'You have seen all that the Lord your God did in the land of Egypt before your eyes, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, the great trials which your eyes have seen, those signs and great wonders and the mighty hand. And the Lord has not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.' How then does he say above, 'you have seen the great trials which your eyes have seen,' if the Lord did not give them eyes to see and ears to hear? Except that they saw with the body but did not see with the heart, since there are said to be eyes of the heart also. For this reason he began thence: 'And the Lord your God has not given you a heart to know.' To this pertain the two things that follow:
'and eyes to see and ears to hear,' that is, to understand and to obey. But when he says 'and the Lord your God has not given you,' by no means would he say this in rebuke and reproof unless he wished it to be understood as pertaining also to their own fault, lest anyone should on this account think himself excusable. For at once he shows both that without the help of the Lord God they cannot understand and obey with the eyes of the heart and the ears of the heart, and yet that, if God's help be lacking, man's fault is not on that account excusable, since the judgments of God, though hidden, are nevertheless just. 'And he led you forty years in the wilderness; your garments did not grow old, and your shoes were not worn from your feet;'
'you did not eat bread, you drank neither wine nor strong drink, that you might know that he is the Lord your God.' From this it appears that the Israelites, when they went out of Egypt, could carry among their baggage only so much wine as they might quickly consume. For if they had brought nothing at all with them, whence came that of which it is said, 'the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play'? For this could not be said of water, since the most plain words of Moses himself show that this was not 'the voice of the beginning of war, but the beginning of wine.' 'Is there any man or woman or family or tribe among you whose mind has turned aside from the Lord your God, to go and serve the gods of those nations?'
'Lest there be in you a root springing up above in gall and bitterness; and it come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying: Let holy things be to me, for I walk in the error of my heart—so that the sinner may not destroy together with himself the one who is without sin. God will not be willing to be merciful to him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall be kindled against that man, and there shall cleave to him all the curses of this covenant which are written in this book of the law.' It is thus said, 'Is there any among you?' so that we may understand it as one making inquiry, lest perchance there be. But if there were any such, he terrified him vehemently, lest perchance anyone hearing those curses should say in his heart:
'Let these curses be to me as holy things, for I walk in the error of my heart'—that is: 'Far be it that these things should befall me: let not these be evils to me, but holy things,' that is, propitious and harmless, 'for I walk in the error of my heart,' namely by going after the gods of the nations and serving them as if with impunity. 'It shall not,' he says, 'be so. Let not the sinner destroy together with himself the one who is without sin,' as if to say: Beware lest anyone who thinks such things persuade any of you to the like. 'God will not be willing to be merciful to him,' whether to the one thinking such things or to the one to whom such things have been persuaded, as he himself imagined by saying, 'Let holy things be to me,' and as it were by this means turning aside from himself the force of that curse. 'But then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall be kindled against that man.'
When he supposes that he turns these things aside by saying them in his heart. 'And there shall cleave to him all the curses of this covenant, which are written in this book of the law.' Indeed not all can befall one man; for he cannot die as many times as there are kinds of death here named; but he said 'all' for any whatever, so that he to whom some of those things befall by which he may perish is not immune from all. But as for his saying, 'so that the sinner may not destroy together with himself the one who is without sin,' which the Greek has as anaitios (guiltless), it is not to be taken as though he here called anaitios, that is, without sin, one clean and immune from every sin whatever, but rather one who was without that sin of which he was speaking; as the Lord says in the Gospel:
'If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin.' Not indeed every sin, but this sin, that they did not believe in him. God also says to Abimelech concerning Sarah the wife of Abraham: 'I know that you did this with a clean heart.' He certainly did not wish his heart to be understood as clean in such a way that he was like those of whom it is said, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' but he had a heart clean from that sin which was in question, since, so far as pertained to him, he had not coveted another's wife. 'And the Lord shall purify round about your heart and the heart of your seed, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.' A clear promise of grace;
for God promises that he himself will do what he is wont to command to be done. 'For this commandment which I command you this day is not beyond your measure, nor far from you; it is not in heaven, that you should say—that is, so that you should say—Who shall go up for us into heaven and take it for us, and we hearing it will do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say—that is, so that you should say—Who shall cross over the sea for us and take it for us, and we hearing it will do it? The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands, to do it.' The Apostle says that this is the word of faith, which pertains to the New Testament.
