And whoever has attained this, and is covered by the hand of God, as the word has proclaimed (and the hand of God is the power that builds up beings, the Only-begotten God, "in whom all things were" (John 1:3), Who also serves as a place for those who make a flow, as a way of their flow, according to His own word (John 14:6), but for those who are established he becomes a stone, and for those who are at rest a house): then he will hear him who calls, and he will be behind him who calls, that is, he will follow the Lord God, as the law commands. Hearing this, the great David understood, and he who dwells under the shelter of the Most High rests under the shadow of the Almighty, said: "With His feathers He will overshadow you, and under His wings you will be safe" (Psalm 90:1, 4); and this also means to be behind God; because the shoulder belongs to the back parts. And David cries out for himself: "My soul is cleaved to Thee; Thy right hand sustains me" (Psalm 62:9). You see how psalmody agrees with history. As David speaks of the perception by the right hand of the one who clings to God; so also there the hand touches the voice of God in the stone, waiting for permission, to follow behind. And the Lord, who then spoke to Moses, became the fulfillment of his own law; In a similar way He expounds to His disciples, revealing the clear meaning of what He said mysteriously: "Whosoever will come after Me, and not before Me," says He (Luke 9:23). And he offers the same to him who begs for eternal life. For He says: "Come, and follow Me" (Mark 10:21). But the one who follows sees the "back". Wherefore Moses, impatiently desirous of seeing God, now learns how to see God; namely, that to follow in the footsteps of God, wherever He leads, is to look to God, because the passing of God means the guidance of the one who follows in the footsteps. Therefore, the guide, by the very thing that precedes the one who follows in the footsteps, shows him the way. And he who follows in the wake does not turn away from the straight path, when he constantly sees the rear leader. For whoever in motion turns aside, or directs his gaze to see the leader in the face, paves for himself a different path than that indicated by the leader. For this reason God says to him who is guided: "But My face shall not be visible to [thee]" (Exodus 33:23), that is, do not stand face to face before the one who leads: for thy march will certainly be in the opposite direction: the good does not look at the face of the good, but follows him. That which is presented in opposition face to face is opposed to the good. For vice looks contrary to virtue: but virtue does not appear face to face as opposed to virtue. Therefore Moses does not look in the face of God, but sees behind Him. And whoever looks in the face will not live, as the Divine voice testifies: "A man cannot see the face of the Lord, and remain alive" (20). You see how important it is to learn how to follow God, namely, after these lofty ascents, after the terrible and glorious manifestations of God, only at the end of life is he who has learned to stand behind God is hardly worthy of this grace. Whoever walks in the footsteps of God in this way no longer encounters any encounter with vice.

After this, envy of the brethren is engendered towards him: envy is the beginning of harmful passions, the father of death, the first door to sin, the root of vice, the offspring of sorrow, the mother of misfortunes, the cause of disobedience, the beginning of shame. Envy drove us out of paradise, becoming a serpent before Eve; envy barred access to the tree of life, and stripped us of our sacred garments, and because of shame led us to the branches of the fig tree. Envy armed Cain against nature, and produced a "sevenfold" avenging death (Gen. 4:15). Envy made Joseph a slave. Envy is a deadly sting, a hidden weapon, a disease of nature, a bile poison, voluntary exhaustion, a cruelly stabbing arrow, a nail for the soul, a fire under the heart, a flame that burns the intestines. For envy, failure is not one's own evil, but someone else's good; and on the contrary, good luck is also for her, not her own good, but the bad of her neighbor. Envy is tormented by the success of people, and laughs at their misfortunes. It is said that vultures that feed on dead bodies die from the world; for their nature is akin to that which is stinking and corrupt. And he who is possessed by this disease, with the prosperity of his friends, as if from the touch of some world, perishes. If, however, he sees any suffering as a consequence of calamity, he flies to the sufferer, imposes his crooked beak, extracting with it the innermost causes of failure. Many before Moses were overcome by envy. But when he is confronted by this great man, like some clay statue striking a stone, he crushes himself. For in this, moreover, was the benefit of the walk with God, which was performed by Moses, who flowed through God's place, who stood on a rock, who was accommodated in its cleft, who was covered by God's hand, who followed in the footsteps of the leader; not in his face, but seeing from behind. Wherefore, that he has become as good as possible, he proves this by the fact that he follows in the footsteps of God, and moreover is higher than the flight of an arrow thrown from a bow; for envy shoots an arrow at him, but its flight does not reach the height at which Moses was. The string of deceit was not able to shoot passion at Moses with such force, so that it would first reach him from those who were sick with it. But although Aaron and Miriam were wounded by the Passion of slanderous (Num. 12:1), and become as it were a kind of bow of envy, striking him with a word instead of arrows, yet Moses is so far from communing with them in his illness that he even heals those who are sick with this passion, not only remaining immovable to punish those who have offended them, but also propitiating God for them, thereby what I did, showing, as I think, that he who is well guarded by the shield of virtue will not be stung by the points of arrows; because the hardness of the armament blunts the point and reflects the arrows back. The weapon that protects against such arrows is God Himself, in Whom the warrior of virtue is clothed. For it is said: "Put on the whole armor of God" (Rom. 13:14). Here is the indestructible armor with which, protecting himself, Moses made the evil archer ineffective. Thus did Moses take possession of a softening attraction to those who had offended him; he knew what was just by nature, and moreover in relation to those condemned at an impartial trial, but he became a man of prayer for the brethren before God. And he would not have done this if he had not been behind God, Who showed him the "back" for the safe driving of the path of virtue.

