Commentaria in Exodum
30. IF BY ANY MEANS I MAY BE ABLE TO ENTREAT HIM.—For what was said in verse 14: “The Lord was appeased,” understand to this effect, that he would not destroy the whole people in a single slaughter and calamity, as he had thought. Moses therefore rightly feared that God, mindful of so great an offence, would destroy the people piecemeal; and to prevent his doing so, to pray and entreat, he went up again into the mount. Note: Moses puts justice before his prayer, and just vengeance of sin: for this is an efficacious disposition to move God, as I taught from St. Gregory on verse 27.
31 and 32. EITHER FORGIVE THEM THIS TRESPASS, OR IF THOU DO NOT, STRIKE ME OUT OF THY BOOK WHICH THOU HAST WRITTEN.—Thou wilt ask, in what sense did Moses wish to be blotted out of the book of life? and whether this wish is lawful and holy? First, Cajetan understands it of the book, that is, the decree of headship, as if Moses said: Either forgive, or blot me out of thy book, in which thou didst designate me ruler of another nation, if thou destroy this one of mine. Secondly, St. Jerome to Algasia, and St. Gregory, book 10 of the Morals, chap. 7, take it of the book of the living, not in heaven but in the present life, as if to say: Either forgive, or kill me and take me from this life.
Thirdly, Hugh of St. Victor answers that Moses said this not from reason but from the impulse of human affection: for no one can be blotted out of the book of life.
Fourthly, others take it of the book of the law, or rather of the lawgiving, as if to say: Either forgive, or blot me out and remove me from this office, that I be not the lawgiver of the people.
But these do not satisfy the burning charity and petition of Moses, nor these and the following words, nor the Lord’s own answer, who answers that he will blot out of his book not Moses, but those who have sinned, certainly the book of eternal life and of the kingdom of heaven. For the book of life, or book of God, everywhere in Scripture signifies the enrolment of those who are chosen, either absolutely or inchoately, to eternal life, the enrolment, I say, and designation in the divine mind and memory, which is the book of eternal predestination. This is plain from Daniel 12:1; Philipp. 4:3. So teaches St. Augustine, book 20 of the City of God, chap. 15, St. Ambrose on Psalm 68, Ansbertus and Haymo on Apoc. 3, Rupert here. Fifthly, therefore, St. Augustine, Question 147, Lyranus, Abulensis, Lipomanus and others more probably hold that here is a hyperbole, which signifies only the vehement desire of Moses for the salvation of the people: and that it is as if a son, seeing a servant most dear to him justly cast out of the house, should say to his father: Do not cast him out, or if thou castest him out, cast me out also: for so Moses says: Either forgive the people, or blot me out, not that he truly wishes to be blotted out (for that was impossible), but that by this phrase he may in some way declare his immense desire, which otherwise he could not effectually declare. Whence Moses does not say: Blot me out, provided thou forgive them, as though he wished to make an exchange of himself for the people and the people’s absolution; but, if thou do not this, blot me out. Hence St. Augustine, Question 147, says that Moses said this securely, as if to say: Either forgive the people, or blot me out of thy book; but I know that thou wilt not blot me out: it remains, therefore, that thou forgive and spare the people.
