Numbers 33:1

Unrolling the book still further, [Fabiola] came to the passage in which is given the list of all the halting places by which the people after leaving Egypt made its way to the waters of Jordan. And when she asked me the meaning and reason of each of these, I spoke doubtfully about some, dealt with others in a tone of assurance and in several instances simply confessed my ignorance. Hereupon she began to press me harder still, expostulating with me as though it were a thing unallowable that I should be ignorant of what I did not know, yet at the same time affirming her own unworthiness to understand mysteries so deep.

But lest this kind of exposition, which runs through the meanings of the Hebrew names, should seem to those unacquainted with the properties of that language to be forced and violently wrested out, we will give a comparison also in our own tongue, by which the reasoning of this sequence may become clear. In the schoolroom, where boys take up their first rudiments, some are called "alphabet-learners," others "syllable-learners," others "word-learners," and others are now called "reckoners"; and when we have heard these names, from them we recognize what progress there is in the boys. Likewise also in the liberal studies, when we have heard someone recite a passage, or an address, or a panegyric, or the other exercises in their order, from the name of the exercise we perceive the young man's progress. How then, even through these things which are recorded as the names of places, as it were of exercises, should we not believe that the progress of learners in divine instruction can be indicated? And just as those who linger over each several subject of learning seem, as it were, to make certain resting-places in them, and to advance from one to another and from that one again to yet another, so also here why should not the name of the "stations," and the advance from one to another and from one again to another, be believed to indicate the progress of the mind and to signify the increase of the virtues?

Now names are also assigned to the resting-places. For it did not seem fitting that every place under heaven should be called by the names of mountains or valleys or plains, while that ascent, by which the soul ascends to the kingdom of God, should not have the names of its own resting-places. It has names of resting-places fitted with mystical designations; it has too as its guide not Moses — for he himself did not know where he was going — but the pillar of fire and the cloud, that is, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, just as in another place the prophet says: "the Lord himself was leading them." Such, then, will be the ascent of the blessed soul, when all the Egyptians and Amalekites and all who had assailed it have been drowned; so that, passing on through each and every resting-place — those many, namely, which are said to be with the Father — it may be enlightened yet more, and, coming from one to another, may ever gain greater increases of illumination, until it grow accustomed to endure the gaze of that true light itself, which enlightens every man, and to bear the radiance of the true majesty. But if we return to that second exposition which we mentioned above, and understand the advances of the soul set in this life to be taught through these things — the soul which, converted from a gentile manner of life, follows not so much Moses as the law of God, and not Aaron, but that priest who abides forever — before it comes to perfection, it dwells in the desert, where, namely, it may be trained in the precepts of the Lord and where its faith may be proved through temptations. And there, when it has overcome one temptation and its faith has been proved in it, from thence it comes to another, and passes as it were from one resting-place to another; and there, when it has held fast to the things that have befallen it and has borne them faithfully, it proceeds to another; and thus, through each and every trial of life and faith, the soul's advances are said to have resting-places, in which through each single thing increases of the virtues are sought. And there is fulfilled in these that which is written: "they shall go from strength to strength," until one arrives at the last — nay rather, at the highest — degree of the virtues, and the river of God is crossed and the promised inheritance is received.