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city, he constructed a new aqueduct, the Acqua Felice, named after himself. It ran some twenty-two miles and ended near the Via Pia at a Moses Fountain, grandly built by Domenico Fontana in 1587-88. Unfortunately, the bombastic, ill-proportioned figure is as laughable as Michelangelo’s Moses is inspiring. However, the aesthetic failure does not detract from the ideological suggestiveness of the fountain. Moses’ holding of the tablets symbolized Sixtus’ own legal reforms, and the other hand held out intimates the striking of the rock, beautifully materialized by the waters of the Acqua Felice, which fed many other fountains throughout the city.115 As reinforcement, Aaron offers the Israelites water to drink in the relief to the left of Moses. Sixtus’ project, and the Mosaic analogy it encouraged, should be placed within a renewed Counter-Reformation interest in the miraculous Moses preferred in the early church, as opposed to Moses the law-giver and legislator.116 Fresh adoration for the sacraments provides one explanation, for Moses’ drawing water and receiving manna, as shown in Pius IV’s Casino,117 clearly signaled baptism and the Eucharist. Of course, non-Catholics could appreciate this application too, and the typology with 1 Corinthians 10 generally; for example, in George Herbert’s “The Sacrifice,” treated earlier, the image appears no less than three times (lines 122, 170, 246), and it is celebrated by the reformer John Frith, as recorded in Foxe: Neyther is it to be doubted, but that both Manna and this water had a Propheticall mysterie in them, delcaryng the very selfe same thing then, which the bread & the wyne do now declare unto us in the sacrament.118

Sixtus V arguably embodied these Mosaic associations both in sacramental activity and the several fountain projects he undertook, which roughly parallel Moses’ provisions for the Israelites when they repeatedly “murmur” City (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005), 133-36, and Pamela O. Long, “Hydraulic Engineering and the Study of Antiquity: Rome, 1557-70,” Renaissance Quarterly 61 (2008): 1098-1138. 115 Partridge, 40, and Alberto Lonbardo, Vedute delle Fontane Rinascimentali di Roma attraverso I secoli (Rome: Palombi, 2006), 82-87. For the statue itself, see Steven F. Ostrow, “The Discourse of Failure in Seventeenth-Century Rome: Prospero Bresciano’s Moses,” The Art Bulletin 88, no. 2 (2006): 267-91. 116 Stinger, 210, 375 n.152; Ettlinger, 100-3. For early-church images of Moses drawing water from the rock at sites such as the Catacomb of Priscilla and the Coemeterium Maius, see Jeffrey Spier, ed., Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press with the Kimball Art Museum, 2007), 175-76, 179, 189. 117 Stinger, Renaissance in Rome, 330-31. 118 John Foxe, Acts and Monuments […] (1583 edition), [online]. (hrOnline, Sheffield). . [Accessed: 12.23.2009]

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for drink (Exod. 15:22-26, Exod. 17:1-7, Num. 20:2-11). However, even this example, with its robust Christological and sacramental effects, could prove slippery: referring to the episode in Numbers where Moses strikes the rock at Meribah twice instead of simply speaking, as God commanded (20:7-12), Milton in The Christian Doctrine interprets the action as “distrust in God” and says God sometimes brings forth miracles even from an unbelieving man and people.119 Nevertheless, despite such criticism, this Mosaic gesture could prove powerfully literal, as a sign of God-favored, efficacious rule as much in the Israelites’ time as in Rome in the late Renaissance. Moses and Milton Revisited To conclude, we may now fruitfully return to Milton, that consummate interpreter of the manifold figure of Moses. The extended analysis of Moses’ presence in the opening of Paradise Lost bears out in additional epic engagements with Moses, most substantially near the poem’s end. There, the archangel Michael reveals the course of eventual salvation history to Adam, and unsurprisingly, he treats Moses extensively, in a narrative at once more detailed and straightforward than the earlier, opening use.120 Turning to this and other Miltonic renderings of Moses (in Paradise Lost and elsewhere), we are now poised to apprehend more deeply a fuller range of the significations at work there, and their poetic, theological, or polemical purposes. The conclusion of Paradise Lost is the most significant of these Mosaic applications, not only because of its narration of Moses’ life, but also for the allusive aspects of the episode itself. Milton’s knowing finale resembles one of the climatic moments in Virgil’s Aeneid, whose procession of Rome’s future rulers and generals heartens the weary Aeneas. With this parallel in mind, the shade of Aeneas’ father Anchises is replicated in the explaining 119 John Milton, The Christian Doctrine, trans. Charles R. Sumner, ed. James Holly Hanford and Waldo Hilary Dunn, in The Works of John Milton, vols. 14-17 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933-34), 15:365, 17:55. 120 For another extended poetic treatment of Moses’ life, see Michael Drayton, The muses Elizium (London: 1630), 121-84. A careful comparison between Milton’s use of Moses in the epic prophecy given to Adam and Drayton’s more popular “biblical hero” treatment is warranted, but is beyond the scope of this article. A key comparative reading between Moses’ and Adam’s visions is Jason P. Rosenblatt, Torah and Law in Paradise Lost (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 218-34.

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figure of Michael, although the two as supernatural guides are different in nature. Like Anchises, Michael assumes the role of comforter here. God first commands Michael to expel Adam and Eve from Eden, but adds, “Dismiss them not inconsolate” (11.113). The angel is to reveal the future to Adam, arriving ultimately at the recuperative work signaled by the Incarnation—“intermix / My Cov’nant in the woman’s seed renew’d[;]” (115-16). This particular command first suggests that the contrast between old and new dispensations will be an important component of this future vision; the contrast promises the greatest consolation to Adam, and he will realize that, or begin to, while hearing the story of Moses. However valid this classical parallel, the vision scene relies on a more prominent scriptural one, drawn from the end of Moses’ life (Deut. 34). Forbidden from entering Canaan himself, Moses is permitted a consolatory, supernaturally enhanced view of it from atop Mt. Nebo, or Pisgah, the view shared recently by Benedict XVI.121 As Michael and Adam proceed, Milton’s narrative frequently includes typological applications familiar from above. Moses’ vision itself represents a conventional point of typology. His being prevented from entering Canaan, often symbolic of the heavenly destiny of all believers, was read allegorically as the limitations of the Law and its fulfillment by Grace.122 Thus Joshua (equating with Jesus etymologically and typologically) supersedes Moses and successfully enters the Promised Land. Milton will shortly evoke this typology to celebrate the promised recovery of the paradise that has been lost. Once Michael and Adam have ascended the “Hill / Of Paradise the highest” (11.377-78), the narrator with comparative indirection explicitly connects the loser of Paradise (so to speak) with Christ, its regainer: “Not higher that Hill nor wider looking round, / Whereon for different cause the Tempter set / Our second Adam in the Wilderness, / To show him all Earth’s Kingdoms and thir Glory” (381-84). Adam’s vision, then, becomes a prefiguration of Satan’s temptation of Jesus (Matt. 4), even as 121 Compare Thomas Fuller’s A Pisgah Sight of Palestine (London, 1650), 64, where he surveys a “fair Prospect” from Mt. Pisgah “(though content with a narrower compass, then what Moses discerned)[.]” Quoted in Jason P. Rosenblatt, “Adam’s Pisgah Vision: Paradise Lost, Books XI and XII,” English Literary History 39.1 (1972): 66-86 (quotation at 71, and see also 76-77). Moses’ vision is refashioned in an eschatological mode in Revelation 21:10. Ezekiel 11, Joshua Sylvester’s Du Bartas: His Devine Weekes and Spenser’s Faerie Queene also inform Milton’s vision scene. 122 For a succinct treatment of the Reformation context from which Milton treats tensions of law, love, and obedience in Paradise Lost, see C.A. Patrides, Milton and the Christian Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 161-64.

