Accordingly, you maintain that Moses is better than his God, as the deprecator, nay the averter, of His anger. “For,” said he, “Thou shalt not do this; or else destroy me along with them.”3041
Aaron is importuned, and commands that the earrings of their women be brought together, that they may be thrown into the fire. For the people were about to lose, as a judgment upon themselves, the true ornaments for the ears, the words of God. The wise fire makes for them the molten likeness of a calf, reproaching them with having the heart where they have their treasure also,—in Egypt, to wit, which clothed with sacredness, among the other animals, a certain ox likewise. Therefore the slaughter of three thousand by their nearest relatives, because they had displeased their so very near relative God, solemnly marked both the commencement and the deserts of the trespass. Israel having, as we are told in Numbers,8247
