Commentaria in Judices
10. AND HIS CONCUBINE,—that is, a secondary wife.
12. I WILL NOT GO INTO THE CITY OF A STRANGE NATION,—namely Jerusalem, which was then occupied by the Jebusites; for although it was taken by Caleb, Judic. chap. i, verse 8, yet afterwards the Jebusites recovered it. Or rather Caleb indeed took the city Jerusalem, but not the citadel of Sion; for David took this long after. Wherefore the Jebusites, holding the citadel, ruled the city, in which Jews and Jebusites dwelt mingled, namely Benjamites, as is expressly said chap. i, verse 24, and Josue chap. xv, last verse. For this reason, therefore, the Levite here would not pass the night in Jerusalem, lest he should be forced to live among idolatrous Jebusites.
15. AND NO MAN WOULD RECEIVE THEM TO LODGE.—“I lie,” says St. Ambrose, book V of the Hexameron, chap. xvi, “if inhospitality was not the cause of the punishment of the Sodomites;” nay Ezechiel chap. xvi, verse 49: “This,” he says, “was the iniquity of Sodom, pride, fulness of bread and abundance, and the idleness of her and her daughters, and they did not put forth their hand to the needy and the poor.”
16. THE CHILDREN OF JEMINI,—that is the children of Benjamin, for here by apheresis of the first syllable ben he is called Jemini.
18. WE ARE GOING TO THE HOUSE OF GOD,—to the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant in Silo, for the sake of devotion, that there, God being invoked and adored, we may thence return safe home to mount Ephraim.
19. HAVING STRAW AND HAY.—Hence it is clear that in Judea there were then no public inns, but travellers carried their provisions with them, and sought lodging with some friend or fellow citizen, as is still done in Turkey, Tartary, Scythia, etc.
22. SONS OF BELIAL, THAT IS WITHOUT YOUR YOKE,—namely unbridled, impious, wicked men. See what I said of Belial, 2 Corinth. chap. vi, verse 15.
Did this man sin in offering his daughter to the lust of the Gabaonites, and the Levite husband in bringing out his wife to escape sodomy? I answer, that it was lawful for them, when others wished to inflict a graver injury, to offer a lesser to redeem the graver. But the lesser injury was for a daughter or wife to be violated, than for a man, and a guest, by nefarious lust, violating at the same time the right of hospitality, which at that time was most sacred and inviolable: so to one wishing to commit adultery it is lawful to persuade fornication with a harlot, and to one wishing to commit a greater sin to persuade a lesser. For this counsel is prudent and honourable, since the lesser evil is not here persuaded absolutely, but under this condition: if you plainly wish to commit the greater sin, commit rather the lesser; which is the object of this counsel, prudent, and worthy of a man of sense. So St. Chrysostom, homily 97 to the People, and homily 43 on Genesis, to one who is accustomed to swear by God, persuades that he swear rather by his own head. And St. Augustine, book II On Adulterous Marriages chap. xv: “If he is going to do,” he says, “what is not lawful, let him commit adultery rather than homicide,” that is, let him commit the lesser sin rather than the greater; the same teaches St. Ambrose, book I On Abraham, chap. vi; St. Gregory, book XXXII Moral. chap. xx, and expressly Cajetan here; Barth. Fumus, in the Summula of Cases, under the word Tyrant; D. Soto, book VI On Justice, Question I, art. 5; Adrian, quodlibet I, Question 11; St. Thomas, Question On Evil. See Navarrus, chap. xiv, num. 40, at the end. This in general; now in particular.
I answer secondly, that this man seems to have sinned against piety. For this dictates to a father to consult the modesty and good of his daughter rather than of a foreign guest, even if a graver injury has to be inflicted on him; and against justice, if he offered her to be violated against her will and resistance (as is wont to happen); and against charity, if there was in the daughter a danger of consent to venereal pleasure. So Lyranus, Abulensis, Dionysius and Pererius on chap. xix of Genesis, verse 5, where I said the like of Lot offering his daughters to the Sodomites to free his guests. But if there was no danger of consent in the daughter, and she herself had willingly submitted herself to her father, or had even offered herself to avoid so great a crime and to bear this disgrace, there was no sin at all.
Finally, the disturbance of mind, thoughtlessness and want of counsel greatly diminished the guilt of this man.
The Levite is more to be excused, who, to escape an unspeakable injury to himself, offered his wife to outrage, if she consented to this offering of herself (to which she was not obliged). For everyone ought rather to ward off injury from himself, especially so nefarious, than from another, for example from his wife. For charity begins with oneself.
25. WHICH SEEING, HE BROUGHT OUT,—that, enticed by the presence of the object and the woman’s beauty, they might abstain from the man, and ask nothing further, as in fact happened: so Abulensis; and perhaps the inhabitants of Gabaa pretended to seek the man, that the woman whom they desired, and whose wonderful beauty they had seen as she passed through the market, might be offered to them, as Josephus asserts.
This was an enormous crime, which God therefore avenged by the destruction of almost an entire tribe. Whence of it is said Osee chap. ix, verse 9: “They have deeply sinned, as in the days of Gabaa. (The Lord) will remember their iniquity, and will visit their sins.”
29. CUTTING HER INTO TWELVE PARTS AND PIECES, HE SENT THEM INTO ALL THE BORDERS OF ISRAEL,—namely to the twelve tribes, one part to each tribe. This husband did not sin, because he did not cut up his wife to dishonour her body, but rather to restore honour to her by vengeance for so great a crime, which a little after in fact followed: for by this cutting he roused all to revenge. So Abulensis.
This deed and example of the Levite St. Athanasius cites, epist. to the Orthodox; and in like manner, recounting the nefarious crimes of the Arians committed against Catholics, he rouses the same to detest the Arians.
The eleven tribes, making war on the Benjamites to avenge their nefarious lust, are slain by them a second time, and at the third assault at last slay them even to extermination, only six hundred escaping by flight into the wilderness.