Commentaria in Judices
Wherefore Procopius says that this victory was granted by God to Jephte not on account of the vow, but that it might be made manifest that the injuries done to Israel by the Ammonites were unjust.
Secondly, others on the contrary hold that this vow of Jephte was pious and holy, because it was made at the impulse of the Holy Ghost. So St. Anselm, Salian here, and St. Augustine and St. Jerome favour it, epistle to Julian, where he says that Jephte offered his virgin daughter, and on that account is placed by the Apostle in the enumeration of the Saints.
They prove it first, because it is said here that the Spirit of God came upon him, which, although it ought to be referred to the fight, yet seems also to be referred to the vow, which was the means, indeed the beginning, of the fight and victory.
Secondly, because Ecclesiasticus, chap. xlvi, and the Apostle, Heb. xi, place Jephte in the Catalogue of Saints, wherefore he does not seem to have sinned here; or certainly if he sinned, he soon repented.
Thirdly, because God seems to have granted him so great a victory through this vow. He therefore held it ratified and acceptable.
Fourthly, because his daughter, offering herself to be immolated to satisfy her father’s vow, is wonderfully praised by the Fathers, and is compared to Isaac.
Fifthly, because this immolation of the daughter was a type of the immolation of the Son of God on the cross, as the Fathers teach: for there was no more express type and figure of it than this daughter immolated by her father for the salvation of Israel. God seems therefore to have willed to give this type, which should foreshadow and presignify the immolation of Christ.
The third opinion is the middle and more probable one, namely that this vow was indeed in itself unlawful and impious, because by it he slew a man, indeed a daughter, to God, which is forbidden by every law of nature, divine and human. Jephte, however, is excused either wholly or in part by ignorance and zeal for religion, because with a simple, candid and pious mind he thought himself bound by this vow to immolate his daughter, since she had met him first. For this age was rude, and ignorant of cases of conscience. And Jephte was a military man; and soldiers think themselves bound by their oaths and vows, even if wrongly made, out of the religion and veneration which they owe to God. So St. Jerome, on chap. vii of Jeremias, near the end, excuses Jephte by invincible ignorance, because the intention of the offerer was good, even if the offering was bad, since in that rude age there was no prophet, nor even high priest, says Abulensis here, Question XLVIII, who knew how to resolve this case. Hear Serarius: Jephte’s deed is extenuated, first, because the worship of the true God had so often and so long collapsed that the opinion, drawn from the errors of the Gentiles, had already prevailed among the Israelites that a sacrifice of this kind was pleasing to God; secondly, he looked at the example of Abraham, and so thought that he rightly imitated him, and perhaps, as St. Augustine indicates, hoped that, if the sacrifice were not pleasing to God, it would be prevented, like that of Abraham, Gen. xxii; thirdly, there was great praise of faith in him also, in that, as the same Augustine notes, however grievous it was to him, he preferred to fulfil his vow rather than yield to his own grief; fourthly, he believed, says the same Augustine, that the soul of a good virgin is well received, or flies to heaven, who had not vowed herself to be immolated, but had not resisted her father’s vow and will, and had followed the judgment of God; fifthly, he was a great lover of the common and public welfare; and therefore feared that, if he did not fulfil his vow, the Lord would be angry and afflict himself and all the people with some calamity; sixthly, it greatly moved him that he had obtained so noble a victory over such fierce and proud enemies immediately after the vow, so that he was surely persuaded that his vow had not displeased God, and therefore that it must now be fulfilled by himself.
Hence Jephte is read to have been reproved by no Prophet or Pontiff, but praised by the Apostle and Ecclesiasticus. Why then should we condemn him?
Moreover St. Augustine, Question XCIX to Orthodotus, says that the devil brought it about that his daughter, congratulating her father on the victory with a harp, should meet him first, to this end, that Jephte, who most dearly loved his only daughter, might violate his vow. But Jephte conquered this temptation, and immolated his vowed daughter to testify his piety towards God, and therefore was inscribed in the Catalogue of Saints.
Wherefore the Fathers recognise in this immolation of Jephte’s daughter great mysteries.
For first, St. Augustine, Question XLIX, says that it signified that God the Father was to be propitiated with human blood.
