Homilies on Exodus — Homily 3 (Exod. 4 (esp. 4:10–16) — Moses 'slow of tongue'; Aaron)
Latin source: Origen's Greek homilies on Exodus, surviving only in Rufinus of Aquileia's Latin translation (c. 400), from the reading text of W. A. Baehrens (ed.), Origenes Werke VI (GCS 29, Leipzig, 1920), pp. 145–279. This English translation is released into the public domain.Concerning what is written: "but I am of a thin voice and slow of tongue".
1. So long as Moses was in Egypt and "was being instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians", he was not "of a thin voice" nor "slow of tongue", nor did he profess himself to be lacking in eloquence. For, as far as the Egyptians were concerned, he was both of a sonorous voice and of incomparable eloquence. But when he began to hear the voice of God and to receive the divine utterances, then he perceived his own voice to be feeble and thin, and he understood his tongue to be slow and hampered; then he pronounces himself mute, when he began to recognize that true Word which "was in the beginning with God". But that what we are saying may more readily be grasped, let us make use of a comparison of this kind. If a rational man, however unskilled and untaught, be compared with dumb animals, he will seem eloquent in comparison with those which are devoid both of reason and of voice; but if he be set beside learned and eloquent men, men most approved in all wisdom, he will seem inarticulate and mute. And if someone should contemplate the divine Word itself and look upon the divine wisdom itself, then, however great his learning and however great his wisdom, he will profess himself before God a mute animal, far more than the beasts are before us. This surely was what the blessed David also, gazing upon it and weighing himself in such a manner against the divine wisdom, was saying: "I became as a beast of burden before you". According to this, therefore, Moses too, the greatest of the prophets, says to God in the present reading that he is "of a thin voice" "and slow of tongue", and that he is not eloquent. For all men, in comparison with the divine word, are to be reckoned not only inarticulate, but even mute.
2. Because, therefore, he had advanced so far in understanding as to recognize his own self—in which lies the greatest part of wisdom—the divine favor rewards him. Hear with what rich and magnificent gifts. "I," he says, "will open your mouth, and will instruct you in what you ought to speak". Blessed are those whose mouth God opens, that they may speak. To the prophets God opens the mouth and fills it with his own utterance, as he says in the present passage: "I will open your mouth and will instruct you in what you ought to speak". But through David also God says: "Enlarge your mouth, and I will fill it". Likewise Paul too says: "that speech may be given me in the opening of my mouth". The mouth, therefore, of those who speak the words of God, God opens. But I fear that there may be some whose mouth, on the contrary, the devil opens. For whoever speaks a lie, it is certain that the devil has opened his mouth, that he might speak the lie. Whoever gives false testimony, whoever utters buffooneries, whoever brings forth filthy things and the rest of this kind out of his mouth—the devil has opened their mouth. I fear that the devil opens also the mouth "of whisperers and detractors", and also of those who "utter idle words, of which an account is to be rendered in the day of judgment". And indeed, as for those who "speak iniquity on high", "who deny that my Lord Jesus Christ has come in the flesh", or "who blaspheme the Holy Spirit", to whom "it shall be forgiven neither in the present nor in the age to come"—who doubts that the devil opens their mouth? Do you wish me to show you this also from the Scriptures, how the devil opens the mouth to men of this kind, who speak against Christ? See what is written of Judas, how it is related that "Satan entered into him", and that "the devil put it into his heart to betray him". He, then, opened his mouth, that "he might confer with the chief priests and Pharisees how he might betray him" for money received. Whence it seems to me to be no small grace to discern the mouth which the devil opens. It is not without the grace of the Holy Spirit to distinguish a mouth of this kind and its words; and therefore in the distribution of spiritual graces this too is added, that to some is given "the discernment of spirits". It is therefore a spiritual grace by which the spirit is discerned, as also elsewhere the Apostle says: "test the spirits, whether they be of God". But as God opens the mouth of the saints, so I think that God opens also the ears of the saints to hear the divine words. For thus says the prophet Isaiah: "The Lord will open my ear, that I may know when the word ought to be spoken". So too the Lord opens the eyes, as "the Lord opened the eyes of Hagar, and she saw a well of living water". But Elisha the prophet also says: "Open, Lord, the eyes of the servant, that he may see that there are more with us than with the adversaries. And the Lord opened," he says, "the eyes of the servant, and behold, the whole mountain was full of horsemen and chariots and heavenly aids". For "the angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him, and will deliver them". God therefore opens, as we have said, both the mouth and the ears and the eyes, that we may either speak or discern or hear the things that are God's. But that also I do not