But it may be asked why he called those things commandments above, 'which are written in this book of the law,' unless it be because by all these things spiritual matters pertaining to the New Testament are signified, if they are rightly understood. Likewise it may be asked why, whereas here it is set down, 'Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who shall cross the sea over for us and take it for us,' the Apostle said, 'Or who shall descend into the abyss?' and, expounding this, added, 'that is, to bring Christ back from the dead'; unless it be that he called the whole of this present life 'sea,' which is crossed by death, so that in a manner the sea comes to an end and beyond the sea death itself is named, as it were beyond this life, which is signified by the word 'sea.' Then, as to what is here added:
'and in your hands,' the Apostle says only, 'in your mouth and in your heart.' And this he pursued to the end, saying: 'For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.' Rightly, what was translated from the Hebrew, so far as we could examine it, does not have 'in your hands.' Yet not without reason, I think, was this added by the Seventy translators, except that they wished it to be understood that the hands themselves, by which works are signified, ought also to be received in the heart, where is the faith which works through love. For if the things God commands are done outwardly by the hands and are not done in the heart, no one is so foolish as to think the precepts fulfilled.
Furthermore, if love, which is the fullness of the law, dwells in the heart, even though a man cannot work with the hands of the body, he certainly has peace with men of good will. 'They have sinned, not to him, blameworthy children.' As for what is in the Greek, tekna momēta, some have translated it, as here, 'blameworthy children,' some 'stained children,' some 'faulty children'; wherefore there is no great question, indeed none. But that other point rightly moves us to inquiry: if it is said generally, 'they have sinned, not to him'—since he who sins does not sin against God, that is, does not harm God, but himself—how is it to be understood that in the Psalm it is read, 'Against you only have I sinned,' and in Jeremiah, 'We have sinned against you, O Lord, patience of Israel,' and again in the Psalm:
'Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you,' and whether 'to sin to God' is the same as 'to sin against God.' Whence Eli the priest says, 'If a man sins against God, who shall pray for him?' I will therefore say meanwhile what for the present seems to me. Perhaps those who understand these matters better, or even we ourselves at another time, so far as the Lord shall help, will understand something better. 'To sin against God' is to sin in those things which pertain to the worship of God. For what I have mentioned indicates nothing else; for thus did the sons of Eli sin, to whom their father said this. In the same way it must be judged that men are sinned against who pertain to God; for God is read to have said this to Abimelech concerning Sarah: 'Therefore I spared you, that you should not sin against me.'
But 'to sin to the Lord,' or rather 'to have sinned to the Lord'—unless perhaps somewhere there occur written something that resists this sense—those seem to me to be spoken of not undeservedly who do not perform pious repentance for their sin, so that the forgiving Lord may be glorified. For David, rendering the reason why he had said, 'Against you only have I sinned and done evil in your sight,' subjoined and said, 'that you may be justified in your words and overcome when you are judged': whether when God says, 'Judge between me and my vineyard'; or whether it be understood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone could most truly say:
'For the prince of this world comes and has nothing in me'—that is, nothing of sin worthy of death—'but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do; arise, let us go hence,' as if to say: even though the prince of this world pursues the lightest sins with the punishment of death, in me he has nothing; but 'arise, let us go hence,' that is, that I may suffer, because in that which I suffer I fulfill the will of my Father, I do not pay the penalty of my own sin. And as for what Jeremiah says, 'We have sinned against you, O patience of Israel,' this is certainly said humbly to the Lord in repentance with hope of salvation through pardon; and as for what is said:
'Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you,' this same thing is done, that God by forgiving may be glorified, because great is his mercy over those who confess to him and return to him, who says that he does not will the death of a sinner, so much as that he should turn back and live. Hence David himself also, not only in the Psalm but even when God rebuked him through the prophet, answered not without hope of the Lord's propitiation, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' For, wounded, he seems in a manner to submit himself to the hands of the physician, that he may be healed, that in him the work of medicine may be fulfilled. But in this song the prophet foresaw that there would be some who would so sin, offending God by their great iniquities, that they would not even be willing to do penance and return to God, that they might be healed.
