Commentaria in Judices
Such tropologically is the devil, says Origen, to whom God delivers men to be vexed, while they are proud against Him, that He may humble, afflict and crush them, until they come to their senses and humble themselves under God. Such also is the Turk and any enemy, says Serarius. Doubly wicked, indeed, is he who neither fears God nor reveres men, who sins against both his soul and his body; who is at once proud and lustful, who makes light of mortal and venial faults. He afflicts us with a twofold evil, who despoils the mind of religion, the body of liberty and its accustomed comforts; who snatches away spiritual and temporal goods, who leads us away from the fear of God, and makes us not serve virtues, who casts us both into the hardships of the present age, and into the eternal torments of the age to come.
Hear Anastasius of Nicaea after Question 92, p. 268: “As cities,” he says, “maintain lictors, that by them they may punish murderers and violators of tombs, and those who commit other crimes of this kind, not praising their offices, but indeed greatly hating them, yet bearing with them for the use of their service: so also the governor of the world allows tyrants to exist as certain lictors, that by them He may take punishment on the impious and wicked. Afterwards, however, He delivers them also to the most exact punishment, since, not as ministering to God, but serving their own wickedness, they did those grievous and intolerable things. So He delivered Israel, when it had sinned, to the cruelty of the Assyrians; but when these did not even recognize the fruit of the punishment, or rather its aim and purpose, then their power also being broken He compelled them to serve others, as the Prophets also teach. From whom Plato, I think, stealing the occasion, says that those who are incurable are chastised for the benefit of others.”
9. AND THEY CRIED TO THE LORD, AND HE RAISED THEM UP A SAVIOUR, AND DELIVERED THEM, OTHONIEL, TO WIT.—It is to be observed, says St. Augustine, Question 17: “That a man too is called a saviour, through whom God saves.” Similar is 4 Kings 13:5: “The Lord,” he says, “gave Israel a saviour.”
He wishes princes to be called “saviours of the Commonwealth.”
The Judges of Israel were therefore saviours, and therefore figures and types of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. Hence in that book, he says, as many as are the princes of the people, so many are the figures. The Judges saved the people in the body, Jesus heals the faithful in the soul; the Judges overthrew tyrants, Jesus the demons oppressing the world. Wherefore the name of Jesus is dreadful to demons, so that on hearing it they flee away. Hear St. Chrysostom, hom. 8 on the Epistle to the Romans: “We have spiritual incantations, the very name of the Lord Jesus Christ; then the power of the cross itself. An incantation of this kind not only drives the dragon from his caves, and so casts him into the fire, but also heals wounds. This is terrible to demons, and salutary against disturbances and sicknesses. With this, therefore, let us adorn ourselves; with this as with a wall let us fortify ourselves.” And Origen, book I Against Celsus: “So great,” he says, “is the power in the name of Jesus against demons, that sometimes, when named by us, it is effectual. This Jesus taught, saying: Many will say to me in that day: In thy name we have cast out devils.” And Theodoret in his epistle to Philemon: “The mention of the name,” he says, “suffices to make the adversary stand in the utmost awe,” etc. Wonderful, but confirmed by many examples, is what our Tyraeus says in his book On Demons, chap. 42, no. 22: “We know,” he says, “that witches and those who have devoted themselves to the devil are commanded and seriously enjoined that if ever they hold nocturnal assemblies they abstain altogether from the name of Jesus, although they have abjured Jesus. We know that suddenly both the devil and the assembled crowd vanished, if ever the name of Jesus slipped out even unintentionally from one of the colleagues,” etc.
Tropologically, those who strive to direct souls into the way of salvation are saviours imitating Jesus the Saviour. Hear Rupert: “If, then, Scripture called those saviours (namely) through whom God temporally delivered Israel, how much more rightly are those called saviours whose labour has co-operated with our Saviour God for our eternal salvation,” etc.
Therefore St. Ignatius, founder of our Society, would not have us called Ignatians, but of the Society of JESUS, that by this name he might stimulate us to procure strenuously the salvation of souls. The Emperor Valentinian, as Vopiscus attests, praised Probus (who afterwards became Emperor) because he was “a man of his name,” namely good and upright. Let us also be men of our name, that as companions of Jesus we may strive to save all. To a young soldier who was called Alexander, Alexander the Great said at the storming of Tyre: “Courageously, fellow-soldier, do a deed worthy of the name you bear,” etc. To this tends what is told of the boy Diadumenus, when he was granted the empire and the name of Antoninus: “I,” he said, “will labour that I may not fall short of the name of the Antonines. For I know that I have taken up the name of Pius, of Marcus, of Verus, whom it is most difficult to satisfy.”
