XXXII. [4849]
Josephus says, that when Moses had been brought up in the royal palaces, he was chosen as general against the Ethiopians; and having proved victorious, obtained in marriage the daughter of that king, since indeed, out of her affection for him, she delivered the city up to him. [4850]
Why was it, that when these two (Aaron and Miriam) had both acted with despite towards him (Moses), the latter alone was adjudged punishment? [4851] First, because the woman was the more culpable, since both nature and the law place the woman in a subordinate condition to the man. Or perhaps it was that Aaron was to a certain degree excusable, in consideration of his being the elder [brother], and adorned with the dignity of high priest. Then again, inasmuch as the leper was accounted by the law unclean, while at the same time the origin and foundation of the priesthood lay in Aaron, [the Lord] did not award a similar punishment to him, lest this stigma should attach itself to the entire [sacerdotal] race; but by means of his sister's [example] He awoke his fears, and taught him the same lesson. For Miriam's punishment affected him to such an extent, that no sooner did she experience it, than he entreated [Moses], who had been injured, that he would by his intercession do away with the affliction. And he did not neglect to do so, but at once poured forth his supplication. Upon this the Lord, who loves mankind, made him understand how He had not chastened her as a judge, but as a father; for He said, "If her father had spit in her face, should she not be ashamed? Let her be shut out from the camp seven days, and after that let her come in again." [4852]
[4849] Massuet's Fragment xxxii. is here passed over; it is found in book iii. chap. xviii. 7.
[4850] See Josephus' Antiquities, book ii. chap. x., where we read that this king's daughter was called Tharbis. Immediately upon the surrender of this city (Saba, afterwards called Meroë) Moses married her, and returned to Egypt. Whiston, in the notes to his translation of Josephus, says, "Nor, perhaps, did St. Stephen refer to anything else when he said of Moses, before he was sent by God to the Israelites, that he was not only learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but was also mighty in words and in deeds" (Acts vii. 22).
[4851] Num. xii. 1, etc.
[4852] Num. xii. 14.
XXXIII.
Inasmuch [4853] as certain men, impelled by what considerations I know not, remove from God the half of His creative power, by asserting that He is merely the cause of quality resident in matter, and by maintaining that matter itself is uncreated, come now let us put the question, What is at any time ... is immutable. Matter, then, is immutable. But if matter be immutable, and the immutable suffers no change in regard to quality, it does not form the substance of the world. For which reason it seems to them superfluous, that God has annexed qualities to matter, since indeed matter admits of no possible alteration, it being in itself an uncreated thing. But further, if matter be uncreated, it has been made altogether according to a certain quality, and this immutable, so that it cannot be receptive of more qualities, nor can it be the thing of which the world is made. But if the world be not made from it, [this theory] entirely excludes God from exercising power on the creation [of the world].
[4853] Harvey considers this fragment to be a part of the work of Irenæus referred to by Photius under the title De Universo, or de Substantiâ Mundi. It is to be found in Codex 3011 of the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
XXXIV.
"And [4854] dipped himself," says [the Scripture], "seven times in Jordan." [4855] It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [it served] as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: "Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." [4856]
[4854] This and the next fragment first appeared in the Benedictine edition reprinted at Venice, 1734. They were taken from a ms. Catena on the book of Kings in the Coislin Collection.
[4855] 2 Kings v. 14.
[4856] John iii. 5.
XXXV.
If the corpse of Elisha raised a dead man, [4857] how much more shall God, when He has quickened men's dead bodies, bring them up for judgment?
[4857] 2 Kings xiii. 21.