by
Damien F. Mackey
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died.
The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help
because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and
He remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them”.
Exodus 2:23-25
Introduction
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died”.
The “king of Egypt” here, the legendary “Chenephres” (Eusebius from Artapanus), died late during Moses’s Midian phase, and, with him, the dynasty virtually ended.
There would yet be a brief-reigning female Pharaoh.
I suited the last male Pharaoh with his historical (dynastic) alter egos in my article:
The King of Egypt of Exodus 2:23
https://www.academia.edu/124085893/The_King_of_Egypt_of_Exodus_2_23
wherein I concluded:
Conclusion: The vindictive “King of Egypt” of Exodus 2:23 was, all at once, “Chenephres” (tradition) – Chephren (Khafre) of the Fourth Dynasty – Pepi Neferkare of the Sixth Dynasty – Sesostris (Story of Sinuhe) Kheperkare of the Twelfth Dynasty.
The female Pharaoh who saw off the dynasty would be, all at once: Khentkaus; Nitocris; Sobekneferure, the latter being her Twelfth Dynasty name.
It is unlikely that Exodus 2:23 is referring to her as “king of Egypt”, given 4:16’s apparent reference to the jealous “Chenephres”, ‘… all those who wanted to kill you are dead’. Moses would be alerted to the passing of that mighty dynasty in the most dramatic possible way, by the Lord himself (Exodus 4:16): “Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead’.”
The long-lasting (s0-called) Twelfth Dynasty had finally spluttered to a halt, to be succeeded by the Thirteenth Dynasty about whose fabric there is much debate amongst Egyptologists.
We learned previously that some so-called Thirteenth Dynasty persons were actually high officials serving the Twelfth Dynasty rulers, and I also proposed that the succession in the Thirteenth Dynasty lists, Amenemhet (so-called VII) and Sobekhotep, was a repetition of the Twelfth Dynasty’s (duplicated) succession of Amenemhet and Sesostris – Sobekhotep (so-called IV) bearing Sesostris’s name, Neferkare, in reverse, as Khaneferre – again the traditional “Chenephres”.
“God heard their groaning …”.
Had the Israelites begun to groan in sincere prayerful entreaty to God, or were they just a bunch of whingers, like Dathan and Abiram (= Jannes and Mambres), so typical of most of that ungrateful generation?
The Lord apparently “heard” them on behalf of the Covenant that he had sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The Burning Bush
Exodus 3:1-10:
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up’.
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
And Moses said, ‘Here I am’.
‘Do not come any closer’, God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground’. Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob’. At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt’.
Elsewhere, we have learned that Moses would influence Greco-Roman, Indian, and other mythologies, especially as a basket baby, and likewise Sargon of Akkad, who - though he preceded Moses in history - would, much later, have attached to him a legend very similar to the famous story of the baby Moses afloat on the river (or lake).
Moses was also the basis for the non-historical Buddha, and he was, as a Lawgiver, the model for the revered Spartan, Lycurgus.
Now here, where the Lord commands Moses: ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground’, Moses, standing before unquenchable fire, in the vicinity of a holy mountain, becomes the matrix for the Sicilian Greek, Empedocles.
Previously I wrote this about him:
EMPEDOCLES, though considered to have lived in the C5th BC and to have nonetheless been the first to have named the four elements, was way behind the Book of Genesis in this supposed achievement of his. Thus we read at:
http://revelationorbust.com/wordpress/?p=376#more-376
Genesis 1:10
….
וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ לַיַּבָּשָׁה֙ אֶ֔רֶץ וּלְמִקְוֵ֥ה הַמַּ֖יִם קָרָ֣א יַמִּ֑ים וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב׃
wayiqra – elohim – layyabbashah – erets ulemiqweh – hammayim – qara – yammim – wayyareh – elohim – ki+tov
and (he) called – God – to the dry ground – earth and to collection – the waters – (he) called – seas – and (he) saw – God – for+good
The construction of this verse is familiar. See in particular this post on Genesis 1:4 regarding “seeing.”