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Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness recalls Moses’ and the Israelites’ forty years after departing Egypt. (In the full treatment of this incident in Paradise Regained, Satan speaks of the “specular Mount” where he has brought Jesus (4.236).) This identification of Jesus as “second Adam” complements the later framing of Christ as second Moses, true fulfiller of the Law. Shortly after Michael’s presentation to Adam changes from vision to narration, he first introduces Moses and Aaron as liberators—“sent from God to claim / His people from enthralment” (12.170-71). Significantly, they appear, and their story commences, in not only a liberating but also a nationalistic context: just before we find the “Race / Growing into a Nation,” but now persecuted by Pharaoh. Michael, as if to reassure the troubled Adam, immediately says the Israelites will return “With glory and spoil back to thir promis’d Land” (172), but then narrates in more detail the Jews’ enslavement, the ten plagues, and the Exodus. Michael’s speech similarly repeats the destruction of the Egyptian army—“the Sea / Swallows him with his Host, but them lets pass” (195-96), “God looking forth will trouble all his Host / And craze thir Chariot wheels” (209-10), “On thir imbattl’d ranks the Waves return, / And overwhelm thir War[.] (213-14).” If the Moses of Paradise Lost’s opening—the teaching, visionary shepherd—resonated as an imitative figure for the poet-speaker, then Moses as the people’s liberator from bondage seems more germane to the biographical Milton, rather than his persona. The Protectorate, and the Restoration that followed, was each in its way disappointing for the historical Milton, like a vat of pitch that marred the clear designs of his patriotic Protestantism. The thematic importance of this moment of liberation may best explain these repetitions, and the moment is made more forceful by the dramatic naming of Moses at the point where he extends his staff toward the Red Sea (211-12). The shattered chariot wheels of Pharaoh’s army contribute to a central image in Paradise Lost as well. Milton has already used this same Pharaoh figuratively early in the poem, when the ruined “angel forms” are described, more famously as the Vallombrosan leaves, and more meanderingly as “scattered sedge / Afloat” when winter winds disturb the Red Sea, “whose waves o’erthrew / Busiris and his Memphian chivalry” (1.301, 305-7). Afterward the Israelites, the “sojourners of Goshen” beheld “their floating carcasses / And broken chariot wheels” (309-11). The Egyptians’ regrettable opposition to the Israelites lingers over the slow assembling of the fallen angels, who soon resemble a “pitchy cloud / Of locusts,” called forth by the “potent rod / Of Amram’s son,” that is, Moses (1.338-41). Alistair Fowler in his edition of the epic points out the unbiblical addition of the “wheel on

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the earth, devouring where it rolls” amid the description of Egypt’s plagues, and refers to the chariot of cosmic justice at the center of the poem (6.74959).123 These positive chariot images symbolically overcome the shattered wheels literally scattered throughout the poem, figured in the broken wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots. Michael next summarizes the Israelites’ stint in the wilderness, the election of the seventy elders, and God’s delivering of the law from Sinai, which is framed in tandem with Christ’s greater reconciliation: “Laws … informing them, by types / And shadows, of that destin’d Seed to bruise / The Serpent, by what means he shall achieve / Mankind’s deliverance” (12.230, 232-35). Milton’s equation of the laws with “types and shadows” is again a familiar typology among his fellow pastors and poets. For example, John Stradling in his Divine Poemes does not just narrate biblical events, he outrightly versifies the traditional, typological interpretation of these events in light of Christ’s new dispensation: “With types, and figures set before their eyes, / He shadowed out his hidden mysteries,” he writes, arguing that Old Testament heroes are more than mere models of faithfulness.124 In this hermeneutical context, Moses is presented as a precursor, again explicitly: Their riddance from th’Egyptian slavish yoke, By Moses (man of God) a type of Christ, Of whom prophetically he plainely spoke, Instructed by the Spirit of the High’st: … (23)

Milton likewise amplifies this relationship at this point in Michael’s narrative. Moses is first presented as a “Mediator” (12.240), a reporter of God’s will to the people—or more precisely, in typological terms by now familiar, he reflects as forerunner the true Mediator, “whose high Office now / Moses in figure bears, to introduce / One greater, of whose day he shall foretell,” (240-42). Like Stradling, Milton makes explicit Moses’ most important function as a typus Christi. Jason Rosenblatt foregrounds Moses’ role of introduction here (“Adam’s Pisgah Vision,” 82), and in this respect 123 The Poems of Milton, 1036 n. For questions of justice, mercy, and Moses’ confrontation with God in defense of the Israelites, see Jeffrey S. Shoulson, Milton and the Rabbis: Hebraism, Hellenism, & Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 113-17. 124 John Stradling, Divine Poemes In seven severall Classes … (London: William Stansby, 1625), 23. The margins frequently include scriptural verses that support these typologies— e. g. Hebrews 4 or 1 Corinthians 10:2—and which are discussed above. For a sermon with similar emphasis, see the references to William Guild and John Weemes above. See as well T[homas] Taylor, Moses and Aaron, or, The Types and Shadows of our Saviour in the Old Testament Opened and Explained (London: John Williams, 1653).

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his function resembles that of Paradise Lost itself—to introduce, as well as justify, God’s ways. Next Michael reveals the building of the tabernacle, and the Mercy-seat described here (253) echoes the opening lines of this concluding section of the epic. Adam’s and Eve’s penitent condition inaugurates the poem’s final heavenly action, and Milton incorporates the tabernacle furnishing in a present, potent way: “Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood / Praying, for from the Mercy-seat above / Prevenient Grace descending” … (11.1-3). Michael ends this section on a note of uplift, with Canaan being won, and the report overall too easily salves Adam. He exalts in his recognition of Christ, “in whom all Nations shall be blest” (277). Adam in his interjection develops the law-grace, Moses-Jesus typological chain: he understands that Christ’s coming day will be “Favor unmerited by me” (278), yet is perceptive enough to ask about “So many and so various Laws” (282). Wondering why a supposedly godly people must abide them, he precisely registers one attitude of Milton and fellow reformers toward Moses and the Law. “Thus the imperfection of the law was manifested in the person of Moses himself,” writes Milton in The Christian Doctrine, “for Moses, who was a type of the law, could not bring the Children of Israel into the land of Canaan, that is, into eternal rest.”125 The law ultimately becomes equated with death, for it both makes sinners aware of their inevitable transgressions (Rom. 3:23) and offers them no means to be reconciled. The law speaks to those under the law, Paul writes (Rom. 3:19-20): “ … by the dedes of the lawe, shall no flesshe be justified in the sight off god. For by the lawe commeth the knowledge of synne” (Tyndale’s version). Thus the Law frequently becomes a terror in Luther’s writings, as seen above, and Michael strikes this note as well in his reply to Adam: “Doubt not but that sin / Will reign among them … And therefore was Law given them to evince / Thir natural pravity” (285-86) he declares, implying in “evince” both to make manifest and restrain.126 This more explicitly dialogic moment between Michael and Adam signals the doctrinal importance of their conversation and supports that importance with 125 John Milton, The Christian Doctrine, 16:111. With reference to Milton’s identifying Moses as mediator, see his comment in The Christian Doctrine 1.15—“The name and office of mediator is in a certain sense ascribed to Moses, as a type of Christ” (15:287), and for a fuller treatment, see 2.17, on Christian liberty and the gospel. 126 “Evince” here bridges the shift between restraining and revealing that can be seen in renderings of Romans 3:19, from Tyndale’s translation to the Authorized Version in the following century. “The law speaks so that “all the worlde be subdued to God,” writes Tyndale, whereas the King James Version says, “all the world may become guilty before God.”

