Augustine of Hippo

In his own words on Numbers

• Numbers 11:4

  The people in the desert deserved to be reprimanded, not because they desired meat but because they murmured against the Lord as a result of this desire for meat.

  Confessions 10.31.46

• Numbers 11:4

  Do we not see that the Israelites got to their own hurt what their guilty lusting craved? For while manna was raining down on them from heaven, they desired to have meat to eat. They disdained what they had, and they shamelessly sought what they had not, as if it were not better for them to have asked not that their unbecoming desires be gratified with food that was wanting, but that their own dislike be removed, and that they be made to receive rightly the food that was provided. For when evil becomes our delight and good the opposite, we ought to entreat God to win us back to the love of the good rather than to grant us the evil.

  TRACTATE ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 73.2

• Numbers 11:17

  The same meaning is to be understood in the case of Moses when the Lord said to him, "I will take of your spirit and give to them," that is, I will give to them of the Holy Spirit which I have already given to you. If that which is also given has the giver for its principle, because it did not receive from any other source than that which proceeds from him, then we have to confess that the Father and the Son are the principle of the Holy Spirit, not two principles. But as the Father and the Son are one God, and in relation to the creature are one Creator and one Lord, so they are one principle in relation to the Holy Spirit. But in relation to the creature, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one principle, as they are one Creator and one Lord.

  THE TRINITY 5.14.15

• Numbers 11:33

  To some, indeed, who lack patience, the Lord God in his wrath grants them what they ask, just as in his mercy, on the other hand, he refused it to his apostle. We read what and how the Israelites asked and received, but when their lust had been satisfied, their lack of patience was severely punished.

  LETTER 130

• Numbers 12:8

  As I started to say, it is shown later in the book of Numbers that even what he asked was granted to his desire, for thereby the Lord rebuked the sister of Moses for her obstinacy. The Lord appeared to the other prophets in visions and dreams but to Moses plainly and not by riddles. He added the words "And he saw the glory of the Lord." Why then did God make such an exception of him, if not perhaps that he considered him such a ruler of his people, so faithful a minister of his whole house, that he was worthy, even then, of that contemplation, so that, as he desired, he saw God as he is—a contemplation promised to all his sons at the end of life?

  LETTER 147.32

• Numbers 14:29

  Of such inflexibility were those youths of twenty years, who foretokened in figure God's new people; they entered the land of promise; they, it is said, turned neither to the right hand nor to the left. Now this age of twenty is not to be compared with the age of children's innocence, but if I mistake not, this number is the shadow and echo of a mystery. For the Old Testament has its excellence in the five books of Moses, while the New Testament is most refulgent in the authority of the four Gospels. These numbers, when multiplied together, reach to the number twenty: four times five, or five times four, are twenty. Such a people (as I have already said), instructed in the kingdom of heaven by the two Testaments—the Old and the New—turning neither to the right hand, in a proud assumption of righteousness, nor to the left hand, in a reckless delight in sin, shall enter into the land of promise. [There] we shall have no longer either to pray that sins may be forgiven to us or to fear that they may be punished in us. [We have] been freed from them all by that Redeemer, who, not being "sold under sin," "has redeemed Israel out of all his iniquities," whether committed in the actual life or derived from the original transgression.

  ON THE MERITS AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND ON INFANT BAPTISM 2.35.57

• Numbers 16:32

  Then there were the miracles of the seditious among the people of God. They separated themselves from the divinely ordered community. They were swallowed alive by the earth, as a visible token of an invisible punishment.

  City of God 10.8

• Numbers 18:20

  For all this people had twelve tribes after the number of the twelve sons of Jacob. What we call tribes are as it were distinct houses and congregations of people. This people, I say, had twelve tribes, out of which twelve tribes one tribe was Judah, out of which came the kings. There was another tribe, Levi, out of which came the priests. To the priests serving the temple no land was allotted. So it was necessary that among twelve tribes all the land of promise should be shared. Having separated one tribe of higher dignity, the tribe of Levi, which was of the priests, there would have remained eleven, unless by the adoption of the two sons of Joseph the number twelve were completed.

  EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 76:1

• Numbers 20:11

  We recognize that we are taking a trip in a wasteland. If we recognize ourselves in a wasteland, we are in a wasteland. What does it mean, in a wasteland? In a desert. Why in a desert? Because in this world, one thirsts on a waterless road. But let us thirst that we may be filled. For "blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice; for they shall have their fill." And our thirst is filled from a rock in the wasteland. For "the rock was Christ." And it was struck with a rod that water might flow. But that it might flow, it was struck twice; for there are the two pieces of wood on the cross.

  TRACTATE ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 28.9.4

• Numbers 20:11

  The rock is Christ in a sign, the true Christ in the Word and in the flesh. And how did they drink? The rock was struck twice with a rod. The double striking prefigures the two pieces of wood on the cross.

  TRACTATE ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 26.12.2

• Numbers 21:9

  To be made whole of a serpent is a great sacrament. What is it to be made whole of a serpent by looking upon a serpent? It is to be made whole of death by believing in one dead. And nevertheless Moses feared and fled. What is it that Moses fled from that serpent? What, brethren, save that which we know to have been done in the gospel? Christ died, and the disciples feared and withdrew from that hope wherein they had been.

  EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 74:4

• Numbers 31:18

  The same angel, however, said to the Virgin Mary, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you"; the one who will be in you is already with you. "Blessed are you among women." Holy Scripture bears witness to the fact that in the proper usage of the Hebrew language all females are habitually called women; in case some of you perhaps may be astonished and scandalized, if you are not used to hearing the Scriptures. There's a place in the Scriptures where the Lord says openly, "Set apart the women who have not known man." In any case, call to mind those origins of ours; when Eve was made from the man's side, what does Scripture say? "He removed a rib from him and built it into a woman." She is already called a woman, taken indeed from the man but not yet united to the man. So now, when you hear from the angel, "Blessed are you among women," take it in such a way, as if it were saying, in our usage, Blessed are you among females.

  SERMON 291.4