take idly, which the prophet says: "the instruction," he says, "of the Lord opened my ear". This seems to me to pertain to us, that is, in common to the whole Church of God. For if we are engaged in "the instruction of the Lord", "the instruction of the Lord" opens the ear for us also. But the ear which is opened through "the instruction of the Lord" is not always open, but at one time open, at another closed. Hear the lawgiver saying: "you shall not receive a vain report". If, then, at any time vain things are spoken, if at any time empty, foolish, base, profane, wicked things are brought forth, he who knows "the instruction of the Lord" closes his ears and turns away his hearing and says: "but I, like a deaf man, was not hearing, and like a mute man who has not opened his mouth". But if the things that are spoken pertain to the profit of the soul, if the discourse is about God, if it teaches morals, invites to virtues, cuts away vices, the ears ought to lie open to utterances of this kind—and not only the ears, but also the heart and the mind, and the whole gate of the soul is to be thrown open to hearing of this kind. Yet with the utmost moderation of precept the law expressed itself, so as to say: "you shall not receive a vain report"; it did not say: you shall not hear a vain report, but "you shall not receive". For we frequently hear vain things. What Marcion speaks are vain things; what Valentinus speaks are vain things; and all who speak against God the creator—vain are the things they speak. But nevertheless we frequently hear them, that we may be able to answer against them, lest perchance they steal upon any of the simpler of our brethren through the ornament of speech. We hear these things, then, but we do not receive them. For they were spoken from that mouth which the devil opened. And therefore we must pray that the Lord may deign to open our mouth, that we may be able both to refute those who contradict and to stop up the mouth which the devil opens. So much for what is written: "I will open your mouth, and will instruct you in what you ought to speak". But not to Moses only is it promised that his mouth shall be opened by the Lord, but to Aaron also. For it is said concerning him too: "I will open your mouth and his mouth, and will instruct you in what you are to do". For Aaron also "met" Moses, and he went out of Egypt. But "he met" him where, in what kind of place? For it matters where "he meets" him—Moses, that is, whose mouth is to be opened by God. "He met him," he says, "in the mountain of God". You see that his mouth is deservedly opened, who is able to "meet in the mountain of God". Peter and James and John ascended the mountain of God, that they might be counted worthy to see Jesus transfigured and to see Moses with him and Elijah in glory. And you too, therefore, unless you ascend to "the mountain of God" and there "meet" Moses—that is, unless you ascend to the lofty sense of the law, unless you win your way up to the summit of spiritual understanding—your mouth is not opened by the Lord. If you stand in the lowly place of the letter and bind the text of the history to Jewish narratives, you have not met Moses "in the mountain of God", nor has God "opened your mouth" nor "instructed you in what you ought to speak". Unless, then, "Aaron had met Moses in the mountain", unless he had seen his lofty and arduous sense, unless he had discerned his exalted understanding, Moses would never have spoken to him the words of God, nor handed over to him the power of signs and wonders, nor associated him as a partaker of so great a mystery.
3. But since it is a long matter to speak of each thing in order, let us see what "Moses and Aaron", "having gone in" to Pharaoh, say: "Thus says the Lord: let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness". Moses does not will that the people, while placed in Egypt, should serve the Lord, but that it should go out into the desert and there serve the Lord. This is without doubt what he shows: that so long as anyone remains in the dark deeds of the world and is engaged in the obscurity of affairs, he cannot "serve the Lord"; for he cannot "serve two masters", he cannot "serve the Lord and mammon". We must, therefore, go out of Egypt; the world must be forsaken, if we wish to "serve the Lord". But it must be forsaken, I say, not in place, but in mind; not by setting out on a journey, but by advancing in faith. Hear John saying these same things: "little children, do not love the world nor the things that are in the world; for all that is in the world is the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes". And yet what does he say? Let us see how or how far he bids us set out from Egypt: "we will go," he says, "a journey of three days into the wilderness, and there we will sacrifice to the Lord our God". What is "the way of three days" which we must travel, that, going out from Egypt, we may be able to arrive at the place in which we ought to sacrifice? I understand that way to be he who said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life". This way must be traveled by us in three days. For whoever "shall confess with his mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in his heart that God raised him from the dead" on the third day, "shall be saved". This, then, is the "three days' way" by which one arrives at the place where one may sacrifice to the Lord and render "the sacrifice of praise". This, as far as pertains to the mystical understanding. But