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dramatic immediacy.127 The exchange also alters the narrative chronology, bringing repeated attention to the Mosaic era of salvation history. H.R. MaCallum argues that this refocusing allows Milton the “characteristic Puritan stress on the Mosaic law as a watershed in history,” but Milton’s treatment is more typological, and ultimately Christological, than MacCallum’s positive inference suggests.128 Milton dramatizes Adam’s knowledge of sin coming by the law, and next, through Michael’s explanation, he makes clear the law’s lack— that when they see Law can discover sin, but not remove, Save by those shadowy expiations weak, The blood of Bulls and Goats, they may conclude Some blood more precious must be paid for Man, Just for unjust … (289-94)

This passage is dense theologically, referring to the atoning work of the Crucifixion, Christ’s sinlessness, the imputation of faith, justification by faith, the insufficiency of ceremony, and so forth. The typological language is heard again in “shadowy expiations weak,” which both functions as descriptive pleonasm and connects this weakness of “imperfet” law and expiation to “a better Cov’nant” (300-2). Reaching a peroration, Michael presents Adam with a series of antitheses that define typologically that better covenant: From shadowy Types to Truth, from Flesh to Spirit, From imposition of strict Laws, to free Acceptance of large Grace, from servile fear To filial, works of Law to works of Faith. (303-6)

Milton now reintroduces Moses one final time, marshalling the Law’s inadequacies to explain why Moses, being “but the Minister / Of Law,” is 127 F.T. Prince, “On the Last Two Books of Paradise Lost,” Essays and Studies, n. s., 11 (1958): 38-52, repr. Milton’s Epic Poetry, ed. C.A. Patrides (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967), 233-48, argues that books 11 and 12 display the evolution of Adam’s consciousness. See as well Lawrence A. Sasek, “The Drama of Paradise Lost, Books XI and XII,” Milton: Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Arthur Baker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 342-56, who emphasizes the dramatic element between Michael and Adam, and John T. Shawcross, “Paradise Lost and the Theme of Exodus,” Milton Studies 2 (1970): 3-26. 128 H.R. MacCallum, “Milton and Sacred History: Books XI and XII of Paradise Lost,” in Essays in English Literature from the Renaissance to the Victorian Age, Presented to A. S. P. Woodhouse, ed. Millar MacLure and F.W. Watt (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 149-68 (quotation at 153). For a more recent, more extensive treatment, see David Loewenstein, Milton and the Drama of History: Historical Vision, Iconoclasm, and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

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denied entrance to Canaan; that advance will fall to “Joshua, whom the Gentiles Jesus call” (308-10). By this shared name, Michael next prophesies a grander entrance, which in Adam’s context becomes an Edenic return, described in the language of Mosaic exodus and entry: Adam like Moses is denied access to sacred ground, but Christ shall “bring back / Through the world’s wilderness long wander’d man / Safe to eternal Paradise of rest” (312-14). And like Moses, Adam is here comforted by what is to come. One hears echoes here of the passage quoted above from The Christian Doctrine (“Law appears imperfet,” “eternal Paradise of rest”), though in the more nimble confines of poetry, Milton also succeeds in economically acknowledging Moses’ great achievement, however insufficient: Moses is only the minister of Law, and has been rendered as more Adamic than Christ-like, “though of God / Highly belov’d” (307-8), where the line break and the inverted first foot serve to highlight God’s love for and pleasure in his servant.129 Milton incorporated different aspects of Moses’ life, character, and reputation elsewhere, and he did so in various ways. For example, he adopts the rhetorical aim of Moses’ still stunning defense of the Israelites to God (Num. 14:11-16) when composing Adam’s speech in which he doubts that God, “Creator wise,” will destroy him and Eve: “lest the Adversary / Triumph and say; Fickle their State whom God / Most favors, who can please him long?” (9.938, 947-49). Multiple critics believe Moses, along with Peter and Christ, contributes to the composite “Pilot of the Galilean Lake” in “Lycidas” (109), and as early as “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” Milton compares Moses’ meeting with God on Sinai with eschatological encounter “at the world’s last session” (163).130 Moses’ appearances in Paradise Lost represent Milton’s most sustained and subtle treatment of the Old Testament figure. To understand better Milton’s many allusions made to Moses and his story, and the many theological implications drawn from the same, is to appreciate anew the nexus of interpretive possibilities available for Renaissance treatments of this figure.

129 Rosenblatt, “Adam’s Pisgah Vision,” 70, 81-84. Bloom, ed., The Bible, 4, emphasizes the narrative parallelism between Adam’s birth and Moses’ death that provides a bookending structure to the Pentateuch. 130 M.C. Pecheux, “The Dread Voice in Lycidas,” Milton Studies 9 (1976): 221-41, and Stanley Fish, How Milton Works (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 2001), 272.

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430

bibliography

index

431

INDEX Aaron 4, 5, 30, 41-42, 45-49, 53, 56, 90, 107, 114, 148, 152, 158-159, 175, 177-178, 181, 188-189, 212-214, 218-219, 224-225, 227228, 253, 289, 311-312, 324, 341-342, 344, 348, 355, 366, 376, 382, 384, 386, 396397, 399, 402 Abbey of Saint Victor 220 Abraham 8, 16, 48, 72, 82-83, 86, 93, 97, 112, 160, 186-187, 189, 200, 204-205, 207, 215, 231, 298, 300-302, 323-325, 337, 351, 359, 370 Abravanel, Isaac 136, 167, 180-183 Active intellect 121-123, 125, 130-134 Adam 66, 86, 94, 111-112, 155, 160, 170, 202, 264-265, 322, 325, 327, 362, 364, 400402, 404-406 Æsc 192 Admiration, continuation, critique, and replacement 83 Agathobulos 108 Ages of the World 264, 331, 334 Al-Farabi 120-121, 127 Al-Kindi 120 Albo, Joseph 136 Alcuin 12, 186-197, 199, 201, 205, 208 In sacrum bibliorum codicem 197-189 Aldhelm 12, 185-186, 193-197, 199-201, 205, 208  Carmen rhythmicum 193 Carmina ecclesiastica 193 De virginitate 193, 195-196 Letters 193 Riddles 193 Treatise on metrics 193 Alexandria(n) 7-8, 60-61, 104, 107, 113-115, 117 Allison, Dale 69-72, 86-87, 358 Amalekites 4, 8, 90-91, 213 Amaziah 42 Ambrose 197, 297, 364 Ames, Ruth 207 Anatolius of Laodicea 104, 106 And hot coals 158, 267 Andreas (Old English poem) 202-203 Andrew of Saint Victor 13, 221, 226-227, 229

Angel(s)  40, 54-55, 67, 69, 79, 119, 125, 154155, 181, 239, 242, 247, 253, 272, 295, 333, 390, 398, 401-402 Angel of Death  169-171 Angela of Foligno 309 Antichrist 328 Apelles 97 Apostles 10, 82, 86, 199-202, 253, 256, 355, 358-359 368, 388 Aquinas, Thomas 13, 237-261, 335, 338, 351 Arestobulos of Paneas 108 Aristotelian Philosophy 121, 123, 129, 133, 174, 344 Aristotle 250, 257, 335, 343 Ascent of Mount Carmel 347-350, 352 Assis, Elie 45 Audelay, John 273 Augustine, St. 8, 12, 88, 93-94, 197, 215-219, 230, 233, 241, 243, 247-248, 255, 271, 286, 303, 305, 308, 336-337 City of God 12, 215-216, 356 Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love 303 Auld, A. Graeme 39, 43 Authority 8, 30, 33, 38, 39, 44, 54, 56, 65, 66, 73-76, 111, 114, 118-119, 139-140, 213, 243244, 320, 325, 328, 360, 396 Mosaic 39, 65 Avicenna 247 Azyma 103, 109-110, 114 Babylonian Talmud 148, 171-173, 180-181 Balaak and Balaam 279-280 Balaam 51, 53, 68, 70, 118, 132-134, 154, 165, 188, 267, 278-280, 389 Baptize(d/s) 65-66, 92-93, 212, 398 Barking 195 Basilius of Caesara 197-198 Baude, W.G. 47 Bede 12, 185-186, 197-202, 205, 208, 380 De Tabernaculo 197, 199-201 Historia Ecclesiastica 197, 201 In Genesim 197-199 Behor Shor, Joseph 163, 173, 177, 183 Benedict, Saint 306 ben Meir, Samuel 228 ben Yehiel, Asher 179-180, 183

