But the people had not yet learned to follow in the footsteps of Moses’ greatness. They were still dragged down toward the desires of slavery and inclined toward the pleasures of Egypt. Through this the story shows that human nature is especially prone to this passion and can be led into the sickness by countless paths.
So, like a doctor who uses his skill to stand against a disease that is gaining the upper hand, Moses does not allow it to rule them all the way to death. Their desire for what was wrong gave birth to the serpents, and the serpents’ bites brought deadly poison to those they struck. But Moses, the great giver of the law, made the real serpents powerless by means of an image shaped like a serpent.
It is time to uncover the riddle more clearly. There is one remedy against these evil passions: the purification of our souls through the mystery of devotion to God. At the heart of what we believe in this mystery is looking toward the Passion of the One who suffered for us. That Passion is the Cross. So, as the passage teaches, the person who looks toward the Cross is not harmed by the poison of desire.
To look toward the Cross means to make one’s whole life dead to the world and crucified to it, not yielding to any sin. As the Prophet says, we must nail our own flesh with the fear of God. The nail that restrains the flesh is self-control.
Because desire for what is wrong draws the deadly serpents up from the earth—for every offspring of evil desire is a serpent—the law shows us beforehand what appears on the wood. It is a likeness of a serpent, not a serpent itself, just as the divine Paul says, “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” The true serpent is sin. Whoever goes over to sin takes on the serpent’s nature.
A human being is therefore freed from sin through the One who took on the likeness of sin and became like us who had taken on the serpent’s likeness. Through Him the death caused by the bites is prevented, but the beasts themselves are not destroyed—and by the beasts I mean the desires. For those who look toward the Cross, the evil death of sinners does not take effect, but the desire in the flesh that fights against the spirit has not disappeared completely.
The bites of desire often work even in believers. But the person who looks toward the One raised upon the wood pushes the passion away, using the fear inspired by the commandment like a medicine to disperse the poison. The voice of God plainly teaches that the serpent raised in the desert was a sign of the mystery of the Cross when it says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Sin then advances again along its own road, following one evil step with another. Like a doctor who keeps extending the treatment as the disease advances, the giver of the law keeps pace with the movement of evil. Once the serpent bites had become powerless against those who looked to the serpent’s likeness, you understand the riddle from what has already been said. The enemy, who devises many such attacks against us, then invents another way to sin.
We can see this happening even now in many people. After some have disciplined the passion of desire through a more self-controlled life, they push themselves into the priesthood. Through human maneuvering and attempts to appoint themselves, they violate the order God has established. The one whom the story presents as working evil among human beings leads them into this next stage in sin’s evil sequence.
Once faith in the One raised upon the wood had made the people stronger than the poisonous bites, the earth stopped producing serpents against those ruled by desire. Then the passion of desire withdrew and the disease of pride took its place. Thinking it beneath them to remain in the rank assigned to them, they forced themselves into the priestly office and tried to push aside those whom God had appointed to this ministry. Some were swallowed and disappeared into a chasm, and those who remained above ground were burned by lightning. Through the story, I think, we are taught that the end of pride’s self-exaltation is descent beneath the earth. Starting from this image, someone might fittingly define pride as an ascent that leads downward.
If this meaning seems to run contrary to what most people think, do not be surprised. Most people suppose that pride means being above others. But the truth of the story confirms our definition. If those who raised themselves above others sank down when the earth split open beneath them, no one should object when we define pride as the lowest fall.
Looking to these things, Moses teaches us to be moderate and not to exalt ourselves over our achievements, but always to order our present life well. Just because you have become stronger than pleasures does not excuse you if another kind of passion catches you. Every passion is a fall as long as it remains a passion, and there is no real difference between falls simply because the passions differ. The person who slips on the smooth surface of pleasure has fallen, and the person tripped by pride has also been thrown down. No kind of fall is desirable for anyone with sense. Every fall is equally to be avoided.
So suppose today you see someone who has become free from some part of the sickness of pleasure but eagerly pushes himself into the priesthood. If his aim is to appear above others, understand that you are seeing someone fall from the height of pride.