Moses

The basic structure of this story, as detailed in The Life of Moses, charts Moses’s Ascent up the mountain, which is analogous to THE LADDER OF DIVINE ASCENT toward Divinity. This framework reveals the structural dualities inherent in the cosmos and the necessity of purification for the apprehension of true being.

The Pattern of Divine Ascent

The mountain Moses ascends is a map of meanings, delineating the spiritual hierarchy. The physical shape of the mountain, large at the base and narrowing toward a single Summit, represents the necessary movement from multiplicityto unity.

• The Base: This region is associated with the narthex (the church entrance) and symbolises the beginning of the world outside the divine order. It is conceptually identified as the feet of the soul, where the passionate and repetitive parts of the soul are located, manifesting in appetites and desires. The fundamental image describing this lowest state is the garments of skin—the dead animal skins that are foreign to human nature, given to Adam and Eve after The Fall.
• The Summit: This is the highest place, corresponding to the sanctuary and the intellect—the higher part of the soul capable of grasping the nature of things. It is here that Moses encountered God and received the pattern of the Divine Tabernacle, which symbolises Christ Himself as the universal origin and container of all things.
• Movement and Duality: Everything on this map possesses a dual possibility, containing both a light side and a dark side. Movement toward the summit (going up) signifies a better spiritual condition than falling down, regardless of one’s current position. The descent from the mountain also possesses positive significance, such as bringing the law down to the people or bringing the vision of God to the world.

Symbolism of Origin and Education

The beginning of Moses’s life establishes the complexity of identity and the dangers of the exterior world.

• The Male and Female Principles: The Pharaoh’s command to kill all male Hebrew babies while favouring the girls is highly symbolic. The material and passionate disposition to which human nature falls is associated with the female form of life favoured by the Tyrant. Conversely, the austerity and intensity of virtue is symbolised by the male birth, which is hostile to the Tyrant’s rule. The Tyrant, Pharaoh, simultaneously embodies the dark side of the masculine.
• The Two Mothers: Moses had two mothers. His birth mother, who nurtured him, represents the Church and its teaching, analogous to a fruitful womb. His adoptive mother, the Egyptian princess, represents profane philosophy or secular knowledge. This profane education is a womb of barren wisdom and represents the outer world which is our dissipation. The subjugation of the Israelites to Egypt is interpreted as the subjugation of the human person to what is added or exterior to our nature. This exteriority includes the tyranny of the flesh, desires, foreign knowledge, and idolatry.

Purification and Ascetic Removal

The journey demands that the soul be divested of its earthly coverings and attachments.

• Killing the Egyptian: Moses’s initial act of killing the Egyptian overseer who was abusing an Israelite is interpreted as teaching one to stand with virtue against its adversary. This act symbolises the destruction of idolatry and, metaphorically, the killing of the uncircumcised Egyptian, representing the removal of the outer part of our existence or the garment of skin.
• The Foreign Wife and Circumcision: Moses’s marriage to a foreign woman, Zipporah, indicates that profane education can become a companion to a higher way, provided its offspring is purified. Zipporah performs the circumcision of their son. Circumcision is seen as the cutting off of the garments of skin, purifying the offspring from foreign defilement.
• Baptism in the Red Sea: This ritual purification is connected to baptism, where death is removed by death. Moses splitting the waters allowed the Israelites to drown the whole Egyptian person—every form of evil—in the saving baptism, enabling them to emerge dragging along nothing foreign in their subsequent life.
• Removal of Sandals: When Moses approached the burning bush, he was commanded to Take off your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is Holy Ground. The sandals are the equivalent of the dead and Earthly covering of skins. Their removal is necessary to surrender attachment to peripheral things and to ascend to where the light of Truth is seen.

Revelation, Mediation, and Hierarchy

The encounter at the Burning Bush establishes the principles of true existence and the necessity of mediated relationships.

• The [[Burning Bush ]]and the Thorns: Moses saw the flame of God in a thorn bush or Bramble Bush that was not consumed. The thorns symbolise the curse and hostility of creation resulting from the Fall. The light Moses witnessed was the radiance which shines upon humanity through this thorny flesh. The miraculous manifestation of God without consuming the bush indicates the possibility of the Transcendent manifesting in the particular.
• The Knowledge of True Being: By divesting himself of the earthly coverings, Moses attained the knowledge of true being. The definition of Truth is the sure apprehension of real being, achieved by purifying all thought concerning non-being. The Transcendent Essence, which is always the same, immutable, and sufficient unto itself, alone subsists. Created things are dependent beings; apprehending them as isolated or independent from the true being (God) renders them a form of falsehood or an idol.
• Aaron as a Duality: Due to Moses’s faltering speech, God established an intermediary structure, appointing Aaron as Moses's spokesman. Moses was to be as God to Aaron. Aaron, like a guardian angel, was meant to counsel Moses toward ascent. However, this mediation is susceptible to error, as Aaron later constructed the golden calf.
• The Rod and the Serpent: God demonstrated the concept of attention and identity by instructing Moses to cast his rod onto the ground. The Rod represents identity and the vertical. When cast down, it became a serpent, representing change, multiplicity, and chaos. Grasping the serpent by the tail recovered its identity as a rod. This signifies how realities move from multiplicity into unity through proper attention, known as optimal grip. It is also seen as an image of the Incarnation (the serpent) and the Resurrection (re-gathering into the rod).

The Ultimate Transformation

The culmination of the pattern occurs when the elements removed in the ascent are transformed and unified. The pattern of the Tabernacle received at the mountain’s summit is equivalent to the lonely place where Moses encountered God. The outer cover of the Tabernacle is made of animal skins dyed red. These dead skins that were removed during the necessary purification of the ascent are found again, transformed into the materials of worship. The formerly enslaving passions are thus transfigured into the Passion of Christ, where the redness points to blood and the hair/skins to death.

The pattern in the life of Moses, demonstrating the required removal of the garments of skin to approach the divine light shining through the thorny flesh, is akin to a musician shedding the distraction of cheap, popular fame (the tyranny of the flesh and foreign knowledge) to return to the simple, rigorous discipline of their instrument (the rod/identity), only to find that the very limitations and hardship (the thorns of creation) now amplify the transcendent music.