And such is the rest that follows. Since the natural enemy of men had no opportunity to harm Moses; then he turns his weapon on those who are easier for him to catch. And as if with some arrow, having shot the passion of gluttony into the people, he set them up in the desire for food to be like the Egyptians, preferring the eating of Egyptian meat to heavenly food. But a man of high soul, who exalts himself above such a passion, was wholly devoted to the future inheritance, which God had promised to those who were transmigrated from the Egypt of thought, and who were marching into that land, in which floweth milk mingled with honey. For this reason he makes spies a kind of instructors, announcing the blessings of this land. And these spies, in my reasoning, could be those who give good hopes, that is, thoughts born of faith, confirming in hope for the good things that are in store: thus leading to despair in good hopes, that is, thoughts inspired by the adversary, weakening faith in the promises. But Moses, paying no attention to those who oppose him, acknowledges as faithful the one who proclaims the best of this land. And the one who confirmed his faithfulness to what was proclaimed was the leader of the best spying, Jesus. Looking at it, Moses had firm hopes for the future, considering the bunch of grapes brought by Jesus on "poles" (Num. 13:24) as a sign of the abundance there. And when you hear about Jesus describing this land, and seeing a cluster hung on a tree, you will certainly turn your thoughts to Him to which he, too, gazing, was strengthened in hope. For the bunch that hangs on the tree, Who else but the Bunch that was hung on the tree in the last days, whose blood became a saving drink for believers?

After Moses has mysteriously prophesied to us: "the blood of the grapes" (Deut. 32:14), which indicates salvific suffering, the journey through the wilderness continues again, and the people, despairing of the promised blessings, languish in thirst. But Moses again floods the wilderness with stone for them. And let such a word, with a speculative view, teach us what the sacrament of repentance is. For after a single taste of water from the stone, those who turn to the belly and flesh and to the pleasures of Egypt are condemned to the famine of thoughts about the communion of good things. But it is possible for them to regain the stone that they have left behind by means of repentance, to open the stream of water again, to quench their thirst again with the moisture that the stone gives to him who believes that the contemplation of Jesus is truer than the contemplation of those who oppose him, who looks at the Grapes, having drained blood for us and is stained with blood, who again made the stone pour out water for them with a tree. However, the people have not yet learned to follow in the footsteps of the magnanimity of Moses, they are still carried away by slavish lusts, inclined to Egyptian pleasures. History shows by their example several that human nature is most inclined to such a passion, and that a thousand paths lead to this disease. Why did Moses, like a kind of physician who always knows how to overcome passion with the help of art, not allow illness to prevail over them even unto death? The desire for the inappropriate gave birth to serpents for them, and remorse imparted deadly poison to those who were bitten: but the great lawgiver, in the likeness of a serpent, brought to naught the power of real serpents.

