Commentaria in Josue
4. AND COMMANDED THEM, SAYING: LAY AN AMBUSH BEHIND THE CITY.—You will say: In verse 12 it is said that Josue set in ambush only five thousand men; how then are thirty thousand given to the ambush here? I answer with Abulensis, that the ambushes in general were of thirty thousand, as is said here, but of these only five thousand were deputed, who, when the men of Hai had gone out of the city to pursue the Hebrews, should enter the city from behind and set it on fire: the remaining twenty-five thousand were destined to join Josue on the flank, when he was now fighting the men of Hai in open battle, and to be a help to the five thousand about to invade the city, if these should be discovered or attacked; hence he commanded them, saying:
AND GO NOT VERY FAR FROM IT, AND BE YE ALL READY,—to defend the ambush of the five thousand, if attacked, or if that is not needed, to fight with me against the men of Hai. Finally, that you may surround the men of Hai on every side, and receive and slay the fugitives, that none escape.
5. AND WHEN THEY SHALL COME OUT AGAINST US, AS WE DID BEFORE (in truth by fleeing), WE WILL FLEE AND TURN OUR BACKS—by feigning flight.
6. TILL THEY PURSUING US BE DRAWN FARTHER FROM THE CITY.—This flight, then, was only material, not formal, as the former had been on account of the slaughter inflicted by the men of Hai. “We will flee,” therefore, that is, as follows, “we will turn our backs,” and run backward, as if frightened and fearing slaughter as before. Wherefore this was a feigning of flight rather than flight. And this stratagem is familiar to soldiers in battles. For they feign flight to draw the enemy out of the city, and having drawn him out, surround and slay him.
St. Augustine asks here whether this feigned flight is lawful? For it seems to be a lie, which is always base and unlawful: for as a lie is made by words, so also by deeds, and then it is called simulation, which is nothing else than a lie in the actions of life, namely when by these one intends to signify something other than he inwardly thinks in mind, as hypocrites do, who feign holiness to deceive others and conciliate their favour. I answer that it is lawful, because, as Cajetan rightly notes, a lie is not so easily committed by deeds as by words: for words are properly instituted to signify the conceptions of the mind, not deeds; hence words have a determinate and precise signification, which if it be contrary to the conception of the mind, is a lie; but deeds often have a wide and indeterminate, nay doubtful and ambiguous signification. Wherefore, even if they seem to be contrary to the conception of the mind, in truth they are not contrary, and therefore do not contain a lie; for example, if Josue had said here in words to the men of Hai: We flee for fear of you, because we fear to be slain by you, he would have lied. Now he did not say this in words, but seemed to say it by deeds, but in truth did not say it. For he fled, that is, retreated, not to signify that he feared the men of Hai and therefore fled, but to draw them out of the city and slay them. This he truly intended, nothing else, and this his material flight, that is retreat, truly signified: he did not lie, therefore, because what he signified by deed, this he intended in heart.
Yet he knew that the men of Hai would interpret this flight of his otherwise, namely that he was fleeing from fear of slaughter, and so could be deceived; but he did not by his deed signify this deception of theirs, nor formally intend it, but only permitted it to happen for his own advantage, that is, that he might take and kill them, deceived by himself. The same happens daily in battles: hence it is the common feeling of soldiers and men that in stratagems of war of this kind there is nothing vicious and no lie, but an ingenious skill for overcoming enemies and securing victory. Wherefore such a flight is not counted by the common estimation of soldiers as flight, but as a feigned flight, and by the deed itself it presents and signifies a feigning, not a true flight. In this flight, therefore, there is no lie, since by common human usage and estimation it indicates and signifies not flight but only the feigning of flight. For soldiers cannot signify a feigned flight otherwise than by feigning to flee; and while they do so they signify what they intend in their heart, and so do not lie, though the enemy, thinking that they truly flee, are mistaken and deceived; but this arises not from the signification of the soldiers but from the suspicion and imprudent, rash judgment of the enemy, whose fault and penalty they must impute to themselves, not to others. Famous is the saying of Plato:
“Enemies are conquered more by skill and art than by strength,” the one of which belongs to the general, the other to the soldiers.
Hear the Emperor Leo in his Tactics, ch. 20, no. 185: “All ambushes have a more violent assault than other attacks; yet those made from the rear are by far the most violent. For if you compare such ambushes, you will find them far better and more effective than those made from the flank.” And no. 8: “Say one thing to the enemy, do another yourself. Do not communicate grave and secret matters to many, but to a few, and those your more faithful friends. For we have said that it is often necessary thus to deceive the enemy.” And no. 53: “In all parts of life, except in war, we enjoin you to be without guile; but there, and in those counsels of a commander, guile Whether one should look for guile or valour in an enemy.
The reason is that here no injustice intervenes, nor is faith pledged to the enemy broken, but the matter is conducted by military cleverness and prudence, whereby the counsels of war are hidden from the enemy, victory is made more certain and secure, and it is gained with less loss of soldiers. Hence Xenophon in the Hipparchicus: “Nothing,” he says, “is more useful in war than stratagems.” Antigonus, asked how enemies were to be attacked, said: “Either by guile or by force; openly or by ambushes.” Lysander said: “If in battles the lion’s skin cannot suffice, the fox’s must certainly be put on.” Ammianus, book 17, relates of King Sapor that “there were some who greatly praised successes in war, whether gained by strength or by ambushes.” Agesilaus in Plutarch: “To deceive enemies in war,” he said, “is not only just and very glorious, but also pleasant and profitable.” Brasidas, a famous commander, in Thucydides, book 5, asserted: “Those stealthy strokes of war have the fairest praise by which enemies are most deceived and friends most helped.” Yet the fight and victory are nobler if the battle is joined in open fight and the enemy overcome. Hence when a certain commander urged Alexander the Great to use the opportunity of night against Darius: “Far be it,” he said, “it is not my way to steal victories.” In the same mind was that Virgilian Turnus, Aeneid book 9, who, detesting the old stratagems of the Greeks and threatening the Trojans with open battles of the Latins, thus declares:
Darkness and idle thefts of the Palladium, the guards of the high citadel slain—let them not fear; nor shall we hide in the blind belly of a horse. In open daylight it is resolved to ring the walls with fire.
Antiochus, having gained a famous victory over the Galatians by ambushes, wept, saying, as Alciati has it, Emblem 134:
As it is a joy to have conquered, so it is a shame to have conquered thus. Let no one, he says, of a lofty mind wish to kill an enemy by stealth.
9. JOSUE STAYED IN THE MIDST OF THE PEOPLE.—Let the king, then, be in the midst of the kingdom, like the centre in a circle, that he may survey, care for, direct and administer all things around alike, as the heart is in the midst of man, and the sun in the midst of the world. See Julius Frontinus in the four books he wrote On the Examples of Stratagems; in book 2, chapter 5, he recounts many examples of ambushes. Take a few out of many. Tomyris, queen of the Scythians, by feigned fear drew Cyrus, leader of the Persians, who was fighting on equal terms, into straits known to her soldiers, and there, suddenly turning her column, overcame him by the help of the nature of the place. The Egyptians, about to join battle in fields where marshes were joined, covered them over with seaweed, and having begun the battle and feigning flight, drew the enemy into an ambush; they, borne on too rapidly over unknown ground, stuck in the mud and were surrounded.