Of whom it is also said elsewhere, 'For they are flesh, a spirit that goes and does not return.' It can also be understood thus: 'they have sinned, not to him,' according to this: that they did not harm him by their sin, but themselves. 'And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before he died. And he said: The Lord came from Sinai, and shone forth to us from Seir; and he hastened from Mount Paran with many thousands of Kadesh, at his right hand angels with him. And he spared his people; and all the sanctified are under your hands, and these are under you. And he received the law from his words, which Moses commanded us, an inheritance for the congregations of Jacob. And there shall be a prince in the beloved, when the princes of the peoples are gathered together with the tribes of Israel.'
This prophecy is not to be passed over carelessly. For it appears that this blessing pertains to the new people, whom the Lord Christ sanctified, from whose person these things are said by Moses, not from the person of Moses himself—as clearly appears in what follows. For if it was said, 'The Lord came from Sinai,' because on Mount Sinai the law was given, what does that which follows mean, 'and shone forth to us from Seir,' since Seir is a mountain of Idumaea where Esau reigned? Then, since Moses blesses the children of Israel with these words, as Scripture has foretold, how does the same say, 'and he received the law from his words, which Moses commanded us'?
Doubtless therefore it is a prophecy, as we have said, foretelling the new people sanctified by the grace of Christ, under the name of the children of Israel because he is the seed of Abraham, that is, they are children of the promise, and its interpretation is 'seeing God.' The Lord therefore who came from Sinai is to be understood as Christ, since Sinai is interpreted 'temptation.' He came therefore from the temptation of the passion, of the cross, of death. 'And he shone forth from Seir.' Seir is interpreted 'hairy,' which signifies the sinner; for thus was Esau born, held in hatred. But since to those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death a light arose, therefore he shone forth from Seir.
At the same time it is also not absurdly understood that it was foretold that from the Gentiles, who are signified by the name Seir—since it is a mountain pertaining to Esau—the grace of Christ would come to the people of Israel. Whence the Apostle says: 'so these also now have not believed in your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy.' They therefore say: 'he shone forth from Seir to us.' 'And he hastened from Mount Paran'—that is, from the fruitful mountain, for so is Paran interpreted, by which the Church is signified—'with many thousands of Kadesh.' And Kadesh is interpreted 'changed' and 'holiness.' Many thousands therefore were changed and sanctified through grace, with whom Christ came to the Israelites who were afterward to be gathered. He continues and says: 'at his right hand angels with him';
this needs no exposition. 'And he spared,' he says, 'his people,' granting the remission of sins. Whence he turns his discourse to him and says: 'and all the sanctified are under your hands, and these are under you'—certainly not those who are proud and wish to establish their own righteousness, but those who acknowledge grace, that they may be subjected to the righteousness of God. 'And he received,' he says, 'the law from his words'; the people certainly, of whom he says, 'and he spared his people.' It received therefore the law from his words, 'which,' he says, 'Moses commanded us'; that is: his people received the law from his words, because from his teaching it understood that very law which Moses commanded us. For he himself says in the Gospel: 'If you believed Moses, you would believe me also;'
'for he wrote of me.' For that people did not receive a law which it did not understand, but it then received it, when it understood from his words, being free of the old veil, turned to the Lord. This he calls 'an inheritance for the congregations of Jacob,' which is to be understood not as earthly but as heavenly, not temporal but eternal. 'And there shall be,' he says, 'a prince in the beloved'; certainly the Lord Jesus shall be prince in the beloved people, 'when the princes of the peoples'—that is, of the Gentiles—'are gathered together with the tribes of Israel,' that what was said above may be fulfilled: 'Rejoice, O Gentiles, together with his people,' because blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved.
When he blessed Joseph, he said among other things: 'the firstborn of the bull, his beauty.' This is not to be read as though he had said, 'the firstborn of the bull,' but: since he is the firstborn, his beauty is that of a bull; and on account of the horns of the cross this is understood as a figure concerning the Lord. BOOK SIX. QUESTIONS ON JESUS SON OF NUN (JOSHUA). QUESTION I. The Lord says to Jesus Son of Nun (Joshua): 'And as I was with Moses, so will I be also with you.' Not only by this testimony but also in Deuteronomy by many proofs it is proved that Moses died as a servant of God and pleasing to God, although in him that vengeance was fulfilled, that he should not enter the land of promise.
