Orations

⁷ These noble men, suffering from the lapse of time, and feeling a distaste for ordinary food, felt a longing for something more appetising. They did not indeed speak as Israel did, for they were not murmurers like them, in their afflictions in the desert, after the escape from Egypt— that Egypt would have been better for them than the wilderness, in the bountiful supply of its flesh-pots, and other dainties which they had left behind them there, for the brickmaking and the clay seemed nothing to them then in their folly— but in a more pious and faithful manner.

For why, said they, is it incredible that the God of wonders, who bountifully fed in the wilderness his homeless and fugitive people, raining bread upon them, and abounding in quails, nourishing them not only with necessaries, but even with luxuries: that He, Who divided the sea, and stayed the sun, and parted the river, with all the other things that He has done; for under such circumstances the mind is wont to recur to history, and sing the praises of God's many wonders: that He, they went on, should feed us champions of piety with dainties today?

Many animals which have escaped the tables of the rich, have their lairs in these mountains, and many eatable birds fly over our longing heads, any of which can surely be caught at the mere fiat of Your will! At these words, their quarry lay before them, with food come of its own accord, a complete banquet prepared without effort, stags appearing all at once from some place in the hills. How splendid they were! How fat! How ready for the slaughter! It might almost be imagined that they were annoyed at not having been summoned earlier.

Some of them made signs to draw others after them, the rest followed their lead. Who pursued and drove them? No one. What riders? What kind of dogs, what barking, or cry, or young men who had occupied the exits according to the rules of the chase? They were the prisoners of prayer and righteous petition. Who has known such a hunt among men of this, or any day?