Commentaria in Numeros
When formerly the Emperor was crowned, the builders of tombs brought to him four or five pieces of marble, of various colours, asking of which he would have his sepulchre built: by which he was admonished of his mortality, and that he should govern prudently. So Leontius relates in the Life of St. John the Almoner, where he likewise tells that St. John caused a tomb to be made for himself, but left it unfinished, and at table ordered those sitting by him to remind him: “Thy monument, Lord, is to this day unfinished; command therefore that it be completed; for it is uncertain at what hour the thief comes,” namely death.
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, as Nyssen testifies in his Life, so learned to die, when through his whole life he esteemed himself a stranger here, and would not be the possessor of any place: nay, dying he would not have a sepulchre of his own, but desired to be buried in another’s.
St. Augustine, as Possidius testifies, prepared himself for death by assiduously reading the Penitential Psalms, weeping abundantly, praying continually, so that for the last ten days of his life he admitted to himself no one except the physician, or one bringing food; and he said also that even praised Christians ought not to depart from the body without worthy and fitting penance.
So St. Fulgentius prepared himself for death by mortifying himself, weeping, refusing baths, and in his sicknesses praying: “Lord, give me now patience, and afterward pardon.”
Ferdinand, Catholic and chaste king of Castile and Leon, in the year of the Lord 1065, as Lucas of Tuy relates, and Baronius from him, feeling himself failing, was carried by bishops and religious men to the church in royal state; there, kneeling at the altar, he said: “Thine is the power, O Lord, thine is the kingdom. The kingdom which I received while thou wast ruling, and which I ruled as long as it pleased thy will, behold I give back to thee: only my soul from the whirlpool of the world itself,” saying this, he put off the royal mantle in which his body was clothed, laid aside also the jewelled crown with which his head was encircled, and, prostrate on the ground with tears, more earnestly besought the Lord for the pardon of his offences. Then, having received penance from the bishops, and anointed with the sacrament of Extreme Unction, he was clothed in sackcloth in place of royal ornament, and sprinkled with ashes instead of the golden diadem; and to him, remaining in penance before the aforesaid altar, it was given by God to live two days. On the following, which was the feast of St. John the Evangelist, he gave up his spirit to heaven, amid the hands of the Pontiffs, in the year of Christ 1065.
Charles V, the Emperor, mindful of the condition of human death, long before his death withdrew himself voluntarily from the administration of the commonwealth; and having committed his cares to his son, already strong in years and spirit, he retired into Spain, and hid himself in the monastery of St. Justus, seven miles from Placentia, with only twelve attendants, to give himself to God and to quiet; and he forbade himself to be called otherwise than Charles, putting off in mind the names of Caesar and Augustus with the things, and despising all this honour. Nay, more, they say that long before he had abdicated the empire he had ordered a sarcophagus to be made for him, to be carried with his funeral furniture, secretly however, wherever he went, which he had ready by him for five years, in whatever place he was. Some about him thought that some treasure was kept and preserved there; others, some of the books in which ancient histories are contained; others some other great thing: but Caesar, conscious to himself for what use he carried it with him, kept silence, saying it was carried with him for the use of a thing dearest of all to himself; so he continually set death before his eyes, and wished the funeral bier always to be at hand, that the perpetual thought of death might remove from his heart the vain pomp of this world, and admonish him to do holy actions while he lived. So among others Lipsius relates, book II Monitions, chapter 14.
The same did Charles’s grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I, who moreover provided by his will that his lifeless body, wrapped in a rough linen cloth, without any evisceration, should be laid in the sarcophagus which he had caused to be prepared four years before his death, the nostrils, mouth and ears being filled with quicklime. Why this? He wished to have that monument continually in his eyes, to say: Maximilian, think of dying; why dost thou delay and stretch thyself? he whom so many kingdoms do not contain, this coffin will contain. But why wouldst thou be embalmed not with spices but with lime? That I may the sooner return to the earth from which I was taken. “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.” So Lipsius relates in the same place.
