Chapter 30. God Did Not Direct the Jews to Despoil the Egyptians.
Chapter 30
1. Those, however, who make an objection and accusation because the people, when about to leave, at God’s command, took from the Egyptians vessels of all kinds and clothes and walked off with them, and from these things built the tabernacle in the wilderness,—these convict themselves as ignorant of God’s decrees and economies, as the Presbyter said. For, if God had not consented to this typical journey, namely, in the faith in which we are established, by which we departed from the class of the Gentiles, no one would be able to be saved. We are all heirs to either a small or a great possession that we have acquired from the mammon of iniquity. Really, whence the houses we live in, the clothes we wear, and the vessels we use, and the rest of the needs of our daily life, if not from the things that we acquired by avarice, while we were Gentiles, or that we received from Gentile parents, relatives, or friends, who got them through avarice? Not to speak of the fact that even now in the state of faith we acquire possessions. For who does not sell without wanting to make profit from him who buys? And who does not buy without wanting to derive something beneficial from him who sells? And who carries on a trade without doing so precisely to gain a livelihood? And what about the faithful who are in the royal palace, do they not possess the vessels that belong to Caesar, and does not each of them give, according to his means, to those who have nothing? The Egyptians were debtors to Israel not only in respect to property but also in respect to life, on account of the previous kindness of the Patriarch Joseph. Now, in what way are the Gentiles our debtors, from whom we receive both profit and benefits? Whatever they acquire with effort, these we who are in the faith make use of without effort.
2. Up to that time the people served the Egyptians in the worst kind of slavery. Scripture tells us: When the Egyptians oppressed the sons of Israel, and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the fields, in all the works in which they violently oppressed them, they built for them fortified cities and labored much and, over many years, increased their possessions; and that they did under every kind of slavery, since the Egyptians were not only ungrateful toward them but wished to destroy them all. What injustice, then, was committed if out of the many things they took a few; and if they left as poor people, taking only a small reward for their great service, though, if they had not served them, they could have had great possessions and could have left as a rich people?
By way of illustration, suppose a free man had been carried away by violence by another, and had served him many years and had increased his [lord’s] possessions, then when finally he gets some little support, he thinks of taking a small portion of his [lord’s] property, and on leaving takes only a few things from those acquired by his many labors and from the large possessions acquired, and is then accused of acting unjustly. No, it is the one who reduced him to slavery who will appear to be the unjust judge. Of the same ilk are those who blame the people for taking for themselves a few things from the many and who do not blame those who render no thanks for the service of the Fathers, and who even reduced them to the severest slavery and acquired a very great gain from them, and who assert that the Israelites acted unjustly for taking from their labors uncoined gold and silver in a few vessels, as we have said; who, on the contrary, assert that they themselves act justly—let us tell the truth even though it seems ridiculous to some—when they carry in their belts coined gold and silver and brass with Caesar’s inscription on it, which they got from the labors of others.
3. If we make a comparison between them and us, who seems to have obtained the goods in the more just way? Was it the people who descended from the Egyptians, who were debtors in every respect; or was it we who descended from the Romans and the other nations who owed nothing to us? Why, even the world owes its peace to them, so that we can travel and sail without fear where we will. Against these, therefore, the word of the Lord is apropos. He said, You hypocrites, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
To explain, if the one who makes such accusations against you and boasts that by his “knowledge” he is separated from the group of the Nations, and that he has in his possession no goods obtained from others but is literally naked and goes about in bare feet and lives in the mountains without house, as some animal that feeds on plants, he deserves pardon for not knowing anything about our way of life. If, on the contrary, he shares in all the things that are said to belong to others, and criticizes the fact that they are a type, he shows himself most unjust, and he twists this sort of accusation against himself. For he will be found to carry about the possessions of others and desire the things that are not his. It was for this reason that the Lord said, Judge not that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. Not that we should not correct others, or that we should consent to their evil deeds; but that we do not judge God’s economies unjustly, since he justly planned all of them in types. It was because he knew that we would distribute our goods that we got from another that he said, He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise. And, For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was naked and you clothed me. And, But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
We are, in fact, justified by doing good with the rest of our goods, in a sense, buying back our own goods from others’ goods. But I say “from other’s goods” not as if the world were not God’s but because we possess these gifts as received from others, just like these [Israelites] from the Egyptians, who knew not God. And by these very things we set up within ourselves God’s tent; for God dwells within those who do good to others. To the point is what the Lord said, Make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when you have been evicted, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. For whatever we acquired from injustice while we were Gentiles, these things, after we believed, we converted to good use for the Lord and are thereby justified.
4. So these things were necessarily acted out beforehand in type, and according to them was built God’s tent. They received them justly as we have shown; we were manifested in them in advance, we who would serve God by means of others’ goods. In point of fact, the entire exodus of the people from Egypt [was set] by God as a type and an image of the exodus of the Church that would take place from the Gentiles. And for this reason he led her from there into his inheritance, which not Moses, God’s servant, but Jesus, God’s Son, will give as inheritance. Now if one will give more careful attention to what was said by the Prophets about the end, and what John, the Lord’s disciple, saw in the Apocalypse, he will find that the Gentiles everywhere are to receive the same plagues that Egypt did then in particular.