Commentaria in Judith
This book is not in the Canon of Holy Scripture among the Hebrews, but it is among Christians. The Council of Nicaea numbers it among the canonical books of Holy Scripture, as St. Jerome reports in his prologue. The Third Council of Carthage, chapter 47, the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent did the same. See Bellarmine, book I *On the Word of God*, chapter 11. Hence Josephus, being a Hebrew, makes no mention of Judith, as neither of Tobias. It exists in Greek as well as in Latin. Whether the Greek text here, as in Tobias, comes from the translation of the Seventy interpreters is uncertain. Certainly St. Jerome mentions neither it nor them. It seems to have been first written in the Chaldean language, as was the book of Tobias. Hence St. Jerome in his prologue asserts that he translated it from the Chaldean, and adds: “Receive Judith the widow, an example of chastity, and proclaim her with perpetual praises and triumphal honour. For he who rewarded her chastity gave her this virtue as one imitable not only by women but also by men, that she might overcome the unconquered over all men, and surpass the insurmountable.” Its author seems to have been the high priest Joachim, a contemporary of Judith, indeed her director, as the Hebrews think, and among them Sixtus of Siena, book VIII, *Heresies* 11, though nothing certain can be asserted on this matter, as St. Isidore says, book VI of the *Origins*, chapter 2. The subject of the book is the victory of Judith over Holofernes and the Assyrians, by which is allegorically represented the victory of the Blessed Virgin over the devil, says our Canisius, citing Fulbert of Chartres, book I, *Martialis*, chapter 11; tropologically, the triumph of the faithful soul over the flesh and vices, says Rabanus. Finally, the book has three parts. In the first is described the peril of the Jews, from chapter 1 to chapter 7; in the second, their deliverance by Judith, from chapter 8 to chapter 15, verse 9; in the third, the things that followed afterwards, from chapter 15 to the end.
Inquiry: when did the history of Judith take place? Many probably judge that it happened before the Babylonian captivity, under Manasses king of Juda: namely after Manasses with his Jews was released from the Babylonian prison and returned to Jerusalem and his kingdom; for at that time Dejoces, who built Ecbatana, was most powerful among the Medes. Nineveh was not yet destroyed, nor yet Jerusalem; and from the time of Manasses there was perpetual peace for the Jews until the end of the reign of Josias. So think Bellarmine in the place cited, Serarius, Salianus, Genebrard, Pererius on chapter 1 of Daniel, Cano, book XI *On Places*, chapter 6, Christopher a Castro on Osee 2, verse 20. The Nabuchodonosor, then, who sent Holofernes, whom Judith killed, was a kinsman, or, as Serarius holds, the son, or son-in-law, of Asarhaddon the son of Sennacherib, and so succeeded Asarhaddon in the kingdom of Nineveh; or certainly he was Merodach Baladan king of Babylon, say Bellarmine and Salianus, who after conquering Asarhaddon reigned in Nineveh, and, fighting with Arphaxad, that is Dejoces king of the Medes, overcame him, and thence aspiring to the monarchy of the world, sent Holofernes to subjugate the other nations to himself.
Others on the contrary judge that the history of Judith happened after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, and for this opinion they bring many strong reasons:
The second and truer opinion places it under Xerxes.
First, because in this history it is piously asserted that the high priest at that time was Joachim; but no one of this name was high priest except Joachim the son of Jesus the son of Josedec, after the return from Babylon; for Jesus was high priest under Cyrus, Cambyses and Darius, Joachim under Xerxes, Eliasib under Artaxerxes, as appears from Aggeus 1:4 and following, taken with Josephus, book X *Antiquities*, chapter 11, where he drew up from the public records a catalogue of the high priests.