432

index

Beowulf 185-186, 207 Bernard of Clairvaux 15, 309, 317-318, 322, 331, 338-339, 342, 351 Beseleel 341-342 Biblia pauperum 15, 18, 342-346, 351-352 Biblioteca Antoniana 106 Birgitta of Sweden 15, 309, 317, 322 Revelations 308, 331-335, 338, 351 Blockbook 343, 346, 352 Bonaventure  The Life of St. Francis 328-331, 351 The Soul’s Journey into God 328-329, 351 The Tree of Life 328-330, 351 Bondi, Roberta To Love as God Loves 100 Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature 263-264, 268, 274 Boulton, Maureen Anti-Jewish Attitudes in Anglo-Norman Religious Texts: Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 293 Bride 308, 310-311, 317, 319-320, 322-323, 325, 332, 347, 350-352 Bridegroom 152, 308, 317, 319-320, 322-323, 351 Bronze Serpent 5, 18, 42-43, 56, 90, 93-94, 345, 358 Brown, Carleton, ed. English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century 269, 273 Religious Lyrics of the XIII Century 270 Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century 270 Brown, Shirley Ann 208 Burgundy 108 Burning bush 2-3, 14-15, 18, 70, 97-98, 124, 151, 162, 274-275, 278, 304-305, 307, 312, 315-316, 332, 347, 349, 352-353, 358, 363, 371 Caeremonalia 220, 230 Caesarius of Arles, Saint 306 Cainan 112 Caleb 41 Campbell, Joseph 6, 24, 28-32 Cassian 305 Cassiodorus Argumenta 113 Institutiones 114 Catherine of Siena 309 Cathi 112

Cawley, A.C. Middle English Metrical Versions of the Decalogue with Reference to the English Corpus Christi Cycle 285, 293 Cazelles, H. 23, 37, 44 Celsus 8, 89, 357 Cham 112 Charity 231, 233, 264, 282, 284-285, 287, 296, 298-299, 301-303, 316, 320 Charlemagne 193 Chastity 100, 308, 332, 334, 337 Chaucer, Geoffrey  161, 274-275, 332 Chester 5 263, 267, 279, 281, 284, 303 Moses and the Law/Balaak and Balaam 276, 278 Choi, John H. 49-50 Christ 64-68, 74-78, 82-99, 101, 103-104, 106, 108-115, 185, 192, 202-203, 207-208, 211213, 215-220, 231, 233, 238, 245-246, 251259, 261, 264-266, 271-272, 274-276, 279, 282-284, 286, 288-305, 308-309, 311, 315, 317-323, 325, 327-335, 340, 343-354, 358, 362-376, 380-382, 386, 389, 393-395, 398, 401-406 Cross of 18, 82, 91, 219, 258, 349 Passion of 82, 109-114 Prefiguration of 8, 14, 259, 344-346 Christ and the Doctors 282-284, 287, 289, 293 Christians 2-3, 7-9, 14, 17-18, 51, 64-65, 73-74, 79-80, 82-84, 87, 89, 91, 93-94, 97, 99, 101, 103-105, 109, 111, 114, 140, 200, 203, 220, 232-233, 244, 256, 264, 271, 273, 284, 293, 305, 310, 314, 324, 340-341, 349, 352, 371, 394 Chronicles (Moses in) 6, 10, 37, 43, 50-57 Chrysostom 8, 86-90, 248 Circumcise(d/s)/circumcision 4, 76, 151152, 154, 230-231, 264, 267, 323, 325, 355, 368, 370 Cloud(s) 4, 15, 31, 65, 99, 170, 212, 242, 248, 305-306, 311, 313-314, 318, 321, 328-329, 331, 336-337, 341-342, 344, 385, 392, 398, 402 Cloud of Unknowing 15, 331, 338, 341-342, 351 Clutterbuck, Charlotte Hope and Good Works: Leaute in the CText of Piers Plowman 303 Coats, George W. 20, 23, 39, 42 Colman 201 Columbanus of Bobbio 8, 104, 106, 108

index Comestor, Peter Historia Scholastica 13-14, 214-215, 221223, 226, 234-235, 266, 334 Compassion(ate) 75, 233, 302-303, 319, 322, 351 Computus 103-106, 109 Conquest of Canaan 37, 39 Contra Judaeos, Paganos, et Arianos 291, 293 Corinthians (books) 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 91 Covenant 4, 9, 15, 30, 41, 45-47, 52-53, 55, 59, 62-64, 66, 70-71, 75, 82-86, 93, 97, 101, 139, 215, 226, 232, 235, 259, 321, 325, 334, 341, 358, 362-363, 368-370, 380-381, 383, 387, 393, 405 Created Glory 119, 123 Creation 13, 78, 103-104, 111-112, 197-198, 205, 229, 238, 245-248, 250-251, 261, 363, 387, 395 Crescas, Hasdai 9, 133-136 Light of the World 133-135 Cross, Frank Moore 31, 48 Cróinín, Dáibhi Ó. 105 Cummian 106 Cursor Mundi 14, 268 Curtis, Adrian H.W. 46 Cyprian 8, 91 Exhortation to Martyrdom, Addressed to Fortunatus 91 Cyril of Jerusalem 8, 92-93 Cyrus the Great 26, 51 Dagon 109 Dahan, Gilbert The Christian Polemic Against the Jews in the Middle Ages 264 Dark Night of the Soul 379, 349, 352 Dan (city) 41, 48, 56 Daniel (Old English poem) 202 Daniel Book of 6, 37, 50, 54-55, 196, 202, 291 David 6, 27, 31, 37, 42-43, 46-48, 52-53, 56-57, 70, 72, 83, 86, 192-194, 196, 200, 241, 317, 325, 333-334, 385 Davies, Philip 43 Dearman, J. Andrew 44 Deborah 6, 18, 39, 86, 317, 361 Decalogue 14-15, 30, 45, 200, 226, 232, 253254, 274, 276, 284-286, 293-294, 297299, 301-303 Decem Precepta 269, 271

433

de la Porrée, Gilbert  281 Denigrate(d) 264 Dennis the Little 113 Der Cölner Prolog 105 Descent to Hell (Old English poem) 202 Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) 6, 19, 2122, 30, 38-42, 52, 55-56, 59, 167-168 Deuteronomy 11, 19, 30, 32-33, 38-39, 43, 50, 52, 70-72, 77, 103, 114-115, 132, 156, 167179, 181, 190, 214-215, 226, 234-235, 247, 274, 286, 292-293, 326, 349, 358, 361, 375-376, 383 Deuteronomy 32:21 96 Deuteronomy Rabbah 170-173 Dew 290-291, 339 Dialogical reading 146, 168, 153, 160 Digby 63 105, 112 Dionysius Exiguus 104-105, 111, 115 DiTommaso, Lorenzo 55 Doctors of the Temple 282-283 Doomsday 272, 294-295 Dörrfuss, Ernst Michael 52 Earl, James W. The Shape of Old Testament History in the Towneley Plays 290 Easter Vigil 104, 115 Efficacy of sacraments 230 Egeria 15, 314, 317, 338 Itinerarium 315-316, 351 Egypt 3, 13-14, 16, 18, 20, 26-27, 37, 44-45, 48, 60-61, 68-69, 86, 93, 97, 101, 103, 105, 110, 112, 114, 147, 150-154, 156, 161-162, 175, 187, 189, 195, 201, 203, 223, 259, 267, 275-278, 304-305, 310-312, 314, 324, 327, 332, 335, 349, 352, 355, 364, 372, 376378, 380, 382, 389, 402-403 Egyptians 4, 11, 42, 49, 88, 92, 98, 101, 115, 149154, 156, 158, 175, 208, 223, 266-267, 275, 310, 349, 355-356, 365, 371, 382, 389, 391, 402  Elene (Old English poem) 202-203 Elijah 6, 18, 39-40, 44-46, 57, 85, 181, 186 Elisha 40, 330 Embedded Interpreter 29, 62, 103, 109, 153 Emperor Trajan 297 England, George and Alfred W. Pollard, eds. The Towneley Plays 277 Enoch 63, 78, 112 Enos 112 Epic 10, 144-145, 153-155, 164-165 Epithalamion 309