Excellently St. Augustine, tract. 5 on the First Epistle of St. John: “How,” he says, “do you glory in being a Christian? You have the name, and have not the deeds. But if the work follow the name, let anyone call you a pagan, and show yourself by your deeds a Christian: for if by deeds you do not show yourself a Christian, what profit is the name, where the thing is not found?”
Finally hear St. Jerome on Abdias, near the end: “The Rock itself,” he says, “gave to Peter that he should be a rock. The good Shepherd also bestowed on the Apostles the names of shepherds, and whatever is said of Himself, He grants to His servants that they may be so called. So the Saviour Himself willed His Apostles to be saviours of the world.”
THE BROTHER OF CALEB.—See what was said on Josue 15:17. Moreover, Philo the Biblical asserts that Cenez succeeded the dying Josue in the principate, and presided over Israel fifty-seven years, and narrates many wonderful deeds and sayings of his. After Cenez, however, Zebul presided over Israel for twenty-five years, after him Debbora and Barac. But this contradicts Holy Scripture, which after Josue assigns Othoniel as first Judge, Aod as second, Samgar third, Barac fourth. Wherefore this Philo is not Biblical, but a Bibulus of errors and trifles.
10. AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD WAS IN HIM, AND HE JUDGED (that is, vindicated and freed from the oppression of Chusan-rasathaim) ISRAEL.—“The Spirit of the Lord,” that is, fortitude, prudence and above all an impulse to war, and ardour and zeal to vindicate his countrymen into liberty, breathed and inspired by God into Othoniel. For every virtue and quality, whether natural or supernatural, and every grace, both sanctifying and gratuitous, such as military fortitude, is in Scripture called spirit, as Abulensis rightly observes. So the skill of building the tabernacle, given by God to Beseleel, is called spirit, Exod. 31:3. See what was said there. Hence follows: “And he judged Israel,” both by instructing the Israelites in military customs and laws, and rather by taking vengeance on the Mesopotamian enemies and suppressing them. In a similar phrase it is said that the spirit of the Lord clothed Gedeon, that is, that it stirred him up and directed him to the Madianite war. So it is often said that the spirit rushed upon Samson, chap. 14:6 and following, as often as it impelled him to undertake generously works of heroic fortitude. So the spirit of the Lord is said to have leaped upon Saul, when it stirred him up to free the Hebrews from the tyranny of Naas king of Ammon, 1 Kings 11:6.
11. AND THE LAND RESTED FORTY YEARS, AND OTHONIEL DIED.—“Forty years,” that is, until the fortieth year, in which Othoniel, the first prince of Israel after Josue, having fulfilled the office of Judge, died. For the Hebrews often take cardinal numbers for ordinal, as I showed in Canons 1 and 2, and on Exod. 12:40. Add that the land of Israel rested (that is, ceased from battles, as is explained in Josue 14:15) for forty years, because under Othoniel there were few wars; for at first the Hebrews were suppressed by Chusan; then after the victory gained over him by Othoniel they were so raised up and elevated that their enemies were altogether quiet, and did not dare to invade them. So Ribera, book I On the Temple, chap. 1.
Moreover, our Salianus probably conjectures the forty years of Othoniel in command to be so distributed that during the first seventeen of his years, in which the elders of Israel who had survived Josue still lived, he served the true God, thereafter turned aside to worship Baalim and Astaroth for about five years; wherefore, delivered to the king of Mesopotamia, he served him for eight years, namely to the thirtieth year of Othoniel, who in the last ten years of his life overcame him, and restored peace and quiet to Israel. Hence fittingly Othoniel in Hebrew signifies time of God, or my time, God, says Pagninus, and he was a type of Christ the Saviour, says Rupert, who at the time prefixed by God descended into the world by the incarnation, to free and redeem it from Chusan, that is, the Ethiopian, namely the devil, who oppressed it.
12. WHO STRENGTHENED AGAINST THEM EGLON KING OF MOAB.—You will say: Did God, then, stir up Eglon to an unjust war against the Hebrews, to oppress them tyrannically, and consequently to sin and tyranny? I answer: God is said to have stirred up Eglon, Nabuchodonosor, Cyrus, Alexander, etc., to war against the Jews and other nations, because He destined to chastise their crimes by them.