Commentaria in Exodum
This wish of Moses, then, flowed from charity, and Moses thought that the charity both of God and of the people required this wish of him. For Moses directed this wish of his to this end, that by it he might obtain pardon for the people, and so the more promote the glory of God in the people; and therefore he did not doubt that it would please God himself. There was, therefore, no sin here: for although Moses implicitly asked to lack beatific love, yet he did not ask for the lessening of friendship with God or of charity; nay, these prayers of his show most of all the sign of charity and a burning desire. Some, however, extend the wish of Moses also to this, namely to a lessening or privation of grace. For they say it was lawful for him to wish to be deprived of his own grace alone, that by this so many thousands of the people might be endowed with grace. For charity inclines to ask and procure the greater glory of God. Greater is the glory of God if many thousands obtain the grace of God, and love and worship God, than if I alone do so. Therefore, if one of the two must be chosen, the former seems to be chosen. But whatever be said on this matter, whether it be lawful or not, the book of life in Scripture is not the book of grace, but of glory, namely of predestination to eternal happiness. Of glory, therefore, not of grace, Moses here wished the privation.
Thou wilt say, secondly: Moses here asked an impossible thing; for it is impossible for anyone written in the book of God to be blotted out of it.
I answer first: He who is written in the book of God only inchoately can be blotted out of it. So all the just are written in the book of life, because they begin the way to beatitude, in which if they persevere they will truly attain it; but because many do not persevere, hence they are blotted out of it. Whence it is said in Psalm 68: “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living.” But because Moses seems to speak of absolute and perfect enrolment in the book of life, hence I answer secondly that formally no one so written can be blotted out of the book of life, for so the foreknowledge and predestination of God would be deceived or changed: but materially, or objectively, someone can be blotted out of it. The sense, therefore, is, as if to say: Either forgive, or deprive me of the eternal beatitude to which thou hast assigned and enrolled me: for, setting aside the foreknowledge and predestination of God, from which Moses abstracted, it was absolutely possible for Moses to be deprived of his beatitude, which is to be blotted out of the book of life.
Thou wilt say, thirdly: This wish of Moses seems disordered and imprudent: for the privation of his own beatitude was not an ordered means to the remission of the sin and the salvation of the people.
I answer: Moses regarded only the nature in itself of the thing, namely this means, but did not consider whether that means was fitting and apt according to the order and disposition already established by God: for this was positive, from the free election of God, who does not change the nature of things. Although, therefore, the lack of beatitude was neither of itself nor by God’s disposition an ordered means to obtain grace for the people, yet it was not in itself and in its nature unlawful, or impossible, or a sin. Whence Moses wished it not as a connatural and ordinary means, but because free piety and pressing need, and love of the people, suggested it to him. For he thought it necessary to strive with all his might with God: the safety of the people seemed to him to be in the greatest danger, and since no more efficacious means to guard it occurred to him, he used this, by an excess of supreme love and of a certain blind charity, which transcends the common laws of ordinary prudence. This, however, was not a sin, but a most heroic virtue. Hence it is plain how much the glory of God is to be preferred to our advantages, and to our very beatitude, and how much every mortal sin, which is diametrically opposed to it, is more to be detested than the privation of beatitude, or even the very fire of hell. Again, how highly, with Moses, the salvation of souls is to be valued and procured.
So in like manner and with like motive as Moses, Paul wished to be made anathema from Christ for the Jews, Rom. chap. 9, verse 3. From what has been said it follows that this wish of Moses was lawful, pious and holy, and consequently that it is lawful for anyone to conceive and imitate it, as Ludovicus Molina teaches. See what was said on Rom. chap. 9:3, toward the end.
BLOT ME OUT OF THY BOOK WHICH THOU HAST WRITTEN,—in which, namely, thou hast absolutely and perfectly written me with the other elect: for this was meant by that iteration and insistence, “which thou hast written.” Whence it seems that Moses received a revelation of his election and beatitude; and for this reason so confidently does he expostulate with his God, as a friend with a friend.
