Commentaria in Judith
10. “AND SHE STRUCK TWICE UPON HIS NECK,”—not with a thrust but with a cut, to cut off the head of one lying and snoring deeply: wherefore, straining with all her strength, she drove the scimitar into the neck of Holofernes, and with the second stroke cut the head from the shoulders. Hence the Greek has: And she struck upon his neck twice with her might. It is strange that St. Augustine, sermon 228, reads “thrice” for “twice.” In like manner Attila king of the Huns, most proud, who called himself the scourge of God, and led into the field seven hundred thousand armed men, and so forced the emperor Theodosius to pay him tribute, and in hope devoured the empire of the whole world, was slain by a woman, God humbling the proud. Hear Baronius in the year of Christ 454: “In this year, Aetius being still alive, Attila, says Marcellinus, at the exhortation of Aetius, was stabbed by night with a knife by the hand of a woman.” So the terror of the world, who despised all men, died by the hand of one woman. So also king Abimelech, or rather tyrant of the Sichemites, was slain by a woman, who crushed his brain with a fragment of a millstone.
“AND CUT OFF HIS HEAD,”—to carry it with her, and fix it as a trophy on the walls of Bethulia, and so strike the Assyrians with fear and drive them to flight, as in fact happened: thus Judith, sober, cut down the drunken; chaste, the unchaste; faithful, the unfaithful; just, the unjust; humble, the proud; pious, the impious; or rather, more truly, sobriety slew drunkenness, chastity lust, faith perfidy, justice injustice, humility pride, piety impiety. So St. Fulgentius, epistle 9 *On the Widowed State*: “Finally, when Holofernes had besieged Bethulia with a countless army, and all the strength of the Israelites languished in confusion, chastity goes forth to attack wantonness, and holy humility advances to the destruction of the proud. He fought with arms, she with fasts; he with drunkenness, she with prayer. Therefore what all the people of the Israelites could not do, the holy widow accomplished by the virtue of chastity. One woman cut down the leader of so great an army, and gave back to the people of God an unhoped-for liberty.”
Hear St. Ambrose, book III *On Duties*, chapter 13: “Her first triumph was that she brought back her modesty whole from the tent of the enemy. The second, that a woman won victory over wine, and put peoples to flight by her counsel. The Persians dreaded her boldness. Surely (what they admire in those two Pythagoreans) she did not fear the danger of death; but neither that of modesty, which is graver for good women: she trembled not at the stroke of one executioner, nor at the weapons of a whole army. A woman stood among the wedges of warriors, among victorious arms, secure of death. As regards the magnitude of the danger, she went forth to die; as regards faith, to fight. Judith therefore followed honour, and while she pursued it, found profit also.” He adds the causes of honour, or of manifold virtue in Judith, saying: “For it was a matter of honour to prevent the people of God from giving themselves up to the profane, from betraying the ancestral rites and sacraments, from subjecting holy virgins, grave widows and chaste matrons to barbarian impurity, from ending the siege by surrender. It was a matter of honour to prefer to be in danger for all, that she might rescue all from danger. How great the authority of honour, that a woman should claim for herself counsel on the highest matters, and not commit it to the princes of the people! How great the authority of honour, that she should presume God as helper! how great the grace, that she should find Him!”
Tropologically, thy Holofernes is gluttony, pride, lust, avarice, anger, sloth. Overcome and slay this nobly, and thou hast slain thy Holofernes.
Allegorically, Holofernes is a type of the Devil, whose head the true Judith, that is, the Blessed Virgin, crushed according to the oracle uttered by God, Genesis 3. Judith felled Holofernes, the terror of the East, in single combat, as in a duel, with his own scimitar, without a wound, as though playing, and, what was more arduous, led back her chastity untouched from the midst of the camp of the unchaste, triumphing with rich spoils. But the Blessed Virgin has laid low in single combat innumerable phalanxes of demons, and lays them low daily, and celebrates the triumph of chastity not only in herself but in all virgins and her chaste followers: indeed, what surpasses all the laws of nature, she is at once Virgin and Mother of God; and she rejoices in one threefold title:
At once daughter of God, spouse, parent.
The Assyrians acclaimed Judith: “There is not such another woman upon earth.” And: “Thy name shall be remembered in all the earth.” To the Blessed Virgin the Church daily acclaims in her hymns: “All generations shall call thee blessed.” Judith was of admirable beauty, so that all were struck dumb at her. To the Blessed Virgin the Church sings: “Grace is poured abroad in thy lips; thou hast become beautiful and sweet in thy delights, holy Mother of God”; indeed Christ Himself in the Canticle: “Thou art all fair, my love, my beautiful one, my dove.” Moreover the beauty of Judith aroused Holofernes to lust; but the form of the Blessed Virgin aroused those who gazed to chastity. Hear St. Ambrose, book *On the Institution of Virgins*, chapter 7: “Of whom (he says, speaking of the Virgin) such was the grace that she not only preserved in herself the grace of virginity, but conferred the mark of integrity on those whom she visited. She visited John the Baptist, and not undeservedly he remained whole in body, whom, in three months, the Mother of the Lord, by her presence as by a certain oil and ointment of integrity, trained.” So St. Ambrose and St. Thomas, III *Sentences*, dist. 3, by gazing upon her, she aroused to chastity.” The Gloss teaches the same, in a sermon *On the Conception of the Blessed Virgin*, which indeed was granted by a peculiar gift of God.
The Assyrians feared Judith and fled: all demons and the impious fear the Blessed Virgin. Hence St. Bernard, cited by St. Bonaventure in the *Mirror of the Blessed Virgin*, chapter 9: “Visible enemies,” he says, “do not so fear the copious array of the rest as the aerial powers fear the name, patronage and example of Mary: they melt and perish like wax before the face of fire, wherever they find frequent remembrance of this name, devout invocation, anxious imitation.”
Judith, shut up in her oratory, reconciled God to Israel by her fasts, sackcloth, prayers and tears: the Blessed Virgin, shut up in her chamber, and beseeching God with fasts and unutterable groans for the reconciliation of the world, deserved to receive the Angel of peace as bridal attendant, who should announce her as the mediatrix of this peace through the Incarnation of the Word in her. To Judith the conqueror the people acclaimed: “Thou art the glory of Jerusalem, thou the joy of Israel, thou the honour of our people; for thou hast done manfully, and thy heart has been strengthened.” The same, and far greater things, the Fathers, Doctors and all the Orthodox sing to the Blessed Virgin.
“AND TOOK OFF HIS CANOPY,”—together with the head, so that from it those who knew Holofernes might recognise that head to be his, and not a camp-servant’s or some slave’s; and at the same time that the canopy, woven with so many gems, might be both spoil and trophy for so great a conqueror.