Three causes are brought forward. First: here, from the text — because the Israelites ate of the land’s crops; where—
(col. 622 — right column; printed “624” — misprint for 629)
—someone will perhaps suspect [that], by eating, they sinned, and therefore this so noble food [was] withdrawn from them. But [it] is not so. For [it] was fittingly — and, as [it] is to be reckoned, by the counsel and will of Joshua [their] leader — [that they] betook themselves to those [foods] which the land itself would furnish to them, as will be understood from the following cause, and likewise from this: that from Scripture [they] are nowhere accused by this name [of that fault]. Even if perhaps the appetite of certain [ones] was more vehement, and the gullet more unbridled — since we see [that], among their parents, the celestial food was, before the vilest and filthiest onions, leeks, and other [things], a disgust (Num. 11 v. 5 & 6). The second cause, therefore, is: the present abundance of bread, which nature and human industry would furnish. For when, on account of the long-lasting wanderings in the most desert solitudes, the extreme want of it [bread] had pressed them, the Lord deigned to feed them by a miracle (Exod. 16), and to continue that even in the trans-Jordan regions — either because so great an abundance was not at hand as could be enough for so great a multitude, or certainly because [he] wished, for those still placed on the journey, the care of food to be lighter and easier. But now, when [they] had arrived at the goals of the journey, and all would be most-laden with the grain of the field, [it] was fair that the supernatural subsidy should cease, where the natural [one] was so much present. See quaest. 59, Abulensis (ch. 2 & 60). The third [cause] is a certain signification, which (homily 6) Origen pursues, and more clearly Rupert (bk. 1, ch. 17), in these words: “The Manna — by which in the desert of the present age we are fed, until we arrive at the blessed fatherland, where in the sight or presence of God we shall feast, and shall exult, and shall be delighted in gladness — is the word of God, [is] Holy Scripture. Which, briefly hinting, Moses, when [he] had said, ‘The Lord afflicted thee [with] want, and gave to thee for food the manna, which thou knewest not, [nor] thy fathers,’ continually subjoined: ‘that [he] might show to thee that man lives not on bread alone, but in every word which proceeds from the mouth of God.’ This manna [is] this bread of the Angels; that man might eat [it], once indeed did God open the gates of heaven, that into our land [he] might send it made flesh, and might make edible — [that food] hitherto usual to the angels alone — for us too, little ones and almost incapable-of-eating. Whence also [he] says: ‘I am the living bread, who descended from heaven,’ etc. But moreover, as often as the Holy Spirit opens the mouths of the Apostles and Prophets, or even of the [teaching] doctors, for preaching the word of salvation, [and] for revealing the mysteries of the scriptures — the Lord opens the gates of heaven, and rains on us manna to eat. As long as through this desert of this age we advance, as long as through faith and not through sight we walk, [we] namely need these foods. We are fed by reading with the mind, or by hearing the word of God; and we are fed also by eating with the mouth, from the Lord’s table, the bread of eternal life, and by drinking the cup of perpetual salvation. But when we shall have come to that land of the living, into that blessed Zion, where in his own species shall be seen the God of gods, [we shall] neither need the word of doctrine, nor [feed] in those species of bread and wine, but in [his] proper substance, seeing, shall eat the bread of angels. Therefore, ‘after they ate the fruits of the land, the manna ceased’ — because, namely, ‘after that which is perfect shall have come, that which is in part shall be done away.’”
(col. 623 — left column; printed “630”)