“Declare blessed one who is prudent in his words and tries not to say what he might regret. In fact, "one who guards his mouth and tongue keeps himself from trouble." This also agrees with the words of James, "If one does not err in speech, he is a perfect person." But you might ask us, how can he say that one who does not offend in speech is perfect, since the apostle had just said, "We all fall short in many respects"? And Solomon says, "There is no one on earth so just that he does only good and never sins." And the psalmist, "I said with dismay, 'Everyone is false.' " And John the Evangelist, "If we say that we are without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." To which it can be replied that there are different kinds of falling short, since the elect fall short in a different way than reprobates, according to Solomon's testimony: "Because if the just person falls seven times, he gets up, but the impious succumb to disaster." Indeed, if the just individual falls short through the weakness of the flesh or through ignorance, he does not cease to be just, since, as this type of failure is daily and inevitable, so also is the remedy of prayer and good works always at hand. This immediately raises up the just individual who sins, so that he does not end up staining or ruining the wedding garment of charity and faith with the dirt of vice.”

“Someone once said, "Nothing is more wicked than a money-lover." This is the kind of person who puts a price even on himself and goes around as a common enemy of the world, complaining that the earth does not bear gold instead of corn, or fountains instead of streams or mountains instead of stones. He complains about the fruitfulness of the seasons, troubled if everyone receives some common benefits from something. He shuns every means that does not yield a monetary reward, he puts up with anything from which he can scrape together even two farthings. He hates everyone, rich and poor alike. He hates the poor, lest they should come and beg from him. He hates the rich because he does not have what they have. He considers everyone else to have what really should belong to him and thinks that everyone has wronged him, and so he is displeased with everyone. He does not know what it means to have plenty, nor does he have any experience with being satisfied. He is more wretched than anyone, even as the one who is freed from these things and practices self-restraint is the most enviable. For the virtuous individual, even though he might be a servant or a prisoner, is the most happy of all.”

“The last story that is related in the book of Numbers is the one in which the Lord commands Moses "to give orders to the children of Israel," that when "they have entered the holy land" they may know how to take possession of its inheritance and that they should observe the boundaries of their limits in these things. And after this, with the Lord now describing this, it is said, "toward Africa," that is, toward the west, the boundary of that place should be observed, and of that place toward the east, and thus the Lord indicates through the four regions of the sky certain names that the people of God ought to keep in that earthly Judea.Thus one of the more simple hearers will say that here there are things that are necessary and useful even according to the letter, in that no one should go beyond the borders that have been appointed through the Lord's command and one tribe should not dare to violate the boundaries of another. And what will we do when no possibility remains for the Jews, not merely to invade the borders of another nation in these lands but even of possessing them at all? For they have been banished from that land, they are exiles and refugees, and those who now possess and guard the boundaries are not those whom the divine law appointed but those whom they have entrusted the rights of victors. What, I ask, will we do, who read these things in the church? If we read them according to the sense of the Jews, they will seem superfluous to us and pointless. But I am one who reads what is written about Wisdom: "I went out after her as a tracker." I want to go out after her, and since I do not find her in the physical realities, I desire to pursue her tracks and investigate where she is going and to see into which rooms she leads my understanding. For I think that if I am able to follow her with care and to investigate her ways, she will give me some opportunities from the Scriptures to understand how it is, even in these passages we need to explain, if we believe what Paul says in a mystery, that those who serve through the law are serving "the shadow and image of heavenly things." And if, no less in accordance with the judgment of that man, the law, of which this reading that we have in hand is a portion, "contains a shadow of the good things to come," it seems logical and necessary that everything that is described in the law, as it were concerning earthly things, is a shadow of the good things of heaven; and the whole inheritance of that land, which is called the "holy land" and the "good land," is an image of the good things of heaven. These things, as we have said, that are mentioned as good things on earth contain a shadow and an image of these.”