Males from twenty enrolled; Moses and Aaron type Christ; angels guard

of Israel, oversee them in their power; you and Aaron oversee them.’ That therefore the male and most fight-ready, and having gone up unto youth—that is, unto the spiritual good condition and unto a measure of stature of Christ’s fullness—has been set in the divine enrollment, and in God’s book, would become clear also through these things very well; for the male having come to be in a twentieth and still year is numbered for no other reason, as I think, than so that we ourselves also may be able to understand that the strengthless and incomplete unto understanding is cast away and unapproved—which we say belongs to those still altogether young, and not yet come to youth’s measure, which the divine law both knows and defines, that is the twentieth year; yet honorable and in number and known beside God, according to multitude and races and heads, and by name, is what is in peaks and male. For to those thus playing the man, and having come forward unto this measure of mind, it has been said to the holy apostles through Christ, once that ‘Do not rejoice that the demons are subjected to you, but rejoice rather that your names have been written in the heavens’; and again: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for an assarion, and one of them will not fall upon the earth without my Father in the heavens? And of you even the hairs of the head are numbered.’ The precision, I think somewhere, of the care upon them, of saying the hairs themselves are numbered, makes very clear. Therefore in God’s book is what is in peaks and male. And the things of the enrollment were being practiced through both Moses and Aaron, so that through both we may understand the one Christ, as in Moses lawgiver, as in Aaron high priest. For he has become upon us lawgiver together and holy and guileless high priest, and through his mediation is the enrollment of those playing the man and more distinguished unto virtue in divine books. And wise John also was addressing these saying: ‘I write to you, young men, that you are strong, and you have conquered the Evil One.’ Therefore these would be those concerning whom we said just now: that ‘Every male from twenty years and upward, every one going out in power of Israel’; whom that the Creator loving virtue makes through sparing, and counts worth care, you might see, Palladius, also through what is written next. For he said again to those around Moses and Aaron—clearly God—‘And with you will be each according to tribe of each ruler; according to houses of fatherhoods they will be, and these are the names of the men who will stand by with you.’ For each tribe sets over the more famous and most fight-ready as leader, and shield-bearer, and beginner of counsel, and introducer of what must be done, of whom those angels standing over the chosen and laid in the book of life would be unto a type. For it is written concerning every righteous one: ‘An angel of the Lord will encamp round those who fear him, and will deliver them.’ And that we have been saved by angelic helps according to God’s will would become clear from everywhere, and