Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Psalm 27, 4, calling Dagon an idol of Venus: “The Philistines,” he says, “put the ark of the Lord by the idol of Venus, Dagon; so wicked priests, when they put the Son of the Virgin by the son of Venus on the altar.” How atrociously therefore will God punish them, since He so atrociously punished the Philistines!
3. AND BEHOLD DAGON LAY ON HIS FACE ON THE GROUND BEFORE THE ARK OF THE LORD,—as if prostrated by it, subject to it, and adoring it. Note: God here avenges the injury done to the ark, that is, to Himself sitting upon the ark, with a grave penalty, and that threefold. The first, upon Dagon, who held the ark as if conquered and subject to him, by prostrating him before the ark so that he seemed to adore it. The second, upon the Philistines, punishing them partly with death, partly with a shameful disease of the anus.
The third, upon the region itself, by sending mice to devour all the crops and sprouts. Whence Theodoret prudently, sermon 10 On Providence: “God,” he says, “protects the majesty of the ark delivered up, teaching the aliens that they had not conquered God, but the iniquity of men.” Tropologically, St. Chrysostom cited by the Gloss, on Exodus 23, 23: “Virtues,” he says, “cannot dwell with vices, but when vices have been overcome by virtues, the place which the spirit of concupiscence possessed, charity will obtain; that which fury had seized, patience will claim; that which sadness working death had occupied, saving joy full of gladness will possess; that which sloth laid waste, fortitude will cultivate; that which pride trampled, humility will honour; every vice being expelled, the contrary virtues will possess their places,” as if he said: The ark and Dagon cannot dwell together, that is, virtue and vice, God and the devil. Again, the ark is the Eucharist, which expels demons from the possessed. Hear Cassian, Conference 7, chapter 30:
“The holy communion,” he says, “we do not remember ever forbidden them by our elders: nay, if it were possible, they judged that it ought to be given them even daily.” And a little after: “That which, being received by a man, drives out, like a kind of burning fire, the spirit that falls upon his members or is known to lurk in them.”
4. AND THE HEAD OF DAGON AND BOTH THE PALMS OF HIS HANDS (that is, both hands extended; for the hollows of the hands are called palms: by this sign Dagon confessed himself conquered by the ark: for if he had clenched his hands in a fist, he would have seemed to threaten the ark, and wish to strike it) WERE CUT OFF UPON THE THRESHOLD.
By the first plague, verse 3, Dagon was only cast down to the ground from his seat and throne: but when the Philistines restored him to his throne, he was worse punished, namely in head and feet, so that he lay like a stump on the pavement. Lucifer, for hekaston, that is, each, reading hekaton, that is, a hundred, in the Septuagint renders: And both his footprints, his hands were taken away in a hundred parts.
Moreover the other gods of the Philistines also seem in their other cities to have been punished with the same or a like penalty as Dagon, as is insinuated chapter 6, verse 5, by which was mystically signified the destruction of idolatry by the coming of the ark of the Lord, that is, of Christ and His Apostles, says St. Gregory, Angelomus and Bede. Again, Hugh of St. Victor, book 5 of the Allegories, chapter 7: “The head,” he says, “of Dagon signifies the pride of the devil: the two palms the working of idolatry, the threshold the end of impious worship.”
5. FOR THIS CAUSE NEITHER THE PRIESTS OF DAGON, etc., TREAD UPON THE THRESHOLD.—Tropologically St. Gregory: “The priests of Dagon,” he says, “remain even to this day, because he who sacrifices to the ancient enemy by unclean desires still exists. They indeed shrink from treading upon the threshold of the temple, because they resist neither unclean suggestions nor evil works. They are therefore priests of Dagon, because even if they do not humble themselves to idols made by hands, yet to the images of concupiscences they bow by wicked works.”
Moreover that the Gentiles kissed the thresholds of the temples of their gods is clear from histories. Hear Tertullian, book On the Soldier’s Crown, chapter 13: “A Christian,” he says, “will not disgrace even his door with laurels, if he knows how many gods the devil has attached even to doors. Janus from janua, Limentinus from limen, Forculus and Carda from doors and hinges.”