Genesis 1:10 marks the last time in the creation narrative that God himself names things. Take a look at what he’s named: day and night (in 1:5), sky (in 1:8), earth and sea (here in 1:10). Are these meant to correspond to the four primal elements fire, air, earth, and water? Fire is perhaps a leap from day and night. But if the correspondence is intentional, God is shown to be the creator and fashioner of what was understood to be the substances from which everything else was formed until relatively recent history.
This is a pretty nifty observation, but it presents a small challenge to the historical-grammatical interpretation of Genesis 1.
The problem is that the four primal elements idea is normally attributed to a Greek philosopher by the name of Empedocles who lived in the 5th century B.C. – about 1,000 years after Moses and the traditional date for the recording of Genesis. The Wellhausen hypothesis posits later dates for Genesis but is still 400 years before Empedocles.
We show our Western bias however when we focus on the Greeks. The Egyptians actually had a similar concept …. The Egyptian idea was embodied in a group of deities called the Ogdoad, and the four primordial substances were darkness, air, the waters, and infinity/eternity.
All of this is to say that even from a purely secular standpoint it is not unreasonable to grant that the Greek primal elements concept existed in the Ancient Near East well before the Greeks. ….
[End of quote]
Sigmund Freud was well on the right track, I would suggest, when he considered the philosopher Empedocles to have been a ‘reincarnation of Moses’.
See: http://moseseditor.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/taken-from-httpbooks.html
I think Empedocles’ archetypal personage was indeed Moses. For instance:
(http://ejmmm2007.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/moses-magician.html): “… there arose in antiquity an interpretation of Moses as a scholar/magician in the classical mould of Pythagoras … and Empedocles”.
(http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/gill/deu033.htm):
Deuteronomy 33:25: “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass”.
…. Either they should have such an abundance of these metals, that they could if they would have made their shoes of them; but that is not usual; though it is said of Empedocles … the philosopher, that he wore shoes of brass”. ….
Moses had to remove his sandals on the fiery mountain (Exodus 3:5): “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” From the following quote we learn about Empedocles’ sandal on the fiery mountain.
(http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2013/06/who-were-the-first-recreational-mountain-climbers.html)
Moses climbed Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and ascended Mount Nebo (Jordan) to gaze on the land he would never reach. …. Empedocles, the ancient Greek philosopher, climbed the active volcano Mount Etna on Sicily and leaped into the flaming crater in 430 BC. According to legend, he intended to become an immortal god; the volcano ejected one of his sandals turned to bronze by the heat.
(http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4m3nb2jk&chunk.id=d0e5110)
“The character of Empedocles [Hölderlin’s The Death of Empedocles] is in some ways a synthesis of Moses and Aaron: his wisdom and mystical powers of leadership both separate him from the people and lead them to offer him the title of King. The contradiction in this dilemma, however, leads him to spurn the people for their lack of comprehension and ultimately to his own destruction—the plunge into the volcano rather than life in exile”. ….
Spiritual significance
On a far higher level, the Burning Bush at Horeb was aglow with the Glory of the Lord, the Chavod (כָּבוֹד), also known by the popular non-biblical term, “Shekinah”.
It indicates the presence of the Lord.
And it symbolises the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Divine Mercy, probably intended here by “the angel of the Lord [who] appeared to [Moses] in flames of fire …”.
The same divine Person will, centuries later, accompany the three pious young Jews in King Nebuchednezzar’s burning fiery furnace (Daniel ch. 3).
As with the Burning Bush of Exodus 3, the fire within the Sacred Heart of Jesus does “not burn up”, and those living within it, or close to it, are not harmed, but are inspired to sing hymns of cosmic praise, ecstatically, to the Almighty God.
We live either within this salvific fire, or without (outside) it, which becomes Hell.
“Who amongst us can dwell with everlasting burnings?” (Isaiah 33:14)
DIVINE JESUS, MAY WE BURN WITHIN THEE, NOT WITHOUT THEE!
