The Lord had granted to Moses that it should be conceded him by His kindness to behold the Jordan and the Promised Land nearer with his own eyes (Deut. 3, v. 25); but, on account of his sin at the rock, this was denied him, and it was only granted that from Mount Abarim he should look upon that land from afar, and so straightway die (there, and Deut. 31, v. 3; Num. 27, v. 12, and following). Then, having heard the hour of his decreed and now impending death, Moses himself answers the Lord (Num. 27, v. 16): “Let the Lord God of the spirits of all flesh provide a man, who may be over this multitude, and may be able to go out and to come in before them, and to lead them out or bring them in — lest the people of the Lord be as sheep without a shepherd.” And the Lord said to him: “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and put thy hand upon him” — [who shall stand] before Eleazar [the priest and all the multitude; and thou shalt give him precepts in the sight of all, and] part of thy glory, that all the synagogue of the children of Israel may hear him. For this, if aught is to be done, Eleazar the Priest shall consult the Lord — “at his word shall [Joshua] go out and go in, himself and all the children of Israel with him, and all the rest of the multitude.” Moses did as the Lord had commanded, &c. The Lord had also said (Deut. 3, v. 28): “Command Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him; for he shall go before this people, and shall divide unto them the land which thou shalt see.” Joshua therefore [was addressed]: Moses said to him at that time, in commanding (Deut. 3, v. 21): “Your eyes have seen what the Lord your God did to these two kings [Og king of Bashan and Sihon king of the Amorites]; so will He do to all the kingdoms to which thou shalt pass over… your God will fight for you.” And (Deut. 31, v. 7): Moses called Joshua, and said to him before all Israel: “Be strengthened, and be valiant; for thou shalt bring this people into the land which the Lord swore to their fathers that He would give them, and thou shalt divide it by lot. And the Lord, who is your leader, He Himself will be with thee; He will not leave nor forsake thee: fear not, neither be afraid.” And again (v. 14) the Lord said to Moses: “Behold, the days of thy death are near: call Joshua, and stand in the tabernacle of testimony, that I may give him a charge.” They went, therefore, Moses and Joshua, and stood in the tabernacle of testimony; and the Lord appeared there in the pillar, in the pillar of cloud, which stood in the entry of the tabernacle. And (v. 19): “Now therefore write for yourselves this canticle, and teach [the children of Israel], that they may hold it by memory and sing it by mouth; and that this song may be unto me for a testimony among the children of Israel.” And (v. 23) He commanded Joshua the son of Nun, and said: “Be strengthened, and be valiant; for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I have promised, and I will be with thee.” And (ch. 32, v. 44): Moses therefore came, and spoke all the words of this canticle in the ears of the people, himself and Joshua the son of Nun.
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This eulogy of the Lord is celebrated not in this place only, but also in the same [book of] Numbers (ch. 16, v. 22). But for the understanding of it, the notions of spirit and flesh must be learned beforehand — which, as they are various, so are they explained variously in various places. But briefly: Spirit sometimes signifies a substance, sometimes an accident. Substance, indeed, [is] either the supreme and uncreated, or the created. The Uncreated is either God absolutely — as John 4[:24], “God is a spirit,” and Seneca (bk. 2, Natural Questions, ch. 45), and likewise the Poet:
In the beginning, the heaven and the earth, and the liquid plains, a Spirit within nourishes. — Aeneid 6.
