Commentaria in Judith
24. “IN THE SIGHT OF THE HOLIES,”—that is, before the temple or before the synagogue: for this to those dwelling outside Jerusalem was in place of the temple. For in it they prayed together, and heard the law of God.
28. “SHE LIVED (in Greek, grew old) IN HER HUSBAND’S HOUSE A HUNDRED AND FIVE YEARS,”—that is, up to the hundred and fifth year of her age. By a similar phrase the Hebrews are said to have dwelt in Egypt 430 years, that is, up to 430 years from the departure of Abraham from Chaldea: for otherwise the Hebrews dwelt in Egypt only 215 years (Exodus 12:40). See what is said there. Wherefore some less rightly think that Judith, after she became a widow, lived 105 years; for so, dying, she would have been 140 years old or more, which in that age was unusual.
The Greek adds that Judith, before she died, divided her substance among the kinsfolk of herself and her husband. Hence it is clear that she was without children. So much the more wonderful was her chastity. Let Christians, even princes, imitate Judith, who, lest their family fail, change their purpose, indeed vow, of celibacy, and take wives to have children as heirs and propagators of the family. Not so was Judith, who preferred celibacy to all children. For chastity is nobler than all these. Namely, she was mindful of that divine promise to the eunuchs who have made themselves so by their own will, for the love of God and of chastity: “I will give them in my house, and within my walls, a place, and a name better than sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name which shall never perish.” Isaias 56:5.
29. “AND ALL THE PEOPLE MOURNED FOR HER SEVEN DAYS.”—Judith is held holy by the Fathers. But the day of her death is not assigned in the Martyrology, because it is unknown. The Ethiopian Church, however, celebrates the feast of Judith on the fourth day of the sixth month, which is called Ebul, says Serarius.
31. “AND THE DAY OF THE VICTORY.”—Judith is assigned in the Hebrew Calendar to the 25th of the ninth month, which is called Casleu, on which day likewise is recalled the memory of the given fire and of the Dedication of the Maccabees, as Genebrard, Tornielli, Sigonio and Salianus attest, who also assign this eulogy as an epitaph of Judith: “This is that Judith, who turned into arms and arrows the honeyed eloquence of her tongue, the angelic dignity of her face, her flashing eyes, the cheerfulness of her brow, the purple of her cheeks, her coral lips, the majesty of the whole world, by which barbarian fury might be captured and an impotent power laid low. This is that Judith who, though a prodigy of beauty, was nevertheless a miracle of chastity, which she so cultivated by fasts, prayers and every affliction of the body, and so loved, that, though flourishing in age, childless, abounding in riches and glory, for seventy-five years she shone unmarried and unstained. She lived, after the prostration of the pride of Holofernes and the shaking of the Babylonian empire, seventy-two years, and in all reached the hundred and fifth year.”
Allegorically, Judith is the Blessed Virgin, who delivers cities and the faithful devoted to her from the siege of enemies, as she delivered Constantinople, dedicated and devoted to her, in the year of the Lord 717, from a three years’ assault of the Saracens, when St. Germanus the Patriarch of Constantinople presided over it; to whom therefore Pope Gregory II, writing in epistle 4, says thus: “The wonderful deeds of that holy champion and Lady of all Christians, which have been declared in themselves, by which you also were preserved amid enemies, are not to be passed over in silence. For they, when they raged with much frenzy, found in themselves as much of hostile adversity as their cause had of injustice. Nor is this to be wondered at: for if Bethulia was preserved to the Israelites by the hands of Judith, whose work was the taking away of Holofernes, and at that time the safety of Israel was thereby restored: how should it not be that your holiness, having such a champion, should prevail over the enemies of the city, and she crown it with victory, etc.”
But above all the Blessed Virgin, as the true Judith, defends Bethulia, which in Hebrew signifies virginity. For she, being the virgin of virgins, protects virgins as her clients, as she has shown by very many examples in every age, and especially virgins condemned by tyrants to the brothel (which was the supreme torment to them: for they preferred to be condemned to the lion than to the pimp, says Tertullian in the *Apology*), she has kept untouched by Angels, or lions; as she preserved St. Agnes, St. Daria, St. Lucy: and you will scarcely find any of them violated. When, then, you feel the temptations of the flesh, call upon the Blessed Virgin, and you will come out a conqueror.
Finally, how lovable and admirable Judith has been to posterity and to all ages is clear from the fact that heroines and queens have sought the name of Judith and with the name the imitation of her virtue. So the wife of the Emperor Louis the Pious, who was son and successor of Charlemagne, was Judith Augusta, who, banished by her adversaries, and especially by Pepin, son of Louis by his former wife Irmengard, to the monastery of St. Radegund, put the monastic veil on herself, but was restored to the empire together with her husband Louis by Pope Gregory IV, as Baronius narrates from Marianus Scotus in the year of Christ 834. Likewise Judith was the name of the daughter of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, who, marrying the king of the English, went to England in the year of the Lord 855, as Baronius attests.
A third Judith was queen of Poland, of whom Baronius thus writes from Longinus, volume 2, in the year of Christ 1007 at the end: “In this same year Judith queen of Poland, a most holy woman, wife and helper of king Boleslaus in propagating piety, departed from this life, to the greatest grief of all, to reign with the saints above for ever.” This of the time from Longinus, who also recounts the deeds splendidly done by her.
A fourth Judith was the daughter of the Emperor Henry and queen of Hungary in the year of Christ 1074, whom, unjustly driven from the kingdom, Pope Gregory VII consoles by letters sent to her, in which he highly praises her heroic virtue. The letters are extant in Baronius at the end of the year of Christ 1074.
A fifth Judith was the wife of Count Hermann, a woman of holy life, who migrated from this life to heaven in the year of the Lord 1095, as Baronius writes.
Judith, and by contraction Jutta, the sixth, was the daughter of the duke of Saxony, who married Eric son of the king of Denmark, as is plain from epistle 112 of Pope Gregory IX.
Judith, or Jutta, the seventh, was a virgin handmaid of St. Elizabeth, who was renowned for miracles in life and after death.
Judith, or Jutta, the eighth, was a maiden whose virtues and miracles Abraham Bzovius recounts from the Polish Chronicles in the year of the Lord 1260, in which she died; where among other things he says: “At length, as the end of her life drew near, seized with illness (in which she often repeated these words: O how much does ill health, and misery, and poverty profit for obtaining from God whatever is adverse, glad to those who trust in the Lord!) a third time she saw Christ the Lord appearing to her with many Angels and other Saints, who invited her to himself with these words: ‘Come, my handmaid, into my kingdom.’”