Commentaria in Numeros
Verse 5. THE CUCUMBERS COME INTO OUR MIND, etc.—Morally St. Gregory, Morals 20:16: “What is signified,” he says, “by the pots of flesh, but the carnal works of life, to be boiled out as by fires in the sorrows of tribulations? What by the melons, but earthly sweetnesses? What is expressed by leeks and onions, because for the most part those who eat them shed tears, but the difficulty of the present life, which is led by its lovers not without mourning, and yet is loved with tears? Forsaking the manna, therefore, they sought with melons and flesh the leeks and onions: because perverse minds despise the sweet gifts of quiet by grace, and for carnal pleasures covet the laborious journeys of this life, full even of tears: they scorn to have where they may rejoice spiritually; they eagerly seek where they may even groan carnally. Their folly therefore let Job rebuke with true voice: for perverse in judgment, they prefer the troubled to the tranquil, the hard to the soft, the rough to the mild, the transitory to the eternal, the suspect to the secure.”
FREE COST—at a cheap price, and as it were none.
Verse 6. OUR SOUL IS DRY—as if they said: Our appetite languishes, loathes and as it were withers, because we feed on a dry and ever the same manna, and eat nothing green, nothing juicy.
You will say: The manna furnished them every taste, as is said in Wisdom 16:20; therefore also the taste of flesh and onions: why then do they murmur?
Some answer that only the just perceived the variety of taste in the manna, and that at pleasure: but the impious, who were in mortal sin, did not perceive it in the manna, nor did it taste to them except with its natural taste, which was of honey, or of bread tempered with oil, of which we easily grow weary. But in Exodus 16:31 I showed that this benefit was common to the impious as well as the pious.
I answer therefore that this loathing and murmuring arose not from the native sweetness of the manna (for this, if often tasted, moves loathing), nor from weariness of the same ever food, since it varied its taste at their pleasure: but because the smell, colour, form, thinness and like other qualities remained always the same in the manna, a pleasant diversity of which qualities allures the taste the more. Hence gluttons also, especially boys, often desire to satisfy and fill with food not so much the mouth and belly as the eyes, the fancy and the hands.
Verse 7. OF THE COLOUR OF BDELLIUM.—The Hebrew is, “its eye was as the eye of bdellium”; eye, that is colour, which is the object of the eye; it is a metonymy: see Canon 30. Bdellium is of the colour of a fingernail, as Pliny testifies, book 12, chapter 9, and Dioscorides, book 1, chapter 64, that is, it is white and shining. Hence the Septuagint render, like
Verse 6. “Our eyes behold nothing else but manna.” Hence also bdellium is called in Hebrew bedolach, which signifies the onyx, or onyx stone. See what I said on Exodus xvi, 34.
Verse 8. “The taste of it was as of bread tempered with oil.” So also the Septuagint and the Chaldee. But more recent interpreters translate, “the taste as of fresh oil,” or of moist oil.
Verse 9. “And when the dew fell in the night upon the camp, the manna also fell with it.” The Hebrew, the Chaldee and the Septuagint add, “upon it,” namely upon the dew. The dew here, therefore, does not signify a dewy vapour, but a condensed and frozen dew, that is, hoar-frost, which was spread under the manna, lest the manna be defiled by the touch of the earth, as I said on Exodus xvi, 13.
Verse 10. “And the thing seemed to Moses insupportable,” because, namely, all the people wailed and demanded flesh of Moses. Hence he felt so heavily the burden of the people that it seemed to him heavier than death, and he desired to die. Such is the nature of pusillanimity, which Abbot Victor, in Sophronius, chap. cxiv, beautifully describes: “Pusillanimity,” he says, “is a passion of the soul. For as those who are blind in their eyes seem to themselves to see the light more the more they suffer, but those who have sound eyes see it only moderately; so the pusillanimous are quickly disturbed by a slight temptation, but those who are sound in soul rejoice the more in temptations.”
Verse 11. “And he said to the Lord: Why hast thou afflicted thy servant? ... Why hast thou laid the weight of all this people upon me?” By “weight” he means the burden and the care of ruling the people, and of providing for them in all things. Wherefore that wise man said truly: “A good king is the servant of the public.” And Pompey: “Inexperienced, he covets great power; experienced, he hates it.” Antiochus, king of Syria, felt this, who, being conquered in war by the Romans, testified that he was freed from a great care, because he was now shut up within the narrow limits of a small kingdom. Themistocles used to say that he would rather go to a tomb than to a tribunal, says Aelian, book VI.
When a certain man was pressing Alfonso, king of the Aragonese, rather importunately at supper, the king, not at all moved, said that “asses alone are happier than kings; for while they eat, their drivers take off their pack-saddles, but this old man loads me when I am at supper.”
The Belgians remember Charles V, who, growing old and weary of the burdens and cares of the state, when he transferred at Brussels the sovereignty of Belgium to his son Philip II, said with tears: “O son, I lay a great burden upon thee. For in all the time of my rule I never had a quarter of an hour free from great cares and anxieties.” Retiring, therefore, he lived the last four years of his life for himself and for God.
Pope Adrian II, according to Petrarch, demanded no greater punishment of an enemy than that he should be made Pope.
St. Pius V, a holy Pontiff, used to say: “When I was a Religious, I hoped well for the salvation of my soul; when I was made a Cardinal, I was afraid; now that I am created Pontiff, I almost despair.” Clement VIII felt the same.
No wonder, then, that St. Gregory, Nicholas I, Clement III, Celestine V, and others so fled the papacy.
Lucian says that the colossal statues of Myron and Praxiteles shine outwardly with much ivory and gold, and hold in the right hand a thunderbolt or trident, so as to represent Jove or some other deity; while within there appears nothing but pitch, nails, spiders, mice and filth. And such, he affirms, is the life of princes: if you look at their pomp and display, nothing is happier, nothing more like the life of the gods; but if you consider the cares, suspicions and hatreds by which they are tormented within, nothing is more wretched. Rightly, therefore, King Antigonus said to his youthful son: “Do you not know, my son, that our kingdom is nothing else but a splendid slavery?” The lot of princes, therefore, is not to be coveted or envied, but is worthy of compassion.
Verse 12. “As the nurse is wont to carry the little infant.” In the Hebrew, “because thou sayest to me”; so also the Septuagint. Whence it is plain that God had said to Moses: “Be to this people as a nurse and mother”; that is, show them most diligent and, as it were, maternal care; although this is nowhere else expressly written or related.
“Carry them in thy bosom.” This is the office of Pastors, nay of all the Saints. Such was Elias, to whom, as he ascended into heaven, Eliseus cried out: “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the driver thereof.” Hence a king is called melech, as it were melech, and Adonai, as it were eden, that is, the support of the people; this is what Paul says: “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”
“Go, bear them”; for the peacemakers shall be called the children of God.
In the same place, chapter xv, On Humility: Abbot Anuph taught his seven brothers the manner of living together in concord. For during a whole week he stoned the face of a certain statue in the morning, and in the evening said to it: Forgive me. Being asked why he did this, he said: I did it for your sake. When you saw me stoning the face of the statue, did it speak? Did it rage? And they said: No. Again, when I did penance before it, was it disturbed? Did it say: I do not forgive? And they answered: No. Then he said: Therefore we also, who are seven brothers, if you wish us to remain together, let us become like this statue, which is not disturbed when it is treated with insults. And they prostrated themselves, saying: What thou commandest we will do; and they remained together all their life, working and doing according to the word of Anuph. He appointed one of them steward, and whatever he set before them they ate, nor did anyone say: Bring something else, or, I will not eat this; and so they passed their life in peace and quiet.