Homilies on Exodus, Homilia II
Midwives: Pharaoh kills males, spares females§1
1The king who did not know Joseph keeps inventing new arts against God’s people. He even turns midwives — whose craft is to save life — into instruments of death: kill the male; keep the female alive. They feared God and kept the males alive. Friends of the letter stumble here; we learn that the law is spiritual. Woman figures flesh and its affections; man the rational sense that can seek the things above. Pharaoh, prince of this world, hates that male mind and nourishes only what is carnal. When you see people given to luxury, know he is killing males and sparing females; when you see one of a thousand turn toward God, know Pharaoh pursues him with a thousand devices.
Latin · §1
Multa adversum gentem Dei molitur rex qui non novit Ioseph. Obsetricibus Hebraeorum praecipit: si masculus, occidite; si femina, vivificate. Timuerunt Deum et vivificabant masculos. Litterae amici putant historiam stare; nos legem spiritalem intelligimus. In feminis caro designatur, in viro sensus rationabilis. Pharao odit coelestia quaerentem; carnalia vivere cupit. Qui deliciis fluitant — masculos necat et feminas vivificat. Qui unus ex mille ad Deum convertitur, Pharao persequitur.
Sephora and Phua: learning that fears God§2
2The midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded. Some before us saw in them the form of rational learning — a midwife’s craft that fosters both male and female births. Sephora, interpreted “sparrow,” lifts minds on the wings of doctrine; Phua, “red” or “modest,” trains manners and honesty. Better still: the two figure both Testaments — Sephora the spiritual law, Phua the Gospels flushed with Christ’s blood. That they made themselves houses because they feared God makes little sense as bare letter; it fits when fear of God fills the world with houses of prayer. So fear God, refuse Egypt’s command to love the present age, and keep alive the male within — the inner person healed by good acts and thoughts. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Latin · §2
Timebant obsetrices Deum. Quidam rationabilem eruditionem in eis viderunt: mediae sunt, masculos et feminas fovent. Sephora — passer — celsiora docet; Phua — rubens / verecunda — mores componit. Mihi utriusque testamenti figura: Sephora legi spiritali, Phua evangeliis Christi sanguine rubentibus. Domos sibi fecerunt quia timebant Deum — non litterae ordo, sed ecclesiae orationum domus. Timens Deum non facis praeceptum Aegypti; vivificas masculum interiorem.
Hide the newborn male from the river§3
3Pharaoh next bids his people seize the Hebrew infant at birth and cast him into the river. So the prince of this world ambushes our beginnings — as Jesus, led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted, opened the path of victory by fasting and prayer. If I give alms, I beget a “male,” a work of God; but if I do it to be seen by people, Egyptians snatch it and drown it. Hide what the right hand does; pray to the Father in secret. You who hear are not being told old tales, but taught the order of a living faith.
Latin · §3
Pharao praecipit populo infantem Hebraeum in flumen proici. Princeps mundi primordia nativitatis insidiatur. Christus post baptismum in desertum ductus tentatur — exemplar victoriae. Masculus generatus — opus Dei, eleemosyna — occultandus est; si coram hominibus iustitia, Aegyptii rapiunt et demergunt. Nolite fabulas veterum putare, sed ordinem vitae discite.
Moses in the basket — Homilia II CLOSEOUT§4
4Seeing the child was beautiful, they hid him three months, then set him in a bitumen-sealed basket by the river. Pharaoh’s daughter — the church gathered from the nations — comes to the waters to wash from her father’s house, hears “Daughter, forget your father’s house”, and receives the infant with mercy. Moses names the Law: shut in cheap coverings of literal Jewish reading until the church takes him from the marsh into royal rooms. Grown strong, the veil of the letter lifts and solid food appears Hebrews 5:12-14. The synagogue’s “wage” is that, seeing Gentiles worship one God, she blushes to serve idols still Deuteronomy 32:21. Though Pharaoh once fathered us in evil works, when we come to the waters let us take up a great Moses — nothing small, everything spiritual — and ask Christ to reveal how great he is. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Latin · §4
Videntes elegantem infantem celaverunt mensibus tribus; posuerunt in tibin bitumine in palude. Filia Pharaonis — ecclesia ex gentibus — lavat et misericordiam suscipit. Moyses — lex — intra tibin sordidis Iudaeorum sensibus; ecclesia ad aquas baptismi legem assumit et fortificat. Synagoga mercedem accipit: idolis erubescit. Etiam si Pharao pater fuit, ad aquas legem Dei sumamus. Amen.