From which it is given to understand that the Lord is at times angry even with his good servants in some matter and takes temporal vengeance, and yet holds them in the number of those who are in his house 'vessels useful for honor,' useful to the Lord, to whom he will give the things promised to the saints. There is a question, how, after the Lord had spoken to Joshua son of Nun, exhorting and confirming him and promising that he would be with him, this same Joshua commanded the people through the scribes to prepare provisions, because after three days they were to cross the Jordan—whereas they are found to have crossed the Jordan after many more days. For when he had commanded this to the people, he sent spies into Jericho, since, the Jordan being crossed, that was the nearest city that met them;
but they turned aside to Rahab a harlot woman, and being hidden by her and sought by the king and not at all found, she letting them down through the window and warning them to lie hid for three days in the mountains, four days seem to have been consumed. Thence, after they had reported what had been done concerning them, Joshua set out with the whole people from the place where he was, at dawn. When he had come to the Jordan, he turned aside and stayed; then again the people are admonished that after three days they should prepare to cross the Jordan, the ark of the Lord going before. Hence therefore it is understood that it was a human arrangement which he caused to be announced to the people, that they should prepare provisions as though they were to cross the said river after three days;
for he could, as a man, hope this could be done, if the spies had returned quickly. But since they delayed, it is understood, although Scripture is silent about it, that the rest was fulfilled by divine arrangement, so that Joshua might now begin to be glorified among the people and it might be shown that the Lord was with him, as he had been with Moses. For this too is said to him as he was about to cross the river, as it is written: 'And the Lord said to Joshua: On this day I will begin to exalt you before all the children of Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses so will I be with you also.'
Nor ought it to seem incredible that even those with whom God spoke should have wished to do something out of human arrangement, in which nevertheless they trusted that God was their director, and that their counsels were changed by the providence of him by whom they were governed. For Moses himself certainly, as a man, had thought it should be done that he should hear the causes of the people in such a way that, taking upon himself a burden intolerable both to himself and to them, he could be of no profit; and his arrangement was changed by divine means, this very thing being suggested and advised by his father-in-law, and God approving this admonition. The scribes say to the people:
'When you see the ark of the testimony of the Lord our God, and our priests and the Levites bearing it, set forth from your places and go after it. But let there be a long interval between you and it, of two thousand cubits shall you stand; do not draw near to it, that you may know the way by which you shall go, for you have not gone this way before, from yesterday and the day before.' The ark was commanded to go far in front, that it might be seen by the people. For so great a host, if it went next behind it, would not see it going before, nor know by what way it should follow. And from this deed it is to be understood that that pillar of cloud, which was wont to give the signal for moving the camp and to show the way, had now withdrawn and did not appear to them;
hence it came about that even that three days' period was foretold out of human arrangement. Now therefore, with Joshua as leader, they follow the ark of the Lord, the cloud being withdrawn as though the veil were taken away. Now the Jordan was full up to all its bank, as in the days of the wheat harvest. This seems incredible to our regions. But there, as those who know report, at the beginning of spring is the wheat harvest; and then that river is filled more than during the winter. 'And these stones shall be to you a memorial for the children of Israel forever.' How 'forever,' since heaven and earth shall pass away? Or is it because these stones signify something eternal, although they themselves cannot be eternal? Although what is in the Greek may be:
'until the age,' which in Latin can also be rendered 'even unto the age,' whence it does not follow that 'eternal' is to be understood. 'And the Lord said to Joshua, saying: Command the priests who carry the ark of the covenant of the testimony.' It is usual to say 'ark of the covenant' or 'ark of the testimony'; now it is called 'ark of the covenant of the testimony,' so that not only the ark but the covenant itself might be called 'the covenant of the testimony.' For hence the Apostle says: 'But now the righteousness of God without the law has been made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.' For it had been given as a testimony of some other thing to come, which is called the Old Testament. The Lord said to Joshua:
'Make for yourself knives of sharp stone,' or, as the Greek has it, 'of sharp rock,' 'and sitting, circumcise the children of Israel again.' In this precept it is asked why he said 'again'; for one man was not to be circumcised twice. But because there was one people, circumcised in some, uncircumcised in others, therefore it was said 'again,' so that the circumcised should be circumcised again—not the man, but the people; for the following words also show this. For Scripture says: 'And Joshua made for himself sharp stone knives and circumcised the children of Israel at the place which is called the Hill of Foreskins.' And in this manner Joshua purified round about the children of Israel:
those who at some time had been on the way, and those of those who came out of Egypt who at some time were uncircumcised—all these Joshua circumcised. For Israel had lived forty-two years in the wilderness of Mabdaritis. Therefore many of those warriors who came out of the land of Egypt were uncircumcised, who had been disobedient to the commandments of God, among whom also the Lord had determined for them that they should not see the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey. But in their place he substituted their sons, whom Joshua circumcised, because they had been uncircumcised on the journey. It is clear therefore that not all had been so, but only some.