if we seek also the moral sense, which is most useful to us, we set out "a three days' journey" from Egypt if we so preserve ourselves from every defilement of soul, body, and spirit that, as the Apostle said, "our spirit whole, and soul, and body, may be kept in the day of Jesus Christ". We set out "a three days' journey" from Egypt if, taking away rational, natural, and moral wisdom from worldly things, we turn it to the divine ordinances; we set out "a three days' journey" from Egypt if, purifying in ourselves words, deeds, and thoughts—for these are the three by which men can sin—we are made "pure in heart", that we may be able to "see God". But do you wish to see that such are the things which the Holy Spirit indicates in the Scriptures? This Pharaoh, who is the prince of Egypt, when he sees himself more vehemently pressed to let the people of God go, in the second place desires to obtain this, "that they should not go far off", that they should not set out the whole three days, and he says: "do not go far off". He does not want the people of God to be made "far" from himself; he wants it, if not in deed, at least to sin in word; if not in word, at least to offend in thought. He does not want them to set out from him the whole three days. He wants to have at least one of his days in us; in others two, in others he possesses the whole three days. But blessed are those who withdraw from him the entire three days, and he possesses no day of his own in them. Do not think, then, that Moses led the people out of Egypt only at that time: now too Moses, whom we have with us—"for we have Moses and the prophets"—that is, the law of God, wishes to lead you out of Egypt; if you hear it, it wishes to make you "far" from Pharaoh; it desires to rescue you from the work of mud and straw, if only you hear the law of God and understand it spiritually. It does not want you to remain in the deeds of the flesh and of darkness, but to go out to the wilderness, to come to a place empty of the disturbances and waves of the world, to come to the quiet of silence. For "the words of wisdom are learned in silence and quiet". When, therefore, you come to this place of quiet, there you will be able "to sacrifice to the Lord", there to recognize the law of God and the power of the divine voice. For this reason, then, Moses desires to cast you out from the midst of tossing affairs and from the midst of clamoring peoples. For this reason he desires you to go out of Egypt, that is, out of the darkness of ignorance, that you may hear the law of God and receive the light of knowledge. But Pharaoh resists; "the ruler of these darknesses" does not wish to release you; he does not wish you to be drawn away from his darkness and led to the light of knowledge. And hear what he says: "who is he," he says, "whose voice I should hear? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go". You hear what "the prince of this world" answers: he says that he does not know God. Do you see what raw pride does? So long as "he is not in the labors of men and is not scourged with men", for that reason pride held him fast. Then, a little later, you will see how much he profits under the scourges, how much better he is made when beaten. He who now says: "I do not know the Lord", afterward, when he has felt the force of the blows, is going to say: "pray the Lord for me"; and not only this, but even, when his own magicians testify, he will confess that "it is the finger of God" in the power of the signs. Let no one, then, be so untaught in divine discipline as to think the divine scourges a ruin, as to believe the blows of the Lord a punishing destruction. Behold Pharaoh too, most hardened; yet he profits when beaten. Before the blows he does not know the Lord; when beaten, he asks that the Lord be entreated for him. It is an advance under punishments to recognize this very thing—why you have deserved the punishment. "I do not know," then, he says, "the Lord, and I do not let Israel go". But see in the Gospels how, when beaten, he amends this saying. For it is written that the demons cried out to the Lord and said: "why have you come before the time to torment us? we know you, who you are: you are the Son of the living God". When they have felt the torments, they know the Lord. Before the scourges he says: "I do not know the Lord, and I do not let Israel go"; but he will both let Israel go, and not only let it go, but will himself urge it to go out. For there is no "fellowship of light with darkness"; no "part of the faithful with the unfaithful". But what does he yet add in his answers? "Why," he says, "O Moses and Aaron, do you turn my people away from their works? Depart, each one of you to your work". So long as the people is with him and works "mud" and "brick", so long as it is occupied in "straw", he does not think it perverted, but that it walks in the right path. But if it should say: I wish to go "the way of three days" and "to serve the Lord", he says that the people is perverted by Moses and Aaron. This indeed "was said to the ancients". But even today, if Moses and Aaron—that is, the prophetic and the priestly word—should rouse the soul to the service of God, invite it to go out of the world, to renounce all that it possesses, to give heed to the divine law and follow the word of God, immediately you will hear it said by those who are of one mind with Pharaoh and his friends: 'see how men are seduced and perverted—what young men, that they may not toil, may not