6. The Exodus from Egypt (The Life of Moses, 361B-364D;
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Thus when our Lord says that those who mourn are blessed (Matth. 5.5), the hidden lesson I think He is teaching is this: that the soul should fix its eye on its true good and not be immersed in the illusion of the present life. For it is impos sible for a man to live without tears who looks sharply at the realities; and we must surely think that man padietic who allows himself to sink into the pleasures of this world.
We can see somewhat the same thing in animals. Their state of nature is indeed pathetic. For what is more pitiful than to be deprived of reason ? And yet they have no aware ness of their misery, and they too pass their lives in a sort of pleasure. The horse prances, the bull raises the dust, the boar's back bristles, puppies play, and calves frolic—we can see each species of animal expressing their pleasure in dif ferent ways. Yet if they had an inkling of the gift of reason they would not pass their dumb and miserable lives in pleasure. And so it is with those men who are unaware of the gifts of which our nature has been deprived, and thus their present existence is a constant round of pleasure.
6. The Exodus from Egypt (The Life of Moses, 361B-364D; ed. Danielou ii.120-129)8 Every time that a man escapes from the Egyptian army and becomes terrified at the assaults of temptation when he gets beyond the borders, his guide shows him unexpected salvation from on high. And whenever the Enemy with his army stalks us, the fugitives, the sea is forced to yield us a passage. For this crossing, the guide was the cloud; and men before us have applied this name (that was given to the
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guide) to the grace of the Spirit, for it is He who guides the just towards salvation. Whoever follows Him will cross the water; He will clear a passage for him and bring secure re demption, burying in the sea the one who pursues to enslave us.
If you attend to this you will understand the mystery of the water into which we descend with the entire enemy host and emerge alone, with our foes drowned in the sea. For everyone knows that the Egyptian army stands for the various passions of man's soul which enslave him: they are the horses, the chariots with their riders, the archers, slingers, the heavy-armed soldiers, and the rest of the throng that makes up the enemy force. What difference is there between that army and our inclinations to anger, our feelings of pleasure, sorrow and avariciousness.
The shot that comes straight from the sling is insulting language, and the brandished spear-point is a surge of anger.
The steeds that run away with their chariot in unbridled fury —this is our passion for pleasure. The chariots have three riders, which the text (Exod. 14.23) calls viziers; and in structed in the symbolism of the lintel and the various stages of the journey, you will surely see in those who are carried off in their chariot the threefold division of the human soul,
I mean the intellectual, the concupiscible and the irascible.
All these and similar things rush into the water after the Israelites, the object of their vicious pursuit. But under the guidance of the staff of faith and the luminous cloud, the water becomes life-giving for those who take refuge in it and death-dealing for those who are in pursuit.
But the sacred text also teaches us that those who cross the water must drag nothing of the enemy's army with them
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once they have emerged from it. For if the enemy should emerge with them, they will remain in slavery even after the waters, for they will then have brought out with them the tyrant whom they should have drowned in the sea. Now as anyone could explain by translating this symbolism into clearer language, the meaning is that all those who pass through the mystical waters of baptism must kill in these waters the entire host of sins which make war on them, such as avarice, impure desires, the spirit of greed, feelings of vanity and pride, irascible feelings, anger, wrath, jealousy, envy and the like (for these are the passions which naturally accompany our human nature), whether it be a question of the evil tendencies of the soul or the acts which flow from them.
It is like the mystery of the Pasch (for this is the name given to the victim whose blood protects from death those who celebrate it). Thus the Law commands that one should eat unleavened bread on the Pasch, bread, that is, that has not been mixed with old leaven. And by this we are given to un derstand that no remainder of sin should be mixed with our new life, but that we should make a completely new start in life by a real conversion, by cutting off the perpetual pro cession of sin. So too in this episode we are ordered to drown every Egyptian, that is, every form of sin, in the saving waters of baptism as in the depths of the sea, and then emerge from the waters alone without allowing anything foreign to trail us into our life. This is the message of the sacred text, which tells us that in the same water friend and foe were separated by life and death, the one finding life and the other destruction.
Many of those who have been admitted to the mystic wash-