AND MY LAST END BE LIKE TO THEM.—From this example of Balaam St. Gregory beautifully teaches, Moral. book XXXIII, chapter 27, that “prayer has not the weight of virtue, which perseverance of continued love does not hold. For Balaam, when the time of compunction had passed away, gave counsel against the life of those to whom he had asked even in dying to be made like, and when he found occasion of avarice, forthwith forgot whatever he had wished for himself concerning innocence.”
Note here the wonderful efficacy of grace and divine inspiration, which, so long as it was present, changed the mind of Balaam, and made him superior to earth and heaven. For, as St. Cyprian says, epistle to Donatus, book II, epistle 2: “As the sun shines of itself, the day gives light, the fountain waters, the shower bedews: so the heavenly spirit pours itself in, after the soul, looking to heaven, has recognized its author; higher than the sun, and loftier than all this power, it begins to be that which it believes itself to be.” Whence he infers: “Let there be to thee either constant prayer or reading; now speak with God, now God with thee; let Him instruct thee by His precepts, let Him dispose thee: whom He shall have made rich and full, no one will make poor or hungry”; and above: “He can now desire or long for nothing from the world, who is greater than the world.”
See, then, here how suddenly the Holy Spirit converts the heart and tongue of an impious man. Truly St. Gregory says: “I consider,” he says, “the fathers of the New and Old Testament, David, Daniel, Amos, Peter, Paul and Matthew, and with eyes opened by faith I behold: for the Holy Spirit fills a boy playing the harp, and makes a psalmist: fills an abstinent boy, and makes a judge of the elders: fills a herdsman, and makes a Prophet: fills a fisherman, and makes the prince of the Apostles: fills a persecutor, and makes a Doctor of the Gentiles: fills a publican, and makes an Evangelist; how mad are we, then, who seek not this Spirit!”
Symbolically, the death of the just is the mortification of the passions, which they acquire through contemplation and the heavenly life. This St. Bernard desired, sermon 52 on the Canticle, saying: “When the soul departs, if not from life, at least from the sense of life, it is necessary also that the temptation of life be not felt. Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly, and be at rest? Would that I might often fall by this death, and escape the snares of death, that I might not feel the deadly allurements of a luxurious life, that I might not be stupefied at the sense of lust, at the tumult of avarice, at the goads of anger and impatience, at the anguish of anxieties and the troubles of cares! Let my soul die the death of the just, that no fraud may ensnare it, no iniquity delight it. Good is the death which does not take away life but transfers it to the better.” “Death is threefold,” says Cardinal Hugh: “of nature, of guilt and of grace; in the first the flesh dies; in the second, the soul; in the third, the whole man. The first separates the soul from the flesh; the second divides grace from the mind; the third severs the whole man from the cares of the world. The first is of all; the second of the wicked; the third of the good. Those dead by the first death are buried in the world; those by the second in hell with the rich glutton; those by the third in heaven with Lazarus. Of the first it is said, Ecclesiasticus 41: O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee! Of the second: The death of sinners is very evil. Of the third: Let my soul die the death of the just.”
13. BALAC THEREFORE SAID: COME WITH ME TO ANOTHER PLACE, FROM WHENCE THOU MAYST SEE A PART OF ISRAEL, AND MAYST NOT BE ABLE TO SEE THEM ALL: AND FROM THENCE CURSE THEM.—Balac here superstitiously attributes the blessing of Balaam to the place and the sight of the whole of Israel, as though he had blessed Israel because he had seen the whole of its people, or because that place was more fortunate than others, whether from the influence of the heavens and stars, or from elsewhere. In like manner the Syrians, conquered by the Israelites, said: “Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they have overcome us; but let us fight against them in the plains, and we shall overcome them,” 3 Kings chapter 20,
14. AND WHEN HE HAD BROUGHT HIM INTO A HIGH PLACE.—Into the field, that is, the place, of the watchers, that is, a watch-tower (1).
AND BALAAM BUILT SEVEN ALTARS—like those of which it was said in verse 1.