Although Daniel 3 portrays the three Jewish youth as defiant, the underlying reality - if I am correct in identifying Azariah with Ezra son of Seraiah (Sirach), and with the author of Sirach 51 - is quite different. The prospect of being burned alive in fire, or in boiling hot oil, is utterly terrifying. And I think that we get an eye-witness impression of the horror of it from Sirach 51. Previously I wrote on this dramatic episode:
Sirach 51:1, 2, 4:
“I will give thanks to you, Lord and King … for you have been protector and support to me, and redeemed my body from destruction … from the stifling heat which hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled …”.
Saved “from the heart of a fire”, “hemmed in” by its “stifling heat”.
Could this, the son of Sirach’s account, be a graphic description by one who had actually stood in the heart of the raging fire? - had stood inside “the burning fiery furnace” of the Chaldean king Nebuchednezzar? (Daniel 3:20)
Another translation (GNT) renders the vivid account of the Lord’s saving of the son of Sirach as follows (Sirach 51:3-5): “… from the glaring hatred of my enemies, who wanted to put an end to my life; from suffocation in oppressive smoke rising from fires that I did not light; from death itself; from vicious slander reported to the king”.
According to the far more dispassionate account of the same (so I think) incident as narrated in Daniel 3:49-50:
… the angel of the Lord came down into the furnace beside Azariah and his companions; he drove the flames of the fire outwards, and fanned into them, in the heart of the furnace, a coolness such as wind and dew will bring, so that the fire did not even touch them or cause them any pain or distress.
Note that both texts refer almost identically to “the heart of the fire [the furnace]”.
Azariah - {who, unlike “his companions”, Hananiah and Mishael, is named here in Daniel} - I have identified as Ezra the scribe:
Ezra heroic in the face of death
(2) Ezra heroic in the face of death | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
In this article I had noted that: “Ezra [is] a mostly obscure character throughout the Scriptures, despite his immense reputation and status …”. And also that: “… Azariah is always listed as the last of the trio (Daniel 1:6): “Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah”, variously as “Abednego” (cf. vv. 11, 19; 2:17, 49; 3:12-30), perhaps because he was the youngest …”.
To which comment, however, I had added, “… it is apparent that it is he [Azariah] who will take the leading part in the confession of guilt and the prayers”.
And that would make sense if Azariah were Ezra, for, as also noted in the article with reference to Ezra 7:1-5, “[Ezra was] … a priest in the line of Aaron, hence, potentially, the High Priest”.
So why might it be that the Daniel 3 text above names only “Azariah”, he perhaps being the youngest of the trio?
Well, if Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) chapter 51 has any relevance to the fiery furnace incident, if the son of Sirach (Seraiah) were Azariah-Ezra, then he himself appears to have been the one who had decided to appeal prayerfully to the Divine Mercy for help and protection (vv. 6-12):
I was once brought face-to-face with death; enemies surrounded me everywhere. I looked for someone to help me, but there was no one there. But then, O Lord, I remembered how merciful you are and what you had done in times past. I remembered that you rescue those who rely on you, that you save them from their enemies. Then from here on earth I prayed to you to rescue me from death. I prayed, O Lord, you are my Father; do not abandon me to my troubles when I am helpless against arrogant enemies.
I will always praise you and sing hymns of thanksgiving. You answered my prayer, and saved me from the threat of destruction. And so I thank you and praise you.
O Lord, I praise you!
The three young Jewish men, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, had had no hope whatsoever of obtaining any human deliverance.
But once again Azariah alone will be the one to proclaim this (“Then Azariah stood still and there in the fire he prayed aloud”) (Daniel 3:32-33):
‘You have delivered us into the power of our enemies, of a lawless people, the worst of the godless, of an unjust king, the worst in the whole world; today we dare not even open our mouths, shame and dishonour are the lot of those who serve and worship You’.
Might Sirach 51 be an echo of this terrifying situation, when the son of Sirach prays to God,
“You have redeemed me
[v. 3] from the fangs of those who would devour me, from the hands of those seeking my life
…
[v. 6] From the unclean tongue and the lying word –
The perjured tongue slandering me to the king.
….
[v. 7] They were surrounding me on every side, there was no one to support me;
I looked for someone to help – in vain”.
… it was found (in the “Ezra” article) that the name “Ezra” was related to the name “Azariah”, apparently a shortened version of the latter ….
