Commentaria in Exodum
I answer: The fire in the bush is tribulation in a holy, humble and mortified man; for such a man tribulation does not burn, does not hurt, but illumines and strengthens. Where note: The bush, since it is a vile and rough shrub, aptly signifies a humble and mortified man, in whom fire, that is God, dwells, and manifests himself and his secrets; as a bush hedges a vineyard, so humility and mortification hedge virtues; and as no one dares to touch a bush, so the demon dreads and flees the truly humble and mortified, says Pererius.
To this tends what Philo writes in the Life of Moses, namely that by the power of God the bush was made incorruptible in the midst of the fire, nay seemed greener, just as if the flame were watered by a spring flowing from above. For this is the force of God’s omnipotence, says St. Chrysostom, that he works contraries by contraries, namely heat by water, cold by fire. So to God, when he wills, a torrent of flame is like a torrent, and cooling water has the part of burning. So also Nyssen: When at midday, he says, a light more excellent than the sun’s had shone about his eyes, he saw a burning shrub, whose branches yet were greening as with continual watering. So virtue, stirred by adversity, is green, flourishes and shines.
Again this bush signifies the perfect man, in whom are joined fire, that is charity, and bush, that is humility and austerity of life. For the perfect man, like fire, not only embraces and takes up austere and hard things, but even seeks and invades them. Seneca writes of himself, epist. 65: “In whatever disposition of mind I am, when I read Sextius, I am pleased to challenge all chances, I am pleased to cry out: Why delay, fortune? come on, I am ready: I put on the mind of him who seeks where to try himself, where to show his virtue:
wishing that among the sluggish herds a foaming boar might be given, or a tawny lion descend from the mountain.
I am pleased to have something to conquer, by whose patience I may be exercised.” What would a Christian say here? what a Religious? Let him say: When I behold Christ on the cross and read, “Do you see how love is engraved on all his body?” I am pleased to cry out with Paul: “Who shall separate us from the charity of Christ?” Let tribulation come, let distress come, famine, nakedness, contempt, I am sure that neither death nor life, etc., shall be able to separate me, etc. Let him say with St. Ignatius: “Fire, cross, beasts, breaking of bones, all the torments of the devil come upon me, only that I may enjoy Christ.”
Anagogically, the fire in the bush is the light of glory and beatitude itself and glory in the human soul and flesh. So St. Ambrose on Psalm 43: “Therefore,” he says, “the bush burned and was not consumed, because the earth which brings forth for us the thorns of sin, he was disposing to burn by the discipline of continence. He revealed therefore in this a certain future indication of bodily splendour, by which through the resurrection our flesh should shine forth. For what does the harmless fire signify but the lights of those who rise again?”
You will ask fourthly, what does the fire in the bush symbolically signify? I answer first: The fire in the bush is concupiscence remaining in the just man; for with this fire, as with great temptation and tribulation (for this the fire here signifies), the just man is surrounded; but he is not burned by it, because the fomes of sin remains in him but sin does not reign in him. Secondly, the fire in the bush signifies what Moses, that is the ruler of the people, ought to be: namely that he ought to be fire, through wisdom, by which he may know how to teach and rule the people; and through charity and compassion, by which he may know how to come to the needs of the people, to bear with the vile, to sympathize with infirmities. Again the ruler ought to be a bush, that is, to have joined to wisdom and charity the thorns of justice and severity, for punishing and chastising the erring, especially the disobedient and rebellious. Thirdly, the fire in the bush is a symbol of consummate wisdom, which consists in the knowledge of God (for he is fire) and of ourselves (for men are God’s bush); whence St. Francis prayed: “Who art thou, Lord, who am I? let me know thee, let me know myself;” thou art an abyss of wisdom, goodness, power, virtue, of every good and of all being; I am an abyss of ignorance, malice, weakness, vices and nothingness: “the abyss” therefore of my misery “calls on the abyss” of thy mercy, “at the noise of thy flood-gates.”
4. AND HE SAID.—The angel formed this voice in the air, by striking it with a certain method and measure so that it plainly reproduced true living human speech.
