Selecta on Deuteronomy

”That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word,” and so on. And again, that the manna was the Word (Logos), even if it is manifested as bread in Exodus. For he says, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the word which the Lord has commanded.” And for this reason, the manna was “fine like white coriander seed, like frost upon the earth”; since the Logos, of which that manna was a symbol, is fine by its own nature, and passes through all intellectual, pure, and most fine spirits. And wisdom is also an intellectual, holy, only-begotten, manifold, fine spirit, and so forth. And it was also like coriander seed in respect to being white. And they say that the entire nature of coriander thoroughly possesses the character of a seed, so that even when the seed of coriander is crushed, its power is not destroyed, as if it were no longer able to be sown. Such is the Logos through and through; and every part of it is by nature cultivated in the beautiful and good (soil), that is, of the soul. And the manna is white. For the Logos is a light and bright, and in this respect white, to the one who understands it and is nourished by it. And it is also like frost; for it is compacted, and in no way soggy, nor dissolved, but firm—which indeed is the Logos of heaven, and declaring to us heavenly things.

”For the Lord your God will bring you into a good and spacious land.” Christ did not promise to give us these temporary things, but the kingdom of heaven, and a good and eternal land, whose rushing stream is Christ, watering it with the streams of wisdom. And the rushing streams go forth through the plains—that is, humble and fruitful men—and through the high mountains, which rise up to heaven because of the height of contemplation. There is the wheat that strengthens the heart of man, and the barley that nourishes the inferior ones. There is Christ, the true vine. There is the oil that makes the heads of the holy ones shine. Likewise, there are pomegranates, bearing sweetness within, but clothed with the austerity of the way of life without. There is the fig tree, not the barren one that boasts only of leaves, but the one rich in the sweetness of the Spirit. There is the desirable sweetness of the Savior’s throat, and the lips of the bride in the Song of Songs dripping honeycomb, and the holy stones rolled upon the earth, unyielding to temptations and imitating the nature of iron. There are the mines of bronze, from which they fashioned the spiritual armor. And the sum of these things is to bless God unceasingly.

​By the same author. It is not, he says, for us to toil with clay and brickmaking and to suffer hardship, but to have stones, and these most durable ones, not easily dissolved, so as to suffice for buildings and to endure for a long time. And he says these things because he wants to turn their mind away from Egypt. For by saying “good,” he showed its fertility, and by “spacious,” its size and breadth. “Where there are rushing streams of waters (this is not in Egypt) and springs of deep abysses”—which is a pre-eminent feature of the land of promise. And he also added, “through the mountains,” which is not present in Egypt, nor does Egypt boast of vines, nor does it have an abundance of oil, whereas the land of promise has all things richly.