If the one whom we call Sirach was actually Eleazar ben Sira, then that would do no harm whatsoever to my identification, and would likely even enhance it.
For, according to Abarim, the Hebrew name, Eleazer, is related to both Azariah and Ezra: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Eleazar.html
Moreover, the name of Ezra’s father, Seraiah (Ezra 7:1), “… Ezra son of Seraiah …”, can easily be equated with Sira, which would give us the perfect equation:
Ezra (= Eleazer) son of Seraiah;
= Eleazer son of Sira(ch)
Of course, any correlation between the young Azariah at the time of Nebuchednezzar, and the son of Sirach, estimated to have lived early in the Maccabean period, is quite unrealistic in terms of the over-extended conventional chronology.
My above-mentioned article on “Ezra”, though, suggests that this is possible, with the holy man living to as late as the wars of Judas Maccabeus.
While the Book of Daniel (chapter 3) will recount the story of the three young men in the burning fiery furnace in a somewhat objective and dispassionate fashion, presenting the three young heroes there as respectfully defiant before the Great King, Sirach, on the other hand, reads like a dramatic eye-witness window into the utter fearfulness and terror of the situation – a young man, who had actually experienced it, having been filled with the anxiety of expecting that he was about to lose his life in a most horrifying fashion.
Comparisons with Fatima (1917)
“Do not forget the works of the Lord!”
(Psalm 77:7 Douay; Psalm 78:7)
Saint John Paul II ‘the Great’ would liken Fatima (1917) to Sinai.
Fatima also has resonances with the burning fiery furnace of Daniel 3 - three pious children once again threatened by a Nebuchednezzar-like tyrant with being burned alive: https://www.thecatholicherald.com/fatima-seers-are-holy-because-of-virtue-not-visions-cardinal-says/
“At the time of the apparitions, the Portuguese government was strongly anti-Catholic.
Arturo Santos, mayor of the town where Fatima was located and president of the Masonic lodge of nearby Leiria, sent law enforcement officials to block the entry to the site of the apparitions.
He also kidnapped the three children to force them to deny Mary was appearing at Fatima after news of the apparitions spread, Cardinal Saraiva Martins said.
Santos separated Jacinta and Francisco from Lucia, telling the two children that their cousin was boiled in hot oil and that they would share the same fate if they didn’t say they didn’t see Our Lady and that “it was all a fantasy,” Cardinal Saraiva Martins said.
“What was the response of those two children? ‘You can do what you want but we cannot tell a lie. We have seen her (Our Lady)’,” the cardinal said.
“I asked myself, ‘How many adults would have done the same?'” the cardinal said. “Maybe 90 per cent of adults would probably say, ‘Yes, of course, it was a lie, it was all a fairy tale'.””
Like Moses had become, the three Fatima children were shepherds.
These three children had been shown an electrifying vision of Hell.
At the “Beatification of the Little Shepherds of Fatima, Francisco and Jacinta”, pope John Paul II had drawn a comparison with the Burning Bush that Moses had experienced:
https://www.piercedhearts.org/hearts_jesus_mary/apparitions/fatima/jpii_beatification_jacinta_francisco.html
"Beatification of the Little Shepherds of Fatima, Francisco and Jacinta"
Homily of St. John Paul II at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima
May 13, 2000
"Ask your parents and teachers to enrol you in the "school" of Our Lady,
so that she can teach you to be like the little shepherds, who tried to do whatever
she asked them."
1. "Father, ... to you I offer praise; for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the merest children" (Mt 11: 25).
With these words, dear brothers and sisters, Jesus praises the heavenly Father for his designs; he knows that no one can come to him unless he is drawn by the Father (cf. Jn 6: 44); therefore he praises him for his plan and embraces it as a son: "Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will" (Mt 11: 26). You were pleased to reveal the kingdom to the merest children.
According to the divine plan, "a woman clothed with the sun" (Rv 12: 1) came down from heaven to this earth to visit the privileged children of the Father. She speaks to them with a mother's voice and heart: she asks them to offer themselves as victims of reparation, saying that she was ready to lead them safely to God. And behold, they see a light shining from her maternal hands which penetrates them inwardly, so that they feel immersed in God just as - they explain - a person sees himself in a mirror.
Later Francisco, one of the three privileged children, exclaimed: "We were burning in that light which is God and we were not consumed. What is God like? It is impossible to say. In fact we will never be able to tell people". God: a light that burns without consuming. Moses had the same experience when he saw God in the burning bush; he heard God say that he was concerned about the slavery of his people and had decided to deliver them through him: "I will be with you" (cf. Ex 3: 2-12). Those who welcome this presence become the dwelling-place and, consequently, a "burning bush" of the Most High.
2. What most impressed and entirely absorbed Bl. Francisco was God in that immense light which penetrated the inmost depths of the three children. But God told only Francisco "how sad" he was, as he said.
One night his father heard him sobbing and asked him why he was crying; his son answered: "I was thinking of Jesus who is so sad because of the sins that are committed against him". He was motivated by one desire - so expressive of how children think - "to console Jesus and make him happy".
A transformation takes place in his life, one we could call radical: a transformation certainly uncommon for children of his age. He devotes himself to an intense spiritual life, expressed in assiduous and fervent prayer, and attains a true form of mystical union with the Lord. This spurs him to a progressive purification of the spirit through the renunciation of his own pleasures and even of innocent childhood games. ….
Another Exodus likeness to Fatima occurs when God empowers Moses with miraculous abilities, “that they may believe” (Exodus 4:5).
For that was the very purpose of the great Solar miracle at Fatima on October 13, 1917, “so that all may believe”.
Sadly, in either case, there have been many who have not believed.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened”.
“Do not forget the works of the Lord!”
In 1925, at Pontevedra in Spain, towards the conclusion of the Fatima apparitions, the Chavod Glory cloud (Burning Bush; the Magi Star) will become manifest again, with the Child Jesus elevated upon it:
https://fatima.org/news-views/the-apparition-of-our-lady-and-the-child-jesus-at-pontevedra/
“On December 10, 1925, the Most Holy Virgin appeared to [Lucia], and by Her side, elevated on a luminous cloud, was the Child Jesus. The Most Holy Virgin rested Her hand on her shoulder, and as She did so, She showed her a heart encircled by thorns, which She was holding in Her other hand. At the same time, the Child said:
“‘Have compassion on the Heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce It at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.’
“Then the Most Holy Virgin said: “‘Look, My daughter, at My Heart, surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce Me at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console Me and announce in My name that I promise to assist at the moment of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess … receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep Me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to Me.’”
Moses who, forty years ago back in Egypt, had considered himself to have been the one to liberate his people from harsh slavery, will now (unlike the Fatima children, apparently) resist this new spectacular call to vocation.
The prophet Jeremiah would later act similarly, and would likewise receive a Divine rebuke (Jeremiah 1:6, 7) – and so, ostensibly, would the Prophet Mohammed.
Had Moses grown content with his simple married life amongst his Midianite family?
Now, at age 80, he must have lost his former youthful exuberance.
Perhaps someone else could free the Hebrews. “But Moses said, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else’.” (Exodus 4:13)
And so here begins Moses’s series of protestations that will continue on even back in Egypt.
Exodus 3:11-13:
But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’
And God said, ‘I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain’.
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
‘I AM WHO I AM’
Exodus 3:14-22:
God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you’.
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.
Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’
The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.’ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.
And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.”
Need for a Perennial Philosophy
A non-historical Thales of Miletus cannot be, as he is called, the Father of Philosophy.
God the Father is the true Father of Philosophy and He would reveal the basis of the perennial philosophy of Being at the Burning Bush.
God is the pure act of existing
Tom Mulcahy has written on this:
https://catholicstrength.com/tag/the-existence-of-god-is-an-imperative-of-metaphysical-reasoning/
GOD EXISTS BECAUSE GOD IS LIFE
” I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14)
We are caught up in the simple but precise argument that if there was nothing to begin with how could there be anything at all? And the core of our argument is that the existence of God is “an imperative of metaphysical reasoning,” or even of simple logic.
Wilhelmsen states that “the metaphysics of being is simultaneously the Philosophy of God.”
Such a statement finds correlation in the Bible, where God is revealed to Moses as I AM (Exodus 3: 14 ). And Jesus says – rather amazingly – that he is “the life” (John 14:6 ). In other words, God is that very beginning, or that very unbeginning, the absence of which there would simply be nothing.
The “Supreme mystery,” then, is the mystery of a Being whose very essence is to exist. The philosopher says that God exists simply in virtue of Himself, so that God is the pure act of existing. “God affirms himself as the absolute act of being in its pure actuality” (Etienne Gilson).
Father Garrigou-Lagrange, a great scholar of St. Thomas Aquinas, explains that:
“God is the eternally subsisting being. God, then, is not only pure spirit, He is being itself subsisting immaterial at the summit of all things and transcending any limits imposed by either space or matter or a finite spiritual essence. Now, because God is the self-subsisting being, the infinite ocean of spiritual being, unlimited, unmaterialized, He is distinguished from every material or spiritual creature. The divine essence is existence itself, it alone of necessity exits. No creature is self-existent; none can say: I am being, truth, life, etc. Jesus alone among men said: “I am the truth and the life,” which was the equivalent to saying, “I am God” (Providence, 70-71).
Another scholar, quoting Jacques Maritain, says that “the act of existing is the key to St. Thomas’s philosophy, and it [being] is something super-intelligible which is revealed in the judgment I make that something exists. ‘This is why, at the root of metaphysical knowledge, St. Thomas places the intellectual intuition of that mysterious reality disguised under the most commonplace and commonly used word in the language, the word to be…that victorious thrust by which it [being] triumphs over nothingness.'”
Our affirmation or intuition of being, then, leads us to “the affirmation of Being Itself, God” (Wilhelmsen).
The Incarnation is the revelation that Jesus is LIFE! One day Jesus revealed his glory to the apostle Thomas, saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the father but through me” (John 14:6). As the Pulpit Commentary explains, “I am the Life [means that Jesus is] the life eternal, the Possessor, Author, Captain, Giver, and Prince of life.”
On another occasion Jesus encountered a grieving woman, Martha, whose brother Lazarus had died, and Jesus said to her (before raising Lazarus back to life): “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). This profound pronouncement of Jesus demonstrates that he “possesses the absolute sovereignty over life and death” that is “the sole prerogative” of God (ICSB).
CONCLUSION: God is life, or, as the Bible says, God has LIFE in himself (John 5:26). “God is the ultimate Possessor of life per se” (Pulpit Commentary). This is a great mystery, but it is a mystery confirmed by Scripture and human intelligence, and St. Paul warns that our minds are darkened if they don’t rise to a knowledge of God (Romans 1: 19-22; ICSB). So, we return to the ultimate philosophical question, Why is there something rather than nothing?, and we must conclude that nothing can produce nothing! And it is only because God IS (that is, because God is ETERNAL LIFE, the eternally subsisting Being) that we hold on to life day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Our present “to-be-ness” is completely dependent on Him who IS I AM. And in this light we can come to see in a more penetrating way that God has the power – as the eternal custodian of life – to raise up our mortal bodies on the last day (John 6:40).
Pseudo-scientifically-minded modern men and women are not adequately equipped, rationally speaking, to embrace God’s reality and genuine philosophical reasoning, and so they must deny the need for both.
Pseudo-metaphysics arises from intellectual nihilism; it is a fantastic edifice of pretence, impervious to rational discussion since it obliterates all genuinely rational lines; it marks
a retreat into egocentricity and a loss of the power of dialogue; ultimately … it is a
craven attempt of the mind to … screen itself from the providence of God, and remove
him farther off from the affairs of the world ….
Gavin Ardley
Once upon a time, those who sought wisdom and inspiration regarding man and the universe began by genuflecting to the Almighty God in reverential awe (the meaning of “fear” below). Because, as they saw it:
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction”. Proverbs 1:7
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”. Proverbs 9:10
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding to all that do it …”. Psalm 110:10 (Douay)
“… here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind”. Ecclesiastes 12:13
“The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding”. Job 28:28
“If you fear the Lord, you will do this. Master his Law, and you will find Wisdom”.
Sirach 15:1
And, now in the New Testament, John the Baptist is found to have been of the very same sapiential mentality. He, using the image of the light of the morning star fading with the sun’s rising (Jesus Christ), will declare (John 3:30): ‘He must become greater; I must become less’.
Why? - because:
The One who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The One who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
Only “the One who comes from heaven [who] is above all” can know the real design and structure of things. And He will only reveal such things to the likes of a Solomon, who prayed for wisdom and knowledge both humbly and submissively.
Clearly there is a moral issue involved with attainment of wisdom and knowledge. And no one has explained this better, I believe, than Gavin Ardley, in Berkeley’s Renovation of Philosophy (Martinus Nijhoff, 1968). Having first discussed moral scruples: “The condition of moral scruples is morbid” (pp. 78-79), Ardley then proceeds to write about “intellectual scruples”:
…. [George] Berkeley's estimate of the nature of pseudo-metaphysics and of its therapy runs along lines parallel to the moral case.
Intellectual scruples are a philosophical disease; they spring from a kind of vanity, a wish to be god-like, to know all; which wish being frustrated leads to the opposite extreme, a loss of confidence, a conviction that we know nothing; which state, in turn, is a condition of receptivity to any irrational doctrine which seeks lodging; which state, in turn, is a condition of receptivity to any irrational doctrine which seeks lodging; which doctrine, in turn, is clung to tenaciously and blindly as a kind of protective cover.
Pseudo-metaphysics arises from intellectual nihilism; it is a fantastic edifice of pretence, impervious to rational discussion since it obliterates all genuinely rational lines; it marks a retreat into egocentricity and a loss of the power of dialogue; ultimately, Berkeley suspects, it is a craven attempt of the mind to “screen itself from the providence of God, and remove him farther off from the affairs of the world” (Pr. 75).
Ardley’s use of the adjective “craven” here is not an exaggeration in light of St John Paul II’s
encyclical, Fides et ratio (1998), in which the indispensability of philosophy is upheld in the face of a modern intellectual cowardice - (recall e.g. Stephen Hawking’s: “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead”) - which, the pope wrote, “has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being”. (Emphasis added)
Here is the relevant section # 5 from that encyclical letter:
On her part, the Church cannot but set great value upon reason's drive to attain goals which render people's lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it.
Therefore, following upon similar initiatives by my Predecessors, I wish to reflect upon this special activity of human reason. I judge it necessary to do so because, at the present time in particular, the search for ultimate truth seems often to be neglected.
Modern philosophy clearly has the great merit of focusing attention upon man. From this starting-point, human reason with its many questions has developed further its yearning to know more and to know it ever more deeply. Complex systems of thought have thus been built, yielding results in the different fields of knowledge and fostering the development of culture and history. Anthropology, logic, the natural sciences, history, linguistics and so forth—the whole universe of knowledge has been involved in one way or another. Yet the positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them.
Sundered from that truth, individuals are at the mercy of caprice, and their state as person ends up being judged by pragmatic criteria based essentially upon experimental data, in the mistaken belief that technology must dominate all. It has happened therefore that reason, rather than voicing the human orientation towards truth, has wilted under the weight of so much knowledge and little by little has lost the capacity to lift its gaze to the heights, not daring to rise to the truth of being. Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing. Rather than make use of the human capacity to know the truth, modern philosophy has preferred to accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned.
This has given rise to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the shifting sands of widespread scepticism. Recent times have seen the rise to prominence of various doctrines which tend to devalue even the truths which had been judged certain. A legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today's most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth. Even certain conceptions of life coming from the East betray this lack of confidence, denying truth its exclusive character and assuming that truth reveals itself equally in different doctrines, even if they contradict one another. On this understanding, everything is reduced to opinion; and there is a sense of being adrift. While, on the one hand, philosophical thinking has succeeded in coming closer to the reality of human life and its forms of expression, it has also tended to pursue issues—existential, hermeneutical or linguistic—which ignore the radical question of the truth about personal existence, about being and about God. Hence we see among the men and women of our time, and not just in some philosophers, attitudes of widespread distrust of the human being's great capacity for knowledge. With a false modesty, people rest content with partial and provisional truths, no longer seeking to ask radical questions about the meaning and ultimate foundation of human, personal and social existence. In short, the hope that philosophy might be able to provide definitive answers to these questions has dwindled. ….
Richard Weaver's concept of "burning bush" imagery, particularly in his book "Ideas Have Consequences," relates to the idea that truth and meaning are often revealed through symbolic, metaphorical, and evocative language rather than just factual statements. Weaver argued that the most effective way to communicate truth is through vivid imagery and symbolic narratives, rather than a direct, bald approach. This aligns with the biblical story of Moses encountering God at the burning bush, where God revealed Himself in a symbolic, fire-and-flame manifestation rather than in a straightforward way.
Elaboration:
• Symbolism and Meaning:
Weaver believed that language, especially religious and cultural language, carries inherent meaning and can reveal deeper truths through symbolism. He felt that the "quest for immediacy" – the idea that the most direct route to truth is the best – often misses the point.
• The Burning Bush as an Example:
The biblical story of Moses and the burning bush is a prime example of Weaver's point. Instead of a simple revelation, God appears in a symbolic, fiery manifestation, demonstrating that truth can be communicated through vivid imagery and symbolic narratives.
• Ideas Have Consequences:
Weaver's book "Ideas Have Consequences" argues that the adoption of certain philosophical ideas, such as nominalism, has had detrimental consequences on Western civilization. He believed that the decline of the West was partly due to the rejection of absolute truth and the rise of a focus on individual interpretations.
• The "Burning Bush" as a Metaphor:
Weaver likely used the "burning bush" as a metaphor for the way truth and meaning are often revealed through symbolic language and imagery. It suggests that the most impactful messages are not always straightforward but require a deeper understanding and appreciation of their symbolism.
Moses invested with miraculous powers
Exodus 4:1-9:
Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”
Then the Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’
‘A staff’, he replied.
The Lord said, ‘Throw it on the ground’.
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Reach out your hand and take it by the tail’. So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ‘This’, said the Lord, ‘is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you’.
Then the Lord said, ‘Put your hand inside your cloak’. So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.
‘Now put it back into your cloak’, he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
Then the Lord said, ‘If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground’.
Moses will now plead his lack of eloquence as a good reason for not confronting Pharaoh.
He, the mildest man on the face of the earth, could burn with hot anger, could even kill, when occasion required it. For the mild Moses had a very keen sense of justice.
But the supposedly taciturn Moses (his own claim) could also be inspired to great eloquence at times.
And what about his reputation, not only for mighty “deeds”, but also for mighty “words” (Acts 7:22)? Well, this could actually refer to his wise writings, Maxims and Instructions, in Egypt, and then, later, the Pentateuch.
Exodus 4:10-13:
Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue’.
The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say’. [Cf. Mohammed’s call: ‘Recite in the name of thy Lord Who created. He created man from a clot of blood. Recite, for thy Lord is Most Beneficent, Who has taught by the pen, taught man that which he knew not’ (96:2-6)].
But Moses said, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else’.
Saint John of the Cross, the Master of Mystical Theology, takes Moses’s reticence as being an indication that he was now experiencing the ‘dark night of the senses’, during which spiritual phenomenon a person has difficulty with speech.
But Moses here claims to have been always like this, slow of speech (cf. Exodus 6:12).
By now, the Lord was tiring of Moses’s protestations (vv. 14-17):
Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, ‘What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”
Help is at hand, because older brother (83, Exodus 7:7)) Aaron is on his way (4:27), and he is an eloquent man, “it will be as if he were your mouth”, a very Egyptian sounding expression. And, indeed, scholars have sorely neglected the pervasive Egyptian element in the Pentateuch, except, say, for professor A.S Yahuda (The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian, Oxford, 1933).
Some key Hebrew figures at this time, e.g. Hur, Phinehas, appear to bear Egyptian, rather than Hebrew, names.
So Moses and his little party set out for Egypt, to wage war upon Pharaoh and upon the harsh gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12): ‘I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt’.