You will say: in book IV of Kings, chapter 18, verse 17, and Isaias 22, in the time of king Ezechias, Eliacim (who is the same as Joachim), the son of Helcias, is named as prefect of the house, and is numbered among the chief priests. I answer: this Eliacim was not high priest, nor was Helcias his father; but he was one of the principal priests, or of the chiefs of the priests, to whom the care of the temple and its gates was committed, as is plain from Scripture and from Josephus, from whom it is clear that only one Helcias was high priest, not in the time of Ezechias but much later, in the time of Josias, of whom IV Kings 22:4.
Second, because the things said in chapter 5 about the recent return of the Jews from captivity agree excellently with the times of Xerxes. Likewise that in chapter 6 the Jews are not said to have kings, but leaders of the people, Ozias and Charmi; for if these things had happened under Manasses, Judith would surely have treated this deed of hers with king Manasses, not with the high priest Joachim, Ozias and Charmi, nor would Joachim have sent soldiers to occupy the passes of the mountains, but Manasses. Again, under Manasses Bethulia was deserted, the Israelites having been carried off into Assyria, and was inhabited by Cutheans. Moreover, it fits the age of Xerxes that in chapter 5, verse 27, the nobles of Holofernes say of the children of Israel that they were now unarmed, unwarlike and inexperienced in war, and therefore defended themselves on the mountains and precipices, as is said in chapter 7, verse 8, and that at the end it is added that a lasting peace followed this victory of Judith. So think Sanchez here, Tornielli and Ribera on chapter 2 of Nahum, Lyra, Dionysius, Hugh here, indeed St. Augustine, book XVIII *On the City of God*, chapter 26, Eusebius in the *Chronicle* at the year of the world 4674, Bede, *On the Six Ages of the World*, Berosus Annianus, and commonly the Hebrews, as the *Alexandrian Chronicle* reports; likewise Suidas under the word Holofernes, and Africanus in Suidas.
For after Xerxes was often defeated by the Greeks, and especially received that most shameful defeat at Thermopylae from Leonidas and his three hundred companions in the fifth year of his reign, he began to be held in contempt by his own people, says Justin, book III. Wherefore Arphaxad king of the Medes, who until then had been a vassal and tributary to Xerxes and the Persians, on this occasion shook off the yoke of Xerxes and the Persians, and extended the borders of his kingdom. Nabuchodonosor did the same, to whom either Xerxes himself, or, as I rather think, Darius son of Hystaspes, father of Xerxes, had entrusted the kingdom of Nineveh and of the Assyrians; and so, fighting with Arphaxad and overcoming him, he began to aim at monarchy. Wherefore this Nabuchodonosor is not that great monarch of the Chaldeans, the author of the Babylonian captivity, but long later than he, an Assyrian namely, or Babylonian, one of the princes of Xerxes; for Nabuchodonosor is a Babylonian or Chaldean name, and perhaps our man took this name, perhaps also his race and stock, from Nabuchodonosor the Great.
Hence it is conjectured why Xerxes was so favourable to the Jews, as Josephus writes, book XI, chapter 5, so that his son Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign sent Esdras, and in the twentieth year Nehemias, to restore Jerusalem with most liberal and ample power; the cause, I say, of this goodwill was that Xerxes saw that this Nabuchodonosor, his enemy and rival for the empire, had lately been routed by the Jews.
You will say: in the time of Xerxes Nineveh was desolate; for it had been destroyed by Nabuchodonosor the Great in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, as I said in the last chapter of Tobias. I answer that Nineveh was rebuilt shortly after its destruction, because it was a most ancient and most noble city, and this by permission of the kings, or of the Persians, as is established from history to have happened with Babylon, Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, etc.; other objections I shall resolve in chapter 4, verse 5, and chapter 8, verse 4, or chapter 9, verse 2. Finally this opinion is almost proved by what is said in chapter 5, verse 22 and following, that about this time Jerusalem was desolate, and the temple overthrown and levelled to the ground. For this did not happen under Manasses, but under Sedecias in the Babylonian captivity.