But the time is already more clearly to reveal this riddle. The only cure for these evil passions is the purification of our souls, accomplished by the sacrament of piety. The main thing that is accepted by faith in the sacrament is the view of the suffering of Him who suffered for us. Suffering is the cross; wherefore he who looks to Him, as the Scripture relates, suffers no harm from the poison of lust. To look at the cross means to make one's whole life as if dead and crucified to the world, to remain immovable to all sin, as the Prophet says, "to those who have nailed their flesh to the fear of God" (Psalm 118:120). Wherefore, since the lust of the unseemly draweth deadly serpents out of the earth (for every offspring of evil lust is a serpent); therefore the law foretells us what is manifested on the tree: and this is the likeness of the serpent, and not the serpent, as the divine Paul says: "in the likeness of sinful flesh for a sacrifice for sin" (Rom. 8:3). And the true serpent is sin; whoever has given himself over to sin is clothed with the nature of a serpent. For this reason man is freed from sin by Him Who took upon Himself the likeness of sin, by Him Who became like us, turned into His own form of a serpent, by Him Who makes remorse not fatal, but does not destroy the serpents themselves. And I call lusts serpents. For those who look at the cross are not affected by evil death; but the remaining lust of the flesh for the spirit did not completely bend in them. And in the faithful often the pang of lust is at work; but whoever looks at the Ascended One on the tree drives away passion from him, with the fear of the commandment, as if by some kind of medicine, having dispersed the power of poison. And that the serpent lifted up in the wilderness is a sign of the sacrament of the cross, this is clearly taught by the word of God when He says: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up" (John 3:14).

Sin, in some sequence for our evil, goes still further along the path peculiar to it, as if in an uninterrupted chain stretching forward. And the lawgiver, like a kind of physician, extends his healing along with the desire for evil. Since the remorse of serpents has become invalid for those who look at the likeness of a serpent (no doubt you understand what is said mysteriously); then another method of sin is devised by those who contrive against us in various ways to do this, as it can now be seen done in many. Others, when they curb the passion of lust by a chaste life, arbitrarily invade the priesthood, by human intrigues and efforts to appropriate to themselves ordination, insulting God's economy. And to this evil following of sin is brought the one who is accused by history, that he inspires evil in people. When the earth, through faith in Him who was lifted up on the tree, ceased to give birth to serpents as a punishment for the lustful, and became convinced that poisonous remorse would not harm them, then the disease of pride enters into those who have been freed from the passion of lust. Recognizing that it is inferior to keep the rank in which they have been ordained, they themselves intrude into the dignity of the priesthood, trying to expel from it those who have accepted this ministry from God; they perished, swallowed up by the open earth; and what remained on the ground of such a crowd was burned by lightning. And the Scriptures, I think, teach by this narration that the end of prideful exaltation is the descent into hell. And on this basis, perhaps, another does not unjustly define pride by descending to the valley. If, according to the assumption of many, the thought of this inclines to the opposite, do not be amazed at this; for it seems to many that the word pride means to be above others. But the truth of what is narrated confirms our definition. For if those who are exalted above others have descended in the yawning of the land that has been raised; then no one will condemn the definition according to which pride is a fall into the lowest countries. Moses teaches those who look at this to be modest and not to be exalted by arrogance, but always to dispose well of the present. For for the reason that you have become above voluptuousness, you no longer have the right to unconsciously indulge in another kind of passion. Any passion, as long as there is a passion, is a fall; but in the replacement of passions by one another, there is no difference in falls. Whoever creeped from the slippery pleasures fell; and whoever stumbled through pride also fell. He who has reason will not choose for himself any kind of fall, but must equally avoid any fall as long as it is a fall. Why, if even now you see someone who, on the one hand, is free from the disease of voluptuousness, but, trying to show that he is superior to others, intrudes into the priesthood; then imagine of him that you see him from the height of pride falling into hell.

For in the following law he teaches that the priesthood is a divine inheritance, and not a human one, and teaches this thus: Moses places the rods of each tribe with the names of those who gave them, so that the rod, distinguished from the others by some divine miracle, may become a testimony of ordination from above. And since this was fulfilled, the rods of the other tribes remained the same as they were, but the rod of the priest, rooted in itself, not from any foreign moisture, but by the divine power invested by him, brought forth a branch and fruit; and the fruit came to maturity; and the fruit was a nut; then after the completion of this, all those subject to Moses learned the deanery. On account of the fruit brought forth by the priest's staff, it is necessary to come to the thought of how abstinent, strict, and severe the life in the priesthood must be according to its outward behavior, and inwardly, secretly and invisibly, what nourishment it contains, what is revealed in the nut when the nutritious matures in time, the hard shell disintegrates, and this woody cover on the nutritious fruit will be broken. But if you learn that the life of a so-called priest is like an apple, fragrant, blossoming like a rose (very many of them adorn themselves with fine linen and scarlet, fattening themselves with expensive things, drinking "wine from cups, anointing yourselves with the best ointments" (Amos 6:6), and everything that seems sweet only at the first taste is recognized as necessary for a pleasant life); then it will be beautiful to say to you the word of the Gospel: I see the fruit, and by the fruit I do not recognize the tree of the priesthood. The fruit of the priesthood is different; and this is different; that fruit is abstinence; and this one is luxury; he is not fattened by earthly moisture; and to this many streams of pleasure flow from the lower places, with the help of which the ripe fruit of life glows with such beauty.

