In this very chapter, indeed, not once only, but several times, is the same Moses called “servant of the Lord” — namely, [in] vv. 2, 7, 13, [and] 15; and truly also elsewhere: below, ch. 22, vv. 2, 4, 5; Num. 12:7–8; Deut. last [ch.]; Ps. 104:26; Judith 4:13; 2 Esdras [Neh.] 1:8; ch. 9:14; Malachi 4; and Baruch 1:20. This is done, first indeed — as [was] said in the superior question — [for] Moses’s excellent devotion in the divine worship, [his] most-prompt and most-constant obedience in all things (so far as the weakness of humanity bore [it]) to [God’s] precepts and nods; whence also “faithful in all the house of GOD” (Heb. 3:2 — where St. Augustine, bk. 22 Against Faustus, ch. 69, reads “most faithful”). Secondly, that we may understand how great a praise and glory of men it is, to be, and be called, servants of GOD. We see how greatly some glory, that they are councillors, secretaries, letter-writers, chamberlains, [or] footmen to some King or Prince. Let them be bodyguards, stewards, couriers, grooms, [cloak-]makers, mending-tailors, cobblers, cooks — and, as our Germans are now wont to joke, let them be stove-heaters, or under-heaters. But by how much the Lord is greater, by so much is the servitude itself more honorable and splendid — [even] while remaining, namely, in the same rank of servitude. For it is a greater thing to be councillor to some King than [to be attached] to a mere Count or Noble; a greater thing to be the Emperor’s Chancellor than some [petty] Prince’s. And so of the others. But who is a Lord greater than GOD? Is not He Himself the Lord of Lords, in whose hand [are] the principates, kingdoms, [and] empires of all Princes, Kings, and Emperors — body and soul, life and death? See how narrow, and almost servile, is the dominion of this world’s Lords. They cannot command Angels in anything: no right [is] theirs in the heavens. They cannot say to the Sun: “Burn, shine, cook this or that place, warm [it], make [it] serene.” Over the very clouds, what authority [have] they? They cannot command them: “Come, shade some place with shadow, water [it] with rains — or depart, hinder not the sun’s rays, pour not out showers and storms.” O how they would wish not only to hurl thunders and lightnings at [their] enemies, but to free themselves, when it thunders or lightnings, and surely to protect [themselves]! How much would Augustus and Tiberius have wished to redeem, from these crashes alone, [their] fear and terror? There is none of them all who can do anything more, upward into the air, than perhaps to build some one higher tower — and thence look round about at the birds mocking his empire, while — [doing] what he can in no way [do] — they are borne freely and loosely hither and thither through this sky, flit about, [and] chirp. When the little son of Philip II, King of Spain — [Prince] James [Iacobus] — [was] at a certain window—
(col. 263)
—[the little son of Philip II], suffering I-know-not-what annoyance from the wind, began, with a certain boyish folly and vanity, to say: “To thee, O wind, I command that thou give me no annoyance.” There stood by him then, as page of honor, the Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga, and said: “Your Highness can indeed command men, that they obey; but not the elements. For this is of God alone — whom even Your Highness must needs obey.” O true utterance! O saying most worthy, not so much of a boy as of a great Sage and a great saint — which the great Philip himself, when he had heard [it], praised exceedingly (as all this is related in the Life of that Blessed [Aloysius], part 1, ch. 7, p. 57). But on earth princes have dominion. Certainly on earth, and only [that]: nor even below its outermost surface any deeper than the depth to which they [would] dig a well (into which, however, they would not [wish to] descend) — [so] that their citadels and palaces are no less liable to the tremors of the earth itself than the little huts and hovels of the country-folk. And in that very surface, each one’s little portion is bounded by certain lines, as it were. What the Spaniard should command in France is nothing, nor [what] the Frenchman [in] Spain, nor either of the two in Germany. But upon his own little portion, each one has not the power to make what part he wills dry, [to be] dry; what [part he wills] watered with springs and rivers, [to be] watered; what [he wills] mountainous, [to be] mountainous; what plain, [to be] plain. [Nor can he] bid to arise out of it what trees, crops, herbs, flowers, metals — where and when he wills; [nor] find in it what beasts — wild and tame, fat and lean, for food, for labor, for delight — where and when it shall please [him]. He cannot even command these anything of what he has a mind to; or, if he command [it], he will straightway experience how utterly no empire is his. For let him say to a dog that it plow, [or] to a wolf that it guard the flock, or [say] to a hare met [by chance] that it run into the kitchen — what [will he do] but recognize himself no great lord? But over men he has dominion. Yet not over past or future [men], but present [ones] only. And indeed [in such a way] that, [as to] not even one whole [man], he [the prince] is even the least and vilest of all. “His soul” (says the Lord and our Savior, Luke 12) “he cannot kill.” He cannot compel that one’s will, unwilling and resisting, whither he would; nor effect that [the man] know or not-know, remember or forget, think or not-think whatsoever [things] have pleased him [the prince]; nor [effect] that [the man] fear, [or] hate [as bidden], nor prefer his own liberty to that one’s command, nor [make him] wish rather to preside over him than to be subject. The account [is] equal concerning the body’s members, as to very many matters. He can indeed kill the body, [and] can command that anyone do the things which he knows and can [do]. But not that he move