49.
Contemplation of Phinehas and those slain by him
And this is what I think that amazing
Phinehas is hinting at by means of his zeal. For in striking down both the
Midianite woman and the Israelite man by means of a single blow from his spear,
he showed in a figure that matter along with form, desire along with anger, and
foreign pleasure along with impassioned thinking must be [1201C] completely
expelled form the soul by the force of reason, the high priest. To be sure,
form stands in the same relation to matter as anger does to desire, the approach
of the former endowing the latter with motion, without which it remains inert.
Vitiated thinking stands in the same relation to pleasure, which it naturally
endows with a particular form, since in its own principle of existence it lacks
form and shape. And this is also made clear by the meaning of their names. For the
name of the Midianite woman is Cozbi, which means “my titillation,” and
that of the Israelite is Zimri, which means “my song,” that is, “my
arousal.” For when the rational part of the soul turns away from its concentration
on divine meditation and is aroused by the material titillations of the flesh,
coupling with it in the alcove of sin, then by all means it has need of
the zealous high priest, reason, to slay [1201D] what has coupled in
wickedness, and so to turn aside the impending threat of divine indignation. (Maximus
the Confessor, Ambigua to John: Ambiguum 10, in On Difficulties in the
Church Fathers: The Ambigua, 2 vols. [trans. Nicholas Constas; Dumbarton
Oaks Medieval Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014], 1:335,
337)