Appendix to Augustine's Sermones: Sermones supposititii, Sermones 16-29

too the devil and his angels are wearied and oppressed through the mystery of the cross, so that they cannot call the Christian people back from the service of God.

6. The hand of Moses. Now, that Moses put his hand into his bosom and brought it out leprous, and put it in again and brought it out sound and like the rest of his flesh (Exod. 4:6–7), we ought not to take idly. In that hand a type of the Synagogue or of the Church was borne. Just as the earlier people was that of the Jews and the later that of the Gentiles, so the Synagogue was before the Church. But because the Church is chosen and the Synagogue is rejected, therefore the hand of Moses is first made leprous, and afterwards is rendered like the rest of the flesh: and thus the Synagogue is left leprous on account of its unbelief, while the Church, as a sound hand fit for every work, is chosen in preference.

7. Moses is forbidden to take his wife with him into Egypt. So Moses took up Sephora his wife and was coming into Egypt: and the Lord stood against him and wished to kill him (Exod. 4:20, 24). Perhaps in this place we can understand that it displeased God that Moses, who was about to perform such great wonders, wished to take with him into Egypt the encumbrance of a wife. Hence it is given to be understood that from that place he sent his wife back to his father-in-law. For he went down into Egypt so entirely without her that afterwards, when Moses was already settled in the desert, Jethro his kinsman brought that same wife of his to him, as we read (ibid. 18:5, 8).

8. The serpent from the rod. Now, that the rod cast upon the ground was turned into a serpent, let us see what it signifies. The serpent is reckoned as standing for wisdom, as the Lord says in the Gospel: Be, He says, prudent as serpents (Matt. 10:16). The rod, we have said, prefigured the cross. So the cross, which is believed by unbelievers to be folly, as the Apostle says, to the Gentiles folly (1 Cor. 1:23), after it was sent down to the ground, that is, prepared for the Lord's passion, was turned into a serpent, that is, into wisdom: and into such great wisdom as would devour all the wisdom of this world; indeed, it swallowed up all the serpents that the magicians had made by their enchantments. By the rod, then, Egypt is scourged; and by the cross the world is conquered and the devil overcome. Let us pray, therefore, dearest brothers, that Christ the Lord in His goodness may grant to us too to conquer the lust of this world, and before His judgement seat to carry off a happy victory over the devil and his angels: to Whom be honour and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Sermon 19. On Moses, 2.

1. The flame signifies the Holy Spirit, the bramble the Jews. Great indeed, dearest brothers, are the sacraments of God's mysteries, and as it were wrapped up; and although we cannot unfold them all, yet we briefly put before your Charity what we can. It was not without cause, dearest brothers, nor without some signification of a hidden meaning, that there was a flame in the bramble and the bramble was not burned (Exod. 3:2). For the bramble is a kind of thorn, and what the earth brought forth for sinful man cannot be placed in any praise. For at the first it was said to man when he sinned: The earth shall bring forth thorns and thistles for you (Gen. 3:18). And that the bramble was not burned, that is, was not laid hold of by the flame, is recognized as signifying something not good. For in the flame the Holy Spirit is understood; in the bramble and thorn is signified the people of the Jews, hard and proud. For that flame without doubt signified something good, since in it either an angel or the Lord appeared. Indeed, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles, there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire (Acts

2:3). Would that this fire might seize us too; may it not find us hard, and be unable to burn us up. Let us pray rather that this fire may blaze within us, and destroy and consume the thorns of our sins.

2. Two fires, of charity and of cupidity. For there are two fires: there is the fire of charity from the Holy Spirit, and there is also the fire of cupidity. The former burns up all that is evil; the latter consumes all that is good. For in the soul where the fire of charity has blazed, it consumes all evil; just as, on the contrary, in the one in whom the fire of cupidity has been kindled, nothing that is good will remain. And therefore let each one run to his own conscience, and if he feels within himself any spark whatever of compunction kindled by good works, let him guard within himself the grace of the divine mercy, and kindle the fire of compunction; that fire of which the Lord said: I came to send fire upon the earth, and what do I will but that it be kindled (Luke 12:49)? But he who has recognized that the flame of cupidity is burning within him, let him strive with all his strength, with the help of God, to extinguish cupidity and to kindle charity. For whatever good a man in whom cupidity burns has done will perish without any delay: just as, on the contrary, if the one in whom the fire of charity is has committed any negligences, it will consume them without delay, and will not allow them to have dominion at all. For the people of the Jews was being burnt by the blaze of zeal, or of cupidity: and therefore that bush signified the people which struggled against God; the people of the Jews, that is, the thorny people, of whom it is written: I waited for it to bring forth grapes, but it brought forth thorns (Isa. 5:2). For it was to that very people that Moses was being sent: and therefore the bush was burning and was not burnt up, because the hardness of the Jews, as I have said, struggled against the Law; for if that people had not been joined with thorns, Christ would not have been crowned with thorns by it.

