Commentaria in Numeros
In the same place, Abbot Nestor, being asked how he had lived peaceably in the monastery, and in every disturbance had learned to keep silence and patience, answered: When I first entered the community, I said to my soul: You and the ass are one. For as the ass is beaten and does not speak, suffers injury and does not answer, so do you also; as we read in the Psalm: “I am become as a beast before thee, and I am always with thee.”
In the same place, book VI, chap. iv: Abbot Moses said: If anyone bears his own sins, he does not see the sins of his neighbour. Again Abbot Agatho said: If you dwell with your neighbour, be like a pillar of stone, which, if it is insulted, is not angry, and if it is glorified, is not puffed up. In the same place, in the Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers, saying 107, they said of Abbot Macarius the elder: that as God protects the whole world and bears the sins of men, so he too was among the brethren like a kind of earthly god, covering their faults, and what he saw or heard, as though he saw not and heard not.
Verse 15. “But if otherwise it seem good to thee, I beseech thee to kill me.” Moses here was pressed by such straits that he desires this favour to be granted him, namely that he may be allowed to die; being therefore most bitterly afflicted, and with his mind disturbed, and not sufficiently master of himself, he said these things and asked for death; whence he committed either no sin of pusillanimity, or only a slight one; wherefore he received from the Lord not a reproof but a consolation.
Verse 16. “And the Lord said to Moses: Gather unto me seventy men of the ancients of Israel,” that I may share thy burden among them, that they may relieve thee in the government of the people. For although, in Exodus xviii, at the suggestion of Jethro, Moses had set up over the people captains of tens and tribunes to decide the quarrels of the people, yet the last appeal was always to Moses. Moreover, the greater causes were referred to Moses. Lastly, matters that concern God and the worship of God Moses alone decided; wherefore he himself bore a grievous burden; to lighten which God here commands that seventy men be chosen, who should excel in these three things equally with Moses; and therefore he distinguished them equally with Moses with the prophetic spirit.
Note: These seventy were not the same as those seventy who, not so much by choice as by chance, meeting him or offering themselves, accompanied Moses when he went to speak with God on Sinai, Exodus xxiv, 1; but from these and others these seventy were chosen by Moses and confirmed by God. These seventy remained thereafter, and had continual successors, even in Chanaan, but without the prophetic spirit. For by their counsel alone they assisted the high priest, who in Deuteronomy xvii, 9, is appointed supreme judge, and they were his counsellors. Hence the council of these with the high priest was the supreme one, and was called by the Hebrews the Sanhedrin, in Greek sunedrion, concerning which Josephus may be seen, and Galatinus, book IV, chap. v. And these were the elders who, in that great council of theirs, proclaimed Christ guilty of death, and delivered him to Pilate to be put to death, of which Matthew, chaps. xxvi and xxvii.
That Moses communicated to these seventy elders the sense of the law, especially the more secret and mystical sense, to be handed down to posterity (which Philo, in the book On the Planting of Noe, and Nazianzen, Oration 1 Apol., call the spiritual law and the archetype), the Hebrews teach, as Genebrard relates in book II of his Chronology: “Moses,” he says, “received the law from Sinai, and delivered it to Josue; he in turn to the elders, the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets delivered it to the men of the Great Synagogue, who were Esdras with the rest.” St. Hilary confirms the same on Psalm ii: “Moses,” he says, “although he had set down the words of the Old Testament in writing, nevertheless had confided certain separate and hidden, more secret mysteries of the law to the seventy elders, who were thereafter to remain as Doctors. Of whose doctrine the Lord also makes mention in the Gospel, saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses; and their doctrine remained for after ages.” To these elders, therefore, the Scribes seem to have succeeded in the office of explaining the law and interpreting Holy Scripture, who are accordingly called in the Gospel lawyers and Elders. The Hebrews relate that by these was held the great synod of 120 men, under Artaxerxes Longimanus, in which the order of the 22 canonical books was established; over which synod, if we believe Elias, in the third preface to the Massoreth, Daniel presided, with Ananias, Misael and Azarias, Esdras, Nehemias, Mardochai, Zorobabel, Aggeus, Zacharias and Malachias.
