XLVI. (133) And he will, moreover, make the difference more evident to us by the following expression:–“For the wave-breast and the heaveshoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest, and unto his sons, for Ever.”{57}{#le 7:34.} (134) You see here that they are not able to take the breast alone, but they must take it with the shoulder; but Moses can take it without the shoulder. Why is this? Because he, being perfect, has no inadequate or lowly ideas, nor is he willing to remain in a state in which the passions have even a moderate influence; but he, by his exceeding power, does utterly extirpate the whole of the passions, root and branch. But the others, who go with faint endeavours and with but slight strength to war against the passions, are inclined to a reconciliation with them, and make terms with them, proposing terms of accommodation, thinking that thus, like a charioteer, they may be able to bridle their extravagant impetuosity. (135) And the shoulder is a symbol of labour and of the endurance of hardship; and such a person is he who has the charge of and the care of administering the holy things, being occupied with constant exercise and labour. But he has no labour to whom God has given his perfect good things in great abundance, and he who attains to virtue by labour will be found to be less vigorous and less perfect than Moses, who received it as a gift from God without any labour or difficulty. For the mere fact of labouring is of itself inferior to and worse than the condition of being exempt from labour, so, also, what is imperfect is inferior to that which is perfect, and that which learns anything to that which has knowledge spontaneously and naturally. On this account it is that Aaron can only take the breast with the shoulder, but Moses can take it without the shoulder. (136) And he calls it the heave-shoulder for this reason, because reason ought to be set over and to be predominant above the violence of anger, as a charioteer who is driving a hard-mouthed and restiff horse. And then the shoulder is no longer called the heave-shoulder, but the shoulder of removal, on this account, because it is fitting that the soul should not attribute to itself labour in the cause of virtue, but should remove it from itself and attribute it to God, confessing that it is not its own strength or its own power which has thus acquired what is good, but He who gave it a love for goodness. (137) And so neither the breast nor the shoulder is taken, except from the virtue which bringeth salvation, as is natural, for then the soul is sacred when the angry passions are under the guidance of reason, and when labour does not bring conceit to the labourer, but when he owns his inferiority to God, his benefactor.
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