When we remain in this peaceful life free from conflict, truth will then shine upon us, illuminating the eyes of the soul with its own radiance. And the truth is God, who appeared to Moses through that ineffable illumination.
If the light that illuminates the prophet’s soul blazes from a thorny bush, that too will help us in what we are seeking. For God is truth, and truth is light. The Gospel also bears witness that these lofty and divine names belong to the God who appeared to us in the flesh. It follows that this way of virtue leads us to the knowledge of the light that descends all the way to human nature. It does not shine from one of the lights among the stars, lest we think its radiance comes from the matter in which it appears. Rather, it shines from an earthly bush and surpasses the heavenly lights with its rays.
Through this we are also taught the mystery concerning the Virgin. The light of the divine nature shone upon human life through birth from her, yet left unharmed the bush from which it blazed. Her virginity did not wither through childbirth.
From that light we also learn what we must do if we are to stand within the rays of truth. No one can run upward to that height where the light of truth is seen while his feet remain bound. First, the dead and earthly covering of skins must be removed from the feet of the soul. That covering was placed upon our nature at the beginning, when disobedience to the divine will left us naked. Once this has happened, the knowledge of truth follows and purifies us from false belief about what has no true being.
This, at least, is how I would define truth: not to be deceived in our understanding of what truly exists. Falsehood is a picture formed in the mind about what is not, as though what does not exist had real existence. Truth, by contrast, is a sure understanding of what truly exists.
After spending a long time quietly reflecting on these higher things, a person will only with difficulty come to understand what truly exists: that which has existence by its own nature. He will also understand what does not truly exist: that which exists only in appearance and has no independent existence of its own.
This, I think, is what the great Moses learned when God appeared to him: nothing else that is grasped by the senses or contemplated by the mind truly exists in itself except the essence that stands above all things and is the cause of all. Everything else depends upon it.
The mind may perceive many other things as existing, but reason finds none of them wholly independent of anything else or able to exist without participation in what truly is. What truly exists is always the same: it neither increases nor decreases and is unmoved by every change, whether toward better or worse. What is worse is wholly foreign to it, and there is nothing better than it. It needs nothing else, it alone is the object of desire, and all things participate in it without diminishing it by their participation. This is what truly and really exists. To understand it is to know the truth.
Moses entered into this understanding then. Now everyone who follows his example can do the same by stripping off the earthly covering and looking toward the light from the bush. That light is the ray that has shone upon us through this thorny flesh and is, as the Gospel says, the true light and the truth. A person who reaches this point becomes capable of helping others toward salvation: he can overthrow the tyranny that rules wickedly and set free everything held in evil slavery. The transformed right hand and the staff changed into a serpent lead the way in these wonders.
These signs, I think, point figuratively to the mystery of the Lord: His divinity appeared to human beings through the flesh, and through this the tyrant is overthrown and those held by him are set free.
What leads me to this understanding is the witness of both prophecy and the Gospel. The Prophet says, “This is the change of the right hand of the Most High.” The divine nature is understood as unchangeable. Yet in condescending to the weakness of human nature, it was changed into our form and appearance.
For in the story, when Moses drew his hand out from his bosom, it took on an unnatural color; when he placed it back inside, it returned to its own natural appearance. The Only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, is Himself the right hand of the Most High.
When He appeared to us from the Father’s bosom, He was changed according to our condition. After wiping away our weaknesses, He returned to His own bosom the hand that had come among us and taken on our color—and the Father is the bosom of the right hand. He did not change the freedom from suffering that belongs to His nature into suffering. Rather, He transformed what is changeable and subject to suffering into freedom from suffering through its sharing in what is unchangeable.