3. Moses and Joshua are commanded to loose the latchet of the shoe. So the Lord called out to Moses: Loose the latchet of your shoe; for the place on which you stand is holy ground (Exod. 3:5). What was commanded to blessed Moses is read to have been commanded also to his successor Joshua, when the Lord appeared to him. For when he saw a man standing over against him with drawn sword, and while he was asking who he was, he answered him: I am the prince of the host of the Lord; and now I come. And adding, he said: Loose the latchet of your shoe; for the place on which you stand is holy ground (Josh. 5:13–16). I ask you, dearest brethren, that, according to your holy custom, you apply yourselves more attentively to hear what we have learnt on this matter from the revelation of the ancient Fathers. And since the matter is difficult and obscure to understand, receive it patiently: for it is necessary for us to repeat some things frequently, so that we may the more easily impress them upon your understanding.

4. Why that was commanded to both. What is signified by the holy ground. It had been commanded to the Jews by the Law that, if anyone departed from this light without sons, his brother should take his wife; and that however many sons were born of them should be reckoned under the name of the deceased brother, and should not be ascribed as sons of him who had begotten them, but of him whose widow he had taken. For which reason many of the people, unwilling that their sons should be called by another's name, did not consent to take the widows of their brothers: and whoever wished to excuse himself was led to the gate, and his brother's widow, coming forward, took off his shoe and spat in his face, and he was called the House of the unshod; and so for him who was not going to be the bridegroom the latchets of his shoe were loosed; for of him who had consented they were by no means loosed (Deut. 25:5–10). I have said this, dearest brethren, so that, if we cannot understand the whole, we may try to understand what the reason was why the Lord said to Moses and Joshua: Loose the latchet of your shoe: for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Why was this said to them, unless because they were not the lawful bridegrooms? For the lawful Bridegroom of the Catholic Church could be no other than Christ, of whom the Apostle says, I have espoused you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2); and of whom the Psalmist

had foretold long before, And He Himself as a bridegroom coming forth from His bridal chamber (Ps. 18:6). Blessed John the Baptist also spoke of Him most plainly, saying: He who has the bride is the bridegroom. This he certainly said of Christ; but what did he say of himself? But the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him, and rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom's voice (John 3:29). And to show more plainly that Christ the Lord is the lawful bridegroom, he says: This is He the strap of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose (ibid. 1:27). Why did he not presume to loose the strap of His shoe? Because he knew that He was the lawful bridegroom of the Church. For Moses and Joshua are commanded to loose their shoes, because they figured the bridegroom, and were not themselves bridegrooms. Finally, see what the Lord said to Moses or Joshua: Loose the strap of your shoe; for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Can this, dearest brethren, be understood according to the letter? For how could that ground on which they were treading be holy, when without doubt it was like the rest of the earth? But attend carefully to what was said, For the place on which you stand is holy ground. That is to say, Christ, Whose figure you bear and Whose type you are seen to have, is holy ground. Truly holy ground is the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom all things heavenly and earthly have been sanctified, of Whom the Apostle says: Making peace through His blood with the things that are in the heavens and on earth (Col. 1:20).