434

index

Eucharist 15, 66, 217, 275, 327, 331, 333, 382, 399 Eusebius 60, 86, 106-107, 167, 394 Eustathius 197 Exodus (book) 2-5, 14-15, 17-20, 26, 29-30, 44, 47-50, 52, 55-57, 61, 65, 69-72, 75, 77, 90, 95-96, 103-105, 113-115, 130, 143144, 148, 150-152, 162, 175, 190, 195-196, 200-201, 203, 211-213, 220, 223, 226, 228, 241, 274, 305, 307, 310, 313, 316-317, 326, 328, 336-337, 345, 347, 350, 361, 367, 369, 373-374, 376-377, 397 Exodus 2:1-10 95 Exodus 2:3-6 96 Exodus 2:8-10 96 Exodus 11:3 97 Exodus 33:17-23 92 Exodus 34:29-35 90, 369 Exodus (Old English poem) 12, 186, 202-208 Exodus (play) 14, 276-277, 282-283, 289 Fabry, H.-J. 37, 44, 62 Faith 16, 39, 44, 47, 60, 79, 81, 84-85, 88, 9192, 94-95, 101, 110, 131, 188-189, 191, 212213, 215, 218-219, 223, 225, 230-231, 233, 235, 241-244, 259, 277, 302-303, 311, 328, 331, 340, 348-349, 364, 367-368, 370, 374, 378, 389, 393, 403, 405 Articles of 124-126, 246, 273 Preambles of 246 Faustus 88 Felix of Squillace 114 Figurative(ly) 14, 18, 212, 215, 218, 220, 232, 234, 246, 254-258, 265, 267, 274-275, 331, 367, 376, 402 Fishbane, Michael  54 Fleming, John V. Chaucer and the Erasmus on the Pilgrimage 274 Fourth Lateran Council 272 Francis, W. Nelson The Book of Vices and Virtues 273, 302 Freedman, David Noel 44 Genesis (book) 60, 97, 103, 112-113, 115, 187, 189-190, 197, 199, 229, 245-250, 306-307, 354, 360-361, 363, 370, 387, 390, 395 Genesis 2 94 Gerondi, Nissim 134 Gersonides, Levi 9, 129-134 Commentary on the Torah 133 Wars of the Lord 129-130, 133

Gildas 195 Glatt-Gilad, David A. 41, 42 Glossa Ordinaria 11, 220, 229, 253 Gnostics 8, 82 God’s Servant 33, 40, 43, 45, 51, 53, 64, 84, 88, 117, 178, 207, 212, 217, 271, 310, 339, 356, 406 Hand of 40, 45-46, 51, 275, 311-312, 378 “Horns” of 188-189, 195-196, 397 Law-giver 8-9, 12, 18, 30, 41, 56-57, 61-62, 64, 69, 74, 103-104, 109, 114, 132, 194, 196, 200, 205, 215, 235, 251-252, 258, 331, 364, 368, 399 Law of 7-9, 14-16, 29, 35, 40, 42-43, 50-56, 59-60, 64, 96-97, 106, 108, 110, 118, 121, 132, 136, 139, 203, 205, 212, 219, 220, 241, 252, 258, 264-265, 269, 288, 297, 310312, 321, 325, 329-330, 334-335, 359, 370, 380, 382 “Man of God” 34-35, 40, 47, 51, 56, 407, 357, 383, 403 Nehushtan 42 Return to Egypt 4, 68-69, 151-152, 161 Speech Impediment 4, 10, 144, 149-150, 269, 317, 365 Staff of 4, 32, 42, 93, 155, 158-159, 176, 195196, 213, 228, 259, 331-333, 345, 355, 372, 402 Takes Crown of Pharaoh 10, 14, 149-150, 267 Thrown into Pit 155, 160 Golden calf 4, 34, 182, 255, 268-269, 312, 315, 372, 375 Golden Legend 265, 274, 296-297 Good Samaritan 301-304 Grace 7, 75, 83, 92, 149, 200, 212, 217-219, 230-231, 233, 251, 253, 264-265, 276, 279, 282, 284, 287, 294, 296, 303, 318, 320-321, 325, 329, 334, 341-342, 363, 368, 370-371, 384, 401, 404-405 Gratuitous 239-243 Greenberg, Moshe 39, 51 Greene, Richard Leighton The Early English Carols 270, 273 Gregory of Nyssa The Life of Moses 8, 81, 92, 95, 98-99, 101, 365 Guigo II 306-307 Gärtner, J.  50 Halevi, Judah 9, 121-123 Kuzari 121-122

index Hall, Christopher A. Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers 87 Hannah 86 Hebrews (book) Hebrews 1:3 92, 321 Hengest 192, 201 Henry, Avril 18, 343 The Mirour of Mans Saluacioun 275 Herem (Sacred Ban) 40 Hermeneutic(al/s) 82, 86-87, 89, 94, 98-99, 143, 147, 157, 164, 216, 221-222, 359, 403 Herren, Michael 193, 208 Hezekiah 42-43, 52 Higdin, Ranulf Polychronicon 14, 264, 266267, 278, 310 Hilarion 196 Hildegard of Bingen 15, 322-328, 331, 336, 351 Hilton, Walter 338, 351 Historia 99 Hobab (father-in-Law of Moses) 41 Holladay, William L. 44 Holy Ghost 275, 283-284, 290-291 Holy Spirit 14, 18, 45, 67, 86, 98-99, 112, 122, 148, 219, 245, 256, 274-275, 284, 311, 318, 326, 328, 332, 344, 353, 392 Hope 15, 27, 45, 47, 85, 188, 214, 272, 295, 298, 300-304, 367, 393 Horeb 39, 45-46, 213 Horsa 192, 201 Howe, Nicholas 201, 207 Hrotsvita of Gandersheim 308 Hugh of Saint Victor 13, 221-223, 226-227, 229-233, 235 Huldah 6, 18, 39  ibn Ezra, Abraham 12, 122, 143-145, 156, 161, 163, 174, 177-178, 181, 214 Idolatry 4, 16, 97, 247-248, 250-252, 255-256, 264-265, 278-279, 282, 304, 372-373 Imitatio Christi 317, 339 Incunabula/um 15, 343, 352 Instructions for Christians (Old English poem) 202 International Conference on the Science of Computus 105 Interpretive blending of narratives 94 Irenaeus Adversus Haereses 83-84, 115 Irony 149-150, 158, 283, 388 Irving, Edward 206

