After this Moses led the people through the territories of foreign nations. He solemnly promised that they would pass without touching their fields or vineyards and would keep to the king’s highway, turning neither to the right nor to the left. When their enemies would not make peace even on these terms, Moses defeated them in battle and secured passage.
Then a man named Balak, ruler of a larger nation—the people are called Midianites in the account—was terrified by what had happened to the peoples destroyed before him. Expecting that the Israelites would soon do the same to him, he sought an ally. He sought no help from weapons or soldiers. Instead, he turned to elaborate magic through a man named Balaam. Balaam was skilled in such things and was believed by those who employed him to possess power for them. His art was divination by omens, and through some cooperation with demons he was dangerous, using an occult power to inflict irreparable harm on people.
As Balaam followed those who were taking him to the king, the voice of his donkey taught him that the journey would not go well for him. Then, after a vision showed him what he should do, he discovered that his harmful magic was too weak to injure those whom God was helping. Instead of being acted upon by demons, he became inspired by God and spoke words that were plainly a prophecy of the better things that would come later. The same power that prevented him from using his art for evil made him aware of divine power. He then abandoned divination and spoke as a prophet of the divine will.
After this the foreign nation was crushed, because Israel had become stronger in war. Then their sexual immorality with the captive women was also overcome. Phinehas drove a single blow through the couple joined in a shameful union, and God’s anger against those who had raged after unlawful unions came to an end.
Then Moses climbed a high mountain and looked from a distance over the land that had been prepared for Israel through God’s promise to the fathers. There he departed from human life, leaving on earth no sign and no tomb as a memorial of his death.
Time had done no harm to his beauty. It had neither dimmed the brightness of his eyes nor dulled the grace that shone from his face. He remained always the same, preserving an unchanging beauty within a nature that is itself subject to change.
These, then, are the events we have learned from the plain account of the man’s life, and we have related them to you in summary, though the subject sometimes required our discussion to expand. Now it is time to apply the life we have recalled to the purpose of our argument, so that what has been said may contribute to our own life of virtue. Let us therefore return to the beginning of his story.