Or [it is God] specifically — namely, the third Person of the Trinity (John 14; 15; Acts 2:4). The Created [spirit] is either whole [integra], or a part of the whole. The whole is either an Angel — whether good (Ps. 103; Heb. 1) or evil (Matt. 12; 3 Kings, last ch., v. 21) — or air, breeze, and wind (Exod. 15:10; Ps. 10 and 106; Aristotle, On the World; Virgil, eclogue 4; St. Cyril, catech. 16; Philo, book On the Giants). A part is the soul — as “to breathe out the spirit,” “into the hands of the Lord to commend the spirit” (Matt. 27, v. 50; Luke 23:46). An accident [is] either a certain motion of the soul itself, or some habit, or at least a quasi-habit. (For about certain [of these] there is rather much dispute.) That motion is either the first of all, and that on which all the rest depend — namely, life itself (Gen. 7:15; Job 17:1; Ps. 76:4); and this perhaps is that which, by the author of the book On the World (about whom, [see] Muretus, 2 testimonia, bk. 1, ch. 2), is called “the ensouled and generative substance, present in plants and animals, and pervading all things” [ἡ ἐν φυτοῖς καὶ ζώοις καὶ διὰ πάντων διήκουσα ἔμψυχός τε καὶ γόνιμος οὐσία], and “breath” [πνεῦμα] — unless rather Virgil’s “Spirit,” of which [I spoke] a little before, is to be understood. Other motions of souls are either good — like the spirit of prophecy, and all those motions which the Holy Spirit is wont to stir up in us by His grace, as when in it we cry “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8) — or evil, like the spirit of dissension (Judg. 9, v. 23), of fury, of lying, of blasphemy, of fornication [as] in the same St. Cyril (catech.). Habits, or quasi-habits, are likewise both good and evil. Good, like the spirit—
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—of meekness (1 Cor. 4, v. 21), of gentleness (Gal. 6), of grace (Heb. 10, v. 28), of adoption (Rom. 8, v. 15), of humility (Dan. 3, v. 59), of prayers (Zech. 12:10), of wisdom and understanding, and the others which are enumerated in Isaiah (ch. 11, v. 2), are wont to be called the gifts of the Holy Spirit — about which St. Thomas, 1a-2ae, q. 68, a. 4. The evil [ones] are the contraries of these, about which I have touched [in my commentary] on Tobias (3, q. 4; 6, [q.] 6). And to this pertains [the fact] that some observe that also in the Scriptures sometimes the “soul” [anima] is called that part of the soul which is inferior, and in which the perturbations exist; but the “spirit” [is called] the ruling and superior part of the soul, as [in] Heb. 4, v. 12.
Now flesh [caro], too, signifies either a substance or an accident. When it signifies a substance in it — as, about the definition of the Incarnation, at the beginning of the 3rd part [of the Summa], I noted with St. Thomas — [it is] either living or dead. (But only equivocally [ὁμωνύμως] is this called “flesh” in Aristotle, Meteor. 4.) The living [flesh] is attributed to all living things — in which way also, in Pliny (bk. 13, ch. 4; bk. 16, ch. 38), as I noted at q. 2 [on] Tobias 5, “the flesh of trees” is read — or [it is attributed] to animals alone. And this [flesh of animals] is considered either according to their genera and species — as when (Gen. 7:21; Lev. 11; Ecclus. 13:20; ch. 40:8; ch. 44; [Ecclus.] 19; 1 Cor. 15) it is variously laid down: “the flesh of men, of sinners, of birds, of fishes” — or according to the individual animal itself. And then it is regarded either as, within the body of the same animal, it is distinguished from the other parts, or not. If it is distinguished, then by Galen (bk. 10, On Method, and bk. 11, On Simples) a twofold [flesh] is handed down: one properly called “flesh,” and it is threefold — the muscular (namely, of the muscles), the less-villous, and the glandular (and the same [is] the coarser); the other, improperly called, which is termed παρέγχυμα [parenchyma], i.e. an “infusion,” of which sort is the flesh of the heart and of the liver. But sometimes it seems to be taken for the whole body — as when some say that man consists of flesh and soul; when the “flesh of Christ the Lord” is set forth to be eaten (John 6); when “His flesh rests in hope” (Acts 2, v. 26); “the destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor. 5); “no man ever hated his own flesh” (Eph. 5:30); “to remain in the flesh” (Phil. 1:24). But if it is not distinguished from the other parts, it is taken synecdochically for the whole animal; and so sometimes [it means] the very essence of man…
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…nay, most often man himself is called “flesh,” as St. Cyril noted (on John 1, and bk. 1 On the Incarnation, ch. 24), [and] St. Augustine (Enchiridion, ch. 36; bk. 4 On the Trinity, ch. 20; bk. 14, ch. 2). And examples can be read [in] Gen. [6, v. 3]: “My spirit shall not remain in man, because he is flesh”; and there [6:12]: “All flesh had corrupted its way”; Ps. 55 [56, v. 5]: “I will not fear what flesh can do to me”; Ps. 66; Isa. 40 & 49; Rom. 3; elsewhere. But when “flesh” signifies an accident, it usually denotes those propensities, concupiscences, and sins, of which our flesh is either the cause or the occasion. And so in St. Paul, not rarely (Rom. 7, vv. 5, 18, 25; ch. 8, vv. 1, 5, 7, 12, 13; 1 Cor. 15:50; 2 Cor. 10:5; Gal. 3:3; ch. 5, vv. 13, 16, 17, 19; Eph. 2; 3; 11; elsewhere). Since, therefore, both “spirit” and “flesh” are spoken of in so many ways, which sense of all is at last to be reckoned, by which He is named “God of the spirits of all flesh”? And first, indeed, it is certain that God is — of all spirits which are created substances, and of all which are morally good accidents — simply the producer and bestower; but of those which are morally evil accidents, [He is] the producer and bestower only physically; morally, however, insofar as they are evil, only the permitter, and yet the director of them to some good [end]. All these [things] are plain from what is taught in Theology concerning the efficient-causing of all things, the origin of souls, the nature of grace and of good works, [and] the cause of sin. And in this manner Oleaster explains this passage. Secondly, it is certain that, of absolutely all spirits — both of those which are substances, and of those which are accidents, whether good or evil — He is the most wise and most skillful inspector and knower, so that not even the least thing is not most thoroughly seen through by Him (Heb. 4); and so Lyranus. Thirdly, it is certain that He is likewise the Lord of absolutely all, though in one way and another. For over the spirits which are evil accidents He so rules, that He punishes them, converts them to some good, and does not hinder [them] — although He could hinder [them] by [His] infinite [power] in His own [power]. And so Abulensis thinks it is to be understood here. Fourthly, it is also certain that Moses here speaks not of absolutely all spirits, but only of those which are of the flesh; and therefore not of God Himself, not of the Angels, whether good or evil. You will say: in Hebrew He is here called “a spirit to all flesh” [spiritum omni carni]; and even the Angels can be a “spirit” to the flesh, i.e. to man, because, namely, they in a certain way minister to them, guard them, and help them. I answer that often the Hebrew letter lamed indicates not the dative, but also the genitive and other cases, as is plain from the rudiments of the Hebrew tongue; and therefore it was rightly rendered by our translator, “God of the spirits of all flesh”; and it is confirmed, because what is here said “of all flesh” is just the same as “in all flesh,” as is gathered from what is subjoined (v. 18): “a man, in whom is the spirit.” Fifthly, he does not speak of the spirits of brute animals either. Abulensis gives the cause: that they [the brutes] do not have a spirit properly so called in [their] flesh, but [only] men [do]. But if “spirit” extends as widely as “soul,” then, just as those [brutes] have a soul in [their] flesh, so assuredly [they have] a spirit too — and indeed much more than men. For their souls are wholly immersed and cast down into [their] bodies, so that neither they themselves, nor any of their actions, can be severed and called forth from them: [they are] wholly flung into food and fodder, and into the earth, and into pleasure, and wholly [into] motions—
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—of such a kind. The cause, then, could be this in animals: that, because the souls of brutes are so earthy and material, they are less properly called “spirits.” Or rather, because “spirit” in this place signifies not a substance, but an accident — and that (as was said above) of such a kind as is in the soul, and affects it well or ill. For since a little after (v. 18) “the spirit” is said to be “in Joshua,” what, I ask, was that spirit? Was it that which is a substance, or the soul? But that was in all the Israelites who then lived. It was, therefore, an accident of such a kind as was not in all. And therefore I say now, sixthly, that He is here named “God of the spirits of all flesh,” because He is the knower of all man’s affections, of all the inclinations, motions, and habits of the soul — so that it is the same as [what is called], in Acts 1 [v. 24], καρδιογνώστης [“knower of hearts”], [and] what [is called], in Heb. 4:12, “a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart” [κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας]. For this pertains to the [present] purpose: that praise and remembrance of the divine knowledge and most penetrating discernment, whereby [the matter] is treated of choosing someone, out of so great a multitude, who may be the fittest of all for the office of governing — just as by that epithet God was also entreated (Acts 1) when the matter was of the election of St. Matthias into the place of Judas. Next, the name “spirit” is rightly taken thus, as has been shown; and similarly also “of all flesh.” For “all flesh” is used [1] for men alone — Gen. 8 [6:12]: “All flesh had corrupted its way”; Ps. 64 [65, v. 3]: “All flesh shall come to thee”; Isa. 40:5: “[all flesh] shall see the salvation of God”; v. 6, & 1 Pet. 1:24: “all flesh is grass”; [ch.] 49: “all flesh shall know”; Rom. 3: “By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified”; and Deut. 5:26; Ps. 144:21; Eccles. 1:10; ch. 14:18; ch. 39:24: “the works of all flesh are before Him, and there is nothing hidden from His eyes”; ch. 41; and Jer. 12:12; ch. 25:3; Ezech. 20:48; ch. 21:5; Joel 2:28; Acts 2:10; Matt. 24:22; Mark 13:20; Luke 3:6. The Septuagint, however, rendered in both places [Num. 16:22 and 27:16]: ὁ θεὸς πνευμάτων, καὶ πάσης σαρκός — “God of the spirits, and of all flesh.” In the Latin copies of Apoc. 22:6 is read “God of the spirits of the Prophets,” and in very few Greek [copies]; but in most of these [Greek copies], “God of the holy Prophets”; in the Syriac, however, also “God of the very spirit of the Prophets.”