Numbers 29:12

But now let us see what is the last feast day of God, on which God rejoices in man. "Tabernacles," He says. He rejoices, then, over you when He sees you dwelling in this world in tents, when He sees you not having your mind and purpose fixed and founded upon the earth, nor desiring the things that are earthly, nor reckoning the shadow of this life as your own perpetual possession, but as though set in transit and hastening to that true fatherland of paradise, whence you came forth, and saying: "I am a sojourner and a pilgrim, as all my fathers." For the fathers too dwelt in tents, and Abraham dwelt in little huts, that is, in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. When, therefore, you have been a sojourner and a pilgrim on the earth, and your mind is not fixed and rooted in the desires of earthly things, but you are ready to pass over quickly and ready to stretch yourself always to the things that are before, until you arrive at the land flowing with milk and honey and receive the inheritance of things to come — if, I say, God sees you set in these things, He rejoices in you and will keep a feast day over you. These things indeed in the present; but as for the future, if you wish to consider how the feast days are kept there, lift up your senses a little, if you can, from the earth, and forget for a while these things that are held before your face. Describe to yourself how heaven and earth pass away, and how all this fashion of the world passes away, and a new heaven and a new earth is founded. Remove from your sight even the light of this sun, and give to that world which is to come a sevenfold light of this sun; nay rather, according to the authority of Scripture, give to it the Lord Himself as its light. Set the angels of glory standing by, set the virtues, powers, thrones, dominions, and every name of the most illustrious and heavenly powers, not only that which is named in the present age but also that which is named in the age to come. Among all these, consider and conjecture how the feast days of the Lord may be kept, what festivity there is there, what joys, what magnitude of gladness. For concerning those spiritual festivals of which we spoke above, even though they are great and true, especially when they are kept spiritually in the soul, yet they are in part, not in whole; for just as the Apostle said: "We know in part and we…

All who are to be trained in the higher disciplines regard the labor of the rudiments as burdensome, so long as they do not know what the end and fruit of that discipline is to which they are being introduced. But when, having been led through in order, the perfection of the discipline has been attained, then it will be a delight to have endured the burdens of the rudiments. There are, therefore, also in holy and divine matters certain first rudiments, by which those are introduced who strive toward the perfection of blessedness. This the servant of God clearly indicates in the song of Exodus, saying: "Bringing them in, plant them on the mountain of your inheritance, in your prepared dwelling, which you have prepared, O Lord." Paul the Apostle also, knowing that there are certain first beginnings of instruction, and that then afterward, in the course of time, one comes even to perfection, writing to certain persons said: "For indeed, when you ought already to be teachers by reason of the time, you again need to be taught what are the elements of the beginning of the words of God, and you have become such as have need of milk, not strong food. For everyone who is fed on milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness; for he is a little child. But solid food is for the perfect, who according to their capacity for receiving have their senses trained to the discernment of good or evil." And again elsewhere he recalls that the letter of the law and every writing of this kind are the elements of the world. And so now those things which pertained to those who were being instructed in the first elements seem burdensome to us at first hearing; for when each of the hearers wishes to learn about those things which pertain to salvation, and there is recited to them about the sacrifices of rams and goats and calves, they judge that writings of this kind confer no benefit upon them, so far as concerns the hearing itself. But if there be found anyone who can remove the veil which is placed upon the reading of the Old Testament, and thence search out what are the true sacrifices which purify the people on the festal days, then he will see how wonderful and magnificent are the things which are indicated through these, which by the ignorant are held to be superfluous and superstitious. But these things indeed Paul, and any who are like him, will have come to know more…