Note secondly, that about this same time, when these seventy judges of the Hebrews were appointed, the Areopagite judges were instituted among the Greeks, who judged causes both criminal and civil: for Eusebius, in his Chronicle, teaches that the Areopagus was instituted in the fifth year after the departure of the Hebrews out of Egypt.
“Whom thou knowest to be ancients and masters of the people.” Hence it is plain that “ancients” here are understood not so much by age as by prudence and morals; those “who are ancients of the people,” that is, who are held by the people to be grave and wise. For otherwise those who were ancients by age itself would have had to be distinguished, not by the judgment and choice of Moses, since their grey hair was visible to all. So St. Gregory, book XIX of the Morals, chap. xiii. Add that it matters little whether a man be young in years or old, provided he be old in morals. Of this old age the Wise Man says, chap. iv, verse 8: “For old age is honourable, not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs. And a spotless life is old age.” On the contrary, he is called a child who is destitute of prudence and of a good life, that is, who is foolish and impious, even if he be a hundred years old; of such a one Isaias says, chap. lxv, verse 20: “For the child of a hundred years shall die”; a child, that is, a sinner; for the latter verse, in the Hebrew manner, explains the former: so St. Gregory, book XIX of the Morals, chap. xii.
Abulensis notes that in these seventy judges, as in any others, three things are required: first, prudence, both human and divine; second, justice and upright conduct; third, gravity and reverence of person. To these add, fourthly, fortitude and zeal for the common good, so that they neither fear the powerful nor flatter them, nor seek their own advantage but that of the commonwealth. Croesus, because he was rich, thought himself happy; and when he asked Solon whether he did not think the same, Solon answered that no man ought to be called happy before his death, since he may be stripped of wealth and felicity. Croesus took this ill, and so dismissed Solon without a gift. Aesop saw this and was grieved, and said: “O Solon, one must converse with kings either as little as possible or as pleasantly as possible.” “Not so,” said Solon, “but either as little or as rightly as possible.” When Croesus was at length taken by Cyrus and condemned to the pyre, he cried out: O Solon, now I find thy saying to be most true.
Themistocles, when he was praetor, answered Simonides of Ceos, who asked of him something unjust: “Neither wouldst thou be a good poet if thou shouldst sing anything contrary to the measure of the song, nor should I be a good praetor if I should gratify thee beyond what the laws permit.”
Pelopidas, going out from his house to the war, when his wife, escorting him, begged him with tears to take care of his safety, said: “Private men, woman, are to be admonished about this; but one who bears a magistracy must provide that those under him be safe.” So Plutarch relates in the Lives of Solon, Themistocles and Pelopidas.
Verse 17. “I will come down,” by inclining the pillar of cloud, in which, as charioteer and leader, I lie hidden and abide.
“I will take of thy spirit,” not that I will diminish and take away some of thy spirit, and transfer it into these seventy; for this is impossible, especially in accidents and vital acts; for these cannot be transferred from one subject into another, as from one soul into another; this too would be inconvenient to thee, O Moses, as if thou, alone, full of a greater and mighty spirit, wert to rule the people; for a thousand are more easily ruled by one great spirit than a hundred by a small and slender one. But “I will take away,” that is, I will take and newly produce something “of thy spirit,” that is, of the spirit which is in thee, not the same in number but in kind, that is, I will produce something like to thy spirit, and give it to those seventy ancients, yet so that thy spirit may remain to thee entire: because, as before, the care of the whole people will still rest upon thee, even though I give thee these helpers. So light is taken and drawn from a lamp when a candle is lit at it: for the light of the candle kindled at the lamp takes nothing from the lamp’s light, but rather increases and spreads it. For the spirit in Moses was as in the lamp, the fountain, the head and the exemplar, and from him was derived, as it were, to the other seventy. Whence the Chaldee renders it: “I will increase of the spirit that is upon thee, and will put it upon them.” So Theodoret, Question XVIII, and St. Augustine here, Question XVIII, and in book V On the Trinity, chap. xiv, who adds, saying: Thus the spirit of Elias rested upon Eliseus, 4 Kings ii, 15; that is, the Spirit of God was given to Eliseus, to work through him such things as were wrought through Elias.