XXX. (168) This unleavened cake is so sacred that it is enjoined in the holy scriptures, “to place in the innermost part of the temple, on the golden table, twelve loaves of unleavened bread, corresponding in number to the twelve tribes; and those loaves shall be called the shew-Bread.”{43}{#ex 25:30.} (169) And again, it is in the law expressly “forbidden to offer any leaven or any honey upon the Altar;”{44}{#le 2:11.} for it is a difficult thing to consecrate as holy either the sweetnesses of the pleasures according to the body, or the light and unsubstantial elations of the soul, since they are by their own intrinsic nature profane and unholy. (170) Does not, then, the prophetic word, by name Moses, very rightly speak in dignified language when he says, “Thou shalt remember all the road by which the Lord God led thee in the wilderness, and how he afflicted thee, and tried thee, and proved thee, that he might know what was in thy heart, and whether thou wouldest keep his commandments. Did he not afflict thee and oppress thee with hunger, and feed thee with manna which thy fathers know not, that he might make thee know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God?”{45}{#de 8:2.} (171) Who, then, is so impious as to conceive that God is one who afflicts, and who brings that most pitiable death of hunger upon those who are not able to live without food? For God is good, and the cause of good things, bounteous, the saviour, the supporter, the giver of wealth, the giver of great gifts, driving out wickedness from the sacred boundaries; for thus did he drive out the burdens of the earth, Adam and Cain, from paradise. (172) Let us, then, not be led aside by words, but let us consider and examine what meaning is intended to be conveyed under figurative expressions, and pronounce that the words “he afflicted,” are equivalent to “he instructed, and he admonished, and he corrected.” And when it is said that he oppressed them with hunger, it does not mean that he caused a deficiency of meat and drink, but of pleasures, and desires, and fear, and grief, and acts of injustice, and, in short, of all things which are the works of wickedness or of the passions. (173) And what is said immediately afterwards is an evidence of this: “He fed thee with manna.” Is it, then, proper to call that food which, without any exertion or hardship on his part, and without any trouble of his is given to man, not out of the earth as is usual, but from heaven, a marvellous work, afforded for the benefit of those who are to be permitted to avail themselves of it, the cause of hunger and affliction, and not rather, on the contrary, the cause of prosperity and happiness, of freedom from fear, and of a happy state of orderly living? (174) But men in general and the common herd think that those who are nourished on the word of God live in a miserable and wretched manner; for they are without the taste of the allnourishing food of wisdom; but they are not aware that they are living in the height of happiness.
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