For some of the sons of those coming out of Egypt were uncircumcised among that people, whom Joshua was able to circumcise: namely the sons of those who begot them in the wilderness and neglected to circumcise them, because they were disobedient to the law of God. And so there is no reason why those who think that those who have the sacrament of Christian baptism ought to be rebaptized should think themselves aided by this testimony of the law, since no one man was circumcised twice in number, but a people which had already been circumcised in some, while in others it was still uncircumcised.
And even if it could in some way happen that God commanded a man to be circumcised twice, could they say that this was commanded because those men had been circumcised by the Egyptians, or by some heretics separated from the fellowship of the Israelites? But since it also sufficiently appears why it was said by God, men can find here no patronage for their error. When Joshua saw a man standing over against him with drawn sword, and, upon his answering, said that he was the prince of the host of the power of the Lord, and prostrate on the ground said, 'What do you command your servant?'—it can be asked whether he prostrated himself to the angel and called him lord, or rather, understanding by whom he had been sent, called that very One the Lord and prostrated himself to him.
Now Joshua was, as it is read, in Jericho—not indeed in the city itself, whose walls had not yet fallen (which was soon to happen, so that they might be able to enter into it), but in the field pertaining to it; for the interpretation which is from the Hebrew has it thus.
In that which came to pass, that Achan of the tribe of Judah stole from the accursed thing of the city of Jericho against the commandment of the Lord, and because of his sin the three thousand who had been sent to Ai turned their backs to the enemy, and thirty-six men were slain of them, and the people being gravely terrified, Joshua with the elders prostrated himself before the Lord, and it was answered him that this had come about because the people had sinned; and God even threatened that he would not be with them unless they took away the accursed thing from among themselves; and he who had done it was pointed out and slain, not alone but with all his own:
it is commonly asked how it is just that vengeance be taken upon others for the sins of another, especially since in the law the Lord said that neither fathers should be punished for the sins of their children nor children for the sins of their fathers. Or was that a precept for men who judge, that they should not punish anyone for another? But God's judgments are not of this kind—he who by his deep and invisible counsel knows to what extent he may also extend the temporal punishment of men and a salutary terror. For nothing dire, as far as pertains to the administration of the whole universe, befalls mortals, since those who are at some time going to die die at some time.
And yet among those who fear such things, it is established as a discipline that each one in the people should not care for himself alone, but that they should apply mutual diligence to one another, and as members of one body and one man be solicitous one for another. Nor yet is it to be believed that even in the punishments inflicted after death one can be damned for another; but that this penalty is inflicted only in those matters which were going to have an end, even if they did not end in that manner. At the same time it is also shown how closely bound together is the very universality in the fellowship of a people, so that individuals are reckoned not in themselves alone, but also as parts in a whole.
Therefore, through the sin of one and the death of a few, the whole people was admonished to seek out, as it were in the whole body, what had been committed. At the same time it was also signified how great an evil would come about if that whole congregation had sinned, when not even one could be so judged that the rest could be secure on his account. But indeed, if Achan had been found and apprehended by someone, and, guilty of that crime, had been brought to the judgment of Joshua, it is by no means to be supposed that a human judge would have punished either for him or with him any other who was in no way bound by the fellowship of his deed.