435

Isaac 8, 83, 87, 97, 160, 186-187, 189, 200, 202, 290, 332, 335 Isidore of Pelusium 107 Israelites 3-5, 8, 22, 40-42, 45, 53, 70, 77, 86, 88, 90, 94, 101, 128, 136-139, 147-148, 151-152, 156, 165, 167, 170, 175, 177-178, 185, 191, 194-195, 201, 207-208, 211-213, 215-219, 232, 235, 237, 268-269, 275-276, 278-282, 311, 332-333, 345, 349, 354, 358, 363-364, 367-369, 371-379, 382, 386, 390, 397, 399-400, 402-403, 406 Jacob 83, 86, 93, 160, 170, 186-187, 189, 200, 306-307, 332, 335 Jafeth 112 Japhet, Sara  53 Jareth 112 Jeremiah (book) 19, 37, 44, 54, 59, 317, 377 Jeroboam 27-28 Jerome 107, 229, 243, 272, 284, 305, 308, 375 Against Jovinian 308 Jerusalem 35, 44, 47, 51, 54, 76, 83-85, 109, 172, 281, 302, 315, 325, 338, 368, 383, 387, 396 Jesus 7-10, 13-14, 16, 18, 59, 62, 66-80, 82-83, 85-86, 89-94, 101, 110, 113, 138, 186, 199, 212, 216-219, 231, 252-253, 267, 271, 283288, 291, 301, 308, 311, 322, 324-325, 330, 332-334, 344-346, 351-352, 358359, 362-364, 368, 376, 388, 401-402, 404, 406 Jethro 149, 151-152, 155-156, 158, 162, 348 Jews 3, 6, 13, 16, 18, 61, 64, 74, 76, 78, 80, 8284, 87, 89, 91, 103-110, 126, 165, 180, 199, 203, 217, 219-220, 233, 238-239, 242-243, 247, 249, 251, 255-257, 261, 266, 291293, 297, 301-304, 321, 340, 357, 368, 373, 397-398, 402 Expulsion from England 340 John (apostle) 7, 74-78, 85, 198, 201-202, 322, 357, 359, 383 John (book) John 3:14-15 90, 94, 345, 358 John of the Cross, Saint 1, 16, 346 Spiritual Canticle 347-350, 352 Johnstone, William 29, 40 John the Baptist 75-76, 308, 344, 380 Joseph (son of Jacob) 27, 160, 187, 189, 203 Joseph, Flavius 62, 67, 108 Josephus 7, 13, 61-62, 226-227, 229, 235, 280, 364, 372 Jewish Antiquities 17, 67-68, 147-149, 154, 214, 223

436

index

Joshua 5-6, 18-19, 37, 39-41, 44 ,55, 62, 74, 86, 90, 180, 191, 216-217, 219, 401, 406 Josiah 6, 18, 31, 39, 42-43, 52 Julian of Norwich 308, 338, 340, 351 Kadesh 211, 218, 220 Kempe, Margery 309, 317, 338, 340, 351 King Theoderic 113 Knauf, Ernest Axel 39 Kolve, V. A. The Play Called Corpus Christi 264, 284, 286 Krusch, Bruno 104-105, 107-108, 111-112 Computus Carthaginensis 110 Langland, William Piers Plowman 15, 263, 293-294, 296-300, 302-303 Late-antiquity 305, 314 Law Mosaic 4, 43, 76, 79, 83, 125, 136, 139-140, 201-202, 220, 233, 263, 265, 276, 281283, 285, 287, 294, 296-297, 358, 370, 381-382, 405 New 15, 132, 215-216, 232-233, 241, 282283, 296, 298-301, 335 Old 9, 13, 209, 215-216, 220, 226, 229, 231234, 237, 241-242, 251-257, 279, 281, 285, 296, 298-301, 303, 324-325, 332, 335, 367, 381-382 Law-giving Narratives 37, 48 Torah 3-4, 37, 46, 51-56, 63-64, 74-76, 82, 84-85, 88-89, 95-97, 109, 118, 120, 123, 126, 128, 131-132, 138, 189, 192, 199-200, 202-203, 208, 216, 219, 227, 229-235, 237, 251-254, 257, 259, 271-272, 276, 279, 281-282, 286, 288-289, 291, 296, 301, 303-305, 307, 312, 315, 323, 324-327, 333, 351, 359, 363, 369, 371, 373-375, 383, 387, 395, 401, 404, 406 Lawton, David “Englishing the Bible”  263 Lay Folks’ Catechism 271, 273-274 Lectio divina 15, 305-307, 309, 351 LeFebvre, Michael 54 Legalia 232, 234 Le Jeu d’Adam 265, 291 Lesser to greater 89, 91 Leuchter, Mark 47-48 Levi 112, 148 Levites 30, 41, 52-53, 56, 148, 189, 376 Leviticus (book) 103, 190, 226, 234, 274, 374

Lightfoot, J.B. and J.R. Harmer, trans.; Michael W. Holmes, ed. The Apostolic Fathers 84 Limits of the Written Law 278 Loewenstamm, S. 49 Logos 64, 75-78, 98, 119, 353 Lollards 340, 376 Lombard, Peter 231-232, 234, 239 Lord Raglan 6, 24, 28, 31-32, 34-35 Lucas, Peter J. 203, 206 Lucca, Biblioteca Feliniana 105, 110 Luke (book) Luke 25-28 284 Lumiansky, R.M. and David Mills, eds. The Chester Mystery Cycle 279-281 Malaleel 112 Male babies 3, 95, 100, 112, 149, 377 Malec 112 Malherbe, Abraham J. and Everitt Feguson, trans. int. The Life of Moses 81, 365 Manasseh (King) 43 Manasseh (Tribe) 41 Manichees 8, 82 Manna from heaven 4, 15, 77-78, 175, 190, 195, 217, 275, 332-333, 358, 392, 399 Mansi, Giandomenico 105 Marcionites 8, 82 Margulis, B. 49 Marshall, Anne 272 Martini, Antonio 115 Martyr, Justin Dialogue with Trypho 84 Mary 67, 322, 332-334, 351 As mother 14, 18, 291, 322, 333, 344 As virgin 274, 332 Mary Magdalene 344 Matthew (book) Matthew 5:5 86 Matthew 17:3 92 Matthew 22:35-40 282 Matthew 22:36-40 279, 284 Matthew 22:39 280, 296, 298 Matusalem 112 Maurus, Hrabanus 13, 218-220 McCarthy, Daniel P. and Aidan Breen De ratione Paschae 104 McCarthy, James Adrian, ed. Book to a Mother 269, 284 Mechilta 170 Meister Eckhart 15, 335-338, 340, 349, 351

index Mellinkoff, Ruth 18, 188, 195, 229, 397 Mercy 138, 160, 168, 179, 264, 280-282, 287289, 318, 371, 403 Seven Works of Mercy 14, 270, 272-273, 294 Meribah 11-13, 33, 50, 178, 213-214, 289, 400 Mermedonians 203 Messiah 67-68, 82, 85, 98, 131-133, 283, 297 Metrical Charms 202 Meyendorff, John, preface The Life of Moses 81, 365 Miamonides, Moses 9, 12, 123-129, 133-139, 174, 214, 234, 336-338, 340 Commentary on the Mishnah 124 Guide of the Perplexed 123-124, 127 Mishneh Torah 125-126 Middle Ages 10-11, 15, 105, 117, 133, 139, 160161, 163, 182, 242, 264, 386, 305, 307-308, 310, 314, 317, 324, 351, 395, 397 Middle English 2, 14-15, 17, 263-267, 270, 274-275, 292, 301, 304, 306, 324, 338339, 341 Midian 3, 151-152, 154-155, 223, 280, 365, 389 Midrash And Islamic qişaş al-anbiya literature 158 Chronicles of Moses 10, 143-165 In the synagogue 11, 156-158 Medieval 143-165 Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael 148, 151 Minor 10-11, 17, 143, 145, 161 Petirat Moshe 10, 144-165 Tanhuma 144, 161, 169-170, 172-173, 179 vaYosha 10, 144-165 Mikraot Gedolot 11, 173 Miracles 4, 14, 29, 77, 89-90, 119-122, 126, 130134, 157, 177, 181, 243, 256, 267, 292, 311, 323, 328, 400 Mosaic 120, 127-134, 194, 241, 355, 372-373, 382, 388 Miriam 3, 5, 16, 45, 56, 156, 211, 213, 218, 344345, 361 As prophetess 147-148, 153 Mirour of Mans Saluacioune 267 Moe, Phyllis, ed. The Middle English Prose Translation of Roger D’Argenteuil’s Bible 270 Mommsen, Theodor 105, 109 Monk(s) 96, 104, 306, 316-317, 322 Morey, James H.