When Moses' subjects became free from this passion as well; then they enter into the life of a foreigner, while the law, when they deviate in the other direction, leads them along the royal path. For it is dangerous for a traveler to deviate from the side. Just as if two shifted rapids leave one path on a high coastal cliff, then it is not unfortunate for the one who walks along it to deviate from the middle side, because on both sides, perhaps, the deviation will be followed by a precipice from the rapids: so the law requires of him who follows in his footsteps not to leave "the way", as the Lord says, "narrow and strait" (Matt. 7:14), not recognizing any deviation either to the left or to the right as successful. And by this word is defined the teaching that the virtues consist in the middle. Why is every vice usually committed, either from a lack or from a violation of the measure of virtue? for example, in relation to courage, timidity is a certain defect of this virtue; impudence is a violation of measure; but what is free from one or the other of these vices is seen in the middle between them and is virtue. In the same way, everything else that cares about the most perfect is kept in the middle between the evil neighborhood; wisdom occupies the middle ground between cunning and simplicity. Neither the wisdom of the serpent nor the simplicity of the dove is praiseworthy, if each of these qualities is taken alone, by itself; but conduct that keeps the middle ground between the one and the other becomes a virtue. He who lacks chastity is depraved; and whoever abounds in it is "burned in his conscience," as the Apostle defines (1 Tim. 4:2). One is irresistibly drowning in pleasures; another abhors marriage as much as adultery; and the conduct seen in the middle between these is chastity. Since, as the Lord says, "this world lies in evil" (1 John 5:19), and for the followers of the law that which is contrary to virtue, that is, vice, is foreign, then he who passes through life in this world will safely complete this necessary course of virtue, if he preserves the truly royal path, smoothed and whitened by virtue, not in the least seduced by vice to the adjacent crossroads.

But as, according to what has been said, with the ascent of virtue, along with the intrigue of the enemy, which seeks in relation to everyone a pretext for seduction into sin: the more the people have grown in life according to God, and the adversary then uses another intrigue against these strong in military affairs. When the belligerents see that a regiment of superior enemies is invincible in open battle, then he overcomes them, negotiating and setting up ambushes. In the same way, the horde of malice against those who are strengthened by law and virtue, does not bring out its forces face to face, but secretly plots against them in some ambushes. Therefore, even when he plotted evil against the Israelites, he called for the help of sorcery. And so history says that there was a certain "sorcerer" (Joshua 13:22) and a bird-diviner (Num. 23:23), who, by some demonic action, had the power to harm, but belonged to the number of enemies, and was hired by the ruler of the Midianites to harm those who live according to God with his curses; And he changed that oath into a blessing. And from the connection of what has been considered so far, we understand that magic is not valid against those who live virtuously; on the contrary, strengthened by God's help, they overcome every intrigue. That the one mentioned in history was engaged in bird-divination sorcery is testified to when it says: "Sorcery is in his hand" (Num. 22:7), and he consults with the birds, and even before that he says, as if by the cry of a donkey, he was taught what was before his effort.

The voice of this donkey (since it was customary for the sorcerer, by some demonic action, to consult with the voices of the dumb) is presented by the Scriptures as if articulate, showing that those who are preoccupied with such demonic deception come to the conviction to accept as a word by some observation from the voice of the dumb the instruction they have extracted. And the sorcerer, heeding this, by the very thing by which he was deceived, was taught that the power of those against whom he was hired was irresistible. In the Gospel story, a horde (legion) of demons was preparing to resist the power of the Lord: but when He who has power over all approaches him, he proclaims a power that overcomes, and does not conceal the truth that God's nature is the One Who in due time will inflict punishment on sinners. For the demonic voice says: "I know Thee, who Thou art the Holy One of God" (Mark 1:24); and: "Thou hast come hither before the time to torment us" (Matt. 8:29). The same thing happened then; the demonic power that accompanied the sorcerer reveals to Balaam the invincibility and invincibility of the people of God.