But Rupert says beautifully: We ought not, he says, to confine to a narrow sense what Moses said seriously and most gravely, because we, poor and cold, are ignorant of the riches of the soul of Moses burning with charity; nor ought this excess of the charity of Moses to be measured by our ordinary laws of charity and prudence. I say, then: The words of Moses explicitly signify what I set down in the fifth exposition; yet implicitly they contain more. The sense, therefore, is: If thou forgive not the people, blot me out of thy book, as if to say: If thou forgive not, I will not be written in thy book; for I would rather be blotted out than that the people be not forgiven: either, then, forgive, or blot me out; for it is intolerable to me to be written in thy book, and my people to be blotted out of it: for I make more of the people, I love them more, than myself. Therefore implicitly, with Paul, I wish to be made anathema for the people, and to be blotted out of thy book, for I would rather that I alone be blotted out than that so many millions of men be blotted out. This sense can be better elicited from the Hebrew; for it reads thus: If thou forgive, and if not, blot me out of thy book which thou hast written. Which words, broken off and cut short by vehement emotion, can be filled out thus: If thou forgive, blot me out of thy book, as if to say: I wish to be blotted out so that thou mayest forgive them, punish me for my people: and if thou forgive not, again I pray and say: Blot me out of thy book, because I cannot see myself saved, and my people perish; either write both and save, or, if thou wilt blot out and destroy either of the two, blot out and destroy me alone rather than the whole people. For I would rather that thy glory be celebrated by the whole people than by me alone: I would rather that so many thousands, present and to be born of them hereafter, worship, praise and love thee, than that I alone through thee be happy: I would rather also that the whole people be saved and blessed than I alone. By this, as by a dilemma, Moses presses and almost compels God to forgive the people.
Whence St. Chrysostom on Rom. 9 teaches that Moses and Paul went beyond in thought not only all the ages and deaths of the present life, but also, for God, whom they loved more than themselves, passing over the heavens and the angels, despised all invisible things, and for love of God not only asked but truly and seriously wished to fall from the very enjoyment of God, the beatitude and ineffable glory (for this the book of life, or book of God, signifies), as if Moses said: Blot me out of thy book, that is, that I may not attain to the eternal beatitude for which thou hast enrolled me: from that, I say, blot me out rather than blot out and destroy this thy people and mine. So St. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, on Rom. 9, Cassian, Conference 23, chap. 5, Bernard, sermon 12 on the Canticle.
Thou wilt say: To wish to be deprived of eternal beatitude is against charity, and is a sin; therefore Moses did not wish this. The antecedent is proved, because to wish to lack beatitude and the vision of God is implicitly to wish to lack beatific love, or to love God less, and to please him less, and to praise him less; for these follow from the lack of the vision of God: for the charity of heaven exceeds all charity of the way. Add that charity strongly inclines to the presence and enjoyment of the beloved, namely God: therefore this wish of Moses was beyond or against the inclination of charity; therefore it was disordered.
I answer that Moses here only compared his own glory, as his own beatitude and good, with the glory of God and the salvation of so great a people, and preferred to lack his own rather than that the glory of God be imperilled, both among the Gentiles, who would have disparaged the people and God if God had destroyed his people in the desert, and among the Hebrews themselves, who would all have perished for ever and blasphemed God in hell; nor did Moses look further, but wholly carried away by the charity of God and his glory, he did not consider other things attached to this wish of his, or certainly, if he considered what is objected, he thought that charity on the way is the same as in the fatherland, and that there it would not be essentially more perfect or more intense than here: the accidental perfection of charity, flowing from the enjoyment of God, as also the inclination to enjoy God, he set aside, and allowed himself to be cut off from it by this wish of his, as one for whom there would be laid up both greater grace and essential charity by this so heroic act, whereby he loved God so greatly: nor did he doubt that God would most abundantly reward him by other graces; and further that greater glory would be laid up for God, to be spread through so many thousands of men, which therefore he fervently desired from God, so that to obtain from God the safety of that glory and at the same time of the people, of whom for God he had been appointed leader, he wished to be deprived of his beatitude, nay, as Chrysostom says, homily On the Cross and the Thief, he wished to be a partaker of the punishment of idolatry to be inflicted on the people, and wished to perish with them, as the same says, homily On Love toward Persecutors, as if Moses said: Either forgive the people, or if thou castest them out from thee and thy house, cast me out together with them: for I cannot be torn or separated from this people of mine and thine, I cannot see this people of mine and thine perish; nay, if it perish, let me perish with it, that so I may bear witness to the charity which I bear kindled in my breast toward thy people, and consequently toward thee, O Lord.