mountains; [nor] that, without sleep, [without] food, and [without] the discharge of some foul [matter] through mucus, spittle, urine, and other filth, he live always healthy [and] never die. And what wonder [is it] that he cannot [do] this in others? He cannot assert himself [to be] utterly immune and safe from death, from disease, from poison, from chance, from ambushes, from all those same inconveniences — nay, from even every bite of a fly or a flea. What [of the fact] that he so needs the labor of servants that without them he can scarcely do anything, scarcely live? — [and] that, to render them obedient to himself, he must almost serve them? For unless he hold [his] subjects and friends by some courtesy of manners, [by] affability of speech, [by] the granting of the things they seek, [by] the largess of wealth and honors — [and] do many [things] otherwise than he would wish — their—
(col. 264)
—[obedience?]… [unless] he obey his [own subjects’] sons, dissemble not a few [things], accommodate himself a little to their wishes, affairs, [and even] his own countenance and manners — how long, I ask, will he have dominion? I know not whether it be said [that] some [have], not ineptly, transferred that sacred word to themselves who command, and interpreted [it] in another sense: [that] they are “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords” — that is, of those who, if it pleases them, obey; [who] rule of themselves, and have dominion by their own judgment. And of our Most Reverend [Archbishop] of Mainz, Wolfgang, a certain [man] who was his secretary is reported to have been wont to say: “Ich muß jetzunder viele Dinge dulden, so ich zuvor nicht geduldet; und noch gute Wort dazu geben” [German: “I must now endure many things which I did not endure before — and give good words for it besides”]. So narrow, indeed, [so] inconstant, maimed, and servile is the power of Lords of this kind. So that it deservedly ought rather to be placed among the greatest praise, to be someone’s [servant] — not of some earthly Lord, King, and Emperor, but of the heavenly, eternal, and greatest [Lord’s] servant. Hence that saying of Martial: “Let him be free, who wishes to be my master.” And, in Euripides, Ion himself [says, in Greek]: κλητὸς δ’ ὁ τόπος μοι… οὐ θνητοῖς, ἀλλ’ ἀθανάτοις… [“…called is the place for me… not for mortals, but for immortals… to toil in ill-starred labors…”]. Josephus (bk. 8, ch. 4): ἀνθρώπῳ δουλεύειν οὐκ ἄξιον… ἀπονώτερον ἢ θεῷ [“to be enslaved to a man is not worthy… [it is] less toilsome [to serve] God”]. And likewise another: “To serve GOD is to reign.” Apollonius praises that [word] of Tiresias to Oedipus in Sophocles: οὐ γάρ τι σοὶ ζῶ δοῦλος, ἀλλὰ Λοξίᾳ — that is, “I live not a slave to thee, but to Apollo [Loxias],” as Philostratus reports (bk. [8], ch. 2). And our own St. Paul — does he not, as it were [his] chief title, prefix to almost all his epistles [that] he is of JESUS CHRIST either an Apostle, or a servant, or both Apostle and servant? (St. Jerome, on Isaiah 56.) So James: “servant of GOD and of our Lord JESUS CHRIST” (ch. 1); and Didymus and Oecumenius note on that place. “Simon Peter, servant and Apostle of JESUS CHRIST” (2 [Peter], ch. 1). “Jude, servant of Jesus Christ.” “The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which GOD gave him to make manifest to his servants… sending by his Angel to his servant John” (ch. 1). And David (Ps. 115): “O Lord, for I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid”; Ps. 118: “I am thy servant; deal [mercifully] with thy servant.” That most choice old man Simeon (Luke, ch. 2): “Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord.” The Most Blessed Virgin — mother of the supreme King, now designated Queen of heaven and earth — “Behold,” she says, “the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1). Constantine the Great rejoiced to be called “servant of God” (Eusebius, oration On the Praises of Constantine). How excellent, therefore, [is] this praise and encomium here [given] to Moses — not by any of men, but by GOD Himself — when He says, “Moses my servant is dead.” Theodoret (in the History of the holy Fathers, ch. 4): “Marcian,” he says, “faithful servant of God. For it suffices to say this, since the Lord has honored even great Moses with this cognomen.” Augustine (bk. 22 Against Faustus, ch. 66): “This Moses, therefore — servant of the living GOD, the true GOD, the supreme GOD, fabricator of heaven and earth (not from another’s [material], but from nothing; [under] no pressing necessity, but by overflowing goodness; not by the suffering of a member of His, but by the power of His word) — this Moses, I say: humble in refusing so great a ministry, submissive in undertaking [it], faithful in keeping [it], strenuous in executing [it]; in ruling the people, faithful and vigilant; in correcting, vehement; in loving, ardent; in enduring, patient: who, for those over whom he presided, interposed himself with GOD when consulting [Him]; oppos[ed]—
(col. 265)
—[interposed himself with God consulting Him;] opposed [himself, interceding] to [God being] angry. This man, therefore — such and so great — far be it from us that we weigh him from the slanderous mouth of Faustus, but [rather] from the plainly truthful mouth of God, who truly knew the man whom He had made: since indeed [He knows] even the sins of men which He Himself did not do — and, as judge, recognizes [them] in those who deny [them], and, as father, pardons [them] in those who confess [them]. From His mouth entirely [do we learn to esteem] Moses His servant; and we both love and admire [him], and, as much as we can, imitate [him] — though we be far inferior to his merits: even [with] no Egyptian either slain or despoiled [by us], [with] no war waged — [things] which he did, some by the disposition of a future defender [i.e., as a born leader], others by the imposed command of God.