Commentaria in Numeros
In the twenty-fifth year of his reign the impure Anastasius, hearing that the Bishop of Oeniandus was very eloquent, and one who stopped the mouths of all the upholders of the opinion concerning a suffering God, exhorted him to desert to his party, promising that he should at once receive whatever he asked. To whom the Bishop said: “Do thou rather pass over to the Orthodox, lest, while thou embracest the opinions of the impious men Severus, Eutyches and Dioscorus, thou be consigned to eternal fire”; and at the same time, seizing the Emperor’s cloak: “This garment, O Emperor,” he said, “will by no means follow thee after death; but piety alone will accompany thee, and the habit of the virtues. Let the Church alone, which Christ redeemed with his blood. Thou art unlearned, and ignorant of reasoning, nor dost thou perfectly understand any decree of the Church; thou terrifiest the foolish only with impostures and scurrilous calumnies. Let it be enough for thee in dignity that thou art emperor: forbear to vex the prelates of the Church.” At this the Emperor, suffused with shame, was silent. But that Bishop, being very poor, would not accept even an obol from the Emperor, so free was he, and regarding only faith and piety toward God; so relates Zonaras, book III of the Annals.
Leontius, Bishop of Tripolis in Lydia, a Mysian by nation, was of a free spirit and outspoken. At one time, a Council having been called, when Eusebia, the wife of Constantius, puffed up with pride, was being adored by the Bishops, he alone, spurning that adulation, stayed at home. She, irritated and inflamed in mind, sent to expostulate with him, enticing the man also with promises: that she would build him a very great church and supply abundant money, if he would come to see her. To whom he answered in this manner: “If, Empress, thou wilt carry out any of these things, know that thou wilt thereby do a favour not so much to me as to thy own soul; but if thou wilt have me come to thee, the reverence due to Bishops being preserved, I will come in; but thou, descending at once from that lofty throne, shalt come reverently to meet me, and put thy head under my hands to receive a blessing; and then I shall sit, and thou shalt stand modestly by, to sit down when I command by a sign. If these conditions, I say, please thee, I will come to thee; but if in any other way, thou wilt not give so much, nor be able to give so great things, as to make us neglect the honour proper to Bishops and violate the divine institution of the priesthood.” When these words were reported, the woman blazed with anger, thinking the answer of Leontius not to be borne, and, vehemently moved, and complaining much, and threatening much with womanish bile and light wit, laid the matter before her husband, and incited him to take punishment of him. But he rather praised the free spirit of Leontius, and, his anger being appeased, sent his wife away to the women’s quarters. So Suidas, History, under Leontius, p. 526.
Verse 26. “Depart from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be involved in their sins” (that is, in the punishments of the sinners). Whence in Hebrew it is: “Lest ye be consumed in their sins.” See how much God wishes the company of sinners to be avoided, and how noxious and contagious sin is.
Verse 27. “Dathan and Abiron coming out stood in the entry of their pavilions with their wives and children, and all their train,” namely of servants and handmaids, and their little ones. For these little ones the Hebrew taph properly signifies, which the Septuagint, however, as is their custom, render furniture.
Verse 28. “In this you shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all things,” which, namely, in bringing you out of Egypt, and in my whole leadership, and especially in the choice of Aaron and his sons as priests, I have done.
Verse 29. “A plague wherewith others also are wont to be visited,” which God is wont to inflict on the Jews, namely pestilence, sword, famine, etc.
Verse 30. “But if the Lord do a new thing (in Hebrew, if the Lord create a creature, that is, create a new plague), that the earth opening her mouth,” her gaping; for “mouth” here is so called metaphorically. Ridiculous and silly, therefore, are the Hebrews who fable from this place that the earth has properly a hidden mouth, and that it was created by God on the seventh day of the world, namely on the sabbath at sunset: for on the sabbath God rested from all work, as Scripture teaches, Genesis ii. “Swallow them down, and all things that belong to them, etc., you shall know that they have blasphemed the Lord.” Why? For they calumniated the work of God, namely the priesthood of Aaron, and ascribed it not to God, but to Moses and his iniquitous and unjust favour; and this is to blaspheme: for it was a great injury and affront to God. For blasphemy is when the work of God is ascribed to the devil or to man, as is plain from Matthew xii, 31. So Abulensis.
Verses 31 and 32. “Immediately as he had made an end of speaking, the earth broke asunder under their feet, and opening her mouth devoured them with their tents and all their substance.” Note: At the time when the 250 chiefs, who were the associates of Core in this sedition, offered incense in the tabernacle, and were there struck by God with fire, at that same time Dathan, Abiron, Hon and Core, the leaders of the rebellion, unwilling to go to Moses and the tabernacle, were swallowed up by the earth at home with their tents and all their family.
For that Core did not perish by fire with the 250 in the tabernacle, but stayed at home, and was there swallowed up by the earth, is plain from this verse and verse 27 in the Hebrew, where it is expressly said that Core with his substance was swallowed up by the earth: the same is gathered from verse 24, where Moses commands the people to withdraw from the tabernacle of Core, because, namely, he himself was just about to be swallowed up by the earth; the same is expressly said in chap. xxvi, verse 10.
Note here the punishment of ambition, rebellion, disobedience and murmuring. For not only these four leaders, but also their wives, children, servants, handmaids and whole house, with all their goods, were swallowed up by the earth, and that to the detestation of so great a crime, and to strike terror into the people: just as in the crime of treason the houses of the guilty are utterly destroyed. For these rebels were blasphemers, guilty of treason against the divine majesty. Hence it seems that these wives, children and servants consented with their rebellious masters, coveting this honour of the priesthood for their masters, and consequently for themselves and their family: if any did not consent, these perished because they did not withdraw from their tents, as the Lord had commanded, verse 24. Their little ones also, though innocent, were swallowed up, because little children are the possession of their parents, says Aristotle, Ethics, book V: by the death of the little ones, therefore, the parents were punished. For God is lord of the life and death of all, and rather did good to the little ones themselves by this death. For it is likely that they were expiated from original sin by the remedy of the law of nature, and so saved, who, had they lived longer, would perhaps have followed their fathers, or even turned out worse than their parents.
Except here the sons of Core, of whom it is said in chap. xxvi, verse 10: “And there was a great miracle that when Core perished, his sons did not perish,” because, namely, these sons of Core did not consent to the rebellion of their father: whence God brought it about by a miracle that, when Core with his tent was swallowed up, his sons were not swallowed up, but hung suspended in the air until the earth, swallowing the tent of Core, closed again under their feet and shut the gap. Whence in chap. xxvi, verse 58, the family of Core, as a survivor, is numbered among the Levites; and these sons of Core were afterwards held holy among the Levites, and either composed or sang many psalms, which are still inscribed with their name, namely “for the sons of Core,” as is plain from Psalms xli, xliii, lxxxiv and lxxxvi, and 1 Paralipomenon xxvi, verse 1.
“Substance.” In Hebrew rechush, which signifies any riches: whence Vatablus derives the French richesses from the Hebrew rechush.
Verse 33. “And they went down alive into hell,” properly so called; for Abulensis wrongly takes hell as the sepulchre. Think what was the cry and lamentation of those descending, as they were swallowed up, by which all the people, struck with terror, fled from them, as is said in verse 34.