437

Moses And Pharaoh 3-4, 11, 15, 24-25, 35, 61, 68, 93-94, 145, 147, 149-151, 155, 158, 160-162, 165, 277-278, 282-283, 289-290, 301, 310, 376-379, 384, 394 And Satan 151-152, 154, 156, 162, 402 And Zipporah 3-4, 151-152, 155, 160, 321, 344 As “dux” 187-188, 190-192, 194, 196-197, 200, 205 As embedded interpreter 29, 62, 103, 109, 153 As epic hero 10, 144-145, 153-155, 164-165 As “legifer” 188-189, 190-192, 194, 196-197, 200, 202-203, 205 As romance hero 10, 143, 145, 153, 155, 164 As “scriptor” 190, 194, 196, 20, 205 Authorship of 12, 46-47 Birth of 24-27, 67-70, 99-100, 147-149, 267, 356, 365 Deal with Jethro 151-152, 155-156, 158, 162, 348 Death of 4, 6, 11-12, 24, 31-35, 40, 50, 74, 145, 155-156, 167-182, 191, 213-214, 219, 235, 290, 372, 387, 406 Descendents of 41, 48, 56, 160 Dressed in Multi-colored Clothing 160 Grave of 20-22, 32, 60, 288 Shoes of 97, 275, 316, 349 Song of 290, 317-318, 320, 361-363, 372, 377 Youth of 28, 150, 266-268 Mount Moriah 97 Mount Sinai 4, 9, 15, 24, 31, 45, 48, 66, 7071, 84, 90, 99, 101, 122, 126-127, 129, 136, 189, 192, 199, 203, 215-216, 226, 235, 298, 304-305, 313, 315-316, 328-329, 336, 349, 351-353, 363-368, 371, 380, 383, 385, 391392, 403, 406 Revelation at 9, 20, 60, 62, 71, 117, 122-123, 127, 130-132, 134-135, 137-138 MS Lucca 490 109 MS Reg. 2077 104, 112 Myrc, John Instructions for Parish Priests 271 Mystery Plays 15, 263-264, 269, 275-277, 282, 284, 286, 289, 291, 293, 372, 379 Mystical Theology 312-313, 337, 350 N-town 263, 276, 278, 282, 287-289 Nahmanides 12, 163, 167, 173-174, 178-183 Najman, Hindy 34, 54

438

index

Narratives 11, 22, 27, 32, 35, 55, 69-70, 76-77, 82-84, 88, 92-101, 146, 149-150, 152-153, 160-165, 167-168, 201, 216, 221, 226, 234, 261, 273, 275, 354, 357, 362, 364, 368, 378, 387, 401, 403 Exegetical 11, 146-153, 161-162, 164 New Testament 7-8, 12, 62-64, 66, 79-80, 82, 91, 93, 138, 165, 186, 196, 200, 208-209, 212, 231, 264, 268, 276, 280, 287, 298, 308, 336, 343-344, 347, 350, 361, 363, 366-369, 373, 380, 384 Nibelungenlied 29, 207 Nicaea 114 Nissim of Marseilles 9, 128-129 Ma’aseh Nissim 128 Noah 97-98, 112, 160, 175, 186-188, 324-325 Noah’s arc/k 97-98, 112, 175, 188, 325 Norris, Edwin, ed. and trans. The Ancient Cornish Drama, Origo Mundi 289 Noth, Martin 5, 19-22, 24, 27, 31, 39, 59 Numbers (book) Numbers 21:4-9 22, 90 Odyssey 207 Old Testament 6-8, 22, 26, 45, 81-82, 84-86, 88, 91-94, 97-99, 136, 138, 185-186, 193, 196-197, 200-203, 208-209, 216, 227, 230-233, 237, 258-260, 264, 276, 280, 287, 297, 308, 343, 348, 354, 358, 360, 368, 379-382, 384-386, 388, 394, 403, 406 Ordo Prophetarum 291, 379 Origen 8, 15, 89, 95-100, 107, 232, 305, 308, 323, 350, 357 On Prayer 310 Passover 4, 8, 52, 92-93, 103-105, 108-112, 156157, 256, 382 Patent 298, 367 Patrologia latina 104 Paul 59, 63-66, 79, 82, 88, 90-92, 212, 216-218, 242-243, 264, 308, 312, 358-359, 366370, 374, 387, 398, 404 Pelikan, Jaroslav The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 83-84 Pentateuch 5-6, 8, 18-24, 28, 35, 37-38, 40, 43, 46-48, 50-56, 60, 117, 128, 139-140, 177, 187, 190, 219, 226-227, 235, 238, 258, 261, 338, 355, 360, 364, 367, 369, 373, 387-388, 390, 406

Person, Raymond F.  31, 39, 51 Peshat 12, 144, 161-164, 173-174, 228 Peter (apostle) 82, 85, 92, 218, 322, 395-396, 398, 406 Peter (book) 1 Peter 5:8-9 92 Peterborough Chronicle 192 Petersen, David L. 55-56 Pharaoh 3-4, 11, 15, 24-25, 27, 35, 61, 68-69, 88, 93-95, 145, 147, 149-151, 155, 158, 160-162, 165, 204-205, 267, 275, 277278, 282-283, 289-290, 301, 310, 324, 372, 376-379, 384, 394, 402-403 Pharaoh’s daughter (Teremuth) 3, 95-96, 148-149, 158, 266, 334, 389 Pharisees 7, 62, 72-74, 165, 219, 225, 271, 380 Philo 8, 61, 63, 68-69, 108 Phineas 281 Pictorial depictions 229 Plagues 4-5, 48-50, 155, 187, 189-190, 195-196, 277-278, 281, 310, 355, 382, 402-403 Plato 7, 60-61, 79, 123, 372, 390 Poetic inspiration 192 Polzin, Robert 39 Pope Gregory I 104, 108, 111 Pope John I 113 Priestly Writer 30, 35 Prophecy 25, 54, 67-70, 120-126, 128-135, 137138, 148, 153, 156, 218, 241, 400 Mosaic 9, 117-118, 120-121, 123-125, 127, 129-131, 133-134, 136-141, 147, 203 Prophetesses 39, 148 Prophets 2, 5-7, 9, 13, 18-19, 37-40, 42, 44-47, 55-57, 59, 62, 64, 68-69, 72, 76-78, 80, 83, 89, 97, 101, 110, 117-120, 122-125, 127, 129-132, 134-139, 143-144, 151, 155, 193, 203, 214, 240-241, 258, 265, 280, 285, 289, 291-293, 298-300, 304, 309, 317319, 323, 325, 339, 354, 358-359, 375, 379, 385, 387, 390-392 Former 37-39, 55 Latter 37, 44, 46, 55 Propp, William H.C. 48-49 Psalm 22 85 Psalms 281, 316, 359 Metrical 202 Moses in 6, 30, 37, 46-49, 55, 59, 202, 258, 307 Pseudo-Anselm 330 Ptolemy 108, 113 Rank, Otto 6, 24-28, 30-32, 35