do military service, may not do anything that would profit them, forsaking necessary and useful things pursue trifles and idleness. What is it to serve God? They do not wish to labor and seek occasions for slothful idleness.' These were the words of Pharaoh then, and these his friends and intimates speak now too. The matter is carried on not by words only; blows follow too—he orders the scribes of the Hebrews to be scourged, straw not to be given, the work to be exacted; these things the fathers endured, in the figure of whom the people of God also, which is in the Church, often suffers as well. For you will find, if you consider them, that those who have wholly handed themselves over to "the prince of this world" act with prosperous successes, that everything, as they themselves think, turns out happily for them; but that to the servants of God often not even these humble and small things of human sustenance turn out well. For these things I think seem to be the straw that is furnished by Pharaoh. It often happens, then, that those who fear God lack even this cheap sustenance, like straw; often too they endure the persecutions of tyrants, they bear tortures and savage torments, so that some, worn out, say to Pharaoh: 'Why do you afflict your people?' For some, overcome by the blows, fall away from the faith and confess themselves to be the people of Pharaoh. "For not all who are of Israel are Israelites; nor because they are the seed are they all sons as well". These, then, who are doubtful and are worn out in tribulations, even speak against Moses and Aaron and say: 'from the day you go in and go out to Pharaoh, you have made our odor abominable before him.' These men speak truly, though perhaps they know not what they say, just as that Caiaphas too spoke truly that "it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people", but he knew not what he was saying. For, as the Apostle says, we are the "good odor" of Christ; but, he says, "to some an odor from life unto life, but to others an odor from death unto death". So the prophetic word too is a "sweet odor" to those who believe, but to the doubtful and unbelieving, and to those who confess themselves to be the people of Pharaoh, it becomes an abominable odor. But Moses himself too says to the Lord: "from the time I spoke with Pharaoh, he has afflicted your people". For it is certain that, before the word of God is heard, before the divine preaching is made known, there is no tribulation, there is no temptation, because, unless the trumpet sound, battle is not joined; but when the trumpet of preaching has given the signal of war, there affliction follows, there all the fighting of tribulations rises up. From the time Moses and Aaron began to speak to Pharaoh, the people of God is afflicted. From the time the word of God is brought into your soul, of necessity a struggle is stirred up within you, of the virtues against the vices; but before the word came which would rebuke, the vices endured within you in peace; but when the word of God began to make the distinction of each, then a great disturbance rises up and war is born without treaty. "For when can iniquity accord with justice", unchastity with sobriety, falsehood with truth? And therefore let us not be greatly disturbed if our "odor" seems to be abominable to Pharaoh; for virtue is a thing of abomination to the vices. Nay rather, as he says in what follows, that Moses stood "before Pharaoh", let us too stand "against Pharaoh" and not be bent nor bowed, but let us stand "girt about our loins in truth and our feet shod in the preparation of the gospel of peace". For thus the Apostle exhorts us, saying: "stand, therefore, and do not again cleave to the yoke of servitude". And again he says: "in which we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of God". But we stand confidently if we beseech the Lord to "set our feet upon a rock", lest that befall us which the same prophet says: "but my feet were almost moved, and my steps were almost poured out". Let us stand, then, "before Pharaoh", that is, let us resist him in the struggle, as the Apostle Peter too says: "resist him, strong in faith". But Paul likewise says: "stand in faith and act manfully". For if we stand bravely, that too follows which Paul prays for his disciples, saying: "God will crush Satan under your feet speedily". For the more constantly and bravely we stand, the weaker and more feeble will Pharaoh be; but if we begin to be either weak or doubtful, he will become stronger and more constant against us. And truly that is fulfilled in us of which Moses gave a figure: for when he himself "lifted up his hands", Amalek was overcome; but if, as though they were weary, he "let them down" and laid low his feeble arms, "Amalek prevailed". So, then, let us too, in the power of the cross of Christ, lift up our arms and "raise up" in prayer "holy hands in every place without wrath and disputation", that we may deserve the help of the Lord. For this same thing the Apostle James too exhorts, saying: "but resist the devil, and he will flee from you". Let us act, then, with all faith, that Satan may not only "flee from us", but also "be crushed under our feet", just as Pharaoh too was sunk in the sea and extinguished in the deep of the abyss. But we, if we withdraw from the Egypt of the vices, will escape the waves of the world as though by a solid road, through Jesus Christ our Lord, "to whom is the glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen".