In the middle part of the mountain he had a twofold occupation. One spiritual, the other corporal. The spiritual was prayer and meditation on divine things. For [it] is not to be thought [that] they passed those days in leisure and sleep — since even in any other [man] of the common sort that would be most vicious. Nor indeed, had he wished [it], would Moses have allowed [it] — [Moses] who went before him by his own example, and was wholly [given] to prayers and the contemplation of God. Which is why R. Eliezer (ch. 46) says once and again [that] by day he was occupied in mikra, or in the sacred text, but by night in Mishnah — that is, in that explication of the Law which stood not by writing, but by tradition. But when [Joshua] beheld his own master and teacher doing this, would a man so very pious and diligent give himself to idle langor and drowsiness? He knew to what end he had been led thither by Moses; by what preparation of mind [it] was needful [that] the tables of the Law be received, and God’s coming and word taken in. And therefore, together with Moses, he steeped himself beforehand in most religious thoughts, and assiduously offered most fervent prayers to the Lord. For if, on that same mountain, when Moses was about to hear only a few commands of the Lord, he once heard, “Put off the shoe from thy feet, for the place on which thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3, v. 5) — with what diligence and reverence do we suppose he now prepared himself, when he was to receive not a few voices and commands of the Lord only, but the whole description of that Church and commonwealth, the ceremonies of religion and of all the sacred [rites], the patterns of the tabernacle and its vessels, and of the priests, and the forms of their vestments and offices, and, finally, the very tables of the Law inscribed by the hand of God himself? [Moses] who did not draw off from the feet of his mind the shoes of all earthly affections? Who studied to bring into that summit footsteps as clean as possible, and bare of all filth? And this the best Master was teaching the best disciple. And this was one cause why — both before they went higher, and afterward, when they had come to the very peak of the mountain — the Lord willed Moses, for so many days, to be free from all other business and occupation, and, loosed from every care, to act there. For just as vessels, if they are full of water or some other liquor, reject even a supply of the best wine poured over [them], so also minds, filled with cares and other affairs, admit less the divine addresses and the charisms. “No…
(col. 124)
…matter,” says the Latin Sage [Seneca] (book On the Happy Life), “is well handled by a busy man. A preoccupied mind takes in nothing higher, but spits out all things as though forced in.” And therefore also elsewhere (Epistle 18) he says: “Appoint some days on which you may withdraw from your own affairs.” See St. Bernard (Sermon 3 on the Ascension of the Lord), where he treats of the mind of a man thinking on many things. But on the highest ridge of that mountain the exercises flourished much more. And therefore Abulensis (q. 19) and Cajetan hand down [that] Moses was then, as it were, utterly absorbed in perpetual contemplation; and [that] Joshua imitated [him] there is scarcely any cause to doubt. But this, and the other occupation which I was calling corporal, will be able to be understood from the following questions.