Secondly, St. Chrysostom, homily On Jephte, tom. I, says that it was here foreshadowed that Christ would offer his daughter, that is the Church, as a virgin to God as a holocaust, especially by the immolation of martyrs in time of persecution. Hear St. Chrysostom: “I think Jephte is our Lord Jesus Christ, victor of the world; who offered his only daughter, the Church itself, in time of persecution to wicked Pontiffs, not of lambs but of wolves, as he himself said: Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. He offered, therefore, the Church by the immolation of martyrs in time of persecution, and one victim was offered to God, that the sacrifice might be acceptable to the Father from the gains of the Only-begotten. The only one offers the one, the bridegroom the bride, the father the daughter. For what can be found stronger than the integrity and virginity of the Church, which conceives in incorruption, brings forth in integrity? She is that virgin who has not known man.”
Anagogically, St. Augustine: It was signified, he says, that we shall pass through the immolation of death to blessed immortality, as Jephte’s daughter passed.
Tropologically, it hinted that each one ought to offer his daughter, that is his soul, to God by mortification of desires and passions, “to be slain in evil things, to be made alive in good things,” says St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine.
35. MY DAUGHTER, THOU HAST DECEIVED ME, AND THOU THYSELF ART DECEIVED.—“Thou hast deceived,” because, since thou art my only one, thou hast by thy meeting taken from me now all hope of her. “Thou hast therefore deceived me,” because thou hast failed my hope. “Thou art deceived,” because thou thoughtest to bring me joy and thyself glory by meeting me as victor; but thou hast now brought forth sadness for me, death for thyself. The Hebrew is: by bending thou hast bent me down, or by humbling thou hast humbled me, and thou wast among those that trouble me. There is a beautiful allusion by metathesis between kara, that is, to humble, and achar, that is, to trouble, as if to say: Thou hast troubled me, because thou hast humbled and prostrated me and my hopes. The Septuagint and the Roman: by trouble thou hast troubled me, and thou wast in my trouble. The Septuagint seem to have read achar in both ways, that is, to trouble; but the Complutensian and the Royal have: thou hast filled me, and hast become a scandal in my eyes. St. Ambrose, book I Offices chap. xii, reads: “Alas! my daughter, thou hast hindered me, thou hast become to me a goad of sorrows.” The same, in his book On Virginity: “Alas! my daughter, thou hast undone me.” FOR I HAVE OPENED MY MOUTH TO THE LORD (vowing that I would immolate to him whoever should first meet me), AND I CAN DO NO OTHER THING,—as if to say: I cannot retract the vow once made, wherefore I must immolate you to God from it, as the one who first met me. Hence it is plain that Jephte did not intend to vow only an animal fit for sacrifice, but also a man, indeed his daughter, if she should meet him first. For so he himself here interprets it. And no one is a better interpreter of his mind and vow than the one who vows. Hence also Jephte is aptly so called, that is, opening, namely opening his mouth to vow, opening, I say, too widely and imprudently.
36. AND SHE ANSWERED HIM: MY FATHER, IF THOU HAST OPENED THY MOUTH TO THE LORD (that is, if thou hast vowed to immolate me to God), DO UNTO ME WHATSOEVER THOU HAST PROMISED, SINCE THE REVENGE AND VICTORY OVER THINE ENEMIES IS GRANTED TO THEE,—See and admire in this daughter the courage, obedience, religion and love of country with which she generously and eagerly offers herself to death and immolation. For she could have replied to her father: I did not vow to immolate myself to God; nor art thou, O father, lord of my life, so that thou canst vow and slay me against my will. I do not wish therefore to die, a young girl, and in the flower of youth I will pass my life; I wish to propagate my stock and thine. Wherefore I annul and dissolve thy vow: and thus she would have freed herself from death, her father from the vow and grief. But she would not, that she might testify her religion towards God, obedience towards her father, charity towards the Republic. She made herself therefore a victim, indeed a holocaust, to God for her father and country. For she feared lest, if she herself refused death, the penalty of the violated vow should fall upon her father and country, and the victory received be turned into disaster. Hear St. Ambrose: “What in distinguished and learned men is full of wonder, is found in a virgin far more magnificent and far more illustrious.” And a little after: “Neither did the weeping of her companions move the maiden, nor did grief bend her, nor groaning delay her, nor did a day pass, nor an hour deceive. She returned to her father as if she were returning to a vow, and by her own will urged on him who hesitated, and made it, by her spontaneous decision, that what was an act of impiety she herself made a sacrifice of piety.”