5. The Apostles, brethren of Christ, took the wife of the deceased. Therefore, dearest brethren, as I said above, he who refused to take the wife of his deceased brother had his shoe removed and was spat upon in the face; but he who consented to take the widow of his deceased brother, the sons who were born were called by the name not of him who begot them but of him who had died: and this we see fulfilled in the Apostles. For when the brother was deceased, that is, when Christ was dead, Who had said: Go, tell My brethren (Matt. 28:10), the Apostles took up His wife, that is, the Church. For so the Apostle Paul says: In Christ Jesus through the Gospel I have begotten you (1 Cor. 4:15). And yet whoever have been born of the Church through the teaching of the Apostles have been called neither Petrians nor Paulians, but Christians: so that that figure might be fulfilled which had been set forth beforehand in the Law concerning the wife of a deceased brother. But the unhappy heretics have not done so; but like most cruel usurpers, seizing the wife of their deceased brother, and tearing and rending the Church into parts, they have wished, with most shameless brow, that all the peoples who are begotten through the sacrament of Baptism should be called not by Christ's name but by their own. Accordingly, in the Catholic Church all who have been born are called Christians by the name of the deceased, that is, of Christ. But among the heretics some are called Donatists, some Manichaeans, some Arians, some Fortians. But because the leaders of the heretics were not lawful bridegrooms, they imposed on the peoples not Christ's name but their own.

6. Whatever the preacher sets forth, let the hearers examine it more attentively. And therefore I ask, brethren, that your holy Charity pardon me, because while I have tried to suggest to you some sort of understanding from what was said to Moses, Loose the strap of your shoe, I seem perhaps to have wearied you with a longer sermon than I ought. And although there may be nothing in this sermon that can please, yet I believe that at least our wish and desire ought not to displease your Charity; for though I could not set out the exposition of so great a matter as it deserves, I nevertheless strive to convey to your holy minds certain outlines, as it were, and some small indications of whatever kind, so that, examining them more attentively, you may, with Christ inspiring you, meditate on them even better than we suggest.

Sermon 20. On the ten plagues of the Egyptians. Exod. chapters 7-12.

1. Moses is understood as the Law. The rod is the cross of Christ. Moses, coming to Egypt, dearest brethren, brings also a rod, with which he chastises and strikes Egypt with ten plagues. Moses is understood as the Law, which was given to this world, so that it might rebuke and correct it with ten plagues, that is, with the ten commandments which are contained in the Decalogue. That Moses can be understood as the Law, the Lord said in the Gospel: They have Moses and the Prophets (Luke 16:29); that is, the Law and the Prophets. The rod, moreover, by which Egypt is subdued and Pharaoh overcome, bore the image of the cross of Christ, by which this world is conquered, and the prince of this world with the principalities and powers is triumphed over. As for the fact that the rod, when thrown down, becomes a dragon or serpent, and devours the serpents of the Egyptians: the serpent is put for wisdom, as it is written: Be prudent, as serpents (Matt. 10:16). Therefore the rod of Moses, that is, the cross of Christ, after it came down to earth, that is, after it came to the belief and faith of men, was turned into wisdom, and into so great a wisdom that it devoured all the wisdom of the Egyptians, that is, of this world.

2. The plagues of the Egyptians. Blood. Frogs Dog-fly. Death of animals. Ulcers and blisters. Thunders. Locusts. Darkness. Death of the first-born. That the waters of the river are turned into blood is fittingly enough adapted so that the river, to which they had delivered the little ones of the Hebrews by a cruel death, might give back to the authors of the crime a cup of blood, and that they might feel, by drinking it, the gore of the polluted stream which they had stained with parricidal slaughter. The second plague, in which frogs are brought in, I judge to signify figuratively the songs of the poets, who with a certain empty and inflated melody, as with the sounds and songs of frogs, brought into this world fables of deception. For that animal is useful for nothing, except that it gives forth the sound of its voice in shameless and troublesome clamours. After this gnats are brought forth. This creature is indeed held up on wings, flying through the air; but it is so fine and minute that it escapes the sight of the eye, unless of one who looks keenly: yet the body on which it settles it pierces with a most bitter sting; so that one who cannot see it flying feels it stinging. This kind of creature, therefore, I think is most fittingly compared to the art of philosophy or to the cunning of the heretics, which pierces souls with minute and subtle stings of words, and circumvents with such cunning that the one deceived neither sees nor understands whence he has been deceived. In the fourth place, too, the cynomyia, that is, the dog-fly, is brought in, which is deservedly compared to the sect of the Cynics, who, in addition to the other shameless features of their deception, proclaim even pleasure and lust to be the highest good. Since, therefore, the world was first deceived by each of these things, the word and Law of God, coming, convicts it by corrections of this kind, so that from the quality of the punishments it may recognize the qualities of its own error. In the fifth place Egypt is struck by the slaughter of animals or cattle. In this is convicted the madness and folly of mortals, who like irrational cattle have imposed the worship and name of God upon the figures not only of men but also of cattle. Hence it came about by just judgement that in those things in which they believed divine worship to reside, they should see pitiable punishments. Ulcers and blisters with burning heat are brought forth after these in the sixth stroke: and it seems to me that in the ulcers is convicted deceitful and itching malice, in the blisters swelling and inflated pride, in the burning heat the madness of wrath and fury. Up to this point punishments are tempered for the world through the figures of its own errors. After these strokes, however, there come from on high voices and thunders, and hail, and fire running