The charity and zeal of Moses were imitated by the heroes of the Gentiles, but they could by no means attain or equal it, because they devoted only the body, for the people and country, to temporal death. So Codrus king of the Athenians devoted himself: for when the oracle had declared that they would be victors over the Thracians if the king should fall, Codrus came unknown to the enemy in mean attire, carrying a sickle, and having killed one man was presently slain by another: and so the Athenians conquered. So P. Decius the Roman, waging war against the Albans, imagined in his sleep that by his death he would add strength to the Romans; and so he rushed into the midst of the enemy, and after slaying many was slain. In the same way his son Decius in the Gallic war preserved the Roman state. So Junius Brutus ordered his two sons to be beheaded with the axe, because they had conspired with the Tarquins against their country and Roman liberty. So the triplet Horatii, offering themselves in a duel for their country, and in it slaying the triplet Curiatii of Alba, secured the dominion of Rome over Alba. The very same was done by the triplets of Tegea fighting against the triplets of Pheneus. So Curtius the Roman, leaping armed into the chasm according to the oracle, freed his country from calamity. The very same among the Greeks did Anchurus. So Horatius Cocles alone sustained the onset of the enemy while his men cut down the bridge over the Tiber and hindered the enemy from crossing. So the three hundred Fabii under Fabius Maximus rushed upon the camp of Hannibal, and after slaying many fell. The leader himself rushed upon Hannibal, tore the diadem from him, and died with him. So Leonidas with three hundred Spartans rushed upon the innumerable army of Xerxes, and made for Xerxes himself, and tore his diadem from him, and fell pierced with spears together with him. Agesilaus, son of Themistocles, devoted himself for his country, and entering the camp of Xerxes slew Mardonius, thinking him to be Xerxes: his error discovered, he put his hand in the fire, and bore the torture without a groan. Being therefore loosed from his bonds, he said: “Such are all the Athenians: and if thou believest not, I will put in my left hand also.” Xerxes, seized with fear, ordered him to be kept in custody. The same for the Romans did Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna king of the Etruscans. All these things Plutarch relates in the Parallels. But what are these to Moses, who devoted not the body only but also the soul for the people, and desired to be blotted out of the book of life, and to be afflicted for ever? Like Moses was St. Paul, wishing to be made anathema for his brethren; and Blessed Jacoponus, who for love of Christ desired to endure in this life all the labours, hardships, anguishes and sorrows that can be expressed in words or conceived in the mind: nay, after this life to be thrust into hell, that there he might pay for and expiate his own sins and those of men, even of the damned, and of the demons (if it could be). What are we to say to this?
We praise the ancients, yet we make use of our own years.
what thou hast asked for the people, but obey this my command. Hence it seems that God was not wholly reconciled to the people this time, since he still threatens to avenge; but at the end of the forty days, during which Moses was with the Lord the second time on the mount and prayed to him for pardon, the Lord was appeased, as is plain from Deut. chap. 9, verse 19, and here MY ANGEL SHALL GO BEFORE THEE,—in the pillar of fire and cloud, which he moves, and by which he goes before you as a leader and shows the way.
AND I, IN THE DAY OF REVENGE, WILL VISIT THIS SIN ALSO OF THEIRS.—“In the day of revenge,” not of the Babylonian captivity, or the Roman under Titus; nor yet in the day of judgment, or at other times when God punished other sins of the Hebrews; nor yet on this very day on which God spoke these things: but on that day of which the next verse speaks, when it says:
35. AND THE LORD STRUCK THE PEOPLE.—Hence it is likely that God a little after, because of the idol of the calf, while the Hebrews were still encamped at Horeb, sent some plague, for example a pestilence. For this is the revenge which he threatened them in the preceding verse, and so this verse corresponds best to the preceding, as the execution of his sentence and threat; for otherwise the series of the Lord’s discourse is broken here: for what is narrated in the following chapter of the conversation of Moses with the Lord must be woven and connected in the same series with the conversation of Moses and God which is here recounted, as they happened. So R. Solomon and Abulensis.