So Christians of old kissed the thresholds of temples, and the thresholds of St. Peter are still kissed at Rome.
6. AND HE DESTROYED THEM,—that is, cut off, slew, destroyed them, as is plain from verse 9 and following. The first plague of God was upon the god Dagon; but this second was upon the Philistines themselves; for many of them God struck with sudden death, others He afflicted with a foul disease.
For HE SMOTE AZOTUS IN THE MORE SECRET PART OF THE BUTTOCKS.—This disease was of the belly and anus, so that their intestines rotted and protruded through the anus. Whence Vatablus renders and calls them mariscae. For the marisca is an insipid fig, which opens by gaping, and shows its inner parts by reddening, of which Martial, book 11:
Hence this disease of the anus is called marisca, because it has a likeness to the fig just mentioned. Whence Juvenal, Satire 2:
The swollen mariscas are cut under the physician’s eye.
This punishment is fitting to those given to the belly, such as the Philistines were, of whom, as St. Bernard says: “There is no other care but to ingest, digest and egest food.” For as Christ says, Matthew 15, it is cast out into the privy.
Josephus, and from him Theodoret, Procopius, Dionysius, Lyranus call this disease dysentery, not common, but proper and peculiar. Theodoret from Aquila renders phagedaena, that is, a canker, or eating ulcer. Others in Francis Lucas in his notes here call it cirinnium or fratigium; others, the venereal plague; the Rabbis, Abulensis and Genebrard call it hemorrhoids. Sidonius, page 592: “An obscene disease of the swollen anus.” This disease seems to have been peculiar and new, and so not one but manifold, sent singularly by God the avenger on the Philistines; for besides sharp pains, it produced putrefaction and discharge of the intestines.
Moreover this disease raged through all the cities, villages and farms of the Philistines, as is plain from verse 6, nor spared any dignity, age or sex, nor could be cured by any remedy, verse 9, and lasted seven months, chapter 6, verse 1. Herodotus, book 1, near the middle, makes mention of this disease; but in the manner of the Gentiles who distort Jewish matters he mixes true and false things together, as Josephus notes, book 10 of the Antiquities, chapter 2. For he says that at Ascalon there is a temple of Venus, which some plundered, and therefore were smitten with mariscas.
AND MICE WERE BORN.—This was the third plague, of mice, which, as Josephus says, devoured gardens, fields, vineyards, and all crops, produce and fruits, as the plague of frogs did in Egypt, Exodus 8. Some Hebrews add that these mice sucked blood from the mariscas. St. Gregory adds, book 3, chapter 13, that they bit the belly of the Philistines when they wished to relieve it in the privy. The cause is given by the Author of the Marvels of Holy Scripture in St. Augustine, book 2, chapter 7: “They who venerated wretched animals with divine worship are chastised by the most wretched animals at the coming of the Lord’s law; they who drew the interior things of the tabernacle of the Lord, that is, the ark, beyond their bounds, are afflicted with the foul calamity of their own interior parts protruding outwards.”
There will be another cause, if with Eusebius, Gyraldus and others already cited we say that Dagon was the god of grain; since therefore the Philistines worshipped him, they are justly punished by God with mice, that these may gnaw and devour the grain of Dagon.
Moreover hence arose the heresy of those who from mice are called Musorites, of whom Philastrius, book On Heresies: “The Musorites,” he says, “are certain by name who worship mice, who under the priest Belus (I read Helus or Heli), when the ark of the Testament had been taken by the Philistines, and the earth, by the anger of God, had produced mice, that their crops might perish, being admonished by their own people made golden mice.”
Moreover these mice of the Philistines were supernatural, says Abulensis: because no natural cause could have produced them so suddenly and in so great a number.
Finally hear St. Antoninus Magirus in Palestine, folio 944: “In some places of Palestine,” he says, “the fields are almost deserted because of the abundance of mice and shrews, which unless certain birds devoured, the inhabitants could sow no seed.”