Commentaria in Judith
Chapter 6
Holofernes sends Achior to Bethulia, that when it is taken he may kill him with them; the Jews receive him kindly and comfort him.
1. And it came to pass, when he had ceased to speak, that Holofernes was exceedingly angry, and said to Achior: 2. Because thou hast prophesied to us, saying: That the nation of Israel is defended by their God: to show thee that there is no god but Nabuchodonosor: 3. When we shall slay them all as one man, then thou also shalt perish with them by the sword of the Assyrians, and all Israel shall be utterly destroyed with thee. 4. And thou shalt find that Nabuchodonosor is lord of the whole earth: and then the sword of my soldiers shall pass through thy sides, and thou shalt be wounded and fall among the wounded of Israel, and thou shalt breathe no more, till thou be destroyed with them. 5. But if thou think thy prophecy true, let not thy countenance fall, and let the paleness that is in thy face depart from thee, if thou imaginest these my words cannot be accomplished. 6. And that thou mayest know that thou shalt experience these things together with them, behold from this hour thou shalt be associated with their people, that when they shall receive the punishment they deserve from my sword, thou mayest fall under the same vengeance. 7. Then Holofernes commanded his servants to take Achior, and to conduct him to Bethulia, and deliver him into the hands of the children of Israel. 8. And the servants of Holofernes taking him, went through the plains: but when they came near the mountains, the slingers came out against them. 9. And they turning out of the way by the side of the mountain, tied Achior to a tree by his hands and feet, and so left him bound with ropes, and returned to their master. 10. And the children of Israel coming down from Bethulia, came to him: and loosing him they brought him to Bethulia, and setting him in the midst of the people, asked him what was the matter that the Assyrians had left him bound. 11. Now in those days the rulers were Ozias the son of Micha, of the tribe of Simeon, and Charmi, who is also called Gothoniel. 12. And Achior told in the midst of the ancients, and in the presence of all, all that he had said, being asked by Holofernes: and how the people of Holofernes would have killed him for this word: 13. And how Holofernes himself being angry, had commanded him to be delivered to the Israelites for this cause: that when he should overcome the children of Israel, then he might command Achior also to be put to death by divers torments, for having said: The God of heaven is their defender. 14. And when Achior had declared all these things, all the people fell on their faces, adoring the Lord, and with one common lamentation and weeping they poured out their prayers together to the Lord, 15. Saying: O Lord God of heaven and earth, behold their pride, and look on our low condition, and have regard to the face of thy saints, and show that thou forsakest not them that trust in thee, and that thou humblest them that presume of themselves, and glory in their own strength. 16. So when they had ended their weeping, and the prayer of the people which they continued the whole day, they comforted Achior, 17. Saying: The God of our fathers, whose power thou hast set forth, will repay thee with this reward, that thou shalt rather see their destruction. 18. And when the Lord our God shall give this liberty to his servants, let God be with thee also in the midst of us: and as it shall please thee, so mayest thou with all thine converse with us. 19. Then Ozias, after the council was ended, received him into his house, and made him a great supper. 20. And all the ancients being invited, they refreshed themselves together after their fast. 21. And afterwards all the people were called together, and they prayed all the night long within the church, desiring help of the God of Israel.
5. “BECAUSE THOU HAST PROPHESIED,”—that is, predicted, not from an oracle received from God, but from human prudence and experience of former times. “THOU SHALT BREATHE NO MORE, TILL THOU BE DESTROYED”—but above, “the sword shall pass through thy sides, and thou shalt fall wounded,” so that “thou shalt breathe no more,” that is, until thou be wholly lifeless and “destroyed with them.”
[…] O Achior, secret associate and favourer of the Jews, and therefore betrayer of me: wherefore go to those whose society you preferred to mine, and be their open partaker.
10. “THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL COMING DOWN FROM BETHULIA CAME TO HIM.”—Bethulia was a city of Galilee in the tribe of Zabulon, situated on a mountain, three leagues distant from Dothaim, where Joseph was seized by his brothers and stripped of his coat of many colours. Brocardus and Adrichomius add that even today the traces of Holofernes’ camp are seen there. “Bethulia” is the same as “virginity of God.” For it, like an untouched virgin, was kept from the destruction of Holofernes by the chaste Judith.
Further, Bethulia belonged properly to the tribe of Zabulon, and therefore to the kingdom of Israel, or of the ten tribes; but when they were led away into Assyria, the tribe of Juda claimed it and several other cities of Israel to itself; for the whole of Chanaan had been given by God to the posterity of Jacob, part of whom being carried away, the rest who survived, namely the Jews, succeeded as brothers by right of kinship and nature to the inheritance of the ten tribes, as of their brothers.