From what has been said it is clear that Nabuchodonosor, who was not Darius Hystaspis, as Gerard Mercator holds in his chronology; nor Artaxerxes Ochus, as Severus Sulpicius holds; nor Cambyses the son of Cyrus, who hindered the temple begun under Cyrus (I Esdras 4), because the Jews had killed their leader Holofernes, says Berosus Annianus, and St. Augustine hints at this, book XVIII *On the City of God* 26, and Eusebius: for Cambyses reigned only seven years, whereas Nabuchodonosor sent Holofernes in the twelfth year of his reign; but he was either Xerxes, as Sanchez thinks, who was called Nabuchodonosor on account of a pride and haughtiness like his: whence the Jews sang to Judith, his conqueror, in chapter 16, verse 12: “The Persians quailed at her constancy, and the Medes at her boldness.” Or rather he was a prefect of the princes of Xerxes, who governed Nineveh in his stead, as I have said. For he seems to have been Babylonian by origin; for this his name Nabuchodonosor indicates. Arphaxad, moreover, was a prefect, or king of the Medes, tributary to Xerxes; but when Xerxes was conquered by the Greeks, both rebelled against Xerxes, and each made himself an absolute king of his own province. For thus Artabanus rebelled against the same Xerxes, and perhaps he is Arphaxad. Hear Justin, book III at the beginning: “Xerxes, he says, king of the Persians, formerly the terror of the nations, having conducted the war in Greece unhappily, began to be despised even by his own people. Indeed Artabanus his prefect, the majesty of the king declining daily, was led into hope of the kingdom.”
In like manner Arbaces, appointed by Sardanapalus prefect of Media, rebelled against that effeminate man, saying that he could not obey one who preferred to be a woman rather than a man; wherefore he besieged him and forced him to burn himself, as I said above.
Further, Judith was of the tribe of Simeon, as she herself asserts in chapter 9, verse 2; she dwelt in Bethulia, which is in the tribe of Zabulon; she lived 105 years, as is plain from the end of the book; she was a matron noble both in birth and in beauty, a widow in condition, flourishing in age, wealthy in means, excelling in piety, whose exceptional beauty vied with equal virtue, and whom therefore God chose for this heroic deed and the liberation of Israel.
Bellarmine judges that she was 40 years old when she killed Holofernes, Serarius 45, Tornielli 53, Gretser 40, Salianus 33. Hear St. Jerome, epistle 10 to Furia: “We read of Judith the widow, worn with fasting and defiled with mourning garb, who mourned not a dead husband but in the squalor of her body sought the coming of her Bridegroom. I see the hand armed with a sword, the right hand bloodied; I recognise the head of Holofernes, carried back from the midst of the enemy. A woman conquers men, and chastity cuts off lust; and, her dress suddenly changed, she returns to the victorious squalor, cleaner than all the adornments of the world.”
Moreover, the Fathers give Judith exceptional praises. Clement of Alexandria calls her “consummate, or perfect, among women,” book IV of the *Stromata*, chapter 6. Origen, homily 9 on Judith: “Magnificent, and the most noble of all women.” Ambrose, book III *On Duties*, chapter 13: “A wonderful woman.” St. Fulgentius, epistle 2, chapter 14, often calls her “the holy widow,” “illustrious in birth, rich in means, young in age, wonderful in beauty; a despiser of riches, spurning delights, trampling the incentives of the flesh, and clothed with virtue from on high.” St. Ambrose, book *On Widows*: “Holy Judith, strengthened by long mourning and daily fasts.” St. Augustine, sermon *On the Season* 228: “Most holy Judith, at whose prayers heaven was opened, who by the art of prayer fashioned victorious arms.” And below: “Behold, prayer preserved the chastity of a glorious woman.” St. Chrysostom, homily 9 on various matters: “The most holy Judith, who, while she covered her fast with cheerfulness of countenance, carried off triumph and victory over the enemy.” Tertullian, book *On Monogamy*, chapter 17: “Neither Judith, he says, the daughter of Merari, nor so many other holy women.”