in the hail. See the measured restraint of the divine correction. He does not strike in silence; rather He gives voices, and sends doctrine from heaven, through which the chastised world may recognize its own fault: He gives hail as well, through which the still tender shoots of vices may be laid waste: He gives fire as well, knowing that there are thorns and thistles of sins which that fire must consume, the fire of which the Lord says: I came to send fire upon the earth (Luke 12:49). For through it the incitements of pleasure and lust are consumed. As for the mention of locusts in the eighth place, I think that by this kind of plague is designated the inconstancy of the human race, either given to detraction or ever at discord with itself. For the locust, though it has no king, as Scripture says, leads an army drawn up in a single battle-line (Prov. 30:27): but men, although they were made rational by God, were neither able to govern themselves in orderly fashion, nor did they patiently bear the governance of God their King. The ninth plague is darkness: whether so that the blindness of their mind may be reproved, or so that they may understand that the reasons of the divine dispensation and providence are most obscure. For God, as the Psalmist says, made darkness His hiding place (Ps. 17:12): and the proud, desiring boldly and rashly to search it out, and asserting one thing after another, have rolled down into the thick and palpable darkness of errors. Lastly, the destruction of the firstborn is brought on. By the firstborn of the Egyptians are not unfittingly understood the principalities and powers of this world, that is, the devil and his angels, whom Christ at His coming is said to have destroyed, that is, to have led captive, and to have triumphed over on the wood of His cross. We may also take as the firstborn of the Egyptians all the authors and inventors of the false religions that are in this world, which the truth of Christ extinguishes together with their authors.

3. A recapitulation of what has been said above. And so that these things which have been said may cling more tenaciously to your memory, and so that you may turn them over in the mouth of the heart like clean animals and ruminate on them spiritually, we are making a brief recapitulation. For in that in the first plague the waters are turned into blood, the doctrines of the philosophers are signified, which deceive little ones in understanding. And in that in the second plague there is a multitude of frogs, by them are understood the songs of the poets, which have never been able to profit anyone. In the third plague gnats, that is, the tiniest flies, are brought forth, pricking bodies with a most grievous sting; and by them are designated the cunning of the philosophic art, and the poisons or most subtle fabrications of unhappy heretics. In the fourth plague the dog-fly is brought on; and it is deservedly compared to the doctrine of the Cynics, who among their other evils proclaim lust as the highest good. In the fifth place animals are slain; and by this is signified the senselessness or folly of men. In the sixth place ulcers, pustules and blisters are sent with burning heat: in the ulcers deceitful and festering malice is reproved; in the blisters, swelling and puffed-up pride; in the burning heat, the madness of anger and fury. Then in the seventh place thunders and voices are sent from heaven, together with hail or fire: in the voices and thunders heavenly doctrine is recognized; in the hail, the discipline which sinners receive; in the fire, the grace of the Holy Spirit, through which the pleasures of lusts and the thistles of sins are consumed. In the eighth plague locusts are brought in, an animal harmful with its tooth; and by them is signified the pride of malignant men, who persecute one another with false testimonies and betrayals. Of whom the Apostle says: If you bite and devour one another, see that you are not consumed by one another (Gal. 5:15). In the ninth plague darkness is brought on; by which blindness of mind or of heart is reproved. In the tenth plague the firstborn are struck; in whom may be understood either spiritual wickednesses or original sins, which, when Christ comes, are most manifestly proven to be blotted out or extinguished through the mystery of the cross and the grace of Baptism. These things therefore, dearest brethren,