11. “NOW IN THOSE DAYS THE RULERS WERE OZIAS THE SON OF MICHA, OF THE TRIBE OF SIMEON, AND CHARMI, WHO IS ALSO CALLED GOTHONIEL.”—For although Bethulia was in the tribe of Zabulon, yet it had a leader from another tribe, namely Simeon, as the Judges who ruled all Israel sprang from various tribes. Hence Ozias is here called, chapter 6, verse 34, “Prince of Juda,” and chapter 13, verse 23, “Prince of the people of Israel.” Lyra and Dionysius think that Ozias and Charmi were elder priests, because in the Greek they are called presbyters. But *presbyteros*, that is, presbyter, means an elder, one older in age, whether he be a layman or a priest. Hence again these things seem not to have happened under king Manasses, but after the captivity under the leaders Ozias and Charmi.
15. “AND HAVE REGARD TO THE FACE OF THY SAINTS.”—The Greek has “of those sanctified,” that is, of thy faithful, who by circumcision dedicated themselves to Thee, and now again by fasting, prayer and suppliant petitions sanctify themselves wholly to Thee, that is, devote and consecrate themselves.
“THAT THOU FORSAKEST NOT THEM THAT TRUST IN THEE,”—that is, who are confident in Thee; for these before all things and above all take God as leader of their works and commander in war, and through Him hope for sure victory. So St. Germanus, in order that a raging fire might be turned away, did not suffer himself, an invalid, to be moved by others, “by presumption of faith,” says Bede, book I *History of the English*, chapter 19.
“THEM THAT PRESUME OF THEMSELVES, (that is, rely on themselves and their own strength: whence, explaining, he adds,) AND GLORY IN THEIR OWN STRENGTH, THOU HUMBLEST.”—Hear St. Bernard, book *On the Degrees of Humility*, degree 7: “He who thinks that he excels others, how can he fail to presume more of himself than of others? He sits first in assemblies, answers first in councils, comes forward uncalled, thrusts himself in unsent, reorders what has been ordered, remakes what has been made; whatever he has not done or ordered himself, he thinks neither rightly done nor beautifully ordered. He judges the judges, prejudges those who will judge.”
16. “THEY COMFORTED ACHIOR,”—yet they did not admit him to their counsels, nor set him over the war, because the faith of deserters is suspect; for so Judith feigning desertion to the Assyrians, Chusai to Absalom, 2 Kings 17, Sinon to the Trojans, Zopyrus, general of Darius Hystaspis, to the Babylonians, betrayed them to their enemies.
21. “AFTERWARDS (after the refreshment and the frugal banquet) ALL THE PEOPLE WERE CALLED TOGETHER, AND THEY PRAYED ALL THE NIGHT LONG WITHIN THE CHURCH, DESIRING HELP OF THE GOD OF ISRAEL.”—For, as St. Jerome says, in his epistle to Eustochium: “So must you always eat that prayer and reading follow your food.” And to Laeta, on the education of her daughter: “So eat that you may always be hungry, so that immediately after food you may read and sing psalms.” Tertullian, *Apology* chapter 39, refuting the Gentiles’ calumny about the gluttony of Christians, in which they flung at them the saying of Diogenes: “The Megarians feast as though to die tomorrow, and build as though never to die,” describes the Agape, that is, the banquet of charity common to all Christians after the Eucharist, thus: “They do not recline before prayer to God is first tasted; they eat as much as the hungry desire, they drink as much as is useful to the chaste; they are so filled as those who remember that they must worship God even through the night; they converse as those who know that the Lord hears. After water for the hands and lights, each, as he can from the Holy Scriptures or from his own wit, is called into the midst to sing to God: hence it is proved how he has drunk. And prayer breaks up the banquet: from it they depart not in bands of slaughterers, nor in troops of rovers, nor in outbursts of wantonness, but to the same care of modesty, as those who have supped not so much on a supper as on discipline.” Let the faithful read this, and imitate the frugality and piety of the first Christians at their banquets.
Note: “within the church” means within the synagogue, that is, the place of assembly and prayer, which is thence called in Greek *proseuche*: for the Jews had no temple in Bethulia, but only in Jerusalem; but they had a synagogue in place of the temple in each of the larger cities. See here likewise the antiquity of nocturnal vigils, in which, on great feasts, or because of pressing calamities, the whole people kept vigil in the temple at Jerusalem, and outside Jerusalem in the *proseuche* (as the Greek has here), or synagogue, giving themselves to prayer. Whence Josephus in his *Life*: “The next day,” he says, “the people assembled in the *proseuchae*, which they call a large house of prayer.” The same Philo, *On the Life of Moses*, book III: “Among the Jews,” he says, “there are places appointed in every town for sacred prayers, which the common people call *proseuchae*.”
On these sacred vigils see St. Basil on Psalm 114, Eusebius, *History* book VI, chapter 7, Tertullian, book II *To His Wife*, chapter 4.