And we, adjusting history to what has been studied up to now, assert that he who intends to curse those who live virtuously cannot utter a single distressing and disgusting word, but turns a curse into a blessing. And it is understood that those who live virtuously are not touched by the reproach of slander. For how can one not reproach the acquisitive for covetousness? How can one spread a rumor about a hermit and one who lives in solitude that he lives dissolutely? Or about the meek, that he is irritable? Or about the humble-minded, that he is arrogant? or something else that is reproachful to divulge about people who are known from the opposite side, whose goal is to present a life that is elusive to a mocker. "Let him be ashamed," as the Apostle says, "that the adversary may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us" (Titus 2:8). For this reason the voice of him who is called to curse says: "How shall I curse? God does not curse him" (Num. 23:8), that is, how shall I curse him who has not given food to slander? For him, since his gaze is turned to God, then life is invulnerable to vice.

However, the inventor of evil, when he has not succeeded in this, does not entirely cease to intrigue those against whom he plotted, but on the contrary, turns his ingenuity to a special military stratagem, catches human nature in vice with the bait of pleasure. And indeed, pleasure, like some kind of bait to every vice, as soon as it is put on display, conveniently attracts greedy souls with the milk of perdition; and especially our nature, without any caution, is drawn into evil by voluptuousness. So it was then; those who overcame with arms, showed that every attachment of iron is inferior in strength to their own strength, were swiftly put to flight from the opposing retinue, and they themselves were stung by voluptuousness with women's arrows. And those who conquered husbands yielded the victory to their wives. As soon as the women appeared before them, instead of weapons, they set their faces against them, and they immediately forgot the power of courage, their irritation changed into a desire to be liked. And they came to such a state in which it is natural to be indulged in lawless mingling with foreign women to the point of frenzy. Assimilation with evil became the alienation of the help of good; for soon the Divinity rose up against them. But the zealous Phinehas did not expect that sin should be cleansed by a sentence from above; on the contrary, he himself became both a judge and an executor of execution. Moved with anger against the frenzied, he fulfilled the work of the priest, cleansing sin with blood, and not with the blood of any innocent animal, which had not taken upon itself any filth of lewdness, but with the blood of those who had copulated with each other in sin. And the spear that pierced their two bodies calmed God's justice, ready to move against them, the delight of the sinful plums into one with their death. But it seems to me that this history offers people a kind of spiritually beneficial advice, which teaches us that of the many passions that conquer human thoughts, not one has such power on us as to be equal to the disease of voluptuousness. For that these Israelites, too, who showed themselves not to be afraid of the Egyptian cavalry, defeated the Amalekites, and became terrible to the people who followed them, and then overcame the retinue of the Midianites, and they very suddenly, at the mere sight of foreign women, became enslaved to this disease, and by this, as it is said, they prove nothing else, but only that voluptuousness is such an enemy of ours, which is difficult to fight and overcome, who, by his mere appearance, having gained the upper hand over the invincible weapons, erected a monument to their dishonor, consigning the shame of the vanquished to shame, at the testimony of daylight. Voluptuousness transformed people into beasts, whom the bestial and irrational desire for lewdness convinced to forget their human nature; and they do not conceal their crimes, but are magnified by the dishonor of passion, they are comforted by the filth of shame, like swine, openly, in the eyes of others, they wallow in the mire of impurity.

What then do we learn from this narration? So that, having ascertained the force with which the disease of voluptuousness draws into evil, we may remove our lives from such a neighborhood as far as possible, and so that this disease, like some kind of fire, which produces a destructive conflagration at any approximation, may not creep up to us. This is what Solomon teaches, advising in the Book of Wisdom: "Can a man take fire in his bosom, lest his garment be burned? Can anyone walk on burning coals without burning his feet? (Prov. 6:27, 28); for it is in our will to remain in impassibility while we are far from Him who sets us on fire. And if we are so close that we touch this scorching heat, then the fire of lust will penetrate into us, and thus it follows that the foot will be burned, and the bowels will be damaged. In order that we may guard ourselves from such evil in the distance, the Lord in the Gospel, by His own word, as if a kind of root of passion, cuts off the desire aroused by sight, teaching that he who has taken passion into himself with his gaze gives the way to illness; for evil passions, like an infection, as soon as they once take possession of the essential in a person, cease only by death.

But I think that those who have offered Moses his whole life as a model of virtue do not need to prolong the word. Whoever exerts his strength for a lofty life, for him what has been said will serve as a meagre path to true wisdom; And whoever is exhausted for the feats of virtue, if he writes many times more than what has been said, there will be no benefit from this work, unless he consigns to oblivion that in which our word, according to the definition expressed in the preface, stands firmly, namely: a perfect life is such that no description of perfection stops further progress in it, but unceasing growth in the perfection of life for the soul is the path to perfection.