Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Moses, then, is for us a prophet, a lawgiver, a tactician, a general, a statesman, a philosopher. How he was a prophet will be said afterward, when we take up the discussion of prophecy; but the part concerned with tactics would be a part of generalship, and generalship a part of kingship; and again the legislative part would likewise be a part of kingship, as would the judicial. Of kingship, one part is divine, namely that which pertains to God and his holy Son, from whom the goods that come from the earth, and external goods, and complete happiness are supplied; for "ask," it says, "for the great things, and the small shall be added to you." A second kind of kingship, after the pure, rational, and divine administration, is that which employs only the spirited part of the soul for its rule, the kind by which Heracles ruled Argos and Alexander ruled the Macedonians. A third kind aims at one thing only, to conquer and to subdue (whether the victory is turned to a bad or a good end is of no concern to this kind); this the Persians employed when they campaigned against Greece. For of spirited feeling, one part is simply contentious, exercising dominance for the sake of mastery alone, while the other is a love of the noble, when the soul makes right use of its spiritedness toward what is good.
A fourth kind of kingship, worst of all, is that arranged according to the desires, such as that of Sardanapalus and of those who make it their end to gratify their desires as much as possible. Now the instrument of kingship, both of the kind that conquers by virtue and of the kind that conquers by force, is the tactical art, though it differs according to differing nature and matter. In arms and in warlike creatures — through both animate and inanimate instruments — it is soul and mind that do the arranging; but in the passions of the soul, over which we gain mastery by virtue, it is reason that is the arranging power, setting its seal upon self-control and temperance together with holiness, and upon good knowledge together with truth, referring the end to piety toward God. For to those who so employ virtue, it is prudence that arranges, wisdom that arranges divine things, statesmanship that arranges human things, and kingship that arranges the whole together. A king, then, is the ruler according to laws, who possesses the science of ruling those who rule willingly, such as the Lord is, who receives to himself those who believe in him and through him. For God delivered over all things and subjected all things to Christ our king, so that before the name borne by Jesus every knee would bow, of beings in heaven, upon earth, and under the earth, and every tongue would confess Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God his Father.
Generalship is bound up with three kinds — the safe, the daring, and the mixture of these — and each of these is in turn composed of three: either through word, or through deeds, or through both of these together. And all of these things it is possible to accomplish either by persuading or by using force or by acting unjustly in self-defense — within which is comprehended either doing what is just, or lying, or speaking the truth, or even employing some of these together at the same time. All of these things, and how one ought to use each of them, the Greeks received from Moses and were benefited by them. As a type of one example, or perhaps a second, of generalship, I shall make mention. Moses, having led out the people and suspecting that the Egyptians would pursue, abandoned the short and direct road and turned toward the wilderness, and made most of the journey by night. For it was a different economy by which the Hebrews were being trained, through much wilderness and a long time, being accustomed by sober endurance to believe in God alone.
The stratagem of Moses, then, teaches that before dangers one must perceive what is useful and only then make one's move. And indeed what he had suspected came to pass: for the Egyptians pursued on horses and chariots, but perished all the sooner when the sea broke open and drowned them together with their steeds and war-chariots, so that not a single one of them remained alive. After this a pillar of fire followed (for it led before them) and guided the Hebrews by night through trackless country, training and habituating them through toils and travels both to manliness and to endurance, so that the good things of the land might appear all the better after the trial of what seemed terrible, into which land it was leading them by way of pathless country.
Yes, and having routed the enemies who lay encamped before the land, he slew them, attacking them out of the desert and by a rugged road (for such is the excellence of the tactical art); for it was a work of experience and generalship to seize the land of the enemy.
Perceiving this, Miltiades, the general of the Athenians who conquered the Persians in the battle at Marathon, imitated this manner in the following way: he led the Athenians by night, marching through pathless country and eluding the barbarians who were watching him. For Hippias, having deserted the Athenians, had brought the barbarians into Attica and, having seized beforehand the strategic places, kept guard over them because he had knowledge of the country. It was, then, a task to escape Hippias's notice; whence Miltiades reasonably made use of pathless country and of night, and attacking the Persians, whom Datis led, brought the contest to a successful issue along with those whom he himself led.
But also for Thrasybulus, who brought back those who had been exiled from Phyle and who wished to escape notice, a pillar became a guide as he went through the untrodden ways. For Thrasybulus, when the season was moonless and stormy by night, a fire was seen going before them, which conducted them without stumbling and left them near Munychia, where the altar of the Light-bearer now stands. Let our own account, then, gain credence among the Greeks even from this, that it was indeed possible for God the Almighty to make a pillar of fire go before the Hebrews by night, which also guided them on their way. A certain oracular utterance likewise declares: "To the Thebans, joy-giving Dionysus is a pillar" — a phrase drawn from Hebrew history. But Euripides too says in the Antiope: "Within the herdsmen's chambers, a pillar of the Euian god, wreathed with ivy." Now the pillar signifies the unimaged nature of God, and the illuminated pillar, besides signifying the unimaged, also makes clear the fixed and abiding character of God, and his unchanging and unshaped light.
At any rate, before the forms of images had been made exact, the ancients used to set up pillars and venerate these as representations of the god. Thus the author of the Phoronis writes: "Callithoe, keeper of the keys for Olympian, queenly Hera of Argos, who was first to deck the tall pillar of the queen with garlands and woolen fillets." Likewise the author of the Europia notes that at Delphi, Apollo's image took the form of a pillar, writing thus: "So that we might dedicate to the god a tithe and firstfruits, from the sacred foundations and the towering column." Yet Apollo, understood mystically as a negation of the many, is the one God. And so that fire which resembled a pillar, and the fire in the bush, is a symbol of holy light passing over from earth and running back up again to heaven through the wood, through which also the power to see intelligibly has been granted to us.
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