[131] In this way too were sown the seeds of the legislative art which we men enjoy. “There was,” says the Scripture, “a man of the tribe of Levi who took one of the daughters of Levi and had her to wife, and she received in her womb and bore a male child, and seeing that he was goodly they guarded him for three months” (Ex. 2:1, 2).
[132] This is Moses, the mind of purest quality, the truly “goodly,” who, with a wisdom given by divine inspiration, received the art of legislation and prophecy alike, who being of the tribe of Levi both on the father’s and the mother’s side has a double link with truth.
Great indeed is the profession of the founder of this tribe.
[133] He has the courage to say, God and God alone must I honour, not aught of what is below God, neither earth nor sea nor rivers, nor the realm of air, nor the shiftings of the winds and seasons, nor the various kinds of animals and plants, nor the sun nor the moon nor the host of the stars, performing their courses in ranks of ordered harmony, no, nor yet the whole heaven and universe. A great and transcendent soul does such a boast bespeak,
[134] to soar above created being, to pass beyond its boundaries, to hold fast to the Uncreated alone, following the sacred admonitions in which we are told to cling to Him (Deut. 30:20), and therefore to those who thus cling and serve Him without ceasing He gives Himself as portion, and this my affirmation is warranted by the oracle which says, “The Lord Himself is his portion” (Deut. 10:9).
[135] Thus we see the capacity to bear comes to souls by “receiving” rather than by “having in the womb.”
But just as the eyes of the body often see dimly and often clearly, so the distinguishing characteristics which things present sometimes reach the eye of the soul in a blurred and confused, sometimes in a clear and distinct form. When the vision thus presented is indistinct and ill-defined,
[136] it is like the embryo not yet fully formed in the depths of the womb; when it is distinct and definite, it bears a close analogy to the same embryo when fully shaped, with each of its parts inward and outward elaborated, and thus possessed of the form suited to it.
[137] Now there is a law well and suitably enacted to deal with this subject which runs thus: “When two men are fighting if one strikes a woman who has in the womb, and her child comes forth not fully formed, he shall be surely fined: according as the husband of the woman shall lay upon him he shall be fined with a valuation, but if the child be fully formed he shall give life for life” (Ex. 21:22, 23). This was well said, for it is not the same thing to destroy what the mind has made when it is perfect as when it is imperfect, when it is guesswork as when it is apprehended, when it is but a hope as when it is a reality.
[138] Therefore in one the thing in question and the penalty are alike indefinite, in the other there is a specified penalty for a thing perfected. Note however that by “perfected” we do not mean perfected in virtue, but that it has attained perfection in some one of the arts to which no exception can be taken. For the child in this case is the fruit of one who has in the womb, not has received in the womb, one whose attitude is that of self-conceit rather than of modesty. And indeed miscarriage is impossible for her who “has received in the womb,” for it is to be expected that the Sower should bring the plant to its fulness: for her who “has in the womb” it is natural enough; she is the victim of her malady, and there is no physician to help her.