index Rashbam 13, 144, 163, 173, 176-177, 183, 228229 Rashi 12, 151, 167, 173-177, 179-181, 183, 214, 228-229 Ratio Paschae 105, 112 MGH AA Chronica minora IX 112 Ravenna 113, 392 Reardon, Patrick Henry Christ in the Psalms 92 Red Sea Crossing of 4, 18, 25, 40, 48, 50, 70, 78, 90, 92-93, 150, 187, 189-190, 194-196, 206, 208, 217, 275, 277, 311, 383, 394, 402 Remley, Paul 205 Renaissance 2, 5-6, 15-18, 162, 221, 305, 312, 342, 347, 351, 353-355, 357, 360-361, 364, 367, 369, 372-373, 379, 384, 387388, 390-396, 398, 400, 406 Revelation 7, 9, 12, 20, 37, 60-62, 64-66, 71, 117-118, 120, 122-124, 126-127, 130-132, 134-135, 138-140, 160, 243-244, 249, 257, 260-261, 309, 318, 329, 335, 341-342, 346, 366 Richards, Mary 185 Rofé, Alexander 51 Rolle, Richard A Notabill Tretys off the Ten Comandementys 271 Romance 10, 143, 145, 153, 155, 164 Romans 65-66, 219, 233, 264, 368-370, 387, 404 Romans 5:20 265, 303 Rotelle, John E. Essential Sermons 271 Rupert of Deutz 13, 218-220, 225 Saadia Gaon 9, 118-119 Book of Beliefs and Opinions 119 Salvation 10, 14-15, 50, 86, 88, 93, 153, 211, 218, 230, 238, 243, 245, 252-253, 257-258, 260-261, 264, 272-273, 276, 293-294, 297, 300, 321, 323-325, 327, 331-332, 334, 351, 362, 364, 374, 395, 400, 405 Samuel 40, 42, 44, 47, 55-56, 320, 339 Satan 60, 151-152, 154, 156, 162, 388, 401-402 Saul 42, 192 Scala paradise 306 Scheil, Andrew P. 185 Schematic guides 272, 294, 302 Schmid, Konrad 48 Schmidt, A.V.C., ed. Piers Plowman: A Parallel-Text Edition of the A, B, C and Z Versions, 2 vols. 293

439

Schniedewind, William M. 52, 54 Schnocks, Johannes 46 Scripture 7-13, 59, 66, 76, 82-84, 86-87, 91, 94, 96-98, 107, 109, 113, 117, 129, 136-137, 139, 145, 147, 160, 163-164, 174, 219-221, 237-238, 240-241, 243, 250, 258, 260261, 293, 305-307, 309-311, 317, 323, 325, 329-330, 333, 340, 351-352, 356, 359, 366, 369, 371, 374-376, 381, 385 Seasons for Fasting (Old English poem) 202 Seforno, Ovadiah ben Jacob 173, 180, 183 Sem 112 Semen 326-328 Senses/interpretations of scripture Allegorical 7-8, 12-13, 15, 18, 60, 64, 94-96, 99-100, 110-113, 115, 124, 140, 196, 207, 237, 263, 302, 305-306, 308-311, 324, 328-329, 332, 337, 347, 349-350, 375376, 383, 396, 401 Anagogical 306, 329 Literal 9, 13, 64, 115, 119, 132, 137-138, 140, 148, 163, 173, 178, 192, 201, 216, 219-220, 222, 232, 234, 255-256, 263, 306, 309310, 314, 321-322, 331-332, 337, 350, 375, 400 Moral 221-222, 229, 306, 330 Sententia 221 Sermon on the Mount 70-71, 73, 85-86, 296, 380 Seth 112 Severus, Sulpicius 106 Sifre 11, 169-175 Sin/Sinful/Sinned/Sinner(s) 8, 11-12, 33, 35, 66, 68, 84, 88, 94, 101, 128, 167-182, 211214, 217, 219, 223, 225-228, 230-231, 233, 235, 252, 255-256, 259, 264-265, 279282, 284, 295-296, 303, 311, 318, 320, 325, 329, 344-345, 357, 368, 371, 389, 398, 404-405 Seven Deadly Sins 14, 272-273, 294 Smalley, Beryl 13, 163, 215, 220-223, 231-234, 251, 306 Smith, Ben H. Traditional Imagery of Charity in Piers Plowman 303 Smith, Lucy Toulmin, ed. York Plays: The Plays Performed by Mysteries or Crafts of York 281, 289 Solomon 27, 42-43, 52, 86, 192, 389 Song of Songs 223, 308-309, 311, 317, 350-351 Sperling, S. David 39, 51 Spinoza, Benedictus (Baruch) 9-10, 136-140 Tractatus Politico-Theologicus 10,136-138

440

index

Spiritual betrothal 1, 346 Spiritual marriage 1-2, 15, 305, 308-309, 346 Stevens, Martin and A.C. Cowley, eds. The Towneley Plays 277-278, 283, 289-293 Stoning 263, 276, 281-282, 288, 372 Succession 42-43 Wilderness 37, 42, 44, 48 Supersede(d/s) 7, 74-78, 80, 212, 321, 364, 401 Supersessionist 13, 218 Tablet summaries 294 Targum 147-149, 151-152, 154, 156-157 Ten Commandments 4, 14-15, 122-123, 156157, 189-190, 195, 204, 253, 263, 265, 269-276, 278-279, 281-282, 284-286, 293-297, 299-300, 313, 353, 362, 364, 370, 372, 380, 382, 385 Tent of meeting 4, 213, 228 Teresa of Avila 309 Interior Castle 1-2, 16, 308, 346-347, 352 Tertullian 8, 90-91, 104 The Epistle to Barnabas 84 Theodicy 167, 170, 172, 213 Theodoret of Cyrrhus 86 Theoria 99, 101 The Woman Taken in Adultery 276-277, 287289, 303 Three Theological Virtues 272 Torah 3, 5-7, 9, 18-19, 37, 47, 50-54, 56, 5965, 69-75, 77, 127-129, 131-132, 136-137, 139, 153, 155, 175, 181, 211-212, 214-215, 218-220, 227, 230, 233-235, 244, 246, 338, 359 As Halakhic Midrash 52-54 Reading of 11, 156-157 Tours 193 Towneley 18 276, 282-283, 289 Towneley 7 The Play of the Prophets 276, 291-293 Towneley 8 276-278, 283, 290 Transfigure/transfiguration 71, 85, 180, 289, 328-330, 358, 394 Transposition and adaptation 85 Trinity 13, 244-246, 261, 275, 289-291, 298, 300, 302 Trotton 272, 294-295 Type-antitype 82, 89, 92, 216, 286, 333, 369 Typology 12, 70-72, 185, 199, 202, 208-209, 216, 363-364, 368-369, 395, 398-399, 401, 403

“Under the law” 218, 229, 404 Valorize(d) 15-16, 264, 383 Van Seters, John 5, 21, 23, 26, 29-30, 34, 44, 49, 59 Via negativa 312-314, 318, 338 Via positiva 313 Victor [of Aquitaine] 109 Virgil 196, 207, 362, 400 Aeneid 207, 400 Visio 294-295 Vita 296 Vitalis 112 Vivarium 112-114 Vortigern 192 Vulgate 112, 223, 225, 253, 280-281, 375, 397 Walzer, Michael 206-207 Warntjes, Immo 105 Water from rock 4, 11, 50, 174, 176-177, 190, 1994-196, 211-213, 217-219, 224-228, 259, 289, 330-331, 345, 392-393, 398-399 Wellhausen, Julius 38 Whitby, synod of  201 Wilfrid 201 Wilken, Robert The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God 99-100 William of Saint Thierry 233 Williamson, H.G.M. 39 Wilson, Gerald H. 47 Wilson, Lindsay 47 Woolf, Rosemary, ed. The English Mystery Plays 282, 284, 286, 289 Writings 2, 6-7, 37-38, 50, 55-57, 59 Wyclif, John 14, 274-275, 286, 340 Select English Works of John Wyclif 271, 273 Wycliffites 340 York 12 The Annunciation 263, 276, 289-290 York 41 The Purification of Mary 263, 276, 281 Young, Frances 216 Zenger, Erich 46-47, 50 Zipporah 3-4, 143, 151-152, 155, 160, 321, 344