MOSES, MOSES.—God shows here that he so cares for his own that he knows, calls and directs them by name: by this repetition of the name he strikes the ears and mind of Moses more sharply, and rouses him to attention.
HERE I AM,—I am at hand to obey; give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.
5. PUT OFF THE SHOES FROM THY FEET.—Why did God command this to Moses? Diodorus answers first that Moses, treading this ground barefoot, might sanctify it by his holiness; but against this stands what follows: “For the place whereon thou standest is holy ground;” it was not therefore to be sanctified by Moses; but already holy, it was rather to sanctify Moses.
Secondly, others explain thus: put off thy shoes, that by this symbol thou mayest yield up thy sheep and cattle and transfer them with thyself to God, that thou mayest henceforth pass wholly into God’s right and service; for formerly when anyone ceded his right and transferred it to a kinsman, brother or relative, he took off his shoes, as is plain Ruth 4:7. So Lipomanus. But this rite and ceremony began after these times, and after the giving of the law.
I say therefore literally: Moses here, when after the manner of nature boldly, curiously and with little religion he wished to approach to search into this mystery of the fire in the bush, was forbidden by the angel, and commanded to put off his shoes, to show reverence to the divine majesty, which in this place showed its presence, and to approach with great submission and veneration of mind to receive from there the oracle of God. So Eusebius, Hugh of St. Victor, Rupert, Cajetan. For this same reason Josue also, chap. 5, verse 15, was commanded to put off his shoes. This rite descends from slaves; for these walked barefoot, as being subject to masters and reverencing and fearing them; hence to bare the feet was a sign of servitude and reverence. The opposite of this, namely lordly power and dominion, the shoe signified. Hence it is said, Ps. 59:10, “Over Edom will I stretch out my shoe, the aliens are become subject to me.”
Hence also John the Baptist, to declare the excellence and majesty of Christ, brings him in shod, himself as a servant, who walking barefoot scarcely dares to loose the latchet of his shoes. See here how great reverence we owe to temples and places dedicated to God, and see how external ceremonies God approves, nay requires. Hence the Aaronic priests in the tabernacle performed their duties barefoot, as I shall say chap. 30, verse 19. That the Gentile Greeks used to do the same, priests of idols, Procopius here testifies. Likewise, from reverence, the priests of Dagon did not tread the threshold of the temple of Dagon, as is said 1 Kings chap. 5, verse 5.
Nay it was also a dogma of Pythagoras: “Sacrifice barefoot,” which others and the Lacedaemonians adopted. Josephus also writes, book 2 of the Jewish War, chap. 15, that Berenice, sister of king Agrippa, when she had gone to Jerusalem to make a sacred offering for a vow, did the same, and stood barefoot before the tribunal of the governor Florus. Hence also that saying of St. Leo, in the sermon On Fasting: “Let them (the Jews) have their barefoot-walkings, and in sadness of countenance show forth idle fasts.” Now also Moors and Saracens do not enter the temples in which they are to make sacrifice unless with shoes laid aside. I think therefore that this saying warned Pythagoras that during sacrifice, worldly cares being left and purified from the defilements of crimes, men should give their attention to divine things. For to wash the feet we mystically say is to purge the mind; and on this matter our Theologians also expound the Lord’s command about the washing of feet; and likewise that other, that the dust is to be shaken from the feet. Euthymius also expounds feet as thoughts in Psalm 71. By feet (he says) he understands thoughts, as those which, like feet, rule and support the religion of our soul. Symbolically, shoes are made of the skins of dead animals: by putting off the shoes, therefore, God signified to Moses that, laying aside the fear of death, he should boldly undertake the office of freeing the Hebrew people, which God then wished to enjoin on him; and that he should learn to put off body and life as easily as a shoe, for the love and reverence of God, and for the hope of eternal life: for the body is to be used only for the service of God, not for one’s own will or pleasure. So St. Ambrose, book 7 on Luke, chap. 10.
Some add that Moses was commanded to unshoe himself that he might be like the Hebrews, who like slaves walked barefoot in Egypt, treading clay and straw, as if to say: By your dress make yourself like your own, whose leader I destine you to be, bear their reproach, nay their taunt.